B00AO57VOY EBOK Read online

  I forgot that I didn’t know what I was doing. I forgot that I was nervous. I turned in his arms and dragged his mouth down to mine, feeling triumphant when he moaned and his hands slid lower. I didn’t even break contact when he picked me up so that he didn’t have to bend so far to kiss me. Instead, I tangled my hands in his hair and wrapped my legs around his waist, every particle of my being wanting to get closer to him, to become one person, to love him as only I could.

  I didn’t break the kiss until I felt the soft feel of the mattress against my back. Even when I looked up to see that Nathan was gazing down at me with a mixture of heat and wonder making his hazel eyes even more hypnotic I still didn’t feel nervous. I felt exhilarated, sexy, wanted…loved.

  “Are you sure, baby?” he asked softly, never taking his eyes from mine. “God, Em. If you’re not sure, please tell me now.”

  I could see what he was looking for. He was looking for fear, doubt. He wasn’t likely to find it. I wanted him. All of him. Mind, body, heart, and soul. He was mine and I was his. I had never been more decided on anything in my life.

  “Tell me you want me and only me,” I whispered, placing my hands on either side of his face. If he wanted to know how I felt, I was more than ready to show him.

  “Em, I don’t want you to—” he said, his eyes widening to the size of plates.

  “Say it,” I said, reaching for the hem of his t-shirt.

  “I want you and only you,” he said quietly, his expression torn.

  “We are two parts of the same whole,” I murmured, sliding his shirt up. “Say it, Nathan.”

  “We are two parts of the same whole,” he whispered, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it across the room.

  I saw the confusion clear from his eyes when I laid my hand over the scar Bastian had given him the last time they fought over who would get me and who would die. Looking deep in into his eyes, I gave my heart and soul to him. I gave him everything I was and everything I would be. And I gave him the one thing I had never been able to give him.

  I gave him my trust.

  “I belong to you and you belong to me,” I whispered, watching tears form in his eyes. “Forever.”

  “Baby, are you—”

  “Say it, Nathan,” I interrupted, reaching for the button on his jeans, repeating the words he had said to me, giving him the very opportunity he had given me to back out. “Say it, baby. Out loud.”

  For a long moment he just looked down at me. I waited, letting him work it all out on his own. I was offering him all that I was. It was his choice to take it.

  And, at long last, he did.

  “I belong to you and you belong to me,” he said, breathing the words against my lips as his eyes drifted closed. “Forever.”

  Something inside me exploded with that word and my mark throbbed like it had come to life. A bond was formed with that declaration that both destroyed the me I had been and created an entirely new me, blowing apart my walls and my defenses. Without those walls between us, I was finally able to truly feel him. I felt his emotions and the love that flooded through me was so intense that I felt like I’d ascended to another level of being I hadn’t even realized existed.

  “You’re finally mine,” Nathan said, staring down at me in amazement. “After four hundred years, you’re really mine.”

  “I’ve always been yours,” I whispered. “Always.”

  I had never felt closer to anyone in my life as I felt to Nathan as we slowly undressed each other, discovering each other by touch and taste alone. I found a new appreciation for those long, silky fingers as they found and touched places no one had ever touched, sending wave after wave of sensation crashing through me until I was mindless to everything but him.

  My first time was everything I could have ever wanted and everything I never would have thought to dream of. Nathan was so gentle with me, so considerate. He knew just where to touch, where to kiss, to drive me mad. When I wanted him to hold me tighter, he did. When I tensed up, he soothed me with whispers of love and gentle caresses.

  And in that moment when we truly became one in every sense of the world, I knew I had finally found my place. It was in Nathan’s arms.

  Nathan left my side only long enough to start a fire in the fireplace and hang my clothes in front of it, and then we spent the day cuddled together under the down comforter on our new bed. We talked a little, but mostly we spent the day kissing and touching and familiarizing ourselves with each other. It was romantic and sweet and hot and passionate all at the same time and if I hadn’t been thoroughly and completely his before, I was then.

  Late that afternoon, I sensed something change in him. He was completely silent, his fingers tracing patterns on the skin of my shoulder as if he was distracted. I snuggled closer to him, laying my head on his chest and listening to the soft sound of his heartbeat against my ear.

  We would have to go soon and I felt sad at the thought of going back to the drama and terror of real life. I wanted to stay right there forever, wrapped in Nathan’s arms with no gloom and doom to interfere with my peace and happiness.

  And then my dream was shattered in the worst possible way. Leave it to Nathan to remind me that the monsters were still lurking in the shadows.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, looking up at him in concern when his grip tightened too much to be comfortable and his breathing quickened.

  “I don’t want you to do it,” he breathed, staring back at me with actual terror in his eyes. “I want you to run, Ember. I want you to get as far away as you can as fast as you can.”

  I stared at him for a full minute, feeling all my good feelings fading away as reality crashed back in on me with the force of a mountain falling on my head. He couldn’t be serious. He had even sided with me against Grams when she had suggested the same thing. It wouldn’t do me any good to run. If I didn’t face Bastian I would be running from him for the rest of my life. That was something I just couldn’t accept. I only had one chance to end it for good and I wasn’t going to run from that chance.

