Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Landon
Meridith’s delighted scream cut straight through me. I leaned against the hallway threshold, my hands shoved in the pockets of my slacks, trying to keep the same stoic expression I nearly always wore. Joshua smiled, pulling his daughter into his side and kissing the top of her head.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, just loud enough I could hear it. She flushed with his compliment and hugged him back.
“You got it! Oh my gosh! You got it!” She hugged Harlowe close exactly how I wanted to, how I did until my idiocy yesterday. She pulled the bag and looked at the small mementos Harlowe’s friends had gotten to symbolize the internship. “You’re going to France!”
Harlowe smiled, but it didn’t quite touch her eyes. It seemed like I was the only one who noticed. Because I’d been the one to put the melancholy undertone there in the first place? Or because she was my blood mate?
I didn’t know. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know, honestly.
The rest of the large friend group surrounded them, crowding in until I couldn’t see Harlowe at all expect the flash of her bright red hair through the mass of limbs.
Miles Brown somehow managed to get to her first, pulling her into a hug that she clearly didn’t want.
I had to swallow the growl that wanted to rip through me.
“What has gotten into you? You’re more high strung than a damn tight rope act.” Joshua asked without preamble, crossing the space. “You look like you’re preparing to be staked for you crimes.”
Yeah, well, it was only a matter of time until the whole situation came out.
I shrugged and shoved my hands in my pockets.
Miles touched Harlowe’s elbow. Again. He never kept his damn hands off of her.
My nails lengthened into claws, and I fisted them to keep from ripping up my slacks.
Bloody hell, I needed to get out of here, needed to see literally anything but that wanker of a vampire flirt with Harlowe the entire damn holiday.
I turned away from the entire group of them, heading deeper into the cabin.
Joshua followed, a silent wraith behind me.
The moment we were in his office, he closed the door and flipped the lock. When I turned back to him, his arms were crossed and he leaned back against he door, his gaze wary where he observed me.
“She has bites,” he said without preamble.
I didn’t bother to deny it. It was obvious it had to be me. We were literally stuck here for the last two days.
“You know I won’t hold it against you. She’s an adult, and you were without other options.” His eyes flicked red for a heartbeat. “Stop freaking out that I’m going to stake you over needing to feed.”
“That’s not the reason,” I groused.
He dropped into that deceptively patient quiet, the one he used to lure in the idiots who were barely adults and thought they were above the ethics code of the clan. Idiots like Miles fucking Brown last year.
“It… wasn’t just a feeding,” I finally admitted.
It took a moment for the words to process.
All at once, the air grew charged with a violent undercurrent.
Joshua’s eyes flashed bright red as his lips pulled away from his fangs in a lethal, silent snarl.
He struck before I could prepare for it.
The sound registered before the pain, and then blood was flowing down my face.
My eyes watered as I cradled my now-broken nose.
Joshua was already pulling back for another strike.
While I believed I deserved every single one, I shot my hand out and grabbed his wrist. Meridith would kill us both if we stained the carpet in here, no matter it was technically Joshua’s preferred study and not hers.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered.
Joshua’s snarl was unearthly, full of promised violence.
I’d harmed his child, and he would kell me for it.
He ripped out of my hold and then moved faster than I’d ever seen in our decades of friendship.
One moment my nails were sharpening into his wrists, tiny drops of blood welling beneath them, and then the next my cheek was pressed against the mahogany wood of his desk, both my arms pinned to the small of my back.
My nose had stopped bleeding, at least.
“Goddamn it, Joshua.” I tried to push out of his hold, but his grip only tightened.
And then he was digging through one of the desk drawers.
I didnt need to see the flash of light wood to know where his thoughts had gone.
My stomach clenched as fear tightened my throat. “Give me two seconds to explain.”
“You have one,” he growled.
“We’re Fated.”
Just saying it was a relief. She was mine just like I was hers, down to every last unworthy cell within my own body.
He froze, not even breathing. The stake flashed in my vision for a heartbeat, and I tried to prep myself for it, tried to keep the feel of Harlowe wrapped around me—her body draped over mine as she shivered with aftershocks—the last thought that would be in my mind when he did it.
I knew when I first tasted her, when I let it escalate to more than just that needed sustenance, Joshua would kill me.
But, bloody hell, I needed one more time with her, one more laugh and kiss and knowing look.
I needed to be with her when she moved to France.
I needed to tell her I wanted everything with her even if I was the biggest downgrade of her life.
The truth of that settled in my bones. All of the worries, the very real reasons why I shouldn’t tie her to me, should allow her to find someone else, fell away.
Goddamn it, she was mine. Not just her blood, but her body and her soul, too.
