“Vampires can have true mates, like any other supe. But they’re far less emotionally driven than shifters, or even humans.” He shook his head. “If my true mate is a vampire, she would be just as likely to forget we ever met as she would to acknowledge a bond between us.”
“That’s horrible. She wouldn’t feel that pull toward you?”
He shrugged. “She might. But she could just as easily ignore it. Vamps are cold to the bone, Nessa. Not just their core temperature, but their hearts. Their souls.” He shuddered. “I pity the bear who has to endure that for a lifetime.”
“On the bright side, if you brought home a vampire mate, it would be funny to watch Zeke squirm every time he saw her,” Nessa joked, expecting him to laugh.
Instead, Jasper’s expression turned somber. “I couldn’t do that to him. Bad enough, Zeke’s true mate severed their bond so she could go shack up with a leech, but to flaunt my mate in his face would be just evil.”
Nessa blinked at Jasper, shocked. That’s why Zeke hated the vampires? She’d assumed his mate had died, not that she’d … broken up with him to pursue someone else.
But it’s not a simple breakup, is it?
Being mated to someone went so much deeper than that. It was a lifetime commitment, far more permanent than even marriage.
“His mate?” Nessa shook her head in disbelief. “How long were they together?”
“A few years,” Jasper supplied, pursing his lips in irritation. “Despite being true mates, it was obvious they didn’t … mesh well together. She wanted Zeke to be someone he wasn’t. He tried to accommodate her, to shrink himself into the box she’d made to reflect her opinion of an ‘ideal partner.’” He air quoted the last part with a small snarl. “But it still wasn’t enough. Then he came home one day, and she was waiting for him, hoping to end things. She wasn’t alone.”
Nessa slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head. “She brought the vampire with her?” Her voice was muffled against her hand, but he heard her perfectly.
“Oh, yeah. Didn’t even have the leech leave the room before she severed her mating bond with Zeke.”
That seemed so vindictive. So cruel. What kind of person did that?
“You said that before. Sever … Is it the same thing as rejecting a mate?” She’d almost done that to Murphy, but he’d stopped her before she could utter the words.
“Rejecting a mate is hard, but there isn’t anything magical about it. You reject someone and hope the other person takes the hint and leaves you alone,” Jasper informed her. “But when that bond has been established, when a connection, a claim is put into place, the only way to part ways with one another is to sever the bond or die. When you sever the bond, the claiming bite disappears, the threads that bind your hearts and souls together dissolve into nothing. You lose the pieces of yourself that once made you whole.”
“How do you sever it?”
Jasper snorted out an abrupt laugh. “Sick of Murphy already?”
Nessa narrowed her eyes at him.
He smiled, relaxing in his seat behind the counter. “Words and intention, really. I’m not quite sure how it works—I’m not one to study up on magic and fate—but it’s simple enough. You say the words intended to sever the bond, and BAM!” He slammed his palm onto the counter, the loud noise startling her. “Mating is over.”
That seemed horrific. What were the ‘words’ anyway? Were they something specific, like the supernatural version of ‘I want a divorce?’
Nessa tensed, anxiety slamming into her. What if she got mad at Murphy one day, said ‘Being mated sucks,’ or something else like that, and it severed their bond?
You would never do that.
No. She wouldn’t. She would never say something in anger to hurt someone she loved out of spite. Nor would she ever think about leaving Murphy.
“That’s …” Nessa blew out a long breath. “A lot. Poor Zeke.”
No wonder he hated vampires.
“I didn’t even tell you the worst part,” Jasper added.
“It gets worse?” How could it?
“Oh, yeah.” Jasper looked toward the door. “Got a customer pulling into the parking lot, by the way.”
Nessa pushed away from the counter, ushering for him to keep talking. She wanted to know what happened next, customers be damned! “What happened to Zeke after the bond severed?”
“He was really disoriented. Said it felt like he’d been stabbed in the chest a thousand times,” he continued quickly, keeping his focus on the glass door to the teahouse. “He was pissed, and hurting, so he swung on the leech. Missed him by several feet and fell over. Smacked his head on the floor and passed clean out. When he woke, she was gone, and so was half of his shit.”
