“I thought a little nudge might do him some good. They keep dancing around each other,” Aiden replied.
“He almost tore your head off because of that ‘little nudge.’ You know better than to mess with a vampire during this time.”
“I know better about a lot of things I do, but I still do them,” Aiden stated. “Besides, it worked, didn’t it? He’s going after her.”
“You’re all idiots,” Lucien chimed in.
Whatever else they said was lost to David as he stepped out of the gym. Following Mia’s inherent rose scent, he made his way down the hall to the outside door. The cold air slapped him in the face when he pushed the door open. The wind blowing across the ground lifted the snow until it swirled in the air around him in dancing flakes as he walked.
He stopped outside the door to the main house, frowning as he sniffed at the air. He turned away from the door when he realized Mia hadn’t gone back inside. Following her scent, he walked around the building toward the side yard.
He found her standing beneath the boughs of the tree she could see from her room. As he walked closer to it, he realized that it was a large maple. Mia stared into the tree as a cardinal hopped through the numerous branches.
“You know they say a cardinal is the representative of a loved one coming to visit you,” Mia said when David stepped beside her. She’d heard his footsteps in the snow, but she would have known he was there before she’d heard him. Her skin had become electrified the second he’d turned the corner of the mansion.
David watched the bird as it continued to descend, moving through the branches as if it were enticed by her too. And why wouldn’t it be? Her soul may be battered, but the strength of it radiated from her. He had a feeling she didn’t know how strong she truly was.
“I’ve heard that,” he replied.
“My mother loved birds. If anyone were to come back for a visit, it would be her. Or with as close as they were, maybe my parents hitched a ride on the same bird.”
A wistful smile tugged at the corners of her lips as the cardinal stopped a few feet above her. It tilted its head back and forth, studying her. David had never put much credence into the idea, but with the way the cardinal watched her, he started to rethink his stance on the whole thing.
“I’ve known enough mated vampires to believe that could be true,” he admitted.
“Growing up around the kind of love they had, I used to dream of finding a mate for myself one day. I’d always known I could go my entire life without meeting my mate, but I’d also known it was possible he was out there, waiting for me. I would have waited for him forever. Then the fire tore my world apart, and I no longer dreamed of anything. Dreams are for children. I stopped being a child that night.”
David studied her profile as she watched the bird moving ever lower. The cold had caused a redness to creep across the cheeks of her heart-shaped face. Her full mouth pursed as her head tilted to the other side while she watched the bird. The small point to her chin gave her an air of determination.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweats to keep from brushing the hair back from her face when the wind blew it forward. “Where did you go after the fire?” he asked.
“Everywhere and nowhere,” she replied. “I had nowhere to go. No one to turn to. My parents had some vampire friends over the years, but not many. They had a falling out with a man who was a close friend of theirs shortly after we moved into the house that caught on fire. They lost contact with others over time, and two were killed by hunters.”
Mia pushed back her hair before continuing. “At first, I was too devastated after the fire to think clearly, and I found myself wandering the streets of Hartford. To this day, I still have no memory of how I got to the city. We lived a good half hour away from Hartford, and when I finally became aware of my surroundings, I didn’t have a car with me.
“I had no money, no job, no shelter. I was a purebred vampire, stronger than most recently turned vamps already, but I hadn’t fully matured or completely come into my abilities at that time. If I’d been older, I could have used my ability for mind control to get an apartment, but I didn’t have enough skill with it at the time to keep up the charade.
“My mind control would sometimes last for a week or two on a human. At other times, only a day or an hour. Maybe I could have kept doing it to someone, but who knows what that kind of continued manipulation to the human mind does over time. I wasn’t willing to take the chance of inflicting permanent damage on someone.”
“I don’t blame you,” David said when she stopped speaking.
“After my mind control wore off, and the people I’d been manipulating realized I didn’t belong in that hotel room or apartment, I’d find myself back on the streets. In the beginning, I was so heartbroken and confused that I really didn’t care about having a place to stay or anything of my own. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle everything that had happened to me. It was also when the panic attacks first started,” she admitted in a shamed whisper.
David’s fingers flexed as he resisted resting his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. She would jerk away though, move farther away from him and possibly retreat inside. This was the most she’d ever opened up to him; he couldn’t do anything to push her away. However, not being able to do anything for her was the most frustrating experience of his life.
“I struggled to survive with the other street kids, and there were a lot of them. Too many,” Mia continued. “The emptiness in their eyes, what they had to do to survive, to eat, broke my heart. No matter how many times I moved, or the different cities I went to, that emptiness and the circumstances for those kids were always the same. I was different than they were, yet I also fit in with them and didn’t feel quite so alone when I was with them.
“My vampire abilities may not have been honed back then, but I was far more fortunate than those kids were. I was faster and stronger. I didn’t have to do the things those humans did to survive. I didn’t get beat up or raped. I watched out for more than a few of them and defended them, but I also fed on them. If you really want to feel like a piece of shit, feed from someone who’s weaker and has it worse than you. It’s sobering and awful.”
