Page 26 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

Teresa seemed to understand, in that split second, that there was no reasoning with me at all, because she did launch into a spell. I didn’t know what it was supposed to do, and my body didn’t wait for her to finish; it sank its teeth into her neck.

The animalistic vampiric aspect of me delighted in the intoxicating rush of warm blood flooding into my mouth. Pleasure swept through me—even though the part of me that was still me tried to shove it away—at the sensation of tearing her life away from her.

Teresa screamed, but no one came.

In a mixture of horror and disbelief, I watched from my own flesh, unable to stop any of this. Unable to believe that this was happening. That this sort of violence was something my body was even capable of doing to another person.

I wouldn’t have believed it before.

I prayed that she felt no pain. Vampire bites could be completely painless if we wanted them to be. And I couldn’t do anything else except want desperately, with every fiber of my being, for her to feel no pain.

But then, when her body was spent, my bloodied hands dropped her to the ground. And her vacant eyes stared back up at me, lifeless and accusatory.

And then, from the darkest place inside of myself, where I was trapped and watching, I screamed.

*

I sat up in bed, tears already burning tracks down my cheeks, my stomach clenched in revulsion and horror. I was used to waking up this way, because it was the same way I woke up every single day now.

Panic tightened around me like a straitjacket. I felt like I might be sick. I wanted to be sick. I sucked in deep, gasping breaths, drawing my knees up close to my chest, struggling to hold myself together. Fresh grief and horror surged through me.

Had I fought against the spells hard enough? Was there something—anything—more that I could have done to stop myself? And then came the worst fear of all, the one that had the power to shatter everything good inside of me: deep down, had I enjoyed it?

Fresh tears poured over and I shook my head against the awful thought, smothering a sob with my hand. I screwed my eyes shut, willing myself to stop crying. It didn’t work.

I felt a weight settle next to me on the bed, then warm, strong arms encircled my shoulders, pulling me close to a very masculine body that smelled intoxicatingly like nutmeg and cinnamon. I froze for an instant, surprise tearing through me and rendering me immobilized. In the wake of that hideous nightmare, I had forgotten I wasn’t alone.

Tobias.

I must have woken him. I knew I should resist, but he was so warm and solid as he held me in his arms that I couldn’t bring myself to. And his scent enveloping me somehow managed to drive away the horror of what I had just relived.

“I’ve got you,” Tobias whispered, pulling me closer to him. His body felt so good against mine and, even though I knew I should have pulled away, I relaxed into his embrace. He added, “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

It was a different sort of magic than the kind I usually saw him work. It was the sort that was just words, but still somehow had the power to right the world just enough so that I could breathe again. Figuratively speaking, of course.

After several minutes had passed, my hyperventilating turned into ragged gasps as the last of my panic receded and left me feeling shaken and used up. But the tears kept on coming, pouring down my cheeks. It should have been humiliating, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t sure if I was crying for Teresa or at the horror of knowing what I had been forced to do to her. Both, probably.

After several minutes of him holding me, the tears stopped. And I could just relax into the sensation of Tobias—my Tobias—with his strong arms wrapped protectively around me, an anchor keeping me in place, preventing me from sliding back into the darkness. The warmth and goodness of him, the solidity of him, felt like everything I might ever want or need.

In that moment, I wanted this to be real so badly, so desperately, that it felt like it might ruin me. Underneath everything else, I just wanted to be a regular man who loved him. I wanted to be someone who could never ever have hurt him. I wanted to even halfway deserve him.

A shimmering sensation of closeness arose, like an invisible cord abruptly connecting us. It was inexorable and irresistible, a force like gravity, binding us together. And it felt so right I didn’t even want to try fighting it.

I knew Tobias felt it too, because his body went slightly more tense for an instant, the same moment when it started. It had happened before, lasting for only a few seconds at a time, in the days after we had first met. But I hadn’t really understood or believed what it was then.

But now I knew it for what it was.

A mystical bond chaining my good, kind, and noble mate to a fucking monster.

At that thought, the connection popped like a soap bubble. Not so inexorable, after all.

I swallowed hard, pulling away from him. “I’m good now.”

Tobias hesitated for a split second before dropping his arms. Even though I didn’t ask him to do it, he still scooted a few inches back on the bed, giving me the space I needed. As though he somehow knew, without even being asked, what I required.

He drew in a breath that sounded ragged to my vampiric hearing. “Yeah, okay.”

I wiped the half-dried tears from my cheeks with one hand. I dragged in a shaky breath of my own, more a reflex than anything else, a hold-over from when I had been human.

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