My arms unwrap from my head and my feet catch on the carpet as Eric rounds the bed and comes for me. I push myself farther into the corner of the room, and he stops.

"Don't do that," he says, and I don't move anymore. The bed is in front of me, my shoes waiting beneath it, where I took them off last night. I imagine putting them on. Running. How laughable. As if I could run from him. But that's why my body is trembling so much – it wants to run. It's a natural reaction, fight-or-flight, my body giving me all sorts of chemicals so that, one way or the other, I can react to the threat. What my body doesn't understand is that I can't. Not in any useful way, not when the threat is a vampire. I am entirely at his mercy. I am helpless.

So I sit in a borrowed robe on the floor, trembling and staring at my shoes.

Eric starts to whisper.

"It was the only option I saw in the moment. There was no satisfactory explanation you could have given Talbot. I did what I felt would appease him, what I felt would deter his suspicion, while . . . causing the least harm possible."

I don't know what he wants me to say so I'm quiet.

Eric exhales. The breath is crooked, sharp, and I can practically hear his teeth clench. "You should not have even been out of this room. I told you to stay in here, I – I know you sensed the crown, that much is clear, but you could have waited, Annika, and then told me about it, like you are supposed to, why couldn't you have just waited?"

He takes a stride forward, fast, and I cover my head again, curling my body away from him. "I couldn't help it! I couldn't help it, I swear, please, I couldn't help it, I had no control, I just followed it – the humming, the crown, it made me come to it, I couldn't help it, please –"

"Annie –"

I feel his hand on my arm and I don't think, I swear I don't, but I hit him away and scramble the final meter into the corner, and I'm trapped, trapped, trapped, and – "Please! I couldn't help it, please, please, Eric, I couldn't . . . please . . . don't . . ."

Tears stream down my face, though I'm not sobbing, really, no, my breath is all over the place and I'm shaking but not with sobs, I'm just broken and shaking, just a broken little human in a world she has no business in, yes, that's it, that's all I am – stupid, stupid little fool . . .

Eric says, in Swedish, and in a voice unlike any I've ever heard from him, "My darling girl . . ." and lowers to the floor. To his knees. I press my knuckles against my mouth. "Annie . . ." He touches my leg. I pull away, a little, but his fingers follow. "Annie, be still. Be still." He catches my hand, and I jerk it, but he holds on, just tight enough that it can't get away. "You are safe," he whispers. "Hear me now, no one will . . . I am not going to hurt you. Dear, I swear it. Please . . . be still."

His touch lets me feel him, a little. Makes me feel him, rather, shoots his emotions into me almost as if my hand is falling asleep, and the sensation isn't far from the same, all tingly and twisting. It's regret. And it's strong regret, I know, because I don't pick things up from Eric unless they're passionate.

My hand, swallowed by his, relaxes. Bit by bit. "I couldn't – I couldn't help it . . ."

"I believe you." Eric releases my hand and raises his to my head. I squeeze my eyes shut as he sweeps my hair down my back. "I believe you, sweetheart. Shh . . ." He keeps stroking my hair, as gentle as a breeze, and gradually my breathing evens out. I open my eyes again, but stay tucked into myself, tucked into the corner. Even after I stop shaking.

Eventually, Eric brings his hand down along my jaw and tries to guide my chin towards him. I tug my head away. "Let me look," he says. "Please, Annie. Let me . . ." He tries again, and this time I let him turn my head his way, his fingers as light as butterflies. I don't meet his gaze, though. He's still for a second. Two seconds, three. Then I hear his fangs snap out. He presses his thumb into one of them, and I let him dab his blood onto a spot on my lip. He takes hold of my shoulder after, as the sting on my mouth melts away. "How is your neck?" His voice is tight. Scratchy. I swallow.

"It doesn't hurt. My wrist . . ." I pull my right arm up my body. "I landed on it."

Eric takes the wrist, massages it for a moment, and kisses it. Then he drops his forehead against the back of my hand. "I cannot let you drink my blood," he says. "That would prevent your face from forming a bruise. Talbot would think it strange."

And for some reason, it's this that finally pushes me away from the odd, shaking place and into the far more familiar state of sobbing. And when Eric's touch gets just forceful enough to pull me to him, I don't fight. His arms are familiar, too. He gathers me up and carries me to the bed, me clinging to his neck like he's never done a single thing to hurt me in my life, and I don't let go when he sets me down, and he doesn't try to make me. He holds his hand against the back of my head, fingers combing through my hair.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs as I cry, "I should never have brought you here, I knew better." His lips press into my hair. "I am so sorry, Annie."

I curl into him. It's funny, I suppose, how easily I do so. But he's Eric. My Eric. Nearly twelve years of that, twelve years of running to him for comfort, twelve years of trusting him to make things better, or to protect me before things get worse, can't be knocked away with one blow to the face. No matter how much it hurt. No matter how much it still hurts.