The fireplace and pillar candles extinguish, plunging the room into darkness.
The candlewicks flicker to life and flare dramatically. Daniel looks bored, his fist resting at his temple, but glances at the fireplace. Flames burst into being on the charred logs.
My mouth drops. “Oh my Christ.”
‘I can manipulate flame. It is a gift less useful than you think. It used to be a mark of power, but now? How often do you see an open flame?’
I nod at the candles.
‘We keep them for nostalgic reasons. Think outside of Castle. You see? Electricity.’ He sighs. ‘Things change.’
Rather than gawp at Daniel as I am, Lee focuses on me. “When Ben changed me I gained the memory of all my predecessors. The Child carries the crux of the curse and therefore a majority of the power. I’m told it’s important I know everything that’s happened in the past. To protect us and help shape our future.”
She’s looking at me as if questioning this logic, and asking my opinion of it.
I abruptly remember Lee’s young like me, and new to this way of life. At least I’ve always known about the supernatural world. “Sure it’s useful.” No, it’s just creepy to know everything somebody else remembers. I still have hazy impressions of Daniel’s memory from his blood, and that’s bizarre enough. Let alone to have the memories as if I’d experienced them first hand. She must walk around in a constant state of déjà vu. That might explain the spacey look she gets. “How do you separate your memories from the others?”
“It sounds odd. I have the information ordered so I don’t get muddled. I think of my mind as interconnected rooms, named and packed with memories. I’m reorganizing them by person and time. Ben wasn’t so great at keeping the memories tidy.” Her face pinches. “I’m still making some mistakes, especially when looking at the same event through the eyes of multiple people. Um, the Sire and the Child’s memory of the same event,” she clarifies at my puzzled look.
“This is not information to give lightly.” Daniel glowers at her in disapproval. “Our ways are secret.”
“She’s my guest, not a danger.” Lee lifts her chin. “I knew Harmony before you did.”
Our gazes meet, and female appreciation passes between us.
“We should leave,” Daniel tells me, abandoning his attempt to reason with his Queen. “We endanger her and the legacy she carries.”
I consider his concern deeply. Lee’s fragile, and the idea of being the cause of any harm to her makes me uncomfortable. “Where would we go?”
“The city. To my home.”
I wrinkle my nose, not liking the idea of the city much at all. I’ve wanted adventure for ages, but I’ve never wanted to stay inside the city. I went as a pup, and the sights, sounds, and smells are too much for my hypersensitive senses.
My wolf hates it there.
The air is dirty and the pavements overcrowded.
“Stay.” For the briefest of moments loneliness and grief mists Lee’s eyes. “I need an explanation of what’s happening with the Pack. Before Ben returns would be good, I’ve got lots of explaining to do.”
Well, I wasn’t one to kick aside hospitality. I face Daniel. “I’d prefer to stay here.”
Silent, he returns his unblinking stare to the fire.
Lee settles on an armchair, and tucks her bare feet under her bottom. A blanket from the sofa floats over to her, and she grabs it with a soft cry of pleasure, and swaddles her body. The fabric cocoons her until she’s a disembodied head. She studies us. “Talk.”
Daniel scrubs his face. He flicks a wrist at me. “She is my Bride.”
My gasp is loud. Heart soaring, I lock my arms at my sides, resisting the urge to roll over the top of the couch into his lap and squeeze him silly.
Acknowledging me as his mate to his Queen.
My wolf is overjoyed at how he honours us. My rational brain realises he looks unhappy, but it’s a start, and even if he rejects a life with me I’ve gained more leverage to buy my freedom from the South Western Pack.
Lee rocks forward. Her hands grip the arm rests. “Really?” A line appears between her brows, and her expression screams distrust. “You’re trying to trick me. Anya was your Bride. The memories I inherited from you are incomplete, but I can see she was from the others.”
Daniel shakes his head. “I thought she was, but now my real Bride has found me I know my behaviour was merely obsessive and desperate.” He laughs bleakly. “Pathetic.”
