Chapter 5
Elias
Three days.
Seventy-two hours since I'd let Talin Moss walk out of The Purple Fang without stopping her. Since I'd convinced myself distance was the right call, the smart play, the only way to maintain the control I'd spent over a century perfecting.
I counted the bottles behind the bar. Again.
The numbers never changed. The arrangement stayed perfect. Clean lines. Proper order. Everything in its designated place.
Everything except the restless thing clawing at my chest.
I exhaled.
I should stay away from her.
"You've cleaned that glass four times."
Jamal's voice cut through my concentration. I glanced down at the tumbler in my hand, polished to a shine that could've blinded someone. Set it down. Picked up another.
"Just being thorough."
"You reorganized the entire stock room yesterday." He leaned against the bar, studying me with those too-knowing eyes. "Twice."
"It needed it."
"The bottles were already alphabetized by type and grouped by region."
I didn't answer. Didn't need to. We both knew what I was doing. I was throwing myself into routine, into the mindless repetition that usually brought me some sense of peace. The familiar rhythm that kept the chaos of my thoughts at bay.
It wasn't working.
Nothing had worked since she'd walked out that door. Since I'd watched her disappear into the night, her green eyes haunted and her power still crackling in the air between us.
"She hasn't been back," Jamal guessed quietly.
My hand tightened on the glass. "That's okay. That's good."
"Liar."
I shot him a look. Even flashed my fangs. "Drop it."
He raised his hands in mock surrender but didn't move. "Angel says Talin's been holed up in her apartment. Trying to have visions on her own. She thinks she's being secretive about it, but all the witches know."
Everything in me went still.
Wrong. That was wrong. Her power was too unstable, too raw. She needed—
No.
I forced myself to breathe. To set down the glass with deliberate care. To keep my voice even. "Not my problem."
"Right." Jamal pushed off the bar. "You go ahead and keep telling yourself that."
My temper flared to life. "She knows where I fucking am. Why is this witch my problem, Jamal?"
He stared at me for a long moment. "Yeah, man. You're right. It's not your issue."
When he'd left me alone with the bottles and the glasses and the pristine order I'd built around myself like armor, I went back to counting. Organizing. Cleaning surfaces that didn't need it.
Anything to avoid thinking about how I'd failed her. How I should've been helping her track down Alex, because finding him would save Kenya. And Kenya mattered to Jamal. To Killian. To Dae-Jung. To Brogan. Which meant she should've mattered to me. And she did, dammit.
My hands were steady. My routine was perfect.
And the itchiness under my skin kept growing.
I threw the towel down with more force than necessary and braced my hands against the bar's edge. My reflection stared back at me from the polished surface, every line of my body screaming with tension I couldn't release.
This was good, though. The distance was good. Necessary.
When I couldn't take it anymore, I shoved away from the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the shelf, just to have something to do with my hands so I'd stop thinking about how close her mouth had been to mine.
How badly I'd wanted to taste her. How every instinct I possessed had screamed mine even as my brain shouted warnings about chaos and loss of control.
I was a vampire who'd survived over a century by maintaining iron discipline. By keeping everything in its place. By never letting emotions override logic.
Talin Moss was the fucking antithesis of everything I'd built my existence around.
She was unpredictable. Chaotic. Her power fluctuated wildly, her emotions bled through every carefully constructed wall she tried to build, and being near her made me feel like I was standing in the eye of a fucking hurricane.
I should stay away from her.
I should stay the fuck away from her.
So why did my entire body reject that idea with a violence that left me shaking?
The front door opened, and my head snapped up with a speed that would've alarmed me if I'd had any attention left for self-awareness. I knew it was her immediately. I felt her presence like a shift in air pressure. I smelled her clean, herbal scent that made the back of my throat burn with thirst.
Talin stumbled through the entrance, and my chest constricted so hard I couldn't breathe.
She was stunningly gorgeous. And she looked like hell.
Pale skin stretched too tight over her sharp cheekbones. Dark circles shadowed those striking green eyes, making them seem too large for her face. Her black hair hung in lank strands around her shoulders, and her hands trembled as she pushed the door closed behind her.
