by Leia Stone
2. The vampire must be near death.
Double frick.
3. It must be the first time the vampire had fed from said feeder.
I closed the book and stared at Liv wide-eyed.
“Keep reading,” Liv urged me. “It gets worse.”
I wasn’t sure what could possibly be worse than the knowledge that we had in fact fulfilled all three criteria for vampiric bonding, but I pressed on.
The first case of vampiric imprinting is well documented. The vampire and feeder imprinted and then slowly learned the grim reality of their new future together.
Oh no. Oh God, help me.
The vampire can never drink from another feeder (including animals) again without it tasting and acting like a poison to his/her system. Only the imprinted feeder’s blood will satisfy and keep that vampire alive.
The room swam as dizziness washed over me.
The feeder takes on the vampire’s symptoms of thirst until that vampire’s thirst is quenched. The symptoms are headaches, nausea, thirst, and rage.
I stilled. Headaches, check. Thirst, check. Nausea, check.
About to be in freaking rage mode … check.
Finally, all that is known of the vampiric imprinting process is that the vampire and feeder can share thoughts, form an extremely close bond, and will be that way until death. If the vampire dies, the feeder can live on so long as they regularly bloodlet to reduce platelet buildup. But if the feeder dies, the vampire will expire from thirst or poison trying to quench said thirst with outside blood. This is a magical and lifelong bond in which the feeder’s body begins to make more blood to feed the vampire regularly.
That was it, I couldn’t read any more. I closed the book and stared at the wall. Shock settled into my entire being as I sat there, frozen and unable to move or think. I just breathed, in and out, in and out.
“Aspen?” Liv rubbed my back. “Do you feel … any of the symptoms?”
All I could do was nod as a single tear ran down my cheek.
I was bound to Luka Drake for the rest of my life. Or his life…
Hadn’t the book said if he was killed I would live on just fine? All I’d have to do was donate blood regularly…
It was like lightning struck from the sky and I stood.
Praise God.
I charged into my bathroom. “I know what I have to do.”
“What!?” Liv called outside the door, as I started to run the shower.
“I’m going hunting!” I shouted. I was going to finish this job, end this bond, and move on with my life.
“Are you sure about this?” Liv followed me toward the door. My hunter bag was slung across my shoulder.
I glared at her. “Since when do you protect bloodsuckers?”
She shook her head. “Not that. About going alone. I can totally help you. Make sure it gets done. Hell, if it’s hard for you, I can do it myself.”
I shook my head. “No, this is something I need to do.” This was a mess I’d gotten myself into, and Luka was a strong royal with compulsion. I couldn’t let Liv get hurt. She didn’t seem convinced.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, wrenching the door open to find a sleeping Vazquez curled in a ball at my feet.
“Gross. Does he seriously think you’ll take him back?” I peered at the piece of crap who’d broken my bestie’s heart.
Our talking had stirred him. He bolted upright, wincing as he grabbed his head. Funny how the male hunter code of conduct conveniently left out drinking and sex. “Liv, baby, I messed up. Let me come in and talk.”
My bestie glared at him and then flicked her eyes up to me. “Call me if anything happens. I can meet you at the ice cream place.” She winked.
I nodded, brushing past Vaz, making sure to knee him in the collarbone as I passed.
“It’s over. I’m too good for you,” Liv told him, and slammed the door behind me.
Girl power, I mentally sent to my bestie as I traversed the halls of the society. Liv was one of the strongest women I knew. I loved that she’d had the balls to do that.
“Going hunting?” Maz’s voice made me jump three feet into the air and I grasped my chest, spinning in her direction.
A nervous laugh escaped me. “You scared me.”
She didn’t say anything, eyes on my hunting bag, awaiting an answer. Maz was loving, a grandmother figure, strong woman of God, but sometimes she could be scary.
