by Bianca D'Arc
She couldn’t help herself. She was so hungry. And she’d missed Mag so much. She nuzzled her lips against his skin, letting her tongue out to taste the unforgettable salt of his skin.
Her fangs needed to sink into him. She needed to taste his essence. She knew she was starved, but she didn’t just want to drink to slake her thirst. She wanted that forbidden taste of Mag. Her Mag. The One who’d got away. The One she had pushed away for his own good.
They could never be together. She would have to console herself with the few short memories she had of him for the rest of her days.
But Miranda knew she was still bleeding out. These moments might very well be her last. If that was the way it was going to be, she wanted one last taste of Mag’s essence—his amazingly wild shifter blood. She’d only tasted it once and it had ruined her for all others. But that was okay. Fate hadn’t ever been kind to Miranda. Not since the day she’d been turned and had to leave all she knew behind. All because of one man’s greed.
Not this man. Not the man who held her with all the gentleness in him. Never Mag. No, Mag was the one bright spot in her immortal existence. And the cruelest temptation that could ever be devised by man or nature.
She bit into his flesh, taking the most delicate care not to hurt him. She would never hurt him. Not on purpose.
The flavor of his blood filled her with longing she knew could never be fulfilled. He tasted like her mate. Her One and only. But he also tasted of shifter—the wild flavor of the woodlands and desert. And the incredible magic that filled his being. It brought on a sense of euphoria as his power filled the empty places in her. Not to overflowing. She was too blood-starved. It would take a lot more than the gentle sips of his essence that she allowed herself.
But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that to him. She would never take so much as to hurt him. All she wanted was one last drink of him to take with her into the next realm. One last happy thought. One last magical moment with the only man she would ever love.
She lifted her fangs out of his neck and sealed the little punctures as best she could in her weakened condition. She heard the people in the room around them moving and talking, though she let their words flow around her without really listening. All that mattered to her was the man who held her with such gentleness. Who gave her his blood so freely and with such selflessness when she was so starved for it—and for him—though he’d never know how much it had hurt her to leave him.
“I’ve missed you, Miranda,” he whispered so that only she could hear him. The emotion in his eyes when he moved back far enough to look down at her mirrored her own feelings.
She knew her vampiric magic was affecting him. His eyes held a bit of that glazed euphoria her bite usually brought to her human prey. She almost regretted that, but she was glad she’d left him with good feelings, not bad. That was important to her.
He didn’t give her a chance to say anything before he scooped her weak body up into his arms and strode out of the room past everyone. He didn’t stop to talk. He didn’t even glance at the people they passed. He just walked, single-mindedly, out into the night with her in his arms.
“Where are you taking me?” Miranda’s voice was weak, her grip on him loose as Mag carried her out into the night.
His heart had nearly stopped beating when he’d caught her distinct scent of cinnamon and roses inside that despicable house. He’d rushed inside and into the front room, which had been set up as some kind of magic-working chamber of horrors, just in time to see Miranda transform from a small bear cub into her true form—a vampiress.
He’d known her for just over two years. They’d had a fling, if that’s what you call a passionate night of once-in-a-lifetime sex followed by the woman fleeing before dawn, never to be seen again.
He’d never forgotten her. In fact, he hadn’t been with another woman since Miranda. She had ruined him for anyone else, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Mag had been dismayed to realize that she was his mate. A vampiress. It couldn’t be, but these past two years of celibacy had proven otherwise. No other woman would do for him. His heart, the cougar that shared his soul, and his body only wanted Miranda.
But it really couldn’t be. There were taboos about shifters and vamps getting together. Mag hadn’t spoken of his dilemma with anyone. Not even his big brother Grif, Alpha of the Redstone Clan. Mag knew without asking that his attachment to a vamp would go down like a lead balloon. It just wasn’t done.
“Mag?” Miranda whispered as he headed straight for his car.
He thanked the Goddess he’d taken the convertible tonight. It would be easy to lift his precious burden into the passenger seat without jarring her any more than necessary.
“I’m taking you home, Miranda. To my home. You’ll be safe there for the day. I have a light-proofed room.”
“You do?” Her tone was both weary and suspicious. He was sure if she had been more alert she would have been asking him all sorts of questions about why a cougar shapeshifter would just happen to have a light-proofed room in his home. It wasn’t for him. He certainly didn’t need it.
But how could he explain that he’d gotten to work on light-proofing his house the day after Miranda had left him. He’d known it was impossible for them to be mates, but his heart and the big cat that shared his soul had refused to listen. Some part of him still held out the forlorn hope that somehow he would see her again—and have her in his home.
He lifted her over the side of the car and placed her gently into the bucket seat. He didn’t care about the grime or blood on her clothes, though it pained him to see his beloved in such a state. She’d been held captive for who knew how long—and she’d nearly died tonight.
Mag had to believe that the Lady was watching over them. Of all the places for him to be on this particular night… It was kismet that he was here, now, in time to save her.
