Page 24 of Make Me Bleed

Worrying about Julian when I can’t stop thinking about Hank is only making it worse.

After seeing the grizzly bear out in the woods, watching over me from a distance, I accept that I’m going to have to come to a decision sooner rather than later. To leave him hanging, without at least agreeing to be his prospective mate… that’s not fair to either of us. I need to acknowledge the bond we have while it still stretches between us. It’s faded over the last week, dimming while my thirst returns, but it’s there—and with the whittled bear figuring in my pocket, no matter where I go, I carry a reminder of Hank with me.

Is there really a choice to make? From the beginning, I’ve known that he was my mate. I was more worried that he changed his mind about claiming me so boldly, but now that I know he’s treating me like a shifter treats his fated mate… protecting me from a distance, watching over me, leaving me gifts… Hank hasn’t changed his mind.

Instead, he’s just tapping in his dominant, predatory side by moving as thought I’m the most skittish prey that he desperately doesn’t want to scare off.

And I am, aren’t I?

I might not be a shifter myself, but I was born a vampire. I’ve always been a supe. I can understand his motive, and only hope that Hank will understand that I’m finding it hard to throw caution to the wind and go to him because of my own baggage, and not because of anything he’s done.

Before Bridget could read the clear signs that Conall was treating her as his mate, she had a hard time understanding the things that he did. Of course. She might have been born a supe, witchcraft in her blood, but she wasn’traisedas one. She had no idea that wolves proposition their mates by trying to feed them, and that, like Hank, he would protect her from a distance by marking her as his property even when she had no idea that he considered her to be.

I still giggle a little to remember how bewildered and annoyed she was when she caught sight of him standing beneath her window one night after dark, only to find his boot prints next to a pile of yellow snow. She thought Conall stopped to take a piss during his patrol. The obvious supe answer was that he was warning any other predators from getting close to his mate.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Hank’s bear has him doing something similar. At the very least, I treasure the gift he gave me. It’s like, wherever I go in the sanctuary, I’m carrying him with me so long as I keep the carving in my pocket.

When was the last time someone gave me a gift for no reason? Because they wanted to, not because they expected reciprocation. And, yes, I know that Hank wants something from me. He wantseverythingfrom me. I’m his mate; that’s to be expected. But he’s not pushing it. He’s being patient, waiting for me to make the next move…

Do I run into the woods and latch onto him? Stand out back, open my arms, and invite him into my home? To me, that’s the biggest hurdle I have. Fears… they don’t have to be rational tobe real. If he lived inside the sanctuary, I would’ve taken him by the hand once I assured myself he felt the beginning of our mate bond and not just the thrall. I would’ve brought him home with me or gone to his place, rode him like he was a stallion instead of a bear, and completed the blood exchange to make him my male.

But he doesn’t live in Dyea. He lives just outside of it, in the wilds of Alaska, making his home in a cave. That doesn’t mean hewon’tdecide to forsake the outdoors to join his prissy vampire mate inside her home. It’s just… he’s a bear. He’s lived in the wilds for so long, never even coming close to the sanctuary until the day I bit him, and he chased after his mate. He seems to have no interest in the more civilized side of life, and even knowing I’m here, he still doesn’t.

And how do I know all that?

Conall.

Well, to be fair, Bridget spoke to her mate about mine. It was obvious that they at least knew of each other thanks to Conall’s constant patrols around the sanctuary, and his obsessive need to make sure no threats get too close to the town.

The hidden town is blocked from outsiders coming in courtesy of the witch spell acting as a mystical border. Because witches don’t have keen senses like some vampires and most shifters, they didn’t think of scents when they built their spell. We can’t be seen, any sounds from the settlement are dampened, but you can’t miss the smell.

According to Conall, it smellswrong. To a shifter who grew up in a pack before his fellow wolves moved on and he decided to go lone wolf, it didn’t make sense that vampires and humans lived among a motley crew of prey shifters. He was used to a single type of shifter forming a pack, plus vampires staying far away from his. In Dyea, any supe in need is willing to stay so long as they’re on their best behavior.

Conall is used to it by now. He’s also the only predatory shifter who livesinthe sanctuary. Because of that, any nomadic shifters passing by the former ghost town keep moving because the smell is too strange.

Any of them except for Hank.

Conall admits that there’s always been a handful of solitary shifters who have made their homes out in the wild. The big brown grizzly is the only one who is still there now, almost as if he sensed that there was a reason to stay.

Or maybe he just got cozy in his cave, creating a den that suits a bear shifter, and never left…

After Bridget passed along the little information Conall knew about Hank—that he’s about thirty-eight in human years, he’s always been alone since he first lumbered into Alaska, and he’s never given the wolf any trouble—I realized that I needed to be better prepared, too.

I can’t avoid Hank forever. I wouldn’t want to. And while I’ll wait to get to know my mate by talking to him, there’s one thing Icando.

Which is why I’m walking into the Dyea Library with the bear in the pocket of my slacks, the silk of my blouse rustling at my quick clip, heels rap-tap-tapping as I approach the wizened old shifter sitting behind the desk, his nose in a thick book with yellowed pages.

See, wolf shifters are the vampires’ ancient enemy. Thanks to the Claws and Fangs War, I know more about their kind because, as Papa always said, knowledge is vital. The more you know, the more you can plot, you can plan, and you canwin.

If it works in warfare, maybe it’ll work with my mating.

I made a mistake. It takes a lot for a vampire to admit when they’re wrong, but I never should’ve let Hank walk away from me in the first place. I allowed him to think he frightened me. It wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t find the words to admit why I was tooscared to go with him to his den, and by now, he must think it’s because I want nothing to do with him.

I have to change that. And since I’m clueless when it comes to how bears in particular think, I do what I always do: research.

Despite there being enough WiFi in the town so we can stream our shows at our leisure, I don’t have a computer of my own. Bridget does because of her job, though she’s recently had to end her digital artistry business in case it somehow led the witch hunters to her again.

One of the clauses of joining a supe sanctuary is that we have to cut off contact with the rest of the world for the safety of our fellow villagers. That means no phones, most of all. Bridget got permission to close out her commissions, but if anyone discovers she’s accepting more or reaching out to her Aunt Maureen—the only family she has left—then that could be grounds for expulsion from Dyea.

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