Page 22 of Eternally Theirs

Over and over he’d drunk from her, so often and so fully she was too weak to move. Finally, he tore the ropes from her wrists and let her lie on the floor, watching her.

“I have lost everything, over and over. They all left me, or died when I took too much,” he muttered, his accent thick, his voice deep, guttural. He was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. “But they offered themselves to me, did they not? And this is how they repay me for my gift. My gift! Eternal life. My blood.” He stopped, towering

over her. “I gave you my blood, Mercy. You are a part of me now.” Was she?

“You dare to question me?” he roared, making her tremble. “Do you not think I can hear every thought in your head? Do not take me for a fool. Oh no. I may be less than sane, but I am no fool!”

He stomped his foot, the floorboards quaking.

“Please,” she whimpered, too frightened to know what she begged for.

Then he was on his knees beside her, pity on his lean, handsome face. “No, do not cry. Here, drink from me. Be a part of me. See what I offer you? Immortality. Yes…”

She drank his blood, latching on to his arm as it poured down her throat like some exquisite nectar she’d never even dreamed of. Pleasure simmered in her body. Her heart filled with love for him.

Gaius.

Pain and terror and a sadness so great, she couldn’t comprehend it.

A sharp jolt of pure pleasure brought her back into her body. Even as she came, as she felt the force of Deo’s orgasm, and Ever’s, tears poured down her cheeks. Tears for Gaius.

Her enemy.

Her maker.

She couldn’t escape the dream-state, the mental connection between her two lovers. Some part of her was aware of it, as if from a great distance. She saw Ever’s brothers being cast into a stormy sea, all of them tossed from their ship as if they were paper dolls in the wind. She felt the pain of his loss, his loss of faith in the gods who had failed him. And once more, as though it were happening to her, she witnessed Deo’s family being torn from him by the bomb that had killed them, felt the heat of the blast, felt his heart breaking as if it were her own.

No!

They were shaking her. She could feel it. But she was caught in the web of remembered emotions. Deo’s, Ever’s. Her own. Caught in pain, caught in dread.

Gaius’s handsome face—oh yes, he was handsome, stunning, as the vampires always were, with his sleek black hair, his luminescent eyes. He frightened her. And yet… and yet…

She knew the taste of his blood on her tongue, strong and pure and sweet. Knew how tortured his mind was, how lost in agony. Insanity. Her mind cried out for his pain as she saw once more, as if she were merely an observer of the incident, Gaius hunched over her in the abandoned building, drinking the life from her. She was already Turned, and still he would drink from her until she was nearly drained before giving her his own blood, reviving her. A seemingly endless cycle of fear and weakness, sadness and pain. Then the bizarre surges of incredible strength that still would never match Gaius’s own. There was no escaping him—no more than he could escape the ravings of a lunatic mind that had lived and thought, analyzed and philosophized for far, far too long.

She knew that even now he was being hunted. Like a dog. That when the vampire Council caught him, they would kill him, drown him in the ocean, that scent she couldn’t escape.

Hecouldn’t escape.

A sob rose in her chest, and soon she was crying until she thought her heart would burst. She felt Ever and Deo holding her tight, cradling her as they would a child as they carried her through the double doors behind Ever’s ornate desk and into his bedroom. She felt the softness of the mattress beneath her as hey laid her on the big bed, the hard muscles of her lovers’ arms. The images faded, went dark. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t see.

“Mercy, my love,” Deo crooned to her.

Ever was quiet, but she felt the strength of his arms around her.

Finally her body, her mind, calmed. When she was able to focus again, they were both looking down at her, concern etched on their faces—concern and a love so powerful she could feel it as though it were a palpable thing, as much from Ever as from Deo.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally.

“Shh, there’s no need to be,” Deo assured her, stroking her cheek. “Don’t be sorry, love. You can’t help it, any of it. We love you. Don’t worry about anything.”

She turned to Ever. “Do you love me, Ever?”

Why did it feel more crucial to her than it had before, with the strange thoughts in her head about Gaius?

His hand cupped her cheek, and she saw on his face an expression more fierce than any she’d seen before. There was power there, more power than she knew she could even conceive of. And love—so much love it made her heart swell.

“I love you, Mercy. I love you both, you and Deo. You are mine. And I am yours. I will not let anything happen to you. I swore it the day I met you, and I mean it even more now. You are a part of me.”

---