A memory flickers before my eyes. The images sent to me through Daniel’s blood are weakening, but the picture is clear enough.
Anya is stunning, beautiful in a way that steals my breath and kicks my gut.
I’m a shadow compared to her.
“She had a son.” Jealousy is strangling me. “Was he yours?”
Lee’s eyes are round. “What?”
Daniel groans. Golden locks tumble in front of his face as his head smacks into his hands. “I have no wish to remember this.” He glares at me. His upper lip curls in a mean snarl, flashing his sharp teeth. “I do not want you, or the memories I spent decades burying.” Supernaturally fast, he rushes to loom over me and hisses in my face. “I will be free of both.”
I jerk and nearly fall off the sideboard onto the sofa.
“Enough.”
Astonished, Daniel retreats a step as if shackled to a chain Lee yanked.
I blink, and Lee has abandoned her seat and stands between us. Daniel is pushed further back by her stare alone. “I might not have all your memories, but I have enough. You’ve been trapped in a hell of your own making after losing Anya. Here you are making the same mistake. Idiot.”
The front door crashes open, letting in the cold wind and a spattering of rain.
A thundering voice booms, “Lee!”
The Vampire Queen’s head whips around in a blurred streak. Emerald eyes become impossibly wide. Her slender hands come together at her waist, and she strokes the rose charm dangling from the bracelet wrapped around her wrist.
Lee’s heart rate accelerates. “Ben’s home.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Get away from her.”
Lee opens her arms to the dark warrior who storms into the room. He scoops her off her feet and paces to the other end of the room. He slides her behind him protectively and scowls at Daniel.
“Ben.” Lee shoves him aside. “Welcome home. A kiss please.”
His eyes snap over his shoulder to her face, giving her the gentlest of looks, but as he remembers the danger he stiffens. “Daniel.” He spits the name as a curse. “Your presence will bring trouble to our door.”
I growl.
I’m not liking the judgmental tone of Ben’s voice, or the hostile way he stares at my mate.
“Darling,” Lee says her gaze fixed on his face. She strokes his shoulder. “Calm, please.”
I’m thankful she’s keeping a hold on Ben. Having Lee on side might make the difference between life and death.
“He’s right.” Daniel’s voice is empty. “I bring death. I am not … what I used to be. My fate is sealed, Bride or not.”
The underlying desperation in his tone tears at my heart with poisoned claws. “I don’t believe that.” Hoping off the sideboard, I walk over to him calmly, trying to dispel the memory of his enraged face thrust into mine just moments ago. “I think your people will help if you let them.”
Ben’s mouth thins into a white line.
Daniel has blanched bone white, and as I move closer, he backs away with upheld palms.
What’s causing him to look so violently ill?
‘You won’t leave me be. So I’ll show you. I will make you understand what your future will be if you stay close to me.’ His voice is reedy in my head. He shows me my prone body covered in blood and gore, a broken angel at his feet. I get a vision of him holing me as the lights in my eyes die. Then I’m reaching to him for safety as fangs rend flesh from my bones, and I choke on my own blood.
Thes
e visions feature merciless Vampires killing me. His people hurting me to teach him the ultimate lesson in pain.
His mind is a mess.
These thoughts are poisoning his confidence. He’s fighting it, but the need to keep me safe is driving him to distraction.
He’s terrified of a future where I die before him, a future where he loses all pretence of sanity.
I come back to myself, and I’m shivering, and gulping air. There’s the metallic taste of blood in my mouth where I’ve bitten my tongue to stifle the pain I accidently siphoned from him.
How does he stand it?
My heart is aching.
No wonder his face takes on the properties of stone when I needle him about how our relationship should be. He’s trying to hold it together. Scared everything he needs to live life again will be ripped from him because of past transgressions.
How could I go anywhere when he feels like this?
My freedom is important, but my first choice will be to stand by my mate’s side.
Daniel has to let me be there.
He thinks he’s not worthy of me. That any chance of me loving him was broken when I learned he murdered my cousin.
