DAE
I woke with the sunset, popping awake with a sudden, electric feeling of anticipation that I couldn't quite place at first. For two hundred years, rising for the night had been a mechanical process. But tonight, my body remembered something was different before my brain caught up.
The memory of the night before hit me so fast and hard my room spun around me.
Instantly, my throat burned with a sudden, vicious craving for her.
I could still taste the dark, wild sweetness of her blood lingering like a phantom on my tongue.
The ghost of her scent seemed to cling to the inside of my lungs, making my fangs throb with a desperate need.
I remembered the soft, yielding warmth of her in my arms. The exact, delicate weight of her pressed against my chest.
The memory was so vivid it left me breathless.
I didn't just want to be with Alice; I wanted to burrow under her skin.
I wanted to dissolve into her, to weave my very existence into hers and become a permanent part of her, just so I would never have to endure this hollow, agonizing ache of separation again.
Yeobo, I thought, the word slipping through the quiet of my mind like a desperate prayer.
Unable to wait any longer to talk to her, I picked up my phone and sent her a text. Not having her here was killing me, but she was safer at Judy's for now. We'd both agreed last night that she'd stay there until we knew this business with Marcus was truly done and over with and she was safe.
I was surprised into immobility for a full second when she told me Judy had agreed to allow me to stay there with them.
Then I rushed into the bathroom and took an absurd amount of extra care with my shower, standing beneath the heavy spray much longer than necessary, letting it wash away the suds of my special shampoo and body wash.
The ones I only used when I knew I was going to be around Alice.
With extreme effort, I ignored the ache in my swollen cock, sucking air through my teeth with a hiss when I washed the sensitive skin there.
When I stepped out, I went through my skincare routine with methodical precision.
Then I dressed with intense deliberation, choosing a dark, perfectly fitted shirt made of fabric so devastatingly soft that I hoped it would make her want to snuggle up to me until we could be alone and take it off, even though I knew having her that close would be nothing but torture.
This took me all of about five minutes moving at full vampire speed.
I packed a few things into my backpack, slung it over one shoulder and I was out the front door. I hit the streets, letting the heavy, humid New Orleans night swallow me as I moved toward the only thing that mattered to me now.
But first, a pit stop.
I caught Lizzy just as she was locking the door of Ancient Magicks, her little old dog on his leash beside her, his fur all ruffled like he'd just rolled out of bed.
Which he probably had. My sudden appearance made her jump, a small gasp escaping her lips before recognition softened her expression.
Family privilege, I suppose, afforded me entry, despite the late hour and her obvious intention to close up shop.
"Judy's letting me stay at the house," I told her, the reality of it still strange on my tongue. "I wanted to bring her something to show my appreciation, because we all know how fond she is of us."
Lizzy smiled knowingly and stared at me with big, brown eyes. "Judy? My aunt? Is letting a vampire stay in her house?"
I gave her a grin and nodded. "It's because I'm her favorite."
She gave a short laughed. "No, you're not. Kenya is, if she had to pick one of you."
I shook my head. "Nope, not anymore. Alice is her favorite niece, which means I'm the new favorite by default."
With a roll of her eyes she didn't even try to hide, Lizzy told me to wait where I was. Then she disappeared behind the heavy velvet curtain into the real stock.
I looked down at Wiggles. He stared up at me with cloudy eyes, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he waited with me. Bending down, I gave his back a scratch, which he seemed to appreciate if the little doggy groans he made were any indication.
Lizzy returned carrying a dozen hand-dipped beeswax candles in a brown paper bag, tied closed with rough string. "Here you go. This is something she can actually use." She held her hand up in refusal when I tried to pay her. I laid some cash on the counter anyway and walked out.
The mate bond thrummed in my chest the entire walk to the Garden District, a physical tether reeling me in. Crossing Canal Street, the boundary wards rolled over my skin like a static ripple, but for the first time, my hackles didn't rise.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out and glanced down at the screen. It was Kenya. I declined it without breaking my stride and slid my phone back into my jeans. It was probably club business, and the Purple Fang could survive one night without me.
As soon as I saw the house, my fangs dropped and my throat burned with thirst. I scraped my bottom lip with the tips, my need for her beating a heavy, relentless rhythm through my blood.
Her smile. The warm softness of her throat.
Her pulse beating against my lips. The curve of her hip under my hand.
I craved her with a single-minded obsession that bordered on being destructive.
I reached the porch and knocked. My phone buzzed again as I waited and I automatically pulled it out and looked at the screen.
Kenya.
With a heavy sigh, I tapped the screen to answer, but before I could lift it to my ear, the front door swung open. Judy stood there, her face impassive.
My eyes bypassed her instantly to find my Alice.
My hand dropped to my side, the call open and running against my thigh. I forgot the phone existed as I forced my gaze to Judy and held out the brown paper bag with both hands and a small bow. "For you," I told her. "As a thank you for letting me stay here with Alice."
She took it with a grunt and peered inside. Something complicated and fast shadowed her face before she folded the top closed. "This wasn't necessary." She stepped back. "But come on in. Wipe your feet."
I stepped over the threshold, wiping my boots on the mat.
