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Amelie, let me help you with that."
It was dark by 5 P.M., a couple of hours after Corinne and Hunter had finally come out of their shared bedroom at the safe house. If Amelie had noticed their absence for most of the day, she had been too polite to mention it.
Now, as Corinne finished setting the kitchen table, she turned to assist at the stove, where Amelie was pulling on oven mitts, about to reach in and retrieve their dinner from the broiler.
"Here," Corinne said. "Let me get that for you."
Amelie gave her a dismissive little cluck of her tongue. "Don't you worry about it, child. I know my way around this old kitchen like the back of my hand."
It seemed unnecessary to point out to Amelie that she didn't have the benefit of sight to guide her. As she had the day before, the gray-haired woman navigated her living space as though she knew every square inch of it by instinct alone. Corinne stood back as Amelie served up two beautifully browned slabs of buttery white fish crusted with a fragrant smattering of peppers and spices. The aroma wafted up from the broiler, making Corinne's stomach growl in anticipation.>She considered it for a long moment, time during which Hunter grappled with whether or not to divulge the vision that had been haunting him nearly from the moment he'd first laid eyes on beautiful Corinne Bishop. Some foolish part of him hoped for an out - that his talent would fail to read her blood memories or that somehow, in defiance of Mira's unerring gift of precognition, he could thwart the eventuality of Corinne's tears and futile pleas for his mercy. In the time it took for him to run through the mental torture, Corinne drew a deep breath and met his gaze once more. There was no hesitation in her eyes, only bold, unwavering resolve.
"Do this, Hunter. If you care even a little bit for me, then please, do this. I accept any risk, and I will trust you to do what you must."
He felt sick with dread at the bravery in her words. The knowledge of what likely lay ahead of them made his stomach twist with bitter bile.
But then Corinne moved closer to him. She gathered her long dark hair and swept it aside, baring her neck to him. She tilted her head, an offering he knew he would be too weak to deny.
"Please," she whispered. "Please ... do this for me."
His hot gaze rooted on the small pulse that ticked beneath her delicate skin. Saliva surged into his mouth. His fangs ripped out of his gums, a fierce reminder of just how long it had been since he'd fed. Henry Vachon's rank lifeblood had been more poison than nourishment, a foulness he longed to blot out with the taste of something sweet and intoxicating, like the nectar that flowed through Corinne's tempting veins.
"Please," she murmured again, an enticement he could not resist.
Hunter put his mouth onto her neck and carefully bit down, penetrating the soft flesh with the razor-sharp points of his fangs. She gasped at the invasion, her body tensing through the momentary pain he'd inflicted. And then she was melting against him, her muscles going lax and pliant as he drew the first sip of her blood into his mouth.
Ah, God ... she was so much more than he could ever have imagined.
Her warm blood coursed over his tongue like a balm. He felt it absorbing into his body, into his cells. Into every particle of his being.
She was sweet and warm against his tongue, her blood scent filling his nostrils with the delicate fragrance of dark bergamot and tender violets. He breathed her in, drenching his senses with the delicious taste of her, a taste that would be stamped into every fiber of his being for as long as he was alive to draw breath.
Although this was an act of compassion, of necessity, not a true blood-bonding between himself and his mate, everything Breed in him - everything hot-blooded and male - responded to the warm, sweet taste of Corinne as though she belonged to him in every way. Arousal roared up on him swiftly, a desire that pounded through his veins and into his hardening cock like wildfire. He clutched her close as he drank still more. He felt a heat ignite deep within him and knew instinctively that the bond was taking shape regardless of intention, lashing her to him inexorably. She was his now, and the logic that had shaped him all his empty life seemed to abandon him as he tried to tell himself that allowing this visceral link - for any reason - had been a mistake.
All he knew was the heat of her blood as it filled him, the pleasure of holding her in his arms ... the need that made him groan with desire as he lifted her and carried her with him to the bed.
He laid her down, his mouth still fixed to the pulse that beat like a tiny drum against his tongue. He wanted to make love to her all over again, wanted to strip her naked and bury himself as deep as possible within the comfort of her body.
His senses were flooded with need, his body on fire, electric and rigid with the force of his passion for her.
At first, he didn't notice the sudden flickers of darkness that jolted his mind. He tried to push them away, lost to the pleasure of everything that was Corinne. But the abrupt images kept coming, kept battering at the back of his consciousness.
Flashes of a dark prison cell.
Minions dressed in white lab uniforms, coming in to wheel Corinne away. The screams of a female in agony ... followed by the blustering wail of a newborn infant. Hunter drew back from Corinne's neck, stunned, stricken.
"What is it?" she asked him, her eyes wide, fearful. "Are you okay?"
"Fuck," he gasped, amazed that his talent was responding, yet horrified for what she'd been through. More images slammed into his brain, sounds of torture and madness. The hopelessness of what had surrounded her all those years. "Corinne ... my God. What they did to you, and for so long. I'm seeing it all ... everything you were forced to endure."
She reached up and cupped her hand around his nape. Pain glittered in her eyes, though not as fiercely as the determination written on her lovely face. "Don't stop. Not until we find him."
He couldn't deny her, even if he'd wanted to. If Corinne had survived the awfulness in reality, then he could sift through it psychically and retrieve whatever she thought might lead them closer to her child.
Hunter drank some more, letting the terrible anguish and torture wash over him like an oily tide. He waited for something irrefutable, some solid clue that would anchor him, provide some bearings in the wasteland of agony that had been Corinne's existence in Dragos's laboratory prison.
But there was no line to grab hold of. Nothing but a brackish riptide that Corinne had somehow managed to weather on her own.
Because of the love of her child, she'd said. All because of him.
