Need (Vampire Beloved Book 2)

by R. E. Butler

  Stroking his throat, she leaned over and spoke into his ear.

  “Please, Cyrus, please don’t leave me. I can’t bear to be alone in this life without you. Please, please.”

  His throat flexed and she heard him swallow. Then his whole body jerked, and he began to drink from her, taking great pulls on her flesh. His teeth grew sharp and sank into her flesh, tearing the wound further. She winced but ignored the pain.

  “It’s working, I think,” she said, looking at the members of her family behind her.

  She noticed Mishka was there, standing between Brone and Rage.

  “There’s a line of males ready to donate,” Mishka said. “Cyrus is a good male and they want to help. But I’ll feed him next; my blood is the most powerful in the coven.”

  “Thank you.”

  “He’s your beloved. When things have settled for him in a few days, we’ll welcome him into the family directly.”

  She sat up, leaving her arm in Cyrus’s mouth as he continued to feed. She realized what Mishka meant; he wasn’t going to add Cyrus to the family as a beloved mate as he’d done with Arissa, Harmony, and Angie, but instead as an actual family member. “You haven’t added anyone to the family in ages. I didn’t expect that.”

  “I believe he’ll survive this. And when he does, he’ll be a male with the blood of the master of the coven in his veins, which makes him special.”

  Her vision blurred a little, and Temple was suddenly as her side. “That’s enough, you’re going to give too much.”

  She wanted to protest, to explain that she’d give every last drop of her blood to Cyrus, even if it meant dying so he could live. But the point of this was so that they could live on together forever, not just one of them. She let Temple help free her wrist, and then she moved to the other side of her beloved’s body while Mishka fed him. She closed her own wound, running on autopilot.

  People were milling around, talking in low voices. Although Brone had said the structure wasn’t safe, it appeared to be fine for the moment. Even if it hadn’t been safe, she wouldn’t have moved an inch. She felt frozen in place, watching the male who turned her help to turn the most important male in the universe to her.

  When Mishka was finished, Temple took his place, and then two males from the construction crew waited their turn – one named Merrix, who’d been with Cyrus when the blast hit but had been tossed in the other direction, and one named Rytel, who’d been saved from the worst of the blast by a hard push from Cyrus.

  Ven handed Cella a mug of real blood. She took several long drinks, feeling the blood move down her throat like a caress and round into her stomach. It moved outward from her belly, nourishing her cells and returning her strength. When she could think clearly, she looked at Merrix as he knelt next to Cyrus and fed him.

  “Do you know what happened?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Cyrus said he smelled an unfamiliar tiger. He sniffed around and noticed a ladder out of place, which led him to look at the ceiling. He climbed the ladder and found a bomb stashed in one of the light fixtures. He shouted for everyone to get out. We were racing out of here when it went off. I woke up under the ceiling on the other side of the room. He saved us. No one died in the blast. It could have been so much worse.”

  She heard Cyrus’s heart slow again, the rapid beating that had signaled his body pumping the vampire blood throughout his system now causing the change from mortal to immortal. Merrix removed his wrist from Cyrus’s mouth and sealed his wound.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “He’s my friend, and he saved my life. I’m glad I could help.”

  She looked at Mishka, who was watching over her and Cyrus. “He’s strong. He’ll survive,” Mishka said.

  Nodding, feeling hopeful for the first time since she ran out of her office, she picked up Cyrus’s hand and kissed it. “Come back to me, Cyrus. I need you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Cyrus felt like he was dreaming, but he didn’t remember going to sleep. He couldn’t hear or see anything, and his body didn’t hurt. Which seemed strange. Hadn’t there been an explosion? Shouldn’t he be in pain?

  The moment he recalled the explosion, fury raced through him. Some tiger-essence wearing asshole had tried to kill them all! And Cella! Was she all right? Were there more bombs?

