Date: 2014-01-15 15:36:19+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Fiction; Fantasy; Literary; Dark Fantasy; Literature & Fiction; Romance; Paranormal; Vampires
Description: Blood Mate, a dark fairy tale... Nicole has been happily married to big shot attorney, Dominic Rose for ten years, but soon after their anniversary he grows cold-as if she doesn't exist. Meanwhile, another man has been pursuing her far too intently for comfort. August Corinth is a six-hundred-year-old vampire, cursed to kill and suffer the pain of his victims each night until he can find the one woman who can resist his thrall, his blood mate. Once he's found her, there are no lines he won't cross to claim the promised salvation even if it means taking away everything and everyone she loves.
Publisher: Burlesque Press

Blood Mate

Kitty Thomas

Digital Edition

Copyright 2014 © Kitty Thomas

All rights reserved.

Digital Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or shared. If you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Respecting the hard work of this author makes new books possible.

Publisher’s Note:

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, and the author does not endorse or condone any of this book’s content in a real world setting. This work is intended for an emotionally mature, adult audience.

About Blood Mate
...A Dark Fairy Tale

Nicole has been happily married to big shot attorney, Dominic Rose for ten years, but soon after their anniversary he grows cold—as if she doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, another man has been pursuing her far too intently for comfort.

August Corinth is a six-hundred-year-old vampire, cursed to kill and suffer the pain of his victims each night until he can find the one woman who can resist his thrall, his blood mate. Once he’s found her, there are no lines he won’t cross to claim the promised salvation even if it means taking away everything and everyone she loves.

Chapter One

August Corinth jolted from a dead sleep, gripping the cross around his neck, still rattled that neither the silver nor the holy symbol burned him. The cross was simple, without ornamentation—a hunting lure. Humans saw symbols of faith, and they trusted. He’d long thought God would sweep in and smite him for daring to wear it. But so far… nothing.

His pulse beat against his throat, a dull, steady strumming that wouldn’t stop no matter what he did. Fire, sunlight, electrocution, stakes, knives, holy water, garlic—nothing worked. He’d even tried decapitation, but the damned blade had broken, refusing to cut far enough through his neck to finish the deed. He was flesh and bone, yet something magic ran through his veins that made death an impossibility.

The moon shone through the leaded window. It was too bright for a vampire waking out of a dead sleep, but closing his eyes would make the images of the nightmare come back. He’d dreamed of being turned and abandoned by his mad sire. The elder vampire had laughed in victory as he set himself on fire. That hideous face behind those flames still burned in August’s memory.

He unfolded his limbs, stretched, and stood in front of the mirror, searching for a man instead of a monster. As days stretched into weeks, months, years, centuries, he saw less of himself reflected back. He saw coldness and evil. But despite that, underneath it all was the guilt, the terror, the pain. And those he lured? Those he enthralled? They followed him, blissfully trusting the peaceful energy and lies he fed into their minds.

Whatever brief relief feeding might bring, it created new suffering as the body count rose ever higher. And unlike a normal predator, the vampire experienced the pain and fear of each victim down to the depths of his soul as he took their lives one by one. But it had to be done.

The only hope was an old wives’ tale laid out in the gilded book his sire had left him—a book straight from the gods who had made the first of his kind. Vampires were a sadistic experiment, their existence meant to entertain gods who had long grown bored with their own immortality.

In the book, there was a way out that didn’t involve passing the curse. If a vampire could find a woman he couldn’t enthrall who would sacrifice herself to him as his blood mate, he could feed from her and be satisfied without killing. She would become immortal to satisfy his urges throughout eternity. But it was a myth—another way to torment those who’d fallen under the curse of the capricious old gods. In his six hundred and twenty-three years of life, August had never encountered a single woman he couldn’t mentally control.

He ran his fingers over the spine of the book, resisting the urge to read the fairy tale that helped him sleep. The hunger had awakened, gnawing at him, clawing at him from the inside like a demon that could never be exorcised. He wrapped himself in a robe and made his way through the house, stopping at the door to the cellar.

His hand hovered over the doorknob. He could smell them, could hear them down there whispering amongst themselves, planning unlikely escapes. He took a long shuddering breath, then turned the knob and began his descent down the creaking stairs. He heard the humans—like vermin—scurrying into shadows, their breath slowing to become ever quieter even as their hearts raced like thundering applause.

In the cellar were seven cages. One for each day of the week. It was always the worst for the seventh victim after the build-up and terror at witnessing the others who came before. But the seventh was always the sweetest, the most fulfilling, even as it ripped out August’s soul, throwing his humanity down a dark abyss.

There were four left. He brought them food each day, and they each had a toilet and a sink and a shower and a cot.

He opted not to do the evil villain soliloquy, nor did he indulge in painting himself a victim for others to pity. Instead, he dragged a woman from one of the cages. The smell of blood broke through the dank air as she scraped fingers, grabbing the jagged ground for purchase to keep him from pulling her out.

August closed his eyes against her begging screams and sank his fangs into her throat, draining the life from her as she thrashed against him. There was momentary pleasure in the act of feeding. It was a bright, sweet point of light in his existence. It was the briefest touch of heaven, of perfection, and it lasted until the blood ran out.

The body dropped to the ground with a thud, and he dropped right behind her, picking her up and cradling her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His sobs were muffled against her shirt, but she was no longer with him to hear his broken pleas for forgiveness.

“August?”

The voice was small, but she had seen this show for several nights now. Fear rolled out of his prisoner like fog coming in off a lake, but she remained stoic, brave.

“What is it?” He both couldn’t stand for her to talk to him, and needed her to. Why he kept her alive, he didn’t know. He went down the line in order, but he’d skipped her cage two nights ago. She tugged at him.

“Talk to me,” she said.

He moved the corpse from his arms—arranging her on the ground in a less macabre pose—and crawled over to the woman who’d beckoned him. The remaining victims moved to the back of their cages, one stifling sobs and trying to remain invisible, the other—a man—rocking back and forth, screaming about the devil and Jesus returning to make it all right.

When August got to the cage, the woman reached through the bars to take his hand. He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know any of their names. He couldn’t let himself know. It would only make things harder.

Her skin was soft and warm.

“I’m sorry you’re suffering.” She was a rare jewel to end up in one of his cages. She saw him, through the monster, into the cruelty of what had been done to him.

He wished the lie about mates was true. He could have kept her for a thousand years, more, but he could easily enthrall her. It made a part of him want to kill her now for the unfairness of a false hope.

He scooted closer to the cage.

“W-when you do it, does it have to hurt?”

August squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes.” How could he explain to her the need to feed, the pleasure of it, the pointlessness of enthralling her beforehand or the impossibility of stopping once he’d started? It would sound like justification from a monster, and she’d be right.

“Why?”

“It’s how the curse was formed. It’s how it has to be.”

With his free hand, he stroked her hair, surprised when she leaned into him instead of cringing away. If he killed this one, if he made her suffer, he’d never recover from it. Her bravery and compassion in the face of her situation was more than he deserved or could take.

He wanted to keep her. But what would he do with her? He couldn’t take her as a lover, it would trigger the feeding instinct. Sex always made the hunger worse and the killing more brutal. She wasn’t safe here.

He managed to pull his hand out of her silken hair and released himself from her grasp to take the key from his pocket. He unlocked the cage and stepped inside. She crumpled against him, trembling, her bravery leaving now that she thought it was her turn.

His hand lingered on her cheek. “Look into my eyes.”

Her stark gaze rose to his.

“If I asked you to stay with me, if I wanted you to be my mate, if I spared you, would you stay as long as I asked?”

“Y-yes.”

He peeked into her mind and let out a curse that made her shake more. If he couldn’t enthrall her, he’d be free. He’d hoped she would say yes but be lying, or that she’d say no or cry or give any indication that the thought horrified her, but despite all her fear, she wanted to help him. She was a powerless angel, there to save him but unable to complete the task for which she’d been sent. It may have been a survival strategy, but she was willing, and that’s what would have counted if he hadn’t been able to enthrall her. If the story in the book was true. He’d seen no evidence that it was.

He took control of her mind. “You will leave this place and find your way home. Forget me and everything you saw here. You will not have nightmares or fears or lingering dread. It will be as if none of it ever happened.”

Peace slipped over her features, and in a daze, she moved up the stairs and out of the cellar.

As soon as she was gone, the two remaining humans rushed their cages. “Please, I’m sorry for your suffering. Let me out!”

“Please let us go.”

The woman said, “I-I’ll stay with you. I-I’ll do whatever you want. Please.”

August’s face darkened. They hadn’t cared about his suffering five minutes ago. “No more mercy. I’d have to hunt again, and neither of you is worth that much added exertion.”

He left the cellar, slamming the door on their begging and shutting them out to go back to his warm bed upstairs.

***

“Stop it, Dominic!” Nicole choked out between laughter.

“I can’t stop it, Mrs. Rose. It’s the tenth anniversary, the tickle anniversary. I’m afraid, I’m obligated by law to tickle you until you puke.”

She managed to kick him away and get to his side of the king-sized bed. She grabbed his watch off the night table and held it high in the air.

“Nicole… now that’s not playing fair. The firm gave me that.”

“All’s fair in tickle survival. I’ll smash it.”

“You wouldn’t.”

One delicate eyebrow rose. “Try me.”

Dominic sighed and held his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, I give up.”

“That’s good because my other defense idea was a pillow fort.” She fell back onto the pillows, her gaze following her husband as he got out of the bed, all tan and sleek muscle. He smiled down at her, revealing the dimple she loved.

Dominic Rose was a big shot attorney, but he didn’t fit the stereotypes. There wasn’t a thing sleazy about him. He was kind, honest, funny. She pinched herself, still unsure after ten years that this could be real.

Dominic was the prize at the end of the dating rainbow—the reward for putting up with all the douche-y assholes she’d somehow managed to find herself in bed with before him. Even better? Unlike far too many men, he didn’t judge her for a single one of the conquests on her list. She hadn’t had to lie about her number to appease his ego. And he hadn’t done that asinine man math where you take a woman’s number and multiply it by some arcane amount known only by the boy’s club because she must be a big whore no matter what she says.

Men loved to play with sluts, but when it came time to commit they wanted to think they’d gotten there first. But Dominic was all about the equal opportunity. All he cared about was that he had her now.

Nicole crossed to the dresser and began to brush the tangles out of her long, golden hair. She wished she could say she was some fairy-tale princess who naturally had such fabulous color, but it came from a bottle.

“What if someone from the firm sees us at dinner tonight?”

They’d both called in sick to spend the day together in bed, hoping no one would know it was their anniversary, which they’d declared a secret holiday.

“They’re working late. They’ll be pouring over depositions. It’s your people we’d have to worry about.”

“The flower shop? Oh, please. You think any of them can afford to go out to Au Soleil? On a weeknight, no less? They aren’t rolling in it like you, baby.”

“Good point.” He rushed her, tossing her back on the bed again to smother her with more kisses.

“Dominic, it’s mid-afternoon, I need a shower. Not again.” She fake-smacked at his groping hands, giggling as she squirmed away.

He rolled her over and smacked her bottom much harder than their playful antics would suggest. She knew from the sting alone that he’d left a print.

“Fine. Get that cute ass in the shower, then, and don’t let the butterflies get you!”

“You’re confusing me with Uncle Chuck. I don’t have flying insect delusions, thank you.” She almost regretted telling him that story now. It was just a joke to Dominic, but the idea that a blood relative could have such vivid delusions had played as a low background drumbeat signaling some future doom.

“Want company? I could protect you from them.”

She laughed, and the drumbeat receded. “You’re impossible.”

“Impossibly wonderful,” he said with his cheesy toothpaste commercial smile. He smiled like that to drive her insane.

“Stop, I’ll die laughing. Literally.”

He allowed her to retreat into the bathroom, but she wasn’t surprised when he joined her a few minutes later. She needed to get the lock on that door fixed. She suspected Dominic had broken it on purpose despite his innocent protests to the contrary. He wouldn’t want a door locked to him where she might be waiting naked on the other side. Opportunities like that were for taking advantage of in his book.

She leaned against the shower wall and sighed as his large hands roamed over her body with the soap. She wanted to melt into those strong, warm hands. As long as his hands were on her, nothing else could ever touch her. He was warmth, protection, pleasure that drove away all bad thoughts and fears. His hands slid over her breasts and down between her legs to rub the spot she was sure couldn’t handle any more pleasure today.

“How is this going to work for getting me clean?” she asked, trying to sound firm, but the words spilled out in a whimper.

“How does dry cleaning work? It’s a mystery of life. Just accept that it does.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t protest as his fingers dipped inside her. She’d thought he’d wrung every ounce of pleasure from her, but Dominic was skilled at much more than law.

He stopped before she reached completion and bent her forward. His mouth brushed the side of her ear. “Put your hands on the shower floor and spread your legs wide for me.”

She wanted to protest, claiming fatigue. They’d fucked so many times in the past six hours she thought she might die from it.

“Nicole… now,” he practically growled.

She reached behind her to run her still soap-slick hands over his erection. How he was still going was anybody’s guess. She wondered if he’d taken an herbal or medical enhancement. When she didn’t move quickly enough, Dominic put her into the position he wanted her in and impaled her with one quick thrust.

He was large and thick, and that first thrust always left her gasping and with a twinge in her stomach that felt like a free fall. It did something to her that kept her from ever resenting his demands on her body. She braced her hands against the shower floor, half-grateful he wasn’t going to make her come again.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Just take it,” he rumbled.

His breathing came harder, and he finished fast as the water pounded down cooler on them. When he pulled out of her, she crumpled to the shower floor and leaned against the rounded corner.

Dominic shut the water off and came back with a bathrobe. He wrapped the terrycloth around her and helped her out.

“My poor baby,” he said, as he kissed the hollow of her throat. “Did I break you this time?”

Nicole smiled weakly up at him. “I’m spent. This has to be the last time today.”

“No promises.” He swatted her bottom through the robe, then went to his side of the double sinks and ran a comb through his hair. “Why don’t you run to the coffee shop and get us our usual?”

She jumped at the opportunity for a reprieve. It was the only way she’d go five minutes unmolested. Her husband was in fine form today.

***

The coffee shop was small and intimate and local. They made Cuban coffee—an espresso blend that was strong but not too bitter. It was all Dominic would drink when he worked into the night, and he’d brought Nicole along for the ride of his addiction.

She’d never been able to go for drinking it black like her husband and always ended up with a frothy, cold drink that more resembled a milkshake than coffee. When he’d tried to convert her to real coffee, her response had been, “You can take my frappés from my cold dead hands.”

Dominic had decided against killing her in favor of allowing her this one vice.

“Hey, Nicolette, your usual?” The woman had read Nicole’s given name off her credit card one day, and Nicole hadn’t bothered to correct her with the less formal version she went by. Nicolette was a nice change. It made her feel sophisticated and mysterious. It fit the atmosphere of the place.

The barista was a rotund redhead who made overweight elegant. If Nicole were the same size, she was sure she wouldn’t look so amazing.

She sighed. “Yes, we are boring people.”

The barista laughed and rang up the order.

That was when Nicole sensed the man behind her. How she knew it was a man, she couldn’t be sure. Was he wearing a touch of cologne or aftershave she’d picked up on? Had she heard heavier footfalls behind her that had faded into the background of her awareness? But no, he’d been silent as a ghost.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and unable to stand it any longer, she turned to find out who was crowding her space. She feared she’d discover no one there—a sure sign of going crazy, but a man was there. He stood no closer to her than was appropriate in any coffee line. It had only felt like an invasion of her personal bubble.

The man wore dark jeans and a gray sports jacket. A Rolex glinted at his wrist. Whereas Dominic had light brown hair, this man’s hair was so black it was as if he colored it with a bottle of pure evil. His eyes were a light hazel that almost glowed against his swarthy skin. There was something sad in his smile, but also something dangerous.

The silver cross around his neck advertised piety. But the religious jewelry did nothing to assuage her anxiety or convince her of his inherent goodness. Those eyes were too empty for that.

“Turn around and get your coffee,” he ordered, obviously used to being obeyed. Who the hell did he think he was?

“Excuse me? You’re a little rude, aren’t you? Did they not cover charm in the charm school you attended?”

“What’s your name?” He didn’t seem aware of the non sequitur or the continued inappropriate rudeness. The man didn’t have an ounce of social grace.

When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her arm. His grip wasn’t harsh, but somehow it still burned. There was something wild and frightening about this man.

“WHAT is your name? Tell me.”

“No. Hands off!” She pulled her arm from his grasp.

Panic entered his eyes as he looked around the coffee shop for reactions, but aside from the two of them and the barista, the place was vacant.

He regrouped. “I apologize. I don’t know what… it’s… you remind me of someone I once knew. I’m August.”

He offered a hand for her to shake, but it was too late to be disarming. Nicole couldn’t bring herself to touch him. Instead she deflected with, “That’s a name?”

“Augustine, but people look at you funny with that name.”

People probably looked at him funny with August.

He was trying to relax her, trying to charm her with his smooth smile and now twinkling eyes. And maybe if she were someone else, it would have worked. But she was immune to what passed for charming from the majority of the local assholes. No doubt he’d left a long line of destroyed women in his wake, their wounded hearts laid out to shrivel and die in the hot sun.

She turned back to the barista, working to ignore the deep gut instinct that said turning her back on this man was dangerous. Predator, her mind screamed in the same tone one might shout idiot or don’t go down that dark hallway. She wondered if her senses would have been this finely tuned if she were alone and seeking a man. Empirically, he was hot. This one would have wrecked her, maybe in the find-your-bones-seven-months-later-in-a-ravine way.

“Here you are, Nicolette.” The barista passed her the two coffee beverages, one cold, one hot.

She took the drinks and made a beeline out the door.

The bell over the door rang again, and she knew he’d followed. Her heart thudded in her throat. Another block to her car and everything would be fine. It was bright and sunny out. There were people. He wasn’t going to take her. And what? Fling her down in the middle of the street and have his way with her? She was oversexed. Imagining things.

“Nicolette, wait!”

That stupid barista and her first-name basis with regulars. It was a great reason to pay cash.

The melancholy in his tone caught her off guard and made her turn. She was surprised he’d moved as fast as he had without getting winded. He didn’t just seem in great shape. If he decided to chase her, she couldn’t outrun him. She tried not to look terrified. Dominic would forgive her for throwing his coffee in this man’s face if it would keep her safe.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what was wrong with me back there. I didn’t mean to frighten you or make you uncomfortable. I’m having a weird day.” He offered a sheepish grin.

The alarm bells rang so loud they vibrated out of her. Everything inside her warned that she must put as much distance between herself and this man as possible. And fast.

“It’s okay,” she said, trying to disengage the conversation, backing toward her silver Lexus as she spoke.

“Perhaps we could get coffee sometime.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m married.”

His gaze lingered too long on her ring before he looked back into her eyes with a naked hope that scared Nicole in still more ways.

“Happily?” he ventured.

“Yes, very. I’m sorry, I have to go. My husband’s coffee will get cold.” She forced herself to turn away, fighting every instinct that considered it unwise.

She held her breath until she was locked inside her car and had pulled safely onto the street. She regretted glancing into the rear view mirror to find him standing in the road, a determined expression on his dark face.

Chapter Two

August’s mind raced as he got into the black Bugatti to follow her. Could she be… ? No, of course not. It was a fairy tale. It wasn’t real. But there was no denying that Nicolette had resisted thrall. He’d been annoyed when she’d stared as if he were a museum piece.

Women displayed a morbid fascination with him, which would last until they were in his cellar. Then it would be gone unless he enthralled them to prolong the illusion. And such wasted magic required him to feed more.

He’d slipped the command into his words, his eyes boring holes into hers as he’d told her to turn around. When that awful zombie-robot thing hadn’t happened to her face and she hadn’t obeyed his order, everything stopped. All the sounds he could hear miles away silenced. The smells muted. The colors grew fuzzy. All that existed was her, glowing brilliantly like the one shining star on an otherwise cloudy night.

Hope. Salvation. He could stop hurting people. He could stop suffering. He’d tried again, not yet daring to believe. He’d put every ounce of force he could into demanding she obey him. He’d touched her to forge a stronger connection, but no, she couldn’t be controlled by a vampire’s thrall. At least not his thrall.

It had taken a few moments to collect himself. He didn’t remember how to deal with human beings without controlling their minds, how to persuade or gain what he wanted without that touch of black art that made them fall into his arms.

She had blonde hair that fell in delicate waves halfway down her back. He imagined she was gorgeous getting out of bed in the morning with that hair tousled and in disarray, falling forward to conceal her breasts from a hungry male gaze. Her skin was luminescent. Her eyes were the color of blue topaz, fringed with dark lashes. She was willowy and delicate but with enough curve to not be boyish. She was, in a word, beautiful.

But none of that mattered. Her beauty, though appealing, wasn’t what made her special. She could have been thirty pounds overweight and frumpy with dull, brown hair and eyes the color of dishwater. She could have been fifty-five with deep crow’s feet and a bad knee. Nothing mattered to him but the fact that he couldn’t control her mind, that she could save him if she were willing. She could have been somebody’s grandmother, and he would have dedicated the rest of his eternity to her because nothing was more attractive than salvation to a man condemned forever.

But she was perfect, except for that one detail.

Married. Happily.

August’s mind went back to the woman he’d released the night before, the one who would have stayed with him, who felt bad for him. He didn’t care that her strongest emotion for him had been pity, she would have saved him. She could have been his blood mate if her mind weren’t so weak against vampire thrall. As angry as it had made him, as unfair as it had been, he couldn’t bring himself to punish the one soul in centuries who’d seen the truth of his suffering and shown him compassion.

Nicolette, on the other hand, would not be easy. It would have been too much to hope to find a single woman, or one whose husband was unkind so that she would fall into the seduction, crave his attention and love. Though August had given up on the story centuries ago, he’d always known that whether he loved her or not, she would have to love him. He couldn’t imagine another scenario in which any woman would give herself over to him for eternity to be fed on every night, not unless he found a non-magical way to coerce her.

If only she were unhappy with her marriage.

He gripped the steering wheel. He couldn’t control her mind, but he could control the husband’s. It might not be fair play, but as long as the curse didn’t prohibit it, he’d use any tool available to him to make this all end.

***

August followed them to a small, upscale French restaurant, careful to stay a good distance back. Even hidden in a throng of chatting, waiting people, he heard the maître d’ greet them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rose, we have a nice table out of the way beside the fountain as you requested. Come with me, please.”

August pushed through the bodies, holding back the hunger, and followed at a distance behind them. He picked a table several yards away where he could watch and hear the conversation unnoticed and undisturbed. It was quick work to suggest to an elderly couple that they were finished eating, had already paid, and needed to leave right away. He took their spot, grateful most of the food was gone. He drank beverages like coffee and wine, but solid food, he found distasteful.

The waiter’s approach was tentative. “Um, sir, what happened to the couple at this table?”

The vampire smiled up at him, capturing the waiter’s gaze in his own. “My wife and I have been here the whole evening.” August imagined the brunette that had been in his cellar the previous night, the one he’d released. He indicated the seat across from him.

The waiter turned toward the vacant chair and laughed. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know where my head is or why I didn’t see you sitting there.”

August cleared his throat and the man turned back to him. “Please don’t bother us again. Forget this table exists until I’ve left the restaurant.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” he said, his expression glazed and robotic, convinced this was a normal request and he was acting of his own free will.

August shifted his attention to Nicolette and her husband several tables away. He’d picked a viewing perch where the woman’s back would be to him. She’d gone stiff in the coffee shop just before she’d turned around. If she did that now, he wasn’t sure how he’d handle her—or the witnesses. If she knew he was watching, he’d have to take her, and that would be a messy event—hard to clean up with so many people around. And it would do little to convince her to become his mate.

August watched the husband slide a black velvet box across the linen. The vampire filtered the noise around him to hear their table. It sounded hollow and tinny, but the content of the conversation was easy enough to pick up.

“Happy anniversary, sweetheart.”

She opened the box to reveal a diamond bracelet. Even from such a distance, August knew the man had good taste. And money. Guilt stabbed at him for what he was about to do. But it didn’t matter. There was no price too high to pay, no evil as great as the one he had to do each night to fulfill the demands of the curse. She would come to understand. She’d grow to love him so that it would make it all less horrible for her. Eventually her husband would fade from her mind. Some day it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

“Oh, Dominic, it’s beautiful. Thank you!” She held out her delicate wrist, and he deftly worked the clasp to put it on her. “I’ll be right back. I want to see it in a mirror against my dress.” She excused herself to go to the restroom, and August turned away until she was gone, then he blazed a path to her vacated seat.

“Excuse me, but my wife is… ”

August took the man’s hand and captured his gaze, putting the full force of his power into the thrall. There could be no margin for error. “Listen to me. You are indifferent to your wife. She annoys you. You wish she’d go away.”

Dominic nodded his agreement, his face taking on that blank stare before clearing, but August was out the door before he could notice him again.

***

Nicole admired the reflection of the bracelet in the mirror. It sparkled so much more this way. She smiled as she watched the brilliant diamonds dance in the light. Although it was their tenth anniversary, she hadn’t expected something so extravagant.

He’d had it inscribed. The engraved script on the underside read: So lucky to have found my soul mate. Many never do. — D

Dominic’s case load had been intense these past few months, and she’d assumed dinner would be it. When had he found time to go to a jewelry store? She washed her hands, fussed with her hair a second, and swiped a wand of gloss across her lips. When she was satisfied that everything was in place, she returned to the table.

“I ordered for you,” Dominic said, his eyes trained on his phone.

“I, uh… okay, I guess.” She often ordered the same thing at Au Soleil, but not always. He knew her preferences, but it wasn’t like him to order for her. It was such an arrogant, controlling, and condescending thing to do that wasn’t like her husband at all. Outside of a few light games in the bedroom, he was the most egalitarian man she’d ever met.

One of the things she’d always loved about him was that although he was used to getting what he wanted, he never treated her like she was a trophy on his arm. Ordering for her crossed a line where he saw her as a pretty thing to be seen with rather than a person to be heard.

She pulled out her chair and sat, staring at the goblet of water in front of her. “Dominic… ” she paused, trying to find a way to say it without sounding like some nagging shrew. She’d never been a nag with him. Their relationship had hummed along, with both of them being considerate to the other most of the time. “Dominic, I don’t like when people order for me.” After a decade together, shouldn’t he know that?

He was still preoccupied with his phone. “Are you kidding, Nicole? You order the same damn thing everywhere we go. After ten years, I know what you like.”

She reeled back as if he’d slapped her, her throat tight. “Did something happen while I was gone? Did you get a call from the firm? Did they find out you took a day off for our anniversary?”

Annoyance creased his brow. “Not everything is about you, dear. Maybe it’s time you learned that.” He went back to his phone and she gaped at him, feeling as if he’d punched her in the gut.

The bracelet became a heavy weight, its sparkles and engraved endearments hollow and empty.

Her Poulet aux Porto finally arrived, giving her something else to focus on. Dominic shoveled food into his mouth as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the restaurant. His behavior was more befitting of a linebacker at a family-style buffet than a husband on a dinner date at a fancy restaurant with his wife.

Maybe something had gone wrong with a case. But he’d never taken things like that out on her before. He’d always treated her like she was his world. She’d never believed in soul mates, but her husband had convinced her it was a true phenomenon and that he was hers. She’d thought herself lucky.

And now that she had the smallest taste of what the wives of many busy attorneys lived with, she found she couldn’t stomach it.

She choked down her dinner and tried to stem the flow of tears. How often did they fight or have unpleasantness like this? He was under a lot of pressure, that was all. So it was their anniversary. It was an inopportune time, but these things happened, she was sure of it.

Dominic didn’t tease her or make jokes on the way home. He didn’t speak at all. It was as if they were strangers sharing a cab. When they got home, he locked himself in his study and didn’t come out again. She waited up until two in the morning, when she drifted off in a fitful sleep.

Chapter Three

August had watched Nicolette for the past month. Each day she’d become more haggard and bereft than the day before. He’d thought if he could take the shine off of Dominic Rose that she would be his, but now that it was time to make his move, he realized kidnapping her that first day would have been the more merciful decision.

It was cruel to manipulate her heart in this way, but if she knew what he’d suffered… in time she would understand. And now that Dominic was no prize, wouldn’t that understanding come that much sooner? All August had wanted was for her to come to him without ever having to see his ugliness, without ever having to fear him, but though he couldn’t control her mind, he was controlling her.

The curse was specific. There was nothing about normal, non-magical coercion or force. All that mattered was that she agreed—however he got her to that point—to be his blood mate and take this all away.

He took a deep breath and followed her into the grocery store. In the produce section, he bumped into her between the romaine lettuce and the zucchini.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said, turning on the charm, pushing remorse into the background. If she saw his unease she’d run like a scared rabbit—she was far more observant than the women he was used to dealing with.

His heart broke for her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She might fall apart right there in the grocery store. August reached out, needing to comfort the most valuable person in his world, the one he would protect at all costs but right now was hurting for the greater good.

She recoiled as her eyes lit with recognition and a touch of fear.

He pulled his hand away. “I’m sorry, you seemed sad. Why don’t you leave your cart and come have some coffee next door with me? It might help to talk about it.”

Any other woman would have batted her eyes, excited for his attention, the mind control overriding any self-preservation instinct that might warn of a predator, unless the woman was oblivious to her instincts and didn’t require suggestion at all. But Nicolette was uncertain, scared.

“I-I don’t think so, but thank you.” She took a bag and filled it with the zucchini behind him and began to push her cart in the opposite direction.

If she got away from him this time, he wouldn’t have another chance to do this the nice way. A third approach would make her feel stalked and erect stronger barriers against him. A fourth might equal a restraining order no matter how spaced apart their meetings were. He followed her, trying to wipe away the panicked desperation she’d no doubt experienced on their first encounter weeks ago. Such intense emotion would do nothing to assuage her fears.

“Nicolette, wait.” His voice was more controlled than the day he’d chased her outside the coffee shop.

She stopped but didn’t turn around, her shoulders radiating tension. When he reached her cart, she said, “You remember my name.”

“And you remember me.” He hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that her fear wasn’t a natural wariness toward men she didn’t know. Some women were like that, and all things considered, it was a good instinct to have. And not just when it came to vampires.

“You would be hard to forget,” she admitted.

He wasn’t sure that was a compliment, but he’d take it. “One coffee. You’ll feel better.”

***

Nicole wasn’t sure why she agreed to coffee with the scary stranger. Sadness, loneliness, despondence, perhaps? Dominic had wrapped himself more tightly in his work, creating a cocoon she couldn’t hope to penetrate. It didn’t matter what she did, he’d shut her out, and none of it made sense.

She bristled when August guided her a back booth. There was no way she’d do this if it weren’t daylight outside with a bustling street of busy people around them.

She stared at the diamond bracelet she couldn’t bring herself to take off.

“Did your husband give you that?” August asked. He was perceptive. Maybe too perceptive. But then, what woman bought such an extravagant piece of jewelry for herself? Diamonds were the domain of lovers.

Nicole couldn’t help the tears that came then. She hadn’t expected or intended to cry in front of him, but she’d kept it in so long around others that the dam was bound to burst. With a stranger it wouldn’t matter. She hadn’t told her family or her coworkers. She’d thought if she went along and pretended that everything was fine with Rose and Rose that it would be.