The way she’d attacked that guy Slade… That had been bad. Mag shuddered to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been there and she hadn’t responded to his voice. His brothers—or maybe even Slade or the priestess he was so cozy with—would have had to hurt Miranda. They might’ve even finished what the evil mage had started, and killed her.
She would have died. The mere thought of it nearly broke Mag’s battered heart.
“Most of my house is light-proofed, sweetheart,” he admitted as he placed the seatbelt around her. He wasn’t taking any chances with her safety…from now on.
Her dazed eyes met his. It was clear she was in a lot of pain and still seemed very out of it, but she focused on him, her lovely blue eyes meeting his.
“Why would you do that? You are all that’s most perfect about the sun. Why would you need to hide from it?”
“I don’t,” he admitted, pausing at the side of the car, bent over her. “But I always hoped I’d see you again.”
There it was. Mag had put himself out there as much as he dared for the moment. She wasn’t pulling away. In fact, judging by the way her expression softened, she liked what he’d said.
A frail hand rose to cup his cheek and he turned his head, placing a soft kiss in her palm. His heart was almost whole for the first time in over two years.
“I always hoped I’d see you again too, even though I know this can never be.”
“I think I’m through playing by the rules, Miranda.” He had to state his intentions. He wanted her to know that he was drawing a line in the sand. “I won’t leave you like this. You need time and space to heal. I have both—a place for you to recover and blood that will speed your healing. Whatever comes after…we’ll deal with as it comes. Right now, I think the Lady put me here on this night to help you. Who are we to argue with fate?”
She looked skeptical as she lowered her trembling hand. “I don’t know what to think right now. All I know is that I need to get away from here.” She looked back over her shoulder toward the house of terror where she had been imprisoned. “Take me somewhere else, Mag.�
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Her plea nearly broke his heart. Mag leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead.
“You’re free now, sweetheart. And you’re not alone. Anybody wants to mess with you right now, they’ll have to go through me. And that just ain’t gonna happen. Trust me on that.”
“I do trust you, Mag. With my life,” she whispered. But he knew she hadn’t trusted him with the most important thing of all—her heart.
Chapter Two
Magnus Redstone pushed the sports car to its limits getting Miranda home. She was fading in and out of consciousness and he worried for her. He needed to get her to his house and check her injuries. He wouldn’t stop worrying until he got a much better look at how badly she was hurt.
He had a place on the outskirts of the housing development they’d build just for shifters on Clan lands, but he didn’t spend a lot of time there lately. No, most of his time was spent at a little hideaway he’d bought in the desert, on a wide stretch of open land populated only by cactus and the occasional snake or scorpion. He headed there now, glad that it was actually closer than the shifter neighborhood from this particular angle.
He hadn’t told his brothers the details about his place in the desert. Not that it was any big secret or anything. He had just wanted a project of his own to help him decompress, and the isolation had helped him cope after meeting and then losing Miranda that first time. This was the home he’d light-proofed and made ready in the almost impossible expectation that somehow, someday, she’d return to him.
Mag would give anything for her to have come to him on her own. He’d tried to find her that morning after she left, but she had made a clean getaway. There was no scent trail for him to follow. He’d also looked for her using modern tools—the internet and public records—but she remained hidden and eventually he’d had to concede defeat. It ate him up inside to have given up.
The fact that she was here now sent a thrill of victory through the primitive part of his brain, but he would have rather had her return healthy. He hated the fact that she was too weak to remain conscious. He hated the fact that she was injured and had suffered untold horrors at the hands of a Venifucus mage. He would give anything to take all that pain away from her—for it to have never happened in the first place.
But he couldn’t change the past. No more than he could change the fact that she was a vampire and he was a shifter. Or the fact that she was, without doubt, his mate.
It was impossible. Forbidden. Frowned upon by both races. Just not done.
Mag had researched it. He hadn’t been able to find a vamp-shifter mating since the days of Elspeth. Only during the threat of those dark times had the taboo been lifted and a few shifters had been allowed to mate with a few very special vampires.
Shifter blood was like a drug to vamps. It gave them the strength and cunning of the shifter. It was a rare thing for any shifter to willingly allow a bloodletter to drink from them. In the modern era, vamps-shifter matings were intensely discouraged so the vampire of the pair wouldn’t have unlimited access to that extra-magical blood.
For one thing, the vampire Masters and Mistresses of each region didn’t want the competition. They held their positions of power over the rest of their kind by being the strongest—usually that also meant they were old and had lots of experience under their belts. For another, the shifter community didn’t like to give any particular vampire that much power. The bloodsuckers were plenty strong enough on their own without the addition of potent shifter blood.
“Where are we?” Miranda’s voice was weaker than before. She’d been fading in and out since he’d put her in the car and it worried him.
“Almost there, sweetheart. Hang on for me. I’ll have you inside and under cover soon. I promise.”
“Okay, Mag.” Silence followed them through the night as the wind whipped through his hair. “I missed you.”
Only his sharp shifter hearing picked up her quiet, slurred words over the wind as she fell back into unconsciousness. Damn. The woman knew how to get to him. Her unguarded admission touched him deep inside, drawing an answering ache to match that which he’d heard in her voice.
