CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX || COLE
Jeremy and Thierry stayed in my spare room. Eli slept with me. I didn’t intend to let my human—my miraculous, beautiful, fierce human—out of my sight. Not until Magnus was dealt with.
“You’re cold,” Eli murmured quietly from behind me in bed, his arms wrapped around my chest protectively.
After eight centuries spent as an emotionless predator, it was strangely nice to be the little spoon. Provided, of course, that my perfect human was the big spoon.
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “I just need to eat. I can do that tomorrow, when I wake.”
“You’re—you’re hungry?”
“I’m fine, Eli. You needn’t trouble yourself worrying about me.”
He snorted. “Too late.” Then he paused. “So when you get cool to the touch, it means you’re hungry?”
“When vampires don’t feed properly, we become less human-seeming,” I explained, feeling suddenly wary.
Would this be the moment when it was too much for him? After all, it was one thing to know that vampires existed and that he was in bed with one. It was another to catalog all the subtle differences between a vampire and a human being. But there was very little I wouldn’t do for him.
“It’s small things, mainly,” I continued. “We grow colder to the touch. We seem paler, and our eyes are more vivid than usual. Our aura becomes more pronounced—it can even unsettle mundane humans if we aren’t careful. The more perceptive ones can tell we aren’t quite human.”
I expected him to balk or at least need a moment to gather himself. That would have been normal. Instead, he said, “But you’re ice-cold.”
“Not true, darling. I’ve gone a bit too long, but I will last the night.”
“You could—” Behind me, I heard him swallow, as though steeling himself. “You could feed from me, if you wanted to.”
A strange mixture of desire, fear, and surprise swept through me at his offer. “That isn’t necessary.”
“I know that.” Eli’s voice went soft. “I’m sure you have a system in place. It can’t just be serial killers you feed from, otherwise you’d constantly be starving. Which means you know how to feed without killing anyone.”
Despite myself, I smiled. Eli never failed to amaze me with how perceptive he was. I suspected that would only grow with time, once his memories of his former lives fully returned.
But Thierry had already explained everything to me—rapid fire—when Jeremy and Eli were giving us time to reconnect.
How he and Jeremy had first met, and that my twin and an immensely powerful witch he knew had cast a spell to conjure his fated mate about two months ago.
That it was a cure for vampires who had lost their humanity.
And my brother, being the good-natured person he was, couldn’t allow such a spell to be cast without first testing it on himself.
But instead of just hitting my twin, it had affected everyone who shared our bloodline—all the vampires Magnus had created, anyone they had turned, or the people their progeny had turned over the years.
Potentially dozens or hundreds of vampires. Perhaps even thousands.
Including me.
According to Thierry, only a fated mate can bring back a vampire’s lost humanity.
Ironic, perhaps, that I had spent centuries believing love to be a lie—a polite fiction humans told each other to get their needs met—when it was capable of doing what even the most powerful spells couldn’t.
Eli was the man destiny had picked for me. I had already given him my blood when I saved his life, which meant that if I fed from him, it would seal the blood bond.
“There’s a risk with that,” I said, measuring my words carefully.
“You won’t hurt me,” he said immediately, before I could say more. “I trust you.”
I smiled, pressing a kiss to his forearm, which was curled around my chest. His warmth and closeness weren’t the least bit intoxicating—I was quite clearheaded—but they were still immensely perfect. My own little slice of heaven, captured here in this quiet moment.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” I assured him. “But in our world, we know that fate is a real spiritual force. And sometimes it draws us to a specific person—an individual we’re meant to be with.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to believe in fate,” Eli murmured. “Or, the mystical kind, at least. Maybe that’s silly, after everything else I’ve learned, but fate as some kind of spiritual force feels… antiquated. If that’s real, why do any of our choices matter?”
“We still have some free will,” I said. “Our choices do matter. But there are certain events—certain people we’re destined to meet—and those things are beyond our control.”
“I’m not sure what this has to do with—”
“When vampires meet our fated mate, if we exchange blood with them, it forges a powerful psychic connection. It’s called a—”
“Blood bond.”
Surprise flooded through me. How could he know that?
I turned, settling myself in his arms so I could study his expression.
“Yes. But how—”
Eli gave me a rueful smile. “Jeremy mentioned that he and Thierry are blood-bonded.”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, I suppose that should make things easier. Though I wish he had allowed me to explain.”
“He didn’t tell me much. Only that it’s a powerful psychic connection.”
“Yes. And I believe you and I might—if we share blood—forge such a bond.”
“I know we would. We’ve already started,” Eli murmured. “I thought I was going crazy. But I’ve been sensing your emotions. As crazy as that is. Your thoughts sometimes, too, I think.”
