Bitten (The Graced Series Book 2)

by Amanda Pillar

  She gave a slightly nervous laugh. “Oh, no.”

  Then she leaned forward, and placed a hand on his chest. Before he could think, she was pressing her red lips to his.

  Every muscle in his body locked up. She tasted amazing, but too quickly other thoughts assaulted his senses — the memories of other mouths pressed to his, other hands touching his chest.

  Sensing his unease, Alice backed off with a soft, sad little smile.

  Feeling her warmth so close, having her scent wrap around him, he couldn’t pretend that this was just fun, not when he was dreading that sex would be almost as traumatic as it would be pleasurable, at least the first time.

  “I want to be honest here,” Byrne said.

  “Okay. Was it really that bad?”

  “No! No...”

  “You didn’t kiss me back, so...”

  Byrne shut his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “It’s not you. It’s nothing to do with you.”

  Alice raised an eyebrow. “We’re already having this conversation?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean no. Not that kind of conversation.” Oh, how he wished he had Fin’s way with words.

  Alice bit her lip.

  Then, with all the suave charm he was known for, he blurted, “I think you’re my mate.”

  The stunned silence stretched out. “Your mate? What does that even mean?”

  “Clay says it’s like weres have a psychic sense of smell. When we find someone who smells so utterly irresistible, they’re your mate. You’re destined to be together.”

  “You believe in destiny?”

  “I hoped that I’d one day find someone for me. I just wasn’t sure the ‘psychic smell’ would work.”

  “So I smell?” Alice sniffed her armpit.

  Byrne couldn’t help but chuckle. “You smell amazing.”

  Her eyes took on a slightly wicked gleam. “Like what?”

  “Chocolate and sin.”

  “Sin has a smell?” Alice asked.

  “Apparently.”

  Then she leaned forward, and breathed in deeply. “What are you doing?”

  “Smelling you.”

  “And?”

  “Honey and cloves,” she said, a little wonderingly. “You smell like cookies. I like cookies.”

  Byrne grinned. “Aren’t I lucky then?”

  Chapter 66

  “You’re a nuisance, you know that?”

  The bloody goat just stared at Fin with her odd slit-pupil eyes, her chewed-through leash in her mouth. He’d been coming over to the stable to see Hannah and found the beast wandering loose outside. Taking hold of the mangled leather, he pulled the goat back under cover.

  There were voices, coming from the wagon. He’d thought that Hannah would be alone.

  He peered into the back of the cart, knowing that Hannah had already heard him enter the stables. She was sitting in the back of the wagon, with a little girl. Not Rena; Elle — of all people — had snaffled the baby and disappeared with Lady Beatrice, the Baron’s mother. Even though the half-Graced vampire clearly loved her own little sister, Fin hadn’t really pictured her being fond of other people’s babies. But she’d cooed all over the infant, her werewolf fiancé looking a little uncomfortable at the display.

  Fin had felt sorry for the were. But only a little bit.

  Elle’s sister had long brown hair and brown skin, but her Teal eyes were startling. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that she’d sought out Hannah, the only other person Fin had met with eyes a color that no one else had.

  “Hello,” Fin said, leaning on the edge of the wagon.

  The little girl spun around, but stayed polite. “Hello.”

  Fin met Hannah’s gaze over the girl’s head. She smiled at him, and he grinned back, stupidly happy. Ah, he was in so much trouble.

  “Are you meant to be here?” he asked Emmie. “I thought I heard your sister muttering about you being in bed and that’s how she could get away with snuggling Rena without your mother finding out.”

  “What? Elle took Rena?” Emmie’s curious gaze latched onto him.

  “I’m just reporting on what I saw.”

  Emmie scooted out the back of the wagon. “Mom has been teasing her that Elle is clucky. I have to see this.” Turning back to Hannah, Emmie waved. “Bye!” Then, with a swish of her skirts, she was scampering across the stables, stopping briefly to scold Bettina / Barry / Betty and wave a ribbon at the creature.

  Fin climbed into the cart and sat next to Hannah. She gave him another small smile, and this one felt special, as if it was just for him.

  “She’s like me,” Hannah said slowly.

  “Like you?” Fin asked.

  “Not the same, but special.”

  He didn’t ask. If there was one thing he’d learnt from living with talented sisters, it was that being special was something better left hidden. Especially from him. He didn’t want to accidentally get the girl in trouble one day, if his sisters asked too many questions. It’s not that he thought they’d harm a child, but he hadn’t seen them in years, and he didn’t know how they’d react to a new color. A new type of Graced.

  Hannah lay down in the back of the cart, and pulled her blanket up to her chin. “Is it wrong that I’m jealous of her?”

  “Jealous?”

  “That she has something wonderful, and I have this.” So much bitterness in one word.

  Fin shook his head. “What you can do is amazing, too.”

  “Really? What good has it done me?”

  “You were able to work out how to feed Rena and keep her alive. If not for your ability, would you have had any idea what to do? Would you have known that she’d be in danger if you’d brought her back to the Trsetti?”