“Are you happy with him?” he asked, echoing the question he’d asked the last time they’d met.

Pain radiated from his face. Had he scared her that first day because he was dangerous or because she’d been attracted? Maybe his danger was to her marriage, not to her, physically. She tried to remember their first meeting. Of course August was attractive. He was attractive in the way that no red-blooded American woman could deny, but then, so was Dominic. There was no need to seek elsewhere for that.

But here, now, was a man who cared, someone looking at her in that half-starved way her husband had always looked at her. That look she missed so much.

She didn’t pull away when he reached across the table, his large, cool hand covering hers. “Nicolette? Are you happy?”

“No,” she whispered. She’d never said it out loud.

“Then why do you wear the bracelet?”

“Because the moment he gave it to me was the last time he loved me.”

The depth of the pathos of that statement was reflected in the pity in August’s eyes.

“You don’t deserve to be treated this way.”

She jerked her hand away from his. “How do you know what I deserve?” If he thought that line was going to work on her, he hadn’t been on the dating scene in a while.

“What happened? You were floating the day I met you.”

Something niggled the back of her mind, but it didn’t make any sense. Coincidence happened. Maybe Dominic hadn’t been as great as she’d thought. Maybe she’d been settling somehow. Maybe running into August, another man showing a strong interest in her had taken the wool from her eyes so she could see Dominic for who he was.

But that didn’t make sense. She knew she hadn’t imagined the easy way between her and her husband, the caring, the jokes, the playful teasing, all the sex that wasn’t just two bodies joining, but two souls as well. All of that had stopped on a dime, as if when she’d come from the bathroom that night at Au Soleil, she’d stepped into a parallel universe where Dominic didn’t love her, and the only true evidence that he ever had, that he’d seen her as his soul mate, was an inscription underneath the bracelet she couldn’t bring herself to take off. It was all she had left from the other world before she’d entered this harsh, cold new one.

She guarded it as if it were an enchanted talisman that would somehow unlock a door in reality to take her back to the real world, the one where her husband still loved her. Sometimes she thought about going back to that bathroom, of wearing the same dress, of standing in front of the same mirror, washing her hands, and then walking back out to the table beside the fountain, and being back in the right world with her husband smiling up at her, the adoration lighting his face like sunrise. Maybe this was all some terrible dream.

“Nicolette, you’re worlds away.”

She blinked and shifted her attention back to the man sitting across from her. “We were happy, and then… we weren’t happy. And I don’t know what happened, what I did. It was so sudden, like a switch flipped in him.”

“Come to dinner with me.”

Her eyes snapped up to his. “I can’t do that. I’m married.”

Any man who would pursue a married woman this doggedly was not a man she wanted to get involved with. But she didn’t say that out loud. She could never say it out loud. He was so sad and alone. Like her. It would be cruel to say something nasty to someone who was suffering. Had he been this sad when she’d met him? She couldn’t remember. She’d just needed to get away.

“How long will you hold onto a man who neglects you?”

She focused on the bracelet, willing it to transport her through time and space to where the world was right again. “I don’t know. Forever, maybe. He’s my soul mate.”

His hand on hers tightened. “Forever is so much longer than you could ever imagine. It’s far too long to suffer. Perhaps he’s not your soul mate. What if someone else is?”

“And that someone would be you?” She was sure the skepticism dripped out of her voice. He may have thought he’d fallen in love at first sight, but the concept was too esoteric and unreal to her.

“Sometimes souls wander centuries before finding one another, then when they do, it’s in the most mundane way. Give me a chance to put a smile back on your face. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

He talked like Dominic. Of destiny and soul mates, and the kind of love that spanned eternities. The kind of love she’d almost believed in, but now no longer could. Her husband had created the dream and then snuffed it out, all in the brief span of a decade. So much for forever.

“I can’t. I’m not going to cheat on him. I’m not that kind of woman. Thank you for the coffee, but please don’t bother me again.” She stood and made a hasty retreat to her car. She’d grocery shop in another part of town. It wasn’t worth it to return to her cart and risk August following. There was no part of her that believed he’d just happened to bump into her today.

Chapter Four

Another month passed. August stood among the bushes next to Dominic and Nicolette’s kitchen window. The husband had just gotten home. He’d been arriving later each night for weeks now.

“I made your favorite.” Nicolette’s voice was hopeful.

She’d tried everything to reignite her husband’s interest. Lingerie. Fancy meals. Theater tickets. But nothing would sway the command the vampire had embedded in his mind.

“I ate at the office,” Dominic said. His voice receded, and August knew he was going to the study to work, shutting her out once again.

“I-is there someone else?”

The door shut without the courtesy of a reply, and Nicolette dissolved into tears, great heaving sobs that mirrored August’s nightly pain after feeding.

He should have taken her already, but once he crossed that line, it was crossed. He could never enthrall her and return her to her life with the world never the wiser. He’d wanted to give her another chance to come willingly. Things would go so much easier for her if she would open up to him.

He’d avoided approaching her again outright, knowing she’d feel hounded. Instead, he’d taken a walk past the flower shop she worked at. He’d put on a mask of surprise when he saw her through the window, smiled, and waved, but she’d turned away and gone to the back room.

She was never coming to him on her own.

He hadn’t anticipated the depth of her love for her husband or how faithful she would be despite his neglect. She saw August as a threat to her marriage, and even after the sad state of that relationship, she still guarded it like a seedling that might sprout into something breathtaking.

He could have put another command into Dominic’s mind. He could have made her husband a legitimate physical threat. Then August could be the man who rescued and protected her from the brutish bastard. She’d run to him for safety. But he would never risk her. Not ever. If her husband’s indifference didn’t make the necessary impact to bring her to August, he had to take her.

He watched through the window as she sat at the counter and ate the dinner she’d so painstakingly put together. She poured a glass of wine from a bottle she’d bought to make dinner special. At the wine shop, there had been so much hope in her eyes as she’d retrieved the money from her purse. Every time he saw that naked hope, it crushed him. He hated himself for this, and yet, nothing he could do to her could ever equal what he must do each night. She was a justifiable casualty in his war against the curse.

In a normal human relationship there were good times and bad times. Often one partner stayed long past the point they should have left because they kept remembering and hoping for the good times to return, and sometimes they did—if briefly.

But the vampiric mind control didn’t allow for glimpses of hope. From the moment August had gotten inside Dominic’s head, Nicolette was an annoying gnat to him. Inconsequential. It had led to a lingering sadness which would turn to full blown depression if he didn’t either release the husband or take the wife.

He listened in the shadows as she scraped her plate and the garbage disposal whirred, then she emptied the garbage and stepped outside.

The pungent cloth was over her nose and mouth before she saw him. That was for the best.

“Shhhh, shhh, shhh,” he soothed as she struggled in his arms. She went limp and there was no more time for guilt.

***

Nicole felt fuzzy and unreal when she came to. It took a moment to figure out what had happened. It had been her day off. She’d spent hours on dinner. She’d bought Dominic’s favorite wine. She’d worn his favorite dress, and of course the bracelet. She always wore the bracelet. The whole day’s work had been pointless. But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was figuring out where she was and how to get away.

She’d stepped out to take the trash to the side of the house. Whoever it was had been watching her, and deep down, she knew who it was. On some deeper level, unknown and hidden from her, she’d expected this. It was why her fear stood muted against the backdrop of inevitability.

A piece of cloth covered her eyes, but her hands and feet were free. She was fully clothed. All good things. The smell of a man’s cologne hung on the air. She reached up to remove the blindfold, but was stopped by his voice.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The sight you’d be greeted with is not what you’re used to.”

“August?”

She flinched when he took her hand, partly because of his touch, and partly because he was wearing gloves.

“I’m just helping you to sit up. I’m not going to do anything to you that you don’t agree to.”

As if she would agree to anything at all after he’d kidnapped her. But she allowed him to pull her into a seated position. Sitting was better than lying down right now. It was less vulnerable, if only by a small degree.

“Here, drink this.” He pressed a glass into her hand.

“W-what is it?”

“It’s water. It’ll help the fogginess.”

“Can I please take the blindfold off? Please, August.”

“No, you may not. I’m not ready for you to see yet.”

“See what?”

“Drink.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need any… ”

His mouth was next to her ear now. “If you don’t drink, I will pour it down your throat. I would not give you anything that would harm you.”

He’d only stalked her and kidnapped her. So of course whatever was in the glass was harmless water. Fuck him. She didn’t owe him trust or acquiescence or anything else.

She hauled back and threw the glass, surprised when she didn’t hear it smash. Instead, she heard August place something on a table. It sounded like a glass. Had he… what? Caught it? Maybe it was his own glass. Maybe hers had hit a pillow or something, preventing it from breaking the silence.

“I understand you’re frightened, but please don’t throw my glassware. It’s quite old and priceless.”

The stupid part of it all was that she’d found him attractive. And she’d hit her limit with Dominic. Her husband was making her miserable, and nothing she tried to reach out to him worked.

“The last thing I would ever want is for anything to harm you. I’m sorry for how you’ve suffered the past few months, but it’s what had to be done.”

“What do you mean? Did you say something to my husband? Did you tell him we were having an affair?” They were the only plausible words that could have passed between the two men to turn Dominic away from her with such finality. But wouldn’t he have confronted her? Asked her? How could he believe such a lie from a stranger?

“No. I didn’t tell him anything like that. Come with me, and I’ll explain and show you everything.”

The panic rose as he helped her stand. “Where are you taking me?”

“Downstairs.”

“Where are we?”

“My home.”

He wasn’t annoyed by the questions. If anything, he was trying to be less threatening. But if that was what he wanted, a blindfold couldn’t accomplish those goals. It made the dread inside rise to strangle her.

She tried to pull out of his grasp, but his hold was too tight. She used her free hand to try to remove the blindfold, but he was too quick. And then he was holding both of her wrists in his impossibly vise-like grip.

A small whimper escaped her throat. “Please, you’re hurting me.”

His grip loosened. “I apologize. I forget my strength at times.”

There was nothing for her to do but allow him to lead her through his endless house.

Finally they stopped, and a door creaked open.

“Step down,” he said. “These are the stairs.”

He had her wrists, holding her steady, but she wanted to be able to hold onto something, even if it was him. Without anything or anyone to grasp onto, she felt more helpless as she stepped blindly down each step into darkness. The air grew colder around her and damp with the faint scent of mildew. The wood beneath her feet creaked ominously as she descended.

When they reached the bottom, she heard crying.

“Please, let us out.” A man’s voice.

“We won’t tell anyone about this.” A woman.

The idea that he was keeping others against their will hadn’t crossed Nicole’s mind. Both men and women. He’s going to kill all of us. Once the thought had wriggled in, she could barely stop herself from hyperventilating, but then August let go of her wrists and took several steps away from her.

“You may remove the blindfold.”

Now she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to see or know what was down here, the end that awaited her.

“Please, you can still let me go. I don’t know anything. I haven’t seen anything. I don’t know your full name or what kind of car you drive or where you live, o-or anything important.”

“If only it were so simple, Nicolette. You’ll never know how sorry I am for doing this to you. Now, please, take it off.”

Her hands shook as she lifted the fabric from her eyes. It took several seconds to fully process what she was seeing. It was too nightmarish to be real. There were cages. Two stood unoccupied. The others each held a man or a woman—some of them crying, some of them in shock. A few clasped the bars and stared out at her like abandoned pets at the pound, while others huddled in the corner trying to be invisible. Finally her eyes went to August.

He stood under a light observing her, and his face… it was… Nicole had no words to describe it. No longer did he look like the dangerous but beautiful man she’d seen. He looked like a corpse, like he was rotting. Now she understood the gloves and was thankful he’d put that barrier between them. She turned and ran up the stairs.

“NO!” he shouted.

The door at the top slammed, and she heard the lock turn over. When she looked back, his arm was outstretched as if he’d made the door shut and lock with his mind and voice. But that wasn’t possible.

“Come back downstairs, and you won’t be harmed. I give you my word. Don’t make me come after you. I’m far too tired and hungry for it.”

Knowing she had no choice and wanting to appease whatever he was, she descended the stairs. But it wasn’t because of any promise he’d made. She could never trust a man who kept people in cages in a cellar like so many monkeys in a test lab.

She kept her distance and backed to the farthest wall from him. “W-what happened to your face?”

Maybe he had some awful disease. But he’d been fine and perfect and beautiful when she’d seen him outside the flower shop a few days ago. Something in her mind desperately wanted to click over and put the pieces together. It already hinted at a supernatural cause, but she pushed the thoughts away. Those thoughts were for children, not adult women. Whatever this was, there had to be a normal explanation.

“I waited several days between feedings. I needed you to see the extent of what I must suffer and why I need you to save me from this curse. This doesn’t just look bad. It feels as bad as it looks.”

He moved to one of the cages and withdrew a key from his pocket. The door creaked open on its hinge, and with a blur of speed, August cornered the man inside and pulled him out as if he weighed no more than a feather. The man was in good shape. About as big as August. Tall. Muscled. And yet, he flailed against her captor like a broken fabric doll.

The man struggled and screamed—sounds she never would think could come out of a strong man like that. August dragged him into the light.

“You will watch, Nicolette. Or I will do this to as many people as it takes until you do.”

She had her hands over her eyes, peeking through the cracks, unable to stand the barbarity of what was about to happen without a barrier in place.

Though his face was a wreck and nearly gone, his teeth were fine. Fangs grew from his mouth, glistening under the light, and he struck at the man’s neck like a viper.

Vampire. The thought pushed through her mind with such force that she almost heard the word aloud and choked on it.

It wasn’t possible. Things like this didn’t exist. She had to be dreaming, but no matter how hard she pinched herself, she couldn’t wake up. As the life drained from the man in August’s arms, the vampire’s face healed and re-knit itself together. No longer did he look like a rotting corpse, but like the man she’d first seen in the coffee shop. As his face healed, Nicole recoiled at the bliss she could now see in his features.

August flung the man’s body away and collapsed, sobbing like a small child. He tried to hold it in, but his shoulders shook from the force of the emotional outpouring. After several long minutes of torment, he collected himself, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He turned suddenly toward Nicole, his eyes glowing, every ounce the predator. He appeared angry that she’d witnessed his breakdown.

Unstable was somehow worse than evil, and this man—or whatever he was—was clearly unstable.

He rose in a preternaturally fluid way and strode across the cellar floor. Nicole cowered, as if she had any hope of escaping him when she’d seen the futility of a powerful man’s attempt. She had nothing like the strength of that man, and now he was so much meat, waiting to be returned to the earth to fertilize something else.

August took her hand more gently than she’d expected after what he’d done. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“Please… please not me,” she whispered, her eyes focused on the ground. She couldn’t meet that terrifying, glowing gaze. Although a man had died, her thoughts and fears were for her own fate.

His hand trailed through her hair. “Not you,” he agreed. “And not any of the rest of them if you’ll consent to what I propose. Their lives are in your hands, Nicolette.”

She turned to the cages with four people still alive. They looked like prisoners of war. Shell-shocked. Almost like animals instead of people.

“W-what do you mean their lives are in my hands?”

Was this because she wouldn’t date him? He’d terrorize people until she did? Did he think she could ever love him amidst such conditions? What was wrong with him that he would become so fixated on her? Why her? Why not move on to someone else who returned his affection? Now that his looks were back, it was impossible to see how he couldn’t find someone to share his bed willingly. As long as they didn’t know the gory details. Those light hazel eyes glowing against the backdrop of warm, brown skin and jet-black hair. That tall, sleek athletic frame. Man-candy was the phrase her friends at work would have used.

“Vampirism is a curse,” he said quietly. “It’s not like in the movies. I am made to suffer. If I don’t feed, I suffer until I do. Inevitably I must feed. When I feed, I can’t stop until my meal is dead. I must take one each night or what you saw happening to my body starts. At first I just age, but after about three days it turns into what you saw.

I don’t want to kill. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I have no choice. Do you know the heavy weight that is on my soul? All those human lives?”

“Why don’t you end your life, then? Is survival of such great value that you would kill every night to keep it going? Am I supposed to feel bad for you when you could greet the sun?”

He smiled sadly. “Would that it were so simple and easily remedied. Do you think I haven’t tried? I’ve tried everything to end my life. Nothing works. I’m only allowed death if I should pass this curse to another. I wouldn’t die automatically, but I would be capable of it, at least. If I passed the cup to someone else and died, what new torments would await me on the other side for such a heinous sin against another soul? After what I’ve suffered, do you think I could bring myself to give it to another to carry? If I did, I truly am a monster with no further excuses.”

Nicole’s gaze shifted to the cages. “I don’t understand how I can save them.”

“By giving yourself to me.”

Her heart stopped for a moment and, after a great effort, started up again. “W-what?”

“I won’t be able to die, but there is a way to stop this. It’s the one loophole the old ones provided those they cursed. If I can find a human whose mind I can’t control, and she gives herself to me, we’ll be bound together, my life to hers. She’ll feed me nightly. I won’t have to kill. And she can’t die, either. I can’t control your mind, Nicolette. It has to be you.”

Pieces began to come together in a vague sort of way—the instant change in Dominic from loving husband to cold and absent. “You took him from me. You made him stop loving me.” Maybe she should be grateful August hadn’t killed him, but in some ways what he’d done was worse. He’d stolen their love and life together and forced her to watch it become a farce.

“I had to. You wouldn’t come to me any other way.”

“I still didn’t come to you!” she shouted. “You took me! You think this fulfills your cure? You think kidnapping me and blackmailing me isn’t a violation of my free will?”

“The curse only cares about direct supernatural mind control. I require your verbal consent. It doesn’t matter what methods I use to achieve it. Please believe me when I say I don’t want it to come to that.” It was clear from the determination on his face that his methods would become ugly if she didn’t agree to this madness.

Never. His curse wasn’t her problem. He took the man she loved away. He’d kidnapped and imprisoned her. And he thought she would willingly let him hurt her every night, pull the blood out of her through sharp fangs so he wouldn’t have to kill people anymore? And what other things would he come to demand besides her blood? The thought of sharing his bed sickened her. If she remained strong, eventually he would snap and kill her. If that was the price out of this nightmare, she would pay it.

Nicole pulled away, and he let her go. She needed to put distance between herself and the vampire. And preferably the dead body as well.

“There are probably thousands of women out there who would have gone with you. Willingly. You could have found someone single, someone unhappy. You could have wrapped your story up like a romantic tragedy without them ever having to see any of this.” Her arm swept out, indicating the cages and the corpse.

“There is no one else. I searched the world for centuries until I gave up hope. I thought it was something to drive the knife in deeper, a cure that didn’t exist. In over six hundred years you’re the one person whose mind I can’t penetrate.”

Nicole began to pace, shaking her head. She knew she must look like a crazed lunatic talking to herself on a city sidewalk, but she refused to believe this was real. There had to be someone else. She couldn’t… give herself to him. Not after he’d taken so much from her already. The one man she’d truly loved, who had loved her with the same fierceness. Gone. Erased.

The diamond bracelet glittered at her wrist. When she was unconscious, August could have taken it. He knew Dominic had given it to her, that it was her only way of holding onto him. She tried not to let it mean anything that he hadn’t, that he’d allowed her to keep this one piece of her husband’s love.

“Why were you cursed? You must have done something hideous to deserve this. Why should I free you from it?”

His eyes narrowed and flashed with anger. If she weren’t the only living soul who could save him, she had no doubt he would kill her for daring to withhold his precious cure. If she were the only human whose mind he couldn’t control, he’d spent centuries getting used to the fact that no one would resist anything he ordered them to do. Either through force or mind control, he was never denied.

“They didn’t curse me, but one of those they did had less scruples than I. He passed the curse to me. I was a monk, trying to find a way to kill the vampires. I fed hungry children, Nicolette. I worked to protect my village from the monsters. And one of them turned me into a monster for that effort. I’m sorry I can’t give you the comfort of believing I deserved this. I didn’t deserve it, no more than you deserve it. I’m sorry for taking you. I’m sorry for erasing your husband’s feelings for you. But I will never release you. You will give yourself to me because I can’t go on like this. No man could.”

Nicole’s chin rose in defiance. “I am not your sacrifice. I’m not some virgin you can throw into a volcano for the greater good. I’m not responsible for rescuing you!” She shook her head and began to pace again, staying clear of the cages, because even now she saw the accusation in the eyes of his prisoners… his future meals.

“Dominic and I were so happy. My life was… it was complete. Do you think enslaving me to you forever is less evil than killing people? You want to make someone else suffer forever so you can stop hurting?”

He sighed. “I believe I can give you enough, make you happy enough that you’ll come to care for me.”

Nicole’s eyes blazed, her fists clenched. There were tears in her eyes, but she managed to keep them from sliding down her cheeks. “Never,” she shrieked. “Not ever. I will never give myself to you. So you may as well kill me now.”

August closed his eyes, taking a long, slow breath as if trying to keep control of his temper. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

He grabbed her and tossed her in the cage he’d just emptied. She fought, but her strength against his was like a moth trying to fight a bull. The key creaked in the lock as he turned it.

“Think this through, Nicolette. Your old life is gone. I will never kill you. You will die of old age first. You are my only chance. How many decades do you wish to live in a filthy cage?”

“How many centuries could I tolerate living with you?” she retorted. “Why do you keep them down here? They’re scared. Why don’t you hunt and kill every night if you must? This is cruel.”

“You think that wouldn’t be noticeable? I have to canvas a very large area to hunt. I can’t do that every night. I’m sorry for their suffering, but it’s a week out of their entire existence. For me, it’s forever.”

“Why can’t you use mind control? Make it so they aren’t so afraid.”

“When I enthrall someone, I use energy that I have to replenish with more death. And they can’t go peacefully. The curse demands a sacrifice. Please rethink this. Can you live with all the death on your hands? The death you could prevent? It will wear you down until you’re a carved-out shell. I don’t want that for you.” He reached through the bars, the back of his hand brushing her cheek.

Nicole shrank from him and turned her back. Her jaw clenched. He wouldn’t paint her as the monster. She wasn’t being asked to give her life to save others. She was being asked to belong to someone who would hurt her every night for the rest of eternity. It was far too much to ask of anyone, particularly for a man who’d already taken everything from her. She didn’t turn back around until the cellar door opened and shut. When she did, she found he’d taken the body up with him. She didn’t want to think about where or how he disposed of them.

For a long time it was quiet. In the other cages were three women and another man. Nicole was grateful there were no children. She wondered morbidly what his criteria for taking a victim was. Did he hunt people with no family to lose? Did he pick criminals or those who had abused others? Or did the curse demand the blood of innocents?

She wanted to believe he was lying, that there was no curse. He simply wanted to manipulate her into his arms. But she wasn’t that special. The only logical explanation was that he couldn’t control her mind. And she hadn’t imagined how much he’d hurt over the man he’d killed in front of her. Nor had his rotting face been a trick of the light. If vampirism wasn’t a curse, he was making a convincing show of it.

The man in the farthest cage stood just out of the range of light, watching her silently. He hadn’t begged or pleaded when August had come down. He was strong, not just physically, but mentally. The women in the other cages cried quietly on their cots.

“It’s a dirty piece of business that’s been asked of you,” the man said. “I don’t envy you. Within the next few days, I’ll be free. Your fate is worse than mine.”

“Gee, thanks,” Nicole said. She wished the other prisoners could take their deaths so stoically.

“You know he’ll torture you if you don’t give him what he wants.”

She shuddered at that revelation. A quick death? Okay. But there were so many other things that were worse than a quick death. “If he’d torture me, there is nothing worth saving in him. He can’t suffer too much from this if he’d do something like that.” Even as she said it, she knew her words were a brave front; there were things he could do to her that would break her, because she was only human.

“He’s a desperate man.”

“He’s not a man at all.”

“I just don’t want to have to watch him hurt you.”

“Like you said, you’ll be free within a few days. He might hold out for a while before it gets grisly with me.” Nicole retreated to her cot and lay down.

“Please,” the woman in the closest cage said, “Give him what he wants so we can live. I have a child at home.”

And the guilt train rolled into the station. “How many centuries would you let him feed from you and do whatever else he plans to do, so that I could live? Do you think he’ll just want my blood? So you’re asking me to fuck him every night and let him puncture my skin and take my blood for endless centuries so you can go back to your neat and tidy little life? Yeah, that’ll happen.” Sacrifices were always more reasonable to the person who didn’t have to give up anything.

The woman looked away but not before Nicole caught the expression of shame on her face.

“I’m sorry you’re here, but it’s too much to ask. I don’t care who I am to him; he has no right to me. His crimes are not my fault. I would much rather be in your place, trust me. I won’t willingly spend my life with the man who took me from my husband and family and everything else I love.”

It was several hours before the last of the crying stopped and the cellar grew quiet enough for Nicole to find a troubled sleep for herself. However unreasonable it was, the guilt twisted around her soul like a noxious smoke.

Chapter Five

August sat at the kitchen table, staring at the mess he’d yet to clean. The cellar and his captive were directly below. If Nicolette knew how good his hearing was, she would never dare breathe a word down there, because sometimes he sat and listened for hours. Every frustration, every fear reached his ears. She should count herself lucky that he wasn’t the monster she feared he was, that all the things she had dreamed up that he could do to her sickened him just as much as they terrified her.

“You should eat that,” the prisoner in the cage next to Nicolette’s said. August had taken food down just a little while ago.

“What’s the point? I’m going to die down here, anyway.”

“Just give him what he wants.” Another prisoner, a woman.

There was no verbal reply. Perhaps she’d shaken her head or simply turned away and given them her back. August took every opportunity to make sure each batch of prisoners knew Nicolette held the key to their salvation and freedom… and his. They were all the same, working toward their own self-interest and the hope of release from their prison—if the sacrifice would only cooperate.

It had been two months since he’d taken Nicolette and she was no closer to giving herself to him. If anything, witnessing death each night had pushed her further from possible acquiescence, her resentment and disgust growing more each day as her heart hardened further against him.

“The way he kills and with how hopeless he is, do you think he’ll keep this up forever? He’ll do whatever it takes in the end,” said a man on the other end.

Nicolette’s reply was so quiet, August barely heard her. “I know. He’s hundreds of years old. I know he knows how to get someone to give him what he wants. I know I can’t take very much of whatever he has planned, but right now… I can’t.”

August closed his eyes against the memories of earlier conversations she’d had with different prisoners. Conversations that had turned dark. Much of it had come from a student of history who had felt the need to enlighten Nicolette to all the gruesome torture methods of the past which he was sure the vampire must be aware of and would be willing to use if this all dragged on too long. That night, August felt less remorse than usual when he killed that particular man. But the seeds had already been planted, and from that moment, Nicolette had watched August with even more fear and suspicion than usual.

Now she was only waiting for things to get worse.

Tonight August had broken his protocol and gone hunting in a nearby city. A homeless person wouldn’t be missed and wouldn’t draw suspicion, at least not for one night.

Nicolette was right about one thing, he had to find a way to make her break and give in. Even if he could never do most of what she feared, she didn’t have to know that. He unlocked the cellar door and made his way down the creaking stairs.

Her back was to him when he reached the cages. August sat on the ground next to the bars. “Nicolette, come and speak with me.”

“Why should I?” There were tears in her voice.

“We can’t go on like this.”

“Then let me go.”

“You know that’s not an option.” Maybe he should have chosen a kinder and gentler way with her, shown more patience. But her mind had been set against him from the start.

He could have kept her upstairs and given her whatever her heart desired. But being kind was pointless with the Dominic situation. Bribery would feel like cheating, and it wasn’t in her. He had to force her hand, so she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of betrayal. He’d been prepared to be the bad guy, but his plans weren’t working as he’d hoped. He’d never imagined he’d have to be this cold to her.

He’d thought this would be quicker. He’d been sure she would only have to watch him kill one or two people, maybe a week’s cycle at the most, before she tearfully accepted her fate.

Then he would give her everything, reward her good behavior and do anything in his power to make her happy. Some day she would forgive him. She’d forget Dominic. She’d come to love August, which would make the whole endless ordeal much more palatable. They could carve out something resembling a life together. Somehow.

But she hadn’t followed his playbook. She was an enigma, and the lack of power to enthrall and force her to obey him in any semi-civilized way was proving to be a greater challenge than he’d anticipated.

“So, what’s next?” Her shoulders were hunched away from him, her voice nothing but shattered darkness.

August glanced at the dinner plate he’d brought her, the food barely touched. She’d been eating less each day. She was pale in the cellar light and growing thinner, and the cold panic hit him that he might have less time with her than he planned. If she wouldn’t give herself to him, he wouldn’t have decades to find a way to wear her down at this rate. She’d die down here of malnourishment and heartache. And then what? The thought of her gone, when she was his salvation, was a thousand times worse than anything else he’d done.

As much as he’d hated the history student for planting more fears in her head, it was a simple enough solution. A little quick torture to gain compliance, and then he could proceed with his original plans to pamper and care for her.

“I hunted tonight off the grounds.”

Startled, she turned toward him. “Why?”

“I needed to think. It occurs to me that if you have some natural and rare resistance to vampiric control, perhaps your offspring would as well.”

The horror on her face made it clear he didn’t have to continue with the sordid concept he’d concocted, but he continued anyway. August indicated the man in the far cage. “I could put him in with you. He could impregnate you. If it’s a girl, and she can’t be enthralled, I’ll wait for her to mature, and then she will give herself to me. It’s longer than I’d like to wait, but it’s better than an eternity of this.”

“I won’t hurt her,” the man said.

August stood and walked over to his cage. “Look at me.”

Though he tried to resist, he was unable to keep his face from turning toward August. When their eyes locked, the vampire took full control of his prisoner’s mind.

“When I put you in Nicolette’s cage, you will fuck her until I tell you to stop. And you will continue day after day until she is pregnant. Won’t you?”

“Yes.”

August turned back to Nicolette, expecting her to beg him. If the threat got her to consent to the mating bond, nothing else mattered. But her expression grew more stubborn.

“I’ll stop eating. I’ll starve myself. I’ll die. You won’t make me give you a child, definitely not one for you to feed from and do God knows what else with for eternity.”

August turned back to Nicolette’s cage. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. The move had her backing away. He always stayed on the other side of the bars, trying to give her space, to make her feel safer in spite of her circumstances.

“I will force feed you if I have to. I won’t let you die so easily, poppet. You will be mine. Or your progeny will. It’s your decision which it’ll be and how much you’ll have to suffer until then.” She cringed when he brushed her hair behind her ear.

She was so close to snapping. He was determined not to fill these cages again. And he wouldn’t go hunting each night, either. One way or another, tonight she would give him what he demanded. Whatever he had to do. However much of his soul or hers he had to eradicate. It had to be done. This simply could not go on. If it took her a century to forgive him, eventually she would… for anything, because they would each be all the other had that lasted. Everyone and everything else would grow old and die and leave.

August went to the other man’s enclosure and transferred him to Nicolette’s cage. The vampire stood just inside the door so he could stop things as soon as she consented. She wouldn’t let this happen. He’d seen the way she was crumbling. Another small push and she’d be his.

***

Nicole had run out of room to back up. The other prisoner lurched toward her like some kind of unstoppable zombie. There was no emotion on his face. No anger. No malice. No pleasure. No desire. He was just following orders. But that didn’t dilute her anguish.

She nearly threw up when he ripped her tattered top away. She moved to cover her breasts. “A-August, please… please don’t do this. Stop him. If I mean so much to you, stop him.”

