Page 83 of Hunting His Vampire Mate

I caught Thierry’s concerned gaze in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t say anything.

The freeway was at an elevation, and when it turned, there was suddenly a sea of squat apartment buildings mixed in with houses and businesses stretched out below us. The roads were lined with a truly absurd number of trees. It was sogreen, everywhere I looked. That was the thing I always forgot aboutthis part of the Pacific Northwest: even in the city, deep in the concrete jungle, pressed right up against the graffiti and frenetic pace of a major city, nature was still right there, close enough to touch.

“It’s nicknamed the Emerald City for a reason,” Danny said quietly. He had dropped the walls between us, and I could sense the strange mixture of dread and excitement bubbling up deep within him.

In the distance, there were skyscrapers, but they were a long way off yet.

“Home sweet home,” I whispered. Because itwouldbe our home now. At least for a little while, until Danny and I had both adjusted to our condition enough that we wouldn’t be dangerous around other people. Maybe we’d set down roots here. At least for a little while.

I didn’t mind the idea one bit.

Danny glanced over at me and gave my hand a light squeeze.

“I don’t mind that either,” he whispered, giving me a small smile. And I could feel through the bond that he meant it.

Even though things seemed a bit dark now, even though we now had the daunting task of picking up all the broken pieces and trying to put them back together into a picture that made sense again, I knew we would face that the same way we had faced everything else for the last five years. The same way we would face everything, from now on.

Danny’s smile became a little bit more genuine and some of the tension left his thoughts as he glanced over at me. He met my gaze and held it.

“Together,” he agreed.

* * *

Thierry took us to the basement of a bar called Nathaniel’s Place,which was located on a hill slightly southeast of the downtown corridor, on the ground level of a large brick apartment building. The bar was cheerful, with warm wood and incandescent lighting, most of which was turned off, except the lights directly over the liquor and the registers. There was a collection of pool tables and dart boards at one end and a bunch of long wooden tables at the other end. Between them, there were smaller circular tables with high-backed chairs. Facing the door, there was a long, polished bar with bottles of liquor behind it. This early in the morning, it was closed. But even without patrons, it looked like an ordinary place. Somewhere you might go to have a couple of drinks with some friends.

The basement, however, told a much different story.

There were a series of cages along one wall, each large enough for a person to stand in, hooks mounted to the ceiling in various places throughout the room, various types of restraints hanging from another wall, a mattress with bedding that looked like it had been used relatively recently, and a couple of metal folding chairs that might have been made from silver too. Or, more likely, silver plated. The harsh florescent lighting overhead was too bright. It looked roughly like a place you might record a snuff film.

“Not every vampire who passes through the city is friendly,” Thierry told me, no doubt catching my dubious expression. “Occasionally, persuasion is required. Thankfully, we don’t need to use this space very often.”

Bryan and Tobias were both with us. Bryan had carried the young man in from the backseat of Tobias’s rental car. He set him down on the mattress with painstaking gentleness.

“I put a glamour on myself,” Tobias told his mate, his tones reassuring. “I’ll seem like a vampire to him. My presence won’t trigger his feeding instincts. So, we’ll be able to talk to him.” Hepaused. “And I can control his bloodlust if I need to, the same way I did Michael’s. Until we can explain.”

Bryan bit his lower lip and nodded, still gazing down at the young man on the mattress.

He looked like he was of Hispanic descent, and I guessed that he was probably a few years younger than Danny and I, maybe in his early twenties. The hair on the sides of his head was trimmed very short and there was a floppy mess of dark hair on top that he’d probably painstakingly styled to make it look like he’d just rolled out of bed. He had a smooth, almost perfectly oval face and his lips were parted ever-so-slightly. He looked soft, innocent, open, and young in a way I wasn’t sure I had ever been before. But it was hard to know if that was because of Tobias’s magically induced sleep or not. There was a mess of crimson on one side of his shirt, right below the collar. I tried not to look at it too closely.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tobias whispered to his mate. Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t have heard it. But my new senses were far sharper.

Bryan’s jaw was tight and his eyes a bit too shiny, but he nodded. Tobias put a steadying hand on his back. His mate shuddered, leaning into the touch.

Thierry took in Bryan’s expression and then frowned at Danny and me. We stood shoulder to shoulder, with his hand in mine. I could feel Danny’s tension coiled through the blood bond.

“You don’t need to be here for this,” Thierry said, his voice deceptively soft, considering the way he was still eyeing us with wariness.

I understood his concern. Tobias was about to wake the young man Danny had bitten. And then he would understand what was done to him. He would understand what had been robbed from him.

I didn’t especially want Danny to go through that, either.

“No. I’m staying,” Danny replied. And I could feel the conviction laced through his words. Silently, he added,I did this, Michael. And I need to see the consequences. Just in case I ever waver again—maybe knowing what I’ve done will stop me from going back tothat. Maybe it’ll stop me from ever hurting anyone again.

I gritted my teeth because, while I really didn’t like this at all, I understood. In his shoes, I would have probably felt the same way. And since I couldn’t talk him out of this, I wasn’t going to leave his side.

After only a moment of hesitation, I nodded.

We would get through this—no matter how awful it was—together.

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