All things can be mended. Forgiveness. He only needs to ask.
We can still fall in love, grow, and flourish into something breath-taking if has a little faith. Give a little love and let it happen.
’Have you seen it? Have you seen what I’ve done?’
He’s in agony.
His pain hits me like a dagger to the heart. My chest is tight. Squeezing. The pressure is too much.
‘I will show you,’ he thinks in a crazed rasp. ‘I will show you what it is like in here with me. I will share some of that which you insist on pursuing.’
He sucks in a mental breath and darkness descends in his mind, and mine, as he prepares to show me his greatest sin.
He doesn’t think the lives he’s taken over the endless night of his second life is bad. He sees those he’s fed from as courses for courses, his due as an apex predator.
He doesn’t think his reaction over Ben choosing Lee as the Child was wrong. His intentions were to protect the Great Bloodline.
Listening to thoughts he keeps under lock and key in the depths of his mind is quite the experience. Oh my Christ. He’s grabbed me from my aimless meander, and shoved me into a place that is all about me.
How can I possibly take up so much of his mind?
Nevertheless, here I am a luminous nucleus so exquisite he cannot help but feel love and hope.
I’m there celebrating our mating in his consciousness.
Is this how he sees me?
The smell is divine. It’s juicy apple pies sprinkled with warm cinnamon, baking in rays of hot, yellow sunshine. That spicy bouquet mixes with the smell of cold rain in leafy woods. His earthy scents blend with my fiery ones to create a fragrance that is unique to us.
And the taste and textures of us are so wonderful. I’m satin and he’s stone – rough and soft.
Apart we’re plain, but together we’re rich, deep, and velvety.
He knows he’s bitter chocolate, and remembers our kisses as his taste mixing gloriously with my creamy hazelnuts.
That is us.
Daniel and Harmony.
He has a mental picture of me. My arms are open wide, and my smile is brilliant. In the blue dark, I stand calling out with a voice that to him is magic. Honeyed and streaked bronze, my unruly hair shines, light ringing the crown like a halo. My tan skin gleams, and my sapphire wolf eyes glow, sparkle at him as I wink naughtily. My wolf spirit is a phantom beside me. Tail wagging, she rolls playfully as silken fur ripples, begging him to come and play.
It makes him laugh and smile. He wishes to make love to my Human form and run wild with my beast self.
I’m struck dumb by all I see. Around me are snatches of memory. Vivid and rich, as if they’re happening right this very moment.
Every second I’ve spent with him, every feeling he’s gleaned, and every breath I’ve taken, he’s meticulously engraved into his memory so that he never forgets how precious I am. He sees the small things, like when I scratch my nose, or blink to clear my eyes, as perfection, and the most beautiful thing ever.
Shocked, does not explain how taken aback I am to read these things in his mind. He doesn’t just care like I hoped. He’s not happy I’m with him, or satisfied with how I look, like he makes me believe. He’s unchangeably besotted, and lovesick to the core.
This is what it means to be a Vampire Bride?
He’s suicidal he’s going to be the one to hurt me.
This thought rushes away, and I chase it, clucking, and calling for it to come back. Hurt me? How could he ever harm me when he feels like this?
Before I can hunt that pesky thought down, and track what memories and knowledge created it, I end up backpedalling to hide from advancing shadows.
Oh my.
Riffling through the Eden in his mind are evil sentinels. Horrible insecurities and doubts are plaguing him. They smear filth from their sticky hands over our lovely moments, and leave stains he cannot scrub off.
The biggest fiend mooches past, making the landscape of his mind tremble and quake. This waking nightmare leaves stains so corrosive they sizzle and crackle, like hot oil that spits and burns exposed skin.
What the holy fuck is that thing?
What guilt and shame could possibly be so big that it causes a monster like that to roam around in your mind?
‘I wished to protect you from it, but the longer I do the larger it grows.’ Daniel’s voice is death incarnate. He’s convinced this is it; this is the moment I turn from him. ‘Look. See what I am, and what I have done. Hate me for it.’
