Chapter 5 Marcello
Marcello
Iwanted Abel in the worst way. I had since I’d first scented him what felt like another lifetime ago. The thought of him being trapped in here with me and going into heat…my mind was going places that I knew it shouldn’t be. I stood and started pacing.
To pair a horny fox omega with a highly sexual vampire…
bravo. If I were anyone but who I was, I would have been all over him last evening after I put him to bed and got a look at all of that smooth skin.
He was a temptation before I’d seen all of him.
Now that I had, I knew he would certainly be fulfilling my fantasies.
He was going to go into heat. This was new information, and for a moment, I considered it.
It would be glorious to have my beloved with me, and to fall asleep every night sexually satisfied with the taste of his blood and cum on my tongue.
I pushed against the throbbing bulge in my slacks.
I’d jerked off twice in the night while Abel had slept, but it had brought no relief.
I was just as hard now as I had been when he collided with me in the doorway.
I wasn’t sure I would ever find relief without claiming him.
“Marcello?” Abel’s slender hand hesitantly touched mine. I looked down at my beloved through a red haze. “Your eyes are red again.”
I closed them and nodded. “It will go away.”
“I want you to know that I am willing to be yours if you were. I understand you don’t want to claim me and why. But I think that despite the different worlds we come from, we could make each other happy.”
I looked down at Abel. I knew what my world was like.
He didn’t have a clue. “I have no doubt that you would make me happy and that I would do the same for you for a time. The newness of being mated would wear off quickly though. What would you feel for me when I come home covered in blood?” I asked.
“I go through more clothing than most people, simply because they are ruined.”
“You said Master Nikolai used to not be as honest as he is. Maybe—”
I shook my head, stopping his words. “I will never leave my family, Abel. I cannot. Not even for you.” I wasn’t true in the least. I would.
In a heartbeat, I would leave and go somewhere with my adorable, precious angel.
But unfortunately for us, my past would follow, and I was but one person.
I could not protect my beloved forever. Not alone.
“All right. I won’t ask again,” Abel said quietly.
Those words broke my heart. Never had I expected that discovering my beloved would mean so much heartbreak.
“Abel!” someone shouted from outside in the hallway. I glanced down at my beloved and saw that his eyes were wide.
“The voice is familiar,” I said.
“It’s Master Edison.”
“Vincenzo! Ti ammazzerò!”
I grabbed Abel and pulled him behind me just as the door pushed open.
My claws grew, and my eyes tinted as the created warlock and created vampire came rushing into my room.
I hissed, which was probably not the smartest thing, but at the moment, there was an immediate threat to my beloved, and I was going to protect him with my life.
“Dov’è Vincenzo?” Master Ambrosius asked. His eyes were also tinted, and his claws were out.
A dragon came rushing into the room with a tiger shifter not far behind.
“Edison, my love, are ya forgettin’ something?”
“Wallace, tell him it’s not Marcello’s fault,” Abel said. He squirmed behind me, but there was no way I was going to let him go.
“What do ya mean, Abel? You are here and not at home in Montana, where you belong.”
I heard Abel scream seconds before he was simply gone from behind me. Without thinking, I charged at the others but found myself with a pair of claws wrapped around my throat, staring into red-tinted eyes.
“Do it,” I said without thought. “He’ll be better off without me.”
Master Ambrosius’s brow furrowed.
“Enough!”
“Marcello!” Abel came running back to me, and I was suddenly freed. I grabbed my neck, feeling the wetness there. “You hurt him!” Abel shouted before he balled his fists and whacked Master Ambrosius, who hissed, and a dragon roared.
“I said enough!”
The room froze and turned to look at the tall, slender man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. “Abel, go to your mate,” he said.
Abel came rushing toward me, and when he plowed into me again, I wrapped my arms tightly around his lean body.
“Mate?” Master Edison asked. “Why would you match Abel with him?”
“Do you not believe that Marcello deserves a beloved?”
Abel’s body was shaking, and when I looked down at him, he was crying.
I wrapped my hands around his face, tuning out everyone else in the room but my distressed beloved.
