Blood Moon Heat (Blood Moon Brides #2)

Blood Moon Heat (Blood Moon Brides #2)

By Sherilee Gray

Prologue

Mina

Two years ago

I lay still as my bedroom window silently lifted.

It was him.

He was back.

The first time he came was the night of my sixteenth birthday. He’d stood outside, watching me through the pink lace curtains. I’d been afraid, unable to move, clutching the covers to myself as if that could protect me. He’d stayed out there for several hours, soundless, unmoving, then finally left.

The next day the vampire court informed my parents that my mate had come to them, that he was powerful, one of The Five, and he’d notified them of his intention to claim me when I came of age.

It was a full year before I saw him again. Once again, he’d stood at my window, so impossibly still, his deep violet eyes glowing through the shadows. He’d remained there, watching me for so long, I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes open, and somehow, I’d drifted off with that cold, hard gaze burning into me.

I probably should have been scared then, and I should be now, as he opened the window wide and stepped into my room another year later. I’d been expecting him, it was the night of my eighteenth birthday, but he’d never come into my room before.

My heart thudded wildly in my chest. My father always said I was too curious for my own good, that fear was healthy, that it stopped us from doing idiotic things that would get us killed. But I hadn’t been made that way. I mean, obviously, I felt fear, and the first time my mate came to the window, I’d definitely felt it. But fear had always…excited me, exhilarated me. And it wasn’t like he’d ever actually done anything besides watch me.

Was he going to talk to me this time? I inwardly cringed. My bedroom looked like someone had projectile vomited lace and silk all over it, but worse, all of it was in eye-watering shades of pink. Princess-chic my mother had called it. I hated it, and I hated pink—or at least I did now—but that didn’t matter to her. It was as if she thought a pink, lacy horror show of a bedroom would make me the female she wished I was. I only hoped the male soundlessly moving across the room didn’t think it was a reflection of my personality. I was no delicate little princess.

He stopped at the foot of my bed, and I kept my eyes screwed shut, gripping my covers to my chest, but the way my heart raced, he had to know I was awake. Still, I wasn’t afraid, not really. This was my mate. He wouldn’t hurt me.

My skin prickled and a wave of heat washed over me out of nowhere. I flushed hot, sweat immediately prickling my skin. I wanted to shove the covers off, but I couldn’t; he was just there, and it wouldn’t be proper for me to lie here in only my nightgown.

My mouth was suddenly bone dry. There was a glass of water on my bedside table, but I didn’t dare reach for it. I kept up my pretense of sleep, waiting for what would come next.

I listened for the sound of him breathing, but he wasn’t. I listened harder. His heart wasn’t beating, either, which meant he was very old, or he’d been so badly injured at some point that his heart had stopped. Maybe both. I barely contained a shiver at the thought.

As the hours ticked by—he stood motionless, utterly silent while I feigned sleep—my overheated skin grew hotter and tingly, and my shallow breaths turned to pants.

There was an ache between my thighs that had been slowly increasing as well and now it throbbed. I tried so hard not to move, but if I didn’t squeeze my thighs together to relieve the terrible ache, I’d cry. I couldn’t bear it another moment and gave in, squeezing my thighs together tight. A whimper escaped. It was small, but as soon as it left my mouth, a growl long and deep rolled over me from the foot of the bed.

Oh gods .

Finally, gathering my courage, I opened my eyes—but he was gone.

One year later

I was dying.

My body was burning up, and the deep, throbbing pain between my thighs had me squirming in my sheets. I lifted my head, refusing to pretend I didn’t know he was there, not this time.

My mate stood at the foot of my bed, his face concealed in shadow. He said nothing. He didn’t move. Not an inch. He just watched as I writhed and panted and sobbed in pain.

God, I wanted to beckon him to me, I wanted him to…gods, to touch me, to help me. He’d done this. Somehow, he was doing this to me. Last time, I’d suffered for days after he left. Sweating and crying, the pain in my lower belly and between my thighs so acute I thought I’d die. In my mind, I’d screamed for him. I’d screamed and screamed, but he never came. My parents didn’t know what was wrong with me, and I’d been too afraid to tell them the truth.

His head tilted to the side, studying me coldly, like I was some kind of fascinating insect, or an experiment.

Why was he doing this to me?

I shoved the covers off, too hot to stay beneath them a moment longer. My skin was on fire, my hair plastered to the sides of my face. My nightgown, damp with sweat, clung to my body, and when I squeezed my legs together, they were slick. Embarrassment filled me, and heat rushed to my cheeks.

I stared into the shadows, into those glowing violet eyes. “Help me,” I begged, knowing instinctively that only he could take this pain away. “It hurts. Please…help me.”

Every year he came to my room, I felt the connection between us grow stronger. How could he ignore it? How could he let me suffer this way? I shoved my hand between my thighs, pressing my palm to my swollen, slick flesh, desperately trying to ease the emptiness, the agony. I squeezed my eyes closed as another wave of humiliation washed through me. “Please,” I said again.

Just like last time, when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

One year and two days later

I was drifting off when the sound of my window opening reached me.

My twentieth birthday had been two days ago. I assumed he’d taken pity on me, that he’d decided not to come. I’d been wrong. Relief and terror filled me at the same time, and I hated the part of me that wanted this, that had anticipated his visit. What was wrong with me that the moment he left my room a year ago, I’d wanted him to come back, that I’d craved the presence of this twisted monster even when he caused me pain, when it had taken days to finally subside.

