“Not just one of the names on the list. The Vampire is a lieutenant general in Vampire Command. He holds thousands of Vampire lives in his hands every minute of the day, and his name is all over those files Zeke gathered.”
“Oh shit,” she murmured.
“That about covers it,” I confirmed. “But after we speak to him, we may know more about who’s controlling all this.”
“You have to go.” She let out a disappointed sigh.
“I have to go,” I confirmed. “But I’ll make it as fast as I can, and I won’t be alone.”
“I’ll make sure Pop’s got the edibles ready.” She swallowed hard, looking a little nervous.
I think I’d been hearing it but not really processing what everyone was saying. Rosemary’s mating heat symptoms were bad when I wasn’t in close proximity. They seemed to be relatively mild when we were together, but the moment I left, they intensified. She was in pain when we were apart. I was too.
But it wasn’t until I watched her throat move with that nervous swallow that it fully sank in just how terrible thesymptoms must be. Because if Rosemary was nervous for me to leave, if just the thought of what was coming made her eyes go dark like that, then things were much worse than I’d been imagining.
This was a woman who’d been stabbed. Who’d deliberately gotten herself kidnapped in an attempt to get information from a bunch of murderers. Who’d been tied to a chair for a week, waiting for them to slip up and reveal something. A woman who had been willing to take on a room full of Vampires with just a broken beer bottle and who had followed me into a pitch-dark forest searching for intruders after seeing our property littered with bodies.
“Come here,” I ordered quietly, taking her hand.
I fell to my ass and pulled her into my lap on the floor.
“Where does it hurt when I go?” I asked, brushing her hair away from her face.
Her eyes fell closed. “Everywhere.”
“Here?” I asked, kissing her shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Here?” I asked, moving to her neck.
“Yes.”
“Here?” Her jaw.
“Yes.”
As I stripped her shirt and bra off, I kept asking. Her answer was always yes. When I asked about the places that my mouth couldn’t reach, I smoothed over them with my hands instead. Eventually, I stopped asking, but I knew if I’d said the words, what her answer would be.
Taking my time, I touched every part of her, apologizing silently for what she’d been through and what I knew she would go through again.
When I finally shoved my trousers down far enough that she could sink down over me, both of us let out a sigh of something between relief and pleasure.
That was where she belonged. It was where we belonged. Locked together in a quiet room, sharing breath, our scents mixing until they were indistinguishable from each other.
The taste of her blood as I came was like coming home. It was life and death and every sunrise and sunset I’d ever seen.
I’d barely lifted my head when her teeth sank deep into the meat between my shoulder and neck. Jerking in surprise, I held the back of her head as she sobbed silently and came. When she let go, she shuddered and raised her face to mine.
“Let me see,” I whispered, using my thumb to gently raise her top lip.
Her canines had elongated. Not enough for the average person to notice, but long enough that she no longer needed me to nick my skin for the blood exchange.
“I think it happened today,” she said, kissing the tip of my thumb. “Do you think this means I’m immortal now?”
“Yes,” I replied roughly, staring at her mouth.
“I’m still not going with you, am I?”