“Nah, I’m going to get my blades sharpened.” I thought quickly, rattling off an answer as to why I would have my hunting bag. Every three months, we all went to a special bladesmith in the city and sharpened our weapons and got new razor wire loaded. I was due next week but could go early to cover my tracks from today’s festivities.
She seemed satisfied with that, giving me a small smile. “Oh good. Ready for our trip? Get your dress?”
The dress! Maybe I would need Kenz to send three dresses for me to pick from. “Yep. Ready and excited.” I bopped nervously on my heels.
“Listen, I know you and Sterling were an item, so I think it only fair to warn you he will be accompanying us to the gala as leader of our security team.”
I frowned. “Security? We’re both hunters, we don’t need security.” I laughed. The idea was laughable. I could bring Sterling to his knees if I wanted, so could Maz. Now it was her turn to look nervous.
She glanced left and right down the hall, before approaching me. Stepping closer, she leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper: “I have it on very good authority that one of our lead hunters is in bed with the vampires. There may be an attack enroute to the gala to wipe us out, and I want to be fully prepared in that case.”
My eyes widened. In bed with a vampire? Attack to wipe us out? “Who?” I croaked.
She shrugged. “Someone in our Chicago cell we think. Best to play along until we have proof, then we’ll take care of them.”
Take care of them? Someone goes “to bed” with a vampire and she kills them?
I swallowed hard. I was so screwed.
“Right. Sterling. Won’t be a problem, but thank you,” I mumbled.
Spending a weekend trip with my ex was the least of my worries right now.
She nodded. “Carry on. Tell Rufus I said hello.”
Rufus, the blade maker. Right.
“Sure thing.”
Could this day get any worse? I didn’t want to tempt fate by asking.
After frantically dialing Rufus and asking him to squeeze me in for a last-minute blade sharpening a week early, I found my way back to the apartment building Luka had been holed up in. My symptoms were getting worse: headache like my brain was being split in two and mouth so dry I thought I might die of thirst. The fact that I was feeling his symptoms was totally horrifying to me, and I couldn’t wait to kill him and be done with this evil magic bond he’d conned me into. I was going in there guns blazing, taking Luka out and then heading to Rufus’ shop in case Maz checked up on me to make sure I really went. Then I could put this whole thing behind me.
Forever.
I’d run out of his apartment so quickly I hadn’t thought to look at the door number, but I did remember going down four flights of stairs. Or was it three? My hand was on the door that was the entrance to the side stairwell of the apartment, when his voice invaded my head.
‘Aspen?’ It was weak but there, and it brought with it a whole host of emotions and feelings that nearly sent me to my knees. How the hell did he know my real name? I’d introduced myself as some made-up name I didn’t even remember right now. Did he read my mind? That made me shiver.
He was hurt. Thirsty. Poisoned. In pain. In need. I felt this.
Good, this would make my job easier. I wrenched the door open and took the stairs two at a time. The closer I got, the more I just knew his location. It was unsettling as hell. We were connected … and that horrified me.
As I neared his door, the thirst I’d experienced this morning hit me full force. So did the headache right at t
he base of my skull. This was not okay. I should not be feeling things someone else was feeling. It was wrong.
When I jiggled the handle and found it locked, I knew I had seconds to act before he got the strength to fight back. I needed to be quick about this. Walk in, take off his head and be done. With one super charged kick, the door splintered open. I strode inside, slamming it behind me, and followed my intuition as to where he was. I was being pulled to him like a magnet. Passing the couch where he’d first fed from me, my stomach warmed at the memory, but I pushed it aside.
Demon magic.
I went back to the bedroom, and that’s when I saw his legs peeking out from behind the bathroom door. Pulling out my katana, I steeled myself, pushing the door open wider.
When my gaze fell onto his body, crumpled on the floor, I faltered.
Luka looked up at me from where he lay on the tile floor surrounded by black, bloody vomit. “Aspen … I knew you’d come back for me,” he whispered, teeth chattering.