She struggled against the man, but she was no match for the combination of his strength and a direct hypnotic order from the vampire.

“Will you give yourself to me?” The vampire’s voice was steady and demanding. How could he do something so vile to her? And he expected her to give him anything? After something like this?

She was convinced she’d suffer anything he doled out. Rape, torture, anything to ensure she died and never allowed him freedom. The fear of a pregnancy clawed at her mind. A child he could take and twist. He could raise her in luxury, letting her think he was good. When she grew to adulthood, he could reveal his true nature and take what he needed. It would be a much different setup than the one Nicole had endured.

She would have to starve herself before then. She’d have to be too weak to get pregnant, or barring that, too weak to give birth, and pray desperately for a boy as the final salvation from the vampire’s sick plan if everything else failed her.

“NO!” She wasn’t sure if she was screaming at August or at the man who pushed her against the stone wall, his mouth on her neck, kissing her like she was his lover. A second later, all she felt was air as August pulled the man off her and flung him out of the cage.

The vampire made a sound close to a roar and pounded at the wall until his hands bled. But they healed almost instantly. “Goddammit!”

She let out a relieved breath. He can’t bring himself to do it. Thank God. But that was now. What would he bring himself to do in another week or a month?

August leaned against the wall and sank to the ground, his head in his hands.

Nicole moved as quietly as she could toward the cage door.

“Don’t, Nicolette. Don’t make me chase you. I don’t want to hurt you, whatever you may believe. We must seal the bond between us. Then things will be better. I promise they’ll be better.”

How could she trust him? How could she give herself to a monster in the most irreversible way? What he’d shown her so far had been imprisonment and desperation. Locking herself into eternity with that wasn’t an option.

She edged closer to August and knelt beside him, pulling his hands from his face. He looked up, so broken that a small part of her wished she could do what he needed, that things were somehow different. That her life was different. That her heart was different.

“Please,” she said. “I’m sorry for what’s been done to you, truly I am. I believe you when you say you were a good man before the curse. But what you’re asking… I can’t give it to you. I love Dominic so much. I just want him back. Please, I beg you, let me go. Won’t you feel remorse for the things you do to me? Am I not of the same value as those you kill each night? Does this crime against me not matter?”

She tried not to pull away when his hand brushed her cheek.

“You’re of far greater value. But I know at the core of my being that you’re the only train coming. I can’t bear the thought of an eternity like this with no hope of the reprieve of death to make it stop. I will do whatever is necessary to have you. Please don’t make me pile more brutality onto my history. Please, Nicolette.”

Nicole wiped the tears from his face. “I can’t. What will make eternity of being a blood sacrifice stop for me? How can you ask or expect or think that I could or would… ”

“Stop,” he said. “Just stop.”

A long moment passed between them, then something lit his face. A new idea?

“I will make a bargain. I’ll undo the thrall on your husband and let you return to him, if you consent to becoming my mate. I will come to you and feed from you each night, but you can have Dominic back for the foreseeable future.”

Nicole searched his eyes for the lie, but she couldn’t find it. She looked down at the diamond bracelet the vampire had allowed her to keep even though he knew what it meant to her. He could have taken it away, but he hadn’t. Did it mean she could trust him?

She could have Dominic back. He could love her again.

“I-I want to be with him until he dies,” she blurted, still transfixed by the sparkling diamonds at her wrist. “A-and… he will die of natural causes, not by anything you do, or I will find a way to make you pay.”

August sighed. “Fine.”

The man from the other cage had been unconscious since August pulled him off her. She’d thought he was dead, but he stirred and groaned.

“Come here,” August said.

Obediently the man rose and went to the vampire.

“Look into my eyes.”

He got that glazed zombie look about him again. Nicole was grateful that could never happen to her—one of the few things that couldn’t.

“You will leave this place and return home. You will not remember anything that happened here or me.”

The man nodded and left them in the cellar. August released the other prisoners and erased their memories as well.

Once they were alone, Nicole began to tremble. Could she still back out? Had she already written that check, or did her consent have to come when he bit her? She didn’t know how this worked. Why couldn’t he take it? Was there something that blocked the bond from completing unless she was willing?

She thought of Dominic, of being back in his arms, back in their bed. Of the past several months being a bad dream. It would finally be true, rewinding things, stepping back into the right universe where her husband loved her again. She would pay any price for that, to feel his strong arms wrapped around her. To hear his teasing jokes. To bask in the way he looked at her as if she were something made of magic.

“Come with me.”

She followed the vampire upstairs. She was finally able to see his house—or maybe castle. The timeless elegance of it. The obvious money that stood behind it. Not that things like that mattered to her. She was comfortable with Dominic. Very comfortable. Past a certain point, more money was frivolity. Still, there was something ancient and awe-inspiring about August’s home. It was something that said time would pass away, and he would still be there in the shadows. And now so would she.

“How do you have all this?” she asked.

“How could I not? Centuries. Compound interest. Only a fool could live so long on this earth in perfect physical health and be poor. I’m not suggesting it happened overnight or that I didn’t have many false starts, but I wasn’t going to have the curse and live in poverty. Determination and wise investments have paid off. It helps when I can use mind control to learn company secrets and know which stocks to buy.”

As tormented as he may be, he’d still had the presence of mind to accumulate a ludicrous living standard. So how bad could his suffering be? Couldn’t he simply bear it and free her to go back to her life without strings?

He led her to a parlor and indicated a chaise lounge. “Sit.”

She couldn’t stop the tremor in her hands, in her body. An icy coldness seeped through her veins, cracking and hissing in her ears as it spread through her, as if it were turning her into a solid block of ice.

He sat beside her, his hand resting on her knee. “I’m sorry you’re so terrified. I wish I could make this easier. Or make it not hurt. You don’t have to do anything except remain in a receptive state. Accept my bite. Don’t struggle or fight me. After I’ve mixed our blood, it will be done.”

She looked away, seeking some form of privacy for her misery.

“You must love him very much to make this sacrifice. I envy him that. Some day you will come to care for me. It will all be okay, I promise.”

She wasn’t going to contradict him. If she’d be trapped with him forever, it was better not to make waves. And she didn’t want to do anything to make him go back on his word. No matter how sincere his pledge might be, once this was complete, there was nothing that would force him to uphold his bargain except the innate goodness he professed to still have. But it was the one remote chance she had of seeing Dominic again.

Nicole started to cry when his fangs elongated.

“Be brave. It won’t take long. You’ll become used to it over time.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as fangs embedded in her throat. She shuddered against the sharp, stinging pain that burned, not just her veins, but her soul. She sobbed as he drank from her, the pain tunneling deeper and deeper until it seemed to claw her skin apart from the inside. She couldn’t take this every night. It was beyond what she was capable of enduring, of what anyone could endure.

Hysteria began to build inside her. She was moments from struggling, shouting no!, doing anything to stop the completion of the ritual, when Dominic’s face floated into her mind. She’d sacrifice anything for a few more decades with him. Anything. She tried not to think of how she would feel when her husband was finally dead and buried, and her enslavement to August was just beginning. This was a devil’s bargain. She knew that. And yet, Dominic had been her weakness from the first sunny afternoon when he’d offered her that crooked smile outside the library.

The guilt of betrayal mixed with the burning agony of the vampire’s fangs until they felt like the same thing. Finally, August pulled away from her throat. She turned to see him bite his tongue, then he licked the wound on her neck, sealing their blood together.

Something unwanted fluttered in her stomach when his tongue stroked over her neck, the glimmer of something she shouldn’t feel. It had to be the bond somehow controlling her. Had she just given him power over her mind? The one thing he hadn’t had before?

Panic curled inside her at the idea that she’d been free of his hypnotic control, and now that she’d accepted his bite, some sorcery beyond her might make her want him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She felt the bond rise from forgotten spaces in the void, wrapping around them, creating a link that could never be severed. Deep down she’d feared that once he got what he wanted he would turn more cruel, but his touch on her face was gentle, his hazel gaze filled with warmth and concern… and gratitude.

How long would that last?

“I-I feel weak,” she said, unsure if she could stand, doubting it possible that she could do this every night and survive to tell the tale.

“The changes may take a while to complete.”

Nicole reached to the side of her neck, expecting to feel a wound, but there was nothing. As if it had never happened at all. Not even a scar, just a slight burn under her skin that she worried would never go away. Despite no visible evidence, the rest of her body screamed at her like she’d been hit by a truck.

“Changes?” She didn’t like the sound of that. Her breath came in short, shaky waves, and she couldn’t get enough air no matter how much she gasped for it.

He steadied her with a hand on her arm. “Easy, Nicolette. The changes that make you immortal, that make your blood replenish quickly, that speed your healing time. The changes that make you a god. Believe me, they are nothing to fear, especially without the curse attached.”

The realization of what she’d done crept into her, the memories of the cellar and the death promising to be a constant feature in all future nightmares. She tried not to think about what it said about her that she had been so quick to say yes when Dominic had been dangled in front of her like a carrot, and yet she’d let no less than sixty people be murdered right in front of her and still had refused the vampire’s demand each night—until he’d found the thing that mattered to her enough to sacrifice anything.

She collapsed on the floor, shaking as the sobs bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her.

“Oh, God. What have I done? All those people you killed… What have I tied myself to?”

“I can take it away with the bond.”

“Take what away?”

“The pain you’ve suffered. You don’t have to feel this or be destroyed by it.”

She glared up at him. “You mean mess with my mind so I don’t remember it, so you can get away with it and it’s all okay?”

“That’s not what I mean. I can’t erase your memories. But I can take the sting out of them. You’ll know what happened. It won’t affect your free will or your memories, just the pain.” He bit into his wrist and held it out to her.

She made a face and scrambled away. “No.”

“It won’t hurt you, it won’t make you a vampire. All it will do is activate the bond to heal the pain you’re feeling. You can still hate me if you want.”

Nicole hesitated. If she ever wanted to find a way to escape him, she would need to be mentally and emotionally whole. Her best chance of getting away was being offered to her now. “Okay.”

August relaxed. “Okay. Good.”

She closed her eyes and took the offered blood, trying not to think too deeply about what it was she was ingesting. The memories became images with no emotion attached—like a long-forgotten recollection of a movie. And then the pain and guilt were just… gone.

“I need you to eat a real meal. No more picking over your food. You’ve made your decision now; extra suffering won’t serve any purpose.”

She followed him into kitchen and sat at the bar while he took some food from the fridge. She hadn’t thought much about it before. The food she’d been served in the cellar hadn’t been bad, but it was the kind of thing that was hard to notice while in such a frightening situation. The feeling of dread had edged out any possible enjoyment from food.

She’d never wondered where her meals came from, but it was clear from his, large and well-used kitchen that he’d made them. He’d cooked for all of them every day. Nicole wasn’t sure if it was creepy or kind. She watched as he arranged leftover steak and some vegetables on a plate and popped them into the microwave. While it was heating, he poured her a glass of water.

Nicole sat quietly for a couple of minutes trying to pick her words. She didn’t want to risk angering him and was afraid he’d go back on his word now that he had her, but she had to know.

“A-August?”

He placed the plate of food in front of her. “Yes?”

“When can I go back home?”

The muscle in his jaw twitched, and she held her breath, her eyes pleading with him to not change his mind now. He could. No matter how sincere he’d been when he’d begged her for this, now that he had her, he could withhold Dominic. He could punish her for reducing him to begging tears, for dragging this out so long, for not following his plan to the letter.

The reality of the power he held to take more and more from her was only now sinking in. She couldn’t even kill herself to escape him. She could only run and run and run. Run until she ran out of earth and fell off the edge. Because surely if you ran that much, gravity would give up the ghost and there would be nowhere left on the earth to go, and then you would just fall. Forever.

August was oblivious to the path her thoughts had turned down. After a moment, the tension in his jaw released, and he sighed. “In the morning. I’ll go with you and take the thrall off your husband. We’ll need to do damage control with the flower shop and your friends. How often do you speak with your family?”

“My parents live in town, but we don’t speak often. Still, they might know I’m missing.”

“And your husband’s family?”

“There’s only his dad left, but they don’t speak and haven’t in years.”

He nodded. “We’ll deal with everyone on a case-by-case basis.”

“You mean you’ll use mind control.” She didn’t like the idea of him being inside the heads of those she loved and cared about.

“Would you prefer they suffer thinking something happened to you?”

She shook her head. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“Okay, then. Eat your dinner. I want you to start taking care of yourself. Put some weight back on, and get back out in the sun. You’re far too pale and thin.” He trailed off abruptly and she wondered if that sentence was about to end with “for my tastes.”

When she’d finished eating he led her through the huge entry hall and up a grand staircase. She followed him to a closed door and waited—feeling awkward and afraid of what he might expect next—while he produced a key from his pocket to unlock the door.

“This is your room.”

Nicole couldn’t focus on the room for all the extra stuff that was in it. Bags filled with designer label clothes, boxes of shoes, cases of fine wines, most of them Cabernet Sauvignon—her favorite. Boxes of fine chocolates, plush bath robes, an uncountable number of velvet jewelry boxes, as well as bubble baths and lotions and expensive cosmetics and fragrances. There were several tall stacks of first edition books, many of them classics that would have been very hard to find in such condition.

Every available table and solid surface held vases and vases of red roses which had wilted and died, the petals dried and crumbling apart.

“I apologize for the roses. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this room. I thought things would happen more quickly between us.”

She dragged her gaze away from the gifts. “You can’t buy me! I’m not a thing you can purchase!”

His eyes were sad. “You’re already mine, poppet. If I’d thought I could buy you, I would have brought you here first. It’s already sealed between us, these are only small tokens of my gratitude. I know they can never repay you for your sacrifice. Just know that there is no limit to what I will give you now that you’re mine. There are glasses in the minibar if you’d like to try the wine.”

Nicole hadn’t noticed the minibar in all the piles of boxes and bags.

“I won’t hover. I’ll leave you alone for now.” He shut the door on his way out.

A corkscrew lay on top of the minibar. Nicole poured a glass of wine as she sifted through the bags and boxes. It was no surprise that all of his gifts reflected the same level of good taste as the rest of his remote estate. She opened one of the jewelry boxes to find an ornate, glittering filigree gold necklace which would lay flush against her skin and make her look like royalty—if she could ever bring herself to put it on. Wearing any jewelry but the bracelet her husband had given her, felt like more betrayal.

She closed the box and went back to the wine. It didn’t matter what the vampire said; she felt bought. And he had bought her—with the promise of Dominic.

***

Nicole woke the following morning, her mouth dry. Something shifted across the room and she bolted upright to find August sleeping—or trying to—in a chair in the corner. He’d watched her for hours, which made her more grateful that she’d be sleeping in Dominic’s bed tonight.

She’d been surprised when the vampire hadn’t tried anything sexual. He hadn’t insisted on sharing the bed. Maybe he wasn’t into her—only her blood and the hope of freedom it brought him. If that were true, she hoped his feelings remained that way—blood only. She squeezed her eyes tight against the memory of his bite, of the unrelenting sting. Large, dull needles poking at her skin like some medieval torture.

Though no physical mark had been left on her—and she didn’t want to begin to guess about that—she felt bruised, somehow broken inside beneath the skin where he’d bitten her. The soreness was a different kind of virginity lost, and she prayed it was only a remnant of the first time. Somehow she doubted it. Flesh was never designed to take fangs inside it. There was no reason to think it would ever stop hurting when he bit her.

She breathed slowly and deeply to push away the edging hysteria. If it built too large in her head, being fed on would hurt even more from the anticipation and tension.

“Nicolette, are you all right, my dear?”

She opened her eyes to find his sharp gaze on her. How long had he been staring like that?

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t going to get weepy and weak. She’d made her choice, and she would make it again if it meant Dominic’s arms could be around her tonight.

August stood and stretched, popping his neck and back. “Let’s get you fed and back home.”

She’d worried he would take it all away. Especially in the light of day, he had to know he didn’t have to keep his word.

“Why are you going to so much trouble for me?” Shut up, Nicole. Don’t draw attention to it. Just take it and go.

“You’ve freed me from my curse. You’re everything—the sun and the stars, the universe. There is no request too great. I told you that last night. There is nothing you could ask for that I would deny you now. Including your husband.”

“Last night in the kitchen I thought you’d go back on your word. The expression on your face… I thought… ”

“I was hurt that you wanted to get away from me so quickly. But why wouldn’t you? After the hell I put you through to get here.”

Shouldn’t her first thought upon awakening have been of the cellar? Of her suffering and fear and sadness? It had been a constant companion upon every other awakening since she’d been there. Now it was chillingly absent. It had been a comforting blanket that reminded her which one of them was the bad guy and which one of them was the real victim. But this morning it felt unreal. Even with his blood, she somehow hadn’t believed she would still feel whole the next morning.

Nicole’s hand moved to her neck and her eyes met his, imploring him to answer the questions she couldn’t yet put words to, but he looked away then left her alone.

She ducked into the bathroom to freshen up, drawing back in shock at the skeletal face that greeted her. She’d lost so much weight, gotten so pale. No wonder he hadn’t tried to sleep in the bed with her. Who would want that? She was a walking corpse, little better than he’d looked that first night in the cellar.

She turned away from her reflection and went to the kitchen where the vampire was already cracking eggs in a skillet. “August, I can’t go home like this. I look… dead.”

He glanced up. “You’ll regain your weight and color soon. Much faster with the bond. I can make your husband and family see you as you were until then. Stay away from work for a few days until you’re back to full strength and color. And get some sun.”

“Okay.” Of course. If he could manipulate minds anyway, it would be such a small matter to change their perception of her. Still, she hated that when Dominic saw her, he wouldn’t really see her, but the image August projected onto the screen of her husband’s mind. This whole thing was sordid and dirty.

“Just my blood, right?”

He glanced up. “Excuse me?”

“That’s all you want from me?” Her voice squeaked as she pushed the question out, and she knew she must sound ridiculous.

His gaze swept over her, but he turned his focus back to the eggs without comment.

Nicole felt stupid for asking. Even someone who could be as hideous as August could wouldn’t find her bedraggled look appealing, but she wouldn’t look this bad for long.

It was hard, seeing him now, to imagine that first night—the way his face had seemed as if it were rotting off the bone, as if he were decomposing before her eyes, like watching a flower bloom and die rapidly through the magic of time-lapse photography.

Since that night, she’d seen him look tired, and once, when he’d skipped a day’s feeding, like an older, distinguished man, but then he’d fed and been returned to perfection and youth once again.

The plate thudded on the table in front of her, jolting her back. August, in his perfect incarnation, sat across from her. She felt like a new puppy that had been brought home where every boring activity was filled with voyeuristic fascination for the new owners.

“Aren’t you eating?” She grimaced as soon as the words left her mouth.

A slow smile spread over his face as his gaze slid to her jugular. “I already ate, poppet.”

Blood rushed into her cheeks as she tried to concentrate on her eggs. Her mind drifted back to the creepy vampire rotting thing. “Will you still decompose if you don’t feed from me?”

“Yes. And don’t try to get out of it. There is no place far enough for you to run. You and I are stuck together now.”

“I-I didn’t mean… ” What did she mean? “What will happen to me? Will I age?” She hadn’t thought about any of this last night. She wasn’t a vampire. Maybe she would be immortal and feed him, but continue to age. She imagined herself old and shrunken and hiding away in the cellar from people and tried to think about how long he’d be able to stomach feeding from her before he just went back to killing.

He left the room and returned with a gilded book that must have been created at the beginning of time. The paper would surely flutter into dust at the lightest touch. But when he opened the book, the pages were strong and thick. They were made of stiff cloth with words written in an ornate script in ink that refused to fade.

August thumbed through several pages and pointed at the top of a new section. “It’s all there. No. You won’t age. You can’t die. You won’t have to drink blood to maintain anything. You will be you, but stronger. Able to heal faster, regenerate blood more quickly. For me.”

She shivered as that last part vibrated against the air. He stood so close. He smelled good. Masculine and clean. Nicole tried to ignore him. She loved Dominic. Any chemical attraction she might feel toward August was a weird mixture of pity, sadness, gratitude, and whatever supernatural thing he’d done to her through the blood exchange. Nothing more.

Chapter Six

August didn’t attempt to engage her in conversation on the ride home. She would have to come to him in her own time. Did he have plans for more than her blood? Of all the questions. She was his mate. Her blood sang to him like a lullaby, asking him to take her in every way a woman could be taken. But such a thing couldn’t be explained without sounding sinister. And he didn’t want to have to chase her.

It would be best if she could learn to accept things. He would grant this compromise because he’d spoken the truth when he’d said he would give her anything. If it was in his power, she could have it.

They sat in the driveway of her parents’ house while the rain beat against the windshield, occasional streaks of electricity lighting the overcast sky.

“Maybe they don’t know I’m gone. I don’t see them a lot. Maybe we should go.” Her foot bounced against the floorboard.

She jumped when August put his hand on her knee to stop the constant movement. “Why don’t you want to see them?”

Frightened eyes rose to his. “You’re a vampire.”

“You think I’ll hurt them.”

“I don’t know. You could.”

Her gaze went from his to his hand on her knee and then back up to his eyes again. Pleading. She wouldn’t say the words out loud. She wouldn’t ask him to stop touching her, but he knew she wanted him to. It was almost as if he could read the thoughts right out of her head. She wanted it to just be her blood. Too bad, but they didn’t have to talk about that now.

August patted her leg like a father or platonic friend, and the breath she’d been holding spiraled out of her in a soft sigh into the stillness of the car. “Come on. Let’s get this taken care of so you can go home to your husband.”

When he reached the front door, she was behind him, waiting like a stray he’d picked up instead of someone who belonged there.

He rang twice before a woman in her late fifties opened the door. She had kind eyes that resembled how Nicolette’s might be if age were allowed to grace the edges of her features. Silver streaks highlighted the woman’s dark brown hair.

He hated having to do this, but seeing a strange man on the doorstep with her emaciated daughter would not garner him an invitation through a simple request. It was the one thing he couldn’t gain from people through mind control. Humans had been allowed that one safe haven when the gods had worked their curse. It didn’t mean he couldn’t use threats to gain compliance. And he had strong collateral.

“Can I help… ” The woman’s words died when she saw Nicolette shivering in the rain.

August grabbed his mate roughly by the throat. Her heart rate ratcheted to an impossible speed. He felt the sense of betrayal with each erratic thump that pounded against his hand.

“Invite me in,” he hissed at her mother. The tears he smelled on Nicolette made his stomach turn, but it had to be convincing.

“C-come in,” the woman sputtered, barely believing what was happening in front of her.

Once they were inside, he released Nicolette and turned to face her accusing eyes. “I needed an invitation. I won’t harm them. Just trust me for one minute.”

Despite her time in the cellar, despite watching him kill, it took this close brush with her parents and her real world and life to fully grasp his predatory nature.

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“L-Lois.”

“Lois, look at me.”

“What’s going on here? What have you done to my daughter? We’ve been worried sick.”

Nicolette’s father stepped into the entryway. “Nicole, baby, is that you?” The man rounded on August, his eyes blazing fury. “And who in the hell are you? What have you done to my daughter? You sick bastard.”

The man moved quickly to grab something from behind the coat rack, and in the next moment August was staring down the barrel of a shot gun. He caught the father’s gaze. “Put the gun on the ground.”

His eyes widened as he found himself complying.

When the gun was on the floor, August said, “Now kick it over here.”

A moment later, the vampire heard a crunch and then everything went black.

***

Clink. Clink. Clink.

August woke in the spreading pool of his own blood. It was the sound of the bullets squeezing out and clinking on the hardwood floor that woke him as his body raced to mend itself.

Three bullets. Nicolette’s family had to be NRA members. While his attention had been on the father, Lois had gone for a second gun and shot him. Two in the back, one in the head.

He took measured breaths, rising slowly so he didn’t get dizzy. He’d lost a lot of blood before his body had forced the bullets out and sealed the wounds.

“August, please. Don’t hurt them. They were only trying to… ”

The smell of Nicolette’s fear was pungent on the air. His head snapped around to find her in front of her parents, blocking them with her body, guarding them, her arms outstretched. As if she could stop anything a vampire might decide to do. For their part, her parents looked as if they’d watched a horror movie creature impossibly survive and get up to continue stalking its prey. Their minds refused to accept it.

He reached out, using all his strength to force the tremor in his arm to settle. “Come here, Nicolette.” He hadn’t fed from her nearly enough the previous night. With the bond just forming, he hadn’t wanted to risk harming her, especially with her malnourishment.

She moved on shaking legs toward him while he watched her parents, waiting for another weapon to materialize.

Her arms were outstretched in a placating gesture, her voice soft as if trying to calm a small child’s tantrum. “Please, don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry, but I need you.” When she reached him, he grasped her arm, and keeping an eye on her parents to make sure no more bullets were forthcoming, he bit into her wrist.

She let out a surprised cry, her instincts initiating a struggle, but he held her firm. He didn’t bother stopping after a few token sips. Now that they were joined, he didn’t have to. He could gorge on her, and it wouldn’t do any lasting damage.

A figure moved in his peripheral vision, and August raised his head. Nicolette’s blood dripped from his fangs onto his hand and down his arm as he growled low at the father. Lois had wisely chosen to remain backed in the corner, huddled and small.

“Go back with your wife,” August snarled.

The man, unable to resist the command, moved back to the corner where they watched, helpless, as a monster drank their daughter’s blood. Soon, they wouldn’t remember any of this, so it didn’t matter. He lowered his head back to Nicolette’s arm and drank his fill. When he finished, he dragged his tongue over her wrist to clean the mess and help seal the wounds.

August wiped his mouth. “Well,” he said, observing the terrified couple. “I guess you’ve figured out I’m a vampire.” He turned to Nicolette who’d slunk over to the wall, numb and shell-shocked.

“Are you all right?”

“Y-yes,” she said, unable to look at her parents.

“Do you feel weak or woozy?”

“N-no.” She stared at her wrist, clean and unmarked—no sign of his bite.

“Because I can offer you some of my blood if you need it, to speed the regeneration.”

She looked up suddenly. “You said I didn’t have to… ”

He moved closer and wrapped his arms around her despite her resistance to his embrace. “You don’t have to, poppet. But it would make you feel better sooner.”

“I’m f-fine.”

He released her when she persisted in her struggle against him.

In her own time.

“Is my daughter a vampire? Is that why she’s so thin and pale? Is she a monster?” Lois had found her voice.

“She’s not a vampire. She’s my mate. She’s human. More or less.”

“But Dominic… ” Lois said.

“Erase it. Make them forget this now, please,” Nicolette said, the shame heavy in her voice.

August nodded and took care of it.

***

The rain continued its onslaught as they drove to Nicole’s house. August hadn’t spoken to her again since starting the Bugatti. She couldn’t look at him. Instead, she watched the wet, gray view out the passenger side window as they moved faster and faster, so fast she gripped the seat, terrified they’d wreck and forgetting for a moment that even if they did, it wouldn’t permanently damage her.

Even with her parents’ memories changed, even with the false story and the enchanted lies August’s hypnotic words had created, she couldn’t forget their faces when the vampire had fed from her. She’d been too shocked and embarrassed to register much pain.

The bite had been… intimate. Secret. It was as if her parents had walked in on her in the middle of a sex act. And now she knew. Whether he only wanted her blood or not, blood wasn’t just blood with a vampire. Feeding was inherently sexual. Had she really thought there was a separation?

“They’ll never remember,” August said.

“But I will. I’ll never be able to forget that they saw that. What must they have thought of me?”

The turn signal clicked in rhythm to the raindrops as he made a right turn onto her street. “The only thing in their head was fear for your safety. Nothing more. And besides, why should they judge you? I’m the villain. You’re the lamb on the altar.”

As true as that may be, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like she’d cheated on Dominic—her kind, funny husband, unaware that she had given herself to another. The reasons didn’t matter. She’d done it. She should have been strong and died in the cage in the cellar. No matter what the vampire had done to his mind, at least she could have remained faithful to their love. But at the time, she’d thought that was what she was doing—what was necessary to go back to him.

The rain slowed to a fine mist as they pulled into her driveway, making Nicole pause to wonder if the weather obeyed August, too. The clouds parted to let streaks of sunlight through, and birds chattered in the distance.

Again, she trailed behind him to the door, and again she waited while he rang the bell.

“I won’t need to feed until tomorrow night. After I fix things, I’ll leave you with your husband. I can take care of your coworkers without your involvement. I just want you to be as happy as possible.”

Nicole couldn’t form a reply. She’d known he would come back to feed. She’d known this wasn’t the end of their association, that he wasn’t truly setting her free, but for tonight she could be back in her husband’s arms and forget everything. Pretend.

“Yeah?” Dominic said when he opened the door. His gaze shifted from August to Nicole. “What are you doing back here? I thought I was rid of you.”

Although she knew it was the suggestion the vampire had put in her husband’s head, the words still stung when they hit their mark. She opened her mouth to speak, but August put a hand on her arm to stop her.

She stayed out of the way as the vampire took hold of Dominic’s mind. “Nicolette was never gone. You love your wife as much as you’ve always loved her. She’s everything to you. She’s perfect and beautiful and vibrant and healthy. You don’t see me here. You only see her.”

A fog lifted from Dominic as his gaze cleared and then that look was back, the look he always gave her. The one that made her feel so special. She barely noticed when August’s car pulled out of the driveway.

Dominic stared at her for a long time, and all she could do was bask in it.

“Why does it feel like we’ve been separated? I know I saw you this morning, but it feels like months.”

Nicole’s vision blurred from the tears gathering in her eyes, and she flung herself at him. He caught her and held her so tightly she thought she’d suffocate. If only dying in his arms right now were possible.

When his lips met hers, it was sublime. Soft, smooth flesh pressed against soft, smooth flesh. Mouths opening, devouring each other. Tongues exploring. Sweet sighs and erratic intakes of breath.

She allowed him to drag her into the house, kicking the door shut behind them.

“I need to fuck you until you can’t breathe, Mrs. Rose,” he growled against her mouth.

Yes, having this back was worth any sacrifice.

Elbows banged against walls and dressers until they finally made it to the bed, bruised and worn for wear.

“Strip. Now,” he ordered.

Dominic scooted against the headboard, his eyes hungry and wolfish, appraising her, ready for a show.

She knew she must still look like a concentration camp victim, but the most recent suggestion August had put in Dominic’s head kept him from seeing the truth of her state. Suddenly she wanted to cry and hold onto her husband and let him comfort her. She somehow wanted him to be able to know and grasp what had happened to her, what would keep happening to her. But she peeled the T-shirt off and unhooked her bra. He should never have to know about any of this. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t save her.

“Stroke your breasts. Entice me.” His voice rumbled, and there was a devilish twinkle in his eye.

Nicole forced her time with August and the memory of her husband’s indifference into a dark closet. All that mattered was this moment. For now she could pretend she’d never gone to that coffee shop that day and never met the vampire, that her bliss with Dominic had remained uninterrupted and unshattered, that they’d stayed forever safe in their protected bubble. She reached up to fondle herself. Once this had been so familiar and natural. Now it was foreign, but she wanted it to be familiar again. She wanted to relearn this shared language.

“No, you know how I like it, Nicole. Do it slowly. I think you need to earn that bracelet I got you. You haven’t come close to earning it yet.”

He winked, smirking up at her, and she blushed, but moved her hands more slowly, cupping and stroking her breasts, pushing them up and toward him. She closed her eyes and threw her head back, knowing what it did to him when she moved this way.

