“I can’t do that.”Yosef shrugged and asked him why not.It wasn’t as if he wanted her at all.“I don’t want her, but I don’t want her dead either.Where did she go just now?”
“She’s living in a cabin not far from here.Conri set her up in it when he found her in the woods.She’s been working for him, too, so that she can buy herself food when she wants it.”He said that he’d take care of her needs.“Yet you don’t want her.Make up your mind, friend, or she will.I don’t think she’s above finding a way to leave you now that you’ve found her, either.Since you never touched her, you don’t have any contact with her.She’s out there and could be hurt by someone, and you’d have no way of knowing.”
“You’re enjoying this entirely too much if you ask me.”He said that he was actually.“Don’t you feel the least bit sorry for me?I have a mate in my life, and I don’t want one.What am I supposed to do with her now that she’s found me?I have no idea what, as a mate, she’d even want from me.”
“It’s doubtful that she’d want a thing from you after the way you treated her.”He said he was confused and angry.“And you took it out on her.She had no more idea that she was going to be your mate than I did.I had hoped.I like the young woman, but if you’re going to continue to treat her like you have been, I’ll gladly remove your head so that she doesn’t have to suffer at your hand anymore.”
“How can I be making her suffer?I only just found out what she is to me.”He said that she’d left him instead of staying with him when he could be hurt by him.“You knew all along that you were never going to end my life.Admit it.You planted her in these woods so that I’d think she was my mate.”
“Had I thought about it, I might well have, but my only plan was to let her stop you from killing yourself when there were witnesses.It worked out better than I could have planned.”He was still laughing when he made his way back to the house.He’d be telling them, too, what had happened, and they’d all get a kick out of it.He was going to have to do something, or Calla would hate him worsethan she did before.Sirous had no idea why it was so important that Calla not hate him.It was in the same manner that he didn’t want Tabitha to hate him.Damn it, nothing was going the way that he wanted it to.
Looking for her was easy.Convincing her that he wasn’t going to harm her was another thing altogether.She was in the house that she had hidden out in, and he couldn’t get her to allow him in.Damn it, life was going to be harder just because he’d found his mate.And he didn’t want one.
~*~
Tabby liked that the big vampire couldn’t come into her house.That didn’t stop him from yelling at the door for her to come and allow him in.But she could ignore that for now while she was thinking.There was no way that the vamp could be her mate.She didn’t want a mate any more than he did, apparently, and now she was going to have to do what he told her.And there was nothing she could do about it.
She knew of a few mated couples.The one that she remembered most was the lion couple that lived down the street from her mother and her when she was a child.They fought all the time and made up just as frequently.If they weren’t fighting, they were making love.Even at a young age, she knew that that was what they were doing.Her mother had had lovers in and out of their place all her life, and she knew that none of them were her uncles.It was her mother’s way of getting back at her father when he’d left them.She didn’t even know who he was, much less being able to pick him out of a lineup.The things that her mother had said about him made her think that she might well have been better off going with him.Mother was such a liar that she knew that if only a quarter of what she said about him was true, he was a saint compared to what she was.Then her mother had found out what she could do.
It was quite by accident that she let it slip that she knew the races.One of the men who had been staying with them had bet on the ponies, and she watched them on television with him.Every time he would place a bet, she’d make one in her head.For every time he was wrong, she was right, and she told the man so.
That was the first time that she got beaten by her mother when she gave him the winning horse names instead of her.The man, she couldn’t remember his name, had been killed two weeks later when he tried to kidnap her from her mother.It was all over the papers about how he’d failed, and there was never any mention of how she could see the races.Her mom kept that little tidbit to herself.
Over the next ten years, she would be in and out of the hospital.She would only bet as much money as she had left over from some of the winnings.Her mother never knew how to save for a rainy day.It was a rainy day every day for her when he mother wanted more cash.After a while, she could see the lottery numbers too, but kept that to herself.By the time she was sixteen, not only had she moved out of the house with her mother, but she’d won enough money to keep her one step ahead of her when she was looking for her too.A couple of times, it was close, but she was able to keep out of her hands until the last year.
Her mother had hired someone to find her.It was a bear shifter that she’d given him some of her things so that he could track her.And so long as he didn’t hurt her mind or face, he could do whatever he wanted to her when he found her.Christ, that was a nightmare just keeping herself alive long enough to get away again.He was big and mean and sort of stupid, too.When he’d cage her in something, he would take away her food and water, too; she’d be able to get away by using some of her magic that seemed to grow the older she got.It wasn’t long before she could keep herself away from the bear when she needed to and out of harm’s way.She’d been hiding on other people’s property since then and knew that her mother wouldn’t come and get her.The bear was just too stupid to look beyond the streets where she lived up until recently.
“I would like to have a conversation with you that doesn’t have me screaming through the door at you.”She’d forgotten about the vampire and was glad that she’d remembered that he couldn’t get in unless she invited him.“Of course, that would be the only rule that you could remember about my kind.There are a lot of other ones that are out there, too, did you know that?”
