Chapter Nine
Lucien
I knew this mission to bring Isadora back home would somehow doom me. That damned seer had warned me. I had avoided the human realm for that very reason, and now my sister had delivered the very source of my suffering straight to me.
“Why does she have to look like that?” I demanded of the deer pinned beneath me.
It screamed and thrashed, desperate to be free, but I had it trapped—held firmly in place. Its beady black eye stared up at me, and within its dark abyss, her face appeared.
Those stormy eyes were a disaster I couldn’t escape from. My mate had a name: Melinda Hardgrave.
This mundane would not get the better of me. The bond was nothing but a weakness, one that bought more pain instead of anything worthwhile. Remembering the face of my newest source of daily torment did nothing to dull my hunger.
I let the beast inside me, the one that was driven by the lust for blood, take control. My head tilted back before striking like a viper with my fangs sinking in the deer’s flesh. Blood flooded my senses, washing her face from my mind, even if only for a moment.
The beast was displeased with the animal blood, but it drank greedily all the same—as hungrily as it would have from a fresh mundane.
When the blood ran out, so did the veil over the image of her in my mind.
She returned instantly, glaring at me—and somehow, that only made her more tempting.
She was a magnet to the beating organ in my chest, stronger than any woman had ever been before.
A magnetic force that pulled me in her direction, so certain that even now I knew I only had to run and I would find her.
“Stop it!” I slammed my fists against my temples, as if that alone would drive away the suffering.
I needed more blood. Maybe if I drank enough, I would be rid of this torture entirely. I could take Isadora home, and this town’s killer could help make Melinda disappear.
The snarl that tore from my throat at the thought of her dead body did not agree with my plan, but I would have to ignore it. Even if every instinct within me burned for her, I would freeze my heart to keep from giving into her.
A twig snapping to my right drew my attention, and I was already running before I could decipher what my next prey would be.
When I finally caught up to the animal, I found a doe—not as large as the last, but still bigger than a rabbit. I fed more slowly this time, savoring the blood and the blessed absence of thought.
I didn’t wipe the blood from my mouth when I finished, already searching for another target. Eventually, I lost track of my prey—and the time. Only then did I realize the sun had begun its slow return.
The sky was still black, but to the east, I could see the introduction of color to the night sky. Soft darkness morphing into purples and pinks. Soon there would be orange and gold, until the horizon was bathed in the gentle colors of the sunrise.
“I see you’ve left a trail of bodies like some untrained pet. Hungry, Lucien?”
Erie’s taunting voice drifted from above. She sat perched on a branch in a nearby tree. Her tone was too grating—almost too knowing—as if she understood the source of my plight. But that was impossible. Unless she had developed her twin’s knack for stalking from the shadows.
“Go play with your brother.”
“That doesn’t even work when my parents say it,” she replied, dropping lightly on the ground next to me. “You only throw this kind of tantrum when you’ve been denied something. What is it that you’ve been denied now?”
A peaceful life. I wanted to say it, but the words stayed lodged in my throat.
Instead, I gave her nothing and chose to ignore her.
Something I’m sure she was used to by now.
I turned away and began to make my way to a new part of the forest I hadn’t terrorized yet, but she followed me.
Hearing her steps with mine made me pause.
“Go away. I’m hunting.”
“You’ve been hunting for hours and left a trail to this exact location. How are you going to explain this to any humans that happen to stumble upon what you’ve done?”
“Fine. Then we find a mountain lion and dump it half -alive where I started. They’ll think it went feral and left the trail.”
“Or we could just dump the bodies in a carnivorous den. Feed a family and keep everything out of human sight?” Her idea sounded more rational. So rational it almost made sense.
Fuck. My brain is all scrambled. I can’t even form a proper plan. Why was she here? Why did my mate have to be here?
“Mate!” Erie’s screech could have reached a satellite orbiting the Earth. I clamped my hands over my ears, wincing as the ringing set in. She didn’t care in the slightest, tearing one of my hands away just to continue shouting. “You found your mate? Who is she?”
“Stop screeching like some creature and get the hell off me,” I snapped, shoving her off of me with a huff. The force sent her higher than the ground and further than the tree she had been in before.
She flew back up into the tree, managing to catch herself and take a seat back on another branch. My jaw tightened. “You have to keep this secret. I know you can. You’ve done it for Isadora many times.”
“Now it all makes sense as to why you haven’t bothered to visit Isadora. I would have thought you’d reach her before me, but I managed to even claim a room in the house before you even stepped onto the grass.”
“I knew where she would end up as soon as I knew her destination. Agatha’s house is the only place she would be safe. But I heard of her death, and I saw it for myself. It was easy enough once I snuck into their morgue.”
I had been busy trying to not think about Melinda Hardgrave, but it was like the distance was making it harder.
Seeing Agatha’s body confirmed that it wasn’t a hunter who had done it.
But it also wasn’t random. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing and thus knew exactly what she was.
They knew leaving the stake in her chest would prolong her suffering, and that removing it meant she would have died much quicker.
Boiling down to one thing. “Someone in this town knows too much.”
“I have picked up many different scents here—werewolf, pixie, witch, and even Weaver.”
“Interesting that a Weaver would choose a town like this. But I know this killing is only the bringing to many more. It didn’t seem sloppy. Whoever killed our grandmother did it with intent.”
“I’ll go warn the others, but you should make an appearance at some point. You’re going to kill Isadora with anxiety before your father can do it upon our return. If we return.”