  “I can’t do that, Nathan,” I said, my voice low and sad, pushing his arms away and getting out of the bed. He watched me silently as I pulled on his shirt and went to get my clothes, and I felt my heart break a little. We had had such a beautiful afternoon and he had completely ruined it.

  Why is he doing this now? I kept thinking. Now, when I need his support the most?

  When I turned back to him, I recognized the stubborn look on his face and prepared myself for all-out war.

  “I can’t lose you again, Ember.” Despite our recent activities, I still blushed when he stood up and started pulling on his jeans. “We’ve never made it to this point before, never been so completely and thoroughly a part of one another. I have never marked you, never tasted your blood, never made love to you. And I have damn sure never completed a soul mate bond with you. Just thinking about losing you makes me want to howl in agony. Actually losing you…” His voice trailed off and he had to swallow hard before he could continue. “I don’t know if I would be strong enough to resist the flames this time and that would doom us both.”

  “Let me give you my translation of that little speech,” I said, blinking back the tears burning my eyes. “What you’re actually saying is you don’t think I can do it. You think I’m too weak to do it. Isn’t that right? Well, thanks a lot for the vote of confidence.”

  “Ember, that’s not…” he began, but I cut him off.

  “I’ll tell you what, Nathan,” I hissed, not even bothering to hide how angry I was or how hurt. “Either support me or stay the hell out of my way. Your choice.”

  A few tears trickled from the corners of my eyes as I slammed out the door and I brushed them away angrily. I didn’t realize until I was already in the bathroom that there was no electricity. In my defense, I hadn’t exactly been thinking about lighting for the last couple of hours.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, cracking the door open so the light from the main roo
m of the house would give me enough light to see to get dressed. My clothes were toasty warm from the roaring fire Nathan had kept going through the afternoon, but they were also stiff and itchy and my sweater had shrunk so much there was no way I was going to get it back on.

  I was pulling on my cami top when movement out of the corner of my eye alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t alone. My head whipped around and my eyes met Bastian’s even as a sharp, excruciating, pain flared in my right side. I caught one glimpse of a smug smile and then he was gone.

  I pressed a hand to my side when I felt something warm and wet begin to slither across my skin and lifted my hand to see that it was slick with something black. No, not black. Red.

  Blood. My blood.

  The asshole had actually stabbed me.

  ∞§∞§∞§∞

  Nathan made the two hour drive home in thirty minutes, one hand on the wheel and one holding a towel pressed against the still-bleeding wound in my side. He’d looked like he was about to have a heart attack when he ran into the bathroom and I had held my blood-covered hand out to him. Without saying a word, he had scooped me up and ran with me, grabbing a towel on the way, and placed me gently in the car before squealing out of the driveway like a maniac.

  He didn’t take a single breath the entire trip.

  “What happened?” Grams demanded, her face paling, as we slammed into the house.

  “Bastian,” Nathan growled, marching past her and down the hall to our bedroom.

  “He attacked at Oakhurst?” Grams asked, her expression a little too knowing, as she sat down on the bed beside me and examined the wound in my side. The blood flow had slowed, but I felt weak and light-headed.

  “Not exactly,” I muttered, not meeting Nathan’s eyes. I was still mad at him for ruining what should have been the most beautiful day of my life. “We weren’t at school.”

  “No, I didn’t think so,” Grams said, laughing softly. I blushed, but refused to say anything more. Whatever she thought we were doing, she was right.

  I’d tried to heal the wound myself in the car, using the technique Mrs. Amelia had taught me the first time Bastian had attacked Nathan and I in her attic, but I had only been able to slow the bleeding a little. Grams had the stupid thing healed in like five seconds.

  “This is unfortunate,” Grams said, giving me a practiced once-over. “Of course, I’m sure that was the plan, to sap you of as much of your energy as possible. Ember, we might want to reconsider the ritual. It was going to be difficult at full power, but now it’s going to be even more so.”

  “No,” I growled, sitting up and ignoring the way my head was spinning like a top. “I’m not letting that jackass win now. He stabbed me, damn it! He is so going down.”

  “Baby,” Nathan began, but the look I shot him had him shutting up in a hurry.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” I snapped, the hurt I had been feeling before the demon version of Jack showed up returning with a vengeance. “I’ve already heard what you think of my abilities, Nathan. Believe me, I’m not so stupid that I didn’t get it the first time around.”

  We were still glaring at each other when Kim walked in and stopped in the doorway. She looked from me, covered in blood, to Nathan whose eyes were glowing white, to Grams who was watching the whole drama play out with an amused gleam in her eye, and then rolled her eyes toward Heaven like she was hoping for some kind of divine intervention or something.

  “Did I miss something?” she asked sarcastically, walking in like she owned the place and flinging herself down next to me on the bed. “Really, Nate? Do you have to keep snacking on my friend? We’re supposed to be doing a ritual tonight, you know. Bad timing, buddy.”

  “Your demon-possessed friend stabbed her,” Nathan snarled through clenched teeth and Kim’s smirk disappeared real fast. “But is that going to stop your friend? Oh, no! The all-powerful Ember is going to go right ahead and try it, anyway.”

