Bane's Choice

by Alyssa Day

  “Your blood,” he said, his voice a dark roll of thunder and need. “Want it. Want it now.”

  Meara shoved Edge’s wrist away from her mouth and tried to stand, but she was still shaky and fell back against him.

  “Brother,” Meara said, cajoling. “No. Not her.”

  “Need,” he growled, and now Ryan was starting to feel the fear even through the shock.

  Edge put a hand out. “Bane. Stop. You’ve been around human blood before. You can control this. You need to stop. You’re scaring her.”

  Bane ignored him completely and crouched down and scooped her up in his arms, staring down at her with an expression gone entirely feral. “Not like this. Not like her. Tastes like sunshine and champagne and happiness.” He closed his eyes and drew in a huge breath. “Tastes like everything.”

  Edge and Meara lunged forward, probably to help her, or maybe to stop Bane, but he sliced his hand through the air in an imperious gesture, and both of them flew back through the air and bounced off the car behind them. Then he made another gesture when they sprang to their feet, and they froze, unable to move.

  Bane’s fangs snapped down. “I take what I want,” he snarled, grabbing a handful of her hair and pulling her head back to bare her throat to him.

  “No!” She reached up to touch his face, in spite of her shock—in spite of her fear. “No, Bane. I don’t think you would ever forgive yourself, so let me tell you this,” she told him. “It’s not taking if I freely give. Take what you need.”

  He smiled, his red eyes flaring even hotter, and then he drove his fangs into her neck.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Bane’s brain exploded at the first taste of her blood. So sweet, so full of life and light and everything he’d ever wanted. He wanted more and more and more.

  He needed her blood. Needed her.

  It’s not taking if I freely give.

  She freely gave her blood to him. She’d even offered her blood to save his sister.

  And he was killing her.

  He froze, forcing his fangs to retract, and swept his tongue across the puncture marks to help them heal. Ryan’s eyes fluttered open, but she looked so, so weak.

  How much had he taken?

  “How can you trust me when you see what a monster I am?” The anguish in his voice cut through the night.

  “Because I see beneath the monster to the man,” she whispered, almost boneless and weak as a kitten in his arms.

  He wanted to kiss her, but not with her blood staining his lips like the evil of his past stained his soul. He could never deserve this woman. He should tell her that, as much as the monster inside him howled denial.

  “Ryan—”

  She offered him a shaky smile. “Maybe let Meara and Edge go before I have to kick your ass.”

  He could never deserve her, but he was damn well going to try.

  He released Meara, who was spitting mad, and Edge, who glared at him and then silently strode to his bike and stood waiting, gaze fixed on Meara as if she were his north star.

  Bane’s attention returned to Ryan, all but asleep in his arms. Ryan, who had trusted him. Trusted him not to kill her, after she’d watched him kill those shifters. Not just trusted him, but freely gave her blood.

  She was a fool to give anything to a monster—even if she claimed to see the man.

  “I’m going home,” Meara said, ice dripping from every word. “I’m getting in my car and driving it at a ridiculously fast speed and going home to shower the stink of shifter off me. Bane, you and I are going to have a long, long talk, my brother.”

  He nodded, barely looking up. “I’m…sorry.”

  “And you—what?” Silence followed, as if he’d shocked her to speechlessness. Maybe he had. Apologies were not exactly his fucking specialty.

  “I’m sorry. I really am, Meara, and I’ll make it up to you, but right now I’m taking Ryan home, and then I’m going to find these necromancers, rip their heads off, and shove them up their asses,” he snarled.

  “I’ll go with you,” Edge said, his voice pure ice. “They dared to touch Meara. All of them are going to die tonight.”

  Meara sighed. “Let’s regroup at the house. These said they have a new alpha, so clearly something is going on that we need to find out about. Let’s not go off half-cocked just yet.”

  “It would be better to find out the facts first. And, Meara, they said new mistress, not new alpha. Is that the same?” Ryan murmured, awake again.

  “No, it’s not,” Edge said. “They must have been talking about Sylvie, the warlock who attacked me, unless there are even more of them around.”

  “She must be a necromancer, too,” Meara said grimly.

  Ryan pushed against Bane’s chest. “Put me down, please.”

  “Never,” he swore, tightening his arms. “I leave you alone for a few hours, and you start a fight with a shifter pack.”

  She sighed. “Yes. That’s exactly how it happened. And we still need to talk about how you locked me in that room.”

  “Oh, mon Dieu. Not this again.” Meara threw her hands into the air. “I’m out of here.”

  “I’m with her,” Edge said, firing up his bike.

  “They touched you,” Bane told Ryan, his brain locked onto that fact. “They have to die.”

  “Let me down now, please. I am perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet.”

  Instead, he called to the Shadows and stepped into the Between, still carrying the woman he’d just proven he’d kill for. Knew he would die for.

  When the vortex closed around them, Ryan screamed, startling him so much that he lost his focus, and they tumbled out of the Between before reaching their destination.

  Into a cemetery.

  The cemetery, to be precise.