He scooted toward her and licked along the line of her cleavage. “That’s my girl. Such a good girl.”

Nicole whimpered as his fingers slid under her jeans, hungrily seeking to press against the contours of all her private places. She unbuttoned her pants to help him slide further in. She’d missed this so much.

“Now, sweetheart, did I tell you to stop stroking yourself? I’ll have to spank you if you can’t stop being so greedy and impatient.”

She moved her hands back to her breasts, caressing the full mounds of flesh. She squeezed her erect nipples and was rewarded when a bolt of pleasure shot between her legs.

He pulled her jeans down her hips—not noticing the loose fit—and then her panties, exposing her to his view. She dry-humped the air, desperate for any contact between her legs.

“Why aren’t you waxed?”

He smacked her bottom with a loud pop that left a sting.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “Please… I need… ”

“Oh, I know what you need. Punishment.”

“Please, Dominic… ” She could only be grateful that his brain hadn’t processed that she’d regrown hair like magic. After all, in his imagination, the last time they’d had sex, she would have been bare. And the last time would have been probably that morning or the previous night. But August’s thrall had erased all holes in logic.

She didn’t want to have to think about any of that right now. All she wanted was to feel Dominic’s fingers and then his cock, rubbing her raw inside. That fantastic pleasure-pain from too much sex. She wanted to feel that wetness between her legs that made her throb to the point where it became difficult to walk without thinking the whole world must be as aware of her pussy as she was.

She’d missed the way Dominic undid her so that she felt naked all the time with him, even when fully clothed and out in public. She always felt wickedly exposed in his presence. It was a welcome comfort after what she’d been through the past few months.

She groaned as he forced her to her hands and knees and impaled her from behind, pressing her against the bed. He was so large, and they were so out of practice, that he would have damaged her if she hadn’t been so impossibly wet.

“God, Nicole. You horny little slut. You never can get enough cock inside you, can you?”

“Never,” she agreed.

Her body had been so deprived of him, so hungry for him, that she came more quickly than usual. It earned her another slap on the bottom.

“We’re going to have to do something about this impatience you’ve developed.”

She didn’t care. Dominic could do whatever he wanted with her, as long as he didn’t stop touching her or loving her again.

***

It didn’t take August long to discover the flower shop had hired a new staff member to replace Nicolette. They’d worried over her absence, but given Dominic’s indifference they’d assumed she’d left him and had been too distraught to bother with a two-week notice. They’d all known she hadn’t needed to work with her husband’s salary.

August flipped through the personal ads, used a bit of suggestion to re-job Nicolette’s replacement, tweaked everyone’s memories, and now she was set to return to work in the next few days, as soon as she put the weight back on.

In normal circumstances it would take weeks of being well-fed to return to full health and vitality, but the bond had changed her in ways she wouldn’t fully comprehend for a while.

He made it back to her house in time to overhear the end of her lovemaking with Dominic. The rain had started again, gently pattering against the world. August stood next to the window, allowing the water to fall on him as he eavesdropped.

He was relieved to hear how happy she sounded, as if the past months in his cellar had never happened. Despite the promises of the bond, he hadn’t been sure it would take away the evil he’d done, or minimize it so she could laugh again. If the bond hadn’t done the full job, being reunited with Dominic had.

He chanced a glance inside the window. The two lovers were a tangle of writhing, naked limbs. He pressed his hand against the wet pane, leaving a print behind.

“I’ll see you soon, my dear.”

Chapter Seven

Nicole hummed to herself as she straightened the dining room. She’d spent the afternoon at the spa getting a massage and Brazilian wax. Neither the massage therapist nor her wax girl had said anything about her appearance except that she seemed to have lost a little weight. Nicole said it was stress, and they’d left it alone after that.

The law office was usually closed on Monday, but Dominic had a lot of work on his plate and had gone in anyway. He’d come home for dinner, but had to go back to the office again.

The doorbell rang.

“Just a minute,” she called out. She put a coffee mug in the sink and smoothed down her sundress. Had he forgotten something?

Her face drained of blood when she opened the door to find the vampire on the other side.

“May I come in?” he asked with such smooth politeness, it was easy for a moment to forget their ugly history.

“Do I have a choice?”

How could she have forgotten August? Was one Sunday afternoon and night in Dominic’s bed enough to make her forget how she’d sealed her fate? Her body went rigid at a flashback of the vampire’s bite. She worked to keep her lip from trembling. She didn’t want to hurt again. Not this soon. She needed more time.

“Do you want to travel down that path with me, Nicolette? Without an invitation, no, I can’t get into your home—even with the bond—but if you starve me or force me to kill, I’ll smoke you out. This barrier won’t stop me.”

She shivered at his intensity. “C-come in.”

How long would the vampire stay? Nicole prayed he would feed quickly and leave. She’d endure it and then he’d go. She pushed down the feeling of revulsion at being fed on. The bargain she’d made stretched before her endlessly. Even the balm of Dominic’s love couldn’t tamp down her panic at how she’d been ensnared.

August stepped inside and hung his coat on the peg near the door. She took a step back, but he caught her hand before she could get away and raised it to his lips to brush a soft kiss against her skin.

“Don’t be scared of me, poppet. I’m the one who will be here when he’s gone. When they’re all gone. You’ll want me around then.”

“And what if I don’t?” If she didn’t live into his fantasy, would he grow angry with her? Would this mask of kindness disappear?

“You will. I have the life experience to know you will. I’ll wait for you. As long as it takes.” He released her hand and settled on the couch, patting the seat beside him. “I’m very hungry tonight. Let’s not draw this out.”

That tremble, the one she’d tried to keep out of her lip, had returned. “A-August, please… I know I promised, but it hurts too much. I-I can’t do this every night. Please don’t make me.”

He watched her dispassionately from the sofa, an arm draped over the back of it where he intended her to sit. “How much did it hurt yesterday morning?”

“That was different. I was distracted and embarrassed and scared for my parents. And… you could have stabbed me with a hot poker, and I don’t think I would have fully registered it.”

“I’m not going to kill anymore. You’ll learn to cope with the pain. You’re mine now. If being with Dominic causes you to forget your duty to me, then perhaps we’ll have to rethink this arrangement.”

She felt the trap close over her. He couldn’t take the one good thing in her life. She couldn’t cope with losing her husband now. To sacrifice herself forever only to be back in his arms for one day… It would have been better to die in the cage.

She perched on the edge of the sofa, as if poised to flee. As if she could get away once that strong jaw locked on her throat.

The vampire’s fingertips skimmed across her neck and collarbone and down her arms. She jumped when his hand slipped underneath her dress and stroked up her thigh between her legs.

“Don’t,” she said, closing her eyes to make it all go away.

“So many veins to choose from. I’m just trying to pick.”

His demeanor was different. Though a sadness clung to him, like a ghost that couldn’t find rest, a lightness peaked around the edges. A new hope. Freedom.

She froze when the pad of his thumb brushed next to her panties.

“The femoral artery is a great place to feed. But we won’t do it until you’re ready.”

Nicole let out a relieved sigh as he withdrew his hand from under her dress. She tensed again when he brushed the hair from her shoulder, exposing her throat. He bared his fangs and struck.

She tried to pull away, but he held her with jaw and hands. She closed her eyes and tried not to think, tried to go blank and make it stop happening. She tried for those minutes to stop existing altogether.

The moment his fangs were out of her throat, she raced down the hall to the bathroom. Dropping to her knees in front of the toilet, she emptied the contents of her stomach. When she had nothing left to throw up, she laid her cheek against the cool tile and wept.

“Nicolette.”

“Go away. Please, just go.”

He disappeared down the hallway and returned a few minutes later. Why couldn’t the bastard leave? He sat on the tile beside her and pulled her into his arms.

“Here, I got you some water from the kitchen.”

He stroked her hair as she drank and tried to stop her mind from racing. The pain in his eyes made everything worse. Why did it have to be her? Why couldn’t it have been someone else?

“You didn’t react like this before. Is it hurting more? I don’t want you to suffer, poppet. I wanted to stop killing, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

She set the glass on the tile and laid her head against his chest. After several minutes she collected herself and pulled away. He would have to know the truth some time.

“It didn’t hurt. It was so much worse than that.”

His head tilted to the side like a puppy trying to work out a riddle.

She wanted the floor to open up. She wanted death to be possible. “I wanted you,” she whispered. “It didn’t hurt. It felt… good. It felt like making love. It felt like cheating on Dominic.”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

She really didn’t. She wanted him to vanish, to die, to somehow undo the link between them so someday she could die. Her soul had diverged eternally from its mate. The rift between her and Dominic might not be large yet, but they were moving down different trajectories, with the end result being eternal separation. And the weight of it was only now beginning to settle upon her shoulders.

If she’d been strong and rejected the devil’s offer, she could have died, and had some hope of her soul reuniting with her husband’s in the hereafter. But being kept in a cage, nearly starving with no light and nothing but scared, doomed people for company for so long had made the short-term gain feel like a good deal. Like a consolation prize. Like she was winning.

The long absence had made it feel as if she could go on without Dominic at some mythical future point that she wouldn’t have to think about for a while—the way people skirted around thoughts of the ramifications of their own deaths. Of course it would happen, far off in some distant future that hardly felt real. If she could only have her husband back loving her for now. If they could live out their lives together like normal people. It would all be fine.

“I think it would be better if you let him go now. We could leave the country for a while. I have a home in Italy, nicer than the one here, in fact. You could be happy there. I have a winery. You enjoy wine.”

Nicole went cold and tense like a statue frozen in ice. The panic threatened to close her throat, but she forced words out in time. “No! You promised. Please, August, you said I could have him.”

“But you can’t handle it. It’ll destroy you to be with me while you’re with him. You’ll feel torn between us. You’ll feel guilty, like it’s your fault for not suffering at my hands.” He rocked her in his arms, and she found herself lost in the soothing feel of it—if she could separate the comforting gesture from the man who’d caused it to be necessary.

“I needed to stop killing. I didn’t want this. I wanted to show you that I wasn’t a monster. I wish I’d gotten to you before him. Things would have gone differently.”

Nicole shut her eyes and tried to imagine never knowing Dominic. Of August being able to project smooth charm and confidence when they’d met instead of crazed desperation. Of his checkered past being so vague and shadowy to almost be sexy. Would she have wanted him? Yes. Would she have loved him? Maybe. But right now she felt like a cheating whore who’d somehow betrayed the man she loved, the man who’d made her happy and given her everything for a decade. He was the innocent in this.

August was right, she was selfish trying to keep her husband, but she couldn’t succumb to the vampire. If she went away with him and left everyone else behind, what if she developed a feeling beyond arousal? After the way he’d shattered her life, he couldn’t be the victor.

He would have done every heinous thing he could invent to wear her down and gain her consent. Despite her resolve to die… deep down she knew he would have won anyway. Surely centuries of killing gave one insight into creative ways of keeping people alive when necessary.

She gathered the energy she had and released it in a string of words so bitter she was sure they could have burned holes through his soul. “It’s not your decision to make. If you take me from him now, I will hate you forever.”

He sighed. “I wish I thought you were being dramatic. But I believe you believe that.”

***

When Nicolette had gotten hold of herself, August left her for the night. Vampiric thrall was a hideous thing. Controlling people like puppets on strings, making them obey out of amusement or necessity had always disturbed him. And yet, if he could, he would grip Nicolette’s mind with the force of a thousand of his kind and force her to forget her husband, her family, her friends. Forget they’d ever existed. He’d create a world where only he mattered to her.

He’d uproot her without mercy and replant her across the ocean while those she’d known and loved died out. And he wouldn’t feel an ounce of remorse for it.

August sat outside Dominic’s law firm with the car idling. How long would it take her to forgive him for killing her husband? He pressed his fingers against his temples as if he could push the thoughts out and away. He’d been kidding himself. Centuries of killing did something very wrong to one’s brain.

Whoever he’d been before the curse, he wasn’t that man now. Only the lifting of the fog over his life, the end to the necessary killing, had made it clear—no matter what he wanted her to think. He’d become ruthless, and despite the torment of killing, hadn’t his suffering already diminished over the centuries? The horror had become the backdrop against which he lived his life. The familiar thing. And sometimes the familiar thing could be coped with, given enough experience.

There had been a time when he’d suffered and sobbed for hours until he’d cried himself to sleep over the most recent death, only to wake and have to repeat the process again. Before Nicolette, his breakdowns had lasted far shorter periods. A few broken sobs. Extreme guilt and pain for an hour or two each night afterward, then a lower level depression and resignation that made him so tired he wanted to sleep for the rest of his existence. If he could manage to stay asleep that long.

In six hundred more years would he have successfully shut off his empathy so he could be a true predator not only in deed but in thought? His own brand of freedom from the curse? There was no guarantee. Nicolette had been a guarantee too hard to pass up.

Dominic’s car was the only other car in the lot. He must want a gold feather in his cap for going that extra mile. It was the mile he’d die on.

August slammed the door of the Bugatti. His vision was hazed by a red mist only he could see. The killing urge. Only this time, it wasn’t for hunger.

The gilded book in his library popped into his mind, the pages fluttering open to the legend of the blood mate, the words he’d read a thousand times, the fine print. The warning. What did freedom mean? For centuries, he’d operated outside the boundaries of free will, doing what he was forced to do and suffering for each life he took. And now? He could kill a man for purely personal reasons, without the torment the curse had provided him with. Now he could do it and like it.

He’d been sure that if the curse were broken, he would go back to being the man he’d been before it. He hadn’t been a killer when he was turned, so surely those rules—the fine print—didn’t apply to him. The book had been created for the first vampires. Not for him. He was special. He was different. He was holy.

And he was about to drain the life from the man standing in the way of what he wanted. With the curse behind him, all he wanted was her. Three times he’d drunk her blood, and each time he grew more possessive. What was one more murder in all the thousands upon thousands he’d been forced to commit? What was one more life if it could simplify everything?

The front door was locked, but locks posed no challenge. August ripped it off its hinges. Nothing would stand between him and his goal. Fluorescent lights hissed and blinked as he stomped down the hallway, gaining speed the closer he got to the scent of his prey.

When he opened the door, Dominic looked up.

“Can I help you?”

“You can die. That would help a lot.”

The red haze that blurred August’s vision made Dominic pink, like meat. Should he drink or snap his neck? He’d never been faced with that decision. Choosing to kill was a novel concept.

Before Dominic could react, August was on him, his fangs in his throat, ripping at the flesh. The first drop of blood had barely touched his tongue when Nicolette’s tear-streaked face leapt into his mind. His phantom mate was on her knees, begging him, begging for her husband’s life, promising to give him anything he wanted.

Dominic struggled in his arms and August let go. The vampire ripped into his own wrist and gave the man some of his blood to undo the damage he’d created. Dominic sputtered and choked on it, trying to get away, trying not to swallow, but it was a futile fight.

When August had forced enough blood down the man’s throat, he gripped his shoulders and stared hard into his eyes. “None of this happened. Forget me.”

He cursed and punched a hole in the wall on his way out. The damage would be a mystery Nicolette’s husband would never unravel.

***

Nicole crammed a few more dresses and an extra pair of jeans into the open suitcase. She couldn’t bear leaving Dominic forever. She wasn’t strong enough for that, and she feared what August would do when he found her gone. But she needed the illusion that she could somehow be free in the world again, just for a little bit.

She reread her quickly-scrawled words:

Dominic,

I’m sorry to leave you a note like this, but my Aunt Norah broke her leg. She needs help with the children for a few days while she makes other arrangements. I didn’t want to disturb you at the office. I’ll call as soon as I can.

Love Always,

Nicole

The beauty of the explanation was that it was easily believable. Norah hadn’t spoken to the rest of the family in years. Nicole found herself grateful for the family strife that would give her a way out for a while.

She sat on the suitcase to force it closed and drove the locks home. She wanted nothing more than to explain things to Dominic, beg him to run away with her, but he would never believe her story.

On her way out of town, she stopped by the flower shop and gave them the injured-aunt excuse. They couldn’t guarantee her job would be there when she returned, and she didn’t expect it to be.

She just needed space, a few days to try to cope with the reality of her life now.

Chapter Eight

August had driven for five days, stopping only to sleep on the side of the road. The death and decay rose up around him, his face and body having turned gruesome from lack of feeding. Each time he caught her trail, he lost it again. And the weaker he got, the harder it was to pick up.

He needed to feed. He needed to kill someone. After the red haze that had come over him with Dominic—the momentary belief that he could kill without remorse—August was back to a sense of dread over the prospect. What was the point of taking Nicolette—of destroying her life—if he would go back to killing? If he allowed himself to succumb to his urges, every shred of who he’d once been would be lost forever, and Nicolette’s sacrifice would become meaningless.

Either way, she’d be alone out there. When her husband and family and friends were gone, she’d be alone, like him. He needed her. She needed him. She just didn’t know it yet. He wouldn’t leave her as a lone freak to face the aging world unchanged.

Except for his foot on the gas, he held his body absolutely still. He sensed her nearby. She’d stopped moving. He sped forward, as if she were pulling him to her on an invisible leash. He wondered if she would get a sudden sense of dread—of fear—if she’d know he was coming for her in time to run.

He smiled when he saw the silver Lexus parked next to the last room of a run-down motel. Motels were public places. No invitation needed.

August didn’t bother knocking or issuing threats; he forced the door open and stepped inside. She sprawled on one of the double beds, watching a show on television. Her eyes rose to his, wide and horrified when he slammed the door. She scrambled off the bed to get to the bathroom, but he grabbed her before she reached it.

“Were you planning to fly out of the country?” She’d picked a motel next to an airport. If she’d flown far enough away, he might not have found her, at least not without killing a few people first. But as long as Dominic was alive, she wouldn’t leave the country without him. August was glad he’d resisted the urge to kill the attorney.

“I… um…”

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

Those obviously weren’t the words she’d expected from him after five days of hunting her.

“Close your eyes.” He shouldn’t feel bad about her having to endure a bite from an ugly, rotting vampire. It was her fault he’d gotten to this state. Her running.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

“Why would I hurt you?”

“I ran.”

“And it was pointless. Wasn’t it? What did you feel you would accomplish? Is this how you wish to go on for the rest of eternity with me? Run and get caught by a grotesque monster every few days? Wouldn’t you prefer I fed from you in a more attractive form?”

“No.”

There it was. That ridiculous guilt of hers. The martyr complex.

“You’ll have to drink my blood tonight.”

She tried to struggle free of his grasp. “What? No! You said… ”

“Unless you want to suffer. The amount of blood I’ll have to take from you at this stage, you’ll heal, but it will be painful without my help, even with the link between us. I told you I wouldn’t allow you to suffer unnecessarily. I gave my word.”

He’d also promised Dominic would die of natural causes and she could stay with her husband until then. And yet, he’d almost broken that vow.

August didn’t have to be able to read her mind to know she had a death wish already. He’d seen a reflection of his own eyes in hers, the slump of shoulders, the resignation, the burning need to escape it all. She was his mirror.

“Nicolette, we have to be together. We’ll both go mad otherwise. You may not think you need me now, but you will. And I need you. You have no idea how much.”

He was surprised when she let him pull her closer, her eyes squeezed shut as he’d requested. He struck at her throat, feeding as quickly as possible. She cringed against him, and he wasn’t sure if it was his current ugliness and decay or if the bond between them still caused the bite to feel like pleasure.

Savoring her blood was something for another time. He drained her like he was draining a body dry. He barely tasted her. He just needed to repair. The smell that had risen off his flesh for the past two days faded to nothing. His face lost its shrunken form and ashen pallor. His skin healed, papering over the ugly truth of what he could so quickly become without human blood. He became perfect again.

He stopped when he heard the moan of pain escape her lips. Despite her earlier protests, she didn’t fight when he brought his bleeding wrist to her mouth.

“Drink. You’ll feel better. I promise.”

Her mouth latched around the wound and she drank for several minutes, something deep and primal between them grabbing hold of her. When she finished, it was she who initiated the kiss, her mouth pressing against his in fevered desperation.

August’s eyes widened. It was just the bond growing stronger, the mutual feeding causing her desire to spiral out of her control. It wasn’t real. Just a mirage. She’d feel angst about it later. She’d blame him for “taking advantage,” even though she was the one who was now stripping her clothes off at an impressive speed and tugging on his pants to get them down.

He held her wrists tight, forcing her eyes to meet his.

“Owww. August, you’re hurting me.”

“Good.” The pain was the only real thing between them.

Her shirt gaped open to reveal the tops of flushed breasts. He ripped it the rest of the way off her body and took her bra as well. “Pants, off!” he growled, too impatient to deal with the logistics of her clothing and too busy with his own. He had fed plenty, he was fine again, but he wanted to taste her, he wanted to drink more of her.

August pushed her against the faux wood-paneled wall and sank his fangs again into her throat. She writhed against him until he angled his hips and was inside her, then she went still and started to cry.

He cradled her. “Shhhh, poppet. It was always going to happen. You’re fighting nature and destiny and blood. You can’t fight this. You can’t fight me. You don’t want to.”

Minutes passed with their bodies locked together like that, still, like a sculpture of embracing lovers frozen in time.

Finally, Nicolette’s hips began to move and rock against him in a belated consent to her own destruction.

“Yes, just like that,” he whispered. He went back to feeding as she fucked herself on him. When he’d had his fill of her blood, he sealed the wound and then moved her to the bed to finish what she’d started. He drove in and out of her until they both came, and then his fangs were in her throat again, taking just a little more. Always just a little more.

They lay in the bed, panting, their breath slowly matching rhythm. He pulled her against his body and closed his eyes. “Sleep now. We’ll go back in the morning.”

***

Nicole lay in the vampire’s arms, her tears choking her. How could she allow… How could she initiate…? All illusions were gone—like the illusion that she could keep things strictly blood. She’d assumed he would try to fuck her at some point, but never would she have guessed it would be her throwing herself at him begging him to take her. She hadn’t said those words. She hadn’t said any words, but her body had said it all.

Now the only thing left was shame and the resolve that it could never happen again. She could never betray Dominic like this again.

August’s hands stroked over breasts, and she flinched.

“You started this. You jumped on me like I was your last source of oxygen.”

She tried to pull his hand away, but he wouldn’t be moved, and she didn’t want him to be moved. His hand pressed against her skin made her want to spread her legs and guide him back inside her.

As if responding to her thoughts, he caressed the flesh between her legs until she began to move against him.

“You knew what I was asking for when I said you would give yourself to me. You knew what this bond was about and what it meant. I didn’t lie to you. I told you from the beginning that you were my mate, and one way or another you would give in and accept it. You can’t take it back, and now that I’ve been inside you, there will be a lot more where that came from. You can count on it.”

“Will I ever see him again?” She couldn’t imagine August would allow her to go back to Dominic now. Not after this.

“Since Dominic thinks you’re with your aunt, you will keep that lie going. You’ll stay with me for a while doing exactly what I tell you to do, no matter what I ask for, and then I’ll think about forgiving you and letting you see him again. Disobey one command and Dominic is out of your life forever.”

If the feeding made her crazy, it made August even more so. The possession of her blood overtook him so that the small strands of humanity she’d seen had already begun to fray. Nicole wasn’t sure that even obeying his every whim would allow her to go back to her husband at this point.

“You’ll fuck me exactly as I demand, then you’ll go fuck him. You’ll take us both, and you’ll like it. Someday I might make you take us both at once.”

“H-he can’t know about this.”

“We’ll see.”

She spread her legs wider as he slid his other hand between them. He used the fingers of one hand to fuck her, and the fingers of the other to rub her clit, then he bit her, and she came again, bucking against him.

***

The next morning, a new type of energy buzzed beneath the surface of the vampire. Nicole lay in bed with the sheets tangled around her, contemplating if she was ready to sit up yet. August was dressed in a black suit, medium-gray shirt, and black tie. He sat in a chair in the corner beside the window drinking a cup of coffee. His face was so lit up, Nicole wondered if he was plugged into an outlet somewhere.

“Good morning, my dear, did you sleep well?”

“Nice suit.”

“I found a men’s store in the airport.”

The room was an upturned nightmare. They’d destroyed both of the beds, and it was hard to tell if sex or a massacre had happened because of the blood they’d exchanged. Lamps were turned over, one of the bulbs broken on the floor. Pictures were askew, and one was off the wall. The wall itself was dented where he’d slammed her against it, or where his hand had slammed to take the force so her body wouldn’t have to.

“This room looks like a crime scene.”

He bent to turn the table right side up and set the Styrofoam cup on it, then he tossed a dress that had been in her suitcase at her. Her clothes were already packed. “Get dressed. It’s time to go home.”

He couldn’t get there fast enough.

“What about my car?”

“I enthralled someone to drive it back. Someone else is driving my car home. Do you really want to drive for days?”

“Then how are we getting home?” Had she referred to his house as home?

“We’re flying. I chartered a jet at the airport you were planning to escape from.”

She only wished she’d had the nerve to leave the country. She’d just been too tired to drive any further. She hadn’t noticed the airport until she’d been in the room for over an hour and kept hearing planes overhead.

“Aren’t you going to do anything about this room?”

“Why should I? Is your DNA in a database?”

“No… but…”

“I’m going to the office to take care of the bill and erase the clerk’s memory. I’ll meet you outside in five. Don’t make me wait. And Nicolette… run again and I will not be so kind when I find you.”

Chapter Nine

When the jet landed, they rented a car to take them the last few hours to the mansion. It was late in the evening when they got home.

August didn’t have to look back to know Nicolette had followed him up the stairs. She wouldn’t so readily acquiesce if not for the threat of never seeing her husband again.

All he wanted was a chance. If she could only see how easy he could make things if she’d just accept both men into her bed—not just one.

He held the door open for her when they reached his bedroom. She sneaked a quick glance into his eyes and then darted past him.

“No shoes, poppet. It’s expensive carpet.” He removed his own shoes and socks by the door.

She slipped her sandals off, and August caught the brief bliss on her face as her feet sank into the thick, soft, red carpet. It was red because he’d once entertained the notion of bringing meals up to his room. The color would mask any spills. In the end, he couldn’t kill in the same room he slept in. Now it felt more natural to take blood in this place than anywhere else. Feeding below ground seemed bizarre and profane.

He shut the door then reached into his pocket and took out a cell phone. “Here, call him.”

“What?”

“Call your husband and let him know you’re okay. I’m sure he’s used to hearing from you every day.”

She took a couple of steps back; her suspicious gaze rose to his. “And what will it cost me to use the phone?”

“Nothing I won’t demand anyway.”

Nicolette sighed, took the phone, and dialed. She curled up in a chair in the corner, no doubt seeking some small measure of privacy. But his hearing didn’t allow for such luxuries.

“Dominic!”

“Hey there.” August could hear the other man’s smile over the phone. Dominic chuckled. “You don’t miss me, do you?” he teased.

Nicolette smiled, a genuine smile, the tension melting at the sound of his voice. “Of course I miss you.”

“Oh good, because I thought you were finding a way to leave me in small increments to soften the blow.” He was teasing her still, but the shadow that fell over her face gave away her thoughts. She was leaving him in increments. And the poor fool didn’t know it.

She looked up to August, a question in her gaze. Are you going to take him from me now? She may as well have spoken the words aloud. Her eyes conveyed more than her lips could have ever spoken.

“So, how is your aunt today?” Dominic asked, unaware of the tension and drama on the other end of the line.

“About like yesterday. It could take a while to heal, but it’s not especially serious.” The lie fell from her lips with an ease that surprised the vampire.

“When are you coming home? I miss my insatiable slut.”

August smirked at that, and Nicolette looked down at her lap. If she’d had any doubt the vampire could hear both sides of the conversation, it was gone now.

“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when she has more help and I can leave.”

His voice dropped an octave. “So… what are you wearing?”

Nicolette looked down at her sundress. “I… I can’t do that right now.”

“Oh?”

“Kids in the room.”

August was impressed with her quick thinking. It was a good thing she was the loyal type, because her lies sounded like reality. The vampire could almost believe it—even knowing the truth.

“This late?” Dominic asked.

“Well, you know kids.”

“No, actually I don’t.”

“Well, now you know. Boy, did you dodge a bullet,” she joked. She was almost herself for a minute, the happy-go-lucky woman August had met in the coffee shop. They had such an easy way between them.

“Indeed. Call me tomorrow? When there are no corruptible minors around?”

“I’ll try,” she said.

“I love you, baby. Miss you.”

“I love you and miss you, too.” She disconnected the call before she could start crying and handed the phone back to August. “Will I be going back home?”

“That depends on you. Can you handle both of us? Because it’s both of us or only me.”

“I can’t lose him. Please. He’s the one safe thing in my life.” Her eyes begged him with more fervency than her mouth.

He nodded. “I hope some day you’ll see me as something safe in your life. I know I’m playing dirty. I wish I could force myself to be more noble for your sake, but my blood screams for yours. If you knew what it was like inside my head. It pounds through my ears like a runaway heartbeat. Every part of my being says you belong to me. I can’t resist it any more than you can.”

August unbuttoned his jacket and draped it over a chair that was the twin to the one Nicolette sat in, then he loosened his tie and pulled it over his head. He watched her tense as he slowly unbuttoned each button on his shirt and slid the linen off his shoulders.

“I’m not going to compete with Dominic. You aren’t his anymore.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “You’re going to take him from me. You’re going to go back on your word. I sacrificed everything, and you’re going to take him.”

“The only person who has gone back on their word is you, poppet. Who took you immediately back to your beloved the day after the bond was complete? Who starved for five days hunting his promised meal?”

She looked away.

“That’s what I thought. I am not a silly human. I don’t mind sharing. What I mind is this constant attempt of yours to deny what I am to you now. If you want to keep him, make me believe you understand. He isn’t your soul mate anymore. He’s temporary. I’m eternal. You’d better get that shit through your head.”

She flinched, but he didn’t care. He was sick of sugarcoating it. The ingratitude of her taking the first opportunity she could to run made his blood boil.

“To tell the truth, I’m surprised you ran away and left your precious Dominic behind.”

“I just needed a few days. I just needed space from you, from everything. Why don’t you get what you’ve done to me?”

He unzipped his pants and pushed them over his hips, his boxers going with them. “I’ve understood what I was taking from you the moment I took you from your home. Why do you think I went to such lengths to get you to come to me willingly? I knew what I was doing. Would you have allowed your one chance to escape an eternal curse get past you?”

She looked up at him, her gaze skimming quickly past his erection. “Isn’t that what you’re berating me for? Wanting to escape an endless curse?”

“You weren’t escaping. You were coming back. For him. You were just hurting me.” His voice rose with his anger, and he pulled her out of the chair she’d curled herself into as if huddling smaller and smaller would make her disappear from his view.

He held her in his arms and slid his hands to her back to unzip her dress. She stood there, crying silently as he slipped the straps off her shoulders and pushed the dress down to the floor.

“Look at me.”

She obeyed, her lip trembling, unshed tears in her eyes. His gaze went to the pulse in her throat, that light little thump thump thump as the blood pushed through the vein and pressed against her skin in a hypnotic rhythm that drove him mad.

He forced himself to look back into her eyes. “If you had never met Dominic, would you want me?”

“I don’t know,” she hedged.

He growled. “You know. Fucking say it!”

“Yes. Is that what you want to hear? Yes, yes, fucking yes. I would want you. But that isn’t the story we were given. I can’t be what you want me to be! Why can’t you accept that?”

