Abel swiped at his eyes, and I wanted to rip my own heart out for causing my beloved to cry. That had not been my intent. He had asked, and I had simply answered.
“I don’t know what to do,” Abel said.
“What do you mean? I will continue to message Vincent until he finally opens the door. If it takes longer than a day, I will sleep here on the floor, and you can have the bed. There is a bathroom right behind you, and I have no doubt that they will feed us with the help of Mazzi.”
Abel sighed. “I wonder how long it will take for someone to miss me.”
I blinked at my beloved. “What do you mean?”
“The warlock? Mazzi, you said?” I nodded. “He and the other vampire guy just sort of magicked me here. I was out for dinner, and then I was here.”
It felt as if the air in the room had been sucked out. “They did not bring you willingly?”
“No. I said I was in Montana and then here. Only I didn’t know that this was Italy. There was a bit of a situation with an alpha I had been seeing, and they really helped me with that. But they sort of snatched me without much choice.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. When I reopened my eyes, it was to see Abel through a tint of red. I quickly looked down, not wanting to frighten my beloved. Of course he would be seeing others. I was here, and until now, he did not know I existed. I could not expect him to wait for his mate, who wouldnever come for him. To try to distract myself, I opened a new message to Vincent.
Me: Mazzi and Naldo kidnapped my beloved? What were you thinking? The council is going to come after us! You need to return him immediately.
I waited, and it only took moments for a reply to appear.
Vincent: I’ll call Nik. He will talk to the council and everything will be fine. You are supposed to be romancing your beloved. Not messaging me. I will stop responding now. See you in a week.
I looked up at Abel, who didn’t exactly look hopeful. “Not good, huh?”
“Not terrible. But not what we want. Here,” I said, holding out my phone. I had nothing to hide from my beloved, and he deserved to see what all I had said to Vincent and what he’d said in response.
When Abel crawled toward me, my mind went places it absolutely shouldn’t be going. Especially not since it had been over a year since I’d drunk from anyone, and just as long since I’d sunk my dick into a willing partner.
Chapter 4
Abel
Ihad never felt more conflicted than I was at the moment. My mate…I had a mate! But he was a bad guy. But he was really hot. Like, I knew he could do dirty things to me hot. But he was a bad guy. Like…a bad-bad guy. Were there partially bad, bad guys? Probably not. They were either good or not. And Marcello…he was hot. But I had to forget that because he was a mobster, and there was no way I could ever be mated to a mobster. I looked at Marcello and all of his sexiness. I mean…I could. I was sure it would be so much fun getting naked and doing very dirty things with him. He was a vampire, and I had heard about some of the things that vampires did to their beloveds during sex.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. There was no denying that Marcello was seriously hot. He was. But he had even said that his world wasn’t for me. I’d heard all about Marcello when he’d been on Treasure Ridge last year.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You may ask anything. If I can answer, I will. If not, I’ll try to find the answer for you.”
How could he say something like that and be such a terrible person? “When did you scent me?”
Marcello smiled, only it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Year before last. It was in December. Before the solstice festival that the council was preparing for. I was made very much aware that I was not welcome to attend. Why do you ask?”
I opened my mouth. That was over a year ago. It was March. I did the math as quickly as I could. “You saw me fifteen months ago?”
Marcello smiled. “Fifteen months and five days. Why do you wonder?”
“How are you alive?” I asked. “I thought vampires had to feed from their beloveds once they met them.” I was suddenly once again thinking about being naked and doing all of the sexy, dirty things with Marcello while he fed from me.
“A vampire does not need to feed from their beloved if they do not claim them. I was never allowed anywhere near you, so the issue of claiming you never happened.”
I suddenly felt a jealous rage I didn’t quite understand. “So you won’t die because you can just go on feeding from someone else.”
“Yes. The coven has donors that live here for that very purpose.” Marcello smirked. “They are more than happy to exchange blood for the pleasures that the coven members bring them during the exchange.”
Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they? And I had no doubt that Marcello was one who sampled many of the donors. He was super-hot, and of course, he hadn’t suffered just because he wasn’t with me.
