by Kali Argent
Naturally, every male in the room became instantly uncomfortable at the mere mention of a natural bodily function that didn’t affect them, Nikolai included. He wasn’t proud of his reaction—the way his nose curled or how an involuntary shudder rippled up his spine.
“Speaking of which,” Kamara called as she sashayed into the kitchen, “do I still have to deal with that every month?”
She’d dressed in a borrowed black tank top that clung to her small breasts and delicate curves like a second skin. The khaki cargo pants, however, appeared at least two sizes too big, sagging off narrow hips and creating a gap between her waistband and the hem of her shirt.
“No,” Nikolai answered, his voice filled with gravel, his eyes fixated on the smooth skin of her lower belly. “You’ll have all the symptoms, but you won’t…um…you know…”
“Bleed from my vagina?” she asked sweetly, batting her lashes a little too innocently.
“Okay, that’s awesome.” Miles turned one way, then the other, then around in a complete circle. “I’m going to go find, uh, people. The other people. Later.”
Before anyone could say anything or call him back, he was gone, hurrying out of the room through the back door that led to the covered patio.
“You are trouble.” Purring, Deke wound his arms around Roux’s middle and pulled her close. “Definitely a bad influence.”
Nikolai just smiled and held his hand out, pleased when Kamara took it without hesitation, allowing him to pull her next to his side. “I don’t think this one needs much influence. She’s bad enough on her own.”
His mate nodded. “Accurate.”
“Cara mia, you know Thea and Rhys already. This is Captain Deke Collins and his mate, Roux Jennings.”
Kamara gave them a little wave. “What about the one that just ran out of the room?”
“Miles Irati.”
“Hmm, okay. And these ‘people’ he went to find?”
“Luca and Deidra.”
Pulling away, she tilted her head back and stared up at him. “Deidra? Pretty werewolf with a bad attitude? She’s here?”
The apt description made him chuckle. “Indeed. She and Luca are taking stock of the armory out back.”
Kamara still held his hand, but she shuffled her bare feet and kept shooting glances at Thea from the corner of her eye. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d spoken only to him since entering the room, but her charming smile and easy banter had distracted him, not to mention the strip of bronzed skin showing at her hips. His ego had overclouded his better judgment, and for that, he was ashamed.
“Stay out of my head,” Kamara whispered into his mind. “I’m okay. I just…everything feels different now.”
Dipping his head, he pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered, “It’s different, but that doesn’t make it wrong. You’re safe here, cara mia.”
An indulgent grin curved her lips. “You’re sweet, but that’s not what I meant. I’m a badass vampire now, right? Not to mention I used to get shot at for a living. I can take care of myself.”
Of this, he had no doubt, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do everything in his power to protect her. It was in his blood, encoded in his DNA. From the moment he’d seen her, he knew he’d die for her.
“Never mind,” she insisted. “I was having a moment. I’m better now.”
“You’re worried they won’t accept you as you are now.”
Though he continued to keep his voice low, everyone in the room—apart from Roux maybe—could hear him. One of the few hazards of being friends with a houseful of Gemini. However, lack of privacy was the least of his concerns.
“Look around, Kamara. No one is going anywhere.”
“Maybe they’re afraid I’ll eat them if they make any sudden movements.”
“Petulance and self-pity do not become you, cara mia. You’re the same person you have always been.” He paused, his lips twitching against the shell of her ear. “Just moodier.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Straightening, she released his hand and took half a step to stand slightly in front of him. “Thea, I am so sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“If you apologize to me again,” Thea answered, “I’m going to punch you right in those shiny new fangs. Got it?”
As a general rule, Nikolai never hit a female, but if the shifter tried to hurt his mate, he might have to make an exception.
Although she wasn’t touching him, wasn’t looking at him, Kamara knew the instant Nikolai tensed. She could feel his mood shift, hear the sudden acceleration of his pulse. She couldn’t say how she knew he was angry, only that she could sense it, like the eerie sensation of being watched.
Pinpointing the cause of his sudden dissension took little imagination.
“Calm down, Nik,” she sent directly to his mind. “She’s not really going to hit me, and even if she does, I’m pretty sure I can take her. Leave it alone.”
His heartbeat slowed almost at once, and he reached out to skim his fingertips up the back of her arm. “I understand. I’m calm now.”
With emotions, sensations, desires, and needs all warring inside her, to say she’d been preoccupied and a little self-centered would be an understatement. She’d been around enough Gemini to know their habits and instincts when it came to their mates, and she couldn’t change his drive to protect her any more than he could. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to change it.
From the moment he’d walked into her temporary bedroom, she’d felt drawn to him. Being near him soothed her. His touch swaddled her in comfort and safety. He’d been patient and kind, refusing to abandon her even when she’d nearly killed him. It hadn’t been a huge leap to guess they were connected in some way, especially since he’d been invading her dreams for so long.
When he’d confirmed she was indeed his mate, a chosen partner guided to him by fate or destiny or divine intervention, he’d only confirmed what she’d already suspected. Of course, she knew as much about mating a vampire as she did about being one.