She didn’t fight when August laid her across the bed and spread her legs. His fangs sank into the artery in her thigh, and he let out a sigh of contentment against her skin. The taste of her was more exquisite each time he took her. As he drank, he stroked her through her panties and felt the gathering wetness, the betrayal of her desire without even taking a drop of his blood inside her.

He ran his tongue over the puncture marks even though her healing time had sped and the wounds were already sealing themselves. Then he slid her panties down. He allowed his fangs to recede and took her swollen bud into his mouth and sucked and licked as she thrashed against him, her hands tangling in his hair. When she came, he slid up her body and eased himself inside her moist, welcoming warmth, so wet after coming.

His mouth found the pulse in her throat and he bit, draining her feverishly as he drove into her, chasing the pleasure of her blood and the pleasure of her cunt wrapped around his cock, until the two sensations blended into one and his own orgasm sent a growl ripping from his throat.

She tensed at the animalistic sound.

He stayed inside of her, their bodies locked together for a few moments, then he kissed her forehead and pulled out. “Stay in bed. I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Downstairs in the kitchen, he slammed cabinets and drawers as he made her a sandwich and cut up an apple. Before Nicolette, sex had made the killing urge stronger, made him more violent. The bond did the opposite. The very taste of her blood on his tongue made him need to fuck her. And yet, no matter how much her body wanted his in return, no matter how right it was for them to be joined in physical completion, she was like an unhappy housewife having duty sex.

How many years would Dominic have to be dead before she would truly give herself to August, without reservation or remorse, without holding back the small bits of herself she kept closed off from his reach? He could touch every inch of her, penetrate her with fangs and cock, and yet he was never going to reach anything real.

The cure was a cruel joke.

When he brought her food up, he found her curled into herself, sobbing. “Nicolette.”

She didn’t look up.

He set the tray on a small table and got into the bed. He moved her into a seated position, leaning her against his chest and bit into his wrist. “Drink, poppet.”

When she could pull herself out of her misery enough to see his bleeding arm, she struggled. “What? No… No! I’m not drinking your blood anymore. It fucks me up.”

“I just want to use the bond to take your pain. Please.” Her agony was a palpable thing in the room, hovering between them, seeking to suck all the life and oxygen away. “Please, Nicolette. Let me do this one thing for you. Let me make it easier.”

She searched his face for several minutes before she finally relented.

The wound on his wrist had sealed, so he opened it again and held her in his arms and petted her hair as she drank. “That’s a good girl. I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll take you back home tomorrow. I won’t keep you here against your will.”

He wanted her in his home away from the influence of her husband almost more than he wanted her blood. But he couldn’t stand how he was wrecking her, how much her pain folded into his pain, how the more he hurt her, the more the curse continued to thrive in the background, coming back to life in a new and improved form.

Chapter Ten

Nicole sat in the passenger side of the rental car, still not believing August had decided to return her to her husband so soon. And yet, he wouldn’t stop coming to her. He wouldn’t stop feeding and fucking her. He wouldn’t stop stealing away all the pieces of her emotional distress to keep himself from feeling guilty as he took and took and took some more from her. A little at a time, he was erasing her. Her honor, her pain, her regret—the things that were real—and replacing them with his darkness and his bite.

Though she’d sworn she wouldn’t run again, it was a lie she couldn’t muster any shame for. She no longer needed “just a few days” to get away. She had to escape the future she’d sealed herself into. His insistence that his nature must remain secret hammered through her mind over and over on the drive home as she formulated the plan that would free her from the vampire.

He’d changed so drastically from the broken man who’d kept her locked in his cellar for months. The man she’d almost come to pity. If he was truly free, she would have to remain out of his grasp for a week, two at the most. Once he broke down and fed from someone else, once he got the taste for blood without the pain, he wouldn’t need her anymore. He could be a predator and she could be free. His obsession would fade.

She tried not to think about the vast stretch of eternity, how time would march endlessly without Dominic, how she would lose anyone she got close to. Some day she might seek August out, when the loneliness became too great to bear. If that time ever came, she hoped he’d forgive her for what she must do now. It was her last chance to save herself—however briefly.

“You’re awfully quiet, my dear. Are you sure you can handle this?”

Nicole shot the vampire a disgusted look.

She had to convince her husband to run with her. It was the only way. The two of them together, putting as much space between them and the vampire as possible, the ocean if necessary, half a dozen time zones, whatever it took.

“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth, “I can handle being his wife and your whore. Is that the answer you wanted? Is that the one that excites you?”

His hand slid up the inside of her thigh. “Perhaps.”

Nicole closed her eyes and breathed, trying to will the space between her legs to stop throbbing. But there was no point. She felt wet and hot and itchy. She wanted to crawl out of her skin and into his. It would be better when she was in her husband’s arms. This would fade. It had to. What she had with Dominic was real; with August it was a sick sort of magic that had drawn her into its web.

“Would you like me to go in with you?” he asked as he turned the ignition off.

“I’ll manage.”

August popped the trunk and took her bags out. “I’ll leave you the rental car.”

Nicole got her luggage to the door in two trips and rang the bell.

When Dominic opened the door, Nicole was determined she would run from the vampire as long as it took for him to give up and let her go.

That dimple. Oh, God how she’d missed that dimple. All she wanted to do was fling herself at him and fuck like rabbits for the next three years without stopping—and find a way to erase August’s imprint from her body and her mind.

But they could fuck on the run. This had to end now.

“I didn’t expect you so soon,” he said.

“Aunt Norah’s cousin arrived last night to help, so I came back.”

Dominic helped her bring her bags inside, then his arms were around her, his mouth nibbling at her throat, fingers sliding underneath pants and panties.

“Wait.” She gasped for air as she pushed him off her. “We can’t do that right now.”

“We can’t? Did the long exposure to Norah’s kids scare you off sex? Too risky?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and in spite of everything, she laughed.

She took his hand. “No, I need you to come with me. I’ve got something important to tell you.”

Dominic was game for anything. He let her drag him to the rental car and shove him into the passenger seat.

“What happened to the Lexus?”

“I’ll explain later.” She checked her mirrors before pulling out and drove straight to her parents’ house.

“What is all this about?”

“You’ll find out. I need to tell my parents, too.”

If she told all three of them the truth, about August, about what he’d done to her—maybe an edited version—about what he’d done to them, surely one of them would be able to break through the thrall to remember the vampire and see the truth. Then she and Dominic could run.

“Lois and Raymond? Oh God, are you pregnant?”

“No. Just wait, so I can talk to everyone at once.”

It took several knocks at her parents’ house before her dad answered. “Nicole, honey, what a pleasant surprise.” It wouldn’t be pleasant for long.

“I need to talk to you and Mom.”

“Sure, sure. Come on in. We just finished breakfast. Have you eaten? You want me to scramble you some eggs? I’ve got some bacon and biscuits still hot on the stove.”

“No, thanks.” Who could eat eggs at a time like this?

When everyone was gathered in the living room, the plan began to feel less solid.

She paced while her mother sipped tea from a lilac cup with hibiscus hand-painted on the side. Her brows drew tight together in her forehead.

“Good lord, Nicole, whatever it is, spill it. Did someone die?”

Oh, lots of people died. “I may as well say it.”

Her dad lit a pipe—an old nervous habit.

“Ray, you know I hate when you do that,” her mother said, scooting to the other end of the couch.

Dominic sat in the easy chair, looking anything but easy, his muscles rigid and coiled like a panther waiting to pounce on prey, or like prey ready to run for its life.

“I was gone for two months,” Nicole said. Maybe start with something easy.

“Just now?” Dominic asked, bewildered. “You’ve been gone a few days.”

“No, before. Mom, Dad… you know when.”

“You mean that period you didn’t call me?” Lois said a bit snippily.

“Yes! This will be hard to believe, but I was kidnapped by a man, by a… a vampire.” Oh God, that sounded insane.

All three of them burst out laughing.

“I mean it. Dominic don’t you remember? August made you think you didn’t love me, drove us apart. He’s erased your memory on a couple of other occasions, too.” Her husband was finding the joke less funny. “Mom, Dad, he brought me here to see you and erase your memory of my absence. But mom shot him with the pistol. Three bullets. Then he got right up like it was nothing.”

Lois put her teacup on the coffee table, her hand unsteady, while Raymond took another long drag from the pipe tobacco.

Dominic appeared frozen in predator-prey confusion. Attack or run?

“There were three bullets missing from the pistol the last time I cleaned it. We keep it loaded,” her dad said.

Nicole smiled in spite of the tension. Yes. This could work.

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is all a bad joke,” her mother said. “Listen to what she’s saying… memories erased and manipulated, shooting a vampire. It’s nonsense.” She turned to Nicole, putting on her stern-mom face. “You stop right this instant. The joke isn’t funny, Nicole.”

“It’s not a joke. You have to remember. Try to remember. Please. My life, my freedom, depends on this.”

She was sure a spark would come to one of them. How could they be reminded of something so dramatic and not be able to call forth the memory? It couldn’t be gone. It had to be in there someplace. She just had to unlock it, trigger it somehow. All it would take was for one of them to start remembering, then the others would fall like dominoes.

“That’s enough!” her dad said, his face growing red. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but that’s enough, Goddammit!”

“Dominic?” She turned to her husband, sure he’d come to her aid. This was the man who loved her more than life, the man she shared everything with. He had to remember.

“I’m worried about you, Nicole. How long have you had these delusions?”

Once Dominic had made the suggestion of delusion, it was as if a mini hysteria settled over the room. The idea clamped onto each of their brains, unwilling to let go.

Lois stood and edged toward Nicole, her arms outstretched as if she expected her daughter to bolt at any moment. “Let me make you a nice cup of tea.”

“Mom, I don’t want tea. This is serious. You have to remember.”

Her parents exchanged worried glances, as if they had this all figured out. Our poor little girl is crazy. They didn’t have to say it aloud. Insanity was scary, but it was real. There were methods in place to deal with it. Vampires and mind control? Not so much.

She’d been worried about how she’d skirt around some of the more X-rated details of her time with August. That had been a wasted worry.

“Call Dr. Cronan,” Raymond said. “He helped you a lot when you had that depression.”

Lois nodded, now filled with purpose. “Good idea.”

“I’m not crazy. Dominic, you live with me. Tell them I’m not crazy.”

Dominic took her hand and looked at her as if she were new to him. “I just want you to get better, sweetheart. We’ll help you. You’ll see someone. Maybe they’ll write you a prescription. I know this is scary, but we can get through it together.”

Her mother was already dialing the phone.

Am I crazy? The idea stole into her mind for one terrifying moment. She’d been so busy dealing with the enormity of it all, that she hadn’t considered any other options. What if it was true? What if she had somehow snapped one day? Uncle Chuck used to see shiny, glowing butterflies in his toilet. They had always said nice things about everyone. It had been harmless. It wasn’t as if the butterflies asked him to murder people. No one thought there was a need to medicate it. It was just a weird family quirk.

This was about as far as one could get from imaginary butterflies. Had his illness passed through the family? Did her father carry a gene that had expressed itself with excited fervor in her?

Nicole reviewed the facts as her dad poured her a cup of tea. Dominic sat next to her holding her hand while her mother spoke in hushed tones over the phone to Dr. Cronan.

An ancient vampire with a curse that somehow and for some inexplicable reason only she could cure. Delusions of grandeur? His bite hurt like hell then somehow… didn’t hurt anymore. Oh, there was the initial pinch, but somehow the experience gave way instead to arousal and pleasure. He’d kept her in a cellar for two months, had killed people in front of her, and yet her body wanted him now and none of it mattered. Vampire bond or average ballpark insanity? He’d manipulated the minds of those she loved… and suddenly her family’s version of events sounded more likely.

There was no scar on her throat that would indicate being bitten by something. Conveniently he could heal her of the scars his bite would otherwise leave. There was no physical evidence to suggest anything she’d experienced had happened. All the gifts August had bought her were… conveniently at his house. They’d… conveniently… driven a rental car that had been paid for in her name. Then he’d what? Turned into a bat and flown away? He’d just… gone like a scene change in a movie. She hadn’t seen him leave. She’d assumed he’d used some super-fast vampire travel. Didn’t this all feel more like a dream than the real world? Or delusion—the waking dream?

In a dream, one doesn’t know they’re dreaming. It’s awake and live reality until morning. Delusions are the same, except sometimes morning never comes.

Nicole drank the tea and tried to hold onto reality. Whatever it was. It had happened. It had to have happened. Didn’t it? But what about Uncle Chuck? He’d always sworn up and down his talking, glowing butterflies were real. It didn’t matter how bizarre the story was, he’d believed it with every ounce of his being.

Like she believed in August.

But what about when they’d all been together? She couldn’t have hallucinated going to her parents’ house, and the gunshots, and…

“What about the missing bullets?” she blurted, sounding more like a lunatic with each passing second. “The bullets are missing. How could they be missing? Dad, you aren’t careless with your guns. You know how many bullets they have in them.”

It was a sort of physical evidence—the one thing that lined up with her story.

“I don’t know, honey. Dr. Cronan will be able to help us understand more how this works,” her dad said as if he was trying to calm a mad woman. And clearly he thought he was.

***

Nicole was kept in Dr. Cronan’s office for hours. Her parents and Dominic had been allowed to join the session.

Slate-gray eyes—shiny like polished glass—watched her from behind bifocals. There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes and smile lines in his face that suggested he liked a good joke. But he didn’t seem to find vampires funny.

“Just relax, Nicole, and try to remember. What did you do with the bullets from the gun?” The doctor spoke to her in that way you do with crazy people, like they’re small children just learning to grasp the cadence of speech—when one can drift on a sea of the sound itself and lose track of the fact that words have meaning, and you have to listen for that, too.

“I’ve told you. I didn’t do anything with the bullets. August and I came over. My parents panicked. Mom shot him. He fed from me and then erased their memories.”

She was so tired, she was long past caring how all this sounded. All she had to hold onto was: this horror show had to be true… or else she was insane. Being insane wasn’t an option. Before she’d wanted to escape August, now she tried to drag him ever closer in her consciousness to make him more real, more solid. Because she couldn’t be mad. She couldn’t.

Dr. Cronan was like an Etch-a-Sketch, trying to shake out evidence of skepticism, to be a blank tablet, to gain her trust, to make her say more things that would incriminate her, make her appear more unstable so he could gleefully make a diagnosis.

If I was crazy, I wouldn’t know that, would I? Could the delusional have sparks of insight? Could they be so aware of those around them?

“When he fed, where did he bite you?”

Nicole pulled back her sleeve to show her bare arm.

“And did he leave a scar?”

“Does it look like he left one?” Did they think she was now imagining ugly bite marks that she wore strategic clothing to cover? “I told you already. He did something to me with his blood. I heal fast now. Supernaturally fast. Cut me. You’ll see. Cut me with something.”

The doctor wrote furiously in his notebook. That was apparently the wrong thing to say. She could only imagine what he was writing. Desires to inflict self-harm by proxy. Danger to self and others.

“I’ll show you!” Nicole grabbed a letter opener out of the pencil cup on his desk and raised it in the air. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for impact. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? They would see, in front of their own eyes how she could heal. Then they’d have to believe her. What other explanation could be offered for the ability to close wounds like that?

“Ow!” Nicole’s eyes shot open as someone grabbed her wrists, wrenching them behind her back, pushing her to the ground on her knees. The letter opener dropped uselessly out of her hand as she turned her head to the side to find her husband of all people. She struggled against him.

Never before had she hated his strength. Those muscles that she’d slid her tongue across so many starry nights and rainy days after indulging in strawberries and champagne. Those muscles that made her feel so safe, so protected… being used against her.

“Get off me! I can show you! I can prove my story’s true! I can prove this is real! Why won’t you let me show you?”

His overpowering body pressed in on hers, moving into a stifling backward hug, holding her arms in, keeping her legs from thrashing. It was like he’d transformed into an octopus, growing six additional arms to more easily contain her movement.

“Oh, baby, how did I not see this? I’m so sorry I didn’t spot the signs,” Dominic said.

Oh fuck. Of course. Because stabbing yourself with a letter opener was crazy. Anybody would think that, but it was physical proof. Couldn’t they step back from all this and see the logic in her behavior?

“I’m afraid this changes things. I’d like to bring her in for observation. Just for a few days. We’ll get her stabilized on something, see how she does on it, and when she’s not a danger to herself, she can go home. You’ll find the class of drugs we have now is first rate. Much more effective than the earlier generations of anti-psychotics. She should be back to her normal life in no time.”

This had Nicole struggling again, clawing at Dominic until there were bloody trails going down his arm. “You can’t let them do this to me. You can’t let them drug me. Those drugs are dangerous, and there’s nothing wrong with me! I’m not crazy! If I’m so crazy, how have I gone for months without you suspecting anything was off?”

Her eyes lit at the sight of the blood moving down her husband’s arm. Of course. She didn’t need a letter opener. If she could get her fingernails to her own arm… She struggled and strained, kicking and bucking against him until he went off balance and released her for a split second. It was enough.

She hissed as she dug her fingernails through her flesh, and the blood started to flow. “Look, look at this! Look at my arm. Watch this!”

They were too slow, because they felt sorry for her, didn’t believe her. She healed before they saw. If they had seen, in the melee would they have believed their eyes?

“Honey, that’s Dominic’s blood,” her mother said, gently.

Part of it was Dominic’s blood. Part of it was her blood. She’d healed too fast for them to see the wounds she’d inflicted.

If she were able to view this overhead, she’d see everybody’s point. Her hair in a wild and scraggled tangle, makeup and clothes in disarray, screaming, eyes bulging. But can’t a sane person lose it in such conditions? When people don’t believe the truth? When they refuse to be shown proof?

Being kept in a room for hours, drilled over and over by people who don’t believe your story. Anybody would become agitated. Anyone would look like this. Like yesterday’s mental patient. Maybe everybody in the nut house was perfectly sane, driven to exasperation by this sick, cloying patronization.

When she realized how futile fighting against Dominic’s strength was, particularly with so many others there to hold her down, she stopped and glared up at Dr. Cronan, gathering cold calm around her. “If you lock me up, he will hunt you, and he will kill you.”

Her bravery deflated and her eyes widened when she saw the straitjacket, and her struggling resumed.

“Settle, now… easy, Nicole. We don’t use these much anymore. We need to transport you safely to the hospital, and I’d prefer not to give you drugs yet. We’ll wait until you’re admitted, until you’re settled, then we’ll figure out the best course of treatment.”

“No, No, No, No, No, No, NO!” Her screams hurt her own ears. The panic built higher and higher, and there was no power short of a horse tranquilizer that would shut it down.

It took both her dad and Dominic to get her into the straitjacket while her mother stood to the side, clenching wadded tissues in her hands, playing the helpless, drooping flower.

How could they do this? Her dad and her husband… the two most important men in her life. The ones who had loved her, cared for her, protected her, shoving her into a straitjacket without mercy.

“I fucking hate you both! I hate you! I should have stayed with him. I sacrificed everything to come back to you, Dominic, everything. I gave myself to him, for you. For no reason! You miserable bastard!” She could barely believe the words tumbling out of her mouth. And of course they sounded like nonsense to assholes who couldn’t fucking listen. Who couldn’t hear.

She’d told the story plainly. She’d explained it in great detail. And these fucking retards couldn’t focus long enough to hear it all. No, they were too busy in their own fucking heads planning their own words. What will we say to help this poor crazy girl? Instead of listening. Why bother listening when you know you’re right?

Dominic pulled her into his arms, bound up in the straitjacket, shouting profanities at him. He petted her hair. “Shhhh, baby. I know it’s confusing right now, but we’re going to make this better. I know you don’t mean any of this.”

Like hell I don’t. Like fucking hell. She wanted to spit on him, but she caught herself in time. Maybe he was right. Maybe she would regret all this later, but the only moment that existed was now. And now there wasn’t enough space in the universe to contain her simmering, lonely hatred.

She felt puffy, her hair clinging to a tear-streaked face, driving her past the point of rational thought. She couldn’t raise her arm to get it off her skin. It felt like an eel slithering down her cheek. “M-my hair,” she managed. She was filled with so much rage toward her husband she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to do something for her. The rest of the words wouldn’t come. Just: my hair.

Large hands—incongruous working in law—brushed away the strands that clung to her face. Warm lips pressed against her forehead. “Shhhh. Don’t. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Chapter Eleven

Nicole tried to stay calm in the car and calm in the hospital waiting area while they checked her in. The stakes had risen. If she couldn’t manage a reasonable approximation of rational, she might never escape this place.

Oh, the doctor said just a few days. He made it sound like no big deal. Like a sinus infection. We’ll give her a few drugs; she’ll be good as new. She’ll come home, and it’ll be something you manage like diabetes. But things would be normal again. Just like before.

If anybody in this hospital was ill, it was her parents and Dominic for believing such lies. They could keep her twenty-four hours without her consent. The doctor would file the requisite paperwork for more, or he’d wear her down and get her to sign herself in. A day would become a week, then a month, then a year. If she didn’t lie, she’d never get out of here.

No. August is coming.

As she thought it, she worried it wasn’t true. What if he didn’t find her? What if he got too hungry, fed from someone else, and didn’t need or want her anymore? Once he crossed that line, maybe she’d become more trouble than she was worth to him.

What if he wasn’t real?

She sat next to her husband, rocking herself and whimpering, while Dr. Cronan finished the admissions process. Her thoughts had fallen down a crazy spiral.

She turned to Dominic so fast she almost fell out of the plastic bucket seat beside him. “You can stop this. Please, take me home. I’ll never talk about August again. I-I’m not crazy. I got confused. Please. Please. Don’t you love me?”

“You know I love you, but I’m not equipped to keep you from stabbing yourself with every sharp object you come across to prove you can magically heal. What if you accidentally did real damage? What if you hit a major artery? This is too serious, Nicole. I don’t think any less of you. It’s no different than any other disease people get.”

“I’ll never get out of here,” she whispered.

“Look at me.” He spun her awkwardly toward him, holding her steady so she didn’t lose her balance. “I love you. I will protect your rights. You’re not going to be locked away forever. Just a few days, while they decide the best drug to put you on. If you had a bad reaction, wouldn’t you rather be in the hospital where they can help you?”

He knew how she felt about drugs. She barely would take a painkiller when her head was splitting. “Don’t let them drug me. Please. I’m okay. I don’t need the drugs.” But they both knew there would be drugs.

He looked at her sadly.

In spite of everything, she wanted to cling to him, but she couldn’t wrap her arms around him—as if he were a mere projection of her mind. Like he was the delusion. Before she could hyperventilate from thinking about her confinement, Dr. Cronan turned from the front desk with a non-threatening bedside manner smile on his face.

The fact that he could lock her up in the looney bin and still smile mildly, told her everything she needed to know about him. If August ate him, she might dance in the blood.

“Come along, Nicole, let’s get you settled in for the night. Everything will seem better in the morning.” Together, the doctor and Dominic helped pull her to her feet.

Her husband leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head away. “If you kiss me right now, I swear to God I’ll press charges for assault. If I’m crazy and tied up, how can I consent to anything?”

He pulled back, and she was almost happy by the hurt look in his eyes. The feeling caught her off guard. The two of them had never been that couple. The couple that snipped at each other and said hateful things. Had it only been the relative ease of their life that had made their relationship so perfect? How strong was their love if it couldn’t withstand the simplest obstacle? She wanted desperately to love him right now, but he was the enemy, participating in keeping her in the hospital against her consent. He’d betrayed her when he should have been her partner.

The thought stole through her mind, August never would have done this. She tried to smother it out of existence, but it was already out there, laughing like a Cheshire Cat.

As Dr. Cronan led her away, she didn’t look back. All three of them were dead to her right now. She couldn’t stand to call forth the image of their faces in her mind. They were all free. They were all sane and normal, and no one wanted to tie them up or give them drugs. No one wanted to control their life and fuck their consent because they’d been deemed incompetent.

When the gate closed behind them, Dr. Cronan said. “Let’s get this off you. I know it must be terribly uncomfortable. I’d panic in it, too. Are you calm enough for that?”

“Yes, doctor.” Her voice droned out of her like she’d already been drugged. Like those sticky substances were flowing through her veins attaching to her thoughts and morphing them into something more acceptable. Something for the greater comfort of society.

“Are you going to hurt yourself?”

“No.” Like she’d tell him if she were planning it. How stupid did he think she was?

As he unbuckled the jacket, the anguish of the situation hit her. Sick or not, there was no escape. Getting Dominic to believe her had been the only hope she had of getting him to run with her.

The doctor led her to a small desk where a woman sat with a bunch of tiny paper cups filled with pills. He spoke quietly to her and then turned to Nicole with a paper cup with an orange pill in the bottom, and a second cup filled with lukewarm water.

She took a step back and shook her head. “No… I don’t want to take that.”

“It’s a mild sedative to help you sleep. We’ll talk about your treatment plan tomorrow.”

She shook her head again. “No.”

“Yes. Now you have to let us treat you. We’re trying to help you get better. The more you resist, the harder this will be.”

Men in gray scrubs appeared in her peripheral vision. They stayed in the background but were ready to spring into action if she caused trouble.

“Please, I don’t like drugs. If it’s a sedative, I should be able to choose if I want to take it or not. Am I not here for delusions? These aren’t related issues.” She tried to sound reasonable, But the panic climbed up her throat wrapping around her voice box like a constricting snake until her speech came out high-pitched and nearly too soft to hear.

“You need to sleep so we can work tomorrow. It’s a big day and we don’t have a lot of time to sort you out.” He meant before no one could legally keep her here. Unless he could convince them she was sick and get an injunction from the courts to commit her long term.

“I know my rights. If you start giving me shit I don’t need for the hell of it, I’ll sue the hospital.” As she edged back, the doctor and orderlies moved forward, boxing her in, squeezing out her escape.

“Please, let’s do this the easy way,” he said as if he were helpless to stop the big hospital goons from making things hard and ugly.

She knew she should take the pill. She was in a hospital. She’d be fine. But the horror of the little orange circle was too great. Her mind locked down around her choice, the stubbornness rising like steel walls around her, as her body tightened in response, everything clinched, every muscle, her mouth pressed into a firm line.

“Don’t come any closer to me,” she warned after a minute. “Do you know what crazy is, Dr. Cronan? Crazy is forcing someone against their will to take a drug. Crazy is locking them up because you don’t understand their experiences. This is crazy.” She was sure he was breaking about thirty rules already, though he’d pretended to operate by the books while signing her in.

She’d tell Dominic. Assuming he even believed her. After all, can a delusional patient be trusted to testify to the facts of their abuse? Her family had some pretty vivid imagery of when she’d stood poised with a letter opener at the ready to slice her skin to prove she had magic powers.

“Nicole… ” Dr. Cronan and the orderlies ignored her warning to stay back. Why couldn’t August have given her useful powers? Like spitting acid.

“My husband is an attorney. You can’t do this. I know my rights. This isn’t 1922. You can’t treat patients like this.”

“You’ve proven you’re a danger to yourself and others. The law says I have twenty-four hours.”

In her mind, she saw it all fail and go terribly wrong before she acted, but she was an animal backed into a corner, her lizard brain enacted, concerned with survival. Her instincts screamed life or death. Fight or flight. They’d eliminated the flight option. This was the scenario they’d created.

She tried to barrel through the doctor and orderlies, managing to slip between two of them. But they were too fast. They dragged her to a room with gray walls and flickering florescent lights.

She struggled and screamed as they strapped her down to a bed. “No! You fucking psychos! Is this how normal, civilized society is supposed to behave? Strapping people down? August is going to kill every one of you when he gets here,” she shrieked, crazy-person spittle coming out of her mouth.

Her eyes widened as the needle moved closer. “Please… please don’t do this. I’ll be good. I’ll calm down. I’m fine. I’ll go to sleep on my own. Please, please… ”

She winced and tried to pull away from the pinch, then their faces grew fuzzy and everything disappeared.

***

She’d been in the hospital for three days. It was an hour into her daily session before Dr. Cronan shook his head and said, “You must have the constitution of a horse. I’m surprised you’re so alert after the tranquilizers we gave you.” They’d drugged her each night.

Nicole sat in his office plotting a hundred ways to kill him. But outwardly she was quiet, submissive, because she’d seen the results of overt rebellion. If she didn’t heal so fast, she’d have bruises. That would have been a lawsuit. No way would her husband approve of the way she’d been manhandled. She wasn’t some homeless vagrant without family or friends to defend her.

They’d see how competent she was when they lost their government funding.

The second day Dr. Cronan had kept her in his office for hours without food, wearing her down until she agreed to sign herself in for a week. Just a week. She was afraid they would try to keep her longer if she voluntarily signed in for any length of time, but surely Dominic wouldn’t let them keep her longer. He’d promised.

In the daylight, with the bright afternoon sun streaming in the window, August felt like a dream. She’d been sure he would come for her, but now… after three days? Why hadn’t he come? He would be aging rapidly by now.

As if reading her mind, the doctor said: “I see your vampire hasn’t shown up to bust you out yet.”

She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her. Then she decided he wasn’t. He had a deeper strategy to employ.

“I don’t know why he hasn’t come for me.” Because he’s not real. This is the truth. This awful place and drugs and doctors.

“I think you do know. He hasn’t come because he can’t come. He’s a figment of your mind. Something in there is firing wrong and giving you images and memories of things that never happened. I know it’s frightening, but we have a drug called Risperidone that I believe might help. Alternatively, there is a new drug on the market that was just approved that has shown a lot of promise in clinical trials.

Before we checked you in, you said you were telling us because you wanted to get away from him. Don’t you see? That’s a cry for help, a plea to stop the delusion. Whatever need or purpose he was filling for you has ceased. Now he’s become frightening—something you want to get away from.”

Nicole stared out the window. That wasn’t right at all. It wasn’t as if August had started out as a fantasy romance hero vampire, sweeping her off her feet, showing her the world and buying her fine things. He’d kept her locked in a cellar for two months when she’d first refused his advances. It had only been later that he’d made any effort to make her life with him more bearable.

But the doctor, like the rest of them, remembered what he wanted to remember, only what fit into his pet theory.

He shuffled through his notes, made a few hmmms and mmm-hmmms and then looked up, his gray gaze boring into hers. “I see you’re skeptical.”

Brilliant assessment. She crossed her arms over her chest and squeezed her mouth tighter. They could inject her with whatever they wanted, but they couldn’t make her participate in this.

“Delusions are slippery things, Mrs. Rose. It’s not always happening in real time. You said he kept you for two months in a cellar. That doesn’t mean you spent two solid months having that part of the delusion. If you had, don’t you think your husband would have noticed something was wrong? No, the delusions may have started much later in the time line of what you gave me, then, as a self-protective measure, your brain retroactively filled in earlier memories to hold the fantasy together and to aide you in seeking help. It got too big for you. And that’s okay.”

Dr. Cronan seemed to think the brain was a mystical element. She wasn’t convinced, and the expression on his face said he knew it.

“Let me try it this way. If you had been kept in a dark cellar for months with other prisoners, if you’d watched a vampire kill people in front of you… those kinds of experiences would cause symptoms you don’t exhibit. Post-traumatic stress, for example.”

“I-it’s the bond. He can use it to protect me.”

