Blood Mate (23 page)

She squeezed his
hand to let him know she understood.

Chapter Sixteen

August closed his
eyes against the sight of them together. Reading each other’s
minds. Having private conversations he would never be privy to. He
had the same ability with Dominic, but the direct mental connection
with Nicolette was something he would never feel. In some ways,
Dominic had greater power over her.

But he was a young
vampire. All August needed was for Dominic to lose control and abuse
his skills once. Then she would come running to her mate for
protection.

He opened his eyes
to find the two of them making love. Either they didn’t care he was
there, or they’d forgotten. He turned and made his way down the
dark hallway, stopping at the French doors.

The crickets and
frogs stopped chirping when he reached the fresh air, giving the
appearance of solitude in a foggy night illuminated by a full, bright
moon. Everything but humans went utterly still and quiet in his
presence.

Sometimes August
thought it would be a greater challenge to hunt something from the
forest than something from the mall, but for centuries he’d never
had the luxury to test that theory, since it was human blood that
sustained him.

The urge came on
slowly, easing into his senses. It wasn’t the mindless need to
feed. It wasn’t a hunger. It wasn’t accompanied by guilt or
angst, just a simple, quiet drive to kill something, to snuff out
life like a lone candle in a dark room. The sociopathy of the feeling
chilled his blood.

But he wasn’t
thinking about killing humans. He was thinking of hunting in the
woods. Humans hunted in the woods. The local deer population had
grown rapidly. It was open hunting season. Even the humans said it
was okay.

He stalked through
the forest, scanning the foliage for a pair of guileless brown eyes,
something innocent to slaughter.

Eventually, the
night sounds resumed. The crickets, the frogs. Small creatures
scampered through the woods into their hiding spots. He spotted the
female deer before she spotted him. When she realized she’d been
seen, she darted between the trees.

August gave chase,
a feeling of exhilaration washing over him. When he ran the doe down,
he held her by the throat and sank fangs into her flesh. He choked
and gasped and spat the blood out.

“That’s
disgusting,” he said to any wildlife that would hear his complaint.

She seized on the
ground—suffering—so he broke her neck with one brutal jerk.

Now that Dominic
was there to stay, August needed an outlet. Perhaps hunting would
allow him to burn off the necessary steam to make peace with their
new life. Had he really thought he’d ever have her to himself? If
Dominic had died, the specter of her husband would forever hang over
them, haunting each moment they shared. The ghost at their table, in
their bed.

When he returned
to the house, he found Nicolette on the back patio. She’d put a
lavender robe over her night clothes, though there was no danger out
here that anyone would see.

“I hope you
didn’t cover that lovely body on my account,” he said.

Her eyes widened
as he approached. “August? W-what did you do?”

Was it wrong to
enjoy her discomfort? “What do you mean what did I do? I took a
walk.”

There must be
blood on his mouth or on his chest. And of course she would think it
was human blood. Of course she’d think he would cross that line in
a jealous rage, go take a human life when he was free of the curse…
for no other reason than sheer petulance. Did she think so little of
him?

She gripped his
arm as he brushed past her. “August? Who? Why?”

He shook her off,
annoyed. “Bambi’s mother. To blow off steam.”

He jumped to the
balcony in one great superhuman leap and re-entered through the
French doors. Nicolette was forced to go back inside the normal way.

He stopped in a
guest bathroom and rinsed the dirt from his feet, then wiped the bit
of deer blood from the corner of his mouth and off his chest.
Nicolette’s footsteps pounded up the stairs as he crossed the hall
to his room and climbed into bed. He was about to flick the bedside
lamp off when there was a knock on the door.

“August?”

“Go away,
Nicolette. It’s been a long, trying few days. I need to rest.”
What he needed was to drink from her, away from Dominic—to force
her to remember the pleasure of his bite—an addiction that wouldn’t
go away. But he wasn’t prepared to appear weak and cloying just
now.