In the old world with its old ways, she’d have balked at the idea of being bound to someone she barely knew. She’d never been the type to believe in love at first sight or soul mates. Honestly, she’d been cynical of love in general. She’d be thirty-three in the spring, and she’d only had one serious relationship, which had ended in heartbreak, trust issues, and a continuing phobia of commitment.
With Nikolai, she felt none of that. She couldn’t explain if she tried, but she felt it, the incomprehensible yet undeniable fact that he would never hurt her or destroy her trust. He’d already proven that he couldn’t lie to her, and even if he tried, she felt sure she’d be able to detect any untruth.
Nikolai’s palm pressed against hers, and he linked their fingers together before pulling her back by his side. “You’re right. I will never hurt you,” he promised. “I’ll never lie to you.”
“Stay out of my head,” she chastised, but without any real heat or conviction.
In reality, she was beginning to enjoy that part of their connection. She just wished it would work in reverse.
“It will,” he assured her. “We’ll figure out what’s blocking it, cara mia. I promise. I have no secrets from you.”
No secrets.
He’d never lie to her.
God, she was such a hypocrite. She expected those things from him, despite knowing him for only a few hours. It wasn’t fair to hold him to a higher standard, not when she was hiding secrets of her own.
“Kamara?”
Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, aware that everyone in the room had been silently following her exchange with her…mate. Fuck, this was really happening. She was really a vampire, mated to another vampire, and not just any bloodsucker. No, not her. She couldn’t do things the easy way. Instead, she’d gone and found herself the fated partner of a goddamn prince.
Eyes open, she released the breath she’d been holding and squeezed his hand. “Is there somewhere we can t
alk? In private?”
“Yes, of c—”
“Cade!” Roux yelled loud enough to wake the dead as she rushed across the living room to the bottom of the steps to throw her arms around the male standing there. “You’re awake.”
“Nothing gets past you,” Cade quipped, but his tone sounded hollow.
The male didn’t have the benefit of a vampire blood transfusion like Kamara. Where she’d mostly recovered from her ordeal with the Abraxas coven, at least physically, Cade still looked close to death.
His skin had taken on a sickly gray hue, and it stretched too tightly over his diminished frame. Dark bruises swept under his sunken eyes, and track marks ran up and down both of his forearms. His head had been shaved, like hers, and he rounded his shoulders as he crossed the room, his body vibrating with involuntary shakes.
If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was a heroin addict coming down from his latest binge.
“Here.” Thea slid a plate of bacon across the island. “Don’t argue, Novak. Just eat it.”
Kamara nodded. “It’ll help. You need the iron.”
Picking up one of the crispy slices of bacon, Cade used it to point at her. “You look better.”
“Trust me. You don’t want to get better the way I did.” Tilting her head back, she opened her mouth to reveal her pointed canines. “Not exactly FDA approved.”
From what she knew about Cade Novak, he had a definite hate-on for all things paranormal. His time with the Abraxas coven could only have deepened his dislike, but she hoped he’d realize that the people in the room were his friends.
“Damn,” he breathed. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He folded the bacon twice and popped the entire thing into his mouth, chewing slowly as he continued to watch her. “You don’t seem that upset about it.”
Kamara shrugged. “Better than dead.”
“That’s one person’s opinion.”
Nikolai and Deke growled, Roux gasped, and Thea dropped her head and groaned.
Kamara, however, smiled. “Yes, and considering my opinion about my own body is the only one that matters, you can shove yours right up your ass.”
“Whatever.”
Bristling, she marched around the island and prodded his chest with her index finger. “What happened to us sucks, no doubt. You could show a little fucking appreciation, though. These people?” Pausing, she waved a hand around the room to encompass everyone there. “They risked their lives to save ours. Don’t be a dick.”
A slow smile curled his dry lips. “Fair enough.”
That had been far too easy. “What?”
Placing a second slice of bacon back on its plate, Cade rested both hands on the countertop and sighed. “I wasn’t commenting about you being a vampire,” he relented. “I meant that some people might find death a better option than living with those memories.”
“Cade.” With a pinched expression, Roux shook her head. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Not me.” He smiled at her, but it was tight and obviously forced. “You know I’m too stubborn to go down without a fight.” With what appeared to be a great deal of effort, he looked around the kitchen, meeting each person’s questing gaze. “Thank you.”
He didn’t say more, but it was enough, and Kamara imagined putting aside his own prejudices to extend the gratitude hadn’t been easy.
“So, if you weren’t talking about yourself or Kamara, then…” Trailing off, Roux looked over her shoulder toward the staircase. “Duncan?”
Cade nodded. “All I’m saying is that you might want to keep an eye on him. I don’t think he should be alone right now.”
“I’ll go.” Turning off the stove burner, Thea kissed her mate’s cheek, then hurried to the stairs.
While worried for Duncan, something else Cade had said struck Kamara. “Wait. Back up.”
“Which part?”
“Did you just say you remember what happened?”
Everyone perked up, all eyes on Cade.
“Me?” He shrugged. “Not much. Just flashes here and there.”
“But Duncan remembers?” Kamara pressed. “What has he told you? Does he know anything about what happened to Abby?”