Now it was Dr. Cronan’s turn to be skeptical. “I think that’s as far as we can get today. I’m going to start you on the Risperidone this evening. If you do well the rest of the week, you can go home. Think of this as a vacation, a safe space where August can’t reach you.”

“I want to go home now.” She sounded like a preteen enraged by a minor unfairness, instead of the gravity of what it was. They’d kidnapped her like August had. At least the vampire had a compelling reason to need her to see things his way. They only needed the comfort of keeping their view of reality in place.

“You can go back to your room, Mrs. Rose. I’ll check back in with you later this evening. Don’t forget dinner at five.”

The last thing she wanted to consume was factory-separated chicken nuggets and green Jell-o. How could modern medicine claim authority on anything about health if they were feeding patients artificially colored gelatin and chicken by-products as if it were the elixir of healing?

Nicole lurched down the halls like a zombie, back to her room, the room they’d put her in after the first night strapped to the bed. She had a roommate named Stacy who pulled and ate her own hair. The girl had bald patches but couldn’t stop. Of all the compulsions to have.

Nicole wasn’t sure why such a minor mental disorder should require hospitalization, but from what Stacy said, it interfered with her work and life, and her parents were driving her around the bend. So this was revenge healthcare—where she was the one getting revenge.

At least it was working out for someone here.

Nicole sat on the bed, staring out the window. Unlike Dr. Cronan’s office, this window had bars. In his office, it was almost like normal life. She could nearly pretend she was here of her own free will. But in her room, the bars on the window reminded her that this was prison without due process.

She’d managed to keep the doubt out of her head for most of the day. She’d had an answer for every objection Dr. Cronan had posed to her vampire story, but now, alone, it began to gnaw at her again like a rat working its way through a wall, tunneling through to the truth.

Why hadn’t August come for her? She’d thought he’d come for her the first night, or at least the second. But three days without feeding? Except when she’d run away, he’d fed every night. It wouldn’t be hard to find her with the bond now stronger than ever. Worst case scenario, he could force Dominic to tell him where she was, then erase the interrogation from his mind.

And yet, the only real thing right now was Nicole Rose sitting in a mental institution, plagued with stories nobody else believed—just like Uncle Chuck.

Inside the stark gray room, she was less sure of her version of events. Maybe she’d taken the bullets out of the gun and done something with them but didn’t remember. A hazy sort of memory floated to her mind of her doing just that. But was it a real memory, or visualizing what it might have been like… like a story someone has told you over and over about your life that you think you remember, but really only visualized. Her mother used to tell her stories of things she’d done when she was a toddler. She didn’t have memories from that far back, but she could picture them in her head after hearing them so often. Side by side those pictures were as real as any true recollection.

Maybe she’d imagined her scratches healing before her eyes, too fast for anyone to see. Maybe it really was Dominic’s blood last night. Maybe she’d needed it to be partly hers because there was so much, and the guilt had eaten at her for lashing out like that. If she could hallucinate a whole vampire and elaborate back story that made her his savior, wounds that healed in seconds were nothing.

Dr. Cronan’s voice echoed in her mind. Earlier in the session he’d asked: “Do you feel useful in your life? Perhaps you needed to be needed more.”

She’d said Dominic needed her, but it didn’t feel true. Her husband loved her, but he didn’t need her. If she were being honest, her flower shop job had been a bored affluent housewife job. It got her out in the world, interacting with others. But did it make her feel useful, like she was contributing something of value to the world? Not like Dominic’s job must.

Had she snapped one day? She stared at her bare wrist. They’d taken the bracelet off her when they’d put the straitjacket on. Would August have really let her keep it all that time in the cellar? Was that realistic, given his supposed goals? Was it her touchstone back to reality?

She scrutinized each piece of her memory, seeking signposts that would cause the illusion to fade out like a bad dream and bring the true reality forth.

Maybe something had happened soon after her husband had given her the bracelet. She tried to force herself to remember. Maybe it hadn’t been as dramatic as what her mind had created, but maybe they’d grown distant. Had she filled in the gaps with a man who needed her?

Did need give one higher purpose than love? But she couldn’t even cheat on her husband with a fiction, a ghost. Was that why she’d finally had to escape?

She scooted up the bed until her back was pressed against the wall, and watched the door. She waited for it to open, for August to burst through and get her out of here, but it stayed shut. The hospital hummed along—a place where magic couldn’t exist—and she closed her eyes.

There never was an August.

Chapter Twelve

August smiled at the receptionist in the psych ward. “Buzz me through, dear.”

Her hand trembled as she pressed the button, and the gate unlocked. He winked at her and passed through.

He’d pushed himself to the very edge, right before the worst of things. It had been painful but the decay hadn’t started. He looked older and felt older, but he thought if he could try to give Nicolette a few short days in between their meetings at first, it might make things easier for her.

She’d been missing when he’d gone to her house. At first he’d thought she’d run again. He’d gotten the truth out of her husband, and it had taken a strong force of will to stop himself from ripping the human’s head from his shoulders.

She’d made another escape attempt, this one more desperate than the last. What would be next? Suicide attempts? Even if she were able to work up the nerve to end her life, it would do her no good. That door had been forever closed. The other option would be true madness. If he didn’t show her the futility of this, she’d never make peace with the turn her life had taken.

He’d held off feeding, allowed himself to suffer so that she could have more time with her husband, and the bulk of that time she’d been in the mental ward. He’d suffered pointlessly. And so had she. The seething rage gave him a renewed sense of energy.

He slipped down the hallway to the nurse’s station, pausing to listen when he realized they were talking about Nicolette.

“I’ve never seen anyone with such a high drug tolerance. We had to give her almost three times the normal dose to keep her knocked out last night.”

“You think she has a history of drug abuse?”

“Hell if I know, I’ve never seen someone who could take so much and their body shake it off like that. I’m not kidding, within an hour she woke up and I had to dose her again. She was thrashing about, making a fuss. She didn’t remember it this morning, though, poor thing.”

August emitted a low growl at the thought of someone putting a needle in Nicolette, of tainting his food source. The drugs would have cleared her system by now with the bond, but it still set his teeth on edge. No one had the right to imprison her but him. No one had the right to put anything inside her but him.

He didn’t require directions. He only had to follow the call of the bond—and now her scent. His mate’s fragrance wafted down the hallways, beckoning him. He waited for the women to leave the nurse’s station and for the remaining nurse to go back to her book before he shot past in a blur the humans might notice as the sense of movement one sometimes sees from the corner of their eye, but when they turn, nothing’s there. But something was there. It simply moved too fast.

He found her on a narrow white mattress, clothed in a plain t-shirt and sweatpants, her feet bare. Plain canvas tennis shoes were shoved underneath the bed. He kept his voice quiet and calm. “Nicolette.”

She turned toward him, her face vacant. “Go away. You aren’t real.”

So he was a delusion now, was he? He’d been many things in his time, but never a delusion. What a novelty.

He shut the door and moved further into the room.

“We’re not allowed to shut the door before bed.”

“Well, if I’m not real, you don’t have to worry about that. The door must still be standing open. You’re just crazy.”

She weighed that thought for a minute and stared at the closed door, fear for her quickly fraying sanity naked in her eyes. It made him feel bad for the wisecrack. This wasn’t the woman he was used to, the woman who’d resisted him for two months. How could something like this happen so quickly? Oh, right. They’d been armed. With drugs and numbers. He’d only had empty threats—unwilling to truly damage the woman he must spend eternity with even if the bond could heal anything he inflicted. She was a number to them, another patient. They’d had nothing to lose. He’d had everything.

“Come with me, we’re leaving.”

“Did you know my Uncle Chuck has delusions? His are pretty harmless, so we never made a big thing about it. It’s not right that I recovered from months locked up in the cellar. Like it was nothing. I should be angry at you about that. I should hate you forever and fear you and be traumatized. And all those people you killed. I can’t erase them from my head, but it’s like a movie I watched. Where are the emotions? Where is the pain I’m supposed to feel? I-I don’t feel anything at all. I don’t believe you made it go away with magic.”

“Do you want that? The pain? Do you wish to suffer as I have suffered?”

“No. But it’s normal. This isn’t normal. There is a world that makes sense and a world that doesn’t. And your world doesn’t make sense. What else am I supposed to think? How can I ignore the evidence in front of me?”

“I don’t know. How can you ignore me?”

They’d really done a number on her. He imagined with him being gone longer than expected and with everyone against her, with the drugs, with an intense intervention… she might be more easily swayed, the way prisoners and suspects were broken when all their life lines were taken away. When August had kept her prisoner, she’d had Dominic’s love to hold on to. She wouldn’t have held on to a vampire she hadn’t wanted in the first place.

Maybe she wanted free of him so desperately that she’d rather be a locked-up mental patient who had imagined him into existence than suffer the reality of his presence for even another day.

“We’re leaving.” He extended a hand toward her.

“I… ” She glanced past him to the door, waiting for it to open, to be rescued.

“Are you afraid of me?”

She looked away, and he could smell the salt of her tears. “I ran again. You said if I ran again there would be consequences.”

“Come with me now, and I will forgive you unconditionally.”

***

Nicole didn’t budge. She’d hoped for him to come for her, but now that he was here, now that she could see the anger in his eyes…

And he’d aged considerably. He hadn’t started that horrible rotting thing yet, but he seemed close. The combination of such hunger and pain and anger made her hesitate. He was crazed.

Yet, so far he’d kept every promise. He’d let her go back to her husband. He’d spared her parents’ lives. He’d spared Dominic’s life. He’d freed the rest of the people in the cages. He hadn’t hurt her the first time she’d run away, but he hadn’t been this angry the first time, either. There had been a warning, an expectation that this extension of mercy for the crime of running would be indulged once. But now it was twice.

If she reached out and took his hand, would he be solid? Or would he fade into the air like a mist?

“Nicolette, my offer of clemency will expire soon. You must come with me now. I promise I will show you mercy.”

She closed her eyes and reached for him, surprised when warm, solid flesh closed around her hand, shocked by the sense of safety in him and that she trusted him.

As soon as she’d taken his hand, he had her pressed against the wall, his fangs in her throat, drinking her like she was the last stream in a desert. The tears rushed down her cheeks as she found her body reacting to him as it always did. Need. Desire. Longing. She hadn’t seen Dominic since the night they’d checked her in. It was August who’d come for her to take her out of this awful place. She wasn’t sure whose side she was supposed to be on. Who she should want. Who she should be loyal to. The lines of Dominic Good, August Bad blurred in the suction of the vampire’s mouth on her throat.

Finally, he pulled away from her, his youth and vitality restored.

“Let’s go.”

“H-how will we get out? Are you going to kill people?” Her anger and bravado when she’d threatened others with death at the vampire’s hands had faded. Now, the idea of a bloody massacre at the hospital terrified her, and she couldn’t stomach being partly responsible—of having blood on her own hands.

There was a knock on the door, and Dr. Cronan stepped inside. “Mrs. Rose, you know our rules about doors.”

August spun toward the doctor, shielding Nicole. He’d become territorial. He was a dog, and she was his meaty bone, and woe to the fool who tried to jerk it from his jaws.

The doctor was nonplussed by the presence of a strange man in her room. “You also haven’t been authorized to have visitors. And who might you be?” Dr. Cronan turned his attention to the vampire.

Nicole couldn’t see August’s face, but she could imagine the smile as fangs pushed through gums.

“I’m Nicolette’s delusion. It’s lovely to meet you.”

Dr. Cronan’s face turned as gray as the walls, as if he were a chameleon, blending in for safety. But it was too late for that.

August blurred across the room and gripped the doctor by the throat, pushing him against the wall so that his feet dangled like a child in the grasp of a schoolyard bully.

“You will tell me everything you did to my mate or I will bury you behind the parking lot. And it will all be finished before a single orderly has noticed your absence.”

“I-I brought her in for observation. W-we didn’t know you were real. H-h-how could we? We gave her a few sedatives, that’s all.”

“You’ve done more than that. You must have. Nicolette? What happened?”

“I-it wasn’t that bad.”

“What. Happened?”

“They held me down and put me in a straitjacket. When I wouldn’t take a sleeping pill they cornered me and strapped me down and shoved a needle in my hip. A-after that I didn’t fight them. I was scared of what else they’d do. They only gave me drugs at night, and I was too afraid to fight them after the first night.”

She’d seen too many scary mental institution movies. If they’d force her into a straitjacket and strap her down to sedate her, would they do ice baths? Electroshock? Isolation? Each of those possibilities had been too frightening to entertain. Even when logic said Dominic would come see her soon and she could go home, she feared Dr. Cronan would convince her husband and a judge that she wasn’t competent to be released, and then she’d be at their mercy indefinitely.

The fear of the mentally ill—that it might somehow be contagious and spread the pathogen of insanity—often kept others from doing what was right. Given that she’d been brought here to begin with, it was hard to know where Dominic’s line was. Or her parents. If fear for her and for themselves drove them, then could there be any boundaries that would keep her safe? Hadn’t she already foolishly trusted that they’d be on her side? That they could be reasoned with?

August stepped back and allowed the doctor to fall, then he hauled him up and threw him on the ground at Nicole’s feet.

“Beg her for your life. You had no right to touch her or make her do anything. She’s mine. Not yours. Beg her forgiveness, and maybe she’ll spare you.”

Nicole couldn’t bear to look at the doctor.

“P-please, Mrs. Rose. Y-you know I believed you to be ill. I was t-trying to help. Please, don’t let him kill me.” From his expression, the doctor had a clear memory of Nicole screaming that the vampire would kill him when he came for her.

August shook his head, and let out a derisive snort. “That is the most pathetic apology I believe I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing. Did that sad display win you over, Nicolette? Does he live or die?”

“L-live.” As if it were a question. As if she could allow the doctor to be killed over this. The fear over being locked up and drugged faded in light of her rescue. Why did this upset her so much more than her memories of the cellar? She pinched herself, trying to ascertain if she were truly delusional. Maybe none of this was happening.

August grabbed the doctor by his collar and jerked him up until their eyes were level and locked. “You will escort us personally to the exit. You will entertain no questions about who I am or why we are leaving. Immediately after we go, you will destroy her records and forget either of us exist.” He released Dr. Cronan’s collar and the doctor stumbled to the door.

“This way,” he said, disoriented but obedient.

Before Nicole could protest, August picked her up.

“I-I can walk.”

“No.”

The doctor led them down the hallways. August took the opportunity to instruct each orderly and nurse and janitor he saw to “forget Nicolette Rose,” ending with the receptionist before Dr. Cronan buzzed him out.

The vampire didn’t put her down until they reached the Bugatti. He unlocked the passenger side, waited for her to get in, then shut it without a word.

“A-August?” she said, when he got in on his side and turned the ignition.

“Not right now, Nicolette.”

“B-but you said… ”

“I forgive you for this, but this will be the last time. You knew I could find you. You knew our bond had grown stronger. Why would you attempt something that was impossible and might anger me?”

Nicole looked at her hands. Why should she feel like a disobedient child over this? “I thought if I could get Dominic to see the truth he would run with me. If we evaded you long enough, you’d feed on someone else. You’re free now, so you could be a vampire without the suffering, and then… eventually you wouldn’t care about me. Y-you’d let me go.”

“Nicolette.” His tone caused her to look up to see the betrayal on his face. “I can’t believe you’d do that. I don’t want to be a killer. How would it be better to be an unrepentant one?”

She shrugged. I’m not the bad guy. But she could barely manage to hold that thought in her head. It kept breaking apart.

They rode in silence for several minutes before he spoke again. “It’s not about killing. Not anymore. With or without killing, I would always find you. You should be grateful for that. You would have rotted in that institution. That doctor was determined to keep you.”

“Dominic wouldn’t let… ”

“Do not speak to me of Dominic. He let the doctor take you. Why wouldn’t he let him keep you? They can’t handle our world, Nicolette. They are too weak. What would you do without me? How would you get by?”

“You sound like an abuser. That’s the kind of thing an abuser would say.”

“Even if it happens to be true? You are my mate. My highest priority now is keeping you safe.”

“Wouldn’t want to lose your convenient dinner,” she said bitterly.

“I won’t deny your blood is the sweetest I’ve ever had, but have you paused to consider that it’s because when I’m finished I’m satisfied and you’re not dead? You’re impossibly still there, and I haven’t done something evil to eat.”

“Only the evil of enslaving me to you forever.”

“It was your choice.”

“Made under duress. Made out of pity.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard she was surprised it didn’t come off the car. For one morbid moment she fantasized about crashing and dying. But of course it couldn’t happen. She would rise like a bloody zombie out of the ashes, her body re-knitting itself in a freakish display of incorruptibility. “You did pass the curse on. Now we both have it in a diluted form.”

“I know.”

She was surprised he didn’t argue, that he didn’t try to defend himself or make any of it right. He didn’t try to twist her mind in rationalizations. Nicole watched the trees pass by, wishing everything in the world except her could get stuck in slow motion so she could run again and always stay one step ahead. All she ever thought about now was running. She’d longed for August to come rescue her, but now that he was here… the reality of him wasn’t safe like the fantasy. The reality of him turned her back into a cheating whore, if only inside the screaming walls of her own mind.

“What are you thinking of, my love?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Answer me.”

“How could Dominic have done this? I thought he was on my side. I thought it was me and him against the world. How could he turn on me like that? How could he not believe me?”

Did she imagine the small smile that curved the vampire’s mouth? The satisfaction that he had her now?

“A human cannot override thrall. It simply can’t be done. The brain won’t allow it. He never could have believed you. Of course you were never getting out without me. I am the only one who can fully understand. I’m the only one you can depend on, and you run from me.”

Nicole scrubbed the tears from her eyes. He wasn’t going to make her feel ashamed for trying to take her life back.

“I don’t care what you say. Dominic is my soul mate.” She rubbed her bare wrist. Her husband had her bracelet, and with it he’d taken the last shred of a physical object that would allow her to hold onto his love. Through all her time in August’s cellar, through all of Dominic’s enthralled neglect, that bracelet had been an amulet that held the seed of his love inside it. As long as she had it, she somehow still had Dominic, but now that love was free… escaped and dissipated into the wild air, diluted to the point of vanishing.

“If that’s true, if he’s truly your soul mate, you’ve made a very foolish choice giving yourself to me.”

As if she needed reminding. If only she could have resisted the tantalizing offer of being back in Dominic’s arms. If only she could have starved to death or let August lose control and kill her. She’d be free on the other side, separated from her husband for a while until the hands of time pushed him back into her waiting arms again in the spirit world. Now she would have him for a little while, only to be separated from him later forever. That is… if August allowed her to see him again.

Nicole’s Lexus was parked in the driveway when they reached her house.

“I don’t want to see him right now, take me home,” she said.

August got out of the Bugatti, walked around to her side, and opened the door.

“I’m still mad at him.”

“I don’t care. Don’t test my patience right now, Nicolette. You have no idea how difficult it is to keep my anger in check after your latest stunt.”

So fighting for one’s freedom was a stunt now?

He waited for another few minutes before Nicole took his hand and allowed him to pull her out of the car and lead her to the front door.

A confused Dominic answered. “Who…? What…?”

August shoved his way into the house. “Nicolette?” he said, turning back to Nicole.

She stood stupidly in the door, a million questions whirring through her mind… chief among them… Why are we here? Why is August here?

“Nicole, I thought you were… who is this man?”

Her face grew hot. This is the man—no—monster I’ve been fucking behind your back. So sorry, dear. She stepped the rest of the way inside.

“I’m August. I’m the vampire your beloved attempted to warn you about. You wanted him to know, right, Nicolette?”

August bared his fangs, and her husband took a step back. Anyone would be caught off guard by the revelation of vampires, especially so up close and personal, but something about the action infuriated her. Shouldn’t he instinctively move to protect her from the threat?

Suddenly August and Dominic were in competition… pro/con lists in her brain. This one did this, but that one did that. August had taken her out of the hospital. Dominic hadn’t believed her.

Dominic had taken a step back. A step. Back. But August had set this nightmare in motion, so how was any of this Dominic’s fault?

She closed her eyes to block it all out. Why the fuck couldn’t they both leave her alone? Suddenly she wanted to be in a dark, quiet room. She wanted to be the only sentient being left on the planet, to have no one else to answer to, nothing to worry about but her own basic existence. Surely without other people, life would somehow be simpler.

When she managed to open her eyes again, the two men were in a staring contest. Dominic’s expression still held doubt. He was already trying to erase the vision of fangs from his consciousness. Maybe remnants of the vampire’s thrall still clung to the corners of his mind.

Fangs weren’t real enough for him. It had to be something else, something that would imprint upon his brain forever, something he could never deny. She spied a paring knife through the kitchen doorway. It lay on a counter beside an apple Dominic must have been about to peel. She went to the other room to get it before anyone could stop her and returned to find the male stares still locked together as if she didn’t exist at all.

She cried out as the blade slid against her palm. The smell drew August, but it was the cry of pain that grabbed her husband’s attention.

The wound sealed itself as Dominic watched with disbelief.

“I told you I could prove it. I told you I wasn’t crazy.”

“Put the knife down and come here.” August’s voice was deadly serious, so serious she was afraid to disobey him.

“Please, let’s just go home.” She couldn’t bring herself to meet Dominic’s eyes when she said it. It was a choice, wasn’t it? It wasn’t the one she wanted. She wanted to erase the vampire and go back to the days when everything was right, when the sheets smelled like a meadow and the sun was bright and the birds chattered away outside the window, when Dominic’s dimple made the world turn and his light teasing lit her up inside, when it was all so simple and beautiful.

August pulled her into his arms. She tried to escape, but his fangs were already in her throat. If there was ever a time she wanted it to hurt again, it was now. Dominic would see the bliss on her face as the vampire drank.

To her husband’s credit, he tried to intervene, but August batted him away.

“Nicole!”

Let the earth swallow me. The thought came over and over in her mind. Like a mantra, a chant, a spell. If she were more than merely human now, wasn’t there a chance it could work? Couldn’t the foundations of her house simply crumble and some slithering evil from the depths of the earth reach up and take her away from both of them?

August lifted his head, casually licking the place on her neck where he’d bitten to get the last drops of blood that spilled. His hand rubbed soothing circles on her lower back, and she had to fight with herself not to straddle his leg and dry hump him. All she could think of was his hand, rubbing those soothing circles in a more intimate place between her legs, of coming for him like his good little bitch.

“She’s fine,” August said. “I’m not hurting her. Did she not tell you about us? When you are dead and gone she will be mine, forever. She’s already mine. But I’ll let you borrow her if you like. You are welcome to enjoy her… charms, as long as you play nice with me.”

Nicole knew she should be offended, hurt he’d speak of her like she was some whore being pimped to the highest bidder, but the effect of his bite was still strong, his power humming in her veins… vibrating. The link between them made her need to be bitten as strong as his need to bite. A sort of mutually assured self-destruction.

Everything stopped humming at one whispered word from the vampire. “Strip.”

“August, no… I… what?” The blood rushed to her face.

Let the earth swallow me. Let the earth swallow me. Let the earth swallow me.

But instead of some tentacled beast rising out of the ground to consume her, August’s fingertips played on the edges of her collarbone, his voice fucking her as he spoke, causing her body to arch ever closer each time he said her name.

“Nicolette… ”

She couldn’t stop the urge to turn toward Dominic, afraid to see the disgust but unable to avoid confronting it.

“You let her go this instant.” Her husband shook with rage.

The vampire’s expression was mild. “No. You let her go. You weren’t strong enough to keep her. Your weakness caused this.”

Dominic looked from August to Nicole.

“Don’t listen to him. He’ll twist anything,” Nicole said.

August strode to her husband and grabbed him by the lapels of his collar. For one sickening moment she thought she was about to watch Dominic die, but instead, August looked into the man’s eyes and said, “It’s time for you to remember how poorly you treated your wife, how you pushed her into my arms.”

The vampire pressed the memories of the months of neglect into Dominic’s mind. It was like a physical thing forcing its way through flesh and bone straight into his brain.

“Stop it!” Nicole shouted. But it was too late. Dominic had already seen.

“You see? Nicolette’s mind is strong. Your mind is weak. I had to break her down piece by piece to possess her, but now she’s mine. It’s survival of the fittest; nature isn’t personal. If it’s any consolation, I think she still loves you, though I can’t begin to imagine how you appeal to her. Now sit.” August pointed at an overstuffed chair, and Dominic dropped into it, unable to resist the order.

“August, please, let’s go home. I’ll let him go, just don’t do this, please.”

The vampire’s eyes glowed when his head snapped around to her. “He let them lock you up. I can’t forgive him for that. You were scared and alone.”

August returned to her side; the smell of him was like a drug. Vampire pheromones danced around her nose. He might not be able to control her in the way he could control others, but the bond made him too hard to resist.

He embraced her, his mouth skimming over the edge of her ear. Then he whispered words that threw cold water over her arousal. “I’ll let you choose. Which do you think would upset your husband less: watching you give yourself to me and enjoying it, or watching me just take you?” He’d completely lost it, his anger edging out any pretense of civility.

“I thought you said you’d forgive me. I thought you said you’d show me mercy.”

August pulled back to look at her. Madness danced in his eyes. “And what do you imagine mercy is to a vampire? There are things I could do to you more horrible than your worst nightmare. The fact that I’m not doing them should be interpreted as mercy. I can erase his memory once it’s done. But if you put up a fuss, he’s going to have to remember today for the rest of his life. Think about it.”

“I hate you. I wish you’d left me in that fucking hospital. I can’t believe I ever wanted you to rescue me, even for two seconds. At least there I was spared your presence and constant manipulations.”

“What did you say?” The darkness cleared from his face, replaced by shock and some un-nameable softness, as if he couldn’t imagine and could barely dare to hope that for some small fraction of a moment, he had been the one she’d cried out for. Not Dominic.

“I wanted you to take me out of there.”

The mask of anger fell back into place. “No, I was the only one who could save you. I was the only one strong enough. You wanted me because it was convenient. If your husband could have pulled his head out of his ass for two seconds, you would have chosen him. You’ll always choose him. Now, strip.” He bit out the last word with so much venom she took a step back, the same involuntary step she’d held against Dominic minutes before.

***

August pushed away the pity. Nicolette’s tears were meant to manipulate him. He would make her see who she belonged to. He would force her to see the truth with such finality she would never run from him again, because she would know there was nowhere to go.

It had been a mistake to allow her to be with her husband. He should have whisked her to the other side of the planet already. Let her pine after Dominic for a few years or decades. None of it mattered. August had given up the hope of having her heart. So if this was how she wanted to play with him, so be it.

She gave one last pleading look, but the wall was up.

He shook his head. “You know what your choices are. Give yourself to me in front of him. Satisfy my anger, and he can forget about it as soon as it’s over. If I have to throw you down and take what should be offered up freely, I’ll leave tonight emblazoned on his mind until the reaper comes for him.”

He just needed to lose himself inside her for a few minutes, needed to take the edge off his rage, needed to gloat that he’d won… even if it wasn’t the truth. Even if it could never be true.

Nicolette held Dominic’s desolate gaze for seconds that loomed and stretched, threatening to engulf August’s concept of eternity. A moment later, time collapsed in on itself as she turned and darted toward the door.

The vampire was faster. He dragged her back to the living room, kicking and screaming about how much she hated him. She reared back and spit on him. He wiped his face and felt his vision go red. The place in the back of his mind, the long-shriveled conscience that had tried to re-awaken, chastised him for his actions, but it was easy enough to push the half-starved thing back into its box so he wouldn’t have to be bothered with it. It was easier to be free.

His voice lowered as he pulled her closer. “Ask me to make this easier. I’ll make it so easy. I’ll make you love every second.”

“August, please… ”

“Was that so hard?”

Dominic white-knuckled the chair as August’s fangs descended.

He bit into her tender neck. She moaned and began to relax in his arms, their link already taking over. The tragedy was that if it weren’t for her husband, they could be happy together without any of this angst.

He stopped drinking almost as soon as he’d started then dragged his fangs lightly over her throat. “Take the rest of it off, my dear. Take it off slowly. Let us both enjoy the show,” he whispered.

This time, the doubt and fear were gone from her eyes, replaced with the unmistakable animal lust.

“You’ve done something to her,” Dominic said.

“Of course I’ve done something to her. She’s my mate. She belongs to me. She consented to a blood exchange between us that links us for all eternity. Are you beginning to see how you are the third wheel here? How you have no claim on her?”

Nicolette’s gaze was vacant as she swayed and shimmied out of her jeans.

“Come here, poppet.” August pricked his finger with one fang, and blood bubbled to the surface.

A sound between a whimper and a purr escaped her throat, and he chuckled as she took his finger into her mouth and sucked as if he offered her the last drop of sustenance in the world. Dominic leaned forward in his seat, obviously aroused by the display.

Nicolette sucked the blood until the wound sealed. Even under the power of a warm, wet mouth’s suction, she couldn’t stop him from healing too fast to satisfy her greedy desires. She whimpered but allowed the finger to slide out of her mouth.

“You can have more if you’re a good girl.”

She unsnapped her bra and dragged the straps down her arms. Before she could slide her panties down, August pulled her close, her back flush against him. He ripped the scrap of fabric off and rubbed her already-swollen clit. Nicolette bucked against his fingers. He withdrew his hand and pushed her closer to her husband, who still gripped the arm rests as if he’d been glued there.

“Straddle him. Rub against him. Let him feel how wet I make you.”

She was too far gone to resist grinding her bare pussy against her husband’s leg.

“So, what do you think, Dominic? More or less than the results you could get?”

Dominic glared at the vampire.

August brought Nicolette’s arm to his mouth. He bit down and drank, eliciting a moan from her as she rocked against her husband. When he finished drinking, the vampire pulled her away from him.

“Do you really imagine she wants you at all? I never needed to drug her,” Dominic said.

August’s face remained mild, but the barb hit its mark. “Stop. Speaking.”

August took in the blissful silence as he pulled Nicolette onto the couch with him. He arranged her on her back, her legs splayed.

He leaned over her and licked the glistening folds of skin. She groaned and squirmed against his mouth as he lapped between her legs, but she was crying. Even with his blood. He felt her pain as it dug into him and burned through his veins. What the fuck was he doing? He snapped out of the red haze and pulled her into his arms and held her. She’s right. I’m a monster. He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve salvation.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so angry. I can’t shut it off. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to punish him. I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t think. I can’t shut it off. I’m sorry.”

He pushed her away and retreated into the kitchen.

Chapter Thirteen

Nicole couldn’t look at Dominic. Instead, she searched for her clothing, something to cover up and hide. She turned away as she slipped her shirt over her head and put the jeans back on. She didn’t bother with undergarments. She just wanted to be covered.

“Nicole. Come here, sweetheart.”

In spite of the million reasons she could think of to run out of the house and never stop running, she crossed the room to him. The sight of his arms held out to her made her heart stick in her throat.

“Come here.”

She sat on his lap, and his arms came around her. She started to cry again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. In my defense, vampires aren’t real.”

She couldn’t help the small, nervous laugh. “Do you still love me?” She was afraid to hear the answer but couldn’t fight the urge to ask the question.

“It’s not your fault. If he could control me like that… ”

She wanted to tell him the truth. It was her fault. It was her fault she’d allowed the link and tied herself to him. And she wasn’t enthralled—not like Dominic had been. He’d had no free will to resist the vampire’s commands. She simply hadn’t had the will power, not with August’s bite and his blood. The blood made her stop caring for a while, but it didn’t remove her free will.

