Guardian of the Abyss by Shannon Phoenix

month? Who would keep their wives safe? And without the werewolves, the second strongest force against the serpents would be gone."
    "We failed the werewolves," he answered, deep gloom and shame flowing through him.
    "I don't think you did," she replied. "I see what you were fighting, and what the only outcome could have been if you truly had failed them." She met his eyes. "That never happened. The world wasn't taken over by Deathwalkers, ghouls, or Rakshasa. We... I mean humans, don't know that they exist. There hasn't even been a sighting of any of them. Other things, yes, but never those." She shook her head. "You may not have won directly, but somehow you won in the ways that matter. And if you're right, then the gargoyle genocide wasn't as complete as my government claimed."
    "What does that mean?" he demanded. "You keep referencing that, but I don't understand."
    "Years ago, the vampires admitted their existence. They met with very mixed welcome but were eventually mostly accepted. Because of what could only be considered a success for vampires, your people also came out to the world." She felt her own shame and heartbreak swell. "They were slaughtered wholesale. People thought they were demons..." A tear fell from her eye and landed on her leg where it sat lonely and black against her pale skin. "We were told they were eliminated."
    "That is not your fault, Sarah."
    "Neither is what was done to you. But that doesn't make either of us feel better, does it?"
    He picked her up and cradled her in his lap. "It's hard to feel your sadness and not be able to help."
    She took his face in her hands. "A bad man wouldn't regret, Abaddon. He wouldn't feel sorrow, or pity; and he wouldn't cry for those he injured through no fault of his own. You are a good man, a decent man, a strong man. You were given only terrible choices, and you managed to make the right ones from what you had. I feel honored to even be in your presence, and deeply humbled that you would be interested in me at all." She ignored the tears that slid from his eyes, knowing it would wound his pride if she acknowledged them. "I'm not going to ask that you marry me, and I know you won't be with me if you don't. But if I don't die, you'd be stuck with me, because you're that kind of man. A man who'll never give up, never quit, no matter what. I would like to believe that there's a woman out there good enough for you, but I honestly don't think that's possible."
    He shook his head, pulling her close again. "You make it sound like I'm perfect, and I'm not remotely close."
    She chuckled. "No one who's as obsessive, guilt-ridden, rigidly old-fashioned, overly serious, and rabidly moral as you are is perfect. But within your faults lie your good qualities also, so you can't give up one and still have the other."
    She looked up at him then, and found what was almost a smile on his face. The skin above his left eye lifted, a strange event without the eyebrow to mark its passage. "Well, you know, Sarah... although you are reckless, thrill-seeking, overbearing, irresponsible, stubborn, arbitrary, and driven... You are also kind, compassionate, gifted, wise, generous, and deeply loyal." He stroked his hand down her face, his own serious again.
    She scowled at him. "I am not overbearing." Then she gave up the pretense at outrage. "You can read my life, too?" He had pegged her rather well, if she was going to be honest about it--and she wasn't. Except about the last half, perhaps.
    "I can't read minds or lives, but I can sense souls and intents," he admitted. "It must be strange to read minds and lives."
    "I can't read minds," she answered. "And I didn't see much of your recent past, because I stopped the reading. It didn't seem polite to pry."
    "It often feels like you can read my mind," he answered wryly. "You seem to know everything about me."
    "Only about the past," she admitted. "Most of the rest of it is guesswork. You're a bit predictable in your thinking and emotional