But it was the way her magic felt that sent ice through my veins.
Messy. Fractured. It crawled over my skin like a thousand threads trying to pull in different directions at once, tearing her apart from the inside out.
"Talin." Her name came out rougher than I'd intended as I moved around the bar with vampire speed. "What the hell happened to you?"
She flinched at my approach but didn't back away.
"I need..." Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard.
"I tried to work alone. Tried to follow the threads without.
.." Her gaze found mine, and the raw vulnerability in those green depths nearly brought me to my knees.
"Without you. I didn't want to use you, Elias. But it's not working."
Something primal and possessive surged through my chest. Of course she can't. Because we're—
No. I was NOT fucking going there.
"You look like you're about to collapse." I reached for her arm, and the moment my fingers made contact with her skin, everything changed.
Her magic settled.
Not completely. Not perfectly. But the wild, tearing sensation smoothed into something more controlled. More focused. Like a radio signal that had been nothing but static suddenly finding its frequency.
A grateful sob burst from her as her eyes widened on mine, and I knew she felt it too. "Elias..."
"Don't." I pulled my hand back like she'd burned me, even though my palm still tingled from the contact. Even though every cell in my body screamed at me to touch her again. "Don't say it."
"Why not?" Her exhaustion was giving way to something sharper. Anger, maybe. Or perhaps frustration. Whatever it was, it pretty much matched the way I was feeling at that moment. "We both know what this is."
"We don't know anything." I turned away from her, putting the bar between us like the polished wood could somehow protect me from the truth. "You're tired. Your power's unstable. That doesn't mean—"
"Fate. The mate bond." She spit the words at me like a curse. Like an accusation. "That's what you won't say, isn't it?"
Every muscle in my body went rigid. "Careful," I growled.
"Why?" She stepped closer. Reckless. Fearless. "What are you afraid I'll say? That every time I try to use my power without you, it tears me apart? That I can feel you even when you're not near?"
My fangs punched down. I couldn't help it. "Stop."
"Or what?" Another step. Her heartbeat thundered in my ears. "You'll finally admit what this is between us? That we're connected whether we want to be or not?"
I spun to face her, fangs flashing as my control slipped. "It can't mean anything."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't do this!" The words exploded out of me with a force that surprised us both. "I don't do unpredictability and feelings that make me want to tear my own skin off. I don't do losing control."
"And I don't do needing people!" She slammed her hands on the bar. "I don't do being dependent or weak or—" Her voice broke. "Or being someone's burden."
The pain in those last words cut through my anger like a blade, and my emotions switched on a dime with the usual vampire speed. "You think that's what you are? A burden?"
"What else would I be?" The pain in her eyes nearly brought me to my knees.
"The witch whose power only works when there's a vampire nearby to stabilize her?
The one who needs you to function? The mate you don't want…
" She stopped. Took a step back. Lowered her voice.
"That sure as hell sounds like a burden to me. "
"That's not—" I searched for words that wouldn't reveal too much. Wouldn't make me any more vulnerable than I already felt. "That's not how I see you."
"Then how do you see me, Elias?" She leaned across the bar, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her green eyes.
Close enough to count the freckles scattered across her nose.
Demanding the truth from me. "Because from where I'm standing, this feels like one more way I'm broken. One more thing that's wrong with me."
"Nothing is wrong with you." I insisted, my anger returning.
"Really?" Her fingers moved to the buttons of her vest, and my entire body went rigid. "Because I think we both know what happens when the fantasy wears off. When you actually see—"
"Stop." I reached across the bar and caught her wrists before she could undo another button. "Just... stop." I didn't know what she was doing, and I didn't want to.
We froze like that, my hands wrapped around her wrists. My thumbs stroked across the inside of her wrists, feeling her pulse jump at the contact. The air between us grew charged, electric, like lightning waiting to strike.
"I can't do this," I said, but I didn't let go. Couldn't let go. "I can't be what you need."
"Why not?" Her voice had gone quiet. Dangerous. "Give me one good reason."