There it is again, large as you like, big, soggy, dripping green ooze and stinking like offal. Gag. I can taste the sour concoction at the back of my throat. Retch.
This disgusting thing is what you’ve been hiding from me?
I’m watching what happened with Sean. My cousin Daniel left with a broken neck outside Castle’s steps.
I don’t know if I can watch this.
Can I?
Am I strong enough to deal with whatever I witness?
He’s my mate, and I have to forgive past transgressions or we’ll never move forward. But is looking back like this healthy for us?
Lord, how can I be so insensitive? Selfish, that’s what I am. He’s agonized over this. He can barely think straight with it, and I want to avoid it because I’m afraid of what feelings I’ll have to endure to work my way through it?
If I can’t forgive him for this how is the Pack ever going to?
How are Daniel’s people ever going to?
I feel his shame at endangering them all. I won’t make it worse by adding the weight of his Bride’s disapproval.
Right, hit me with it. Whoa. That’s freaky. I’m sucked into the icky mass until I’m standing knee deep in the quagmire. Yuck. This memory stings the eyes and burns the skin. Quickly. Show me the memory quickly before I hurl and pass out from the nausea.
‘Damn Ben and damn his soul. He has found his one, his Bride, and I have to sit here and watch him not only love her, but drag the rest of us down? Nej. I won’t allow it and neither will the others. What is that? Growling? I smell wolf. Not possible, this is Vampire territory. What is a mutt doing so far into enemy territory? Hells! Jaws snapping. Wild eyes. Sour dog breath. Disgusting creature. Ripping canines. Damn, my forearm is bleeding. Rage. Blinding anger. Get off me. Lunging? The creature is mad. A Lycan is no match for Vampire strength. Suicidal. Charging? Is it mad? Open maw. Claws. Grab the beast by the scruff of its throat. Hand spasms. Crunch. I’m so angry. Snap. Confusion. Blood. Death. A young wolf with fragile bones. Hell! Think. Find the advantage. Use this. War. A distraction. Deal with Ben and secure the Child. Protect the legacy. Weed the weak.”
The memory fades and the stick mass rolls away, leaving a trail of destruction as it goes. It’s smaller now. Is it
because he shared the horrible memory?
I’m sick to the stomach. I felt Sean’s bone break as if my hands had delivered the fatal blow. I felt his life end as blood flowed. Ugh. My mind is crashing, trying to deal with the loss.
‘Daniel.’ I sob. I can’t help it. ‘What happened is horrible, but it was an accident. I understand why you never asked forgiveness. There’s nothing to forgive. You never said he attacked first on Vampire territory.’
‘It does not matter. Our instincts are different to yours. We do not attack in blind rage, and we are faster, stronger, and quicker. There was nothing but shame in killing one so young. I tried to make his death count for something. I’m sick like that. Do you see now? The promise of your love is not enough. Love will not mend this. It won’t fix me.’
I can’t soothe him because it all becomes too much. My mind’s self-preservation instincts kick in, shutting me down.
I float in blackness.
Get up, Harmony. Your man is probably about to lop off his own head.
Slowly, I drag myself back to conscious. Cool hands press down on my forehead. “Daniel?”
“He left,” Lee’s says softly. “He tore out of here a moment before your head hit the floor.”
“Not once have I seen him cry,” Ben says. He’s standing behind Lee. “You have affected my Sire in ways I never dreamed he could be. It is almost as if he feels.”
They have no idea of the pain he carries.
The guilt.
“I don’t think he’ll come back tonight.” Lee bobs her head towards the window. “The sun is rising. He’ll have to go to ground.”
I bite my lip to stifle a sob. “What if he walks into the sunlight?” My voice is tiny.
Lee leans her head on my shoulder in comfort. “I can sense him, and he’s fine. You hear him too don’t you?”
I nod. “He’s blocking me out. He’s good at that, I didn’t even realise we were still connected.”
“Of course you are,” Lee says. “You’re his Bride and you’ve taken his blood.”
Bite My Love Dark Creature Page 7