But I don’t have one of those and the only man around here is Patrick…. Again I saw a quick vision of that enigmatic captivating face. But he didn’t look the way he did that night when he held me against the tree. Instead he looked…softer, gentler, as if in a dream. I scoffed at my fanciful thinking. Sure; the Crown Prince and future ruler of the immortal world has a soft side.
As if just the thought of him opened up a hidden door in my mind, I relived every moment I’d spent with him that night, which wasn’t much. But even as I thought of those fleeting moments something else tickled the at edges of my mind. I started to reach out for the memory whatever it was but the thing on my neck felt as if someone had suddenly held a burning candle against my soft sensitive skin.
Whatever is the matter with me? I’ve been feeling odd ever since I awakened this morning come to think of it. And there’s a strange feeling here that has never been before, or at least, not that I’d ever noticed. A kind of presence in the air that was just out of my reach.
It’s not a bad feeling, not threatening in the basic sense, but still I feel more than a little bit unsettled by it. Ah, yes, it’s that time, how could I have forgotten? Maybe that’s why I’m so out of sorts, why my body’s acting like it has a mind of its own. And why I seem to be mooning over that rascal in my mind.
Better not run into him again, not for the next few days anyway. My nymph doesn’t seem to have any resistance to his seething charm and she’s already imagining things; wild things. I still haven’t been able to contact my parents to verify if what Patrick said is true. And because just the mere mention of him and anything to do with imprinting makes my sisters nervous I’ve steered away from it, though I know it’s silly to do that. To think that by just ignoring it that it’ll go away.
Annalise is right, I don’t have to succumb to his advances I can walk away. And the thought of what happened between my ancestor and his is more than enough of an incentive to send me running hard in the opposite direction. I’ll have some aftereffects of course, but nothing compared to what had befallen her.
Though even as I had the thought, something, some hidden part of me rebelled against it. It’s as if a part of me had already accepted, had already given into the inevitable. He hadn’t seemed that dangerous had he? And I already knew I felt some kind of attraction to him, why else would I allow him to take such liberties?
But this would change my whole life, and there’s no escaping the fact that we’re so entirely different. I’ve done some digging on my own and know that it’s never been done, not before or after the debacle from the past.
There’s no point in asking why, why now? Why me? why us? I’m very well aware that these things are out of both our hands. But he’s the crown prince, the one who’s set to rule. And though there’s been a schism between his people and mine all these years, the sky clan is still ruler over all.
I guess I can look at it the same way one would an arranged marriage. Something my parents had decided on without any input from me. But the truth is they wouldn’t have chosen him for me, not in a million years. And that brought me back full circle to the problem at hand.
If someone else, anyone else, had imprinted on me, it wouldn’t have been so big of a deal. Most mates go on to have happy lives together. Once the female accepts her mate their love and devotion to one another is pretty much set in stone.
Very rarely has someone refused an imprinted mate but the times that it’s happened, the rejected party has ended up living an abominable existence, some have even died strangely enough. Meanwhile the rejecter doesn’t get off scotch free.
Sure he or she can go on with their life, but they’ll never have a true mate and from what I remember will never live a full and complete life. So these are my choices: Be torn to shreds by the vampyre prince in the heat of passion, or live a life of loneliness and misery. Some choice.
As my mind went to what-ifs I recalled vividly the feel of his hands on me. I could even smell his scent, as if he were here now. Could hear the timbre of his voice as he called my name. Wait, when did he call my name like that? I wracked my brain for the memory of that night but couldn’t recall him saying my name the way I heard it now in my head.