Page 34 of Roaring Flames

And this…

This incessant tugging in the center of my chest…

This merging of souls…

This heat that’s sweeping through me like a forest fire…

I know without a shadow of a doubt that it’s a mating bond.

Izzy. Is. Mine.

I always knew it, always felt it, but could never articulate it with words. From the very first moment she looked at me with those striking, fearless blue eyes, I was a goner. And I’ve fallen harder each and every day.

Joy explodes inside of me.

Mate.

My mate.

But then Izzy’s next words douse the growing elation like water thrown on a bonfire.

“Wait. Wait. Wait.” She pushes at my shoulders, and I immediately pull away, my lips swollen from the force of her kisses.

Izzy looks beautifully flushed in the moonlight snaking through the blinds in silver ribbons. Her blonde hair is disheveled from my fingers, and her pink lips are puffy.Satisfaction reverberates through me at the sight of her so unkempt.

Then I focus on her words.

“You need to explain things to me, Grayson. How long have you been a vampire? How did you get free of the wolves? Where evenwereyou? Did you do what they accused you of? What about your girlfriend?”

The last thing I want to do is answer any of those questions—not when the majority of them can see her harmed or even killed. There’s a reason I kept this secret from her, and it’s not because I’m an asshole. I’ve wanted to tell her for years now about the supernatural world, but vampires are different from shifters.

We’re volatile.

Angry.

Bitter.

Bloodthirsty.

My mom—may the bitch burn in hell for all of eternity—once told me that vampires are so wrathful because we’re disconnected from our animal counterpart. According to her, we all have dormant beasts deep inside of us struggling to rise their way to the surface.

I think she’s full of shit. I haven’t felt anything resembling a wolf in my entire life, let alone any other animal.

All I know is that I need blood to silence the voices in my head, to create some semblance of order out of the dissonant chaos.

Like the wolf shifters, the vampires are ruled by a Council as well—what we call the Elders. All of them have been alive longer than I can comprehend and hate humans almost as much as they hate shifters.

If they knew about Izzy, about my feelings for her…

They’ll kill her just to hurt me.

My position in vampiric society doesn’t allow for me to have any attachments. From the very first moment I saw her, I knew I had to keep her a secret.

So I chose to shield her from the paranormal world the best I could.

But apparently that wasn’t enough.

Someone told her the truth, and if I had to hazard a guess, I would say it was one of those idiotic wolf shifters who constantly hang off of her. They should be grateful I don’t drain them dry and leave their corpses for their asshole parents to find.

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