CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE || DANNY
I didn’t go back to Ontario once the sun set.
I was hungry, so I went to Boise instead. There was a nightclub there, right in the downtown corridor, that I knew from previous trips to the area would be packed with people. It would be exceptionally easy to dance, perhaps have a cocktail, meet someone single and lonely, and lure them away from the others…
On foot, it took me well over an hour to make it there, even moving at top speed.
And the moment I stopped to catch my bearings in an alleyway a few streets down from the club, surrounded by people, I realized why most of the vamps we had ever hunted had been so careless. It was impossible to feel this level of hunger, of need, without giving into it.
A group of four twenty-something men stood just inside the mouth of the alleyway. Good ole’ boys cosplaying as cowboys and already way too drunk, judging by the way they jeered at the pair of attractive young women walking past. They were passing around a bottle of liquor with a paper bag around it and taking swigs, completely oblivious to my presence.
I felt a dangerous, predatory smile slide across my lips. They were perfect. Hardly a need to even go into the club at all. They would satisfy my need for fresh blood and then some.
I took a step closer.
Then another.
They were less than ten feet from me.
I knocked an empty glass bottle sideways with my foot. It skittered into the concrete wall of the building beside us and shattered.
All four of them turned to look at me. They were bleary-eyed and confused. One of them, the smartest in the bunch, took a step back. Belatedly, I remembered that I was probably covered with dried blood and would likely look frightening to a mundane person.
“Come closer,” I told them, my stomach growling with my hunger.
Somehow, I knew how to let the hypnotic power of a vampire flow into my words. It was instinctive.
And the effect was immediate. They all took a step toward me. And then another. Except for the guy in the back, who had stepped away from me initially. He took another step back, out of the alleyway and onto the sidewalk, staring at me with wide eyes, the bottle of booze still clutched in his hand.
The one nearest to me had a shaved head and tattoos on his neck. He smelled strongly of alcohol and cigarettes. He wasn’t quite as solidly built as Michael, but I wasn’t about to be picky. Besides, I didn’t want his body. I wanted his blood.
“None of you want to run,” I told them, but I fixed shaved head with my gaze when I spoke, so he took the brunt of the hypnotic power. His lips parted and his eyes went even more glazed. “You will feel no fear. You won’t scream.”
“I won’t scream,” shaved head agreed.
“Who are you?” The one in the back demanded, his voice wobbling a little. But my hypnotic spell had caught him too, and he was coming closer. And his expression was growing more placid, just as glazed as the others.
“I’m hungry,” I told him, barring my fangs. Then I grabbed shaved head by the shoulder and sank my teeth into his neck.
My eyes slid shut with pleasure as hot blood filled my mouth. And I swallowed it greedily. Mouthful after mouthful.
The guy didn’t even try to fight back.
Then, a few moments later, before I could even really begin to slake my thirst, strong hands grabbed me, tore me off my prey, and then I was momentarily airborne.
I hit the wall of the alleyway hard.
I landed in a crumpled heap on the ground.
My hypnotic spell broke and all four of the men tore out of the alley.
I let out a disappointed hiss, watching them vanish around the corner at a sprint. Shaved head had one hand pressed against his throat. He was paler than before, but still alive.
Scowling, I looked up to meet the gaze of my attacker.
Michael was watching me from the shadows on the other side of the alley. His eyes looked strange. Far too bright in the dimness, like they were practically glowing.
“Hello, Danny,” he whispered.
Then he leapt onto me, moving blindingly fast, knocking me off my feet and pinning me to the ground one-handed. The blow caused pain to rocket through me and I hissed again.
The strength he used on me was inhuman.
And when I locked gazes with him, I felt something stir in my chest: a flash of horror. His eyes were too vivid. The gray of his irises wasn’t cold granite anymore, but silver. It was almost lit from within.
And his skin was paler than it should have been. Michael had always been pale. But this was… it was too pale.
The fluttering in my chest grew stronger. Something deep within me struggling to break free. To assert dominance. To retake control.
I hissed again, panic flooding through me.
No! How could he—
I splayed my fingers into claws and struck at Michael. He dodged easily and grabbed my arm before I could do it again. I felt desperate to get him off me so I could escape .
I needed to, before…
Michael, no! The voice inside of me was inconsolable. No, no, no, no, no—
“Why?” The voice asking the question was mine, but it didn’t entirely belong to me, either. The question escaped my lips without my conscious control. And there was a plaintive note in it that I didn’t like at all. Like the words were dipped in pain.
