My head swims with fear again, and this time it’s visceral. Coming from somewhere deep in the den.
Fuck.
My head swivels around, my eyes searching the den’s seedy fucking booths and dance floor.
All around me there are dirty, filthy, humans and vampires.
Dizzy with angst, I sway for the briefest of moments on my feet. Just long enough for me to fall against Andrei’s big frame as he throws his arm around my shoulders.
Throwing his head back, Andrei lets out a booming laugh before he shouts, “Time for the feeding!”
He’s protecting me.
Nodding my head in thanks, I gather my frayed wits and look at Nikolaos’s men.
“Where is she?” I snarl at Vaughn.
He’s always been a good guy but he’s a member of Nikolaos’s coven, and I have no time for their fucking games.
Not anymore.
“This way, Ash,” Vaughn says with a nod of respect.
We walk through the club at a slow pace. And while I understand it’s out of safety for the vamps and humans alike, it’s driving me fucking insane.
My anger is boiling even higher.
Something is off right now.
The wrongness with each step is growing.
Chloe isn’t where we’re going, I can feel it.
My feet feel as if they’re stepping on glue with each step.
My muscles want to turn in the other direction.
She’s not the one.
I know it before I even enter the room Vaughn leads me to.
Approaching the door makes my skin crawl through the roof. Each moment, each step closer hurts my very being.
Everything I am and everything I’ll ever be revolts at the wrongness of it all when I finally reach the woman.
Bending down to look into her vacant expression, I feel nothing but repulsion.
She’s enchantingly beautiful, as regal as a princess from the fairytales. Thin and lithe, black hair and blue eyes. Pale porcelain skin.
If she was my soulmarked, seeing her here, bound to the table by chains with vampires surrounding her, would send me into a blinding rage.
But she’s not mine.
She’s not the one.
Turning my head away, I fling myself away from the woman.
“It’s not her!” I scream into the pitch-black rafters.
The bloodlust comes upon me so quickly I lurch out of the room.
Dark, insidious thoughts flow through my mind as I close my eyes to the den. Shutting down each sense—sight, sound, taste, and smell—I open the bond between us fully.
She’s here.
She’s alive, and there are two marked women in the same city…
Thoughts of Chloe swim through my mind as I try to focus on her.
A tugging sensation, much like a taut string in the middle of my chest, draws me to her.
Opening my eyes, I follow the rapid beating of her heart.
She can sense me, and her fears from before pale in comparison to what she’s feeling now.
Terror, lust, and a deep shame rocket through me.
Blood pounds through my chest, flowing into each of my limbs and every extremity.
My cock is so fucking hard, I swear it’s going to rip through the zipper that’s barely restraining it.
A door appears before me, but when I look at the handle that wants to keep me away from her, I don’t understand it.
Why is my brain failing to comprehend simple things…
A barrier stands before me.
Lifting my foot, I slam the door off the hinges.
In an instant my brain loses all fogginess. All sense of disorientation vanishes.
There, sitting back on a thick leather sofa, Nikolaos cradles my fucking mate.
Smells, taste, vision… not a single one of them is needed now.
My very being is rocked into the world of singularity.
“She’s mine.”
Ten
Chloe
Once Nikolaos tugs me past the front door, darkness swallows me whole. There’s no light. Not a single trace to provide any relief.
It’s almost as if light no longer exists in this world.
My eyes struggle to adjust, my brain expecting to see the faint outlines of what’s around me at any second.
But everything around me remains pure black.
It’s both frightening and surreal.
Like I’ve suddenly been dropped into an abyss.
I can feel my feet moving across a floor and Nikolaos’s cool hand gripping mine tight, but as he leads me, my head spins.
The loss of my sight has thrown off the rest of my senses.
I can’t tell if we’re going forward, to the side, or backward.
Struggling to get some sort of bearing, I miss a step and start to trip.
Immediately tightening his grip until it’s painful, Nikolaos pulls me into him.
“Stay close, little one,” he practically coos into my ear. “This is not a place you want to get lost in.”
The intimate tone of his words makes my skin crawl, but I press closer to him, knowing he’s right. The thought of getting lost in the blackness, wandering around blind until I died of exhaustion or hunger, is terrifying enough that I’d rather suffer his nearness than risk losing him as my anchor.
Making a soft sound of pleasure, Nikolaos wraps his arm around me and leads the way again.