  I felt like I had been slapped and actually flinched. Is that what he really thought? That I was just trying to prove a point? Maybe he had forgotten that my life wasn’t the only one at stake this time around.

  I felt a terrible ache in my heart as the nightmare that would probably never fade from my memory played out again in my head, and I saw Nathan kneeling before Bastian, head bowed and waiting to die. I still didn’t get that. Why had he been waiting to die so calmly? Unless Bastian was going to convince him, somehow, that I was already…

  He had said it himself. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if he lost me this time. The only way Bastian could kill him was if I was already dead. He would never be able to do it while I was still alive and in danger. Nathan would fight until his last breath.

  And, somehow, Bastian stabbing me had something to do with it all. The question was…what?

  When I saw the fear behind the anger in Nathan’s eyes, fear for me, I tried to calm down. He loved me. He wanted to protect me. Those were admirable sentiments, but I was stronger than he gave me credit for. The only thing that could hurt me was losing him.

  Like a light bulb had snapped on in my head, I suddenly knew how to get my energy back and how to protect Nathan at the same time. I had sworn it was something I would never do, but desperate times and all...

  “Grams, Kim, could you give me and Nathan a sec?” I asked, locking eyes with the angry vampire I loved more than I loved myself. “I think we need to work this out alone.”

  “Sure,” Kim said, getting up and grabbing Grams—who was giving me the oddest look—by the arm and hauling her toward the door. “I brought my stuff so we could get ready for the dance here. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on catching my death watching tonight’s game in the rain. I spent too much time on my gown to not even get to wear it because I’m dead.”

  She was babbling to cover the fact that she was worried, so I listened to her with only half an ear as I did silent battle with my boyfriend who was looking more and more stubborn by the second. Even after the door closed behind them and Kim’s voice faded down the hall, we continued to stare at each other silently.

  “We’re not going to discuss this anymore,” he finally said.

  “You’re right, we’re not.” I looked away, already feeling guilty.

  I stood up slowly, part of me, the part that loved him desperately, rebelling against what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to drain him completely, only enough to restore the energy I had lost and keep him from following me to the dance. As soon as it was all over, I would give it back. I didn’t have any other choice if I wanted to save him.

  “You win,” I sighed, lying through my teeth, my guilt locked away to be wallowed in later. “If you think I should run, I’ll run.”

  He breathed a deep sigh of relief, and I felt even worse when he pulled me into his arms and held me tight. “I only want to protect you, baby. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t. Please tell me you understand that?”

  “I do,” I breathed, fighting back the tears that would have given me away. “I understand perfectly.”

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled his lips to mine and closed my eyes. I imagined Nathan’s energy as a bright thread of light and then coaxed that thread toward me, into me. I felt stronger almost immediately. By the time Nathan realized what I was doing, it was too late.

  I knew I had done what I set out to do when he tried to push me away and couldn’t. Tears slid from beneath my closed lids, but I held the image of that brilliant thread of energy in my mind until it started to dim and Nathan sagged against me, unconscious.

  “Grams! Kim!” I yelled, opening my eyes and trying to readjust the weight of the unconscious man in my arms so that we wouldn’t both topple over. “Can you give me a hand in here? Please!”

  They burst through the door about a second later and Grams paled visibly when she saw Nathan’s limp form in my arms and the tears streaming unchecked down my cheeks.

  “What have you done?” she cried, horror saturating ev
ery syllable.

  “What I had to do,” I whispered, miserably. “Now he’s safe.”

  Pursing her lips, she came forward and dragged one of Nathan’s arms over her shoulders. Kim, too, shook herself and came to help. Between the three of us, we managed to get him the short distance to the bed.

  I busied myself with removing his boots so I wouldn’t have to see the accusatory look in Grams’ eyes. I had literally sucked the life right out of my own soul mate so I could have my way. The more I thought about that, the worse I felt about what I had done. I had become a vampire. No, I had become something much worse. Nathan was a vampire and he never would have done what I had just done.

  I was a monster.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, pulling the covers over him and leaning down to kiss his forehead. “I hope you’ll forgive me someday. But, if you can’t, I’ll understand that, too.”

  I stood there looking at him for a few more minutes, tears still flowing freely down my cheeks, and then squared my shoulders and turned to face Kim and Grams. Kim looked like she wanted to break into tears with me.

  Grams looked like she wanted to strangle me.

  “He’ll be all right, won’t he?” I asked her, my voice choked with tears.

  “He’ll be fine,” Grams said, her expression softening. “You did well. He’ll sleep deeply for the rest of the night. He’ll wake up in the morning with very little memory of what happened. He’s going to figure it out, though, sweetheart. And he’s going to be mad as hell when he does, Ember.”

  I nodded, wrapping my arms around myself for comfort. As long as he lived through the night, he could hate me for the rest of my life. I deserved it for what I had just done. But, now I could do what I had to do without having to worry that Bastian was going to trick him into letting him kill him.

  “Um, one problem, Em” Kim said, a grim smile on her lips.

  “What?”

  “You just roofied your date.”