No. Not pain. Anguish.
They were emotional. Weak. Pathetic.
Because our mate was strong now. He was powerful. He was immortal.
How could that possibly be a bad thing?
“I became a vampire for you , Danny,” Michael whispered, holding my gaze. “I told you I would do anything for you, and I meant it.”
My heart broke inside my chest, releasing a tidal wave of emotion through me, sweeping everything else away. It was rage. It was pain. It was hope. And most of all, it was love.
Michael had spent months running away from even talking about what we were to each other. And he had faced it. He had admitted to both of us what he felt. But that was still different. Because he could have still walked away from hunting, from the supernatural, from the darkness of the last five years. But now, there was no walking away.
Not anymore.
He had become the one thing he had always hated. And he had done it for me. To prove to me that I wasn’t alone. That I was loved.
No! I fought it. I beat back the surge of emotion that overtook me, threatening to drown me. If I could just force my body to obey me, I could—
“Michael,” I breathed, staring at him. It wasn’t my voice speaking. It was the emotional part of me. The part that cared. Except that the difference seemed less distinct than it had a moment ago. A fresh wave of pain swept through me. “ No .”
He was just as handsome as ever. But even in the shadows of the alleyway, I could see that his teeth were sharper, too. They were fangs.
“I made you a promise. I swore to you that you wouldn’t spend a single day on this earth as a monster. Help me keep that promise. Come back to me, Danny.” He dropped to his knees before me, his expression crumpled, and the naked plea on his face felt like hot knives in my chest, cutting my heart into ribbons. His voice became a whisper. “Please, Danny. I’m begging you.”
I knew what he had given up, didn’t I?
He had given up any possibility of a life spent in sunlight. Of backyard barbeques and normal neighbors, and errands, and mundane jobs, and family vacations. He could have had those things, if he had wanted them badly enough—and I knew he did. Deep down, he still wanted the life he had lost.
But now he would never step out of the shadows, ever again. Not really. He would always be a creature of darkness. He had chosen a life filled with moonlight and inhuman hungers. An eternity of never aging, never moving forward. Never quite belonging to the human world, but always having to pretend that he did. He had traded away everything he was and everything he knew to be good and true, on the chance that maybe I would come back to him.
And he had done it for me .
My father’s face flashed in my mind. The relief in his eyes when the poltergeist had killed him. And the horrible, sick realization that he had given up on purpose. That he had wanted to leave. And the aftermath: me standing there, surrounded by darkness, breathing hard with the locket in my hand, realizing how horribly and completely alone I was now. Michael was offering me a future where that would never happen to me again.
And all I would have to do is reach out for it with both hands.
But Michael would never grow old. He might never die. He would never truly know peace again.
You’re a fucking idiot if you think there’s ever going to be any peace at all without you. Ever.
Michael words echoed in my mind, and I realized that the walls I had thrown up between us had fallen. Because I could feel the fierceness with which he meant it. But the expression on his face was softer than before.
And it was filled with such love that I almost couldn’t stand it.
Suddenly, it didn’t feel quite so much like I was two separate people anymore. But I could feel the fears and desires warring within me. It felt far more like a choice I could make: I could come back to him, if I wanted to. But it wasn’t as easy as that. Because if something ever happened to Michael, it would be a pain I would need to live with for an eternity. A heartbreak I wasn’t quite sure I would ever recover from. And didn’t I know, firsthand, how easily a life—even an immortal life—could end?
It would be far easier—and far safer—to not come back. To let the cold and sharp-edged version of me win out. I could revel in the violence of what I was now. I could lose myself in that. I could make it so that nothing would ever matter again.
So that nothing could ever hurt me.
Michael was quiet, on his knees in front of me in the alleyway, waiting. I knew he could sense the battle raging within me. Just like I understood what he was doing: he was letting me choose. I had to want to come back to him.
And even though he was bigger than me—even though he was one of the toughest people I knew—he looked so fragile in that moment.
Easily broken.
If I didn’t come back—because I was a coward and I had chosen not to—what would that do to him? It was intolerable to consider. Even for a moment. But I could see it anyway. A cold eternity stretched out in front of him for centuries, grief choking him at every turn, never quite healing. Watching what I had become, but unable to bring himself to end me. Grieving what he had lost. What we had both lost.
And he would be alone, the same way I had been alone, until the day I met him.
With my heart in my throat, with the cold fingers of fear laced through my gut, I made my choice.
I chose him.
I would always choose him.
