Page 3 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“You’re just going to go, then,” Tobias said from behind me.

I turned to find him blocking the door. Or, well, not blocking the door, exactly. I still could have left if I wanted to. He stood just inside the doorway, arms crossed, watching me with an unreadable look on his face. Still, broad shouldered and just over six feet tall, he took up plenty of space. I wasn’t that much shorter than him—three or four inches, maybe—but I was leaner. And it had definitely occurred to me how nice it would feel with his strong arms wrapped around me…

“Yes,” I replied, trying to snap myself out of the extremely unhelpful thoughts and desires I seemed to have any time I was in his vicinity. I wanted to sound harsh. But I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. I let out a breath. “Look, I like you. How could I not? You’re basically perfect. But I just—I need space. I need time. Alone.”

“I know,” he replied.

Surprise flooded through me, and it must have been written all over my face, because he gave me a hollow smile. “It makes sense that you’d leave. Why would you stay here?”

“Right,” I agreed. A lump rose in my throat. “You’re not going to try to stop me?”

“I want to,” he admitted, his smile turning a little sadder. “But I understand. You went through something I will never be able to wrap my head around. I’d prefer it if you’d let me help you, but I’m not going to force you into anything you don’t want. You’ve had more than enough of that for one lifetime, and I swear that I won’t ever do something like that to you.”

He paused, letting out a long breath. Putting on a brave face. His smile even seemed a little more genuine now. “So, yeah. If you need some space to work through all of this, I can give you that. No problem.”

Of course he would say that. I didn’t know Tobias very well yet, but I had already gathered that he always put everyone else’s needs ahead of his own.

“Stop it!” I hissed, apparently not completely incapable of being angry with him, after all. “Stop being so fucking perfect. You don’t have to pretend! Not for my benefit. It’s okay if this is pissing you off. Or hurting or whatever. It’s okay for you to feel whatever you’re feeling.”

Did I want that? Did I want him to be upset?

No, of course not. But I didn’t want him to sit there and slap on a happy face and heave all of his emotions into the backseat, either.

“This isn’t pissing me off,” Tobias replied.

“What about what you want?”

“I’ve waited ten years for you. I can wait a little longer if I know that’s what you need from me.”

“We haven’t even kissed. We don’t know if there’s even anything here to wait for.”

“No,” Tobias told me, meeting my gaze and holding it. His eyes were so deep and blue, like the ocean. Like I could drown in them. “When I’m standing next to you, I feel peaceful. Like all the tension just kind of flows out of me, you know? It’s this sort of bone-deep knowing that everything is going to be okay, so long as you’re okay. Are you saying you really don’t feel anything like that at all?”

“No,” I lied. I don’t think either of us believed me.

He was only a year older than me, but somehow, he seemed to have a stability to him—a groundedness—that I had never once possessed and wasn’t sure if I ever would, even if I lived a century or longer. But that probably wasn’t age or whatever. It was probably just him.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel that yet. But I do. I know—every part of me knows—that you’re my mate. I’m willing to wait as long as I need to.”

“Right. What if that never happens?”

“If I know you’re safe and well, that’s all that should matter to me,” Tobias replied. But I caught the way his expression wobbled for just an instant, the mask slipping and revealing the flash of real fear in his eyes at my words. Maybe he wasn’t completely grounded and rock solid, after all.

That flash of fear was like a knife made of ice in my gut. I hated it. I hated that I was causing him any pain at all.

But leaving was the right thing to do.

If I stayed, I might give in. After all, I half wanted to even now. If I stayed, I might let the witches erase my memories, because the prospect of living without this crushing darkness was far too tantalizing. I might return to my old life. I could do my last year of college. I could hang out with friends. I could go to frat parties again. Play video games. Stay up all night studying for exams at the very last minute. Go to family night every Sunday with my folks and my older sister, Sarah.

I had only been turned three years ago, back when I was twenty-one. My parents had no idea, but Sarah knew what I was. I had told her, back when I had thought I could tell her anything. And once she’d gotten over her initial alarm, she had accepted me anyway. But I hadn’t spoken with any of them in months. Not since Giles had first enchanted me into killing for him—apart, of course, from a very, very brief phone conversation with them after Ethan’s blood had broken those spells. I had told them I wasn’t dead or missing. From their perspective, I had just vanished without warning and without explanation. They had been understandably outraged. My sister had called me incessantly afterward, demanding an explanation I couldn’t—wouldn’t—give her. But I knew they would all forgive me eventually, if I could have forced myself to explain why I had gone missing. They would have let me off the hook too, no doubt.

And maybe my new life, without the burden of knowing what I had done, could even have involved going on dates with Tobias, like I was a regular person, someone who deserved a bit of ordinary happiness as much as the next guy.

But I wasn’t. Not anymore.

Eventually, the darkness inside of me would reach out and mess everything up. Sooner or later, I would slip up and hurt someone I cared about. Something else would happen to prove to me that I deserved nothing more than an eternity of pain.

If Tobias was standing too close to me, he could get hurt too.

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