Page 50 of These Dangerous Fates

“A beloved is a vampire’s form of soul mate,” Cade explains gently. “Shifters have mates. Mages have soul bonds. Vampires have beloveds.”

I know what a beloved is to a vampire, but I let him explain. At this point, I need all the explanations I can get. My hands grow clammy and I wipe them on my leggings. When I do, I notice the tremors making my fingers shake.

“Malakai believes you are his,” Cade continues, either oblivious to or ignoring the chaos erupting inside of me. “There is no way for him to know with any certainty unless he tastes your blood. But whenever you were near him, he said his heart would race. A vampire’s heart rate is usually slower than a human’s. The first sign a vampire is near their beloved is a racing heart.”

A million thoughts float through my mind, and I reach out and latch onto the first one I can. “Why didn’t he ever bite me then? I wouldn’t have stopped him.” Just the thought of him sinking those fangs into my neck is enough to turn me on, despite the situation at hand.

Cade shakes his head. “Because it would have turned sexual immediately. The way a vampire ties their beloved to them is by biting them during sex. It would have bound you to him permanently.”

I’m still failing to see the problem with that. Maybe I’m in shock and the answer is obvious, but I’m having a hard time finding a problem. Except …

“He doesn’t want me,” I whisper brokenly. The world around me slows. My stomach lurches as dread overcomes me. I suddenly feel so very silly. Despite everything we’ve been through, and the connection I swear I have with them, I barely know these guys. They had lives before they were stuck with me. I probably threw a wrench in their plans. Of course, Malakai doesn’t want me.

Cade grabs my cheeks in both of his hands and forces me to look at him. “Ellis, love, that is not true,” he says firmly. “He wants you more than you can possibly know. He didn’t bite you because he was protecting you. He’s the Crown Prince of the vampires. His life is dangerous. Anyone associated with him has a target on their back. He didn’t want that life for you.”

Cade rubs his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. My heart beats sluggishly in my chest, like it’s fighting to continue pumping blood despite the wound it has just taken.

“It’s so much more complicated than you think,” Cade continues. “As the crown prince, he has duties to his people. His dad has arranged a marriage for him. He would never accept a human for his son. None of that ever mattered to Kai, though. He only ever thought about your safety.”

I rear back out of his grasp. “He’s engaged?” I don’t even recognize my voice. It’s a weird combination of flat and shrill. Over the past two years, there have been plenty of times I have felt empty inside. But Cade’s words hit harder than anything else I’ve experienced. Malakai is engaged, and he slept with me? “I need some air,” I gasp.

Cade winces as I stand. I don’t look at Malakai laying on the bed, or Sterling and Allie standing against the wall. I ignore Cade’s attempts to stop me from leaving, and push through the door, making my way blindly to the library. Tears blur my vision, but I hold them at bay. Time moves strangely. My body is worn out and exhausted when I push through the door that leads to the patio, as if I’ve run for miles and miles. But at the same time, it’s like it only took me seconds to reach the iron bench, where I collapse and bring my knees to my chest.

Engaged.

Beloved.

Human.

I’m a fool. Shame burns up my neck and into my cheeks. How could I ever think these guys cared for me? Just because we’ve slept together doesn’t mean they care. I’m probably just another notch in their belt, as the saying goes. An easy target. Someone so desperate to feel they didn’t have to put any effort into it. I am such a fucking idiot. I latched onto the first things that made me feel good and didn’t think twice about the consequences.

The patio door opens and Allie steps out into the warm summer night. She sits next to me on the bench and wraps her arms around me. It’s that familiar touch, her scent of roses, that finally breaks down my barriers. I cry. Soul wrenching sobs that shake my entire body. Allie holds me through it all, keeping me together when I just want to fall apart into a million tiny pieces. I cry, purging the wound that has opened inside of me. The one that pierces through my heart to my very soul, burning and gouging out any bit of peace I’ve experienced the past week.

When my body is too exhausted to continue, my tears finally slow, then stop. Weariness sits with me, driving into my bones. I just want to curl into a ball and never get up again. Allie rubs soothing circles on my back and says nothing while I try to piece myself back together. An impossible task.

“I am so stupid,” I whisper, throat raw from my crying.

“You are not,” she says. “Why would you ever say that?”

“He’s engaged, Allie!” I pull away from her and wipe my cheeks. “I slept with him. I let myself fall for these guys when I mean nothing to them. How could they—powerful magicals—ever care about me? I’m just a worthless human.”

“Okay, I’m going to ignore that last bit for now. We’ll come back to it later.” She tucks a stray curl behind my ear and stares me straight in the eyes. “As for those guys not caring for you … are you blind? It’s so obvious all three of them care about you. They have protected you and kept you safe through this entire thing when they could have just as easily handed you over. Standing in that room and watching the way Cade and Sterling look at you? I’m not going to lie, Ellis. It made me a little jealous. They look at you like you are the only person in the room.”

“Even if that were true,” I say, hiccuping, “Malakai is engaged.”

“Cade said his dad arranged it,” she says. “You, of all people, know what it’s like to not have a say in who you are told to be with. If Malakai truly cared about his fiancé, do you think he would have signed up for this contest in the first place? If he truly cared about her, do you think he would have slept with you?” She wipes tears off my cheeks with her fingers. “Beloved, Ellis. That is so much more than an arranged marriage. No one in their right mind would ever walk away from that.”

“But he was going to,” I say sullenly.

Allie sighs and throws her hands up in exasperation.“He was doing what all guys do. They think they are doing what is right by protecting us and walking away. Don’t you think you should get a say in this? You are half of the equation as well. What do you want, Ellis?”

Beloved. Essentially, a soul mate. What Allie says makes sense. But is that just because I’m grasping at straws? Am I just desperate to ease the ache in my chest? That tugging in my gut says no. It’s like my soul knew what Malakai was to me this entire time. The safety and comfort I’ve felt around him makes sense now. Deep down, I knew he was so much more, so it was easy to let my guard down. Instinctually, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

“Look, I’ve known you my whole life,” Allie says. “It has been years, Ellis. Years since I last saw you smile for real. You haven’t been yourself since your mom and sister’s deaths. These guys have brought you back to life. You laugh when we talk on the phone. I missed that laugh. I miss the light in your eyes, and I can see a glimmer of that light again. Because of them.”

She isn’t wrong. I have been a shell of myself for years. Just going through the motions of everyday life. Surviving. That’s all I’ve been doing. Even with all the shit of the contest, I’ve been living these past few weeks. Not surviving, but living.

I know what I need to do. Even if Malakai doesn’t want me as his beloved, I can’t let him die. Even if, at the end of this contest, they walk away from me, I will at least know Malakai is alive. A world without him is not a place I want to live, even if I’m living separate from him. At least I’ll be living because of him.

---