But if she told him that, he’d be disgusted, and she still needed one person in the world who could love her. Someone human.

“Where’s my bracelet?”

He opened the drawer on the end table and pulled it out. As the clasp snicked against her skin, she let out a breath.

“This was all that kept me sane when he had me locked up.”

Dominic stroked her hair and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “We’ll run, like you wanted. At the first opportunity, we’ll go.”

Nicole shook her head. “It’s too late. He’s never going to let me out of his sight again.”

“No. I’m not.” August stood in the kitchen doorway, a bottle of beer in hand. His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you two make a cozy pair?”

“Jealous?”

Nicole tensed at Dominic’s taunt.

“Of what? A silly human who will age and die, while I’ll have her forever? Literally?”

Dominic didn’t bother to mask his contempt. “Of the love you can’t have. I bet you thought that display would make me hate her. You wanted me to reject her so you could cuddle and comfort her and talk about how I can never understand you two. I’m a lawyer. I deal with the ass crack of humanity on a daily basis. You’re just another thug to me.”

A second later, Nicole found herself sprawled on the couch, flung there by two hundred pounds of angry vampire. Fangs plunged into Dominic’s throat.

She scrambled to pull him off her husband, but the vampire swatted her away like an annoying fly, growling as he drained the man she loved. “Please, August, don’t. Don’t hurt him.” She could barely squeeze the sounds through vocal chords already taut from fear.

August let Dominic fall, wiped off the blood with his arm, and went to retrieve his beer at the other end of the room. He took a few, slow sips.

Nicole rushed to Dominic’s side, pressing fingers to the unmarked side of his throat to find a faint pulse struggling to keep pace with life.

She barely saw him through the tears clouding her vision. “Please… you can save him.”

“He’s too far gone. If I give him my blood, he’ll turn.”

Nicole screamed, a long unending wail, as if she could shatter glass. As if she could shatter August, and the universe would bend to her whim just to make her stop. She pulled Dominic into her arms, not caring when the blood smeared her clothes.

“Please, Dominic. Please… don’t leave. I can’t lose you, please.” She looked up at the ceiling, helpless. “Please, God, please. Bring him back. Please.” She cradled him in her arms, sobbing, begging the universe, August, Dominic, God, anything that might be out there, anything or anyone that could possibly have the power to undo it. She’d give anything, strike any bargain to undo it.

She’d be angry with Dominic later. Taunting a vampire like that. How could he have forgotten such a recent object lesson? How could his anger have overwhelmed the knowledge of what fangs could do? How they could shred and tear and reveal the fragility of human life.

She rocked him, her hands shaking as she brushed the hair from his eyes. She pressed her fingers to his throat again. Slower, more strained. Almost stopped. Almost over. “God, no. Please Dominic, please don’t do this to me, please, please, please. God, please. Please bring him back. I can’t live here without him.”

She didn’t notice August behind her, not until he pulled her off the limp body. She watched in horror as he ripped into his wrist and forced the blood down Dominic’s throat.

“NO! You said he’d turn. You can’t!” She beat on him, but it was like hitting a boulder.

“Stop it, Nicolette. You begged God. I am God. And you know it. I’m the only God here who can answer your prayers.”

When the vampire seemed satisfied Dominic had enough blood for the change, he scooped her husband up and carried him to the car.

***

Nicole tried to forget about the body in the backseat as they drove. “Will he turn?”

“Most likely.”

She hated herself for the way her heart flipped at the idea of having Dominic with her forever—how selfish to want him to be a monster so he wouldn’t leave her alone with August.

“Is he going to have to kill people?” And then search for his own blood mate to make it stop? How would she cope with that? The shoe was too tight on the other foot.

“I don’t know. With you bound to me, I don’t know the consequences.”

“How can you be such a monster?”

August growled from the driver’s side. “I don’t know, Nicolette. After centuries of killing people, it sort of sticks. What the hell else was I ever going to be?”

Dominic looked so… dead—pale and motionless in the backseat. Maybe he was. If he turned would he still be Dominic? Would there ever be jokes between them again? Would he be like August or would he be good?

“Nicolette… I… apologize again for what I put you through tonight. I was angry he let them lock you up in a hospital. I was angry I didn’t have access to you. I had to punish him, but then I saw how you were together… I was kidding myself. I may have you forever but if I ever separated you from him, you’d never forgive me. I never feel more lonely than when I’m in a room with you but your heart and mind is with him.”

She couldn’t stand to see that mock sincerity in his eyes, so she stared out into the darkness and up at the moon that was so full and bright.

“I thought you said you could share.” Sure he could.

“I can share, Nicolette. But I can’t be shut out in the cold entirely. If you’d only let yourself feel something with me.”

“It’s wrong. I made a vow to Dominic. I love him.”

“And I’m letting you keep him. We have to find a way to live together. I can share, but I have to have a real piece of you. You have to let me in. Forever won’t be so long if you’ll surrender and find a way to make peace with this. Do you not think I will have to find a way to make peace with this?” He waved a hand in Dominic’s direction, as if by doing so, he could make her husband vanish into thin air.

There was nothing that could make any of this right. The vampire was too volatile. His promises had turned to ash and slipped through the cracks until it was as if they hadn’t existed at all. She and Dominic were fucked. If August didn’t know that, it was because he’d had enough time over the centuries to master the art of denial.

When they stopped, Nicole was shocked to find they were at her parents’ house. She’d been too deep in her thoughts, too obsessed with the blurring pattern of the passing trees outside the window as each blended into the next in a long ribbon of dark green, too upset to pay attention to which direction they were driving in.

August turned when she put a hand on his arm. The expression on his face reflected back to her what she must look like: a heroine in a horror movie—that last harrowing half hour where she’d been tormented as much as she could stand and still there was more suffering and danger ahead.

“August, please. I’ll do anything. Please, please don’t.”

He flipped off the headlights. Nicole sat numbly in the passenger side as he came around and opened the door for her. “Let’s not make this difficult, Nicolette.”

The tears burned now. They’d fallen so long and so profusely that her eyes were too raw and sensitive for more. And yet more came. She glared at him and shook her head.

“Nicolette, this must be done.”

“No. We can go back home. Let’s just go. Please leave them alone. They haven’t done anything. Please don’t hurt them.”

Was there no one she loved that he could leave breathing tonight?

“It’s time to say goodbye. Don’t make this difficult.”

“A-are you going to kill them?”

August reached into the Bugatti for her. She fought as he pulled her out, but it was the struggle of a butterfly, a valiant fluttering of useless wings.

“Of course I’m not going to kill them. I’m going to alter their memories. It’s time to cut ties. You must end your former life. I’ll take you and Dominic to my estate in Rome soon, but your parents believe you’re in the hospital. They must be dealt with now.”

She stopped struggling. The relief that no one else would die tonight had taken the last of her will to fight. “I’ll never see them again?”

“I’m sorry, Nicolette. I should have made this decision sooner.”

It shouldn’t be his decision to make.

She followed him to the front door. He’d been invited into this house once; he now had free reign forever. Her mother answered, startled by the strange man, then panicked when August pushed his way inside. Nicole found herself crossing the threshold after him.

“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Maguire.”

Nicole’s father aimed his shotgun at August’s chest. A moment of panic gripped her. She’d been so used to the vampire being invincible. How fragile was he now that he’d turned another? She jumped in front of him as the gun went off, and the bullet tore through her shoulder. She convinced herself even as she did it that she was trying to save her own life and not his.

August was across the room, already snapping the gun in half. She’d forgotten his speed. As if he couldn’t protect himself. She felt herself fall. The flow of time she’d existed in slowed and separated from everything else. Then August’s wrist was at her mouth, his blood jump starting the clock again. She wanted to protest, but she still couldn’t heal a bullet wound as fast as he could. And the fucker hurt.

Her parents were less afraid than the last time they’d done all this, though still in shock. Perhaps a bit of déjà vu had slipped around the edges of their wiped memories. Perhaps seeing August and fangs and blood had brought it all flooding back.

“How do you want me to do it? I can make them think you had a falling out and no longer speak and that you moved away or that you died or never existed.”

“Why can’t you just order them never to tell anyone? Then I could still see them.” Was he trying to make this more painful for her? Did he want her to hate him more?

“I don’t have that kind of power. I can take or alter a memory or change how someone sees something. I can give a short term order, but I can’t enthrall someone to obey an order for the rest of their life. It’s just not how it works. I’m sorry, I wish it was.”

“Do you?”

She tried to pull away as he stroked her cheek. The tender way he touched her stirred things she didn’t want stirred, particularly while her husband was slumped in the back seat of the Bugatti like a dead man. How could anything stir inside of her when this monster touched her? And after the vicious way he’d behaved tonight? She started to cry again.

“We have to do this, poppet. Believe me, I wish there was another way.”

At least he didn’t know what had provoked her tears—the inner torment that might never go away whenever his skin brushed against hers. The fires that were ignited. These feelings were an abomination.

“He’s real.” Nicole’s mother found her ability to speak.

“Yes. He’s real,” August said. It was less of a neener-neener told-ya-so, and more a resigned admission. A delusion would have been too simple. “What do you want to do?” August pressed.

“Mom, Dad, can you swear you won’t tell anybody about August? You have to keep what he is a secret. People will think you’re crazy, and it could put us in danger.”

“Nicolette, I said no.”

She rounded on the vampire. “Why not? What if they swear? Who are they going to tell? How will it hurt anything? It’s not like they know where you’re taking me. It’s not like they know anything!”

“You aren’t taking my daughter anywhere!” Ray said, now aiming the handgun. “I will hunt you, you son of a bitch. Where’s my son-in-law?”

“Dominic is in the car. He’s coming with us,” August said.

Nicole couldn’t take it anymore. She ran out the front door, slamming it behind her. It was only a moment before August joined her.

“Poppet…”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” She held a hand up and took another step away from him. It was all she could do to hold onto herself. She fantasized about Dominic waking and beating the shit out of August. Please, God, let him be on my side when he wakes.

“We have to finish this.”

“No, we don’t have to do anything. You’re going to do whatever you’re going to do, and I can’t stop you. I can’t go back in there. I can’t do this. I can’t say goodbye to them.”

“What memories do you want me to give them?”

She turned away. “I don’t give a shit.”

The door opened again and shut quietly. Nicole sat on the front stoop, looking up at the stars, wishing wishes worked. Occasionally she glanced at the car where Dominic lay. Several minutes later, the front door opened.

“It’s done.”

She didn’t acknowledge the vampire.

“Do you want to know what…?”

“No. Leave it.” Her shoulders shook as strong hands sought to steady them.

“You must believe me when I say I didn’t want this. There was no other choice. They would have been a security risk. You can’t trust humans. Even those who have been closest to you. These secrets… they can never be told to anyone not like us.”

Nicole went back to the car and got into the driver’s side. The keys were still in the ignition. August stood in the beam from the headlights, a pained expression on his face as if he were waiting for her to stop her theatrics. She put the car in reverse and floored it out of there.

There was nothing better than a car that moved this fast. She didn’t have the luxury of super speed like August. She couldn’t blur around through life as he could. The Bugatti was the fastest she would ever move under her own power. The highway was dead this time of night, so she pressed her foot to the floor, letting it accelerate to over two-forty.

Let a cop try to pull her over. He’d never catch her. No one could catch her but the one being she most wanted to outrun. As if to prove that point, August appeared in front of the car, causing her to swerve and lose control. The Bugatti flipped twice before the door flew open and chucked her out into the night.

When she stopped rolling she turned back toward the car and screamed, “Dominic!”

“He’s fine. Nothing can harm him during the transition. He’s even more durable than you.” August glared at the damage the car had taken, but it was his own damn fault standing in the middle of the road like that. How had he thought it would end?

The soreness was already dissipating. A broken bone would have taken longer. Somehow nothing had broken. If she were merely human, it would have been a miracle worthy of front page news.

She suddenly couldn’t breathe; she’d hit her breaking point. It was too much all at once. The tears choked her, and she started to hyperventilate in the panic. August’s arms closed around her, and he held her.

“You know I can take the pain. You don’t have to feel this. Let me take it from you.”

The Bugatti was still turned upside down as the two of them sat together in the ditch.

“I can’t let you take every emotion I have. What will be left of me?”

“Please, Nicolette. Let me do something.”

How many times would she allow him to use the bond like this? To erase the parts of her that were too painful to feel? How could she forget that all of that pain had been created by August’s very existence? She dug her fingers into the earth, ripping up dirt and grass, a shriek tearing from her throat.

A moment later, she smelled the blood. She was sure she couldn’t smell blood, but she could smell his blood.

“Come here. Let me help you. Let me mute it.”

“I said no! You said you’d give me anything. I want to see my parents again. I don’t want tonight to be the last time.”

His face looked pained. “I think it’s important that we go somewhere else for a while.”

“A while isn’t forever. Please, August. Let me come back. Let me see them. Can’t you make it so I can see them again? Some day they’ll be gone forever. Please.”

“We’ll discuss it.”

“But that’s not no?”

He shook his head. “It’s not no, poppet. We’ll figure something out.”

She flung herself into his arms. “Thank you.”

***

The Bugatti was—amazingly—drivable. When they reached the house, August carried Dominic inside and down into the cellar.

Nicole followed. “Where are you going with him?”

“I’m keeping him downstairs until we know the status of things.” August laid her husband on a cot and locked the cage.

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, Nicolette. I really don’t.”

She backed toward the stairs as he finished securing Dominic.

“Don’t run from me.”

She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, ignoring the dank smell of the cellar that had once been her prison. Somehow being underground made it feel as if the memories could come back to life and hurt her again, even with the magic he’d done with the bond to ease the pain.

“I wish Dr. Cronan had been right. I wish you were only real in my mind. That life would have been better than this one.”

She tried not to cringe when his lips brushed against her forehead.

“Go rest, poppet. Things will look different when you wake.”

Chapter Fourteen

Nicole squeezed her eyes shut against the sunlight streaming into the room. Light was not a feature of August’s home. He’d always kept it dark as a tomb. Heavy curtains stood guard everywhere, blocking the brightness of the day—as if it were offensive to him.

She shielded her eyes, still not ready to open them yet. God, it was bright. “August? Dominic?” Should she dare hope her husband had changed? They could be one big fucked-up immortal family.

“Mrs. Rose? We thought you’d sleep the day away. Dr. Cronan is ready to talk to you now.”

Nicole forced her eyes open and took in the gray walls, the awful gray sweats and white T-shirt, the canvas shoes tucked under the bed. A far too cheery nurse stood in the doorway holding a clipboard.

Nicole pinched herself. “Ouch.”

The nurse’s smile thinned into medically professional concern. “What we gave you was pretty strong. You needed rest. Did you sleep okay? Sometimes it causes very vivid dreams, but you were so upset last night we thought it best.”

This can’t be real.

“F-fine,” Nicole said. Her mouth tasted like cotton.

“If you need some breakfast first, I’m sure Dr. Cronan would approve that. Help you get oriented?”

“Okay.” She didn’t bother with the tennis shoes. Putting on shoes meant acceptance of this Twilight Zone reality, and she wasn’t ready to go there.

She followed the nurse into the cafeteria. It was mostly cleared out, but they were still serving. The hot stuff was gone, though. Nicole grabbed a banana and a bowl of cereal and sat at a table in the far corner. The nurse hovered.

“Am I on suicide watch? Are you afraid I’ll drown myself in my milk?”

The nurse gave a short, nervous titter that was probably supposed to pass for a laugh and excused herself.

The banana was too mushy and definitely tasted real. The cereal and milk were the same. As she drank her orange juice, Nicole ran her fingers over the wood grain on the table. Was it wood grain… or a convincing plastic? It felt real and solid, whatever it was.

She tried to remember what had happened with August and Dominic. How real had that felt? She hadn’t bothered to stare at or touch wood grain. Too much had been going on. She hadn’t had a reason to question the reality of what was happening.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. There was no way she could say she wasn’t deluded. She was in the midst of a delusion. Either it was this world or the world with the vampires in it. And which made more sense? If you knew you were delusional, a mental hospital was most likely to be real.

Standing in the cellar last night with August, she remembered wanting him not to be real. Could he have done something? Had he created this? But how could he? Her mind was too strong for him to control. Maybe the link made her more vulnerable. It had obviously made her want him more. Or maybe he’d lied from the start. Maybe there was nothing special about her mind at all. Maybe he hadn’t really had to kill people. Maybe he was just fixated on her. But that pointed back to mental illness, because why was she that special?

“Mrs. Rose, How are you feeling this morning?”

Nicole was irritated to be interrupted by Dr. Cronan as she tried to sort what was real and what wasn’t. Both realities felt equally real and equally illusory. Maybe none of it was real. Maybe there was a third option that was more weird. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? She held back laughter at the idea. It would make her seem crazier to have a maniacal laughing fit over soggy cereal.

“I’m fine,” she said, downing the last of the orange juice.

“You can leave your tray here, and we’ll go to my office to talk.”

Nicole left the tray and followed the doctor down several dimly-lit hallways until they reached his corner office. He motioned for her to go in the room first.

She chose the navy leather chair across from his desk, not the couch. She wasn’t quite ready to surrender to the process—whatever that meant. She lacked too much power here as it was. There was no reason to make the disparity sharper.

Dr. Cronan took his own high-backed leather chair on the other side of the desk. The chair swiveled in an undignified manner when he sat, making him seem like a small child trying out being a grown up. He cleared his throat and took out a notepad and fountain pen.

“I want to speak with my husband.”

Dr. Cronan looked up, his face creased with disappointment. “Now, we’ve talked about this, Mrs. Rose. We agreed after a few sessions with your husband that the course of your treatment would go more smoothly if we had a period without intrusion from the outside world. Dominic is part of the world you inhabited with the delusions. We’re trying to create a different space here for you. A safe space.”

“But you can’t keep me without my permission unless a judge… ”

“Mrs. Rose, what do you think the date is?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The date? What is the date on the calendar?”

“I… ” She hadn’t known the date on the calendar, anyway. She’d been too busy sorting through all the conflicting information her brain had been trying to process since the moment she’d met August to bother with the date.

“Let me ask it another way. How long do you think you’ve been here?”

“Three days… I think.” Or was it four now?

Dr. Cronan scribbled down some notes on the legal pad in front of him. “You’ve been with us for three months, but I’m not surprised you’ve lost time. Drugs can have side effects, and we still haven’t found the right combination.”

“You’re lying.”

“Please don’t do this again, Mrs. Rose. We’re trying to help you.”

Nicole stood and began to pace the room. “This isn’t real. You’re lying. This is all wrong. I was just with August and Dominic. Things happened that were upsetting, but they happened. August got me out of here, like I said he would.”

Dr. Cronan’s eyes held a paternalistic sort of pity as he shook his head. “No. That isn’t what’s happened. We dealt with that delusion two weeks ago.”

“Then this is a dream. The last thing I remember with August, I was going up to my room to sleep, so this must be what I’m dreaming.”

“You’re becoming agitated, Mrs. Rose. Could you please sit down? I’d like to go over some of our previous discussions, and I can’t do that if you’re pacing.” He indicated the chair she’d vacated. “Please. Sit.”

Whether this was the reality or the delusion, more information couldn’t harm the situation. Nicole sat and tried to appear calm though everything inside her was screaming. Papers snapped in rapid succession as the doctor thumbed backward through the notepad. “Okay, here we are. I’m interested in talking about the desire for August not to be real, because I believe that’s the key to helping you. A delusion tends to serve a purpose in a person’s life and gives them a sense of control. Do you remember the session we had with your husband a couple of months ago?”

Nicole shook her head as the doctor pulled out a tape recorder and sorted through several mini cassettes until he found the one he sought.

When he pressed play, Dominic’s voice came out of the recorder. “I feel like I’m partly to blame for all this.”

“Why do you say that?” Dr. Cronan’s voice.

“I’d been neglecting her. I had such a big case load, and it kept dragging on month after month. I took her out for our anniversary and tried to be there with her, but I know she didn’t think I was there.”

Nicole could almost hear Dr. Cronan nodding over the recorder. “I see where you’re going with this. Yes, we talked about how a delusion can create a sense of power. If one’s world gets out of control, one might invent a fantasy that makes it right again. Nicole, do you think you invented August to give you someone who would pay attention to you, who would want you, even need you to a degree your real partner had stopped feeling?”

“That’s not… he’s not… ” there was a long pause. “Maybe.”

Dr. Cronan shut off the recorder. “Do you remember that session Mrs. Rose?”

Nicole shook her head. This was the first time the realities had crossed because she did remember Dominic neglecting her, of treating her like she didn’t exist and didn’t matter, like she was some annoyance he had to deal with in between the important business of being a big shot attorney. It had never been that way before. Somehow he’d always made time for her, and then suddenly it was as if they’d dropped off a cliff, some point of no return where the relationship could never feel good and right again.

But to invent a vampire of all things? That wasn’t a normal response. But were Uncle Chuck’s bathroom butterflies normal? And if delusions were about control… what was her uncle trying to control? What good could butterflies do him?

“I think you’re ready to let go of August. Don’t you? Your real husband loves you. He’s concerned for you and wants you to come home.”

Yes, Dominic was concerned now. Now that she’d been deemed mentally unstable and hospitalized, she was probably all he thought about. And didn’t that make it more likely that August wasn’t real? Because Dominic had really neglected her. Maybe this was the outcome of that, not a vampire who had somehow made him stop loving her.

“Mrs. Rose, do you want August to be real right now?”

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. Whenever she was with him, she hoped for some reprieve that would save her from a life that couldn’t end. Without completion. A life without Dominic, without her family. But now, in the hospital, faced with the almost certainty that she was a nutcase, being the immortal victim of a vampire seemed less tragic.

He was an external force acting upon her, not the gaping, terrifying void inside her own mind. If her brain really worked this way… or failed to work this way… how could she know anything was real? Wasn’t August better than that? As bad as he was? Wasn’t it better to be a victim of sound mind?

There was a knock on the door and another doctor poked his head in. “Excuse me, Dr. Cronan, may I speak with you in private?”

As soon as she was alone, Nicole raced to Dr. Cronan’s side of the desk to see the notes he’d written about her, but it was all scribbles. Not the illegible writing of a doctor, but literal scribbles that were not and could not be words. They had never been real words. She pressed play on the tape recorder.

“The vampire bat feeds solely on blood, a trait called hematophagy. Vampire bats are distinguished from fruit-eating bats due to their short, cone-shaped muzzle,” a monotone female voice droned. Nicole pushed the eject button. The label on the cassette said: “The Lifecycle and Habitat of the Vampire Bat.”

She raced to the other side of the office. A filmy white curtain covered the windows, allowing blinding sunlight to filter into the room through the gauzy fabric. She pushed the curtains back, frantic to open a window and get some fresh air, but there was no window, no sun. Only a solid, brick wall with white spray-paint graffiti that read, “Poor, crazy girl.”

She turned back to the desk, her gaze lighting on a letter opener. She grabbed it and sliced her arm, watching it heal in front of her eyes. What did that mean? Either she hadn’t just cut herself… or August was real and this wasn’t.

Dr. Cronan returned to find her standing, crazed with the letter opener gripped tightly in her hand. “Mrs. Rose, put that down. We don’t harm ourselves here.”

She had a sudden flash of being hosed down and kept in a dark hole of a room here at the hospital. No, we don’t hurt ourselves here. Other people hurt us. That’s how this all works.

“Is there blood on my arm, Dr. Cronan?”

Nicole couldn’t see any. Almost as soon as she’d sliced her arm, before the blood could properly pool up, it had sealed.

“I need you to put that down, now.”

“Answer me! Is there blood on my arm?”

“Of course not, and we don’t want there to be, so please put it down.”

Dr. Cronan edged to his desk, as if she were holding hostages, and pushed a red button.

Before she could process the turn of events, two strong orderlies burst into the room and wrenched the letter opener from her hand. They dragged her down the hall while she screamed. She knew the crazier she acted the worse whatever happened would be, but she couldn’t stop the hysteria bubbling out.

Halfway down the hall she was shoved into a room. The door locked behind her. Something soft broke her fall. Dear God, it was a literal padded cell. Were those things real? Did people use them? It made sense to protect someone from themselves, but was it a myth? A pop culture idea?

Where did her ideas about mental institutions come from? Movies. Unrealistic movies. So if what happened to her in here was like those movies, then didn’t that make this the delusion? She tried to grab hold of the flash she’d had in Dr. Cronan’s office… being hosed down and the dark room. Nobody did that. Did they? Did people get hosed down now?

Nicole squeezed her eyes shut and tried to relax, breathing slowly in and out, allowing the images and memories to flow over her. There was a room with a box and a dial and screams, her screams. But everything was so quiet and peaceful for a while after that… until she got upset again. There had been a crackling sound like static just before the screams.

Another time… ice baths. Another time, straps and needles. Lots of pills. Lots of fogginess. No hope of ever leaving. What had he told Dominic? How had Dr. Cronan convinced him? How had he convinced a judge? It was like a dream where everything jumped from one event to the next without a bridge. So this was a dream, it had to be a dream. And then she’d wake up… with August? Was that better? She held her face in her hands.

This can’t be real. It can’t be real. It makes no sense.

But did August make more sense? She’d tried to understand how she could possibly not be traumatized by months in his cellar no matter what he’d told her about the power of the bond, no matter how much of his blood she’d consumed to make it all go away. But if this was the real world how could she not remember her months here? What had they done to her head? Had they done something that had destroyed her memory? Had it been the shock treatments? Or a drug with a bad side effect?

Nobody does those things anymore. That’s not how mental hospitals work now.

But how did she know? And if this wasn’t real, why did it feel so real? Didn’t that equal crazy either way?

She crawled to the far corner and drew her knees up to her chest. Would they bring her food? A banana and mushy cereal wasn’t going to last her long. How many drugs was she on?

She’d been abandoned by both Dominic and August.

Which version of hell did she prefer? The other one had a possibly-dead and possibly crazy-vampire Dominic and a definitely crazy-vampire August. This one just had crazy in all flavors and styles wafting down the hallways, seeping into the air, floating screams.

“I don’t want to be delusional. I can’t be delusional.” As if saying it out loud could somehow demand reality to take form around those words.

The door startled her when it opened. Dr. Cronan dragged in a plastic chair with fat legs that wouldn’t tip over on the padding.

“Are you ready to speak reasonably now?”

“I don’t want to be delusional,” she whispered.

“That’s something close to progress.”

Was he being sarcastic? Did they do that in mental institutions?

“I want to speak to Dominic. I want my husband, now. He’s my attorney, and I have rights.”

“You will see your husband when we’ve had a chance to sort you out.”

“No. You’ve had your chance. I want to see Dominic, or I won’t participate.”

He shook his head and glanced at the notepad that held scribbles and no substance. “It didn’t go well for you the last time you gave that ultimatum.”

“Is that a threat?” Dominic wouldn’t abandon her, would he? But… in either reality he’d brought her here. August’s image slipped into her mind. “I’d rather have the other world.” She turned away, assuming Dr. Cronan would take the hint and pack up his chair and notepad of nonsense and leave. But he didn’t.

“Interesting. I thought you were ready to let him go. Would you mind telling me why?”

Nicole picked at a loose thread in the wall. “Why would I prefer this world? The one where I obviously have no chance at recovery. I will rot in this place behind bars with lunatics and too much medication to remember half of it. As bad as some of the other reality can be, there is a whole world to explore and infinite time to explore it. August wouldn’t let anybody else hurt me. And maybe Dominic will be okay. It’ll work out somehow.”

“Dominic? You’ve integrated your husband into the delusion?”

“August made him into a vampire. He’s not separating us. I get to keep him.”

Nicole jumped when a hand gripped her shoulder.

“Nicolette… ”

She opened her eyes and leaped out of the bed, putting distance between herself and the vampire. It took her a moment to realize where she was as her eyes darted about the room, trying to make sense of things. “Did you… did you do that to me?”

“Do what to you? Let you sleep?”

The dream had been too real. It wasn’t as if she usually realized she was dreaming while dreaming—most people didn’t—but that dream had been hyper-real in a way that made her worry it was the true reality and this was merely a delusion. How often did dreams do that? If it were possible, the dream had felt more real than waking up out of it. So how did she know she was awake now?

“I’m not sure what’s real. I don’t know if you’re real or if I’m in a padded room right now hallucinating.”

August’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Oh? Oh what?”

“I fed you my blood while my emotions were erratic. It may have affected you and your dreams.”

“I thought you couldn’t control me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Obviously I can control you in various ways. But you are not my mental puppet. I can’t enthrall you. I can tempt you. I can make you want me like you’ve never wanted anything else, but what you do with that desire is yours. But blood exchanges… I didn’t think about potential side effects, I apologize.”

He held his arms out to her, but she regarded him with suspicion. “Did you direct the content of my dream? Did you intentionally make any of that happen?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“How do I know that? How can I trust that?” In fact, the more she thought about it, the more foolish it felt to listen to anything he said about anything. Since she didn’t know about the rules of his world or his nature, he could make anything up, and she’d have no choice but to go along with it. Just because he said something didn’t mean she should smile and nod and go along as if it were obviously the truth.

“Nicolette, I have no idea what you dreamed. So if you’re going to accuse me of something, kindly give me enough information to know what is so bad.”

She dropped onto the bed. “I was at the hospital. They said I’d been there for months. You were a delusion.”

“Again? Nicolette, you’ve never been crazy. Do you understand that you can’t be delusional and have a mind too strong for a vampire to control? It’s completely illogical.”

“Do you understand that vampires aren’t real, and it’s perfectly logical to assume that if I’m seeing one and living with one that it would be normal to question that reality and my sanity?”

“I understand you’ve experienced a lot of intense things in the past few months. Over time life will normalize and you’ll know this is real. I’m sorry you had a dream that frightened you so much and called everything into question. I won’t give you my blood when I’m upset like that again.” He started to leave.

“August, wait.”

“Yes?”

Nicole went to him and allowed him to embrace her. She wasn’t sure now that she was supposedly awake that she wanted this to be her life, but she knew she didn’t want her life to be padded rooms and drugs and no control.

“Why don’t you come downstairs and eat something?”

She didn’t protest as he led her to the kitchen.

“There isn’t much. Just some frozen dinners.”

“Anything is fine.”

He took a box from the freezer and popped it into the microwave then sat across from her, worry in his eyes.

She ran her fingers over the wood grain of the table. It was no more or less real than the table in the institution that she’d… dreamed? So how did she know which table was the real table?

August leaned forward and pressed his wrist to her forehead as if he were checking for a fever. “Your skin is a bit clammy. I’m concerned.”

“Well, I can’t die, right?”

“So then I shouldn’t worry if you experience any discomfort in life? Since you’re immortal, my concern is unwelcome?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The microwave dinged, saving her from trying to figure out what she did mean or how to express it. He slid the carton to her and retrieved a fork from the drawer.

“I need you lucid. Dominic will rise soon. You’ll have to feed him.”

Nicole hadn’t realized it would be so quick or maybe she’d slept longer than she thought. Who knew how long vampire-blood induced sleep lasted? She wasn’t sure she was ready to see her husband in his new state yet. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him rising at all.

“He’s not going to be like me. We’ll know immediately if he can feed from you. If he can, he won’t have to kill.” Genuine fear shone from the vampire’s eyes—maybe fear he’d cursed Dominic to the fate he’d carried for centuries.

