Page 31 of Make Me Bleed

At least it’s notthatdark. It’s closing in on a full moon. Nearly three-quarters whole, I know that Bridget will be even busier in the lead up, then during the actual event. Wolf shifters revere the moon as a goddess they refer to as the Luna. Because of that, they can only bond their mates to them when the moon is full and the Luna is out. In the days before it, moon fever can strike, and any mated shifters will feel the effects of her power all the way to their bones. They’ll mount and mate and rut with their bonded partners, an event that Bridget confessed is ‘life-changing’ and worth the many hickeys and bites that will decorate her body come the next morning.

For a vampire, the moon has no special meaning. Perhaps, before the invention of high-strength sunscreen, we might’ve worshipped the moon, too, back in the days that we were nightwalkers who burned in the light. It’s been about a century since we could go out without requiring an overcast sky to shield us from the powerful sun. I’ve never been sentenced to a life at night, born when I was, though maybe if my nanny hadn’t believed the old, debunked superstitions about my type of supe in the first place, I wouldn’t be so afraid of the dark, even now…

Tonight, the moon just means that I can see into the shadows. I can tamp down the worst of my nervousness when there is some illumination. It doesn’t bother me, though it’s well-past midnight when my insomnia—and my senses—have me crossing the backyard, moving toward the trees.

I don’t see anyone, though I trust my gut. Someone is out here. Someone calling me to them through a bond so intangible, it’s a whisper on the early June breeze.

And then, carried to me on the wind, in a voice so familiar that I freeze, I hear it.

My name.

“Elise…”

It’s not Hank.

It’s not Julian.

It’s not even Bridget since it’s a male voice.

Even so, Iknowit.

Because that voice?

It belongs toPeter.

CHAPTER 11

DARK

It’s not just the voice. Someone can mimic a voice and I could be fooled. Hearing him call my name in that desperate whine I know so well, plus the way I catch the slightest hint of his scent… I know it’s my former lover.

There’s an unwashed dirty element overlaying it. It turns my stomach, or maybe that that’s the edge of darkness—of insanity, of obsession—that colors it. No doubt in my mind that it’s Peter, though, which suddenly explains so much.

He followed me to Dyea. The constant sensation I’m being watched? Julian doesn’t need to be discreet; not when he thinks that just being the top vampire in the sanctuary will earn him what he desires. Hank has never hidden himself from me, as though he has a need for me to know he’s keeping an eye on me from the shadows.

But Peter? Stalking me, waiting for the opportune moment to get me alone… that’s all he ever did in Clarity. If, somehow, he finally figured out where I moved to after I left, I wouldn’t put it past him to do the same thing here.

Is that what happened to all my missing blood deliveries? It’s possible. For all I know, the repeated couriers might even be thereason he tracked me down in the first place. Conall has been insistent these last few weeks that someone is trying to find their way inside of Dyea. He admitted they were human. He took that to mean they were witch hunters, but what if the unknown threat is literally just a human?

What if it’sPeter?

He’s not past the borders. The magic is keeping him out, but if he’s spent all this time pushing up against it, searching for a way in… what if he finally decided to sacrifice his secrecy by calling my name, letting me know that he’s there?

I know it’s him. Iknowit. For his voice and his scent to reach me, he must be just on the other side of the border spell. He won’t leave, either. Whether he knows how close he’s come to find me or not, it doesn’t matter. He’ll stay until he sees me. Talks to me.

Tries to convince me that I’mhis…

But I’m not. I belong to Hank Barrett, now more than ever. I’ve already made up my mind that, when he finally comes back to me, I was going to tell him. I’m not just accepting him as my beloved. I’m doing everything I can tomakehim my beloved.

Peter’s voice does something to me, though. It hits me then that part of the reason I’ve built such a wall between my true beloved and me has everything to do with the trauma of my last relationship. I called it an arrangement to downplay how much it hurt when Peter betrayed me, accepting a fang from Delilah instead of waiting for me to give him one of mine.

I loved Peter. I honestly believed that he could be a good beloved mate. Just like with Hank, I refused to rush into anything. We were together for a year, creeping closer to me making a decision, when he decided he didn’t want to wait.

He wanted to make me jealous. It didn’t work. Peter’s betrayal just proved to me that choosing a beloved would be amistake. I would accept the one Fated gifted to me, or I’d have no beloved at all.

“Elise. Please… I need you.”

My fingers tremble. So does my bottom lip. Hearing the same words he used to say to me over and over again… I can’t do this. I thought I could run from the human, but I forgot what he promised the last time I saw him.

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