“You did what you had to do to survive,” David said.
“We all do that. It doesn’t mean we always have to like it, or that it’s right in any way.”
“No, but it also doesn’t mean we have to continuously beat ourselves up over it afterward.”
“Perhaps.” Her eyes were haunted when she turned toward him. “I’ve never killed another.”
“I’ve killed other vampires.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Not a single one,” he bit out with clenched teeth. Some of the vampires he’d destroyed had been in that warehouse holding her captive. “I’d gladly kill every one of them again, especially the ones who hurt you.”
Mia’s head tilted to the side as red flashed through David’s eyes. Always so patient and kind with her, she sometimes forgot how lethal he could be. She’d witnessed his brutality within the warehouse when he’d helped take down her captors with ruthless efficiency. Unlike the vampires who had held her captive, his ability to be so savage intrigued her, or perhaps it was just him who piqued her curiosity so much.
“You believe yourself to be my mate.”
Never one to beat around the bush, she figured she’d get it out in the open; she saw no reason to continue to tiptoe around one another. His eyes widened at her blunt words, his lips pressed together as his hands jerked in his pockets. He was trying to keep from grabbing her, she realized.
“I do.” He focused on her face to pick out every minute detail of her reaction to his words, but she remained expressionless. “No woman has ever fascinated me the way you do. I’ve never wanted to protect and cherish one like I do you. I can’t get you out of my head.”
Mia tilted her head to the side as anguish twisted in her chest and tears burned her throat. He was t
oo good of a man; he deserved someone far better than her. He deserved someone who could love him and hold him. She didn’t know if she had it in her to love again, or if she would ever be able to accept the touch of another.
“I’m worse than a shattered mirror. You can’t put me back together,” she said.
“You’re not shattered. Fractured maybe, but not shattered.”
Mia couldn’t stop her snort of laughter when he smiled teasingly at her while he spoke.
“Besides,” he continued, “I never said I wanted to put you back together.”
“You like weak women, then?” Mia demanded, incensed that he might think of her that way, and worse, that he wanted her to stay that way. “Or do you have a savior complex?”
David blinked at her. “God, no. What’s the fun in a weak woman? I’m no one’s savior, and you don’t need one. If you think you’re weak, Mia, then you haven’t been paying attention these last few weeks. There was a time when you wouldn’t leave your room, or go anywhere near the others. Now you’re training to fight back against anyone who threatens you. You may not realize it yet, but you’re already working toward making yourself whole again. You’re saving yourself.”
Mia didn’t know how to respond; he’d taken all sense of the English language away from her with those words. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. He considered her strong. That realization pleased her more than she ever would have believed possible.
“I haven’t felt whole since the day I stood in my front yard and watched my home collapse,” she admitted in a ragged whisper as a single tear slid down her cheek.
“You’ve been through a lot between losing your parents and being held captive for three months,” he said. He couldn’t stop his fangs from extending over the reminder of how long she’d endured the abuse of those bastards. “No one comes out of that the same as they were before. You’re being too tough on yourself.”
“Or maybe I’m smart enough to realize I’ll never be the same again, and you deserve better for a mate than someone who is a borderline basket case.”
Pulling one of his hands free of his pockets, he rested his palm against her chilled cheek and wiped away the tear. She twitched but didn’t move away from him. “You’re already allowing me to touch you more than you ever did before.”
“I’m not sure if you’re the most understanding man I’ve ever met, or just crazy,” she said.
“Maybe I’m a bit of both.”
“Maybe,” she agreed and stepped away from him.
David lowered his hand back to his side. “Do you believe I’m your mate?”
Her head tipped back as she contemplated his question. She couldn’t deny her intense attraction to him. David made her fingers itch to touch him, and her body to melt in a way she hadn’t realized it could. Despite her dislike of being touched, she craved knowing what it would feel like to have him deep within her, taking possession of her body.
But that would mean flesh against flesh, and touching more deeply than a simple hand on a face, or lips against lips. The chill racing down her spine had nothing to do with the December wind whipping around them and everything to do with allowing herself to be vulnerable in such a way again.
“I can’t deny there is a pull between us,” she finally admitted. “But for your sake, I really hope I’m not your mate.”
She didn’t wait to hear what he would say before turning on her heel and walking back to the main house. The monstrous building loomed high, casting a shadow over her and blocking out the afternoon sun. She couldn’t shake the ridiculous notion that it wanted to devour her.
David had been right before; she wasn’t happy here. The place would have a cold air to it even in August. With the leaves off the trees and the snow blanketing the ground, the mansion felt frigid and menacing. There was an austerity to it that made her skin crawl, but she’d chosen to remain, and she had nowhere else to go.
Or did she? She recalled David’s offer from earlier about his home, and she felt his eyes boring into the back of her head as she walked inside.
