Destiny Calls (39 page)

“So you don’t want me happy?”

“Of course I want you to be happy, but I want you to be happy with me. Just knowing that your heart beats is not enough. If I can’t hear every heartbeat, you are too far away. Living has become nothing but an unending string of lonely days since you left, and I don’t want to spend another one without you.”

Destiny knew people said sweet crap all the time. There was movie romance, book romance, and real romance, but she had never even had a man express a fraction of the adoration for her that Cain had just proclaimed. Her eyes blurred with tears.

“Thank you, Cain.” She kissed him, and he kissed her softly for several long minutes. It wasn’t just about the sex. It was about the closeness, emotionally and physically.

“I want to marry you, Destiny,” he said quietly as she rested against his shoulder. “Tell me you will have me as your husband.”

“What about later, when I’m old and ugly?”

He pinched her and she squeaked. “You could never be ugly.” Then he hesitated.

“What? There’s something you want to tell me, Cain. I can feel it.”

He sighed. “A lot has happened since you were at the farm. Do you remember Dane?”

Dane was the little mute girl’s brother. He wasn’t Amish and wasn’t like the rest of them. “Yes, I remember him.”

“Turns out his parents were not who he believed them to be.”

“You mean he was adopted?” She wasn’t sure what this had to do with Cain.

“Yes, but that’s not what matters. What matters is who his father is.”

“So he’s found family? Are he and his sister still on the farm?” She hoped they left. After that little girl attacked her, she never wanted to see her again.

“No, Cybil is still there. She is…confined and still very ill. They’re both there, but Dane is building his own house. He plans on staying. He’s like us, Destiny, he and his sister.”

“Cain, I saw that girl. She attacked me, remember? She’s nothing like you.”

“That’s because you cannot transition someone who is not your true mate. Cybil is not my mate, and her body rejected my blood. It was either that or let her die after the bull pillaged her. What I’m trying to say is they’re immortal.”

He wanted her to connect the dots, but she couldn’t draw the line. Hearing that those kids were immortal only pissed her off.
She
wanted to be immortal.

“Why are you telling me this, Cain?”

“Can I show you something?”

She sighed. “Okay, but I wish you would just tell me.”

“It will be easier to show you.” He sat up and reached for a book on her nightstand. “You have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Give me your hand.”

She gave him her hand and he curled all of her fingers into her palm but one. He opened the book and slid her finger across the coarse edge of the page. The pain didn’t register until her flesh opened and the air hit the cut. Blood rushed to the surface and she yanked her hand away. “Ouch!” She sucked the digit into her mouth.

“I’m sorry. It was the easiest way I could do it.”

“Do what?”

Rather than answer, his mouth opened. The quick flash of his fangs had her jerking back and then he bit into his wrist. She gasped.

“Drink,” he said, holding his arm out. Twin rivulets formed from the punctures he had left.

“What?” After everything that he had just said about Cybil, she wasn’t going to let him turn her.

“Drink. If you trust me, drink. My blood is safe. There is nothing I can give you.”

“But I don’t want to be like Cybil.”

“You won’t. This is different.”

She swallowed. Being a product of the new millennium, it had been drilled into her head that blood was not something to be exchanged. She didn’t know how that worked with other species. Reluctantly, she leaned forward and licked at the trail of red dripping down his arm. She forced herself to swallow and then looked at him expectantly.

“Let me see your finger.”

“Are you planning on giving me another paper cut?”

He rolled his eyes and grabbed her hand. He looked at her cut. “What are we looking at, Cain?”

“Just give it a moment.”

She did. They sat there several minutes watching her finger bleed.

“Come on,” Cain mumbled.

She didn’t know what he was waiting for, but he was growing more agitated by the second.

He gasped. “Yes! Look!”

She looked down and gasped. Her skin was knitting back together right before her eyes. “How is it doing that?”

He smiled and then toppled her to the bed and kissed her.

“I knew it!” he said, smiling against her mouth. “I knew it would work.”

She shoved at his shoulders. “What worked? Cain, explain what’s going on.”

He sat back, his happiness transforming his face. “You’re like us, Destiny. Like them. Dane and Cybil and Magdalene.”

“Who’s Magdalene?”

“Not important. Do you understand what this means?”

Exasperated, she snapped, “Not really!”

He took a deep breath and pulled them so that they were both sitting up on the bed. Destiny pulled a pillow over her lap.

“You are immortal, Destiny. The mark on the back of your neck, your stork bite, it is a mark of a half-breed. You have immortal blood running through your veins.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Otherwise you would not be able to heal from my blood the way you just did. Your body would not process it. In a mortal, the blood would just go through the digestive track like food and turn to waste. Immortals are different. It goes into our veins.”

“If I’m immortal then why have I been touching up gray hair since I turned thirty? My hair dresser would disagree.”

He frowned. “I think it is because you don’t feed. Magdalene said she started to feed around adulthood when lethargy set in.”

“Oh, this Magdalene has all the answers. What about my parents? There’s no way I’m someone else’s kid. And trust me. They are not vampyres.” She frowned. “Although my Portuguese relatives do think chicken blood is a delicacy.”

He ignored her joke. “Why not? You and Vito look nothing alike.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. I look just like my mom and my aunts.”

He nodded. “Your aunts, see. And they all live in Portugal, right? Do you know how many of our kind are still in Europe? It isn’t like America. Here we hide and live in seclusion. Europe is freer.”