We matched, and I needed to see her accomplish everything she desired.
“Fated?” Joshua’s voice hadn’t lost the violent edge. “You’re sure?”
I snarled at the implication he thought I would lie about something so sacred to our kind.
“Without a doubt. Fated aren’t something I would ever lie about, and you damn well know it.”
“Shit.”
His hold on my wrists disappeared. I carefully righted myself, wiping away the worst of the blood from my lips and chin with my already ruined shirt.
Joshua eased the stake back into the drawer of the desk.
And then, without a word, he pressed against both sides of my nose, setting the cartilage before it could heal crooked.
“That makes three since the last time I’ve broken yours,” I said dryly. “You owe me a couple.”
He raised an eyebrow and then flicked the almost-healed bridge of my nose. I hissed in pain.
“You fucked my daughter,” he said, anger still threaded through his voice. His eyes flashed red for a heartbeat. “You’re lucky it’s only a broken nose, jackass.”
True.
A tense silence fell between us, the dynamic a horrid tension I despised. It was Joshua who finally broke it.
“So what are your plans? She’s moving to France in a little over a month for that internship.
” He crossed his arms and leaned against the desk, unconcerned with the blood seeping into his pants.
“And I will tell you this right now. If you think you’re going to convince her to turn down that opportunity and stay here for you, I will use that stake, Fated with my daughter or not. She’s worked hard to get this chance.”
“Who the hell do you think I am?” Anger lit my veins.
He really thought I would make her give up her dreams?
It’s not like I needed my job. I had investments to last entire lifetimes at this point.
The job just kept me busy, monetized at least one of my hobbies.
“I’ll follow her wherever she wants to go. If she’ll have me.”
“If she’ll have you,” he said slowly. He pursed his lips and then frowned. “You haven’t talked about it?”
“We… I mean, I meant to. She was nervous that you were all getting here. I thought calming her down first would help. I—” I swallowed the word, skipping over me eating her out in the kitchen to get her anxiety under control enough to even attempt a conversation about it.
Joshua’s eyes flashed in understanding anyway, that muscle ticking in his neck.
“I don’t want to know, Landon.”
I groaned and dropped into one of the chairs.
“She heard you guys laughing outside, and all the nerves came back. She asked me a point blank question and I… panicked,” I said roughly. “Since then, it’s not like there’s been a lot of opportunities to have a secluded conversation.”
He pursed his lips and crossed his ankles, looking at the ground. His hand picked at the edge of the desk. “You panicked? How bad?”
The memory of Harlowe splayed over the counter, her cheek pressed to the cold stone, her body trembling from the aftershocks of the orgasm I’d wrung from her, filled my mind. Her quiet question, my damning silence. My idiotic retreat.
My stomach twisted.
“Really fucking bad.”
There was another long stretch of silence, but it felt different. This wasn’t Joshua’s anger brewing. This was him focusing, thinking through all the possibilities of whatever problem he’d been presented. After a while, he sighed.
“You want my opinion?”
I tilted my head back. “You’re going to give it regardless.”
“Fair.” His chuckle was dark. “Look, it’s not just because she’s my daughter that I’m telling you this, okay?”
I raised an eyebrow and stretched my neck. My throat was starting to burn with renewed thirst, the healing process taking its toll. It hadn’t burned at all since the first time I’d tasted Harlowe’s strawberry blood. Damn, I’d forgotten what it was like to not have to feed everyday.
“Harlowe’s going to need a big gesture,” Joshua continued, cutting through my thoughts. “It’s just how she is. Being a non-vampire-presenting dhampir is hard in a clan, and her gift doesn’t make it any easier.”
I growled at that. No, being a reader didn’t make her fitting in any easier, but it didn’t stop my anger that she lived on the fringes of most groups. Joshua raised an eyebrow, and I forced myself to settle.
“You know her gift now, I assume?” he asked.
When I nodded, he sighed. “Right. Look. She doesn’t need a stage or anything.
But you’re going to have to do this with other people in the room if you panicked hard.
She’ll need the commitment a public gesture insinuates, the feeling that you won’t renege later on. ”
Renege later on.
Fuck, that’s exactly what I’d done yesterday. Freaked out, froze, and then didn’t give her the same agreement I’d give her the previous night. God, I was shit at relationships.
“All right,” I said, agreeing easily. Whatever it took for her to listen to me after I left her in the kitchen. “Know anyone who could get me the pendant here in time?”
Blood rubies were a bitch to get hold of. This wasn’t going to be cheap in the best of circumstances. But Fated were worth it.
Joshua heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, but you’re not allowed to bitch at me about it.”