He rocked back, her words flung so carelessly, so cruelly, that he needed a moment to recover. He should throttle her for speaking to him that way. Part of him wanted to inform her that she could hate him all she wanted. It wouldn’t negate their fated tie to an eternal life together.
Doubling his pace he caught up to her and stepped ahead of her on the path. “I never imagined such a filthy mouth on such a beautiful woman,” he muttered.
“Get used to it, dickhead.”
He ground his teeth and heaved another breath. She’d learn. Eventually she’d learn to control her speech and her temper, just as he controlled his.
She followed him up the porch steps and he took a fortifying breath. His vulnerability showed like the tender underbelly of a babe when he looked back at her. He hadn’t expected her to have such an effect on him. “Please,” he said softly. “My mother is recovering from a tragedy. I beg you not to upset her.”
Concern flashed in her eyes, interrupting the mask of anger. “What kind of tragedy?”
Her curiosity surprised him. A quick read of her emotions showed only sympathy. “She miscarried.”
The soft inhalation of breath showed a sort of empathy only a woman could claim. “I’m sorry.” Her gaze cut away, a deep V forming between her brows. “How old is—”
“They’re waiting for us.”
All chatter stilled as they entered the house, depositing them directly in the kitchen where his immediate family waited, except Cain and Larissa. Grace’s warm, welcoming smile calmed a bit of his nerves.
His mate’s anger faded to uncertainty and her face paled. Moved by instinct, he clasped her cold hand in his, covering her trembling fingers with his free hand. “It’s all right.” He couldn’t see why the sight of his family would startle her so. Perhaps it was a combination of everything.
Her weakness again showed as she shuffled closer, but she refused to lean into his side, proving she was still cross with him.
“This is Annalise.”
Relief and joy flowed from his mother in a wave of her undisguised happiness as she stood from the table. He had yet to set eyes on her since returning. Her color looked better and, before now, he hadn’t seen her smile in weeks.
“My son.” She opened her arms and pulled him close in an embrace so full of affection it impacted him in ways he hadn’t expected. Breathing in her familiar scent, he drew from her confidence in him. “God has returned you to us.” She clutched his face, giving him one more long look, and then turned her attention to Annalise.
“Anna, this is my mother, Abilene.”
His mother pulled his mate into her arms and hugged her close. “You are a true blessing to this family, child. Thank you for seeing my son home safely.”
Adam disregarded his mother’s comment but caught the confusion in Annalise’s eyes. He led her to the table where his father stood. “This is my father, Jonas.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Annalise.”
She nodded but said nothing.
“You must be exhausted from your journey.” Jonas stepped back. “Please sit. Join us for supper.”
Adam glanced at his sister, hoping to glean some inference of what Annalise thought of his family, but his sister only smirked.
Annalise lowered herself into a chair and stared at him with uncertainty. “Eat.” He added a slight mental push to the command. She’d lost a lot of blood due to him and it had been hours since she last had solid food in her belly.
She glanced at her plate, her hand slowly closing around the fork.
Grace giggled. “She thinks you’re going to kill her.”
“Grace,” their father scolded. Softening his voice, he addressed Annalise, “You are safe here, child. Please, eat.”
There was no push to his father’s offering. Any sort of slip into a claimed female’s mind would be a punishable oversight. Yet Annalise seemed to respond to his father’s gentle coaxing more than the mental command. He frowned. How was she resisting? Could her will be that strong?
Adam could sense her hunger enough to experience the slight cramping she suffered. He pushed the plate closer. “Please taste it.”
She looked up at him, her strength of will wavering in the face of her hunger. He wouldn’t force her. Her body needed sustenance. She’d only punish herself by starving.
“Thank you.” She finally took a bite of the food offered.
“Poor dear,” his mother said, taking the seat across from her. “I can imagine this is quite overwhelming for you.”
His father sent him a concerned look. They discussed the situation. He explained that his mate had a stubborn side. The urgent need to complete the bond seemed all his Elders could see.
“Where is Cain?”
“Your brother’s staying with the Hostetlers.”
He frowned. While Cain often visited Larissa, he rarely stayed. “Why?”
“They’re going to raise a barn this coming Wednesday. He’s keeping your sister company and helping prepare the site.”
Adam was excused from helping due to his circumstances. “I’ll need him here no later than Thursday.” The sooner he built his mate a home the sooner she might adjust. “There’s much to be done.”
“Have you thought of where you’ll build your home?” his mother asked. “Annalise might like the pasture where the laurel grows.”
His mate stilled and forced her fork to the table. Keeping her face angled toward her plate, she swallowed. “I’m not staying.”
His mother froze, worry burning from her pores. His father met his stare with an intense one of his own.
Grace cocked her head, watching Annalise. “That plan won’t work. He won’t let you leave the farm until you bond.”
“What plan?” Adam frowned, his gaze jumping from Annalise to Grace.
“She thinks you’ll escort her to town to find a phone. You’ll think she’s calling her school, but she’ll actually call the police.”
Hurt by her deception when he’d offered to help her contact her professor, he scowled at his mate. “Is that true?”
