Chapter 6 #2
Because the truth was, without Elias, my power was out of control.
Without his steadying presence, I was tearing myself apart trying to use abilities I barely understood.
I followed the threads without knowing what I was doing, and it cost me.
I felt it in the tremors that wouldn't stop, in the way my magic kept sparking erratically, in the headache that was still building behind my eyes like a storm.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.
Finally, I grabbed it.
Six missed texts from Kenya. My stomach dropped.
Talin, please tell me you're okay. Elias just barged into my room looking like he's seen a ghost. What happened?
I stared at the message. What was I supposed to say? That I let her coven-mate bite me during a makeout session? That I was now apparently fated to a vampire who ran away the second he realized what I was to him?
That I was falling apart without him near me and I hated myself for it?
I typed out a response.
I'm fine. Just need some space.
The lie was automatic. Easy. I'd been telling versions of it my whole life.
Kenya responded immediately.
Are you sure? I can come over. We can talk.
I almost laughed. Talk about what? About how I was defective? About how the universe had decided to play a cruel joke by giving me a mate who was everything I'd ever wanted and nothing I could keep?
Not now. Working on finding Alex
.
At least that part was true. Sort of.
Kenya sent three more texts, but I silenced my phone and tossed it aside. I couldn't deal with her right then. Couldn't deal with anyone.
I tried to distract myself with normal things around my apartment, but nothing worked.
No matter what I did, I was hyperaware of the silver thread. It was like having an itch I couldn't scratch or a song stuck in my head. A constant reminder that somewhere across the city, Elias existed.
And he wasn't here.
By three in the morning, I was back to pacing.
The threads in my apartment were going haywire, flickering and sparking every time I passed through them.
My power was leaking out, uncontrolled, responding to my emotional state, and I was trying really hard not to panic. It had never been this bad before.
I pressed my hand to my chest, right over where the vest covered my scar, and tried to ground myself. Tried to find some center of calm.
Instead, I felt the mate bond pull. Not just a tug this time. A yank.
Something was wrong with Elias.
The knowledge hit me with absolute certainty. I could feel it even through the fresh bond. Pain. Confusion. Need. He was hurting. Struggling. Just like I was.
And despite everything, despite my fear and my self-loathing and my certainty that this could only end badly, I wanted to go to him.
I wanted to go to him so badly it physically hurt.
I lasted exactly fifteen more minutes before I broke.
Then I was grabbing my coat and I was out the door.
The streets were empty this time of night—morning, really.
The sky was still dark, but there was that quality to the air that said dawn wasn't far off.
I should have been exhausted. Should have been stumbling with fatigue after letting him feed from me and then using my power so recklessly.
Instead, I was wired. Electric. Every nerve ending singing with the need to find him as I walked back the way I'd came.
I didn't have to wonder where he was. The mate bond led me like a compass pointing north.
Killian's house sat in the French Quarter, tucked behind wrought-iron gates and a courtyard tangled with magnolias.
I'd only been here once before, when the vampire coven first started coordinating with my family about Alex.
It was beautiful in that old New Orleans way.
All Creole columns, brick facades, and two-story galleries with deep shadows that hid the ghosts of people who used to live there.
I hesitated at the gate. This was stupid. This was so incredibly stupid. I should turn around. Go home. Deal with this like an adult instead of showing up at a vampire's door at four in the morning because I could feel his distress through a bond neither of us wanted.
The silver thread yanked again, and I was through the gate before I could talk myself out of it.
Kenya answered the door before I even knocked, like she'd been waiting. Her brown eyes were worried behind her glasses, and there was a tightness around her mouth that made my stomach drop.
"Is he—"
"Upstairs," she says softly. "Third door on the left. He won't talk to any of us."
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and slipped past her into the house, the hair raising on the back of my neck as I entered this den of predators.
The hallway upstairs was dark except for a sliver of light under one door. Third on the left. I stood there for a long moment, hand raised to knock, heart hammering against my ribs.
What was I doing? What was I supposed to say? "Hey, I know we both freaked out when you bit me, but I could feel you falling apart through this mate bond and it was making me fall apart too, so could we maybe talk about it?"
The door swung open and Elias stood there, staring down at me.
His shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open to reveal the lean muscle of his chest. His dark hair was disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it. But it was his eyes that gutted me. Dark and wild and filled with something that looked dangerously close to desperation.
He breathed in deep, and I knew he was scenting me, just like I knew he'd known it was me at the door. "You shouldn't be here, little witch."
"Yeah, well." I crossed my arms, trying to hide how badly my hands were shaking. "You shouldn't be broadcasting emotional distress through a mate bond I didn't ask for, so I guess we're both having a bad night."
Something flashed in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or recognition. He stepped back from the door, and I took it as an invitation and followed him into the room.
His space was exactly what I'd expected. Immaculate. Everything in its place. The bed was made with military precision. Books were arranged by height on the shelves. Even the bourbon bottle on the nightstand was centered perfectly on a coaster.
Except there was a pile of broken glass in the corner. And scratch marks on the wall near the window. And his knuckles were bleeding.
"What happened?" I asked, even though I already knew. The bond had happened. The realization had happened. The same spiral I'd been in for the past few hours.
"I broke some things." He didn't look at me. "I'll clean it up."
Of course he would. Because that was what he did. He cleaned and organized and controlled everything around him because it was the only way he knew how to function.
"Elias—"
"I tasted you." The agony in his voice ripped through me. "I tasted your blood and I knew, and I—" He broke off, jaw clenching. "I ran. I ran like a coward because I couldn't—I didn't—"
I cut off his excuses. "I could feel you. Through the bond. You were hurting."
Something shifted in his expression. Softened and sharpened all at once. "You were hurting too. I felt it. Felt you trying to use your power alone and tearing yourself apart."
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
I touched the skin below my nose, and my fingers came away red. I hadn't even noticed. The bleeding must have started again while I was walking over. "I'm sorry. I didn't notice."
Elias moved before I could process it. Vampire speed. One second he was across the room, and the next he was right in front of me with that hunger in his eyes, tilting my chin up with gentle fingers.
"You pushed too hard," he said, and there was an edge of anger in his voice that I didn't understand. "Without me there to ground you, you pushed too hard and you hurt yourself."
"I had to keep trying to find Alex—"
"Not like this." His thumb brushed across my cheek, and it felt wet. More blood? Or tears? "Never like this."
The touch sent electricity through me and the mate bond flared bright and hot. Suddenly I could feel everything he was feeling. The fear. The need. The overwhelming desire to protect me mixed with the certainty that he was going to fail.
He deserved better.
"Stop," he whispered.
"Stop what?"
"Stop thinking you're not enough."