She didn’t wait for a response. Erie vanished before I could even look at her to respond.
Alone with my thoughts, I decided to haul the bodies of my prey to a nearby wolf den to enjoy. It was meant to busy me, but in the end, I found myself standing in her bedroom.
The reckless idiot had left her window open—wide enough for anyone to climb through. All it would take was a ladder, and something told me that everyone in this town owned at least one. She slept without fear of what lurked outside. That alone worried me.
Her dark hair was splayed across her pillow, coils of her natural curls draped over her face. Her nose twitched as the strands grazed it, her brows tightening at the irritation even in sleep.
I walked closer. My hand lifted before I could stop it, reaching towards her as her irritation flooded my own body. This damn bond. Another downside I was not interested in discovering was her emotions battling my own every day. Why would I care what she felt? Or when she felt it?
I brushed the hair from her face, giving her relief—and myself a chance to touch her without seeing a glare on her face. She looked…softer like this. She was approachable when she didn’t look like she wanted to kill me and mount me on a wall like some trophy.
Her skin was soft, begging to be caressed and I let my fingers trace the outline of her face. My restraint still managed to hold true with our close proximity.
It wasn’t until I was trapped by the way her lips formed words in her dreams that I retreated from her side. Each step away was harder than the next but I somehow made it to the dresser across from her bed.
There I turned away from her sleeping form and distracted myself with the clutter behind me. Books were stacked haphazardly across the dresser, some piled on top of one another, others held between makeshift bookends.
A familiar title caught my attention–one that had been a hot topic for a time back home. The story followed some boring, painfully ordinary mundane woman who somehow managed to attract the attention of a handsome vampire. The same fantasy mundanes always devoured.
Of course she would have it too.
I picked it up. At the very least, it would pass the time.
I retreated back into the forest where I had been before, using its solitude to read the books I had taken. It was a challenge, but I managed to finish the first installment before she left the house for the day.
Her scent was carried with the summer wind, tugging me from the tree I was draped across before I consciously decided to move.
Towards where she was. I noticed her father didn’t follow her immediately, watching from the screen door as she made her way towards the barn.
I would’ve broken the tree line and revealed myself had a small sound at my feet not drawn my attention downward and halted my steps.
The source was a rabbit crouched beneath the brush, trembling at my presence hard enough to stir the leaves around it. The rustling brush caught her attention immediately. She moved directly in my direction. Then she shouted, the sound startling me more than it should have.
This feral creature was my mate?
I snatched the rabbit from the ground, sinking my teeth into it and ending its life before she could appear. I knew she was there, but I didn’t dare expose my location.
Was it normal to be a little frightened of your mate?
Or was that simply the effect Melinda had on those around her?
In the grand scheme of power, I knew I could end her life here and now, but my fangs wouldn’t listen. Even with fresh blood coating my tongue, they refused to descend in her presence.
I was a stalker.
No, I was worse than a stalker. Stalkers were obsessed with getting closer to their targets, while I desired nothing more than to be rid of mine. At least, most of me did. There was still the part inhabited by the bond. That part had turned her into an obsession against my will.
With the women back in Shadowhaven, effort had never been required once they saw my gold eyes. This one neither feared them nor lusted after what they symbolized. Instead, she looked at me the same way Isadora sometimes did: cold and venomous, like any proper she-devil.
Except, this wasn’t a she-devil.
This was my mate.
The woman I had watched sleep and had stolen from within the same hour. And now, I was hiding in the woods with a dead rabbit in my hands, not because I needed food, but because I was trying not to get caught.
She must’ve given up on searching for the rabbit or trying to discover who had disturbed the plant life. Her scent still lingered, but the heat of her presence had been replaced by a different warmth that belonged to the summer. It wasn’t as welcoming, but it scorched my body all the same.
The change invited me to peer around the tree trunk and watch her retreating figure. My eyes couldn’t help but stray from the swing of her hair to the sway of her hips.
My hands flexed at my sides, and I knew if the bond wasn’t enough to hook me on her, her body would be.
There had been a time when I thought the Unseelie were the most irresistible, but this one was in a league all her own.
At least my mate wasn’t horrific to look at, because if she had been, I would already be on my way back home.
Isadora would complain the whole way back, but I would take that torture over this one.
Turning away, I fled from my mate and the pull that threatened to strip me of my autonomy.
The rabbit in my hand was forgotten, until I caught the scent of the last remnants of blood that leaked from the wound.
I felt as it fell onto my skin, as lifeless and pathetic as the prey it came from.
The sticky crimson wasn’t distracting. If anything, it almost grounded me, reminding me what I was.
A monster.
One ravaged by hunger—for blood, for death and now for Melinda.
The latter was beginning to stir even the monster within me. I felt it gnawing at my heart, unrelenting as it begged to return to her intoxicating presence. The creature within had smelled her, touched her and felt her—and now it wanted more.
So much more.
My cock hardened at the thought of touching her again.
Not with gentle, sweet caresses, but with conquest. My mark would bless every part of her.
My bite would serve as my mark, and the screams I would draw from her from dusk till dawn would be proof of how she was mine.
where my mark would bless every part of her.
Fuck.
I stopped to look down at my pants, where the evidence of how terribly she had already claimed me pressed painfully against the dark denim.
She must be a witch the way she has cursed me. I doubt I could respond to a siren’s song now.
Melinda Hardgrave—my own personal curse, designed to torment me and pleasure me in equal measure.