Page 54 of Wanted

The damn thing is still too fragile. Maybe it will strengthen when we’re both finally whole?

Very gently, I nudge my nose into her hair and just rest it there for a moment. Closing my eyes, I try to tune out the world around us. Try to remove all the fears and worries.

I need to relax as much as possible.

Gently probing against the bond, I feel it almost respond to me before resisting. Like something is blocking my love, care, and feelings for this woman.

She’s my everything, and I need her to know it andfeelit.

I can give her some of my love, but only the vaguest of wisps slip through.

Is she blocking me? Is she so traumatized that she’s able to block me out almost entirely?

The angry beast inside me wants to rage against that possibility. Rage against another roadblock standing between us.

Keeping myself calm, I open my eyes and take a deep breath of the world around us.

The stench is still here in the car with us. So acrid I can barely stomach it.

Three days ago, when our souls first connected, I threw up for the first time as a vampire.

And now I’m on the verge of doing it again.

We vampires do not get sick.

We don’t catch the flu, colds, or diseases.

But here I am, my stomach knotting up as I try to keep my last blood meal from spewing all over my beloved’s back.

I sense a hard thump from Maddox before he elbows Caden hard.

“For fuck’s sake, Maddox, just speak,” I snap in annoyance.

A middle finger is waved at me from the front.

Caden chuckles. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you what that meant.” The front windows of the SUV roll down. “But we both want to know if you two rolled around in a puddle of something rotten?”

“No,” I grunt, and snuggle the quivering woman in my arms more tightly. “It’s been a long fucking ordeal. Just get us home.”

“Okay…” Caden drawls out like he doesn’t believe me.

We ride on in silence, each of us in our own thoughts.

My brothers are on edge. Tension has been building since our sire, Asher, found his own soulmarked.

Me being the next to find one and so quickly has rattled us all.

Soulmarks simply do not appear so closely together in time or space.

They are a rarity.

Yet, here we are. Two in the same city within days of each other.

In all my centuries of being a vampire, I’ve never heard of something like this happening before.

Things are changing and we don’t know why. It’s like all the rules we’ve lived by have been thrown out the fucking window.

It’s giving us all hope, but what’s the hidden cost?

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