Page 93 of Caretaker

Chapter Thirty-One

“Get off me,” I yelled, when my broken arm banged off the pavement.

He nuzzled my throat, his lips surprisingly warm, then stared down at me. His face was shadowed, but his eyes glittered with emotion. “No.”

He wrapped his fingers around my cast and lifted my arm, kissing my fingers as they curled around the opening of the plaster. “This will heal with my blood inside you.”

I shivered at his smooth voice, and a surge of lust tightened my stomach. I clenched my thighs against it. “Get off me,” I said again, but softly. Then, “You made it off the island.”

He smiled, then brushed his lips across mine, shocking me. When had Amias Sato become so...tender? “And you have retrieved your werebull. Everything is as it should be.”

“Not everything,” I whispered. “Let me up, Amias.”

He was on his feet almost before I realized he’d moved, and he lifted me with him. It was dizzying.

“You’re faster,” I noticed. “You’re not the hungry thing you were before.”

He said nothing, just stood before me with a stillness that almost made him disappear into the shadows.

He’d fed. He’d fed from someone with pure blood.

And it hadn’t been me.

I backed away from him as rage grabbed me by the throat—not because he’d fed, but because I was angry about it. I did not want to feel possessive or jealous over Amias Sato. That would mean I was just a little damn crazy, wouldn’t it?

I shook my head to clear it. “You found a clean human.”

A flash of guilt and worry, there and gone, rippled over his face. “Not tonight. And no one’s blood will ever do for me what yours will do.”

I frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

He wrapped his fingers around my upper arms and squeezed gently. “Trinity. You have retrieved your bull. You made me a promise, my love.”

“What promise?” And just like that, I remembered. “I promised to feed you if you saved Angus.”

“Indeed.”

“You didn’t rescue him, Vampire. I did.” But then, a memory, a realization, spun crazily from the darkness and smashed into my mind. “Oh, my God.”

He saw the dawning realization in my eyes. “I will tell you everything.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Your scent was on her. You’re the one who took Madalyn Bennett.”

“Yes.”

I lifted my fist to hit him but he caught my hand in his and I couldn’t wrench it out of his grip. I shuddered as familiar pain ripped through me—the pain I would always feel when I truly wanted to hurt him.

Frustrated, I breathed through the discomfort, and finally, it faded. “I’ll tell the judge,” I spat. “I’ll tell Crawford. They will hunt you down. I’ll send Shane to—”

“Hush, Trinity,” he scolded. “You will listen to me.”

“Fuck you,” I said. Then, “Tell me. What the hell did you do, Amias?”

“One would do much to survive, Trinity. Especially a vampire. What waits for us in death is…” He shrugged. “You’re aware.”

Yes, I was aware. I knew something of what the unending, unthinkable despair felt like. The incubus had made sure of that. I’d experienced it for only a little while. A vampire who was given the true death would experience it for an eternity.

There were perks to being immortal, but there were also penalties. Horrible ones.