Guilt and irritation with himself slithered through him. He knew how skittish she was, how much she disliked being touched, and he understood why after everything she’d endured. He shouldn’t have grabbed her like that, but once his mouth had touched hers, he’d been unable to stop himself from taking more.
He’d seen mated vampires battle against the innate part of them that was unleashed when they encountered their mate. Witnessed them nearly lose their minds before the bond was completed. Now he finally understood it, as everything in his body rebelled against not being able to draw her closer and claim her as his.
Shit, he thought as he ran a hand through his hair. He was already screwing this up.
“Mia—”
She held her hand up to halt his words before he could become angry with her, or worse, apologize. Her inability to be touched was far from his fault, and if he said he was sorry for kissing her, she may scream.
What is wrong with me?
So many things, she knew. There had been many things wrong with her since the fire. She’d eventually pieced herself back together the best she could in the following years. Then her entire world had been torn completely apart again when she’d been taken. Now all the emotional and physical wounds inflicted on her over the years were torn open and bared to the air. She had no idea how to bandage them up again either.
However, for a second, she’d forgotten all about those wounds and his kiss had brought forth the delicious feeling of belonging within her. She’d lost herself to the heady sensation of his tongue moving over hers in such a demanding and assured way. She’d been kissed more times than she could count over the years, but she’d never been kissed as if she were everything for someone. That’s the way David had kissed her, and she wanted more of it.
She ached with the desire he stoked to life in her with such ease. There had been a decent amount of men in her past, yet she’d never once contemplated pouncing on one and tearing their clothes from them like she wanted to with David. The idea of removing his clothes and exposing what she knew had to be a magnificent body, enticed her as much as the idea of him touching her, or of him being on top of her, made her inwardly cringe.
Just being held against his chest for that brief time made her recall all those vampires sitting on top of her as they feasted from her.
Her stomach turned over as the squeezing sensation returned to her chest. She could feel their flesh rubbing against hers as they laughed at her and with each other. The fear that had come with the increasing weakness seeping through her body as they drained her blood threatened to overwhelm her.
She’d fought them so hard in the beginning, but as time passed the fight went steadily out of her. By the end of her captivity, she’d been ready for them to finally drain her until there was nothing left. To finally get the inevitable over with.
She despised herself for those times when she had lain there praying for it all to end. She should have continued to fight, but instead she’d been so weak and pitiful. Now with her newfound aversion to touching another, she knew she was still weak and pitiful.
She hugged her stomach as she stepped farther away from David. “I’m a disaster,” she told him. “You’d do better to stay away from me.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
She hated his understanding almost as much as she hated her memories. “I’m not a project for you to fix. I can do that on my own. I have before.”
“But you don’t have to do it alone anymore.” David studied her eyes when her gaze finally came back to him. He saw wariness there, but he also saw a burgeoning anger he found refreshing. Anger was far better than the desolation on her face seconds before.
“Are you going to do it with me?” she snapped.
“Yes.”
His simple answer melted away some of her annoyance with him as she gazed up at him. “No one ever does something for nothing. Why would you want to help me?”
“Because everyone needs someone to care for them. I’ve been fortunate in my life to have many who care for me. You deserve the same.”
“You don’t know that. What if I don’t deserve it? You know nothing about me. For all you know I could be a vindictive bitch who has deserved everything that’s happened to me.”
“I don’t believe that. At the very least, you’re not a killer.”
She alternated between glaring at him and wanting to throw her arms around him. To have someone so stubbornly sure of her was something she hadn’t experienced since her parents passed. She’d honestly believed she never would again. To experience it now, when she was about as fucked up as one could get, seemed even crueler and more unfair to her than being shackled to a wall had been.
“Can’t you tell I’m broken?” she demanded. “I can’t stand anyone touching me!”
“You handled me touching you until I pushed you too far.”
“Freaking out because someone you’re enjoying kissing tries to get closer to you is not normal.”
“It wasn’t normal that I was turned into a vampire because a female vamp became obsessed with my best friend,” David replied. “When Liam didn’t follow after her, she decided to turn his friends in the hopes she would get him to fall in line with her. That’s about as far from normal as it gets. I didn’t have a clue about the paranormal being real when my transformation occurred. Vampires were for horror movies, not reality. Life’s not normal. Shit happens. We all work through it.”
“Is that so, Dr. Phil?”
The frustrating man smiled at her.
“That’s so,” David replied.
Mia opened her mouth to respond, but closed it again when she heard voices coming down the hall. She turned to the door as Abby and Vicky appeared, the twins smiling as they waved at her and David. Each of them had their light blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and towels draped around their shoulders.
Though they were identical, and Vicky had regained the weight she’d lost when she’d been imprisoned, Mia could tell the difference between the sisters. Abby proudly wore the bite marks her mate, Brian, left on her. Vicky’s neck was unblemished; the wounds she’d sustained while held prisoner had vanished from her skin. If the sisters were wearing turtlenecks, Mia would have no idea which was which.
