Why had everything gone so wrong?

He could still taste the bitterness in his mouth when she’d rejected him after he’d come back from the war a changed man. Her frightened look had shredded his heart, so much so that he was ready to die there and then.

London 1814

Quinn didn’t bother with the carriage, leaving his coachman waiting. As the heavy door fell shut behind, the knocker echoing the sound, he fell into a frantic run as if a slayer were chasing him with a wooden stake. He couldn’t get far enough away from Rose and the pain she had inflicted on him by rejecting him.

The words pierced through his heart like tiny spikes. Get away from me!

The woman he loved more than his own life was afraid of him. Too afraid to recognize that he was still the same man as before. That what was in his heart hadn’t changed. She believed him to be a monster and had recoiled from him.

Despite the fast sprint through half of London, he arrived at his house showing barely any exhaustion. Pushing the front door open, he marched inside, heading for the parlor, his mind focused on one single thing: to eliminate the pain.

As he reached for the crystal decanter that contained the amber liquid that had helped him so many times before, he took it and poured a glass to its rim. But when he lifted it to his lips, the scent of it stung his nostrils. Instinctively he tossed the glass to the floor where it shattered.

Anger churned in him: he couldn’t even get drunk to forget his sorrow! He couldn’t do what any sane man in his position would do, to obliterate any memory of her, to drown it in alcohol.

Frustrated, he growled and took hold of the small side table that held the liquor he’d enjoyed as a human. Without another thought, he flung the table and its contents to the other end of the room. With a loud bang it crashed against the wall, the glasses, bottles and their contents scattering across the rugs, the wood splintering. The stench of alcohol filled the room instantly, only fueling his anger.

His eyes surveyed the scene, honing in on the pieces of wood that had only seconds ago been a beautiful table. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet catapulted him toward the chaos. Crouching down, he reached for a piece of wood. It tapered to a sharp point at one end. The perfect weapon, the perfect way to die.

Yes, it would be better that way. He should have never survived. He should have died on the battlefield instead, and spared both him and Rose this tragedy. She would have remembered him in a more favorable light than she would now. But he couldn’t change that.

He lifted the makeshift stake. But as much as he tried to move it toward his chest, his hand wouldn’t follow his command. Almost as if his survival instinct was stronger. God, how pathetic was that? He couldn’t even kill himself!

Angrily, he jerked his hand toward his chest once more and was stopped in the process. An iron hand clamped around his wrist.

“Careful with that.”

Quinn snapped his head to Wallace.

He lashed a furious glare at his sire. How dare he stop him? “It’s my life! My business, my choice.”

“No! It is not! How can you want to throw this life away? The power that I gave you, how dare you waste it? As if it were worth nothing? Do you have no concept of what you are, what makes you great?” He pointed toward the door. “There are thousands out there who want to be like you, who want to remain young and powerful, who crave immortality. And you, you’re prepared to throw it into the gutter! To toss it out like last week’s whore.”

Wallace twisted the stake from his hand and hurled it to the other end of the room. Wrenching his arm free from Wallace’s grip, Quinn bared his fangs.

He needed no lecture from a man who clearly had no idea what he was going through.

“I can’t live like this!” He avoided looking at his maker.

Wallace put a calming hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

Quinn took a breath, but when he released it, it came out as a sob. “She doesn’t love me anymore . . . because of what I am.” He lifted his eyes. “I’m a monster to her. A monster she’s afraid of.”

Putting it into words made it even worse. As a human, he’d never felt as much pain as he felt now. Not even when he’d been injured on the battlefield, had his body been in such agony.

“I can’t live like this. Don’t you understand? I did this for Rose. Without her, there’s no point in going on.” Eternity without her would be one endless night of torture.

Wallace pulled him against his chest. “Son, you will get over this. Your heart will be broken many times until you learn to protect it. The humans around you that you love will die. You’ll lose them one by one. But there’ll be others who will take their place.”