“I don’t know squat.And neither do you if you think I’m going to be all right with letting you inand around me.I like you not being able to come into my house.”He cursed then.In several different languages, if she didn’t miss her bet.“Such a potty mouth you have.You kiss your momma with that mouth?”
He called her childish.“Let me in and I promise not to hurt you.I also promise to take care of you and the situation with your mother.I know what sort of person she is, and she’s lucky that I’m not going to be out to kill her anytime soon.”She went to the door and opened it.“You only have to say that I’m welcome to enter, and that will allow me to come in and talk to you.I believe the wolves out here are having fun at my expense.They’re laughing at me.”
“Good for them.And I’d be laughing at you as well if I weren’t so mad at you.What kind of person says he’s going to feed from me and fuck me before we even know each other’s names?Not anyone that I want to get to know, that’s for sure.”He said he’d forgotten he’d said that.“Well, I didn’t.And you’re not getting in here to do either of them.Just stay right where you are, and we can talk this way.”
“All right.I’m sorry.”She told him that wasn’t good enough.“I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings.I know that I did, and that was uncalled for.But you have to see things my way.I never wanted to find you in the first place.”She started to slam the door, and he stopped her.“That didn’t come out right.I’m thousands of years old, and I’ve been a loner all my life.Finding you now, at what I considered the end, was startling and irritating.I’ve been trying to figure out a way to help you out of this predicament and not have to be mated to you at all.But there isn’t any way, we’re well and truly mates.”
“I’ve been doing all right on my own, thank you very much.And the ‘predicament’ that you wish to get me out of is my mother.She wants the magic that I have.”He asked her what it was.“I can see the winners of races and games.Not only that, but the lottery winnings, too.And don’t ask me why I told you that last part, I have no idea.I just want to lead a normal life without someone right around the corner trying to kill me.She will, too, if I don’t give her what she wants.She has the mentality that if she can have the winnings that I can get for her, then no one will.And I believe her when she says that.”
“She sounds like a real peach.Is there anything else you can tell me about her?Like, does she have henchmen working for her?”Tabby told him about the bear shifter and the things that he’s done to her when he found her.“I’ll take care of him when I find him, too.At the very least, I’ll get with his bruin leader.That will nip that in the bud.He’ll more than likely kill him if I don’t get to him first.”
“Why would you kill him?He’s done nothing wrong to you.”She watched as he fought with what he wanted to say.And when he finally confessed to his reasons, she wasn’t any happier with him than she’d been before.“Just because he hurts me doesn’t mean that he needs you to kill him.Why does it seem like you’re very killing happy?Do you generally go around killing people when they mess with your mate?”
“I’ve never had a mate before, so I have no idea.You and I will be learning what it is that I’ll do to people who hurt you.My first instinct is to kill him, and I love the way that settles in my mind.”She rolled her eyes at him.“This bear, do you know what color he is or where he started chasing you?I don’t want to get the wrong one in trouble with his bruin.”
“His name is Carl Wayne.He’s a black bear from Ohio.The only reason I know that is because he told me one night after he locked me in the basement.If anyone deserves to be killed, it’s my mother.She’s done worse to me over the years.One time, she tried to sell me to the highest bidder online.And when that didn’t work—she was actually surprised to find out that it’s against the law to sell minors, or anyone for that matter, online.She knew, she just didn’t care, so long as she was making money off of me.”He again said she sounded like a peach.“Warm and fuzzy, she’s not.More like the pit inside of it.”
“I’ll take care of her, too.And she’ll not be bothering you again for money or anything else for that matter.”She asked him if he was going to kill her.“If it comes to that.I’m not saying yes or no.Perhaps she has a quality about her that will make her redeemable.”Tabby snorted, and Sirous smiled.
“If you believe that, then there isn’t much redeemable about you either.She’s not a nice person, and as far as I can tell, she never has been.Since I was an infant, she never cared for me.”He asked herwhere he magic had come from.“I don’t know.My dad was just a human, I was told, but the older I got, the stronger my magic was.At first, I didn’t realize it was magic and thought it had to do with my brain, but once I was able to do other things, like hide in plain sight, I knew there was more to it than that.I’ve never had anyone tell me I was anything but human before.”
“I could tell, but that would mean tasting you.And I know how you feel about me coming close to you.”She asked him if he could really tell what she was by a simple taste of her blood.“I could tell if you have any shifters in your line and who they might be.As well as tell you if they were dead or alive as well.I’m old, an ancient that is way too old to be starting over with a mate in my life.But alas, here you are, and we’re going to have to make it work.”
“I don’t really care if we do or not.As I said, I’ve gotten along well on my own.Not great, but well enough that I’m not dead yet.”He told her that she was immortal.“When did that happen?”
“The moment that I realized that I belonged to you.”He looked out over the fields where she was before looking at her again.“We’ll have to go to the house now so that the others can meet you.I will warn you that they’re an odd lot, but I love them.”
“I’m sure they find something to love about you, too.”He laughed, and she had to smile.“You don’t do that often, do you?Laugh, I mean, you seem surprised when you do it.”