“Ready for some training, Mia?” Abby asked, her green eyes sparkling when they went from her to David. Her smile widened as she gazed at him.
Mia could feel the love they all had for one another in the smiles they exchanged and the easy comfort with which they all interacted. It was a love she’d witnessed often since being here with them.
She couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of it. No one had looked at her like that, or cared for her in such an open way, in years. Until she’d met them, she hadn’t realized how much she missed that kind of simple, easy love.
“David,” Abby greeted.
“Mary Kate, Ashley,” he replied with a smirk.
Vicky and Abby’s mouths parted before they exchanged disbelieving looks. “Did Moe just call us the Olsen twins?” Vicky demanded.
“I think he did,” Abby replied. “And you see David as Moe? That would mean he’d be the leader of the Stooges.”
“You’re right, that’s definitely Mike. Larry, then?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of Curly.”
“Really?” Vicky asked. “I always kind of saw Doug as Curly.”
Abby tapped her finger against her chin. “I can see that.”
The two of them grinned at each other before turning their mischievous looks on David. “Shemp,” they said at the same time. “He’s definitely Shemp.”
“Get out of here before I kick both your asses,” David said.
Mia heard the amusement in his voice when he issued this threat.
Vicky waved her fingers at him. “Oooh, we’re scared.”
“Go,” David said.
“We were going anyway,” Vicky retorted. “We’ll see you in the gym, Mia.”
“I’
ll be there,” she replied, watching as the sisters strolled away.
“See you later, Shemp!” they called down the hall behind them.
Mia bit on her bottom lip to keep from laughing as David scowled after them. She’d come to learn that all of Liam and Sera’s ten children affectionately referred to David and his friends as the Stooges. David acted like it bothered him, but she had a feeling he secretly loved it as much as he loved the children he’d helped to raise.
“I should go,” she said and turned away from David.
She may not like to be touched, but since her capture, she’d realized she had to be able to defend herself better. Those vamps had taken her unawares before; it would not happen again. If someone jumped her now, she would be able to defend herself, and she would have a weapon with her. Before she’d never considered carrying a stake or crossbow with her, but now there wasn’t a time she was without one.
David held his hand out to stop her, careful not to touch her as she froze inches away from his fingers. He tried not to let her aversion bother him, but a pang tugged at his heart when she gazed nervously at his palm.
“Think about coming to my home with me,” he said. “There are others there who would like to meet you. It will also be safe, and it is far more inviting than this place.”
“And why would any of them like to meet me?” she inquired.
David’s gaze unwaveringly held hers. The ravenous gleam in his eyes made her toes curl and her fingers instinctively rise to her lips. They were still swollen from his kiss. The taste of him lingered on her mouth; he’d tasted like he smelled, of pine and fresh air. His kiss had only increased her hunger for him instead of satisfying it in any way.
“I think you know why,” he said.
Dropping his hand, he turned away from her and walked out of the room. Mia’s eyes remained latched onto his broad shoulders until he vanished from view. What does that mean?
She had a sneaking suspicion she already knew the answer to that question. She’d seen her parents; she knew the stories of mated vampires and the attraction that pulled them toward each other. Not one of the men who had wandered through her life had left her aching for more the way David did.
The possibility of a mate was something she simply couldn’t consider right now, no matter how much her body and mind were trying to tell her it could be David. She’d spent her first eighteen years dreaming of the day she found her mate. Then she’d come to know that life was a fickle bitch, and the years since the fire had convinced her she would never find her mate or know love again.
It was the cruelest twist of fate that she might have stumbled across her mate now, when so much of her had died in that fire, and the rest of her had been shredded while wearing chains.
CHAPTER 4
Mia repeatedly pummeled the punching bag as she attempted to beat the stuffing out of it. Maybe, just maybe, she could exorcise herself of some of her own demons if she hit it hard enough. Maybe she could be normal again.
Okay, that was hoping for too much from a punching bag, but it was worth a try. Plus, Lucien was holding the bag, and every time he grunted, she felt a jolt of satisfaction. She drove her fists so violently into it that she pushed him back a step. Lucien’s head popped out from behind the bag, his raven-colored eyes narrowed on her.
“What has you in a mood?” he inquired as he released the bag to run a hand through his sandy blond hair. His hair stood up in tousled spikes around his handsome face when he was done with it.
“Nothing,” she replied and stepped away from the bag.
“Must be that time of the month,” he grumbled.
Mia glowered at him and instinctively moved farther away when he strode by her toward the bench on the side wall. The loose-fitting sweats he wore hung low on his hips. Her gaze ran over the chiseled muscles of his back and sides as they flexed with every step he took. The sweat beading on his smooth skin caused it to shine. She appreciated his stunning physique, yet the idea of running her fingers over his body made her inwardly recoil.