  Hannah mumbled something into her blanket. Lying down on his back, Fin scooped an arm under her neck, then looped her arm over his chest. She resisted for a moment, then wrapped herself around him, still careful of his ribs.

  “But I would have been lost without you and Byrne. I couldn’t even tie a diaper.”

  She still struggled, but he wasn’t about to mention that. He didn’t want her to throw him out of the cart. He was enjoying her snuggling into his side, although he would never admit it to Byrne. Fucking bear. He’d just vanished after the meal had finished, which was totally unlike him. Fin might have been worried if not for the fact that he was a huge black bear.

  Well, maybe he was a bit worried.

  Just a little.

  “I just wish I could do something good,” Hannah said.

  Fin ran a hand over her silky black hair. “Don’t talk like that. You’re fantastic, Hannah. You saved Rena’s life. You saved my life. You’re not the one who fucks everything up, that’s me.”

  And he’d been doing it ever since he was seventeen. You’d think he would have learned his lesson by now, but nope. Still a dickhead.

  “So what, you had sex with the wrong woman. Byrne said she drugged you.”

  Well, that might have been true. There had been an aphrodisiac, but the woman had told him it was in there. He’d thought she was joking — or just flirting a bit — but no, it had been true. His cock and balls had bloody hurt with need.

  Fin sighed. “That’s not it.”

  “Fin—”

  “No, really.” Without warning, the words spilled from him, about Karly and Callie, and the shame and pain he had carried for over ten years. About his weakness. Hannah would know, finally know what a waste of space he was.

  “We were only seventeen and I wanted her so badly. We had sex, and she got pregnant. I was so scared about it, but she was happy. Ecstatic, even. And then, nine months later, the labor started.” His breath was sawing in and out of his chest. “It was horrible. There was blood everywhere, and then Callie came out, the cord was around her neck, and she was blue. My little girl was born dead. And Karly went not long after. The perfect baby she’d been so happy to have, killed her.
/>   “I killed her.”

  And then Hannah was leaning over him, her Black eyes fierce. Tears had wound their way down her cheeks, and she smeared one of them away angrily before placing her hands on his cheeks, a touch to anchor him. To anchor her.

  “You did not kill her.”

  “If I hadn’t had sex...”

  “Did you force her?”

  Horror filled him. “What? No.”

  “Then you did not kill her. She chose to have sex with you. She wanted the baby. It was just horrible, horrible what happened. But it isn’t your fault.”

  “My daughter is dead.”

  Hannah nodded, her gaze serious. “But it is not your fault. No one will ever replace Callie, but now you have a family that needs you. Rena needs you. I need you. And you are not to blame.”

  Part of him wanted to believe her, but another knew that it wasn’t so simple. He was selfish enough to be happy that she didn’t hate him for his mistakes, though. That she wanted to be with him anyway.

  “If you want to be with me, Hannah, I won’t let you go. I want you to know that. You’re stuck with my sorry aging ass.”

  She gave him a wicked grin. “I like your ass, so that’s okay.”

  He leered. “Who wouldn’t like my ass?”

  Laughing, she gently tapped him on the shoulder. “I love you.”

  Her words turned him hard as a rock. In more ways than one. But the panic he expected to claw its way through him, to drive him all the way back to the Old Mother, never came. There was nothing except a feeling of peace, of contentment that this beautiful woman was his. That he was hers.

  He couldn’t understand how he’d managed to get so lucky, but he wasn’t going to waste any more time questioning it.

  “I love me, too.”

  Hannah hit him in the arm.

  “I mean you, I love you!” He laughed.

  “I love you, too.”

  Chapter 67

  “So you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with?” Alice’s expression was sober.

  “Well, no,” Byrne said. “I mean I do. You smell wonderful, but it doesn’t mean I’m instantly in love with you.”

  She let out a grateful sigh. “That’s good. I—I’m not so good with relationships. This mate thing is already enough pressure.”

  A psychic sense of smell? How did that even work? But she couldn’t deny that she’d never been this attracted to a guy before.

  “And, I just want to say that I liked our kiss before,” Byrne went on, his deep voice filling the room. “But I’m not sure that I can be fully intimate, not soon.”

  A multitude of thoughts darted through her mind, each one worse than the next. “Are you gay? And does the scent thing mean that you have to try and be with me? Or don’t you find me attractive?”

  Way not to sound desperate, Alice.

  “No!” Then quieter, “No.”

  Her stomach dropped all the way to the basement. “You don’t find me attractive?”

  He glowered at her, his beautiful mouth forming into a hard line. “Are you nuts? You’re sexy as anything.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  While she still didn’t believe him one hundred percent, relief surged through her. She wanted to kiss him again, so much. To touch him. Just be near him. “Then...?”

  “You know how Hannah said she has a special ability?”

  “Absorbing peoples’ memories.” Alice couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice.

  “Right. Well, it’s true. She can.”

  For some reason, she believed him. Well, believed that he believed it.

  “And there are others out there too, like her.”

  “Other people who can absorb memories?”

  “No, people who can read thoughts, people who can move things with their minds. Your friend Talan is one of them.”

  Alice laughed, she couldn’t help it.