The door clicked
softly, and she stepped into the room. August leaped out of the bed
and blurred to the door, looming over her, one hand above her head
holding it shut, the other turning the deadbolt.

Her pulse
fluttered in her throat, and her eyes grew large. All at once she
looked, not like someone he couldn’t kill, but like any fragile
human. Like any meal he would have kept locked in one of his cages.
Part of him could barely remember that life, as if it were thousands
of miles and years removed from this moment.

“You shouldn’t
come to my room unless I send for you.” He pulled the sash on the
robe and slid the silky fabric off her shoulders.

“I… August…
I… it was a deer? Really?”

He rolled his eyes
and growled. “Yes, it was a deer. Did you think I’d killed a
human? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“You move fast.
You could have gone pretty far.”

“Am I to
understand that the only reason you’ll want anything to do with me
from now on is to prevent me from murdering people?” As his
irritation grew, fangs pushed through his gums.

“N-no. It’s
not like that. Dominic said it was okay to… ”

August wrapped a
hand around her throat. “Do you imagine I need Dominic’s
permission to take what’s mine?”

“H-he didn’t
say anything about that. He said… he said it was okay for me to
love you.” The last words came out on a whisper, less real than the
rest of the sentence. But he’d heard them.

August released
her abruptly. Her hand moved to rub the already fading bruises.

“Love?” He
worked to keep the expression on his face smugly amused, but he was
sure he wasn’t pulling it off.

The idea that she
could or would ever love him at any future point in time… that
Dominic would consider such a thing, and permit it… Not that one
could
allow
feelings. Still, to say it was okay to let go and
feel something, for her husband to imply he wouldn’t hold a grudge,
that he’d share her honestly—it was unexpected.

She blushed and
looked down.

“What makes you
think I require your love? All I want is your blood and your body
when I demand it. You can save your soft, sweet feelings for your
husband. I don’t want them.”

He’d assumed
she’d become angry, but when she started to cry instead, the sparks
of conscience reared up. He wouldn’t listen to it. He wouldn’t
allow her human feelings to affect him. The vulnerability he might
have allowed himself to show her if it were only the two of them
could never be now. She’d always choose Dominic. Even if becoming a
vampire made it possible for her husband to share, she was still
human and would likely always think like one. It wasn’t worth the
pain of never really having her.

“Get in the
bed,” he growled.

“But… ”

“When you come
here without being summoned and I tell you to go away and you
persist, then you will do whatever the hell I tell you to do once
you’re inside my chamber. Get. In. The. Bed.” He glared and
pointed.

“Why are you
being like this? You have me. I’m not going anywhere. I thought you
said we were eternal? That I was your mate. Now you act as if I’m
just food and a whore to you.”

“Well, aren’t
you?”

August pushed past
the revulsion at her tears, the instinctive urge to comfort her. The
bond enslaved her? It enslaved him, to her whims, to her pain, to
everything she wanted or felt. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been
indifferent to her. From the moment he discovered he couldn’t get
inside her head, she’d become something rare and precious. But
these feelings that gnawed away at him had grown since he’d had her
blood, since he’d sealed them together in an unholy matrimony.

“I-I guess you
don’t have to pretend anymore. Since Dominic is a vampire now, and
you know I won’t run again. We’re all tied together, so you can
be yourself.” Her voice caught in her throat as if tears had
somehow gotten lodged in there.

He didn’t reply.

“You were never
going to care for me, were you?” she asked.

The fact that she
didn’t understand how the bond had affected him was a small comfort
in the midst of all she now held over him. He could never let her
know her power. It would hurt too much.

“You have
Dominic. What does it matter? Do you expect me to believe after
everything that has transpired between us that you suddenly feel
romantic feelings for me? That I have your heart? You think to play
me like some whipped fool?”