  He struggled to move even a single part of his body, but he was oddly immobile. He wanted to roar in anger, to use his superior senses to find the son of a bitch and use his claws and fangs on him. Except he couldn’t roar. His cat wasn’t there.

  Or he was, but he was different.

  What the hell was going on?

  His hearing began to clear, and he was able to pick out a low, feminine voice whispering.

  “Come back. Please. Don’t go. Cyrus, please.”

  His heart panged.

  Something definitely wasn’t right, but he felt like everything he needed to know about his current situation was all broken up in his mind, a puzzle he was supposed to put together on the fly.

  As his hearing cleared completely, he recognized the voice as belonging to Cella, the most beautiful female in the entire world. His beast purred but the sound wasn’t quite right. It was deeper. Throatier. Pushing the thought away, he focused on Cella. So he hadn’t died in the explosion. That was very good news. Possibly falling into the best-news-ever category. If she was talking to him, then she was safe too.

  Slowly his body began to relax and release from whatever was holding him immobile. He forced his eyes open but could see nothing at first but darkness. As the film cleared, he saw the rough rock ceiling of their chamber, and his beautiful female leaning over him.

  “Cyrus! I thought I was going to lose you like a hundred times in the last twenty-four hours.”

  He tried to sit up, but his body wasn’t interested in helping him get vertical, so he stayed prone on the bed. He attempted to lick his lips but felt strange protrusions from his upper teeth. He traced them with his tongue and realized they were fangs. He clicked his teeth together, and the fangs cut into his gums. He never had fangs except when he was pissed and his tiger came out a little.

  The now odd-sounding tiger in his subconscious let out a roar that was muted and a far cry from the way he normally sounded.

  He forced himself upright, his head swimming and odd memories sitting on the periphery of his mind.

  Blood. So much blood.

  He looked down at himself. He could feel he was wearing underwear, but that was all the clothing he had on. As he ran his fingers over his skin looking for injuries from the blast, he didn’t find any. If there had been any, they were healed.

  Then he realized what Cella had said.

  Blinking several times to clear the last bit of fog from his vision, he looked at her and saw guilt flash in her beautiful eyes.

  “Twenty-four hours? I’ve been unconscious for a full day?”

  “Yes. Cyrus, I–” She started to talk but he cut her off.

  “I feel different, Cella. What happened? What did you do?”

  She straightened her spine, her gaze hardening. “I did what I had to do to ensure you lived.”

  “You made me your beloved?” Damn it, he’d wanted to wait until the full moon.

  “No, I couldn’t. Becoming a beloved involves sex as well as blood sharing. You were dying when I found you, so I did the only thing I could. I turned you.”

  Immediately his hand went to his mouth and he felt the sharp edges of his two fangs. He couldn’t retract them the way he should have been able to if he’d been as he was before the bomb. Before Cella changed him at a cellular level.

  Suddenly furious, he launched himself from the bed to put distance between the two of them. Part of him felt rational. That what Cella said and had done had kept him with her. But the larger part of him was feeling anything but rational.

  “What have you done?” The words cut from his lips like knives.

  “I told you.” She stood, her hands clenched into
fists at her sides, her eyes dark with fury. “I turned you to save you.”

  “You took everything from me, damn it!” He found the long mirror in the corner and looked at himself. He still looked like him, but his eyes were an odd blueish gold, a mixture that didn’t look entirely human. He parted his lips with a growl and saw his fangs. They weren’t the elongated fangs that his tiger could draw forward but were instead sharper, shinier, deadlier.

  He instantly wanted to bite something. Someone.

  His brain misfired, his cat snarling from somewhere deep within him. His eyes turned bright blue and claws emerged from his fingertips. He made a fist and punched the center of the mirror, the glass shattering and falling to the floor.

  “Cyrus!” Cella shouted his name.

  He spun on her and bared his fangs.

  A throbbing pain hit him square in the gut and he doubled over. She was at his side in an instant and half-carried, half-dragged him back to the bed. “Aside from being a giant jackass right now, you’re hungry. Sit.”

