Page 14 of Forced Vampire Mate

This line of thinking was only going to get me into trouble. I got up and went to the kitchen myself, getting a glass of water.

“They took Thessa. Draven said they were going to give her as a tribute to the Gods again. Why would they want her after she ran the first time?” I asked, my hands gripping the glass tightly. What if it had all been a lie? It made me sick to think of what might happen if it was a lie.

“The Gods choose their tributes the day they’re born. At least, that’s what the oracle says. If they want Thessa, they want her for a specific reason, whatever that might be.” His gaze darkened as he slid the now-finished sandwich to me. “My guess is that since she survived the Blood Trials and escaped the punishment they planned for her, they want her back for their original reasons.”

I bit into the sandwich, but it tasted like ash in my mouth. What original reasons were those?

“Elara.” Luken’s hand closed over mine. He was warm to the touch, which showed me just how cold I was. Usually, his skin was a much cooler temperature than mine. “If there is one thing I can say about my brother, it’s that he hates rape more than he hates me. He won’t allow them to touch Thessa.”

A shiver ran down my spine. The night that my family was slaughtered, the one comfort I’d gotten from their deaths was that they were killed quickly. None of them had been assaulted before being murdered. It was a small comfort now to hear Luken tell me this. Draven could have changed. But…

“He told me she had to stay pure for the gods,” I mumbled. The mouthful of sandwich was difficult to swallow, but I did it anyway. “He told me it was the one comfort he would offer me as I lay dying.”

Luken looked away. I thought I felt a ripple of something—pain?—through the bond.

“How did he get free again? After what happened at the colosseum, why didn’t you kill him?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper. “This could have been avoided. He escaped your dungeons before. Why would you give him the chance to get away again?”

“Are you the only one allowed to love their family, Elara?” Luken’s shoulders slumped. “I know he hates me, but when I look at him, I can still see the good-hearted child he once was. If it’s my fault that he’s become the man he is, then can I not want to save him?”

I lowered my sandwich, staring at Luken’s profile. “I… don’t know how to respond to that.”

He gave me a quick, tight smile. “I don’t expect you to. You’re still very young. You don’t know how these things work. I should have known you’d take unnecessary risks for Darcie. When you love someone that much, what risks won’t you take? But it was foolish,” he continued, his voice hardening as he pulled a blood bag from the fridge. He viewed it with distaste as he opened it up.

“How did you even find me?”

“I had GPS trackers put on your bike,” he answered easily. “I followed you as soon as you and Thessa left the palace grounds. I was going to keep my distance, but I sensed your pain through our bond when you were attacked. The Gods must have seen you and Thessa leaving the palace and decided to take the opportunity to ruin me.”

“Ruin you?” I repeated. That familiar flare of anger washed through me, and I clung to it. “Oh, of course. Any attack on me must be about you. You’re the most important person in the room at any moment, aren’t you?”

Luken sucked on the blood bag, seeming unfazed. He swallowed and, looking in my eye, said, “Yes. They only care about you as far as hurting you weakens me.”

“You—” I lunged for the kitchen knife, and Luken snatched it up before I could get it. He flicked it away, the blade sticking into the wall near the fridge.

A cocky grin crossed his face as he slurped up more blood, then tossed the empty blood bag into the trash. “We really shouldn’t fight when you’re in your state. Finish eating, and you can try to beat me after you’ve had a nap.”

“You condescending piece of shit,” I snarled. I went for him again, feinting a punch to his head, only to check my shoulder into his chest. He grunted and wrapped his arms around me. His hands grabbed my wrist, and he twisted me around, pinning me firmly into his chest. His body was so warm and inviting, his scent overwhelming.

“Let me go,” I spat.

Luken pressed his face into my hair. “Not until you agree to eat and rest before fighting me, Elara. I would love to spar with you. Thinking about how we fought at the hot springs still gets me hard as a rock. But you’re going to need to use your strength if we’re going to get Darcie and Thessa back.”

The fight drained from me. “You’re going to help me?”

“It’s that, or you kill yourself,” he answered dryly. “I still need you to defeat the Gods, and you’ll get yourself killed if you go after them alone. So we should stick together, hmm?”

I grabbed my sandwich and took it back to the couch, resentment broiling in my gut. For a moment there, I’d nearly let myself get sucked back into his charm. He didn’t care about Darcie or Thessa. Didn’t even care about me, not really. Even the fear I’d felt through the bond when I was dying wasn’t about me. I was just an instrument in his quest for power.

He was right about this, though. I needed to eat and sleep. The sooner I fully recovered, the sooner we would get moving again.

I watched Luken as I ate. And continued to watch him when I lay down on the couch. Why couldn’t I keep myself steady when it came to him? I hated flipping back and forth, knowing I couldn’t trust him, but constantly being drawn to him.

Eventually, I fell asleep. But even in my dreams, I wasn’t free from him. They were filled with him and the fairytale ending I knew we’d never have.

Chapter 8

“The map says it’s faster to go through the Porcupine Mountains, not around them,” I argued.

I didn’t know where Luken had gotten the little car, but now he drove it down the highway, the trees getting taller and thicker on either side of the road. The strobe-light effect of the sunlight flashing through the gaps in the branches would have made me feel sick at one point. I guess the more vampire I got, the less prone to motion sickness I was.

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