Chapter 3
three
DAMIAN
I drummed my fingers on my desk, my blood still pumping and my nose still bleeding from my last fight.
Every year, I held a month-long tournament to determine which of my vampires had grown strong enough to join the protective team I ran. And every year, I fought each of the finalists.
I won every fight, of course.
But this time, I’d been distracted.
My thoughts were full of a golden-haired siren.
I still won the fights, but my heart wasn’t in them, and everyone could tell.
I’d started searching for Blair the moment she disappeared in that club. My teams combed the city around it, but the woman had vanished.
My taste for blood went with her.
Any blood but hers, that is.
Being a vampire meant bloodlust, constantly. Intense, vicious bloodlust. We kept it sated by feeding regularly, usually from other magical beings who would heal and regenerate much faster than humans. It kept us strong, too.
The only time in my life that my hunger had faded was when I had her taste on my tongue.
I’d had a few blissful, peaceful hours afterward, and I wanted to go back to that so bad it hurt.
Which meant I needed her. Permanently.
I had every vampire I could spare looking for her through the tournament, and none of them had found a thing. She wasn’t in the public records. She wasn’t online.
The woman was a ghost.
I couldn’t tell them that she was a siren, for her safety, so they had to look into every single woman named Blair in Mistwood.
Now that the fights were over, I could finally put the full force of my efforts into finding her.
My office doors opened, and my sister came striding into the room. “It’s time to deal with this,” she said, patting the top of a massive stack of paperwork.
“Not now.” The words came out with a growl.
She tossed me a box of tissues, but I threw it back.
“Your nose is bleeding, Hale.”
“How many times do I have to ask you to call me by my first name, Lou?” I grumbled.
“It’s too hard to switch back and forth in public and private, and you don’t want everyone else calling you Damian, so I refuse for your sake.” She set the stack of papers down on my desk. “I know you want to look for your mystery woman, but this can’t wait any longer. People’s lives are at risk.”
“You can handle it.”
“Why are you so obsessed with this female?” she asked, leaning closer.
I finally lifted my gaze from my computer screen.
The two of us hadn’t had a chance to talk privately since the tournament started, and I’d met Blair a few days after that. Louise had kept everything running for me while I enjoyed the fights.
Or she tried to, at least.
A few of the others I had keeping my wing of the Manor afloat had quit for various reasons during the tournament, which made that an impossible feat.
“Blair is my blood mate. And she’s a siren,” I said bluntly. “The longer she spends away from me, the more likely I lose her to someone else. Those lives are just going to have to stay at risk, because there’s only one I care about right now.” I refocused on my computer screen.
A vampire only had one blood mate. He or she was the single person in the world whose blood could dull the constant lust and hunger that otherwise consumed us. We could function despite our bloodlust, but we would never have peace while it raged.
Lou had found hers, Egan, a century earlier. He had become my best friend and the only other member of my inner circle soon enough.
But he had been working with Lou while I dealt with the tournament, so I hadn’t told him the truth about Blair yet either.
“Holy shit,” Lou said, grabbing her stack of papers again. I expected her to tell me she’d get out of my hair and let me find my female, but the woman didn’t budge.
“I’m going to go start knocking on doors if I can’t find her soon,” I said, glaring at the screen. “She has to be somewhere . I had our tech team create an ongoing visual search, so I should know if she takes a step anywhere with a public camera. It shouldn’t be this hard to find her. I?—”
“ I found her,” Louise hissed. She pulled a folder out of her stack and shoved it at me. “Look.”
I opened the folder and scanned the list of contacts, finding a Blair Davidson at the top.
“How do you know she’s a siren? This could be any of the other Blairs we found,” I said. “I?—”
“Read the case, asshole.”
I read it, swore viciously, and stood up. My heart pounded like a drum in my chest and ears.
My mate was seeking refuge.
She was in hiding.
One of her sisters was already living in my wing of the Manor, hiding from some asshole wolf shifter.
She was in danger, and I hadn’t known.
“There’s no address listed here. Where do I find her?”
“Sirens don’t give out their addresses. You need to have reception call her in, apologize for not reading her case sooner, and do everything you can to make it right,” Lou said. “If this woman turns you down, you’re screwed. And not in a fun way, Hale.”
I gritted my teeth. “She could still turn me down. I’ll have to think of a way to ensure she agrees to be mine.”
“Talk to Johnny at reception. He saw more of their dynamics than I did, and has been staying in contact with them.”
My anger flared at the thought of the receptionist communicating regularly with my mate.
I’d get every ounce of information out of him—and then, I’d make Blair mine.
Permanently.