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“If it had passed through you, you’d be dead. No, Hannah, I had nothing to do with killing that vampire.” He could see she was in a state of shock as she slowly lowered her arms to her sides.
“If you’re suggesting that I had anything to do with it, I think you’re crazy. I run a bar, I don’t kill vampires.”
“But you did and I thin
k it’s tied up with the flush that’s finally fading from your skin.”
She looked away from him, shaking her head. “None of this makes sense.”
Jude said nothing more, but waited for her to catch up. His mind rolled inward and switched lanes completely as he recalled being in Walvashorr with Mastyr Seth, and so deeply attracted to Lorelei, Seth’s emerging blood rose.
Jude had heard the tales, about the level of possessiveness a mastyr would feel for his woman and the drive he’d have toward her, but he’d dismissed a good portion of this as outright embellishment.
Until … and he cringed at the memory … until he’d found himself alone with Lorelei for the first time. It was as though he’d lost his mind. He went after her and something about her blood-rose state responded to his mastyr status as well. She’d all but opened her arms to him.
The moment had ended with Seth attacking him and he and Seth would have battled to the death if Lorelei hadn’t intervened.
As he stared at Hannah, he knew he’d just gotten thrown into the deep end once more. If she was a blood rose, or an emerging one, with unique incredible powers, and she remained unbonded for any length of time, every mastyr in the Nine Realms would eventually come hunting her.
He’d take the chronic pain he suffered as a mastyr to be rid of this horrible situation. He didn’t want a Goddess be-damned woman in his life, he hadn’t asked for a blood rose, and like hell he was going to act on it.
But this was Hannah. And if he wasn’t careful, a mastyr vampire of lesser ability and no character at all, could seduce her. Then she’d be locked into a life of pure torture.
What the hell was he supposed to do?
~ ~ ~
Hannah could feel that for whatever reason, Jude’s anger had taken over. Though why he was mad, she wasn’t sure.
Of course, nothing made sense to her right now. It was almost as though she knew something in the very center of her brain, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at it.
She glanced down at her toes once more, now more pink than red, so the flush was fading.
But what had caused all the redness?
Her tingling hands were still really warm and bugging her. She rubbed them together again.
And Jude had no pain.
She mentally danced a little more.
Maybe this was simple. She’d fed him and something about feeding him had been a little different than what he was used to. That had to be it. And as for her killing a vampire, well, he’d lost a whole bag of screws on that one. She was more likely to shut the Gold Rush down forever than to even kill a flea. All spiders walked out of her bar alive.
With her towel still snug, she turned toward the sink and flipped on the cold water. She held her hands beneath the stream and felt some relief from the tingling. Maybe it was time to see a doctor.
Jude drew close and settled a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hannah.”
Why did he sound so resigned? And to what?
She held her hands up for him to see. “My hands won’t cool down, even though the water is freezing. I shouldn’t have fed you. This is because I fed you. I knew I shouldn’t have. I’m human, you’re realm and we shouldn’t engage like that.”
“I know this is hard for you.”
She slammed the faucet off, wiping her hands on the towel still wrapped around her, then whirled toward him. “What do you mean, this must be hard?”
But his gray eyes were filled with so much compassion that she took a step back, bumping into the sink. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Hannah.”
