"Soren, I was wrong. I misjudged Elara."
"Do not be angry anymore. The baby won't stop crying. Does he miss his father?"
She probed cautiously, but Soren ignored her entirely and shouldered past her as he carried the withered vampire toward the bathroom.
He knew how I despised filth, how the slightest stain made me shudder.
Even now, reduced to this monstrous state, he insisted on keeping me pristine.
Warm water cascaded over us, and tears glistened in Soren's eyes for the first time.
The realization gutted him, because he, who knew my revulsion for filth, had cast me into that den of rotting monsters.
He had left me to fester in that pit of putrid decay.
Guilt swallowed him whole.
Why?
His head throbbed with the question.
All because Jolie had claimed that I had flashed my fang