Ice swept through me at his words. I should have expected that, but I hadn’t. What had Doctor De La Cruz sensed from me? Had I frightened him?
“And?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
“I know how seeing your brother again made you feel,” Eli said, his deep brown eyes searching mine.
“And I know you’re feeling uneasy right now.
I felt your fear when Morgan Peterson pointed his gun at me.
” He shuddered, then added, “And when you were fighting Godric. You thought he might try to hurt me. And I—I know that you meant it when you said you love me.” He paused, raising his eyebrows.
“What I haven’t sensed from you is the desire to hurt anyone.
If you’ve had any compulsions in that direction, I haven’t picked up on them. ”
I hesitated, not wanting to lie to him about something I barely understood myself. “It’s been some time since I’ve had a true compulsion to hunt anyone.”
If Thierry was to be believed, I likely never would again. But I didn’t want to promise Eli anything I couldn’t deliver. What if the compulsions were seared into me, part of the fabric of who and what I was?
“So this connection… it’s formed when we share blood? And it means we’ll be able to be in each other’s heads?”
“Yes,” I said, grateful for the distraction.
“And it’s permanent—it only ever grows stronger over time with fated mates.
You would sense my emotions and hear my thoughts.
We might even share memories.” That thought made me feel a bit cold inside.
There were hundreds of years of violence I didn’t especially want Eli to ever have to see.
“There’s little we could hide from each other for very long. ”
“Is that something you’d like?” he asked, his gaze searching mine. “Because I think I would. And I’d rather we do it on purpose, rather than accidentally. Or by necessity.”
His question was startling.
Eli was really asking me, wasn’t he?
He understood what I was, what I had done, and he was asking me for this anyway. My brave, beautiful doctor had been a man of science up until very recently, but now he was willing to step fully into my world in a permanent and unbreakable way.
“Of course I am. Because I’m in love with you,” Eli said, studying me with those deep brown eyes. Then he added, “When you’re emotional, your thoughts are louder, by the way. Just so you know.”
“It’s been a matter of lifetimes since I’ve been accused of being emotional.”
“Then you’ve got some catching up to do,” he replied. “I don’t want to bully you into something you’re not ready for, Nicolas. But if we do this, it will be because we both choose to—with our eyes wide open.”
In most stories about our kind, the vampire is the one to be feared.
Not the mortal he’s madly, desperately in love with—the kind, beautiful, perfect man with brown eyes so deep and timeless it’s as though he’s seen eons pass him by.
But I did feel fear. A simple and very human fear: what if Eli looked into my soul and couldn’t bear what he saw?
After all, it was a very real possibility.
But fear or no, I already knew it was an academic question the moment I considered it. Because I would do anything for him. Even risk him recoiling from me.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I would bind myself to you. I would give you anything and everything.”
His eyebrows shot up, and a grin broke across his lips. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” I paused. “You’re not frightened?”
“Of you? Never.”
“There’s one other thing,” I said slowly. “Usually a blood bond is just an intimate sharing of emotions and thoughts. I have no idea how our unique circumstances will affect it. Provided, of course, that it happens.”
“It will,” Eli said firmly. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it down together.”
“You may see things about me that frighten you. You may see things you don’t wish to see.”
“Nicolas, I trust you. I trust us.”
“And I love you,” I replied. “I never would have imagined it possible, but my heart—though it no longer beats—is for you and you alone. You’ve brought me back to life, and I would never hurt you.”
“I know.”
Then he tilted his head to the side, baring his neck for me. The pulse jumped in his jugular, in time with his pounding heart. With a hand behind my head, he drew me toward his throat.
I hesitated an instant longer, then let my fangs drop.
And I bit down.
He let out a soft gasp as my fangs broke the tender skin of his neck, and—for an instant—I worried it wouldn’t be good for him. I had spent centuries making my victims suffer with my bite. It seemed nearly impossible that I could give anyone pleasure.
Then he moaned, his warm hand cradling the back of my neck, even as his hot, rich blood flooded my mouth.
“Nicolas,” he breathed. “Fuck.”
I swallowed, noticing that his blood tasted different from the killers I usually fed from—almost like an exotic blend of spices.
And beneath that, like the way freshly cut grass made me feel: the warmth of the sun on my face.
Like the lingering embrace of church incense that told me I was home—that I was precisely where I belonged.
Eli’s blood tasted like him, but it also reminded me powerfully of younger days—long ago, from my childhood, when Thierry and I played until sundown in the fields behind the large stone church at the edge of town.
Back when we were innocent, and neither of us could have fathomed the existence of magic or creatures that drank blood and lived forever.
And then, before I could follow those thoughts any further, the world around us dissolved into darkness.