At one time, after the fire, she might have screwed Lucien to simply try to forget for a bit. However, she’d come to realize that though she may forget her loss for a brief period of time, she always remembered afterward, and she’d always been left bereft once more. Still, sometimes it had been nice to be close to someone for a bit. To make believe they cared for her when she knew they didn’t, and she’d honestly never cared for them either.
Now all she wanted was her distance from everyone, except….
Her eyes went to where David stood with Vicky and her older brother, Aiden. The three of them were taking turns sparring with each other as they danced around the mat. Her gaze hungrily drank in the bunch and flow of his lean muscles as he moved with easy grace. She licked her lips, savoring the taste of him. The idea of running her fingers over his body, of feeling those muscles flowing beneath her, didn’t make her recoil at all; instead, her body heated, and her pulse picked up.
A hand brushing against her arm caused her to nearly leap out of her skin. The unnatural sensation of someone’s flesh sliding over hers made her breath lurch. She bit on her bottom lip to suppress the scream surging up her throat.
“Sorry,” a young turned vampire said to her before walking away.
Her skin crawled from the lingering effects of his touch, memories of her imprisonment slithering forth like a snake from its den.
One, two, three, four, look at the door.
Her gaze latched onto the door leading out of the gym. She took a few steadying breaths as she took in the lock, the hinges, the glass window. Some of the constriction in her chest eased as her eyes slid closed. The warmth of someone near her made her body prickle uncomfortably, and she knew Lucien had returned. She’d worked with him in training often enough to recognize his spiced scent.
Then she felt another presence, and the aroma of the outdoors filled her nose. Opening her eyes, she turned her head to find David standing nearby. “Are you okay?” he inquired.
She forced a smile as the constriction in her chest eased. “Fine,” she replied. Now that you’re here. But she kept that to herself. Things were already strange enough between them.
Her attention was drawn to Brian, Abby’s mate, when he stepped onto the mat and walked over to where Abby was jumping rope. Abby stopped before he reached her; a smile spread across her mouth as she stepped closer to him and leaned against his side. The love pouring from the mated pair caused Mia’s breath to hitch. Brian turned his head into Abby’s hair, kissing her tenderly before bending to lift her into his arms. Abby grinned as he carried her from the room.
Mia knew that for the two of them the rest of the world had ceased to exist. She had witnessed the same thing often enough with her parents while growing up. A simple touch between the two of them would make them forget she was in the room. She’d never doubted her parents’ love for her. She’d known they would die for her as quickly as they would die for each other, but in those private moments between them, she’d simply been a bystander.
She missed being that bystander. She missed them.
Tears burned her eyes as fresh sorrow swelled within her. It had been seven years since she’d lost them. There were times when it felt like it had been seven years, if not more. Then there were times, like now, when it felt as if only minutes had passed. Times when the grief became so consuming she once again stood in the snow, the flames snapping high into the air as everything she’d ever loved crumpled before her.
“I’ve had enough for today.” Mia didn’t look at Lucien or David before turning and walking out of the gym.
David watched her go with a heavy heart. The sadness in her eyes, the defeated slope to her shoulders, was more than he could stand.
“Aren’t you going after her?” Aiden asked.
He glanced over his shoulder at where Aiden stood only a foot away from him. Aiden’s leaf green eyes were unrelenting as they held his. His once curly black hair had been shaved down
to stubble once Aiden started his training with Ronan’s men.
Though there were other vamps training under Lucien’s supervision, Aiden was the only purebred amongst them. He was also the only one who would make it into Ronan’s inner circle if he passed his training. From what he’d learned, David knew most purebred vampires didn’t pass the extensive training, but he had no doubt Aiden would succeed.
“I’m not sure she wants company right now,” David replied.
“She does,” Aiden said firmly.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I’m not a fucking idiot, Shemp.”
Behind Aiden’s shoulder, Vicky giggled and grinned at him as she waved. No matter how much he loved them, there were times he contemplated calling Liam to let him know he was down one kid. This was one of those times. He knew the nickname would change and he would eventually become Moe or Larry again depending on the mood of the kids, but Shemp was really grating on his nerves for some reason when it never had before.
“All you Byrne kids are assholes,” David told them.
“To be fair, Kyle and Cassidy are too young to be assholes already, but we’ll get them there,” Aiden replied. “Now if I were you, I’d get going. A few of the turned vampires here think Mia’s hot. You might miss your chance with her if you wait too long.”
David had heard the expression “blow your top” before, but he’d never truly understood it until Aiden’s words caused his fangs to elongate as a haze of red instantly shaded his vision. He’d tear the throat out of the first one he heard call her “hot,” or who dared to get close to her. No one would take her away from him.
Aiden took a step back and held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Easy, David,” he coaxed.
His words barely penetrated the angry buzzing in David’s head as he turned on his heel and stalked after Mia.
“Why did you say that to him?” he heard Vicky ask her brother.
Fractured (Vampire Awakenings, Book 6) Page 3