“He was twenty-three when we met, same as you. Young and curious, full of spit and vinegar, and always ready for an adventure. The first time I approached him, it was a dark night with no moon. I thought he’d be terrified of me, but instead he asked why I’d waited so long to approach him. He’d known I was there all along.” I couldn’t stop the smileI felt on my lips. He had made me happy. Happier than I’d ever been, but I didn’t want to remember all the good times. He’d destroyed that.
“He doesn’t sound so bad,” Blake said, then recoiled when I hissed and lunged at him.
“He nearly destroyed me!” I yelled. His eyes widened, and he looked as though he might try to run. If he did, there would be no stopping me from drinking him dry. The predator in me would finally get what it wanted and needed. He seemed to sense this and turned to face me with his hands held out.
“I mean no disrespect,” he whispered with a hard swallow.
For a moment, I leaned closer to him before hurrying to a safer distance where I could ignore the scent of his blood. I didn’t want to hurt the boy, but the emotions he brought out in me were not good for his mortality. “Thinking of him brings out the monster in me. He used me. I thought I was the one in control, but it turned out a weak human could make me believe he cared for me the way I did for him.”
“Love can make people do crazy things.” He looked down at the ground and even though he said he’d never been in love, I wondered if there had been someone who had hurt him in the past.
“The bond between mates is stronger than love. It’s a physical power that drives us to be together and risk everything for our mate. Our bond is everything.” There was no way to explain to him how strong our bond was. When my mate was alive, I could sense him for miles and know his thoughts and his moods. I would have done whatever he wanted, and he knew it. Our bond truly made me weak.
“Did you try to find another you share that bond with?” Blake asked, showing me once again how little he knew about my kind.
“Vampires only bond with their mate. Most of us are happy to not share our lives with another. We were together every night until we crossed into California. By then, it was me seeking him out. I was unable to resist him. The first time our lips met, it took every bit of restraint I could muster. My instincts told me to bite him and either change him or drain him.”
“Why didn’t you change him? He would still be alive,” Blake asked, once again enraging me, but I forced that anger down deep this time and grabbed control of myself.
“He wanted me to and asked many times. But I had never changed anyone before, and even though I’d existed for many years, there was so much I had no idea about and there were no other vampires for me to ask. Not to mention that when two vampires happened to meet, one usually ended up destroyed. I did not want to risk his life.”
“When was the last time you saw another vampire?” Blake asked, once again letting his curiosity lead.
“There was one that lived within one of the early settlements, but in all the years since then I haven’t run across another.” I hadn’t thought about it before, but it was strange. After being turned, there were many nights I either hid from others of my kind or fought them. It seemed all of us wanted to survive, and some wanted to control. But where had they gone?
“Maybe you’re the only one,” Blake said.
I tried to remember a time there was another of my kind here but there was only that one, and since I had never created another vampire, I knew for a fact there were none out there from me. “That cannot be. Even if there were none here then, surely there are more here now.”
“How would you know?” he asked, but his voice had changed from curious to concerned. Concern for a creature who would see him drained and dead before admitting he could be right.
“It doesn’t matter. Did you want me to show you where the gold is hidden?” I was done playing this game. A game I’d started and now was bored with and filled with frustration about questions I could not answer.
Blake thought for a moment before meeting my eyes. “I’m not sure it’s worth the price. Sure, it would change my life, but my life isn’t so bad the way it is now, and I don’t owe anyone anything.”
“You wouldn’t owe me anything more than some blood,” I reminded, but now even I wasn’t sure of that.
“I don’t think we should talk about it anymore. I don’t want to risk my life for a little gold. There’s no guarantee you would stop drinking once you start.”
He knew. This human who I doubted from the very start was far more intuitive and smarter than I gave him credit for. I was desperate for blood and would have told him anything to allow me to willingly feed from him, and he knew it. “What do you want?” I finally shouted as my lips curled back from my fangs.
“I want a guarantee you won’t kill me. I am still willing to help you, but I want you to swear you won’t drain me.” He really was brave. Never in all my years had I experienced a human who would dare make demands at the hands of a demon who could easily destroy him. Even though I’d lost my humanity, my word still meant something. I was still a man of honor and would not go back on any promises I made.
“My word is still as good as it was when I was human. If you do not want the gold, then I have nothing to give you in exchange for your blood.”
“All I need is your word that you won’t kill me.”
Hewas completely sincere and willing to let me feed as long as he survived. Never had a human asked this of me. But never had a human like him crossed my path.
Nine
Blake
“If you are willing to let me feed then I give you my word you will survive.” His lip twitched with his words as his eyes watched my neck and I wondered if he really could see my blood flowing through my veins, but I was too nervous to ask.
“Take what you—” He slammed into me before I could register that he’d moved and attached himself to the juncture of my neck and shoulder. My eyes slid shut as I tried not to think about what was happening and how much danger I’d knowingly put myself in. I relaxed in his arms as he held me more gently now. I could feel the pull of him drawing my blood into his mouth and heard when he swallowed each mouthful.
A low growl came from him, and I realized I was hard.What the fuck?He gripped me tighter around my chest and rather than push him away, I covered his arm with mine and hoped he’d never let me go. Flashes of images flooded my mind, but now I knew they were Marlon’s memories from long ago. There were images of a man on a horse, and another of him next to a stream, and yet another of him lying under—
