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“They did hurt you,” rumbles Aleks. His eyes are suddenly blazing red again. “If I had the power to, I’d bring them back to life just to have the pleasure of killing them all over again.”
Honestly? That is quite possibly the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. “Thank you, but I think once is enough. And unless I figure out how to do some necromancy of my own, I might lose you if you run out of blood.”
A slight smile tugs on Aleks’s lips. “I’m already dead, ksiezyca. I’ve risen once before.”
“That’s my point. Who says you will again? Now get over here. It’s your turn to feed.”
“I will. But, first, we have to discuss something.”
Now? “Can’t it wait? You need to feed, Aleks.”
“This is important to me. I promise you, I’ll be fine. But the next full moon is in eight days.”
I knew that. As a shifter, I know the Luna’s cycle intimately. But I never thought he paid close enough attention. Then again, I should’ve known better. When it comes to me, Aleks is aware ofeverything.
But I have no idea where he’s going with this right now. “Okay.”
“You’re mine, Elizabeth,” he says again. “Your body. Your heart. I need your soul. I need you to accept me as your forever mate. When your Luna rises again, I’m asking you to make me yours.”
I… I don’t know what to say. For two months, we’ve been dancing around the idea of mate bonds. When I finally confessed to him that he was my Luna-given fated mate, he knew that we would only be fully bonded when we performed the Luna Ceremony on the night of the full moon.
Our first full moon, I was in the hospital. The second, Aleks was conveniently occupied at the Cadre building. I just figured he wasn’t ready to make this thing between us permanent, especially since he’s never brought up making me his blood-bonded mate.
I figured it was a vamp thing. Most shifters are fully mated within the first Luna cycle after meeting their mate; chosen or fated, it didn’t matter, the Luna guided us to cement the bond as soon as possible. Immortal vamps have a lot more time—and a lot less of an animalistic nature—so they don’t jump right in.
So why is he deciding that this moon is the one where we’ll be mated? Because I almost died?
Because he almost lost a second beloved?
Two centuries later, and Aleks still harbors guilt over his Julia’s death. His biggest regret was that she died before he bonded her to him. Is that what happened? He saw me caught by the big shifter and thought it was happening all over again?
Does it matter?
I don’t know. I really don’t.
In shifter terms, what Aleks just did is the equivalent of him proposing to me. Regardless of his reasons why, I should be giddy that my fated mate is ready to take me from his intended mate to his forever… but I’m not. I can’t be.
With the Luna gone quiet for me, how can I get her blessing? Without it, there is no Luna Ceremony.
I want to explain. When I’m not quick to agree to Aleks’s offer, he frowns, and I want to tell him that I’m not rejecting him again. I just… I can’t. Not right now.
“Elizabeth,” he begins, but that’s all he says before his whole demeanor changes. The dangerous edge to his aura comes back as he snags me by my upper arm, pulling me into him right as he whirls around.
I sense their approach a moment after Aleks does. Together, we stare down the road, waiting for the two auras to get closer. He relaxes fractionally when it’s obvious they belong to vampires instead of shifters, and he nods when Dominic and Everett—looking no worse for the wear—come gliding toward us.
Aleks tucks me even closer against his side, as though he can’t stand the idea of letting me go for a second. “Tell me they didn’t escape.”
Once he reached us, the younger vampire began to gape in ill-disguised interest at the bite mark I left on Aleks. Blood dribbles down his throat, staining the hem of his formerly cream sweater. It’s not healing just yet, due to how much he already lost, and the white skin around the messy puncture wounds is an angry red.
And I get it. He probably never expected to see a bite mark on his leader. Vampires can only survive on live blood, from either a human or a shifter. None of his people would have any reason to drink his blood, and I’m a shifter and that’s not something we do. We bite, yes, claw and mark our mates, but we don’t drink their blood.
Unless, I guess, our mate turns out to be a vampire.
Dominic throws him a quelling look. “Everett,” he snaps, his French accent obvious in his annoyance. “Answer Aleksander.”
Everett flushes. “Sorry. No. They didn’t escape. We got them, sir. They won’t attack your beloved again.”
“Dobrze.” Aleks’s grin reveals the points of his fangs. “Good.”
