Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER EIGHT || MICHAEL

M y anger carried me all the way out the barn door, past the unmarked grave I’d dug at the edge of the field, and down to the end of the gravel driveway. That was where it fizzled out, causing me to stop dead in my tracks, and afterward, I mostly just felt like shit.

Somehow, I had entertained a fantasy of telling Danny my big realization—that I loved him back—in some grand and sweeping fashion. Or maybe even in some big romantic way, involving candles and soft rock. Instead, I had blurted it out like an idiot, in the heat of my fury. Not a good look.

But it was at least as much his fault as mine, which actually did nothing to assuage my frustration at myself. But he definitely needed to stop talking about anyone ever doing a single goddamn thing to hurt him. I couldn’t even stand the thought.

Because he was still Danny, wasn’t he?

After my phone conversation with Bryan earlier, I had been afraid that he wouldn’t be. After I had told Bryan what had happened, he had made it sound like Danny would wake up ravenous and so hell-bent on feeding that he would hardly be a person at all, much less the same person I’d spent years trying—and failing—to avoid falling in love with. Apparently, that passed eventually, but Bryan had warned me that while Danny would still technically be in there, it might not look much like it at first.

But Bryan had been dead-ass wrong. From what I could gather, Danny hadn’t changed much at all. He clearly still had his emotions intact, even if they were pointed in absolutely the wrong direction. And he was rational enough to hold a conversation. Though, the majority of that conversation had been him trying to convince me to murder him.

Over the years, Danny and I had killed more monsters than I could count. And that included plenty of vampires. But those creatures had all been cold-blooded killers. They had killed before, and they would kill again. For years, that had been our litmus test for whether something out there was worthy of the pointy end of a wooden stake. Or the blade of a machete. Or a silver bullet. Whatever. But oddly enough, when you’re putting down a creature that snuffs out human life without remorse, it doesn’t feel like such a morally bad thing to destroy a being like that. It feels correct. You’re stopping them from doing that to any other innocent people, after all. And that’s all even more true when that bloodthirsty creature is actively trying to kill you. At that point, it’s you or them.

But that line had gotten awfully blurry in recent months. It was even more blurry now, because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could hunt Danny. Not even if he was off murdering innocent bystanders for their blood. After losing him tonight—after the agony of thinking he really was gone for good—I wasn’t entirely sure if I could do it, even if it were a choice between him or me.

But I sure as hell knew I couldn’t do it just on principle. Not even if that’s what Danny thought he wanted.

Because Danny was still in there. He was still acting like a person, and not like the savage, near-mindless newborn vamp Bryan had warned me to expect. But that was hardly even surprising. After all, leave it to Danny to be an exception to the rule. He’d spent the last five years surprising me and I was pretty sure he’d spend a lot longer doing it now, too.

So long as he didn’t try offing himself first.

I had expected that I would need to employ the same sort of tactics one might use with an injured animal—or maybe a wild one. Namely, contain it so that it can’t hurt itself or anyone else, and then try to soothe it as much as possible. I’d expected to have to feed him, too. From what Bryan had said, the hunger of a newborn vamp is so intense that it’s painful. You’d do just about anything to make the pain stop. I hadn’t even flinched when he’d told me that. I’d bleed into a fucking chalice if that’s what it took. I’ve never minded a little blood.

But it wasn’t some wild animal, crazed with inhuman hungers, who had woken up in Danny’s body. It was still very much Danny who had glared back at me and told me to end him.

That realization—that he wasn’t gone at all, he was still right there —made tears spring to my eyes yet again and I wiped them away immediately, abruptly furious with myself.

Yes, Danny still being himself made me want to sag with relief and start bawling uncontrollably. And yes, it made me want to drop to my knees and thank whatever divine being would bother listening to me. And yes, it filled me with dread, too. Because there were some mighty awkward conversations in our very near future—especially now that I’d just done the big reveal that he wasn’t the only one with some big fucking feelings in the mix.

But right at that moment, Danny didn’t need any of that from me. Neither one of us did, as a matter of fact. What he needed was for me to think, rather than feel.

And yeah, I was still fucking madly in love with him. But so what? I pretty much always had been. And I figured I always would be. When it came to that, his becoming a vampire hadn’t changed a goddamn thing.

If anything, it made things more possible on that level, not less. That might sound awfully strange, coming from someone who had spent years hunting vamps, but it really wasn’t. Because now I wouldn’t constantly be worrying, in the back of my mind, about how fragile a human body was. I wouldn’t be worrying if tonight was the night he’d leave me. I wouldn’t be worried that the same thing that had happened to Joshua would someday happen to him. It already had happened. But unlike Joshua, he had come back to me. And now he was far less breakable, but he was still my Danny.

I didn’t need to soothe and contain. Instead, I needed to show him what had been blindingly obvious to me from the instant I’d stepped foot into the barn: that Danny was still himself. And before the night was through—and maybe for a bunch of other nights after that too—I would show him. Whether he liked it or not.

* * *

Danny was still right where I left him when I walked back into the barn. Granted, he gave me a thousand-yard stare the whole time, until I plopped back down into a sitting position in front of him.

“I’m an idiot,” I told him, without preamble.

He eyed me and somehow managed to convey with that one look that he thought I was the wild animal that needed to be soothed. Or possibly shot with an industrial-sized tranquilizer dart.

“Yup.”

I couldn’t help but smile, even though his tone wasn’t encouraging.

“We’ll talk about that later,” I told him. “We’ve got time. But when I talked with Bryan, he said that you’d be hungry.”

If it was possible, Danny went even more pale. But his gaze zeroed in on my neck and his lips parted. Then he screwed his eyes shut and turned his face away from me.

