It was more, though. I didn’t want Abel to have anything to do with them. He was strong, he had backup, but there were only so many times you could be outnumbered and come out the victor.

He drew in a breath and sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees but keeping hold of my eyes, just like he did the morning before.

Then, with no warning, he commenced in breaking my heart.

“I’m a monster, Lilah.”

“What?” I whispered.

“I’m a werewolf vampire. I exist on human blood. I can tear a man’s head off and I have. I’m a monster.”

“You—”

“I am,” he stated flatly. “And the first chance I’ve had in all my years to understand why I am as I am is to go to that fuckin’ hotel.”

I stared at him, then straightened my body so I was fully facing him. This caused his jaw to get hard again, but I ignored that and stated, “Okay, let’s break this down.”

“Nothin’ to break down.”

“Humor me,” I snapped, his head jerked, and his lips curved up.

“Carry on,” he muttered.

“Thanks,” I bit out. “First, how many men’s heads have you torn off?”

“Four, and two wolves.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“These being the night we met,” I stated.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“The night some of them were trying to kill me and the others were trying to kill you.”

To that he said nothing.

I kept going, “So you haven’t torn off unsuspecting citizens’ heads willy-nilly, for the fuck of it, or on a psychotic rampage?”

He pressed his lips together and I knew it was to hide his humor because his eyes lit with it before he unpressed them to say, “No.”

“Right,” I said sharply. “Have you ever had a psychotic rampage?”

He shook his head.

“So let’s get to the human blood part,” I suggested. “When you were,” I paused, “drawing from one of your ex-bitches, did you ever kill one of them?”

“Fuck no.”

“Take too much and make them sick?”

“No.”

“Do it against anyone’s will?”

His eyes went guarded, but he said, “No.”

I threw up a hand. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

He blinked, straightening in his chair, but again said nothing.

“I mean, seriously,” I went on, “I’ve seen lots of vampire movies and TV shows and even the good vamps screw up and overindulge. Hell, Jessica killed three fairies in a ravenous attack. She might have had her issues as a young vampire, but by that time, she was full-on good.”

His brows shot together. “Fairies?”

“Fairies.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

I threw up both hands and cried in exasperation, “True Blood!”

“Jesus, Lilah,” he muttered.

“No, seriously, Jessica is very sweet.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he growled, sounding like he was losing patience, which I didn’t figure was a good thing.