Page 14 of Bitten

Live.

Chapter Three

The next afternoon…

Back at the run-down warehouse the taskforce had been using, Kane looked over the board of suspects and locations. After clearing that nest a few days before, the entire team had earned promotions to the king’s guard for their efforts. While everyone else celebrated their newfound positions and began training for those roles, he knew there was no time to waste in their investigation.

It was time to turn sights to the next nest.

Unfortunately, he was having a hard time letting go of the last one… His mind drifted back to the raid. Ralnur was a distraction he didn’t need.

A mate?

Vampire mates were rare. Halfling mates had to be even rarer. He’d spent hours looking through his collection of books, searching for an answer. Not one of them spoke of a Halfling mate. While he hadn’t had a sire himself, between the witch and the research he’d done since arriving in Midnight decades before, he knew quite a bit about the creatures. He’d needed to know everything he could in order to battle them.

A mate for him should’ve been impossible. How he even knew Ralnur was his, he didn’t know. The instinct had been strong, the connection strong even at Ralnur’s weakest. The knowledge had felt like a simple truth imbedded in his heart and mind from the minute he glanced at the warlock—just as the sky was blue and rain was wet.

Heart?

Kane lifted his hand again to his chest. After twenty years of barely hearing it, the sound was enough to unnerve him. It wasn’t as strong as it had been when he’d been fully human. But going from near nothing to even midway was a leap he hadn’t expected.

What did it mean?

Instinctively, he thought he knew what it meant, but news out of the castle had been few and far between when it came to the king’s uncle. Kane scrubbed a hand down his face. Still feeling the battle inside raging. He could see Ralnur looking up at him with those beautiful blue eyes, begging him for salvation.

Begging for death.

A salvation Kane stole.

Half his mind declared he was a selfish bastard. The other half would feel some relief to know Ralnur still lived. Kane revisited his two encounters with the warlock over and over again in his mind, picking them apart. The decision he’d made could haunt him for the rest of his eternal life. And they proved just how pathetic he could be.

He hated feeling weak.

The last time he’d felt this weak was when he’d been made.

Even now, the desire to go see Ralnur in the hospital pulsed through him; to see if his blood had taken root and brought Ralnur back into the world of the living.

So to speak.

Even if it hadn’t worked, his mate sat in a hospital bed.

Afraid.

Alone.

Potentially dying.

Kane glanced down at his wrist, the puncture marks still barely visible. A tremor raced through him as he recalled the lust that had slammed into him when Ralnur had taken that bite—and taken from his blood.

Cock thickening, he growled. He hadn’t expected a mate to fall into his lap, and he had no plans of seizing what was supposedly his. He couldn’t endanger the man.

Not with the war to come.

Kane refocused on the job at hand, trying to forget his warlock turned vampire mate and failing abysmally.

“No good vampire…” he murmured to himself, stopping short before uttering the last of his favorite phrase. No good vampire except a dead vampire. He scrubbed his face again, willing himself to let it go. He had a mission and claiming a mate didn’t play a part in that.

Kane knew full well they’d barely put a dent into Midnight’s vampire population with that last raid.Even with all the vampires the dragon had taken out. Few days before that, too many had already slipped past the barriers into the city unaccounted for—so no one had a true idea how many there were.

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