I froze. His voice … was so tender. The way he said my name was the way you’d speak about a beloved. It … gave me pause. This wasn’t a hissing creature from hell trying to kill me.
I didn’t know what to do with this guy.
The black, bloody vomit told me he’d fed from someone, someone that wasn’t me. He was poisoning himself and probably didn’t even know it.
I swallowed hard.
I never asked for this, I didn’t want this! Holding my sword high, I leveled it over his neck.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered.
He looked up at me with complete and total acceptance in his piercing golden gaze, black at the rim. That’s when my eyes fell to one of the many tattoos littered across his body. I stared at the word, “Family,” inside of a heart. He was so … human-like.
‘Do it. I’m dying anyway,’ he spoke weakly into my mind.
I’d killed vampires before, over seventy of them to be exact. In the back, while they were sleeping, while they were screwing, I had no morals about it. A mark was a mark, a vampire was a demon. Evil and without a soul.
But him … he’d saved my life, he’d carried me out of that bar unconscious while he was injured and bleeding and set me in his very own bed. He took off my shoes and laid them nicely against the wall before he collapsed onto the couch and nearly died…
This felt like murder. You couldn’t murder a demon, they were evil, so it didn’t count, but … Luka, I just didn’t sense any evil in him, and my convictions faltered.
My sword clattered to the floor as my throat constricted with emotion.
Dammit!
“Regenerate! You’re a vampire, that’s what you do!” I screamed at him, even though I knew why he wasn’t.
He grasped for me and I steeled myself, thinking he meant to grab my arm and take my blood by force, but when I crouched down to be closer to him, he took a lock of my hair between his fingers. “I … like … the red better.”
What?
Oh, the wig.
This guy was on death’s doorstep and he was commenting on my hair?
I sighed, feeling the moment my soul chose the darkness in him over the light of the hunter code. I was probably going to hell for this.
“Go on. It will heal you.” I pressed my wrist to his mouth.
He looked up at me, wide-eyed. “How … do you know? I tried a feeder an hour ago, I just got sicker.”
“Just do it. Trust me,” I said.
I wanted so badly to read his mind, to know what he was thinking right now. Propping up on his elbow, he took my hand, bringing my wrist closer to his mouth. As his fangs sliced into my tender flesh, that wave of pleasure rushed through me, but it was less intense this time, still consuming but not completely. He sucked greedily from me and I watched him, completely enraptured and hating myself. He was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. His long dark eyelashes, full, blood-red tinged lips … I could do worse. If I was going to be tied to a vampire, at least he was hot.
Where did those thoughts come from?
Vampires were evil, demons. I felt enthralled. He had me under a spell or something.
Demon magic.
Then I remembered he was a master of compulsion.
My eyes widened as I wondered if I would even know if he used compulsion on me. Why was I doing all of these things so willingly?
“Have you used compulsion on me?” I suddenly spat, accusatorially.
He pulled back from my wrist in shock, licking the two pinpricks of blood there with his tongue; it sent a shot of heat straight to my groin. I growled and yanked my hand from his, folding it into my chest.
He looked better, more alive. There was color to his cheeks and his eyes lost their black edging. He sat up, crossing his arms over his knees and stared at me.
“I would never use compulsion on a woman like that. Ever,” he said through clenched teeth, as if I’d accused him of rape.
The weird part was I felt the truth in that statement.
“You’re different from your family,” I observed.
He stood, slowly, and went over to the sink, before proceeding to brush his teeth. I just watched him, like we were some couple who were dating and brushing our teeth in front of each other was totally normal.
Why am I still here? What the heck am I doing?
When he was done, he turned and faced me, looking tired. “Maybe that’s why they are always trying to kill me. I am too modern for this monarchy.”
Damn. I thought of Morgana, his aunt, and how she’d been the one to hire the Shadow Bloods who’d tried to kill us. I would need some serious therapy if my own family put a hit out on me. That was majorly messed up.
