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Only with Aleks could I tilt my chin up at him, daring a visibly upset vampire to answer me. “Which one?
I hit a nerve there. Immediately, his expression goes from guarded to closed-off. “So that’s what that’s about. Julia again? I thought we put her behind us.”
He did?
A lump lodges in my throat. I can’t help it. Despite wondering what he was doing here, I was so fucking happy to see him standing out there—and now it’s all gone to hell. I can’t even blame him. It’s me. The problem has always been me.
I sigh.
He stiffens, but stays a couple of feet away from me.
“No, Aleks,” I tell him, “I don’t think either one of us has.”
He purses his lips. I see the tips of his fangs peeking out from beneath the upper one. Avoiding my stare now, his gaze glances around the one-room cabin. He takes in the scratched wooden table, the pallet in one corner, and my duffel thrown next to it.
“You deserve better than this, Elizabeth,” he murmurs, his voice gone gentle. “Let me take you away from this place. Then we can talk.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Then we’ll talk here. “
I think I said everything I had to when I left his fang behind on the glass coffee table.
Still, I can’t help but ask, “Talk about what?”
“Julia.”
My stomach goes tight. “That’s definitely not a good idea.”
Moving slowly toward me, careful in case I bolt, Aleks waits until there are only a few inches between us before he takes my hand, weaving his fingers with mine. “Ah, ksiezyca. If a ghost of a female is keeping you from me, then I think it’s the best idea. I need you to understand. Please… let me do this. And if you still want to run when I’m done, you can. I’ll chase you, of course, but at least you’ll have all the facts.”
I shudder out a breath. Aleks… he’s offered to tell me about Julia before. Gem, too. Shortly after I moved in with him, he pulled out the locket with Julia’s portrait in it from his bedside table and told me that I could ask him anything. He’s an open book, right? Whatever I wanted to know, he’d answer me truthfully.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d been afraid that he carried her around in his pocket wherever he went, and it was a relief to know he kept it in his bedside table instead. That’s all I cared about. What happened with Julia… if I asked about her, I had to brace myself to hear about how amazing she was, how he wished he’d bonded her to him before she died, and then deal with another round of wondering if he only settled for me because I could be her physical twin.
I told him the barest details of my past. I thought I was okay with him doing the same. Sometimes, I still got jealous when I thought of him loving Julia and pining over Gem, but I would remind myself that I was in his bed. I was the one who fed him. He chose me, even if we weren’t bonded.
But if Julia Zloty hadn’t died two hundred years ago, he never would’ve been able to…
When I can’t find the words to answer him, Aleks uses our joined hands to lead me over to the table. He waits until I’m seat, then kneels next to me. Aleksander Filan, the leader of the Muncie Cadre, goes to his knees by my side, laying his hand on my thigh as if genuflecting to me.
Oh my Luna.
“Aleks—”
I want to tell him to get up. That he’s too good to be on his knees like that, and if there’s one seat, I can sit on his lap. But I never get the chance.
“I’d only known Julia for two week before she died,” he begins, tilting his head back so that he’s looking right into my eyes. “I never made it to the full moon with her, and though she recognized me as her fated mate, she refused to give me blood. When I offered her mine, she was revolted. I couldn’t bond her to me, and I had to wait until the full moon to let her claim me. That’s how a blood-bonding works,” he tells me. “A vampire shares his blood with his beloved and takes hers inside of him. Just like your Luna Ceremony, the mate has to choose. I asked you if you were my beloved, ksiezyca. The first night we made love… I asked you. You told me you were. You chose me as your male.”
I… I did.
Gem was the one who told me I should “take him for a ride”. I never thought he really wanted to be tied to me for life—especially when a vampire can survive everything except decapitation—but I wanted him so bad, I gave in to mine and my wolf’s need to fuck him out in the woods.
I remember every second of that night. The tang of an oncoming snow in the air, the crunch of the iced over accumulating beneath us, and how amazing it felt to have his chilled cock working its way inside of my overheated body.
But before he ever put the tip in, Alex made me look at him.Are you my beloved, he asked.Do you accept me as yours?Only after I told him I was did mating become inevitable.
He stalked toward me. He said,You’re mine. Forever.Then, while our bodies were connected, I invited him to feed from me while we fucked me. He did, and then he begged me to do the same.
