Chapter 23
LEAH
“The vampire is keeping something from me.”
“Like what?” Karina stares at me across the sun-drenched front porch.
The vines that twine around the porch columns are blooming, just like they do before every Halloween.
The blossoms are fat and purple and laden with pollen.
The October air is crisp and smells like damp earth, even in the sunshine.
I’m on the swing in my sweats. She’s in the rocking chair.
I’m finally having the morning coffee I envisioned when I bought my porch furniture, but the coffee is more of a lifeline today than a pleasure.
My head is fuzzy and my body is heavy. I ate three eggs for breakfast, and it took me an hour to make everything.
I kept forgetting where I put the spatula.
I take a bracing sip from my mug. Here goes. Karina is gonna freak. I’m a fallen slayer. “He fed from me. Last night.” I leave out nearly dying for the moment, because Karina is liable to blow something up if she feels protective, and I need her to focus.
Her mouth drops open. “And? How was it?”
I dart a glance in the direction of the stairs, like the vampire is going to come barreling down them.
“Good,” I whisper. “Better than good.” I shut my eyes briefly so I can avoid Karina’s wide-eyed gaze.
“Really, really good and I definitely don’t want to talk about it because it’s not happening again.
” My brain keeps circling back to last night.
The unexpected pleasure of Marcus’s bite, but more than that, his apologies later, his gentleness. The unexpected connection.
“We’ll see about that.” Karina gives me a knowing smile. “Once you go fang, you need it when you bang.”
I squint at her. “No one says that.”
“I’m going to start.” She shrugs.
I lean over and poke her with my toe. “Ignore all that. I felt him.”
She wags her brows. “I mean obviously. Was it big or was it—”
“Not like that. I felt him in my head. I felt his…pleasure.” I nearly swallow the word, but I rush on. “Like a feedback loop between us.”
She straightens. She’s all business when it comes to weird magical stuff. Or books. The girl loves a book. “The spell shouldn’t do that. I did some research and it should be fading already, not strengthening. Anything else?”
“His brother said something weird.”
“You met his brother?”
I grimace. “Met. Fought. Was wounded by.”
“Shit.” Her eyes start to glow.
“Don’t set my porch on fire.”
“Sorry.” She takes another sip of coffee. “So?”
I grimace. “He’s strong. Really fucking strong. But he made comments about Marcus not deserving me. About taking me from him. Half the argument was in Latin, but I heard enough to be suspicious. Marcus isn’t telling me something.”
Karina’s eyes narrow. “I don’t like it.”
I don’t either. My brain has been turning it over all morning, and I’ve come to one conclusion. “What do you know about vampires’ mates?” Saying the word makes my pulse skip.
Karina sucks in air. “You think? I mean, it would be…”
“Terrible,” I finish quietly. Even if the biting wasn’t terrible at all.
Her brows go up. “I was going to say interesting.”
“I can’t be his mate. I swore an oath to kill his kind.
He’s a vampire. What if I have to kill his friend?
What if he snaps one day? Age makes them do that.
What if he drains someone? What if I have to kill him?
” I shake my head at the impossibility of it.
“There’s no way anything like that ends well. ”
My friend’s expression turns thoughtful. “I mean, I don’t like men either, but mates…Leah, maybe it’s worth a shot. Mates are rare in our world, even if it would be one-sided. It’s a treasured thing.”
I lean forward. Saying all this feels like pressing on a bruise. “Can you imagine him living here? Waiting for me when I get home from a long night of slaying his kind?”
Karina’s mouth twists. Her eyes are sad.
“Exactly. No matter how good it was between us, Marcus and I will never be anything.”
Karina sighs. “Fine. Assuming you are mates, there are ways to know.”
“The bond?”
She nods and sips her coffee. “My cousin is mated to a vampire. You know my Uncle Devin’s oldest?”
I nod. Karina has something like seventy cousins, and they get together once or twice a year for a family reunion when they do big magic. Divination, protection spells for the town, that sort of thing. They invite me for the feast part before the magic starts.
“They can communicate through the bond. Telepathically. He can feel when she needs him.” Karina widens her eyes in emphasis on the word need.
“Needs him…like sexually?”
She nods. “It’s a feeding thing. Designed to make the mate more receptive. If you’re turned on, he’ll know.”
No way in hell am I doing that. “Anything else?”
“He’ll always know when you’re in danger.”
I smile. I know it’s vicious, because her eyes widen. “You’re going to try it?”
The irritation that’s been simmering all morning pulses beneath my skin. “If he’s been lying to me, I’m going to stake him to my wall for decoration.”