CHAPTER FIFTEEN || THIERRY
T he wolf stayed by my side for the next several hours.
His presence was far more reassuring than it should have been.
After all, I was a powerful vampire with nearly a thousand years of life experience, the closest advisor to the king of Seattle’s vampires—if you didn’t count Pierce.
And Jeremy was an infuriating backwater werewolf with only three decades under his belt.
Plus, he was an asshole. Unlike the murderous, feral vampires at the fence, he’d had his humanity perfectly intact and had still chosen wrong. He was selfish, smug, and stubborn enough to make me want to tear my hair out at the roots.
So then why was it so easy to sit next to him? Why did waiting for one of the feral vampires to finally break through Diana’s spell seem less nightmarish with him by my side? And why was it so easy to worry what would happen to him if that did happen?
After all, shouldn’t I want to be rid of him?
We fell into a silence that was easier than it should have been. And the warmth he radiated, even without his shirt, was surprisingly pleasant. I limited myself to glancing at his bare chest—all hard muscle under sun-bronzed skin, masculine and enticing in the moonlight—to only twice per minute.
I was almost grateful for the distraction when Diana’s spell flickered for the briefest instant, an hour before sunrise, and the vampires swarmed us.
Launching to my feet, I threw myself in front of Jeremy.
Only a handful made it through before her spell went back up: two middle-aged males, an older female in a bloodstained muumuu, and Quinn.
The former gas station attendant ignored me, going straight for the wolf.
“Dammit,” I swore, taking my attention off the other three for an instant to shoot Jeremy a furious glare. “Go back inside!”
Jeremy was no slouch. Even without time to shift, he sprang to his feet and decked the vampire hard enough to send him sprawling.
“I can handle myself,” Jeremy said evenly. His fingers elongated into claws, his eyes glowed gold, and his teeth sharpened.
When Quinn came at him again, Jeremy leapt, driving him to the ground.
I looked away, my stomach twisting. I tried not to picture my brother’s face. But what could I do? Ask Jeremy not to destroy the vampire? That was sheer idiocy. It would likely get the wolf killed.
After that, it was a blur of violence.
The other three feral vampires ignored us, going straight for the bedroom windows at the back of the house—right for the male nurse and his patient, too sick to move. They were on the other side of a thin pane of easily broken glass.
I took care of all three in rapid-fire succession, snapping their necks before they could crash through. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would keep them unconscious until they healed.
I turned back to Jeremy and Quinn, forcing myself to look.
Jeremy stood, hands no longer claws. Quinn lay unconscious at his feet.
My lips parted in surprise.
“I saw how you were looking at him,” Jeremy said softly. Then he smiled. “If you need a trial run, he’s as good a candidate as any. We’ll take him back to Seattle with us.”
My words came out thicker than they should have. “We?”
Jeremy grinned, eyes sparkling, mischievous and handsome in the moonlight—impossible to refuse. “Yeah. We .”
I stared, a hot lump in my throat, frozen in place, too stunned to speak or move.
And that’s why I didn’t react immediately when another vampire in oil-stained overalls charged around the house and leapt onto Jeremy’s back, riding him to the ground.
I started toward him, but I wasn’t nearly fast enough.
The vampire ripped my wolf’s throat out with his teeth.
My mind short-circuited as the smell of blood filled the air, sending the feral newborn vampires on the other side of the fence into a slavering frenzy.
Overalls went for Jeremy again, lips glistening red in the moonlight.
I tore him off my mate with enough force to dislocate his shoulder.
The vampire howled in fury.
In a haze of white-hot rage, I grabbed him by the throat one-handed and squeezed until bone broke.
I dropped the unconscious body and fell to my knees beside Jeremy.
The wound on his neck was bad. Even with his rapid healing, he was losing blood too quickly. His skin had already turned chalky. His breath sounded like a shovel of mud on his grave.
“You idiot!” I snarled, tears burning my eyes, my voice a harsh croak. My fangs dropped and, without even thinking, I bit down. Pain flared. I ignored it. What mattered was breaking skin so black blood could well up. If Jeremy were human, my blood would heal him.
I had no idea what it would do to a wolf. But I had no choice. His carotid had been punctured. Without my help, he wasn’t going to heal in time.
Even moving at vampire speed, I still felt nightmarishly slow.
Jeremy was about to die.
I pressed my wrist to his lips.
He turned his head, eyes widening in alarm. He coughed. “I don’t want to be a vampire.”
“Jeremy, you ass !” I rasped, my voice like broken glass. “Drink the damn blood before I murder you!”
He let out something almost like a chuckle, but faint enough I might have imagined it. He didn’t fight me when I pressed my wrist back to his lips. For a horrible moment, I thought it was because he couldn’t. His heart slowed to a dull thud—one of the most awful sounds I’d heard in eight centuries.
Then, right before he passed out, he swallowed.
* * *
Jeremy woke four hours later, a trace of my blood still on his lips. Morning sunlight streamed through the bedroom windows. Backup had arrived just after sunrise. Outside the bedroom, I could hear witches and vampires planning how to proceed with Rookwood.
Because he was Jeremy, he woke up ready to ruin my day.
“What the fuck?” he demanded, immediately sitting up and glaring. “What did you do?”
“I saved your life,” I said, arching an eyebrow. “Most people would say thank you.”
“You fed me your blood.”
“And you loved it,” I sneered, anger flashing at the accusatory note in his voice. “Your body did, at least. My blood healed your wounds quick as you please.”
“I have healing powers of my own.”
“You would have died,” I said flatly.
I tried not to remember those moments right before he swallowed, when I thought I was too late—or worse, that it wouldn’t work.
I’d never healed a werewolf before. If other vampires had, I’d never heard of it. But his wounds had closed at once, just as they would have on a human being. My blood worked on him the same way.
Even now, seeing him alive and well enough to be angry sent relief crashing through me. I should never have let him stay outside with me. It was my fault he’d almost died.
Then Jeremy’s eyebrows drew together, anger draining. He searched my gaze, awe softening his face.
“You—you were worried about me. You were worried I might die.”
It wasn’t a question.
Alarm rocketed through me. I shot out of my chair, stepping back. “No.”
I’d been around far too many fated pairs not to know what this meant.
“I can feel it,” Jeremy said, confirming my worst fears. “And I can hear it, too. Like you’re speaking your thoughts directly to me. You were scared I wasn’t going to make it.”
No. Absolutely not.
But it made sense, didn’t it? Because he was my fated mate, the blood bond had already started to form.
Now I was vulnerable to him in a way I never had been to Magnus. Jeremy could learn what made me tick. He could and would use that knowledge to hurt me. To use me. To control me—
“Thierry, I wouldn’t! And who the hell is Magnus?” Jeremy demanded, expression darkening. “What did he do to you?”
I stared at him, horror flooding through me.
He’d caught every word.
The blood bond between Ethan and Nathaniel had started this way, with one party hearing the other’s thoughts. It had been the same with Bryan and Tobias. But not with James and Pierce. Or Danny and Michael.
I hadn’t even considered the possibility until after I’d given Jeremy my blood. It had been fifty-fifty odds of this happening. I’d rolled the dice. And lost.
Dismay twisted across Jeremy’s face.
“No, Thierry—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish.
I left the room.