Alice stood barely three feet away, barefoot in a tie-dye dress, her long hair down and falling free over her shoulders.
Ted wound around her legs, his tail straight up in the air.
She ignored him, smiling at me, and I lost the English language completely.
"??," I murmured.
Mine.
Closing the distance between us, I cupped her face in my free hand.
I didn't kiss her. Judy was still standing there, and my manners were instinctive and forged in the Joseon dynasty where I was raised.
Alice's skin was warm, the contact a jolt of pure, grounding electricity that shot through me like lightening.
Then a voice broke the quiet. Small, tinny, and savage, yelling my name from the phone pressed against my leg. I lifted it to my ear, half-grinning.
"Sorry. I'm kind of busy—"
"Where are you?"
Kenya's voice was urgent. The grin died on my face.
"Are you with Alice? Is she right there?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Oh, gods. Dae. You have to listen to me."
"After you left, Talin was threadwalking," Kenya said. "She found Alice's thread where it intercepted with yours. Then she walked the bond."
I opened my mouth, but Kenya cut me off before I could say anything.
"Don't be mad at Talin. It was my call. Well, mine and Alex's. You can be furious about the violation later, but right now, you need to listen."
The cold dread creeping up my spine paralyzed any anger I might have felt.
"She got in. She found you both," Kenya said, her breath hitching. "Dae, the gold you told me about in Alice's aura? That's not her."
My eyes had never left Alice's face and my hand still cupped her cheek. I rubbed my thumb under her eye distractedly. "What the hell do you mean it's not her?" I asked.
"What's going on?" Judy demanded.
There was a sharp intake of air over the receiver.
"Talin said it's wearing—"
Kenya stopped and swallowed hard.
"Spit it out, Kenya," I ordered.
"Something threw her out. She started seizing and blood poured from her nose, her eyes rolling back in her head. We got her back. She's okay," she said before I could ask. "But right before it kicked her, she said, 'It sees me.' And then she was out and bleeding and oh, gods."
My blood, running so hot just a minute before, froze in my veins.
Kenya sounded terrified. "Look at her aura, Dae. Right now. And then you tell me what you see."
"Talin's breathing?"
"Yes. Alex has her. Elias is gonna kill us when he hears about this."
"We're not telling him." Talin's whisper shouted in the background.
"We'll have to tell him," Alex argued.
"Keep everyone in that house," Kenya ordered, "And LOOK, Dae-Jung!"
I pulled my sight forward and studied the woman who was now holding my hand.
Alice's aura bloomed before me. Beautiful, clean, humming white light, threaded heavily with gold. It was everywhere now, brighter than I had ever seen it. Almost too pretty to look at.
That lasted for exactly one half-second.
Then I forced my vision to invert, shifting past the pretty glow to the mechanics of it. Native magic like the witches had rises from the marrow of their bones. It radiates outward, an extension of their soul.
The gold I saw didn't rise out of her light.
It rode on top of it. Creeping along in a way I'd never noticed before pulsing underneath. It was one long, continuous strand threaded meticulously through her silver-white light, wound deep and permanent down into our mate bond. A seam. Kenya’s exact word from days ago. A perfect, parasitic seam.
As I watched, it moved.
Lazy and fat. Shifting in the light, turning over in a warm, comfortable bed.
Every violent instinct I possessed fired at once. My fangs dropped fast and hard, a low growl starting low in my throat. My eyes burned, my vision tinting red as my body coiled, desperate to get between her and the threat.
But there was no between.
There was nothing to face. Nothing to tear apart. The thing I needed to kill was wrapped tightly around the brightest part of the woman holding my hand.
Marcus.
I knew that gold. I'd watched it flood her eyes, watched it drown her while a voice that wasn't hers used her mouth to claim she belonged to him.
He wasn't gone. He'd been inside her all along. And I was stupid. So, so stupid.
Memory hit me in a sickening, rapid-fire sequence. The flicker I'd felt and ignored in the cemetery under the crushing wave of physical sensation. The ancient hunger that stirred afterward while I held her on the ground. Twice. The gold flecks swimming in her eyes at the height of our climax…
He was looking out of her while she looked at me.
My stomach churned until I thought I was going to vomit. I'd been so certain it was her filling that empty void inside of me. Now, the truth sank in like a rusted blade, twisting in my gut. Something settled into the bond last night. Something got comfortable.
Something that was now inside both of us. And it wasn't at all what I thought it was.
Dead, flat self-indictment crushed the air from my lungs. I laid the road. My tenderness for her paved it. Marcus didn’t break in through a window. He came up the front walk right behind me, and I held the fucking door open for him.
My voice went completely calm on the phone. "I see it."
Alice watched me with panic in her eyes, her fingers twisting into the fabric of her dress.
"You're scaring me," she said, her eyes shifting to Judy and back. "What's going on?"
"Dae-Jung!" Judy stepped closer to her niece, like she could protect her by her mere presence alone. "What do you see?"
But when I tore my attention from Alice and stared into her blue eyes, I knew she didn't need an explanation. She only needed confirmation.
Alice put a hand to her chest, her breaths turning quick and shallow.
"See? What do you— Dae. Look at me," she pleaded. "What do you see?"