12. Bastian
CHAPTER TWELVE
BASTIAN
B astian felt fairly sure he was losing his mind.
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten Isolde was a Vampire—no, after last night, he was still very much aware of the fact. He hadn’t suddenly decided he liked her, either. She was bossy and meddlesome and asked far too many questions that Bastian had no interest in answering.
But the minute he’d collided with her in the forest last night—the very instant he’d scented the blood soaking her clothes, the sheer terror seeping from her pores…
The need to protect her, to calm her, to chase that look of pain and fear off her face, had been completely irresistible. It had been primal, even, his most base instincts screaming at him to make her safe .
Bastian would have dressed her wound and talked her down from her panic no matter what, but it had been the primal need that drove him to blurt out that ridiculous comment— I have to admit, I like the sound of that word on your tongue. It was also what had made him offer to let her feed.
It had felt like the most natural thing in the world, offering up his vein to her. Curling his fingers around her nape and guiding her mouth to his neck felt right .
The feeling of her fangs sinking into his throat… that sharp bite of pain, followed by the gentle caress of her lips as she drew his blood into her mouth… Hell, Bastian had never felt anything like it.
The next thing he knew, she was slipping into his lap, the soft heat of her center pressed to his rapidly hardening cock as she writhed against him.
Then she’d pulled her mouth away from his neck and murmured those words against his skin— You taste so fucking good— and he’d erupted.
Nothing but the feel of her body against his, layers of clothes between them, and those words on her lips…
He’d come in his pants, for fuck’s sake.
The worst part was, try as he might to blame it on the venom , as she called it, his physical reaction to her had had very little to do with that.
A pleasant warmth had spread through him as she fed, yes, but it felt no different than the fuzzy burn of a glass of whiskey. Based on Isolde’s explanation, he’d assumed there was going to be some great, all consuming arousal, completely and utterly undeniable.
While he’d certainly felt that, it wasn’t much different than what he’d felt on Burning Night, when he’d first had her in his arms.
And the taste of her…
It had been one thing to not be able to get the scent of her off his skin, but the lingering taste of her on his tongue was much, much worse.
They’d gotten carried away last night, but it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t. Despite what he’d said about his reasons for hating her, Isolde was still a Vampire, and he was still a Wolf. There could be nothing between them.
Bastian clung to that thought as he hammered away at the blade of a shortsword.
He had to force himself to think of anything but the way her silvery hair spilled across the arm of his settee, or the slender length of bare thigh that had slipped out from beneath the blanket he’d draped over her.
She still slept upstairs, and Bastian could only pray that she put her damn trousers back on before he had to see her again.
Thoroughly occupied with keeping his mind from wandering back to Isolde’s thighs or her taste or the feel of her lips on his neck, he didn’t hear the shop door open behind him.
“What did that sword ever do to you?”
Bastian’s hammer slipped, clanging off the edge of the anvil and jarring his shoulder. A curse slipped out of him as he turned to glower at the customer. “I’m not taking any new commissions right?—”
His words broke off as his gaze landed on Everett, who stood by the door with his brows raised and a fine dusting of snow in his dark hair.
Bastian tossed his hammer onto the nearest workbench, hardly caring that it upended a box of freshly made nails. “If you’re here to try to convince me to come home again, don’t bother,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I know you better than that, brother,” Everett said, coming further into the shop. “Tomorrow’s the full moon.”
“I’m aware.”
“You can’t make the shift alone.”
“I assure you, I can. I did it alone last month.”
Truthfully, doing it on his own had been fucking awful. Wolves weren’t meant to be on their own. They needed the closeness, the companionship of other Wolves—especially during the full moon. That pain… it wasn’t something anyone should try to endure alone.
But Bastian wasn’t about to admit that to Everett.
Especially not as Everett’s face contorted with what Bastian could only describe as horror. “You did it alone ?”
“Yes. I don’t know who you think I might have asked to endure it with me. Some unsuspecting villager? Or maybe a Vampire?”
Bastian knew better than to provoke Everett like that.
His brother was more loyal to Wolf law than even Anselm was, and there were two laws that Everett held above all others.
One was that Wolves protected their own.
The other was that Wolves did not associate themselves with Vampires, except in battle.
At Bastian’s words, anger joined the horror on Everett’s face. “Why the fuck would you even say that?” he demanded.
“I’m just saying,” Bastian replied, failing to keep the tension out of his voice, “I don’t exactly have much choice about making the shift alone.”
“You could make the choice to come back to Lake Hall,” Everett snapped. “You could have not left in the first place.”
“That’s what you think, but you chose to be a Wolf, Everett. Anselm didn’t turn you against your fucking will.” Bastian was seething now, his fingers curling into his palms and his breath beginning to heave. His throat ached with the effort of not shouting. He didn’t want to wake Isolde
Everett had no such qualms. “What the hell is so bad about being a Wolf?” he shouted.
“Yes, the shift hurts like a bitch for the first year, but after that? Your senses are heightened. You heal faster, you’re stronger.
And one night a month, you’re free . Freer than you’d ever have been as a human. You get to run with your pack?—”
“Maybe those things are wonderful if you got to choose it for yourself,” Bastian fumed. “But I didn’t get to . It wasn’t my fucking choice to turn. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
“Have you ever considered that Father was actually doing you a favor when he turned you?” Everett shook his head. “You’re one of us now, in a way that you weren’t before. You weren’t family—not really. Not until you became a Wolf.”
Bastian did everything he could not to let Everett see the blow those words landed, but he couldn’t help it. He flinched.
Everett saw. Instantly, he deflated, all the anger melting out of his face. “I’m sorry, Bastian. I didn’t mean?—”
Bastian knew what he meant. Wolves held the ties between pack members high above blood connections, and that was yet another tenant of Wolf law that Everett cherished.
He didn’t intend to imply that Bastian wasn’t family before, but the Wolf bond was far more important to Everett than all the other bonds they’d formed over the years.
But that didn’t change the fact that Everett’s words cut Bastian right down to the fucking quick.
“It’s fine,” Bastian said shortly. “I get it.”
“Bastian—” Everett tried again.
Bastian cut him off once more. “You said you didn’t come here to convince me to come home. Was that a lie? Or are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”
“I wanted to ask if you’d let me make the shift with you tomorrow night.”
Everett’s voice was soft, all the hostility gone. Suddenly, Bastian felt like he was twenty years old again, like he had the morning after Everett’s first shift.
Everett had been burning up, barely able to open his eyes, barely able to move after the havoc the shift had wreaked on his muscles and sinews.
Stay with me, will you ? he’d rasped, his voice hoarse from screaming as bone after bone snapped.
If you won’t make the shift with me, at least stay with me now .
With that memory sharp in his brain, Bastian opened his mouth to say yes.
But then the stairs at the back of the shop creaked, and Isolde’s voice broke the silence. “Bastian? I heard shouting.”
Everett brows flicked upward as he peered over Bastian’s shoulder. His nostrils flared?—
“What the fuck ,” he hissed, his hazel eyes narrowing to slits, “is a Vampire doing here?”