Page 73 of Blood Bound

Without thinking, I get up and straddle him, cupping his stubbled face in my hands. “I’m ready to commit my life to you, Gabriel; forever is just the first step.”

He reaches up to brush my hair from the nape of my neck, stroking where he feels my pulse.

“Forever, eternity, in perpetuity… pretty words to describe our future together,” he says, his eyes shifting to crimson and his fangs extending.

He leans forward, kissing my neck and running the tips of his fangs over my skin. “Pretty words that hold absolutely no weight, none at all…”

I inhale sharply and my heart thuds painfully against my ribcage, knowing that these will be my last seconds as a human. I’m ready for this, prepared to give up my life and start a new one with Gabriel… ready to be with the man I am irrevocably in love with.

If giving up sunlight and a normal life will heal him, then I’ll do it. Over and over again.

But Gabriel simply sighs against my skin and places a gentle kiss against the pulse on my neck.

“Forever will have to wait, little lamb,” he says, then sits back and gives me a sheepish smile. “Call me old-fashioned, but I want our Entwining to be more than a means in which to heal me.”

I lean forward and wrap my arms around his neck, breathing him in and feeling a tear slip down my cheek. He holds me close and I can feel his heartbeat racing at the same tempo as mine, realizing we were both so close to our forever.

“I’m sorry, please don’t feel offended–”

“I’m not,” I sniff, holding on tight and shaking my head. “I’m just… happy.”

“You have an odd way of showing it, little lamb,” he chuckles, then starts to cough so hard that I jump from his lap, and worry slips into my heart again. “Ah, fuck; still healing.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” I murmur, nearly kicking myself for sitting on a man who I literally just performed surgery on. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head and holds out his arm. “Nothing to apologize for. Come here,” he says, gesturing for me to lie next to him and I oblige.

Smiling, I nuzzle into his embrace and he kisses the side of my head, breathing out a sigh that sounds normal again.

“Thank you for your offer to heal me, Katherine, but you’ve done enough to save me. Allow me to take care of the rest, then I promise you we’ll have our eternity, but it will be on our own time, not forced.”

I don’t want to mention that before we start our lives together, we have the council to deal with.

But I’ll remind him of that another time; for now, I close my eyes, lace my fingers together with his and fall asleep with the knowledge that Gabriel sees me as more than just his Fated.

GABRIEL

“Did you tell her this?”

“I figured it wouldn’t be in her best interest.”

I’m sitting across from Valentine and Church three days after my attack, reeling from the bombshell they’ve just put on me. Katherine and Xenia are out at the moment, so it’s finally given us time to speak about the events that nearly saw me killed.

Sighing, I lean back and cross my arms. “She can’t know about it until I’m confident she’s ready. I knew Alexander would have a failsafe for when something happens to him, but I never fucking expected this.”

“The element of surprise is a fucking bitch,” Church adds, shaking his head. “When are we heading out of this town? Something here doesn’t feel right.”

“Funny you should say that,” I chuckle sadly, shaking my head. “I never told you two who turned Alexander, did I?”

They both frown when I say this, and I swear that I still don’t fucking believe it myself. I keep wondering if the baobab was to blame for causing me to hallucinate, but Alexander has turned into a vampire so that’s definitely not the case.

“It was Angelique,”

The mention of my sister makes them both sit back with slackened jaws and wide eyes; I’m pretty sure that’s how I looked when I first saw her standing in front of me.

She’s supposed to be dead, caught in a raid between Death’s Temple and us just as we were boarding the ship for Europe. We saw her being taken away, but I suppose that she was a lot stronger than the hunters.

“What?! How?!” Valentine exclaims, his green eyes wide. “I thought you said the Thread severed!”

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