“Don’t go. I’m done anyway,” he claimed and waved her to join him.

She crossed the remaining distance and took the three steps that led up to the gazebo. Comfortable benches lined the interior of the wooden structure, and on one of them a human woman was stretched out, her clothes disheveled and two puncture wounds gracing her neck. Abel had been feeding.

“Apologies,” he said lightly, then bent down to the woman again and licked his tongue over the spot where his fangs had been lodged only moments earlier.

The woman didn’t stir, though her eyes were open. She was under his thrall, made numb by mind control. Every vampire possessed this skill, although Faye herself rarely used it. She had little contact with humans, preferring to remain in the safety of the palace’s grounds. And using mind control on another vampire was an undertaking fraught with deadly risk.

Abel wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and pointed to the girl. “Would you like some?”

Quickly Faye shook her head. She preferred the packaged blood stored in the refrigerated cellar of the palace. “Can we talk in private?”

“We are in private,” he said with a sideways glance at the woman who’d provided him with sustenance. Whether willingly or not, Faye couldn’t tell.

She’d always known that Abel had never given up feeding from humans directly, whereas Cain had substantially reduced the incidences of feeding from a human, and then refrained from it completely when she and Cain had become lovers. Almost as if he’d wanted to show her that he didn’t need to feel the sexual high that accompanied a feeding. Instead he’d switched entirely to packaged blood, and then, that last fateful night when he’d disappeared, he’d taken Faye’s blood for the first time. Not to nourish his body, but his heart.

Faye pushed the memory away, not wanting to be reminded of how happy she’d been then. And how different everything was now. Cain’s rejection when she’d snuck into his bedroom stung as much as it was confusing.

She turned away from the human girl and Abel. “I’m sure what I’m going to tell you won’t come as a surprise.”

Faye heard him rise from the bench and take a step toward her.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“I still love him. I never stopped loving him, and you knew that when you asked me to marry you.” She swallowed, trying to moisten her dry throat. “Had I known he was alive, you know that I would have never agreed.”

Abel’s hands cupped her shoulders and she flinched at the contact. “You don’t need to say anything else, Faye. I know how you feel. And I’m not going to stand in your way.”

Choking up, she turned around.

Abel smiled at her. “Oh, Faye, did you really think I would keep you to your promise? Of course, I’ll release you. I would be fooling myself if I thought that you could ever love me the way you love him.” Then he dropped his lids. “I just wish I could protect you from the heartache you’re going to face.”

“Heartache?” she echoed. “He’s alive. He’s back.” She hesitated, wondering whether Abel referred to the coldness with which Cain had greeted her. “It will take a little while until everything will be like before.”

Abel stroked over her hair as if comforting a child. She’d never seen him so gentle.

“He’s changed. You’ve noticed it, too, haven’t you?” he asked.

“A year in captivity can do terrible things to a person.” She knew that from her own experience. “Whatever wounds he has will heal.” And she would be by Cain’s side and wait as long as it took. As long as there was hope that he still loved her, she would wait for him to come back to her.

Abel sighed. “I spoke to him last night before he retired. Brother to brother.”

Faye lifted her lids and looked at him. “About what?”

“I told him about us.”

His confession didn’t come as a surprise to her. Cain had confirmed as much.

“He didn’t demand from me that I break our engagement. It surprised me. You know him. You know what he was like before. You couldn’t have chosen a prouder and more possessive man than Cain. When he congratulated me on our upcoming wedding, frankly, I was stunned.”

Faye’s heart started to beat uncontrollably. “But . . .” Why would he do that?

“I think he’s changed more than we can know. I didn’t ask him what happened. I think he wasn’t ready to tell me. But . . .” Abel’s gaze drifted past her.

Anxiety tore through her. “What?”