“It’s a normal part of what you’re going through.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he whispered, sounding ragged. “You left my hands untied. You’re talking about me… feeding .”

He said that last word in a rough whisper, like it was a bad word.

“I figured you wouldn’t have the presence of mind to undo a knot, even if you wanted to. And I left your hands untied so you could hold a cup. I wasn’t sure I trusted you to stop, so I figured that you biting me would be a no go.”

“Shut up!” Danny moaned, pulling on his ropes. He’d obviously picked up on exactly where this conversation was headed. “Please just stop fucking talking, Michael!”

“Bryan said the hunger would cause you pain, at first. Especially for the first couple of days. He said it feels like dying.”

Danny swallowed hard at that and closed his eyes, probably so he could avoid looking at me. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. And if I have to bleed into a fucking dixie cup, I will. But it would be easier if you just took it directly from the source.”

“You’re insane,” Danny breathed. He let out a little laugh that sounded half-crazed. “I guess I’ve known that for years, though.”

“No. I said I loved you. And I fucking do. If you’re still Danny, you’ll stop when I tell you to.”

“You don’t know that,” he hissed, between clenched teeth. When he looked back at me, I expected to see fangs. But there weren’t any. In fact, he looked way calmer than I would have expected. All stony-eyed and frustrated with me, but definitely still calm. Still Danny. “And look, it doesn’t hurt that bad right now. I’m okay, I promise.”

I didn’t believe him. But I also wasn’t willing to force-feed him. Maybe if he had been half-crazed with his thirst, I would have shoved a cup filled with my blood into his hand, because I wouldn’t have been able to stand seeing him suffer like that, would I? But I couldn’t do that while he was still Danny.

I locked eyes with him. “Would you tell me if it did hurt?”

He scowled at that. He let out a long breath that he probably didn’t really need anymore. “It doesn’t hurt when you’re next to me.”

Whatever I had been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that.

“What?”

“Look, don’t make a big deal about it. But when you leave, it’s… it’s bad. But when you’re right here, your scent makes me not want to drink blood.”

“Are you saying I smell bad?”

He let out a short bark of laughter at that. “Fuck you. No . You don’t smell bad. But you don’t smell like food, either.”

My eyebrows pulled together at that. “No, fuck you. I’m a goddamn snack. I’ll have you know that I’m exceptionally mouth-watering to most vamps. To most living guys, too.”

“You’re an idiot,” he said, laughing. He shook his head, letting out another chuckle. “Holy shit, Michael. I can’t believe you’ve got me tied up to a post in a barn.”

“Do you want me to untie you?”

“No! Look, I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around this, okay? The Michael I’ve always known would’ve had no problem making sure I didn’t wake back up. And if that guy found he couldn’t do it, he damn well would’ve called someone who could.”

Not this again. But instead of filling me with incoherent fury that caused me to say dumb things that I totally meant, I had a better answer this time. One that slid into place neatly and easily.

“If I had gotten turned tonight, would you have been able to kill me?”

He went silent at that, but his glare intensified. He worked his jaw back and forth like he wanted to tell me he could’ve, but he couldn’t quite seem to make the words come out.

“And if I drove a stake through my heart or set myself on fire, how would you feel about it? Knowing there was still a chance I could end up being like Bryan? That I could have an entire fucking future where I might still be me—even if that me was maybe a little different?”

He still didn’t reply, but his glare softened into something else entirely. Something far gentler. Far less angry.

But I still went on, apparently hell-bent on making him understand everything . “And if I were the one tied to a goddamn post and you knew that I was still completely Michael, and that I was suffering in a way you couldn’t even wrap your head around, would you be able to stand it? Because I sure as hell can’t.”

Okay, so maybe Danny’s words had filled me with a little bit of incoherent fury that caused me to say some things I totally meant.

Danny stared back at me, the last traces of anger fading from his expression in an instant. He was left looking almost bewildered.

“Oh.”

I let out a long breath, feeling my own cascade of emotions drain away from me the moment his did. “Yeah. Oh. ”

“I guess I see your point.”

“Good.”

“I was being serious, though,” he said slowly, after the long moment had stretched into several. “Whenever you leave… the pain comes back. My throat is on fire and I’m so hungry that it feels like there’s broken glass in my stomach, cutting me up. When you’re next to me, you’re you and I’m me and that’s all that matters.”

“What, you forget that there’s a bunch of broken glass in your stomach?”

He swallowed and something went vulnerable in his expression. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

Fuck this. He had turned down my offer of blood. He was coated in powdered silver, so he couldn’t just vamp-speed away into the night to go try to off himself. There was no reason to leave him tied to a post in the middle of a fucking abandoned barn.

I got up and stepped into arm’s reach. I crouched beside him.

Danny turned his face away from me, though I figured it was probably just a precaution.

“What are you doing ?” he demanded.

“I’m being an idiot,” I told him, as I began to loosen the knots holding the ropes in place around him. “I’ve said my piece, and if I’m wrong, I’ll regret it forever. But I think you love me too. Enough to not cause me any pain if you can help it.”

“Michael, don’t. You can’t trust me anymore.”

“Bullshit.”

Every single instinct I had developed in the last five-plus years as a hunter should’ve told me that Danny was right. But there was a calm and quintessential knowing deep within the very core of me. And it understood, in a way I’d never be able to adequately put into words, that he was dead-ass wrong. The idea that there would ever come a time when I couldn’t trust Danny—even now—was ridiculous. Laughable.

Gritting my teeth against the berating I knew was sure to receive from him—because Danny was still fucking Danny, whether he had fangs or not—I finished untying the knot. The ropes loosened immediately around him. With a few quick yanks, he’d be free to do as he pleased.

Danny turned to look up at me with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“Michael,” he whispered, horror choking his voice. “What have you done?”