This simply wouldn’t do. I gently lifted his face again and leaned down to kiss his forehead.
“Shh, mio angelo. I am fine, see?” I said, hoping to calm him.
In these moments, my fate had been chosen for me.
I could not let Abel go. It was wrong and completely selfish of me, but I would give up everything so I could have him.
I would be leaving with him to a new life elsewhere.
One as far away from the only family I had ever known.
“You were bleeding. He was going to kill you,” Abel said. “I saw his claws go into your neck.”
I pulled him in and kissed his forehead again. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “It might be a bit messy, but it’s already healed.”
There was shouting from the others, and I pulled Abel to my side, hoping to not only explain certain things but also get an explanation.
“I can’t believe you matched Abel, of all people, with a corrupt vampire, Thomas,” Master Edison said. I met Mater Ambrosius’s cold eyes. He was wrapped up in his beloved’s arms, and I was certain it was only the dragon shifter’s hold on him that was keeping him across the room.
“Marcello deserves a mate just as much as you do,” the man who Master Edison had called Thomas said. “As do the others in this coven.”
“Why?”
“Because despite what it is that they do, they deserve to have the connection and completion in life that a fated mate provides.”
“But Abel?”
“Abel will be a good match for Marcello. You have to trust me on that one,” Thomas said.
I took that moment to look down at the little fox who was plastered to my side and raised an eyebrow at him.
His cheeks actually turned pink, and I had to wonder just what it was that Thomas meant when he said that.
“How did you find us?” I asked. “It is the middle of the night in Montana.”
Master Ambrosius turned toward us, and I noticed that the tiger shifter that was usually not far from him had his hand on his lower back.
Not really holding him back, but then again, I was sure that a shifter wouldn’t be able to hold a warlock anywhere.
“Felix and Luken saw the interaction between Abel and Cole outside of the restaurant. It was Cole who told us of the two men that disappeared with Abel. But it was Nikolai’s call that told us where we needed to search. ”
“I did what I had to do,” Vincent said, finally coming into the room.
“Marcello has been without his beloved for over a year and has become difficult to live with. The hope was that Abel would help mellow him out back to his only every-so-often deadly self.” Vincent smiled at Abel.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Abel. I beg your forgiveness that I resorted to such drastic measures to get my second back.
He has truly been miserable without you these many months. ”
“I mean, you could have just asked,” Abel said. “You didn’t have to send someone in to kidnap me. Although I probably wouldn’t have believed them when they said they were going to take me to my mate.”
Vincent smiled again. “Which is why I sent Naldo and Mazzi to retrieve you as I did.” I glared at my coven master and friend.
I couldn’t deny that it was wonderful having Abel in my arms, but all of this would have been avoided if he had just left everything alone and let me continue on as I have been doing.
“I do believe it is time for all of us to leave the new couple alone to work out the logistics of their mating,” Thomas said.
“They aren’t mated yet,” Master Ambrosius said. “Abel is coming home with us.”
“No, I want to stay with Marcello,” Abel said before he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist and held on. “I know he says I can’t stay, but I hope that with time, he’ll change his mind.”
That earned me a glare from Vincent. “You are staying, little one,” Vincent said. “You are part of the Vittone Coven now, no matter how long it takes my second to claim you.”
I returned the pointed look with a glare of my own. This was not what I wanted for my beloved.
“Everyone out,” Thomas said with enough authority that even Master Ambrosius left without any hesitation. Thomas looked directly at me. “I’ll be back shortly to discuss things with the two of you, so make sure you keep your clothes on for at least another thirty minutes.”
I nodded, and Abel seemed to fall into my side more.
I tightened my grip on him and waited for everyone to leave.
I could hear Master Ambrosius and Vincent arguing as they walked down the hallway.
When the door finally closed behind Thomas, I finally felt myself start to relax.
Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how tense I was.
That made sense, though, since my beloved had been in danger, and I had been ready to kill any who tried to take him from me.
I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“We should probably have that talk we needed to be having over breakfast,” I said.
“I don’t know what there is to say, really,” Abel said. “You’ve made it clear that I can’t stay, that I can’t be part of your world.”