Annalise’s eyes widened. “She’s making that up. I just want to contact my professor.”
“She plans to scream and beg for help the moment you pass a stranger on the road.”
“How are you doing that?” she shouted.
His father folded his arms. “Adam, you need to—”
“I know what I must do,” he snapped, angered by her dishonesty and the betrayal he sensed. “Are you finished eating?”
Her jaw quivered. “Why? Where are we going?” She looked to Grace, but his sister had the good sense to look away.
“Are. You. Finished?”
In a small voice, she said, “You said you’d take me to a phone.”
“I said I’d think of a solution. Your intended deception proves a trip to town isn’t the solution we need right now.”
“But I didn’t do anything! You’re punishing me for something that hasn’t happened!”
“My sister—”
“I thought I was the end all be all of your—”
“I trust Grace more than you at this moment. Mostly, because you don’t yet trust me. I told you, we must first have trust before anything else.”
“Trust isn’t something you can command! It’s earned—and not by holding someone hostage!”
“Adam.”
He ignored his father. “Stubborn woman. If you proved trustworthy, you’d have your freedom.”
She laughed. “Freedom? Is that what you call this? Tell me this, if I did stay, would I be free to wear the clothing I chose and do my hair however I wanted? Last I checked, even elastic was forbidden.” She yanked off her kapp and his eyes went wide. “I’m tired of acting like this is normal! I’m being held here against my will and you all act like you’re celebrating some sort of marriage proposal. I want a phone and I want one now, or I swear to God I’ll press charges against all of you.”
She stood panting, staring at his fa
mily as they turned their gazes away. Her frantic stare clashed with his, greeted by cold disappointment. Her jaw trembled, her teeth bit firmly into her lower lip.
“Are you finished?”
Her eyes flushed pink as her confused, volatile emotions fired in every direction. “I just want to go home,” she whispered.
“Anna, dear.” His mother intercepted. “Why don’t you come with Gracie and me? We can get you settled somewhere comfortable and answer any questions you might have.”
“Abilene,” his father interjected, knowing it wasn’t her place to interfere in Adam’s and his mate’s private affairs.
“It’s fine, father. That might be helpful.” After such an outburst he struggled to find an appropriate response. Her lack of obedience humiliated him, leaving him grateful only his immediate family had been present for such an outburst.
He looked back to Annalise. “Go with them.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the door and Grace rushed forward, taking her hand. “Come along, Anna.”
She hesitantly followed his sister and mother out of the kitchen. He stared until she disappeared down the hall.
“She won’t flee,” he said, returning to his seat.
“You’ll not allow it.”
He nodded but lacked the constitution to offer any verbal guarantee.
“Why haven’t you told her what we are?”
“Is it not obvious? She’s confused and frightened. She’s been through enough for one day.”
“Once you explain everything, she will have no reason to be afraid.”
“How can you believe that? I’ve stolen her away from everything she knows. She’s angry, and rightly so. She isn’t listening to anything but her anger. Once she calms down, I’ll explain things.”
“Adam, this is God’s plan, God’s timetable. You risk too much waiting for a woman to suddenly start thinking rationally. Your nature is telling you to claim what belongs to you. Hers… Well, females are simply more complicated than men. Trust me, you do not have time to await her emotional acceptance.”
“And what of her plans? She had a life before I arrived.”
“Get ahold of your senses. This is not a game. Do you want to end up as your uncle? You know there can only be one outcome.”
He wouldn’t let it come to that. “I have time.”
His father studied him, his concern flowing in waves. “Not as much as you assume.”
He broke his stare. “She has nightmares about me. Is that normal?”
“I would have to ask an Elder. It’s been my understanding that dreams are pleasurable.”
“Mine are. I’ve never experienced any sort of terror. But the nightmares frighten her. I sense her fear when she sleeps, but I can’t reach her. Could she still be dreaming without me?”
“You’ve fed from her?”
He nodded.
“Then your sub-consciences should be entwined. It’s you she sees in the nightmares?”
“So she says, but she claims there’s another presence.”
“How have you opened her vein yet she’s unaware you are immortal?”
“She was unconscious.”
“No wonder she appears so pale. You’ve taken too much, Adam. Do not forget that she’s human. They’re much more fragile than our females.”
Every time he’d fed from her it became more difficult to pull away. Her blood intoxicated more than his stomach. “She’s too weak for more. I fed as soon as we arrived and again just a few hours ago.”
Yet, hunger ate at him. He’d assumed Annalise’s hunger had been paining him, but he still suffered in her absence.
“Perhaps you should feed once more before seeing her again. You’re temperamental.”
“For good reason, Father.”
“Yes. But the more you drink from her, the more your baser instincts will come into play. Careful, my son.”
“I won’t hurt her.”
“That’s a guarantee you cannot make in your state. She’s already emotionally wounded. Do not let your control slip more than it already has.”
He knew what to avoid, but no one explained how. There were no instructions to guarantee he’d take the correct next step. “I feel blind.”
“Follow your instincts. What are they telling you?”
He glanced at his father from the corner of his eye. “Are you honestly asking me to say it?”