  He perched on the edge of the bed, his body still not responding quite like he wanted it to.

  She opened the chamber door and a female came in, giving him a tentative smile. He pulled a blanket over his lower half.

  The female was human and nervous, her hand trembling as she sat next to him on the bed and extended her wrist.

  “You need to feed, Cyrus,” Cella said. She stood in front of him, her arms folded over her chest but her eyes pleading.

  He was angry that she’d turned him. He knew he should be able to get over that, because hello – he was alive. Sort of. But he couldn’t wrap his head around his new reality. And he really didn’t want to drink blood from some random human.

  “No thanks,” he said and pushed the human’s hand away.

  “You have to. The pain will only get worse. You need to feed every few hours for the first twenty-four, and then twice a day for a week until your body adjusts to your new reality. So feed, damn it. I won’t see the efforts of my family thrown away because you’re mad at me.”

  “Your family? What about mine, Cella? You were supposed to wait. Now we’re fucking... whatever the hell we are, and I can’t claim you as my official mate in the ambush. I’m out.”

  “Out of what?” Her eyes were narrowed, her voice dangerously low.

  “Out of the ambush. I’m not a tiger. I can hardly feel my beast anymore.”

  “I should go?” the human asked tentatively.

  “No, he needs to feed.”

  “I said no,” Cyrus said. “No to her. No to all this.”

  “Damn you’re stubborn,” Cella said. “Do you want someone else? Does she not smell good to you?”

  He rose to his feet, grasping the blanket to cover himself. He spared the human a glance. “Get the hell out of here.”

  She scrambled off the bed and ran out of the chamber, the door shutting with a soft snick that sounded extremely loud in the silence of the room. He’d never felt so far away from Cella as he did now even as he was struggling to stay connected to her.

  “You have to feed.” Her voice had taken an exasperated quality.

  “You said we would only feed from each other.”

  “I already told you that we’re not beloveds. I couldn’t bond us together in that way because you were nearly dead. I had no choice but to turn you. My blood won’t do you any good.”

  “You had another choice.”

  “To let you die? Never.” She snarled the last word, and he heard the promise in her tone. She would have razed that building to get him out.

  His stomach pain hit again, worse this time, like three knives buried in his belly, all of them twisting and working deeper. He dropped to a knee, his vision winking out several times before the pain passed. Rising to his feet, he moved to the closet and swiftly dressed, then walked to the door.

  She blocked the door. He was twice her size, and he felt stronger than he had in years. He knew he could move her if he wanted, and he could tell by the set of her features that she knew it too. But he’d never put his hands on a female, and he wasn’t going to start with her. Still, she protested. “Please. You can’t go out there, Cyrus. You have to feed.”

  “I won’t. I don’t know what’s going on with me, but I have to get out of here. Now.”

  Something bubbled up in his throat, and he let out a strange half-snarl, half roar. Her eyes widened and grief shadowed her features.

  “I won’t apologize for saving your life, Cyrus.” Her voice was soft and sad, like someone had let the air out of her anger. Or maybe she hadn’t been angry, but more afraid at his reaction. He couldn’t even really explain why he was so mad. He felt like his emotions were a pendulum, swinging wildly one direction or the other without explanation or warning.

  He stared down at her, and after a long moment she stepped aside and he opened the chamber door. Out in the hall, he looked both directions and then stalked to the elevator, smashing his finger against the button to call it to the floor. Someone joined him, and a quick glance to the side told him it was Traz. Neither of them said anything as the elevator doors opened and they both entered, Cyrus pushing the button for the first floor. He watched the hall to see if Cella would come for him, but she didn’t, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  Traz pushed the stop button and the elevator abruptly ceased its upward momentum.

  “Why did you do that?” Cyrus demanded.

  Traz’s large body was blocking the buttons, and although he was tempted to try to move him, the elevator wasn’t that large, and he didn’t particularly want to get into a brawl in a close space.