  “Are we in Bonaventure?” Ryan was trembling in his arms, now clutching his shirt. “And what the hell just happened? Was that some freaky kind of vampire transporter? Did you just beam us up? Is that how you disappeared with Hunter Evans? And maybe give a person a warning before you pull shit like that?”

  She paused for long enough to suck in a huge breath. “And you’d better put me down. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  …

  Ryan bent over and put her hands on her thighs, taking in deep, calming breaths, for three or four minutes. Whatever Bane had just done to them had felt like being swept into the middle of a tornado. It was even worse than Meara’s driving. And that was on top of the shock of blood loss to her body…she really needed to be resting and drinking orange juice, not standing in a cemetery with a vampire.

  A burble of a laugh escaped her lips. Standing in a cemetery with a vampire was another good title for her memoir. That, or a good name for a rock band.

  And yeah, wow, the blood loss had fuzzed her brain.

  “They touched you. They all have to die,” Bane repeated, stalking back and forth, looking like nothing so much as an avenging angel, especially here, surrounded by monuments to death.

  Given the fact that he was a vampire, his eyes were still glowing that bright scarlet, and they were standing in the middle of the freaking cemetery, the impression might not be that far off.

  “I killed one,” she blurted out. “Or, at least, I thought I killed him. If he’d been human instead of a shifter, I’d be a murderer.”

  The shaking threatened to take over again, and she could feel the hyperventilating coming on. She hadn’t had a full-blown panic attack since the time she’d been trapped in a dark elevator for three hours during a power outage in New York, but this was shaping up to be a whiz banger of one.

  “One,” she counted, closing her eyes, and then she took a slow, steady breath. “Two.”

  Exhale. “Three.”

  Breathe in. “Four.”

  And so on, until she go
t to fifteen and felt the edges of the panic attack subside. When she opened her eyes, Bane stood inches away from her, staring at her with eyes that had changed from red to blue. Maybe her relaxation technique worked on vampires, too.

  The thought forced a slightly hysterical laugh out of her. “I defended myself from a werewolf. With a scalpel. I was awesome!” She punched a fist in the air. “I pretended to be terrified—well, that wasn’t so much pretense, I really was terrified—but I pretended to be helpless, and then I ducked under his arm and stabbed him. I was attacked, and I defended myself. I am a superhero!”

  The fury stamped on the hardened planes and angles of Bane’s face told her more plainly than words that he definitely didn’t agree.

  Screw him. She was freaking Super Ryan, who could battle werewolves with a spare scalpel she just happened to be carrying in her purse. Well, okay, she’d put it carefully into the inside pocket of her purse when she’d stopped at her place, because she was brave but not naÏve, and she’d been willingly going back to a house where vampires lived, but still.

  “Super Ryan,” she repeated, and—much to her shock—he started laughing.

  A real, actual laugh, filled with amusement, not mockery. He threw back his head and laughed, and she watched him in wonder, touching her neck where he’d bitten her. How did she reconcile the two sides of this man?

  This self-proclaimed monster and the man who’d so passionately made love to her?

  How can I be falling in love with him?

  She must have made a sound when the epiphany smacked her in the face, because Bane stopped laughing and looked at her, still smiling.

  “Super Ryan. Yes, you definitely are. To think I asked Meara to protect you. You’re a one-woman fighting machine.”

  Warmth from his praise spread through her, which was terrifying, considering what she’d just realized about her feelings for him. Instead of responding, she deflected. She was very good at that.

  “It’s nice to hear you laugh. You don’t do that often enough.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I laugh.”

  “Yeah, but more in a bwah ha ha kind of way, not real laughter.” She shrugged. “Not a big deal. Just nice to hear it.”

  But, as she spoke, his smile faded. “What do I have to laugh about tonight? You and Meara could have been killed by those shifters.” He reached out and gently took her shoulders in his hands. “Worse—far, far worse—I could have killed you.”

  A hint of red flared in the centers of his pupils. “I am so sorry, Ryan. I have no excuse for what I did. For what I almost did. I don’t understand why the scent of your blood calls to me so strongly. Maybe—”

  “Oh, I get it,” she interrupted. “Tons of vampire novels and movies all combine to tell me that I’m your fated mate.” She put on a movie-trailer announcer voice. “In a world where vampires are real, one brave doctor proves to be the undoing of a gorgeous denizen of the night.”

  Then she bowed with a flourish, grinning at Bane when his mouth fell open. Mr. Stone Face didn’t get her humor, evidently.

  “Maybe you are my fated mate. You think I’m gorgeous,” he said smugly.

  “Duh.” She rolled her eyes. “Me and everybody else on the planet, probably.”

  “Also, denizen of the night? You’re a very strange—”

  “If you say human, I’m going to punch you,” she warned him, narrowing her eyes.

  “Woman.”

  “I get that a lot,” she admitted. “Hey. Since we’re here, let’s stroll around. I love this place. It reminds me of my gran, before…before she died.”

  “Is she here?”

  “You mean is she buried here? No. She wanted to be cremated.” She blinked back tears.

