Twenty #2
A few things fell into place. My disdain for Mason vanishing after our first kiss. The unshakeable, unignorable attraction that had tormented me thereafter. A question settled over my shoulders, dead weight:
Had any of it been real?
In a few days or weeks or months or years, if I decided I didn’t want to be with Mason, did I have to stay with him anyway? I couldn’t imagine wanting to leave. But was that me or our soul bond? Did I even have a choice?
“How long have you known?” I asked.
I felt his sigh through my shirt. “I felt it the first time I walked into art class. But it was . . . vague.”
I realized, “You thought it was her.”
“You’re always together. That time you left school, the feeling left, too, but I didn’t even think .
. . I figured it was a fluke, like maybe the feeling comes and goes in waves.
It doesn’t. It’s constant. It wasn’t until you stormed out of her house, and it happened again, that the possibility even crossed my mind. I was, um, expecting a girl.”
I wondered if I had disappointed him.
“Why did you stay with her, then?”
“You didn’t want me,” said Mason. “You made that clear. Which was . . . hard, and I thought it might be easier if you were with someone else—the kind of full-stop that would keep me from getting carried away in my own head.”
“Lara,” I said.
“Low moment,” he conceded. “I really did just want her to be Cella’s friend at the start, but then everything got so twisted. I guess part of it was just me lashing out. With the whole vampire thing—I thought we were impossible. I was angry. Leave it to me to break the whole system.”
“You led Cella on, knowing,” I said. “That wasn’t fair to her.”
“It wasn’t fair to anyone.” Mason looked up with startling intent, pleading for me to understand. “You rejected me. Anyone else I could ever be with would be second best. So, what, I was supposed to be alone forever? I thought, if it was going to be anyone . . . I mean, she’s so . . .”
That part, I understood. Cella was pretty perfect.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to be with me because you thought you had to.
” His hands squeezed. “I still don’t. You aren’t obligated to do anything, okay?
You don’t need to love me right now, or ever.
There’s no binding statement in this. Kieran, I’m begging you—” He actually clasped his hands.
“Don’t let this change things. Ignore it. Pretend you never found out.”
I pulled his hands apart. “I can’t do that.”
Mason shut his eyes. I shut mine, too, and imagined myself stepping into his shoes, his worn beige Sambas. I imagined meeting your destiny and finding out he was nothing like you expected. To Mason, I was ruinous. And yet he always asked me to stay.
I got the feeling he was underselling his own situation. What would happen to him if I left? What became of a werewolf abandoned by their mate?
“I wish,” I said, “that you had a choice in all of this.”
“I felt that way, too, at first.”
“At first?”
“I was miserable when I realized. Sad as hell and pissed that all of the choices in my life had been made for me. But you do this thing, Kieran—you make me question everything. In every love story, mates find each other and fall together instantly. But you were a fight. I didn’t think it was worth it for a while.
Do you get what I’m saying? I had to choose to get past the fact that we’re natural enemies.
I chose to let myself look at you, and then I couldn’t look away.
And that’s not fate talking, okay. It’s because you’re captivating. ”
His words hung long enough that his mouth began to twist, wobbling into a resigned line. It didn’t suit him at all. Stunned, I could only think to say, “Mason. Do you love me?”
His face crumpled. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”
“Hey.” I skimmed my finger over his brow. It relaxed automatically. “You haven’t told me yet.”
He licked his lips. “Kieran.” He cleared his throat and spoke boldly despite the pounding I could hear in his chest. It was the same determination I’d seen when he first kissed me, and it was gorgeous.
“It’s selfish. I’m selfish. I can’t be mad that fate chose who I’d be with, not even on your behalf.
I’m . . . grateful for the soul bond. Without it, we would have hated each other forever.
I would’ve missed so much. I know it’s soon; I don’t expect you to say it back. ”
I didn’t let him finish. I couldn’t. I kissed Mason with everything I had. He choked it out anyway between breaths: “I love you.”
We had to break apart because I was laughing, quiet and a little hysterical. Mason looked nonplussed.
“This is insane,” I said, panting even though it had only been a moment. “You don’t have to, like, mark me, do you?”
Mason laughed a little too. He touched my face softly, so obviously relieved that my dead heart ached. “No, what? What books are you reading?”
“This is insane,” I repeated. “No wonder your blood smells so good.”
“That was real? I thought it was part of your whole, uh, vampiric seduction thing.”
“No. It was real.” All of it was real. “It should smell horrible; that’s how it works. But you smell like light. And like oranges, kind of.”
I sat up straighter in his lap. “Mason, will you be my boyfriend?”
Mason’s smile was mystified. “Didn’t we just do this?”
“I want you to get the chance,” I said. “To be asked, and to choose.”
His eyes melted like the chocolate in a s’more. “I would love to be your boyfriend.”
He lay against my chest, and I hugged his shoulders, resting my chin on top of his head.
“For the record,” he said, minutes later. “Even though mating bites are mega not a thing, we could totally . . . I mean. I don’t know if this has ever happened before. A fated vampire and werewolf. We could be the first.”
I hesitated. “You really want me to bite you.”
“Not if it’ll make you feel bad. Not if you don’t want to.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I admitted. “I don’t think it’ll feel bad, with you.”
“We’re afraid all the time. I brought us out here so we wouldn’t have to be for a little bit.
” He kissed the center of my chest. “It’s just, you have these wicked fangs.
They’re a defining part of you, and I think they’re beautiful.
But you never use them. I want to be the exception. I want us to be an exception.”
Beautiful. I had never once thought of them that way. I always forced them back, even alone in my room. But I had already broken every other rule for Mason. I was starting to think they were dumb rules.
“Just once,” I said. He nodded, trying to mask his excitement and doing a shit job. I took his hand and flipped over his wrist, studying the veins beneath his skin until his other hand moved to cover them.
“On my neck,” he said. My mouth watered. “Please.”
I cupped his face, leaning down slowly. His fingers slipped into my hair, soothing.
Kissing him, the storm clouds cleared from my mind; my head felt warm.
I moved tentatively from his mouth to his jaw, down his neck, taking a steadying pause when his pulse flooded my senses.
My fangs pushed out immediately. They barely touched his skin, but Mason’s whole form shuddered.
I tried out using my tongue, smoothing over the skin then sucking, delighted by his harsh breath.
One hand slid back into his hair, tugging at the nape to expose the curve of his neck, the bob of his Adam’s apple.
I kissed everywhere I could, studying his beautiful lines with lidded eyes.
Then, without warning, I sank my teeth in.
Mason let out a scream, muffled by clenched teeth. I nearly tore myself from him, but the noise quickly morphed into a sigh, and my body stilled all over. At the same time, the taste of him hit my tongue, and I couldn’t hold back a noise of my own.
His blood was syrupy, and hot, and unlike anything I’d ever tasted.
The first swallow wasn’t jarring like I’d always dreaded. It didn’t feel like drinking cattle blood, being suddenly flooded with disingenuous life. I hardly felt different at all.
I had already come alive long before the bite. Just being around Mason, sharing his air, made me real.
A strange electric energy warmed me to my fingertips. I didn’t know if it was from the blood or from Mason whimpering beneath me, these tiny, aborted sighs, pulling me flush against him.
I drank. Heat flooded from his body in waves. I wanted this forever in all five of my senses. His bass-drum pulse surrounded me, drowning out the world. There was nothing but this tent and this taste.
I didn’t want to stop.
Just one more sip . . . one more . . . one more . . .
The drumming began to slow.
Mason’s skin was warm beneath my lips, beating like a heart. I could feel it against my fingers, the life of him, so precious, cradled in my hands.