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Expect the course to reset but for his fire to burn out long before he’s ready.
Betrayed by blood to pay for the peace he brings, the veil comes for him in his twenty-ninth year.
If you heed not my warning, you will call forth the end of your line, and start a new war that will continue until the end of time.
I’d read it to him. He knew the implications. He knew it was about me. There was no denying it.
“How many more times are you going to use it as an excuse to leave me?”
“As many times as I have to.” My conscience was long gone. Long gone from nights curled up with the enemy. I was as dirty as he was. A traitor to my people. If they ever found out, my end would come a lot sooner. I was so tired. There were nights I wished for us, but I had so much left to do. “My people will never allow us to be together.”
“No, and they’d smell me on every inch of you.” He didn’t move his hands away. “I’m not their enemy.”
No amount of scouring or showers could remove his stench. Loving him made me a traitor, and I’d used every trick over the years to keep it a secret. I’d pay for those sins in my next life.
“Close enough.” I closed my eyes and leaned into danger. His fangs were fully extended and poised to rip my throat out.
His cold skin clashed with my warmth.
The living meets the mostly dead.
He was ‘other’. If there was a place between us and the vampires, more human, more animal, more alive, but he was still one of them. And since his kind had been trying to burn out mine as long as our history went back, they’d never accept him. I’d searched for a source of the war for years, but I’d never found one. There were excuses, like it started over a vampire feeding off one of our kind and the wolf killed him. And the vampires wanted to be the only kind to harness the power of humans they saw as lesser and we were competition, but I couldn’t find either rooted in truth. It was merely the way of the world.
A blood feud.
These feuds were embedded in ancient Greek morality and I traced the conflict between our kinds as far back. Acts of revenge were sanctioned by the Gods.
“And what are you going to do about it?” he asked, lips finding my neck, soft and deceiving, almost making me believe he wasn’t a monster.
“I don’t know.” It was the truth. There was no way to be together.
But there was no way to stop. I’d tried.
“Then why are you here?” Through with my neck, he claimed my mouth.
I parted my lips willingly, flicking my tongue over one of his canines. Flirting with danger. I knew what my blood was to him. “You called.”
“That’s never made you do what I want before.” He grabbed the back of my head, deepening the kiss.
“Because I’m tired of fighting it.” Our conversation came in fits between battles of our teeth and tongues.
Long, lingering lip locks and forgotten moments.
Starved for each other.
I’d missed him so damn much. I was torn between taking my hurt and anger out on him and wanting the soft touches and intimacy I only got from him.
He licked into my mouth, letting me taste him. There was blood there. Human blood. I should kill the girl who’d touched him. Even if I knew it wasn’t her fault.
“Mean,” he hissed into my mouth. “So, I should expect this to be a one-time thing?”
“You know it has to be.”
“What do you know?” he asked like he was expecting an answer.
“I need you out of these pants,” I demanded.
He stepped back, freeing himself the rest of the way from the slacks so I wouldn’t help. I’d ruined too many of them for his liking. I let him have this pair of trousers. How Vin got away with dressing like he was a modern-day Jane Austen hero, I’d never know. His tastes were eccentric and refined, as old as his soul, but what shocked me was that the humans he interacted with never seemed to notice.
