“Naughty, naughty, Warin,” he says, taking the goblet of blood she collected and drinking down my blood, something I’d never willingly do with him. Vampires exchange blood, but it’s usually done in a sexual nature.
“You gave this filthy little witch your blood, while you wouldn’t even dare give it to me? Did she trick your young mind? Did she promise you something?”
I blink wildly, like I’m confused.
“I…I don’t remember,” I say and Oz clicks his tongues.
“Old witches like this are disgusting. It’s important that we stick to our own, that we stick to our nest,” he says calmly, placing a bloody palm on my face. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight tonight. Sometimes I forget how young you are. Come, let us retire for the night.”
I look down at the witch’s body; I didn’t even know her name, yet a deep sense of regret fills me. She’s dead because of my curiosity. Oz killed her simply because she was a witch and I gave her my blood.
“Warin. Now,” Oz grates out, and I stand up, looking down at her listless body, knowing I’ll need to sneak out later tonight.
Oz is like a warden as we sit in the basement of the humans he compelled. It’s then that I have an idea, a way that I don’t even have to leave the house to get what I want.
I have to wait until the sun rises. Oz is asleep. He rests more than a typical vampire, and I wonder if that’s how he’s continued to stay in power. The ones who don’t sleep tend to spiral into madness.
It’s dangerous as I walk up the cellar stairs, slowly creaking the door open. A beam of sunlight slips through and I’m careful to not open it any further.
“Clarissa, come here,” I whisper.
She’s an affluent woman, Oz wouldn’t let us stay in a home anything less than expensive.
The human woman comes to the door, her face through the crack, her pupils wide.
“Yes?”
“I need you to retrieve something for me and for your family to keep it safe until I get it, no matter how long that may be.”
“What do you need me to get?” she asks robotically.
I look down the steps, assuring that Oz is still asleep as I tell her where to find the grimoires, where to get a safety deposit box, and the information she needs to pass down for each generation.
Over ninety years pass before I collect the grimoires on the day Oz is found dead from Clarissa’s great-granddaughter.
Chapter 26
Ipull out of Warin’s memories with a jolt. My eyes are even more watery than before when I look at him.
A blood mate? That’s what I am to him?
My first reaction is joy. Being a mate to someone is a gift. I’ve seen it firsthand with Silas and Violet. It’s like I finally found the missing puzzle piece under the couch and everything makes sense. There’s a reason why I couldn’t feel anything with another man. They weren’t him; they weren’t my destined person.
I’m also met with fear and anxiety over the whole situation. Maybe part of me thought that no matter what I was feeling, Warin was just a bump in the road of my stupid decisions. That eventually he would get bored and send me on my way and I’d just have to go on with my life. But if he’s my mate, this is forever. Nothing will ever compare, and with that comes a lot of other problems to solve.
He lives forever and I don’t.
My coven won’t accept him, and if the vampire council is anything to go by, they won’t accept me either.
“What do you need?” he says, a hand on my back and I lurch off the bed. His touch is making my critical thinking skills go out the window, though maybe they’ve been long gone.
I stand, facing him with my arms crossed over my chest. He’s beautiful again. His face completely healed because of my blood, because I’m his blood mate.
It all makes so much sense now, why I find him so handsome, why I couldn’t help but fall for his charms even when he’s scheming. He’s fated to me, and I can’t help but to find it so ridiculously romantic and also hate myself for it at the same time.
“When?” I question him and he tilts his head.
“When what?”