  “I mean it,” Byrne said. “Everyone who has eyes with colors other than brown, yellow or purple has a special talent.”

  “But that’s—”

  “True.”

  Sure, there weren’t many people she’d met with colored eyes, but she knew a handful. And she’d known Tal her entire life. She seriously doubted that her best friend would be able to keep a secret that big from her.

  “There would be some scientific literature on this, if it was real,” she said. “It wouldn’t be a secret.”

  “It’s a secret because the people with the talents want it to be one. They don’t want other people to know. The only reason I can remember is because I have a natural mental shield that prevents my memory from being wiped.”

  “Okay, say that I believe this — which I don’t — what does this have to do with you?”

  Byrne settled back into her couch, shifting the cushion on his lap awkwardly. “One hundred years ago, I was kidnapped by weres. They also took my sister, Ruby, and so I didn’t put up too much of a fight. They said they’d kill her if I didn’t go peaceably.”

  The blood drained from Alice’s face. She might not believe him about the special-mind-powers business, but this she just knew was true.

  “They sold me to a group of humans who had colored eyes. They’re called the Graced. They wanted to experiment on me, to learn the full extent of were abilities. They stuck me in a cell, and for one hundred years, I never left that room.” His eyes were hard and glittering, his jaw clenched, but his words were even and carefully spoken.

  Horror had lodged itself within her chest, and was spreading further through her body with every word he uttered.

  “For the most part, they just tortured me with silver and left me to it. But then the last two generations of Graceds came. They were evil bitches. They decided that they wanted to create the ultimate race: an immortal Graced. No one knew that there was already one — no, two — out there. And so they drugged me with aphrodisiacs, and then they...used...me.”

  His voice broke on these last words, and Alice threw herself at him, hugging him. He didn’t move for a precious few seconds, but when she went to pull back, his strong arms wrapped around her.

  “So it’s not you, it’s me. I just don’t know if I’m ready.”

  Alice disentangled herself from him, and pulled her dress down a little to reveal her pale scar. “When I was fourteen, my mother was stabbed to death, and my brother was kidnapped. I interrupted the killer, and I got stabbed. I was lucky to survive, but now...now I worry that everyone who loves me is going to leave. And that I’m going to be left alone. Again.

  “So while I can’t possibly know how you feel, I do know that I want to take this slow. I think you’re incredibly sexy, and you must have so much courage and will to have survived what you did. But to me, you’re just a man who smells like cookies. A man I want to get to know better. But slowly.”

  He grinned then, and it was brilliant, but there was a bitter edge to it. “Please don’t tell anyone what I told you.”

  Alice placed a light kiss on his cheek. “Never.”

  “I’m just a man who smells like cookies?”

  A smile bloomed across her cheeks. “And I’m a woman who smells like chocolate and sin.”

  Chapter 68

  Hannah woke to Fin's arms around her and the smell of verbena and lemon. It was a novel experience, and something that she secretly reveled in. She didn't want to move, but sunlight was streaming through the stables and the human assistants would be up and about soon, tending to the animals’ needs. Just because vampires preferred a nocturnal lifestyle, it didn't mean that the animals they relied on did as well.

  As quietly as she could, she extracted herself from Fin's warmth. He grumbled something in protest and she smiled down at him. A human. A ladies’ man. Someone prettier than they had a right to be. None of those things would have made her list of 'perfect partner' — if she'd ever dared to even produce such a list. But it was funny ho
w she couldn't picture wanting anything different about Fin.

  Aside from his mortality.

  It was already difficult enough to know that Rena would not survive being Chosen or Bitten; that the baby she'd saved would surely die long before she would. Eventually she would have to convince him that Choosing him was a risk they should take together.

  Enough!

  Stop being a ninny. You have a beautiful baby, you have Fin, Byrne and even your mother. And a new brother and sister.

  Although, if she were honest with herself, she was in two minds how she felt about that last part. Dante was painfully remote, and Misty had a flighty air about her. Neither sibling appeared to share any personality traits with her, and they certainly didn’t suffer her affliction. Then again, no one else ever had, not as far as she was aware.

  Fin opened his eyes, his Hazel gaze immediately seeking hers. He gave her a sheepish grin. “Morning.”

  “Hey.”

  Propping himself up on his elbows, he gave her a naughty wink. “You snore.”

  Hannah drew herself upright, glowered at him. “I do not!”

  “You're right, you don't.” Laughing, he sat up.

  “Fin!”

  “What? Byrne isn't here for me to bother, so you're going to have to suffer, I'm afraid.”

  She groaned. Surely the man could go five minutes without needing to be a pain in someone’s ass? Then his words registered. “Where is Byrne?” she asked, thinking back to the were’s abrupt departure the night before.

  “No idea.” Fin shrugged. “I imagine he'll return soon. Sometimes crowds bother him.”

  She could understand that. Crowds certainly bothered her, and there had been far too many people in attendance last night. It had been bad enough that her brother had been there, but then there’d been his husband, his Chosen, his Chosen’s fiancé, her sister, and oh, his mother-in-law. Then his dinner guests had arrived, which included the city coroner, a mathematics professor and Dante’s other sister. Hannah’s half-sister.