Page 78 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“Well, gee, that was so nice of him,” Michael scoffed, clearly not believing me one bit. “He sounds like a fucking humanitarian. I can’t wait to get to know him better.”

“Michael,” Danny chided him. “If the vampire comes for his partner and doesn’t try to kill us, that’s proof enough that he’s not like the rest. If that happens, we’re going to let them both go. We agreed on that.”

“That’s a big fucking ‘if,’” Michael snapped, shooting Danny a glare. “But yeah, I’m aware of what I agreed to. And I keep my promises. You know that.”

I stared at them, my jaw dropping open. I was too stunned to even be properly enraged anymore. Their plan was flat-out ridiculous.

“I’m his mate. And you guys are holding me captive. He already believes you’re both extremely dangerous—”

“Because we are,” Michael put in proudly, turning to me and grinning. “We’ve got a reputation in the hunting community for a reason.”

“You don’t get it. He’s going to try to kill you the second he sees you if it means saving my life. Literally anyone would make that decision, if you put them in his shoes. And one hundred percent of that would be his humanity driving him.”

And he would kill Michael, I realized, fresh horror flooding through me. This was exactly what Ethan had seen in his vision. This is why Bryan would kill the hunter. It wouldn’t be because he had lost control. It would be to save me from them.

And then he would probably hate himself forever because of it.

Hell, he would probably let Danny stake him, once he knew I was safe.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Looking past Michael, I locked eyes with Danny. “Look, if you want your boyfriend to live through the night, you need to let me go,” I told him, meaning every single word. “Michael is going to get himself killed.”

“You sound very sure,” Danny replied, studying me intently. “You sound very certain that he will come for you.”

“First, Danny and I aren’t romantic,” Michael put in, before I could reply. He rolled his eyes, as though the thought was ridiculous. “Danny is straight like a motherfucking arrow.”

Michael was facing me, so he didn’t see the flicker of—well, something—in Danny’s expression at his dismissiveness.

Oblivious, Michael added, “And second, I doubt the vampire is even going to show up at all. Vampires don’t love anything except themselves. And they don’t give a shit about much, except where their next meal is coming from. He definitely wouldn’t risk his own skin for you. He probably skipped town the second he saw the motel room empty.”

I stared at him, realizing he meant it whole-heartedly. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Vampires took everything from me,” Michael spat out, sudden anger transforming his features. He shoved himself up to a standing position and began pacing. I followed his movement, not trusting him for a second. “I was a regular guy, once. I had a job, a boyfriend, and friends. I had hobbies. I was happy, before all of this.”

Behind him, Danny watched with a grave expression that quickly became agonized, as though he knew exactly where this conversation was headed. The naked pain on his face was plain to see and I hated it, because I couldn’t see it and believe they were really monsters. I couldn’t hate them properly for what they were doing. Not with Danny looking at his partner like that—like he loved Michael and would have done absolutely anything to spare him the horror of what he had gone through.

“I worked as a mechanic back then—I owned my own shop. It never did all that well or anything, but I loved it. I’m a third-generation mechanic. And Joshua, my boyfriend, was there, just hanging out in the garage with me like always, drinking a beer while he watched me work. Then they came. Two vampires. They moved so fucking fast. And they went after him first.”

Michael let out a long breath that sounded agonized and grief swept across his face.

He continued, “I couldn’t make myself believe what was happening. So I just stood there like a fucking asshole, watching them suck the life out of the man I loved. They’re monsters. All of them.”

“Michael,” Danny whispered, sounding helpless. The agony on his face for his partner’s pain was obvious and it turned my own stomach to see it.

I understood, even though I didn’t want to. I did my best to cling to my rage, but it slipped through my fingers like sand. It was useless.

Because I knew. I knew, firsthand, how awful it was to watch someone you loved hurt themselves, unable to do anything to stop it. To be unable to fix it. To make it so that they could just be okay again.

And if Danny really was straight ‘like an arrow,’ they clearly had a pretty confusing dynamic going on. Because this wasn’t the level of pain you felt for your strictly platonic hunting partner. It was pain you felt when the person you loved most in the world was talking about the thing that had hurt them bad enough to destroy them.

I hated the fact that I understood it so well.

“Danny saved me from them,” Michael went on. “But it was way too late for Joshua. He was just gone, and I hadn’t done anything at all to stop it. I had just stood there, watching those things murder him. And that’s how I learned that vampires exist. That’s how I became a hunter.”

For a very long moment, there was just silence.

“I’m sorry they did that to you,” I said, because it was true. I couldn’t even imagine what he had been through. “And I get why you hate them—”

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