Her gaze shifted
away from him. “When I was in the hospital, I wanted you to come
get me because I knew you were the only one who could or would. You
were the only one who understood. You were the only one who had the
power to set me free from that place.”

“But now Dominic
understands. So, it’s no longer necessary for you to pretend or
cling to me.”

“But something
changed when I was in there. I hated him for the briefest moment. I
didn’t know I could hate him, but when I compared the way I hated
him with the way I had hated you, I couldn’t figure out the
difference. I wanted you to take me far away from there, from
Dominic, from the hospital, from everyone and everything. They
betrayed me. I couldn’t imagine you ever abandoning me like that.”

August’s jaw
clenched. Her pretty words would not undo him. He let the rage
simmer. He could have taken her away. It could have been the two of
them if his anger hadn’t demanded retribution. He’d needed to
indulge in the sweet vengeance of letting Dominic see the horror of
the truth, of knowing what Nicolette had done, what she’d become,
that her stories of a vampire lover weren’t madness. He’d wanted
to rub it in the man’s face.

“The things you
think you feel aren’t real. It’s our link. It will never be
real.” Was that what he wanted to believe? How many centuries would
he have to feel this need for her before he accepted it as another
version of real?

She’d stopped
crying but looked as if she might start up again at any moment.

He joined her on
the bed and straddled her, cradling her in his arms. The one trump
card he held was his bite. Dominic couldn’t replicate it. He could
never hope to give her the same intense pleasure from it. If she
pushed him, August could simply withhold his mercy, make her suffer
the agony of Dominic’s fangs without the counterbalance of his own
bite. It was the only power he had left, however perverse. And he
knew even as he thought it, that he’d never do it.

He struck and
drank deep as she squirmed and mewled beneath him. Dominic would
never have a private moment like this. August would always be at the
top of this food chain, and Nicolette would always remain at the
bottom.

He tore his mouth
from her throat. “Look at me.”

Her glazed gaze
slid reluctantly to his. Shame. Desire. Anticipation. Fear.
Loathing—for herself or him he couldn’t be sure. What was the
difference anymore?

“I will bite you
when Dominic feeds to keep him from hurting you, but I will have you
every day privately first. Do you understand?”

A quick nod.

“Say it. I want
to hear it. Not some slight jerk of your head that you can later
deny.”

“Y-yes, I-I
understand.”

“Good girl.”

August raised his
weight off her. Nicolette was flushed. As much as he’d drank, a
normal person would be dead or else so pale it would be hard to tell
the difference.

“You may sleep
with your husband tonight.”

She got up and
slipped past him to the door. She paused when she got there, then
came back and offered him a chaste kiss. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Letting me keep
him.”

He sighed. “I
told you I’d give you anything, poppet.”

August watched her
leave. A few minutes passed before he heard the sounds of love
exchanged between his mate and Dominic down the hall. He tried not to
visualize their limbs tangled together, each clinging to the other
like a life raft lost in a dark ocean without end.

He gripped the
edge of the vanity and focused on his reflection, as if by looking
long enough and deeply enough he could unravel all the bits of
himself that had tangled in the past centuries. As if he could
somehow make sense of any of it, or superimpose a deeper meaning or
purpose over the top like a fresh coat of paint on an old shutter.

It was what the
humans did. It was what he had once done. To be able to go back to
that world where things
must
make sense. Where everything
locked together in a complex puzzle no man understood the entirety
of, but that surely would all be explained in a glittering afterlife
somewhere.

He’d been wrong.
It wasn’t his humanity he’d perceived the nights he’d prayed
for the ability to die. He’d had no time or room for reminiscing on
what it meant to be human when his existence had revolved around the
singular moment of pleasure in feeding before the world crashed down
each night.

Yet now, a new
eternity unfolded before him. And a new need. The need for love,
acceptance, family. The need to not give in to the monster
underneath, the one that might like killing a little too much.

Eternal or finite,
life was suffering, and there was always a new and more creative way
to suffer.