CHAPTER 5
“She’s playing hard to get,” Liam said through the phone.
“She’s not playing,” David replied as he ran a hand through his hair, tugging on it until it stood up as he paced back and forth in his room.
His eyes ran over the red walls surrounding him, his upper lip curling back in distaste. The house he shared with Jack, Doug, and Mike may not be the best decorated or most well-kept in the world—it was old and a definite bachelor pad—but this red everywhere made him want to tear the wallpaper down with his bare hands.
“She’s had a difficult time of it for seven years now,” he said to Liam.
“So you said,” Liam replied. “But you can get her through it.”
“Can I? Because I’m not so sure about that.”
“Better you than Jack. He would have thrown up his hands and walked away by now.”
David chuckled. “No, not even Jack would have walked away from this… this draw I feel to her.”
Liam became silent and David could practically hear the wheels spinning in his friend’s head. “You think she’s your mate,” Liam finally stated.
“Yes, I suspect she is,” David admitted.
“Then you will get her through this.”
“How?”
“Just be there. It’s all you can do. From what you’ve said it sounds like she’s already grown to trust you more.”
“I think so.”
“Then let her come to you in her own way and own time. If she is your mate, as a vampire, she won’t be able to resist the pull between you for long either.”
David stopped pacing to stare at the golden mirror across from him, another thing he would have heaved out of this house if it were his. “You’re right,” he said.
“I usually am,” Liam replied.
“Not often that I can recall.”
Liam laughed, and David heard the cushions sink as he plopped himself onto a couch. “Maybe try taking her on a date or something, romance her.”
“Sure, it will be really romantic to be blindfolded so we can leave this place and then have someone else drive us around like we’re teenagers. I didn’t like that when I was fourteen and going on my first date.”
“That’s because your mom drove you, and she told you and your date that your braces would lock together if the two of you kissed.”
“That’s right, she did.” With a fond smile, David recalled the human memory he’d forgotten until then. “And we both believed her.”
“No kiss for you that day.”
“No kiss for me until those damn things came off a year later,” David muttered. “I doubt it would be any more fun now to have someone driving us around on a date.”
“Probably not,” Liam agreed. “You’ll figure something out. Are you going to be able to return home soon?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I asked Mia if she would come with me, but I think it may be too much for her right now.”
“It most likely would be with the zoo we have here. Don’t push her on that.”
David wouldn’t push her to do anything she wasn’t ready for, but he missed his home. Years ago he could have set out and gone his own way, but he’d realized when he’d broken off to go to college in Pennsylvania that he was happiest among his friends who were family to him. He’d traveled the world, seen the sights, and done his fair share of partying over the years, but none of it made him feel as content as when he was in his own bed.
“I won’t,” he muttered. “How did you get through this with Sera?”
“Not well, at least not toward the end before our bond was completed, if you remember.”
“I do. If I hurt Mia in any way, if I push too fast or scare her, she’ll bolt, connection between us or not.”
“I’d like to say to not do those things, but I never thought I’d do any of the things to Sera that I did,” Liam said. “The difference is you know
what this could be between the two of you. I didn’t. Work with that knowledge, don’t try to deny it, and move slow. If you don’t progress through some of the steps for a while, you’ll be better able to control yourself.”
“Yeah,” David agreed as a high-pitched squeal sounded through the phone. “Who was that?”
“Mandy and Jill are visiting Emma. Mandy’s getting married in the spring, and they’re working on planning things. Jill just shoved Cassidy into the pool.”
“I thought you shut the pool down.”
“I did. Cassidy’s flopping around on the cover like a fish on land.”
David laughed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Big bad purebred vampire getting shoved around by a human.”
“She won’t live it down either. Willow, Julian, and Kyle all witnessed it.”
No, Cassidy would never live that down. “How is everyone else?”
“They’re all good. How are my kids?”
“Aiden’s training is going well, and I’ve never seen Abby happier.”
“Vicky?”
“She’s doing better. There’s still a sadness in her that was never there before. She’s strong though, always has been. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t try to join Ronan’s group with Aiden.”
“I’ll keep that to myself until it happens. Sera’s already worried enough about what Aiden is doing without thinking her daughter may be contemplating the same thing. It would be nice if they made it home for Christmas. And you.”
“It would.”
He didn’t think that was likely, but he wasn’t about to tell Liam that in case things changed.
He talked with Liam for a few more minutes before setting the red phone back on its cradle. This may be the ugliest room in the place, but it was also one of the few with a phone in it, and getting cell reception had proven impossible.
Rising to his feet, he stalked out of the room. He had to move, to feel fresh air or do something before he started tearing the wallpaper down. He stood in the hallway, his gaze on the closed door of Mia’s room beside his. Instead of going toward it, he forced himself to turn the other way. After their discussion earlier, she needed her space, and he would give it to her.
Fractured (Vampire Awakenings, Book 6) Page 4
