Page 40 of Bound By Blood

Carly snorted but made no other comment.

A few minutes later, the doors were closed, and they were taking off. Landon settled in and busied himself by scrolling through his phone to double-check that everything was set for them to arrive. He was not going to initiate a conversation with Carly because, once again, he was in no mood to fight, especially with the flight being as long as it was. He was already on edge and antsy, and he just wanted to get this over with. The sooner they broke the bond between them, the better.

Once he got the all-clear to leave from his father, he made arrangements for a rental car to be waiting for them at the airport. From there, they would make their way to a small cabin a few miles from where Kata was last known to be. He had wanted to get two cabins, to maintain the distance between himself and Carly, but the guy only had the one. Thankfully, the cabin had two separate bedrooms, so they at least wouldn’t have to bunk together.

“When do we land?” Carly finally asked. There was a shy tone to her voice, something unlike her usual demeanor. She didn’t look over at him either and was also focused on scrolling through her phone.

“About eight hours.” He kept his answers short and clipped with no emotion behind them. She wouldn’t be getting any of that from him anymore.

This time, she did glance over at him. “Do you know where Kata is?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Care to share with the crowd?”

His jaw clenched as he struggled to maintain control of the darkness inside of him, which was proving to be more difficult the last few days. “Why?” he snapped angrily. “What does it matter? You are fucking here, aren’t you? It’s not like I’m going without you.” Even though that’s what he would have preferred.

Carly flinched at the harshness of his tone. “Jesus, Landon.”

Landon growled in frustration and slammed his phone down on the small table in front of him. He wasn’t sure why she was so surprised by his cold shoulder, she had no one to blame but herself. She made it clear that all she wanted him for was a good fuck, and that thought still stung. “What, Carly? What do you want from me?”

Her attention was stuck at his feet for a moment. “I’m sorry, okay?” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have said what I said to you back at the penthouse.”

Landon looked away from her and turned his attention out the window, watching the world down below. He took several deep breaths to try to calm himself down. The last thing he needed was to lose control while they were in the air and she had no escape. “Don’t apologize for saying what you mean. That’s a sign of weakness.”

“I said it because I didn’t want to get my heart broken,” she muttered. “I said it because I was scared.”

“And you think I’m not?” he exclaimed loudly, finally turning to face her. “Fuck, Carly. Before you came along, I was doing just fine. I did what I wanted when I wanted. I fucked who I wanted when I wanted. I’m a fucking vampire. I answer to no one but my father. But you… you’ve fucking changed me. And you think that doesn’t scare me? I’m the fucking monster here, I’m not supposed to be afraid of anything. And yet, I was more than ready to accept whatever the fuck this is between us.”

He hadn’t meant to say all that to her and wasn’t sure why he did. He hated how broken she looked, and how he had been the one to hurt her like that, but it was necessary. She had pushed him too far, and he was sick of this back-and-forth bullshit. He wasn’t going to do it anymore.

Carly hesitated for a moment before she spoke again. “I was homeless once, you know.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked pointedly. He hadn’t been aware of that fact, but he wasn’t sure how it factored into their current predicament. “Is that why you are so cold toward me? Because I have money?”

“No, no. Your money has nothing to do with it.” She sighed deeply and pulled her knife from her jean pocket. “I traded for this. It was my only source of protection. I was alone, scared, and…” She nibbled on the inside of her lip, seemingly hesitant to continue.

“And what? Get to the point, Carly.”

She flicked open the knife and twisted it around in her hand, studying it. “One night, a man came to me. He was homeless, just like I was. He was nice and friendly. Until he wasn’t.”

With as dark and twisted as his mind had been the last four days, he could see where this story was headed. He didn’t like it, but he still didn’t understand what it had to do with anything. He had never pushed her to do something she didn’t want to do, he had never forced himself on her. He had never given her a reason not to trust him. He had even divulged more about his life and his world to her than he had to anyone else.

However, he could also see how hard all this was for her to share, and he could understand how it would have affected her. But she was letting her past completely dictate her future, and he knew from experience that was no way to live. Instead of saying any of this to her, he forced himself to relax and let her tell her story. She wasn’t one to open up, and this was probably the last time she would do so since they were going to be breaking the bond in a few days' time.

“The moment I trusted him, he pushed himself onto me. He had every intention of raping me, and I couldn’t let that happen. So, I took my knife, and I killed him.” She met his gaze and flicked the knife closed. “I trusted again, and again, and again, and each time, I was let down. Each time, I had to kill them for my own safety.” She blew out a breath and shook her head. “I don’t trust easily. It’s the only way I’ve survived.”

Landon was silent for several moments as he mulled over her words and thought about his own. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

Carly gripped her knife’s handle tightly until her knuckles turned white, clearly upset by his response. “I’m not looking for pity. I’m just trying to get you to understand why I said what I said and that I know it was wrong to assume you’d be the same.”

“I have never pitied you, Carly,” he retorted flatly. “I sympathize with you, there’s a difference. And I have never once thought you were weak. I knew from the very beginning how strong you were. But your inability to trust me proves that you are not made for my world. You’ve been through a lot, more than someone like you should have gone through, but my world is different. It’s darker. I’m darker than anything you have ever come across before, and that’s what you are not getting.”

Once again, he turned his attention back out the window, running his finger across his bottom lip. Her admission only conflicted him even more. He wanted to pull her close and protect her from the horrors he knew existed in the world, but he also wanted to keep her as far away from himself as possible to protect her from the horror that he was. There was no good possible outcome here, and it was eating him from the inside out.

“I am not good for you,” he admitted. “You will never trust me. And you shouldn’t.”

“So then give me a reason to trust you! Show me what you are hiding.”