Page 30 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

It had been way too long since I’d last fed.

My maker, Veronika, had been a huge fan of humans and she had warned me never to kill anyone to satisfy my appetites. Instead, she had taught me how to find a suitable victim, lure them away, feed upon them without hurting them, and then erase their memories afterward. No real harm done—they’d probably have a mild headache in the morning and an hour or two of missing time. But I no longer trusted myself to do that. I didn’t even trust myself to feed on the willing donors who worked for the vampire king, even under the supervision of other vampires. I was terrified that I would go too far. That I would hurt someone, the way I had hurt Teresa and the others.

I’d just be a monster then, wouldn’t I?

It took me a very long moment, but I realized that both Tobias and I were staring at each other, lost in our respective thoughts.

“You don’t need to tell me,” I said, breaking the silence between us. “I get it. You cared about her.”

“No. I want you to know who I am. You should know—I’m not this crazy guy who dropped into your life without warning, talking about destiny and shit. I’m just me. A regular person.”

“Who can shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips or whatever,” I shot back. “And I’m pretty sure I’m the one who dropped into your life without any warning.”

“Doesn’t change anything. Sorry, not sorry.”

“Figured as much. Look, I’m not ready to run off into the sunset with you, but it’s not like I don’t want your eternal happiness and whatever. We’re fated and all that, right?”

The back and forth had snapped some of the tension and Tobias seemed to recognize it just as much as I did, because he shot me an almost grateful look, like I had somehow given him exactly what he needed to actually tell me something real about himself. Like the banter had just made this easier on him in some crucial way.

He took a deep breath before plunging in. “When I was seventeen, there was a powerful demon that some idiot mundane with latent magical powers had conjured up. The demon was off hurting people and threatening to expose magic to the mundane folks. And so Ms. Davenport went to face it with a team of powerful and highly trained coven members.” He paused, swallowing hard. “It killed all four of them.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. It sounded idiotic to my own ears, the same way ‘sorry’ always does, whenever you actually mean it.

“If I’d been there, I could have stopped it,” Tobias replied, the pain in his voice unmistakable. “I did stop it. I banished it on my own, when I heard what it had done.” He gave a bitter laugh, then dragged in a shuddering breath. “My abilities give me a huge advantage when it comes to banishing spirits. If it had been me fighting it, she wouldn’t have needed to die.”

“You were her student. She was doing her best to protect you. Which means she cared.”

Tobias blinked rapidly. “Most people who trained under her only talked about how cold she was, how merciless, how much she demanded from them. They didn’t usually last very long. But she was only like that because she understood the danger. What none of them understood was that—yeah, you’re right—she was trying to protect them.” He let out a breath and added, “But who was there for her?”

“You were. You put down the creature that hurt her.”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s the thing. It didn’t bring her back. It didn’t make everything right. I didn’t save her.”

“It wasn’t your job to save her.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“You cared about her too. I’m sure she knew that. You’re not exactly cagey about it when you care about someone.”

Tobias scoffed a bit at that. “Our circumstances are a little different from my usual, Bryan.”

I didn’t even bother to dignify that with a response. Instead, I waited him out. After a long moment, he sighed, scowled a bit at me, and added, “But yeah, okay, fine. She was like a mother to me. She taught me everything I know about putting down spirits. And other supernatural creatures.”

“She sounds like she was formidable.”

“She was a badass,” he agreed, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “And yeah, I guess I loved her. Once you got to know her, it was hard not to. She had this beautiful flower garden.” His voice went thick. “She doted on it. She loved it so much.”

I returned his smile, but internally, I was suddenly panicking. I had encouraged exactly this, but now that I was here, I had no idea what to say.

How on earth could my warlock be so damn sad? And how was I going to distract him from it? More importantly, why did it suddenly seem like the most important thing in the world to me that Tobias not be trapped in his own grief?

“So, I’m sorry about earlier. I kind of freaked a little.”

“This is a freaky thing,” Tobias said, giving me a tentative smile. It was still a little sad around the edges, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “And you, what? You’ve decided to buy me a cheap cup of coffee to make it up to me?”

“I decided to allow you to buy me a cheap cup of coffee to make it up to you,” I corrected.

He laughed and I was relieved to hear that it sounded almost genuine. “I’d buy you a hundred cups of cheap coffee if you wanted me to.”

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