I couldn’t deny him. I knew he kept telling me he was a bad person, and he was, I was sure. But he was my mate, and he was asking me for something fairly simple and small. I crawled into his lap and curled up. When I felt Marcello’s fingers go through my fur, a shiver went through me. I didn’t normally like to be petted, but this was my mate.
“You are stunning in both forms.” Marcello sighed. “If my life were different, if I weren’t who I was, I would have approached you all those months ago. I can only bring you pain though, Abel. And although I know being apart will be painful as well, it will eventually fade to a dull ache that is manageable.” He lifted my head. “I hope you understand.”
I nodded, because what else could I do? I let Marcello run his fingers through my fur for a long time, and being near my mate, having him touch me in the way he was, felt truly amazing. I understood a bit more now why shifters were often completely enamored with their mates. His touch was soothing, even though what he said was already true. He was causing me pain, and I knew that even more was to come.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I was warm and lying on an incredibly comfortable bed, and was naked and in my human form. I’d shifted back sometime in the night. The sun was shining in through the windows and it was a beautiful thing. I sat up enough to look around the room and found Marcello exactly where he had been last night: sitting in front of the door. When he saw me, he gave me a tired-looking smile.
“You should have put me on the floor and taken your bed,” I told him.
“You are my beloved. You deserve all of the comforts that life has to offer.”
I knew I was naked, and I wondered if he would be terribly upset if I stood and hurried to the bathroom.
“I want to talk to you, but I really need to use the bathroom first.”
“You know where it is,” Marcello said. “Breakfast wasdeliverednot long ago.”
I paused as I was reaching to toss the blanket back. “Are they truly going to keep us prisoners here for the next week?”
“It appears so, yes.” Marcello stood with a grunt. I felt terrible, but he could have slept in his bed. I had offered more than once. He walked over to a small table that was near the double doors that I’d tried to open yesterday.
When his back was turned, I made a dash for the bathroom and quietly closed the door. I looked at the shower longingly, butif breakfast had been delivered, I didn’t have time for that at the moment—it could wait.
I washed my hands, splashed some water on my face to clear the cobwebs, and then quickly dressed in the only clothes I had, so really, the shower didn’t make exact sense since I was just going to be putting on dirty clothes anyway.
I left the bathroom and found Marcello staring out the double doors. “It’s pretty out there,” I said as I came up to stand beside him.
“It is. I love Italy. But it is what I have always known. Would you care to eat?”
I sighed. “I guess. I really need to talk to you, though, because your coven master needs to let me out and send me back to Montana.”
“I can try again, but my last four messages to Vincent have gone unread.”
I sat down, and although the food looked and smelled delicious, I found I wasn’t overly hungry. “Well, we might need to resort to beating on the door and screaming because I had a heat coming in a few weeks, but I can guarantee that it’ll be here in days now that I’ve met you.” I saw the color drain from Marcello’s face. At least he understood what that meant. “I was going to ask if it truly would be so terrible for us to be mated, but your face gives me my answer.”
“You truly do not understand what it is you are asking.”
I nodded slowly. “Then you need to get me out of here because there’s something you need to know about fox shifters.”
“What is that?
“Outside of our heat cycles, which come every nine months and not every year, we’re horny. When we’re in heat, we are truly unsatiable, and there is no way I won’t do everything I possibly can to get you to claim me. So if you truly don’t want to claim me, you need to get me out of this room.”
Chapter 5
Marcello
Iwanted Abel in the worst way. I had since I’d first scented him what felt like another lifetime ago. The thought of him being trapped in here with me and going into heat…my mind was going places that I knew it shouldn’t be. I stood and started pacing.
To pair a horny fox omega with a highly sexual vampire…bravo. If I were anyone but who I was, I would have been all over him last evening after I put him to bed and got a look at all of that smooth skin. He was a temptation before I’d seen all of him. Now that I had, I knew he would certainly be fulfilling my fantasies.
He was going to go into heat. This was new information, and for a moment, I considered it. It would be glorious to have my beloved with me, and to fall asleep every night sexually satisfied with the taste of his blood and cum on my tongue. I pushed against the throbbing bulge in my slacks. I’d jerked off twice in the night while Abel had slept, but it had brought no relief. I was just as hard now as I had been when he collided with me in the doorway. I wasn’t sure I would ever find relief without claiming him.
“Marcello?” Abel’s slender hand hesitantly touched mine. I looked down at my beloved through a red haze. “Your eyes are red again.”
I closed them and nodded. “It will go away.”
“I want you to know that I am willing to be yours if you were. I understand you don’t want to claim me and why. But I think that despite the different worlds we come from, we could make each other happy.”