Ducking his head, Cade rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t the most informative conversation. He wasn’t making a lot of sense, to be honest.”
Deke shoved away from the sofa where he’d been quietly watching the exchanged. “Then, how do you know he remembers anything?”
Hands still resting on the back of his neck, Cade lifted his had just far enough to look at the shifter. “Trust me. I know.”
“Maybe I should go check on them,” Rhys mumbled as he rounded the island.
His concern proved to be both well-placed and unnecessary. Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Thea jogged back into the kitchen, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. She looked at everyone gathered and shook her head.
“He’s gone.”
CHAPTER FIVE
They’d been stomping through the forest for hours.
Kamara’s eyes burned, her temples throbbed, and her skin was pink and raw from being outside in the sun for so long. It would have been worth it if they’d found any sign of Duncan, but they’d lost his scent a quarter of a mile from the cabin, and no one had been able to pick it up again.
“He couldn’t have gotten that far,” Kamara remarked for the third time since they’d begun their search. “Where the hell did he go?”
Nikolai rubbed soothing circles on her back through her sweater jacket. “You’re right, cara mia. He couldn’t have made it far on foot. We’ll find him.”
She hoped so, but at the same time, she had a feeling they wouldn’t, not unless Duncan wanted to be found. Even with all the vampires, werewolves, and shifters—some even in their shifted form—searching for him, they hadn’t made much progress.
“We’re at least three miles from the cabin.” She spoke quietly, her heart heavy, but she had to be logical. She’d seen these kinds of cases before, and the detective in her knew situations like this rarely ended well. “He lost a lot of blood in that compound, and if he’s as weak as Cade…”
“We’ll find him,” Nikolai repeated when she couldn’t complete the sentence. “You can’t keep going like this, though. You need rest, and you need to feed.”
The burn had started in her throat not long after they’d left the cabin, but it was still manageable. They didn’t have blood bags with them out in the woods, and Nikolai needed to feed as much as she did. After what had happened with Thea, she didn’t trust herself with the others, nor did she want to burden them with her condition.
“I’m okay for now.” The aches in her muscles and the tightness in her throat were uncomfortable, but not yet painful. “Let’s just keep going.”
The only good thing about Duncan’s disappearance was that it had given her time to clear her head and think. Mostly she thought about her dreams. For two years, she’d had the same vision—the white room, the bright light—but that hadn’t been the first or only time Nikolai had invaded her dreamscape. She didn’t know what it meant, or why the most recent dream of him had been stuck on a constant loop, but it didn’t frighten her, either.
In the cabin, her mate had commented on how she seemed unaffected by her recent shift in the evolutionary food chain. When she’d told him being a vampire was better than being dead, she’d largely spoken the truth, but it was more than that. There were things she’d miss, like lounging on the beach in the sun.
She’d miss the quiet.
Being a vampire heightened everything, awakening the world in a way she didn’t know existed, in a way that proved to be impossibly loud. She could hear everything. Whispered conversations, her friends’ beating hearts, the animals that scurried through the winter forest—the noise never stopped. Sometimes, when she focused, it all faded into the background, like a constant wave of white noise, but it never faded completely.
Then, there was the voice, the one that whisp
ered in her mind and twisted her thoughts. She recognized it as that of the vampire who had attacked her, but it couldn’t be real. To be certain, she’d questioned Nikolai about his ability to hear her thoughts twice, and both times, he’d assured her it wasn’t a standard vampire ability. Only intended mates could delve into each other’s minds. It was how he’d known she belonged with him.
This had led her to conclude that she was hallucinating. Not exactly comforting, but after all the trauma and stress, it wasn’t surprising, either. No matter the diagnosis, she tried not to think of it too often or for too long. Partly because it made her uncomfortable, but mostly because she didn’t want Nikolai to pick the knowledge from her brain. If the problem persisted, she’d have to tell him eventually, just…not yet.
“I’m going to climb up there and get a better look.” Standing at the foot of a mature oak tree, Kamara pointed up at its bare limbs.
“I’ll go,” Nikolai offered.
“I’m smaller.” Some of the branches were no bigger around than her thigh. “I’m also faster, not to mention, I probably have a better idea of what to look for once I’m up there.”
“Fine, just be careful.”
She popped up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Stop worrying so much. I’ll be right back.”
Nikolai had taken the opportunity during their search to teach her the finer points of being a vampire. Along with her burning thirst, being infected with blood tainted by the PN2 virus also meant she couldn’t spend long periods of time in the sun without consequences. He’d tried to teach her to track by scent, but she’d been so overwhelmed by the different smells that she couldn’t distinguish one from another.
It wasn’t all bad, though.
Cuts and scrapes now healed in a matter of minutes. Gunshot and stab wounds, bites, and broken bones took a little longer, or so Nikolai had said, but as long as she didn’t bleed out first, she’d heal. Scars disappeared, even the ones she’d had before turning.
So, the movies had portrayed a few things correctly, but they’d gotten just as much wrong. Like the fact that she obviously wasn’t dead. Her heart beat. She required oxygen and food as much as she needed blood to survive. Then there was all the physical stuff that didn’t quite mesh with the cinematic versions of vampires.
