About Him

He looked at her and smiled warmly at her. "I will tell you one day. She doesn't even remember," he said chuckling.

She frowned. "That person was not in your life after they changed your view of the world?"

He frowned and shook his head. "No. She wasn't in my life after that. I didn't want to force her into this life. And I didn't want to bring her into my world, until I had changed it, until I had made it safer for her."

How sad, she thought. Having someone have such a huge impact in your life and not be able to have them by your side. Her mind suddenly thought of something.

"Um… shouldn't you be with this woman that helped you? If she really meant so much to you, you probably fell in love with her. You're a… an amazing… um, guy. I'm sure she would love you and would agree to be with you."

"You think so?" Caleb asked as he looked intently at her. Her words made his heart swell and he felt hope flowing through him.

She nodded. "Of course! You need to find her and bring her to your house!"

His eyebrow lifted. "You wouldn't be jealous if I had a mistress?" he teased.

Wait, what? She frowned as she looked at him. He completely misunderstood her! That was not what she meant!

"That's not…" she shook her head. "I meant, have her as your wife Caleb, not a mistress. If you like this person so much, how can you reduce her to being a mistress?" Her eyes narrowed at him.

He chuckled at her angry look. She really was amazing, trying to run away from him by convincing him he was in love with another woman. "No need to do that. You're going to be my wife," he said.

Rose frowned as she looked at him. "So what about the guy you killed? What power did he have that you wanted bad enough to kill him over? Or was he some murderer/rapist?"

He shook his head and a sad look flashed through his eyes before turning cold. "He was a friend. Actually, he was one of the people I trusted the most."

Rose's eyes widened. "You killed your friend just to steal his power?" she asked incredulous.

He shook his head. "No Rose. He betrayed me. He teamed up with a relative and because of them someone important to me died. I spent some time looking for him, but I stopped after a while. I knew he would eventually come back to me of his own free will. And I was right. He walked straight into my home."

She frowned and gulped. "Why did he come back?"

Caleb's eyes bore into her as he considered whether he should tell her or not. He decided it would be better for her to know the truth and be careful. He didn't want her to trust anyone easily, which was unfortunately one of her biggest qualities.

"He was sent on an assassination assignment," he said honestly as he watched her intently.

Her eyes widened. "What? Who?!"

He sighed. "Rose, you have to understand that not everyone agreed with me taking a human as my wife. It would mean they would have to bow down to a human, and vampires find that demeaning." There were also a lot of families who wanted to be his in laws, but she didn't have to know that.

Realization dawned on her. It was her. He had been sent to kill her. "Oh…"

"To be honest, I don't believe he was really going to go through with it. Otherwise he wouldn't have been caught so quickly and easily." He was sure that Erin wanted to get caught, otherwise he would have never made his presence known so quickly. It made Caleb wonder how dark and twisted his family was that Erin would rather die than return after a failed mission.

She gulped. "So, vampires are going to try to kill me?" She already knew that, or at least expected that, but she had assumed it would be because she was a human, delicious food to them. It turned out that they not only wanted to eat her, they wanted to kill her because they didn't accept her as their queen. Great.

He moved towards her and sat on the edge of the bed, lifting one leg to face her. He took her hands in his and looked at her with determination in his eyes. "Rose, I will never allow anything to happen to you. You need to trust me. I have the power to protect you so please don't be scared."

She frowned, but nodded her head, feeling her future was going to be full of surprises. "So you killed him because he betrayed you and… because he tried to kill me?"

"I killed him, because if I didn't, he would keep coming until his mission was completed. He had no choice." He frowned sadly. "He asked me to put him out of his misery," Caleb stated as he thought about the conversation he'd had with him in the dungeon minutes before she had discovered them.

Rose felt her heart ache as she watched his dark eyes shine with pain as he talked about his friend. "I'm sorry," she said as she squeezed one of the hands that were holding hers. "Um… who sent him?" she asked tentatively.

Caleb's eyes turned cold and the temperature in the room began to drop. He was still seething with anger at the knowledge. "A relative I should have killed a long time ago," he said as he stared off into nothing.

Rose gulped. "Is this the same relative that caused your loved one's death?" she asked. She watched his eyes lower to the floor sadly and felt her heart being tugged by his grief. Stop it, she tried to tell herself. This was not how she was supposed to feel towards him. He didn't need her pity or compassion; apparently, he was powerful enough to defend himself and then some.

"Yes," he said honestly. He looked at her and a sudden thought came to mind. "How did you find the du-basement?" he asked, cautiously.

"Oh…" Her cheeks suddenly turned red with his question. How embarrassing that she got caught sneaking around! "Um… I just…"

He smiled. "Were you being nosy?" He chuckled.

She quickly pulled her hands away from his and narrowed her eyes at him. "No! I was exploring!" She looked down and blushed, realizing he had been holding her hands for a while. She could still feel the warmth on her skin.

The corner of his lips lifted into a smile as he watched her blush while her eyes lingered on their hands. He had been holding on to her on purpose and had hoped she wouldn't notice. And she hadn't, until now. "What's the matter?" he asked.

Her head shot up and she quickly pulled her hands on her lap together. "Nothing."

He chuckled. "So you were exploring?"

She cleared her throat and nodded. "Yes. Since I'm going to be living her from now on, I wanted to explore and familiarize myself with the house."

His eyes narrowed at her, but his smile didn't fade. "Weren't you scared you were going to get lost? Or trapped alone with something dangerous?" he teased.

Her mind went back to the fear she had felt being alone down there, but she refused to look weak in front of him. "Psh, no. Why would I be afraid? Is there anything here I should be afraid of?" she asked arrogantly. Hadn't he promised he wouldn't let anyone hurt her? Part of her knew, he wouldn't let her roam around this house if it wasn't safe for her.

"I don't know Rose. Is there?" he asked, smile widening amused by her reaction. He chuckled and stood up slowly. "There is nothing you need to worry about in this house Rose. Just try not to get lost. If you want a tour, I would be more than happy to show my wife around her new home," he said as he looked at her.

Rose swallowed hard as she watched his intense gaze boring a hole through her. Her cheeks burned, feeling the heat rising. He kept calling her his wife but they weren't even married yet! And the way he say it, made it sound so intimate, so possessive it always gave her goose bumps.

"I would love a tour," she said with a smile. "But, stop calling me your wife."

His eyebrow lifted and he stood in front of her.

She quickly stood up, not wanting the disadvantage of being way lower than him on the bed. She looked up at him, noting she was still way shorter than him and frowned, displeased.

He smiled as he watched an unhappy expression on her face. "Why? You don't like it when I refer to you as my wife?" he asked.

"Not really," she said. "It makes me uncomfortable," she said honestly.

"Why does it make you uncomfortable Rose? No, in what way, does it make you uncomfortable is more appropriate question, right?"

She gulped as she watched the playfulness in his eyes. Was he teasing her? She frowned. "This isn't funny Caleb Romanov."

He chuckled at the way she pronounced his name.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What kind of name is Romanov anyway? What are you, Russian or something?"

He smiled. "Or something," he answered.

"I'm serious!" she spoke loudly.

"It's a long story about ancestors Rose. When I took over the kingdom, I chose to take the name Romanov instead of what it was before."

"Why?" she frowned and blinked rapidly as he moved in a flash, wrapping his arms around her and pulling him towards him. She gasped and her eyes widened as she looked up at him.

"I've been giving you a lot of answers and information. How about you give me something in return now?" He smiled wickedly as he watched her cheeks turn bright red.