“If he has to kill, I will never… ” Her voice wavered.

“I know. I won’t forgive myself, either.”

Nicole went back to the Salisbury steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes. It tasted like cardboard, like every other frozen meal in existence. The mashed potatoes were particularly revolting. They were covered in a tangy brown gravy that masked the potatoes. But nothing could mask the gravy. It was two kinds of horrible fighting to disguise the other and both failing miserably.

The vampire’s nostrils flared and his eyes glowed. His head turned quickly toward the kitchen door.

“August?”

He held up a hand. “Shhh.” He stared in the direction of the hallway as if he saw… or heard something. “Your husband is awake. Go feed him.” He withdrew a key from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

“I… but… by myself?”

“Well, I certainly don’t wish to watch.”

“Why not? You made him watch.”

August growled. “Don’t test me right now, Nicolette.”

Chapter Fifteen

When Nicolette had left the room, August took the fork from the putrid food and stabbed it into the table, driving the prongs deep into the wood. From the moment he’d taken her out of the hospital, it had been one stupid choice after another. The anger toward Dominic was irrational. Of course her husband couldn’t believe her. August’s vampiric command made it impossible. The alternative was to think she was ill. The same with her parents.

And yet, though they’d been involved in locking his mate up, he hadn’t had a need to punish them. Dominic fell into another category entirely. He was supposed to watch out for her, protect her in August’s absence. It was his job. Even if he couldn’t protect her from the vampire, he wasn’t supposed to make anything else worse.

Taking her out of the hospital had been a simple matter, but irrational anger flooded him whenever someone else caused her pain.

August closed his eyes and remembered in crisp detail the activities at her house with Dominic. It hadn’t just been the anger. He’d thought about this—the prospect of sharing her out in the open. However many times he had to wipe her husband’s memory to keep him from going off and telling someone or having a nervous breakdown, it would allow Nicolette to stop feeling as if she were cheating. Even with the blood link, she saw the human as her mate, and August as the interloper.

No matter how hard August fought to make things as easy as possible on her, he’d never been able to let go of the guilt for what he was doing. It didn’t matter how much he needed her. It didn’t matter how badly he’d wanted to stop killing. It didn’t obligate her to him. And yet he’d painted it that way as if she owed him her blood and body for the rest of time just so he could control his vampire needs. He’d guilted her and cornered her and done whatever was necessary to bring them to this place, and now he was trying to fix it. But each choice somehow made it all that much worse.

August made his way down the hall and opened the door to the cellar as quietly as possible. He slipped off his shoes and kept to the shadows, creeping down the stairs, his footfalls silent. He didn’t want to watch this, but he couldn’t not watch it. He had to know how the rest of their existence together would be.

“I need you to drink,” Nicolette said. She’d unlocked the cage and was inside with him.

Dominic turned away in revulsion and growled, his fangs bared, eyes glowing. “Get the hell away from me, Nicole, I’ll hurt you!”

“You won’t. It’s okay. You need to feed. You have to.”

“How can you stand to look at me like this? I’m hideous.”

Though there was no mirror in the cage, Dominic had no doubt seen his hands and arms and gotten a decent enough idea about his face. It was the monstrous, rotting that came over them without blood. If feeding from Nicolette healed him, August would have his answer about whether or not the new vampire would have to kill.

“It’s how unfed vampires look. You’ll look like yourself again after you’ve had blood. And as long as you feed regularly, you’ll be normal.”

Dominic growled and turned back to her. “He’s fed from you looking like this, hasn’t he? That monster fucking put his mouth on you looking like he belonged in a leper colony.”

“Once. It was after I ran away. He hadn’t fed for a few days because he didn’t want to kill people.”

“So he’s a moral vampire. I see it now. I was confused when he was going down on you in front of me.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“The jealousy. I can hear it in your voice. I didn’t want this. I… he kept me here… until… ”

Dominic shook his head. “Stop, Nicole. You don’t have to explain. I know what he did. He passed memories to me when he made me into this. I don’t blame you. What other choice was there? He would have done anything to keep you alive and anything to make things bad enough so you’d give him what he wanted. You had no chance against someone that old and strong. Neither of us did. The fact that you lasted so long… I’m just hungry. Don’t pay attention to anything I say.”

She eased closer and knelt on the ground beside him, pulling her hair back. “That’s why you have to feed. You’ll feel better after you’ve fed. You know you can’t kill me.”

“No, but it will hurt you.”

August smelled her fear and knew she remembered the first time he’d drank from her, the agonizing pain she’d endured, how terrified she’d been that it might never stop. Even if this worked, she wasn’t Dominic’s in the way she was August’s. The mystical link might offer her husband a feeding option, but it wouldn’t stop the pain. It was yet another thing the vampire hadn’t bothered to think through while he was trying to undo Dominic’s murder before it was complete.

“M-maybe it won’t.”

“It will. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You’ll suffer until you feed, and if you don’t bite me, you’ll have to kill people. Would you rather kill people?”

He scooted away from her until he’d backed himself into a corner. “You have to leave now.”

“Not until you’ve fed. Please, Dominic… if you still love me… ”

He growled. “You know I love you. If I didn’t fucking love you, I would have already devoured you whole.”

She bit down hard into her wrist. August’s nostrils flared as the scent of his mate’s blood coated the air. He had to grip the wall to keep himself from going to her. The effect on Dominic was even more potent—being newly risen.

Dominic pounced on her and held her down against the cold cellar floor. The moment August felt her pain and heard her scream, he left his hiding place and ripped Dominic off her.

The new vampire smirked, the blood dripping down his now-perfect chin. He would feel sorry for hurting Nicolette soon, but the sensations of the first feeding were so exciting and intoxicating that the high lasted longer.

Dominic had become a more perfect version of himself, as if vampirism had retouched him, smoothing fine lines, evening skin tone, chiseling muscles just a little more, making lips fuller, jaw more squared, eyes lighter and more hypnotic—even when they weren’t glowing.

He wiped the blood off his mouth and looked at it in horror. “Oh my God. I’m going to be sick.”

It was a lot for a new vampire to take in. Seeing the woman he’d previously seen as his wife now as his dinner.

“No, you won’t,” August said. “Vampires don’t get sick.”

Dominic glared at him. “I could kill you right now.”

“Yes, but could you kill Nicolette? You know we’re linked.”

He’d felt something shift when he’d passed the vampirism to Dominic. There was a faint tear in the fabric of his immortality.

Nicolette moved out from behind August. It took all his self control not to restrain her. The question wasn’t if Nicolette would wish to continue feeding her husband. She would. No matter how much he hurt her when he did it, she wouldn’t allow him to become a murderer. The real question was… how would August allow it? How would he listen to his mate’s screams every night, knowing it was his fault she was in so much pain?

In the end, surely both vampires would veto this feeding pattern.

Dominic took a step back from his wife, but she took another step closer and embraced him. “I-I’ll get used to it. This is what we have to do.”

“No. This will not happen again.”

“So you want to kill people? We’re talking about a few minutes of pain a day. You don’t have to drink for long if you do it every day. I’ll be fine. I’ll build a tolerance to it. This will all be fine.”

August watched them as the kernel of an idea formed. “I want to try something.”

The two looked up at him as if he were an unwanted guest at a party or someone who had killed their puppy.

“Why should we care about anything you want? This is all your fault,” Nicolette said.

August growled. “Would you have preferred to lose him? For him to age and die and be gone? There is no scenario in which you can’t cast me as the villain, but I may have a solution. What if we feed on you together? The pleasure of my bite may cancel the pain from Dominic’s.”

***

Heat rose in Nicole’s face as she imagined two hungry vampires feeding on her at once, every night for the rest of eternity. After being fed on by August, she’d become unable to separate the feeding act from the sex act.

“Nicole?”

She forced her gaze from Dominic’s pants to his face. “What?”

“Do you want to try that? If it doesn’t hurt you, I’d be willing to feed from you.”

Wasn’t that what she wanted? Not to have a serial killer for a husband? Though, in her mind she’d already started to imagine him killing bad people. He could clean up the planet of evil. It would be a public service. The world would be a better place. It would be safe for children to play unsupervised and for women to walk down dark alleys. Though she had a feeling that it wouldn’t be worth the cost of how it would change her husband or the guilt he’d have to live with as a result.

“O-okay.”

“Excellent,” August said, “Why don’t we take this upstairs where we’ll all be more comfortable? We don’t have to do this down here.”

“I’d like to take a shower first. I feel weird from the change,” Dominic said.

“Certainly. Nicolette, why don’t you go up to your bedroom and wait for us.”

She would be lying if she said she hadn’t, in some dark corner of her mind, fantasized about a similar scenario to this. She averted her eyes from the two of them and climbed the stairs out of the cellar. They moved with such quiet grace she wasn’t sure if they were behind her or if they were still down there talking about vampire stuff. She didn’t dare look behind her to find out.

In her room, Nicole made herself busy transferring all the gifts August had given her to the closet, so the three of them would have room and also so as not to rub it all in her husband’s face. She dug through the bags for the makeup he’d given her.

Rice paper to take off the shine and a swipe of lip gloss. There. Natural and not like she was trying too hard.

She went to the bathroom to freshen up. She undressed and slipped on a nightgown that hung on a peg. When she came back out, both men… both vampires sat in chairs facing each other at the end of the bedroom. It was still hard to remember Dominic was a vampire. The two stared at each other as if telepathically debating territories.

When the door closed behind her, they both looked up, their expressions going from tense property negotiation to blood lust in a blink. Dominic rose first, but August reached the bed first.

“Nicolette, come here.”

She glanced at Dominic as if asking permission, all the while hoping August didn’t notice it. The elder vampire needed to feel like he was in charge. The situation was too delicate. The balance of power would have to remain just so or else the two of them would fight over her like roosters in a hen house. Never mind that she couldn’t deny one and wouldn’t deny the other.

Dominic’s nod was so slight, she wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but she heard the impatient sigh coming from the bed, so she went to August.

“We’ve decided that tonight I will take your throat and Dominic will take the vein between your thighs.”

She didn’t reply because there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound completely stupid. Dominic had matured a hundred years since his turning, though he appeared ten years younger. She wondered what vampiric secrets he was privy to. How many of August’s memories did he have? How deep did their connection run? And had the two vampires been communicating telepathically?

They’d conspired to hunt her, to consume her. They would each know what she did with the other. It would all be laid bare. No secrets.

August took off his shirt and pulled her against his chest. The skin-to-skin contact inexplicably soothed her.

He gripped her throat, and her body went tense like a violin string. He stroked her skin with his other hand. She looked helplessly at Dominic, wondering if he’d have that angry glare he’d had when he’d been human and under August’s control, but all she saw was lust peering out from yellow eyes and fangs pressing out of his flesh, itching to be inside hers.

A chill raced down her spine as Dominic growled and shoved the gown halfway up her waist, exposing her pale thighs.

“Spread your legs,” he said.

She did as she was told, her heart lurching into her throat, pounding at a feverish pace.

August struck first. His bite was a calculated strike, his hand never leaving her throat. As if his possession of her must be displayed more starkly with Dominic present.

The usual pleasure and need came over her, feelings she’d sought to mask from her husband before, feelings that made it hard not to succumb to August’s desires.

Her muscles seized, waiting for the strike of Dominic’s bite—the pain still too fresh to relax. To her surprise, instead of fangs, it was a tongue between her legs. She bucked and moved against his mouth as he languidly stroked her.

At the moment of her release, his fangs were in her thigh. And then both vampires drank. Dominic’s bite muted the pleasure of August’s—which was disappointing—but August stopped the pain from Dominic. Instead of being the most pleasurable experience, or the most painful, it became… comfortable, something she could sink into like a fluffy pillow.

Nicole drifted, floating between them as they fed. Time stopped moving and then it moved forever. An eternal now. It wouldn’t matter how much they drank, her body would re-knit itself, rushing to meet the demand with supply. The blood would replenish as if none had ever been taken.

She squirmed as Dominic pulled out of her and ran his tongue over the puncture marks he’d left in her thigh, speeding the healing that would happen on its own within a few seconds anyway. A moment later, August did the same.

Then Dominic did something unexpected. He pricked his finger with a fang like August did when he wanted to give her a little blood. August tensed and growled. Dominic growled back. She wondered if they were exchanging an actual language.

The wound on his finger healed, but the growls continued for several minutes until Nicole was afraid for her safety being between the two of them.

“No!” August said.

“Yes. I want to exchange blood with her.”

“It won’t change anything, she’s still mine.”

“Then why do you care? Besides, you can’t babysit us every second of every day. If she wants that connection to me, she’ll take it when you aren’t around.”

Abruptly, August pushed Nicole off him. “I’ll leave you two alone, then,” he practically snarled.

Part of Nicole wanted to go after him if for no other reason than to keep whatever this was from escalating further.

Dominic pulled back the blankets and got underneath, propping the pillows behind him. He patted the mattress. Somehow it felt like old times—before August had come into their lives. She could pretend they were at their house sleeping in on a Saturday afternoon after he’d worked late the previous night. She could pretend Dominic was still a regular guy with worries like the mortgage and his case load and the occasional gray hair.

She snuggled against him, and he draped an arm around her in the same comforting way he always used to. “Are we going to be okay?” she asked.

“I’ve got you and my eternal good looks. Why wouldn’t we be?” The attempted joke fell flat but the attempt was admirable all the same. After another beat he said, “I think so. He wants us to be together. For you, mostly. He can’t stand to see you hurting.”

“But what about you? What about what you want?” she asked.

“I can’t stand to see you hurting either. It is what it is. I can’t undo the link he has with you. And I’m not willing to act in ways that just cause you more pain. I love you.”

It wasn’t that she wanted the two men to arm wrestle for her, but Dominic’s eerie calm about the situation was unnerving. It reminded her that he was something more than human now, that his frame for reality had shifted. And maybe now the otherness of the two of them would make her feel like the third wheel. The two vampires had acted as a unit. Although she was tied by blood to August, the vampires were tied by blood as well. But it was different. Their link was more complete, more primal. And she would always be the human that was there to satisfy their most basic hungers. What if that was all she became to them?

“I want to give you some of my blood.”

“What will it do?” She didn’t want to withhold things from her husband, but she feared angering August when everything was still so delicate and easily damaged.

“It will connect us more.”

“But August said… ”

“You wouldn’t have a mate connection with me like you do with him. I couldn’t find you like he can, and your lifeline is already tied to his, not mine. But it will connect us more. It will complete the circle.”

The words felt ancient and powerful. In her fevered imagination she saw torchlight, a mix of blood, and then a million fireflies coming out of nowhere, exploding out into the world leaving the three of them something new altogether.

“I just had the weirdest mental image,” she said.

“Did it involve an uncountable number of fireflies?”

“How did you…?”

“I may never be your mate in the way August is, but as a vampire, I can get inside your mind. You may be his blood mate, but you aren’t mine and never could have been mine. The reason I can feed successfully from you is his link with you and my link with him. I think if you drink from me the kind of connection we can have will be stronger. You may have something with August that I can never have, but I’ll have something with you he can’t. I already do to some extent.”

“C-could you control me? Like vampires do?”

“I could. I already can. I can also put images in your head like just now. I can speak to you mentally, but I get fuzziness when I try to read your thoughts directly. My mental powers will grow stronger as I get older, but I think a blood exchange would allow it with you now.”

“So you would be able to read my mind more?”

She didn’t want to fear her own husband. She didn’t want to think he would ever use his powers against her or sabotage her. August could always take them far away, but then Dominic would be left to kill, and she couldn’t accept that. Maybe he wouldn’t feel remorse when he did it because of who his sire was. Maybe that was gone forever, washed away by the blood link she’d created with the other vampire.

In the end, August would never do anything to harm her. His entire genetic code proclaimed that she’d saved him, and as such, deserved full protection for as long as time existed. But could Dominic be dangerous? Should she hold back this last part of herself until she knew how things would be? Could she ever know for sure? Forever was forever.

She looked up to find August leaning against the door frame, calmer now that he’d stepped away. Nicole sent him a questioning look.

On one level she didn’t care if August was bitter, but on another level it would make life more difficult. It was daunting being in the middle of them, being the wild card that could make things turn either very good or very bad. If very good was on the table… that was what she wanted.

“You have my permission, Nicolette.” His voice came out smooth and regal. It was as if he’d returned from a month-long mountain top retreat where he’d discussed this issue with a council of fellow vampires. And now permission was being handed down. How gracious. How magnanimous.

He wants to feel like he’s the one in control. But he’s afraid you’ll do it anyway. Dominic’s voice pressed into her mind, as he squeezed her more tightly.

Can you hear me back? She tried to think in his direction and imagined pushing the thought into his mind, but there was silence in her own head after that. She turned toward him, but he was looking at August. He hadn’t heard her, and for that moment she was utterly alone.

Of the two men, which did she truly trust more? While the bond was a leash that forced August to protect her in the end, it didn’t mean he couldn’t and wouldn’t make mistakes. He’d already done things to her that most people would consider quite bad. Ignoring those things made her feel as if she were excusing the behavior of an abusive boyfriend.

Dominic may be a new vampire, but he was also the man who’d loved her for over a decade, who she’d loved in return. He’d been good and honorable and kind. Whatever changes were happening to him, he was still Dominic. If she ever needed an ally, the mental communication had to go both ways.

“I-I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Nicole said.

August’s eyes narrowed. She’d defied him. She’d questioned him. How dare she?

“Do it,” he commanded.

Reverse psychology? Brilliant. Dominic thought.

She wanted to think back, How well you know me.

Dominic pricked his finger and pressed it into her mouth. Nicole closed her eyes and drank the blood, unsure if such a small amount could do anything.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Take as much as you need.”

When the wound healed, he withdrew his finger.

Well? she thought at him. Can you hear this?

Yes, I hear you. There was a triumphant glee in his mental tone. It was as if he’d discovered Walkie-Talkies.

Nicole tried not to think about the fact that she’d never have another private thought when she was near him.

I have to make some kind of effort to hear you. It’s not a passive talent, and I don’t disrespect your privacy. You know me.

She squeezed his hand to let him know she understood.

Chapter Sixteen

August closed his eyes against the sight of them together. Reading each other’s minds. Having private conversations he would never be privy to. He had the same ability with Dominic, but the direct mental connection with Nicolette was something he would never feel. In some ways, Dominic had greater power over her.

But he was a young vampire. All August needed was for Dominic to lose control and abuse his skills once. Then she would come running to her mate for protection.

He opened his eyes to find the two of them making love. Either they didn’t care he was there, or they’d forgotten. He turned and made his way down the dark hallway, stopping at the French doors.

The crickets and frogs stopped chirping when he reached the fresh air, giving the appearance of solitude in a foggy night illuminated by a full, bright moon. Everything but humans went utterly still and quiet in his presence.

Sometimes August thought it would be a greater challenge to hunt something from the forest than something from the mall, but for centuries he’d never had the luxury to test that theory, since it was human blood that sustained him.

The urge came on slowly, easing into his senses. It wasn’t the mindless need to feed. It wasn’t a hunger. It wasn’t accompanied by guilt or angst, just a simple, quiet drive to kill something, to snuff out life like a lone candle in a dark room. The sociopathy of the feeling chilled his blood.

But he wasn’t thinking about killing humans. He was thinking of hunting in the woods. Humans hunted in the woods. The local deer population had grown rapidly. It was open hunting season. Even the humans said it was okay.

He stalked through the forest, scanning the foliage for a pair of guileless brown eyes, something innocent to slaughter.

Eventually, the night sounds resumed. The crickets, the frogs. Small creatures scampered through the woods into their hiding spots. He spotted the female deer before she spotted him. When she realized she’d been seen, she darted between the trees.

August gave chase, a feeling of exhilaration washing over him. When he ran the doe down, he held her by the throat and sank fangs into her flesh. He choked and gasped and spat the blood out.

“That’s disgusting,” he said to any wildlife that would hear his complaint.

She seized on the ground—suffering—so he broke her neck with one brutal jerk.

Now that Dominic was there to stay, August needed an outlet. Perhaps hunting would allow him to burn off the necessary steam to make peace with their new life. Had he really thought he’d ever have her to himself? If Dominic had died, the specter of her husband would forever hang over them, haunting each moment they shared. The ghost at their table, in their bed.

When he returned to the house, he found Nicolette on the back patio. She’d put a lavender robe over her night clothes, though there was no danger out here that anyone would see.

“I hope you didn’t cover that lovely body on my account,” he said.

Her eyes widened as he approached. “August? W-what did you do?”

Was it wrong to enjoy her discomfort? “What do you mean what did I do? I took a walk.”

There must be blood on his mouth or on his chest. And of course she would think it was human blood. Of course she’d think he would cross that line in a jealous rage, go take a human life when he was free of the curse… for no other reason than sheer petulance. Did she think so little of him?

She gripped his arm as he brushed past her. “August? Who? Why?”

He shook her off, annoyed. “Bambi’s mother. To blow off steam.”

He jumped to the balcony in one great superhuman leap and re-entered through the French doors. Nicolette was forced to go back inside the normal way.

He stopped in a guest bathroom and rinsed the dirt from his feet, then wiped the bit of deer blood from the corner of his mouth and off his chest. Nicolette’s footsteps pounded up the stairs as he crossed the hall to his room and climbed into bed. He was about to flick the bedside lamp off when there was a knock on the door.

“August?”

“Go away, Nicolette. It’s been a long, trying few days. I need to rest.” What he needed was to drink from her, away from Dominic—to force her to remember the pleasure of his bite—an addiction that wouldn’t go away. But he wasn’t prepared to appear weak and cloying just now.

The door clicked softly, and she stepped into the room. August leaped out of the bed and blurred to the door, looming over her, one hand above her head holding it shut, the other turning the deadbolt.

Her pulse fluttered in her throat, and her eyes grew large. All at once she looked, not like someone he couldn’t kill, but like any fragile human. Like any meal he would have kept locked in one of his cages. Part of him could barely remember that life, as if it were thousands of miles and years removed from this moment.

“You shouldn’t come to my room unless I send for you.” He pulled the sash on the robe and slid the silky fabric off her shoulders.

“I… August… I… it was a deer? Really?”

He rolled his eyes and growled. “Yes, it was a deer. Did you think I’d killed a human? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“You move fast. You could have gone pretty far.”

“Am I to understand that the only reason you’ll want anything to do with me from now on is to prevent me from murdering people?” As his irritation grew, fangs pushed through his gums.

“N-no. It’s not like that. Dominic said it was okay to… ”

August wrapped a hand around her throat. “Do you imagine I need Dominic’s permission to take what’s mine?”

“H-he didn’t say anything about that. He said… he said it was okay for me to love you.” The last words came out on a whisper, less real than the rest of the sentence. But he’d heard them.

August released her abruptly. Her hand moved to rub the already fading bruises.

“Love?” He worked to keep the expression on his face smugly amused, but he was sure he wasn’t pulling it off.

The idea that she could or would ever love him at any future point in time… that Dominic would consider such a thing, and permit it… Not that one could allow feelings. Still, to say it was okay to let go and feel something, for her husband to imply he wouldn’t hold a grudge, that he’d share her honestly—it was unexpected.

She blushed and looked down.

“What makes you think I require your love? All I want is your blood and your body when I demand it. You can save your soft, sweet feelings for your husband. I don’t want them.”

He’d assumed she’d become angry, but when she started to cry instead, the sparks of conscience reared up. He wouldn’t listen to it. He wouldn’t allow her human feelings to affect him. The vulnerability he might have allowed himself to show her if it were only the two of them could never be now. She’d always choose Dominic. Even if becoming a vampire made it possible for her husband to share, she was still human and would likely always think like one. It wasn’t worth the pain of never really having her.

“Get in the bed,” he growled.

“But… ”

“When you come here without being summoned and I tell you to go away and you persist, then you will do whatever the hell I tell you to do once you’re inside my chamber. Get. In. The. Bed.” He glared and pointed.

“Why are you being like this? You have me. I’m not going anywhere. I thought you said we were eternal? That I was your mate. Now you act as if I’m just food and a whore to you.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

August pushed past the revulsion at her tears, the instinctive urge to comfort her. The bond enslaved her? It enslaved him, to her whims, to her pain, to everything she wanted or felt. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been indifferent to her. From the moment he discovered he couldn’t get inside her head, she’d become something rare and precious. But these feelings that gnawed away at him had grown since he’d had her blood, since he’d sealed them together in an unholy matrimony.

“I-I guess you don’t have to pretend anymore. Since Dominic is a vampire now, and you know I won’t run again. We’re all tied together, so you can be yourself.” Her voice caught in her throat as if tears had somehow gotten lodged in there.

He didn’t reply.

“You were never going to care for me, were you?” she asked.

The fact that she didn’t understand how the bond had affected him was a small comfort in the midst of all she now held over him. He could never let her know her power. It would hurt too much.

“You have Dominic. What does it matter? Do you expect me to believe after everything that has transpired between us that you suddenly feel romantic feelings for me? That I have your heart? You think to play me like some whipped fool?”

Her gaze shifted away from him. “When I was in the hospital, I wanted you to come get me because I knew you were the only one who could or would. You were the only one who understood. You were the only one who had the power to set me free from that place.”

“But now Dominic understands. So, it’s no longer necessary for you to pretend or cling to me.”

“But something changed when I was in there. I hated him for the briefest moment. I didn’t know I could hate him, but when I compared the way I hated him with the way I had hated you, I couldn’t figure out the difference. I wanted you to take me far away from there, from Dominic, from the hospital, from everyone and everything. They betrayed me. I couldn’t imagine you ever abandoning me like that.”

August’s jaw clenched. Her pretty words would not undo him. He let the rage simmer. He could have taken her away. It could have been the two of them if his anger hadn’t demanded retribution. He’d needed to indulge in the sweet vengeance of letting Dominic see the horror of the truth, of knowing what Nicolette had done, what she’d become, that her stories of a vampire lover weren’t madness. He’d wanted to rub it in the man’s face.

“The things you think you feel aren’t real. It’s our link. It will never be real.” Was that what he wanted to believe? How many centuries would he have to feel this need for her before he accepted it as another version of real?

She’d stopped crying but looked as if she might start up again at any moment.

He joined her on the bed and straddled her, cradling her in his arms. The one trump card he held was his bite. Dominic couldn’t replicate it. He could never hope to give her the same intense pleasure from it. If she pushed him, August could simply withhold his mercy, make her suffer the agony of Dominic’s fangs without the counterbalance of his own bite. It was the only power he had left, however perverse. And he knew even as he thought it, that he’d never do it.

He struck and drank deep as she squirmed and mewled beneath him. Dominic would never have a private moment like this. August would always be at the top of this food chain, and Nicolette would always remain at the bottom.

He tore his mouth from her throat. “Look at me.”

Her glazed gaze slid reluctantly to his. Shame. Desire. Anticipation. Fear. Loathing—for herself or him he couldn’t be sure. What was the difference anymore?

“I will bite you when Dominic feeds to keep him from hurting you, but I will have you every day privately first. Do you understand?”

A quick nod.

“Say it. I want to hear it. Not some slight jerk of your head that you can later deny.”

“Y-yes, I-I understand.”

“Good girl.”

August raised his weight off her. Nicolette was flushed. As much as he’d drank, a normal person would be dead or else so pale it would be hard to tell the difference.

“You may sleep with your husband tonight.”

She got up and slipped past him to the door. She paused when she got there, then came back and offered him a chaste kiss. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Letting me keep him.”

He sighed. “I told you I’d give you anything, poppet.”

August watched her leave. A few minutes passed before he heard the sounds of love exchanged between his mate and Dominic down the hall. He tried not to visualize their limbs tangled together, each clinging to the other like a life raft lost in a dark ocean without end.

He gripped the edge of the vanity and focused on his reflection, as if by looking long enough and deeply enough he could unravel all the bits of himself that had tangled in the past centuries. As if he could somehow make sense of any of it, or superimpose a deeper meaning or purpose over the top like a fresh coat of paint on an old shutter.

It was what the humans did. It was what he had once done. To be able to go back to that world where things must make sense. Where everything locked together in a complex puzzle no man understood the entirety of, but that surely would all be explained in a glittering afterlife somewhere.

He’d been wrong. It wasn’t his humanity he’d perceived the nights he’d prayed for the ability to die. He’d had no time or room for reminiscing on what it meant to be human when his existence had revolved around the singular moment of pleasure in feeding before the world crashed down each night.

Yet now, a new eternity unfolded before him. And a new need. The need for love, acceptance, family. The need to not give in to the monster underneath, the one that might like killing a little too much.

Eternal or finite, life was suffering, and there was always a new and more creative way to suffer.

He held his gaze in the mirror as he picked up the jewelry from the dresser and secured the cross around his neck. The familiar weight settled against his bare chest, the silver searing through each layer of skin to burn straight into his soul. The smoke rose off his flesh like dramatically timed fog in a ballet. His heart fluttered in an uncertain and curious cadence. No longer the dull, steady thrumming—the march that went beyond the edges of the universe and kept going. It was a new beat. One that could change. Or someday end.

Through the smoke, August glimpsed the ghost of a smile.

If you enjoyed Blood Mate, please consider some of Kitty's other titles:

(note: links go to the US Kindle store)

Submissive Fairy Tales: A collection of novellas: The Auction, Awakening, and The King's Pleasure

The Auction: Belle lives on a planet where women are auctioned off on their 18th birthday, but the rich girls don’t have to worry as they are soon set free. Belle has bargained to get a friend to buy and release her, but her plan goes awry when one of the alien creatures on the planet outbids him.

The King's Pleasure: Abigail is moments from losing her hand for stealing bread in the castle, when the King is awakened by her screams and decides he’d rather keep her.

Awakening: Nerina is a mermaid unfamiliar with the sexual ways of humans, until she washes ashore and a wealthy landowner becomes determined to awaken her in order to turn her human.

The Last Girl: (Another vampire tale) Juliet is haunted by dreams of a man who once broke into her home but left her unharmed. He’s been waiting for the right moment to come back for her.

Comfort Food: A woman held captive by a man who refuses to speak to her. Touch is the only form of communication he’ll offer.

Mafia Captive: Faith witnesses a mob hit and instead of being killed, becomes an unlikely Christmas present for the mobster’s kinder twin brother.

Guilty Pleasures: Vivian is sexually shut down until she meets massage therapist, Anton, who will go to any lengths to awaken her body to him.

Tender Mercies: Grace doesn’t want play kink. She wants a real master. But will it cost her everything?

Big Sky: Veronica is deep in debt until an attractive rancher comes along with an offer that is too good to be true.

Author's Note:

If you enjoyed Blood Mate, it would mean so much to me if you would leave a review at the place that you purchased it and tell your friends via Facebook and Twitter! :)

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Acknowledgment

Thank you to the following people in no particular order:

Robin for cover art! And for re-doing it to a new template size when we realized the page count estimate was WAY off!

Karen and Michelle for beta reading. Extra thanks for coming to my aid in brainstorming developmental editing sessions and continuing to take a look at changes, new scenes, etc. Definitely above and beyond when I was in a tight spot!

M for digital formatting and putting up with my angst-puppy routine during the final stages of the book. Love you!

Table of Contents:

Front Matter

Blood Mate

Also By Kitty Thomas

Author's Note

Subscribe for updates

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

- Front Matter
- Blood Mate
- Also by Kitty Thomas...
- Author's Note
- Subscribe for updates
- Acknowledgments