“Are you trying to say my aunt is a vampyre?”

“I am not saying anything for certain. I am saying that it is there if we look for it. Blood tests would be necessary. Perhaps your entire family is mortal, but your sire was not.”

“My sire?”

“Father,” he corrected. “Or perhaps it was your mother.”

It was too much. Her parents were her parents, and that was that. “Cain, I don’t want to know this stuff.”

He suddenly looked insecure, all his happiness melting away. “Do you not want
eawichkeit
with me?”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Eternity, Destiny,” he whispered, suddenly seeming vulnerable. “It is eternity. I didn’t think I had a destiny, but I do. It’s you. You are my Destiny.”

“But how will this work?”

“If you feed regularly, your body will regenerate and you will stay young.”

“But I don’t want to lose my parents.”

“Then don’t. They live far enough away that they are not a threat to us. If you are not like Dane and don’t need to know your genealogy, then leave it to be a mystery. All I care about is you being with me, for
eawichkeit.”

“I would have to feed? Like, drink blood?”

“Yes, but your body wants it. I promise any revulsion you have to the act is completely in your head.”

“Will my body change?”

“I hope not too much.”

She could kiss him for that answer. Yeah, she definitely wanted to spend eternity or ewich-ya-whatever-you-call-it with this man. She rubbed her palms together and sat up straighter. “Okay, let’s do this!”

“Yes?”

She nodded. “Yes. Let’s see what happens.”

Chapter 37

They started out with kissing. Cain told Destiny it would be best that way. She was never a big fan of food fetishes where sex was involved, but she figured he knew more than her when it came to all things immortal.

Their bodies glided over one another, and it wasn’t long before she was fighting to get him inside of her. “Patience, Destiny,” he gently scolded and pressed her hands into the pillows.

She arched into him and pressed her heels into his thighs. He laughed at her ridiculous attempts to get what she wanted. Once they were each too impatient to wait any longer, he rose up on his knees.

His nails extended, seeming more brittle than they normally were. He scraped his thumb over his heart and rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him. “Drink from me, Destiny.”

She hesitated only a moment before leaning down and licking over the gash of crimson. She tried not to focus on the flavor, but as her mouth suctioned over the wound, it became so potent, it was impossible to ignore.

Cain’s blood didn’t have the same coppery taste as her own. His was richer, sweeter. It ran down her throat like a thick red wine, and she breathed a little deeper, tasted a little stronger, and saw a little clearer.

Her body caught fire, and she struggled to take more of him. He fit his hips more below her, and then he was inside of her, thrusting and bucking wildly. They moaned and sighed with each thrust and swallow. She worried she was being a glutton, but when she tried to pull away, his hand fisted in her hair and held her to him. “More,” he demanded as he pumped his hips.

Her body bounced over his, but he held her to him. She drank until she felt drunk. His blood was intoxicating. Wild and earthy and so incredibly Cain.

“Lick it shut,” he said, and she took her time cleaning his chest.

When she finished, she sat up, and he rapidly thrust into her. His fingers would likely leave small purple impressions on her hips. She liked the idea of him marking her.

She came the moment before he did. Waves of pleasure touched places she had never felt before. The world seemed a little brighter, the edges a bit crisper. Her skin was alive. Everything was alive. It was as if she could feel her hair and nails growing if she focused hard enough.

She let out one final sob of pleasure and collapsed onto Cain. He held and kissed her, in no rush to withdraw his body from hers.

“Did you like it?” he whispered.

“Mm-hmm,” she agreed tiredly. Her adrenaline had peaked to levels so high, the crash was twice as steep. She needed to rest, just for a minute.

* * * *

Cain watched Destiny come awake. She had only slept for about an hour, but he had looked at her the entire time. It fascinated him, witnessing her hair become a shade glossier and her cheek bones a bit more defined. The changes in her were so subtle, others would never notice, but he did.

She moaned and stretched. Opening her dark eyes he saw that they were still the same shade of onyx.

“Am I different?” she asked and scurried out of bed.

She went to the mirror and came up short.

“I look the same. I’m supposed to be skinny.”

He sighed. “You are skinny.”

“Not according to American standards.”

She turned, giving him and the mirror a shot of her body’s profile. She pressed her palms into her hips then lifted her breasts.

“I didn’t change,” she complained.

“Thank God for that,” he said. “Destiny, I have told you again and again that you are beautiful, just the way you are. Stop rating yourself by English standards. You are perfect. Leave it alone.”

She huffed and released her breasts. “I guess these are a little higher and my hair does look good. I wonder if I will even have to put product in it anymore.”

“I like your hair the way it is. Stop dissecting yourself and come back to bed.”

She smiled seductively and jumped back under the covers. They made love so many times that he lost count. Sometimes they took each other fast, a collision of bodies and need, and sometimes they moved slowly, just a leisurely entrance and lingering thrusts to remind them they were connected.

“Will you marry me, Destiny?”

“I already told you yes.” She laughed.

“How many children do you want?”

She tilted her head and thought for a moment as he teased her nipples and slowly thrust into her. “I suppose since we have eternity, I’d like a few every century. Do we have to name our first born Adam?”

“Goodness no!” He thought for a moment. “But I do think Annalise is a pretty name.”

Her gaze lowered. “Did you love her?”