Even now, it tugged at me, pulling me like a hook around my spine, urging me to get closer to her, take her in my arms, and make her mine again. She still smelled of me, but only faintly. The bond urged me to touch her, taste her, take her. It consumed me to the point it was all I thought about.
I shook my head to clear it. “You’ll have me. Your Leisha willbe there. So will Alaric and Soren.”
Elena frowned at me. I had eyes only for those lips. “Alaric, maybe. But I wouldn’t consider Soren someone I’d like to know. Leisha has kept to her rooms since she realized there was a vampire in our midst. I think she’s scarred for life after the attack.”
Chuckling, I said, “He’s not too bad once you get to know him, bloodsucking aside. I’m sure she’ll settle once she gets used to being here.”
“I find that hard to believe. You said you made a blood pact with him? What does that mean? I’ve never heard of it.” Her voice was thick with doubt. I couldn’t blame her. Vampires weren’t beings I’d recommend trifling with.
Unable to resist any longer, I rose to my feet and crossed to her. Standing behind her at the vanity, I took the brush from her hands and resumed brushing her hair. Smiling faintly in amusement, she began rubbing cream over her face. I’d never been the domestic sort before. My previous mate had preferred to keep separate rooms, and for that I was grateful, but I could get used to this. It was only her first night in my rooms andthey felt more like home than they ever had.
“A blood pact binds a vampire to their word. When I found Soren had murdered clansmen, I tracked him down to a cave outside the city. I caught him unawares and roasted him until he was nothing but blackened meat and bones.” At Elena’s gasp, I added, “It wouldn’t kill him. A vampire can only be killed if you remove his heart and destroy it.”
“Sounds disgusting,” she said.
Nodding, I continued, “He agreed to the blood pact, which involved the exchange of blood between those making the pact, in order to save his own skin. He’ll never be able to take another’s blood without their explicit consent and he won’t be able to leave the Northlands until his terms as my spy are complete.”
“Why would you even want him for a spy?”
I set the brush aside and moved her hair until it lay in a sleek waterfall over one shoulder. “Vampires can be useful under certain circumstances. As you know, they’re able to coerce their victims so they don’t feel any pain during the feeding process.”
She shivered. “I’m aware.”
“Well, they’re also able to use this coercion even when they aren’t feeding. It’s useful when I need him to get information from a particularly unwilling subject.”
“Rhys, I have to say...you keep some interesting company.”
“None as interesting as you.” Or as beautiful, but it went without saying.
Giving a little laugh and smirking at me through the mirror, she said, “You’re only saying that to get me into bed.”
“Now who is reading whose mind?”
“I don’t have to be able to read your mind to know what’s on it in that regard.”
She let me pull her to her feet and toward the bed. Already her heart was beating double time. “Maybe one day you’ll be able to read my mind, too.”
“How?” she asked.
“For true mates, sharing thoughts happens whenever both mates accept the claiming bond.” I fingered my mark on her neck as her eyes went to my own bare skin. “If that were to happen, you could hear and speak to my mind as well.”
The thought wasn’t as horrifying as I thought it would be.
Which should have sent fear streaking through me.
But it didn’t.
Instead, I took her to bed and loved her well into the night. If the walls hadn’t been made of the thickest mountain stone, the entire castle would have heard her screams.
* * *
Every timeI woke up to her, I liked it a little bit more. She hoarded the covers, liked to sleep with her legs and arms wrapped around me like a snake shifter, and came awake as grumpy as a beleaguered cat, but it amused me more than irritated me now. Which I didn’t care to examine too closely.
For the first time since my first mate, Valeria’s death, I felt a measure of hope. It was so foreign that when I blinked myself awake and saw Elena sleeping next to me after our first night home; I frowned and rubbed at my chest. There was a tender ache in my heart I didn’t know what to do with. Ignoring it seemed wisest.
Instead of dwelling, I pulled Elena closer to my chest. She was sleeping as I learned she always did, with one arm around my waist and one ankle thrown in between my legs. It was as though she was afraid I would sneak away in the middle of the night and she was making sure she woke up if I did. Her hair was a tangled mess, even though she’d brushed it thoroughly the night before. I knew because I liked watching her. It pleased me to make her writhe against the bed as I licked her until she begged me to stop, in part because I knew it meant I’d get to watch her at the vanity again.
She came to slowly as I ran a claw down her spine. Groaning and turning from me, she murmured, “No, I’m not ready.”