The inhuman desire to hurt strangers, to feed and feed until nothing more was left, to revel in the violence and power of what I was now, receded into the background. The cold edges of my mind melted away, the ice thawing as though it had never been. It wasn’t gone. But it wasn’t in the driver’s seat anymore.
I was.
Michael’s breath escaped in a broken sob and I could feel his relief flood through me.
“Danny.” His words cracked right down the center. “Oh, Danny. Danny.”
He kept saying my name, like it was a prayer.
I fell to my knees beside him. I cupped his face, the roughness of his stubble scratchy and perfect. But what about everything you’ve given up?
He met my gaze and his reply was immediate and unhesitating. Those things don’t matter as much as you. They never have. They never will. They don’t mean anything without you.
I swallowed my own lump of emotion, but his words had chased the last of my fears from me. “But what if it hadn’t worked?”
Even the chance that it might was enough for me. I would have never forgiven myself if I didn’t try. He flashed me a watery grin and added aloud, “Besides, you know me. When have I ever not been a little reckless? Why should this situation be any different?”
I laughed. And it was a little helpless, because I couldn’t quite manage anything else. The previous coldness and clarity of purpose I had felt was gone. And my inhuman hunger had receded as well, fading into the background in his presence, just like always.
“But how did you control yourself?” I demanded, the realization crashing through me that Michael hadn’t attacked anyone. “How did you stop yourself from pouncing those guys? The one I bit was bleeding. ”
Then guilt flooded through me, and I let out a soft gasp. Was that guy going to be okay? How badly had I hurt him?
“He’ll be fine,” Michael assured me. “You didn’t hit the jugular properly. He would have died right there if you had.”
I nodded, but his words still didn’t banish my guilt.
If Michael hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed him. If he hadn’t found me in time—
How had he found me?
“It was the bond,” Michael told me quietly. “Your walls have been slipping since you left the mines. I’ve been getting glimpses of what you had planned. Evil-you isn’t as slick as he thinks he is.”
“The connection between us is whatever we need it to be, when we need it to be that thing,” I replied, remembering what Thierry had told us. Tears sprang to my eyes. But how had Michael believed that so strongly? What if he hadn’t found me?
And, yet again, how was he controlling himself now? We were in downtown Boise and there were people everywhere. Then again, even though Michael was a vampire now and there was little chance of me hurting him, I still found that his nearness had soothed away my hungers, just as it had all along. Maybe part of what our connection needed to be was us not noticing the hungers and encouraging each other to not become crazed monsters?
Or maybe he was just stronger than I was?
Michael snorted at that, having clearly read my thoughts. “Your friends didn’t leave you either, Danny,” he said. “They believed in you too. Even Thierry.”
With that, he pointed up at the rooftop overhead. Thierry, Bryan, and Tobias were all up there. I could almost make out Tobias’s lips moving, like he was talking to someone. His eyes were locked on Michael. But Bryan gave us a small wave, beaming down at us. Thierry just looked pale, wide-eyed, and completely flabbergasted.
I shared his sentiment.
“Tobias’s lips are moving because he’s currently performing a spell to suppress my feeding instincts,” Michael added, his words becoming fierce. “It’s the only reason I didn’t try to hurt anyone. He has to maintain line of sight and the moment he stops chanting, I’ll be a handful, too.” He chuckled. Then he paused, frowning. He gave the mouth of the alley a dubious look. A gaggle of drunk, laughing women walked past, oblivious to the fact that they were in the presence of two newborn vampires. Michael considered them for a long moment and added, “You know, we probably ought to get out of the city, actually.”
I dragged my gaze back to him and the realization of what he had done swept through me, all over again. “Michael, I—”
I broke off. What was I going to say, though? Was I going to ask him if he was sure? Because it was already far too late for that, wasn’t it?
“I’m sure that I’m never going to leave your side,” Michael promised me, leaning closer, his vivid silver eyes peering into mine with startling intensity, and I could feel through the bond, how serious he was. “I’m not your dad. I’m not your brother. And I’m never going anywhere unless you make me. I belong to you, body and soul.” Then he paused, a dangerous little smile settling into place on his lips. “And you’re mine , Danny.”
“You’re goddamn right I am,” I shot back, finding myself suddenly more than a little annoyed that he’d even needed to say it. It chased away the last of my doubts. Because of course I belonged to him, in body and soul, and I had for a long time. And yes, he was mine, too.
We belonged to each other.
And then, even though he was a fucking idiot, I still kissed him anyway.
Because he was my idiot. He always would be.
And I would have done anything for him, too.