He eyed my blade on the ground and I bent down, picking it up and sheathing it.
I cleared my throat, standing. “We need to talk.”
I had the distinct feeling he didn’t know what we were. Or I was. Or whatever this bond thing was.
He looked down at his chest as if in awe of his sudden strength and health, then his gaze snapped to me suspiciously. “Why don’t I feel like death anymore?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, about that…” I don’t know why I brought the book, but I’d slipped it in my hunter bag. I pulled it out, opened to the pages I’d read, and handed it to him.
“What’s this?” he asked and glanced down. The moment his eyes widened, I knew I wouldn’t need to explain any further. “Oh,” he said, and then stumbled out of the bathroom, holding the book open as he read. I followed him as he stepped into the living room and away from the gruesome scene in the bathroom. As a vampire hunter who regularly beheaded people, blood and guts didn’t faze me, but it was nice to be out here and not reminded of the fact that I’d just let him feed from me for the second time. He finished reading the page and then closed the book with a hard snap.
“Well…” He rubbed his face and then looked up at me. “I thought this was a myth.”
“So it’s real? I’m … we’re … bonded? Forever?” I swallowed hard.
He cleared his throat, raising his arms above his head and hooking them behind his neck, giving me a full view of his shirtless chest.
“Do you own t-shirts? Because if we are going to come to some arrangement, then I’m going to need that put in there,” I growled.
A halfcocked grin slowly pulled at his face and my legs nearly melted, unable to hold up my body. If Sterling was an eleven, Luka Drake was a twelve.
No. I sent up a quick prayer to be protected from his demon magic, but I was starting to question if magic was afoot, or just a really good looking guy.
“So, we have an arrangement?” he asked, raising one dark eyebrow.
“Maybe.” I crossed my arms and glared at him. Maybe if I threw more anger at him, it would stop the fire building inside of me.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” he asked suddenly.
“Why did you pull me into the rafters, and then carry me back to your place when you were injured?” I shot back.
“Touché.” He released his hands and cleared his throat. “Okay. If you’re going to be my full-time feeder, I’m going to take care of you.”
What were those stupid butterflies doing in my stomach? He didn’t mean take care of me. He meant take care of my blood, or pay me, which was all gross.
Get it together, Aspen.
“I’m fine. I don’t need you,” I snarled. I couldn’t discount the fact that my symptoms had gone and I was feeling better, but that only served to make me angrier.
He just glared at me; one second he was on the couch and the next he was in the kitchen, pouring a glass of orange juice.
Fast bastard. When the glass was full, he walked it over to me and extended his arm.
Rolling my eyes, I appeased him and took a big swig. “All better.”
He shook his head, zooming back over to the kitchen and pulling out a bag of frozen spinach and a fresh steak.
I pointed to the spinach. “Keep dreaming, bud. Mac and cheese and donuts are my jam.”
“I don’t want you getting anemia.” He threw the spinach and steak in a skillet like a male Martha Stewart.
Put a freaking shirt on!
“I’ll take iron pills.” I crossed my arms. “Besides, the book says I’ll make extra blood to feed you.”
After placing some garlic and other seasonings in the pan, he threw a lid on it and then turned to face me.
He stated the obvious: “You could kill me at any moment and move on with your life.”
“I’m not a murderer.”
He smirked. “Really? What are those notches on your blade, then?”
I looked down at my kill count carved into the wooden handle and rolled my eyes. “That’s different. These demons are rapists and murderers, they got what they deserved.”
Luka blew air through his teeth. “I forgot how uber religious you hunters are.” He pointed to my rose thigh tattoos. “House of Rose?”
I squirmed under his gaze. I didn’t like being called uber religious, and I really didn’t like someone knowing what hunter house I was with. How did he know House of Rose was the religious house?
I tried to change the subject: “So, how often do you need to feed. Bare minimum?”