He chuckled. “No. I’m asking you to stop pretending you don’t know the next step. You’ve found her, now you must claim her. Complete the bond, Adam. Everything else will work out after.”
“I want her permission.”
“She’s yours. You don’t need her permission.”
His hands balled into fists. “She … doesn’t feel like mine. I sense her soul aligning with mine, but… She’s hardheaded.”
“A truly hardheaded woman will not be swayed in a matter of weeks, which you do not have. You have days. Perhaps it’s time you faced reality and do what needs to be done.”
“I don’t know if I could live with myself if she despises me.”
“She is your survival, Adam. There will be no living with her at all if you don’t make haste. You can show her you’re a male of worth once your future’s secured.”
His father was right. They needed to complete the bond, and despite his greatest instinct to protect her, he needed to put his gentler emotions aside in order for that to happen. “You’re right.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Do you have family, dear?”
Annalise stared at the woman, Abilene, not trusting that she was Adam’s mother. She didn’t look a day over twenty-five. How was their relationship possible?
She needed information. If she could somehow form a female bond with them, she could build an alliance.
Guarding her thoughts, which was pretty much impossible around Grace, she forced a smile. Keeping things honest seemed the best way to earn their trust. Maybe then they’d help her.
“My mother died after I graduated high school. I never met my father.” Sixteen sentences exchanged over social media did not make a relationship. Nor did it prove linked DNA.
“Do you not have siblings?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
They were sitting in a very plain bedroom on a wooden bed covered in a maroon and cream quilt. Grace lowered herself to the mattress.
“Well, now you do. I make a wonderful sister.” She smiled brightly. “And you will love Cain and Larissa, though Cain can sometimes be a dummkup.”
“Grace,” Abilene quietly scolded. “Don’t listen to her, Anna. Cain’s an honorable male just like his brother, if a bit of a handful at times.”
A handful? If Adam’s brother liked to break the rules, maybe he’d help her escape. “How old is Cain?”
“Same as Adam, thirty-seven. They’re twins.”
“Thirty-seven? Wha—” That couldn’t be right. Adam’s skin still had that baby softness under his eyes and moved with the fluidity of water. There was no way he was three years from turning forty.
She glanced at the two women. Abilene could not have a thirty-seven-year-old son. And how old was Grace?
“How old are you?” she asked Adam’s sister.
“I’m twenty-one.”
And yet she looked no more than seventeen.
She supposed Amish families had children as long as they were physically able. She looked at Abilene. “Your children are sixteen years apart. That’s uncommon where I’m from.”
“The boys and Grace, yes. Larissa is older.”
Something was wrong here. Were the children adopted? The resemblance in their facial features hinted at a blood relation.
Abilene patted her hand and grinned. “Trust me, I’m much older than I appear.”
How much older?
Grace’s gaze shifted to her mother as she worried her lip. “She needs to talk to Adam. There’s much he needs to explain, and it shouldn’t come from us.”
Her
body tensed. Going back to Adam meant more talk about crazy futures that wouldn’t happen. She needed these women to listen and help her.
Gripping Abilene’s hand, she pleaded, “I appreciate your hospitality, but I can’t stay here. I have a job and other responsibilities. I need to go home. Please help me.”
She needed shoes, but neither Abilene nor Grace wore a pair she could borrow. She needed a car or a horse. Could she ride a horse without seriously hurting herself? Probably not.
Money would help. If she had her phone, she could Uber her way out of here.
She could not stay here—with him. He wasn’t stable. His obsession with her, and whatever connection he thought they shared, was padded cell crazy.
Grace placed a gentle hand on her knee. “Once you get to know him, you’ll realize how lucky you are to belong to him.”
And things like that… It really freaked her out when they said things like that. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
The first twinge of a migraine took shape, throbbing at her temples. Her head felt poked and prodded. She hadn’t eaten enough, and nausea crowded the empty space of her stomach.
“I think she’s ill.” Grace winced. “Her headache’s blocking me.”
Annalise’s head slowly pivoted to face Adam’s sister. “Are you telepathic?”
She smiled but didn’t answer.
Abilene patted her hand and stood. “Perhaps Anna would like to clean up and dress for bed. Grace, find one of your sister’s sleeping gowns and show her the washroom. I’ll see what’s keeping Adam.”
But … they said they’d answer questions. The little she learned about their family left her more confused than before.
“I slept all day.” There were no locks on the doors. Tonight, when they fell asleep, she could run. She forced a yawn. “But I am tired.”
She followed Grace to the back of the house where she opened a door. With the lack of electricity on the farm, the sky burst with stars, but nothing but blackness surrounded them.
Annalise hesitated. “Where are we going?”
“Oh, I forgot.” Grace pulled a metal lantern off a hook and lit the wick. A small outbuilding stood in the distance.
The cool grass pressed into the soles of her bare feet as she followed Grace across the lawn. A warm breeze teased her neck with a hair that escaped her bonnet. The scent of earth and openness consumed her, reminding just how removed they were from society.
Original Sin (The Order of Vampires Book 1) Page 15