Every moment of every day, he’d missed her too. In his bed. In his house. The house he’d prepared for her presence though she’d never set foot in it before. Even though they’d only spent that one terrible, fantastic night together.
She had shredded his heart that night—or more accurately, that morning when he’d woken without her. She’d fled in the night while he slept and taken his heart with her.
The practical side of him knew she had left to save them both from the wrath of their respective peoples. But the emotional side of him knew only that he’d found his mate—at last—and she’d left him. His inner cougar had been inconsolable. His human heart had been broken beyond anyone’s ability to repair it. Anyone but Miranda, that is.
And now, here she was. In his car. Soon to be, in his house. Their house. The house he had refitted especially for her.
He pulled into the drive a few minutes later and hit the button that would raise the garage door. He parked the convertible while the door slid down, encasing the garage in darkness, but it was okay. He had excellent night vision.
Mag did a quick scan of the security screen before disarming the alarm system. Everything was as it should be in the house and now it was even more so, with Miranda finally here. He lifted her out of the car as gently as possible and brought her inside through the entrance from the garage, securing it behind him. The house was filled with the latest gadgetry in every respect—including security.
He’d learned a thing or two from his older brother Steve, who handled security for the entire Clan as well as their family business, Redstone Construction. Steve had been a Green Beret, as had their eldest brother, Grif. Both of them knew more about personal security than most, and Mag had taken every lesson they’d been willing to share to heart. He’d outfitted his hideaway with the most state of the art stuff he could get and installed every bit of it himself.
This house had been the project that had kept him sane while missing his mate. It wasn’t easy for shifters to be parted from their destined mate. In fact, it could drive most insane. Mag had turned to his work to give him something to focus on beside his pain at losing Miranda. He’d sunk himself into the projects the construction company had going during his working hours, then come here and spent the rest of his time building and improving this little nest out in the desert.
His brothers hadn’t known what he did with his spare time. Grif had probably realized he was troubled, but he hadn’t asked. Grif knew well enough that cougars needed to prowl alone from time to time. Bob, a few years younger than Mag, had learned the hard way not to ask what was wrong. They’d mixed it up a time or two—especially right after that night with Miranda. It was almost as if Bob had known Mag needed to blow off some steam and had sort of volunteered to be his sparring partner.
Bob was good like that, but it was Matt, their youngest brother, that Mag really needed to talk to now. Matt knew vampires. He was close with a few of the most powerful bloodletters in the Napa Valley. Mag had broached the subject delicately a few times over the past two years and he’d learned quite a bit. Including how to fix up the house so his mate would be comfortable.
But the part that eluded him was how they could be mates in the first place. Surely the Mother of All wouldn’t have allowed it if it wasn’t meant to be? Mag had always placed a great deal of his trust in the Lady he served. He had seen Her influence in the lives of his family for many years, and when tragedy struck, She was always there for them.
The latest horror of his mother’s brutal murder had been an attack by the forces of darkness, but Kate, the Clan’s priestess, was on the case with another of Her servants—a newcomer with so much magic, he glowed, according to his cousin Keith, who could actually see magic. So although bad things had happened—really bad things—Mag still had faith. After all, in tracking down the murderers, he�
�d discovered Miranda.
For it was the same evil mage who had somehow captured and then tortured Miranda for who knew how long, who had been part of the team that had killed Mag’s mother. Grif was leading the search, with Slade’s help. The family had been in disarray before Slade had shown up. He’d been sent by the Lords of all were to help, and so far, he’d produced amazing results.
They’d taken down the male mage tonight and with any luck, his female accomplice wouldn’t be too hard to find. Mag would be there for his family when they needed him, but for right now, Miranda needed him more.
Poor Miranda. Held captive by an evil madman. Mag felt sick just thinking about it. The only things that helped were knowing they’d rescued her, and having her in his arms. He would take care of her from now on. He’d see that she recovered her full strength and that something like this could never happen again.
Mag carried Miranda directly into the master suite’s attached bath. To say the room was a study in decadence was understating it. He’d installed marble everywhere, with a giant tub big enough for two. Wide sinks and vanity space. Sculpted marble everywhere in a sandy color with desert and cougar motifs. It was a wild place with discrete arrangements of tropical plants that gave it the feeling of a rainforest when the shower misted water into the air. A little piece of the rainforest in the middle of the desert. Mag liked the contrast.
But all he was interested in at the moment was the giant, walk-in shower he’d put at one end of the room. It had a sculpted bench along the back. The soft edges wouldn’t hurt Miranda as he undressed her, cleaned her up and inspected her wounds.
She was still mostly out of it, so he leaned her against the wall and began by tugging off her pants. She wore no shoes. The bastard that had held her had kept her barefoot. Or maybe she’d lost her shoes at one point, and the bastard had never replaced them. After all, it was easy to keep something dangerous in a cage. It was another thing entirely to open the cage and hope the dangerous creature wouldn’t bite your arm off.