“Declan?” she asked as he grasped the door handle. “Where are you going?”
Fuck. The towel wrapped tightly around her breasts, but left a delectable slit from her upper thigh to her hip, and he wanted to dive between her legs and taste her one last time. “Out. I must get you food before the sun rises.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
Shame. Fear. Her emotions slammed into him, so clear and true, it took his breath away. His heart, which he’d started to urge to beat more and more, fell silent as a tear tumbled onto her cheek.
“No. It is I who should have known better. We were reckless, Riley.Iwas reckless. And now…all I want is to keep you.” At her shock, he quickly added, “Keep you safe. With me.”
“Explain.”
So much pain in the single word. Declan let his hand fall. “Agra, if I feed from you again, our connection—our bond—will strengthen beyond measure. I can sense your emotions already.”
Swiping the tear away with one finger, Riley sniffled. “And that’s…bad? I don’t understand.”
“In all the years of my existence, I have never fed from the same human twice. And fuck…I want you. Not just your blood. Your body. More.”
“More…?” Riley asked, the word escaping on a squeak. “What’s…more than that? More than what we’ve shared tonight?”
“A life bond.”
She blanched, taking a single step back. “Explain.”
“A mate. You would be mine, and I would be yours. I would feed from no other for the rest of my days, and my blood would sustain you. Riley, you would be…immortal. Forever kept, loved, and cherished. But bound to me.”
“You want to turn me?” Throwing up her hands, she tried to escape back into the bathroom. Declan wedged his foot in the door just in time to stop her from slamming it in his face.
The panic and abject terror radiating from her shattered his heart—the heart that hadn’t beaten in centuries. “Riley,” he snapped, wrapping his arms around her and stilling her frantic movements. “Listen to me. I will not turn you. I swear on my existence. On my departed human soul. On…anything you wish me to swear on.”
“But…immortal,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be immortal.”
“You wish to die?” That, he understood. In the centuries since being turned, he’d wondered. What it would be like to go up to the tallest spire of the castle, to face east and see one last sunrise for the few seconds it would take for the flames to engulf him.
Defeat marred her beautiful features, and she sagged in his hold. “No. But Declan…I don’t belong here. This isn’t my world.”
“I know.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting his lips linger longer than he should. “And that is why I will not feed from you again. Until you leave Ireland, you will be safe. From the gang and…from me.”
Releasing her, Declan forced himself to walk away. One step. Two. Three. He stopped at the door, taking one last moment to memorize everything about her. His mate. For she was. Even though they had not sealed themselves together, even though they never could, he had found his mate.
“I did not know,” he said quietly, “that a vampire was capable of love.”
He shut the door on her sob and strode to his motorcycle, hating himself for the one thing he did not tell her. He’d felt the change the very last time he’d fed from her—after their third round of lovemaking. The bond. He could not escape his fate now.
When Riley left this world, so would he.