  “I’m sorry.” He held out his hand, and she took it, wondering at the comfort she drew from such a simple touch. “But I meant, is she here? Does her spirit still walk here, to be close to you?”

  She gave him a sideways glance and started walking. “Of course, not. I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said automatically, the same denial she’d made so many times since moving to Savannah, where every other person claimed to be a psychic or medium.

  But—this time—she froze, realizing that she was denying the existence of ghosts to a vampire. The vampire who was holding her hand.

  “I guess I need to rethink that.”

  They strolled along in silence for a few minutes, and Ryan found herself calming down, the adrenaline of not one, but two near-death experiences slowly working its way out of her body. She’d experienced the fight-or-flight reaction first-hand tonight and learned which way she’d go when worst came to worst.

  In spite of the horror she still felt over actually trying to kill that man—even though he’d tried to kill her first—she also felt the faintest tinge of…pride.

  She’d protected herself.

  Sure, Bane had come in and finished the werewolf off after he’d pulled a “bad guy in the horror movie who won’t die” routine, but she—Dr. Ryan St. Cloud, ordinary, unimportant, Reliable Ryan—had stood up to a monster and come out alive and on top, at least for those few, precious minutes.

  She stopped and turned to face Bane. “You were right.”

  “Always.” He reached out and pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “About what this time? And we need to get you home and cleaned up. You still have blood on your face,” he said, his voice darkening.

  She shook her head, impatient. “It will keep. Listen. You were right. I am a goddess. I stood up for myself tonight, in a way I never have in my life. Not just—not just the violence. But my sheer refusal to back down. I realize I give in and give up far too often in my life. In my job. Always expecting to get the worst end of the stick. Always willing to accept less, because I feel like I am less.”

  “You’re definitely not less,” he said. “You’re absolutely amazing.”

  “Thank you. But that’s something I needed to see for myself, you know? And now I do. Not that I’m amazing, exactly, or maybe that I am because everyone is amazing. Nobody, ever, should be willing to accept less. Even though it took something so terrible happening for me to learn this lesson, now that I have, I’ll never back down or give up on myself again.”

  “You deserve everything, my warrior goddess,” he murmured, and then he pulled her into his arms and captured her mouth in a kiss.

  This time, though, she claimed him.

  She kissed him like the warrior goddess he’d named her, proud and strong and wanting to share her strength with this man—this monster.

  Her monster.

  When they finally broke apart to breathe, both of them were breathing hard.

  “If you don’t want me to strip you bare, right here in the middle of the cemetery, we need to leave right now, or else you have to stop kissing me like that,” he growled, and she loved the rasp of hunger in his voice.

  “Anticipation adds spice to everything,” she countered. “Let’s walk some more. I need air, and I love the smell of the flowers and the river. The sound of the insects and the owls. Bonaventure at night is like a secret world where you might turn a corner and see fairies at any minute.”

  He pulled their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “They prefer to be called Fae.”

  Ryan’s world turned upside down, for the third or fourth time since she’d first found a vampire in her patient’s hospital room.

  “They what?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ryan stared at the vampire who had just so casually dropped the existence of fairies into the conversation.

  “They prefer to be called Fae. And are you sure you don’t want to get naked right now? We could walk down by the river and find a secluded spot and—”

  “Bug bites. On my ass. Just no. And did you really say they prefer to be called Fae? What kind of w
orld do I actually live in?”

  “That, my beautiful one, is a conversation for another night.”

  They wandered around, up and down the paths, until they came to the tomb of Little Gracie Watson, and Ryan pulled Bane to a stop.

  “She was only six when she died,” she said, staring at the beautiful monument, said to be an exact likeness of the child. “My gran told me the story of the famous little girl, so beloved by so many, who was left here all alone, because her parents went back to New England after she died. When I was six, I begged to be allowed to leave my doll here, so Gracie wouldn’t be so lonely.”

  Bane’s hand tightened on hers. “You had a kind heart even then. Did you leave it for her?”

  Ryan nodded. “I did. It made me feel somehow comforted, and I remembered her in my bedtime prayers for a long time. God Bless Mama, and Grandma, and Little Gracie, and Fred.”

  “Fred?”

  “My neighbor’s dog. I was never allowed to have a pet; my father forbade it.”

  “Ah.” He smiled, but only a little. “Gracie would have liked little Ryan very much, I think. She was a lovely, cheerful child.”

  Ryan dropped his hand. “You knew her?”

  She didn’t know why she was shocked. Of course, he could have known her. Gracie had lived in the 1880s.

  “Not knew, no. I only met her once, when I had a business meeting one evening in the hotel her father managed. She was dancing in the lobby and singing a little tune.” He smiled at the memory, gazing at her sculpture. “I remember thinking that I’d never seen a child so filled with light and joy, since I’d first met Meara.”

  Ryan leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “Good night, little one,” he murmured as they turned to go, and Ryan’s throat tightened with tears she was determined not to shed.

  No monster would be so gentle when bidding farewell to a child he’d met once, more than a hundred years before.

  “Tell me about her,” she urged. “Meara, as a child. She must have been the most ridiculously beautiful child who ever lived.”