“Stop,” I order, and the moment her mouth is off my arm, my mouth is on her mouth, kissing away the blood. But not for long. The longing in me is too brutal, too intense for me to resist if I stay with her. And I can’t stay with her and not claim her. And she deserves better than me and my life, in the life that would become her life.
I part our lips, and by the time I do so, the wound on my arm is healed.
But the impact she’s had on me is not.
“Sleep well, Ivy,” I say softly before I walk to the door and exit.
Once I’m in the hallway, I pull the door shut, and lean against it, every muscle in my body tense. I can smell her. I can hear her heartbeat. I can still taste her on my lips. I have wanted as a vampire, craved in carnal, primal ways, an animalistic hunger for blood and sex, a part of who I am now. But not since my youth, as my newborn vampire self, have I struggled to control my urges.
Not in all my years as a man or a vampire have I hungered for a woman as I do now. Not even with my wife and I don’t know what to do with that reality.
There’s a shift in the air and I know the moment she’s there. Ivy leans on the door, just behind me, as if she knows I’m here. She does know. I can feel her but she can feel me, too. With the blood bond, I could push into her mind, read her thoughts, but I won’t do that. I’m not going to take from her, not unless it’s for her safety. But if I don’t leave and leave now, I will open the door and take her in every way possible. I push off the door and put distance between myself and the woman named Ivy, who I could so easily ruin for all of eternity.
CHAPTER FOUR
An hour later, I’m on my balcony, a glass of whiskey in my hand, thinking that the Coven of the Rain magic that’s given me back food and sunlight are curses, not blessings. When a vampire is too human, we behave like humans. We get too close to humans. We find emotional components of ourselves, and that includes distraction. And distraction is death.
We are not humans. We are vampires, and I am a warden, sworn to protect innocents of all races and kinds. That includes my new “friend,” Ivy.
The wind shifts and even before I turn around, I know Marcus is on my balcony. Our maker is one of the ancients, who unlike the rest of us, can transport himself anywhere. “What do you know?” I ask, bringing him into view.
He’s tall—at least six-four—with long blond hair and dark eyes, who favors leather from head to toe, his armor he calls it. Those things alone lend to a striking appearance, but Marcus is all-powerful beyond his appearance, a vampire who commands man and beast. You feel the crackle of that energy when he’s present.
“You found her then,” he says softly.
“Found who, Marcus?” I demand, a charge igniting my body.
“You know who, Eli,” he says pointedly.
“Don’t play games with me, Marcus,” I warn.
“You know I never play games, Eli,” he says, walking to the balcony where he leans on the rail, back to the steel, elbows on the rail as he peers up at the sky and then glances over at me. “Games are for humans.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
He faces me. “It’s her, Eli.”
My lashes lower and a wave of emotions overwhelm me. “No,” I say, rejecting the idea, staring him down. “Why are you lying to me?”
“That’s another thing I don’t do. I don’t lie and you know it.” His eyes meet mine and images rush through my mind, the past with the Ivy I’d loved and married mingled with images of the new Ivy, in her current life.
I cut my gaze, step back, and break the connection. “It can’t be.”
“I assure you it can, and it is, Ivy.”
“How?”
“All things are possible. A man can become a vampire, a wolf, a witch. A man that would die can live forever. A vampire that once would have burned alive in sunlight no longer burns alive.”
“Why now?”
“She’s been back three times. You never found her.”
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“Breaking the natural cycle is punishable by death. I couldn’t tell you. You had to find each other.”
“You sent me to Nashville.”
“I did,” he says. “Despite the risk to myself, I tried to bring you together. And there was a legitimate reason for you to be there.”
I walk to the balcony and press my hands on the railing, staring out over the downtown skyline. “I was in her neighborhood. I didn’t feel her there.”