Behind |First book in The Risen Saga|

Chapter thirty five-Seth

How could he tell her? A blood bond was serious and sometimes led to real feelings, she knew that. So how could he phrase it without hurting her more than he intended to? He didn't even want to tell her in the first place. But Emma had demanded Seth to and she had said that on top of being a vampire now, he was only making it worse by keeping things from her. 

He paced across his room and he thought that soon enough he would have left a burn mark in the soft carpet. Emma hadn't pressured him once since they had went back up to their room, she had given him time to collect himself, but he felt like he was just stalling, hoping something would happen so he wouldn't have to explain this to her. Not now. But he had a feeling that there had been enough craziness for the night. 

Seth turned to look at Emma on the bed and when he saw her he flinched. He still felt guilty about what he had caused. Her skin was starting to take the affect of the Night Children; that white, chalky textured skin. Her eyes darted around the room and stopped at things that seemed to interest her. Seth knew the feeling, the first night of his transformation everything seemed brighter, more in focus. Like a pair of binoculars after you turn the small knob to fit your eyes. 

Seth sighed and kneeled in front of her, holding her small hands in both of his. She slowly pulled her attention away from whatever she was looking at and met his eyes. Seth didn't want to meet her eyes so he stared down at their intertwined hands. 

"Emma," he sighed her name. She slipped one hand out of his and lifted his chin, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

"I want to be able to tell if you're lying," she said, her face firm. How could she be this strong in a time like this? She just lost all her purpose, in her opinion, to the vampirism and he was about to tell her something that might end them altogether but she still stood headstrong in the face of the storm. 

"Okay," Seth said, pulling her hand back down into his, "It's about Asteria. The reason why I couldn't let you kill her. You should know." 

Emma's expression changed when she heard the faeries name. Her lip curled into a snarl but Seth doubted she was even aware of it but behind the fierceness of her features, her eyes looked hurt. 

"Go on," Emma said, "I want to know all of it." 

Seth sighed but went on, "When I met her, the time in the woods that I told you about, I felt something. I never thought I would feel it because I had - have - you and I know you're the only one for me." Emma's eyes glossed over with tears but she held them back, not one fell. 

The lights flickered and Seth looked up at them. Soon, they stopped and they were plunged into darkness. Seth felt Emma tense under his grip but she rubbed his hands and slowly relaxed.

"Keep talking," she said. Seth couldn't see her but he knew that her voice sounded muffled and he was worried that he had made her cry but, he went on, like she had wanted. 

"The blood that you smelled on me was her blood. Asteria's," he added and waited for her to come to the conclusion. But she had the wrong idea.

"You wanted to kill her?" she sounded confused, "I would have let you," she laughed, "but you just didn't tell me and I was just kind of crazy. I would have-"

"No, that's not it," Seth said. He didn't want to tell her even more now. She had thought that he wanted to kill her but, that was far from what was the real reason. Even when Asteria had attacked him, he hadn't wanted to kill her. That's what made it harder.

"Then..." Emma said and the room went silent. Whenever they were laying in bed, tangled in the covers, in the dark, he had always listened to the sound of her beating heart. But she didn't have one now. As much as he wanted to believe it, it wasn't true, she would never be the same again.