  “Because I know what happened and what you’re going through. Cella’s a good female. She saved your life even though she was worried that you’d hate her for it. Look what a prophet she turned out to be.”

  Cyrus ran his hands through his hair, gripping the strands for a moment before scraping his nails down his neck. “I don’t hate her.”

  “So you’re acting like a little bitch for whose benefit then?” Traz’s brow rose, his piercing jade green eyes boring right into Cyrus’s skull.

  “Tell me how thrilled you’d be if you woke up and had lost half of what you’d been. I can barely hear my tiger, and he’s so pissed.”

  Traz frowned. “You can still feel your tiger?”

  “Yeah. He’s buried and faint, but he’s there. Why?”

  “I... shit. We need to talk to Mishka. Come on.”

  Traz pushed the button and the elevator rose to the next floor. Traz wrapped a hand around Cyrus’s upper arm, and he was going to tell him he wasn’t planning to go anywhere so the man-handling wasn’t necessary, but then the stomach pain hit again and he realized the male had simply wanted to be able to help him stay upright. The pain passed and they walked to Mishka’s office, where Traz opened the door without knocking. Cyrus’s vision blurred as the pain nearly overwhelmed him again.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Mishka demanded

  Cyrus’s gaze strayed from the furious coven leader to three males who were standing by Harmony. They were the three shifters from Harmony’s band, Fluffy Venom. He scented the air, his fangs throbbing and a deep groan of need welling within him. He lunged toward the males, but Traz stopped him.

  “He’s still got his tiger. I think the turning didn’t do what we expected it would do. I think he’s a tribrid,” Traz said, his voice straining as he continued to hold Cyrus back.

  “That’s not possible,” Mishka said.

  “I’m not wrong,” Traz insisted. “Just scent him. He’s a myth in the flesh.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cella stared at the chamber door for what felt like an hour but was in reality only a few minutes. She knew she should have stopped Cyrus from leaving the room, but her own emotions were just as mixed up as his appeared to be. She had zero regrets for turning him into a vampire to save his life. But on the flip side, she hated herself as much as he appeared to loathe
her.

  Which had been surprising.

  What had she expected from him? That he’d wake up from the sleep and instantly be right where they’d been before he’d been on death’s door with his finger on the bell. That he would have showered her with kisses and thank-you-for-saving-me’s and they could have gone along as if nothing had changed between them. Even though things had changed drastically. She wondered, as she inhaled deeply and opened the door, if he really would have preferred to die. It was a concept she couldn’t fathom, but then she’d wanted to be turned. It was important to Cyrus that they mated officially before the ambush so that she would be welcome in the territory, and she’d ripped that option out of their lives when she gave him her blood to save him. In her mind, it was a choice she’d willingly taken, the consequences be damned. He clearly didn’t feel the same way.

  She walked into the hall, following his scent to the elevator. As it rose to the first floor, she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and wished – not for the first time – that she’d never been faced with the choice of whether he lived or died.

  The doors opened and Harmony was standing in the hall. “There you are! I was just coming to get you. You didn’t answer your phone.”

  Cella patted the pockets of her skirt and found them empty. With a sigh, she said, “I don’t know where it is. It’s been a little crazy.”

  Crazy being an understatement of great proportions. Not only had she turned her beloved into a vampire, but he’d nearly died several times during the transition. Becoming a vampire was dangerous. She’d had to feed him from her own vein each time he was about to crash. She was exhausted to the very center of her being, not to mention that she felt like her whole world was crashing down around her.

  Harmony snapped her fingers in front of Cella’s face. “Hello?”

  Blinking, Cella shook her head and focused. “Sorry, what?”

  “We need you in Mishka’s office.”

  She followed Harmony, and found Cyrus pinned against one wall by Traz and Brone. He was snarling and snapping his jaws together as he struggled in their hold. Across the room, Harmony’s bandmates – Bridge, Tamar, and Wyst – were watching warily.