Just being near him turned me into someone else.

I gritted my teeth. No . I didn’t want to feel this way. This wasn’t right.

I scrambled out of bed and ran for the door. Not this time. I wouldn’t let him do this to me again.

One moment he was by the window. The next he was at the door, blocking my escape.

He stood only inches from me, the closest I’d ever been to him. He was tall, towering over me, his shoulders broad and his muscles straining his jacket. I took in the rest of him. The skin on the side of his throat, the side that wasn’t tattooed, was impossibly pale, and the shadows seemed to move with him, concealing his face from me still, all except for his eyes. They glowed bright, boring into me.

The scent of blood hit me. His. I knew this because my fangs tingled and my stomach growled. And someone else’s blood as well—not vampire but something other . I scanned his body. He wore a suit, and the knuckles of his tattooed hands were grazed and red. The fact that his injuries were unhealed meant he’d done it very recently—or the wounds had been really bad. He had to have come to me immediately after he’d done whatever it was that caused those wounds.

He’d been at the border, fighting the fae—that had to be it. Was that why he’d been late coming to me?

I stumbled back, not from my fear of him—although I was old enough now to know I should be—but from my fear of what he did to me when he came here. Of how the scent of his blood called out to me and the pain and anguish I suffered for days after he left. The grip in my gut, the connection I felt for him, was stronger than it’d ever been, though I felt nothing but cold indifference rolling off him in return.

My stomach churned. I was just a curiosity to him, nothing more.

Still, my body ignited, fire burning in my belly and the pulse between my thighs beating so strongly, it forced the breath from my lungs. My skin was instantly coated in a cold sweat even as my body went up in flames. My nipples tightened painfully, and I crossed my arms to hide them. Humiliation had me looking at my feet, and as soon as I looked away from him, I was able to think more clearly, and the humiliation quickly turned to anger.

After his last visit, I’d been determined to find out why I reacted this way around him. When my parents had been out, I’d sneaked into the library and taken a book on vampire physiology that I’d been forbidden to read.

I’d learned the truth.

If a vampire was powerful and old, like the male standing in front of me, they could sense their mates early, and because of that, they were supposed to stay away until their female’s twenty-first birthday, to protect her from a “need her body wasn’t ready for” the book had said.

During the blood moon ceremony, when a bride was claimed, the male and his bride would drink from each other. The act was called being “blood bonded,” and had to be done under the blood moon. Once it was done, the pain I felt when he was near would stop for me. The males, however, would feel something like I was now if they didn’t mate right after the exchange of blood. The books said “they would feel increased hunger and a desperate need for release that would turn to intense pain if left unsatisfied.” I wasn’t sure what mating entailed, and a release of what, I didn’t know, but if it felt anything like the pain I’d experienced, it would be unbearable. It also said “if a male was forced beyond that point, he could revert to a primal state and experience loss of control.” I didn’t know what that meant, either, but it didn’t sound good.

I grabbed for the wall when the ache throbbed harder. “Are you going to just stand there, watching me until I’m writhing in agony, then leave me suffering for days like you always do?” I said through gritted teeth. “Or are you going to help me?”

Please, help me . God, I hated that I needed him so badly.

He said nothing, just watched me. Always watching. Screw him. I turned my back and strode across the room. I couldn’t escape him, but I refused to stand that close to him.

“What kind of help do you think you need, Mina?”

His deep, icy voice rolled through the room, stopping me in my tracks. It was the first time I’d heard it, and a shiver slid through me as I spun back. “I—I don’t know. I just… I need the pain to stop.” The physiology book hadn’t gone into detail. But I did know it had to do with mating, that only my mate could stop this pain.

He took a step closer. “You’re not ready for me to take the pain away, female.”

I could only assume he was right about that, but anything had to be better than this. “Then why are you here? Why are you doing this to me?”

Another pause. “Because you fascinate me.”

“And your curiosity is more important than the pain that coming here causes me?”

I hadn’t expected my mate to be some white knight from one of the fairy-tale books I’d read as a child. But I hadn’t expected him to be cruel.

“You don’t like it, the pain?”

Dread coiled inside me. “Of course not,” I whispered, not only scared of the way he made me feel, but now my fear of him grew even more intense.

“Explain it to me,” he said, his voice growing deeper. “Tell me how it feels.”

My body ached and throbbed, craving something, something from him that I didn’t truly understand, while he stood there, seemingly enjoying my agony. The horror of that made me want to shrivel in on myself. I straightened and forced myself to look into his cold, dead eyes. I wanted him to see the fear that I knew was in mine, and I wanted him to watch as it drained away and changed to anger. I let the pain coursing through my body, the pain he was causing, fuel the fire. Then I smiled, and it wasn’t a nice one. “I don’t need to explain it. You’ll find out for yourself. I promise you that.”

Then I turned away from him again, giving him my back as I stared out the window.

Silence filled the room, so acute it was deafening. I thought he’d silently left, like he always did, but then something cool brushed my shoulder. His cold fingers slid across my skin, lifting goose bumps all over me. His chest brushed my back, and I gasped. But I refused to run. I stood my ground as he brushed my hair aside and leaned closer.

A rumble vibrated from his chest and moved right through me. “I look forward to it, Mina.”

Then he was gone.

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