He needed to get out of the house and burn some energy off, or else he’d do something stupid, like track her down.
It was a tempting thought, too. The predator in him lunged toward the challenge of hunting his sweet prey in the dark. It would take so very little.
He’d never touched her, never spoken to her, but he knew her scent like he knew his own. Even without all the advanced technology available to him — and her home address, of course — he could find her with terrifying ease.
Because she washisprey, and had been from the moment he saw her in the rose garden a year ago.
Slamming the half empty bottle down onto the marble countertop in his mostly unused kitchen, Harlan swore again.
He was a civilized vampire now. He was HarlanfuckingBounds, owner of the Empire Estate and respectable businessman. He did not hunt down sweet, sensual bits who walked his grounds in flirty little shorts and smiled brighter than the sun.
He didn’t do that when he was an assassin, and he certainly wouldn’t do itnow.
Ignoring the vibrating phone tucked into his pocket, Harlan stalked out of his kitchen. With jerky, aggressive movements, he swept his long fall of black hair into a high ponytail at the back of his head and jogged out of the manor.
The air was crisp, the wind biting, and his estate was wholly his. No one ventured past the gate after sundown, so he was free to spend his nights away from people — exactly how he liked it.
There was only one person he wished to see in the welcoming dark, but it was the thought of that very woman that compelled him to take off in a hard run. Perhaps if he burned enough energy, he wouldn’t feel such a pounding need to track her down, hide her away, and sink his fangs into that soft tanned skin until she forgot the outside world existed at all.
So he ran. And he ran.And he ran.
Perspiration coated his bare chest and slid down his temples as he pushed himself to run the circuit of the estate’s border as fast as he could. He hoped the strain of his screaming muscles would be enough to distract him, but it didn’t work. It never worked.
Why did she matter so much? Was it the fact that he hadn’t known a woman like he desperately wanted to know Zia in… decades, probably? Was it that awful quirk of vampiric biology that made them intensely covetous of potential anchors?
Was it simply that he wanted what she seemed to embody so effortlessly — sumptuous life, sunlight, and the kind of easy happiness he’d never known?
Or was it just that she looked like she tastedreally fucking good?
At the farthest edge of his property, behind a garage that held all the various vehicles his staff used throughout the day, Harlan came to a slow stop. Breathing hard, he braced his hands against the cool brick wall and bowed his head. His eyes closed.
I’m so fucking hungry.
He hadn’t had a satisfying meal since the day he laid eyes on her. It didn’t matter how much synthetic shit he drank. It didn’t even matter when he went through the trouble of importing real fresh blood from well-compensated donors. Nothing worked.
Harlan’s claws bit into the pitted mortar between the bricks.
What is she doing right now? Is she safe? Is she on a date? Will she sleep at another man’s house tonight?
Hot rage was a shot through his gut when he thought,Is another vampire tasting her right now?
Possessiveness, a hardwired evolutionary adaptation, wrapped its claws around his throat andsqueezed.
No one was allowed to touch his anchor. No one was allowed to even fuckinglookat her. Instinct knew she was his, that her blood belonged on his tongue. It knew that his venom would work beautifully in her body, making her taste sweeter even as it bound her to him on a chemical level, made them a seamless unit.
Vampire and anchor. Anchor and vampire, one being — as nature intended.
It knew, and it screamed at him to act louder and louder every night, lest someone else claim the right to her first.
She could be with someone else right now. She could be smiling at another man, kissing him, letting him know all her secrets and desires.
Harlan choked, shoulders tightening, as if there really was a hand squeezing the life out of him.
Gods, he was a bastard for letting those things bother him. He had no claim on her, but the predator howled in outrage anyway. Vampires did notshare.
They hunted. They sequestered. They jealously guarded. They pleasured. Theytasted.
Theykept.
