Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER NINE || DANNY

O f all the stupid, idiotic, ridiculous things Michael had ever done, this one most definitely took the cake. It was even worse than that time in Tucson when he’d slept with an evil warlock who was raising a literal army of the dead. At least he hadn’t known the guy was actually bad news until that creep’s zombies had started trying to munch on people.

But this was on a whole other level. Michael knew, firsthand, what a ravenous vampire was capable of. He knew better than to give me even an ounce of his trust.

Maybe if I’d had a few months to adjust to my new condition, it would’ve been a little less stupid of him. But neither one of us knew for sure that I wouldn’t hurt him, did we? If I didn’t know, then he sure as hell didn’t, either.

The ropes pooled uselessly around my torso.

“Come on, then,” Michael said, leaning down to get even closer to me, very much invading my fucking bubble of personal space. All I would need to do is turn my head and his jugular would be right there, mine for the taking. It was pounding in time with his heartbeat. His life was there, flowing through that very point, and I could sink my teeth into it, and take all of that vitality into myself. “If you’re going to do it, now is the fucking time.”

My newly minted vampiric instincts seemed to stir lazily at that thought, like a cat that has been drowsing too long in the sun giving its food dish a glance before settling back down for another prolonged nap.

Both of us waited me out. Michael didn’t move so much as a goddamn muscle. And the pain from earlier didn’t return, the way I expected it to. Not the burning in my throat. And not the gnawing hunger, either. Not even with his neck so exposed that he was practically presenting it to me on a platter.

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The only actual desire I had in that moment was…

I blinked and jerked back from him when it slid into place. I didn’t want blood from him, the way I probably should have. Instead, I wanted to see how his lips tasted. I wanted to see if they felt as hard and unyielding as they looked, or if they would be soft and warm, pressed against mine.

I ignored him—and the sudden and alarming desire I’d just had. Instead, I shoved the ropes off me, giving myself room to escape.

The powdered silver was all over my hands and arms, it was on my clothing, it was probably on my neck and, hell, there was maybe even some on my face. I couldn’t go blurry with speed or anything. And I couldn’t throw him across the barn so he could land on his unbelievably stupid, ridiculous, reckless head. But I wanted to.

Or, no. What I actually wanted was to see if his weight pressing me down onto the ground would feel as hot as I thought it would.

What the fuck was going on with me? Had my bloodlust been subverted into generalized sexual desire or something? Was that a thing that could happen?

I made a mental note to ask Bryan.

Michael watched me stand up and stalk across to the other side of the barn. He didn’t say a word. But the expression he wore was almost… smug. Like I’d just proven him right. The fucking jerk.

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I had to consciously decide to do it, of course. Which wasn’t as strange as it might sound. Already, I was getting used to the new reality of what I was now. I still felt like I always had, mostly. In fact, physically, I felt better than I had in years. Well-rested, like I’d just woken up from a very long nap. And I felt strong, too. Even with the powdered silver sapping my body’s unnatural strength.

The breath was still calming, exactly as it would’ve been if I had still been human.

Michael still didn’t speak, but he stood up at last, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t even look angry or defiant. Instead, his gaze was devouring me hungrily, like he was trying to convince himself that I was real.

“You’re an idiot,” I told him. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared.

“I know,” he breathed, still watching me. He smiled a little and his eyes went all glassy again, his voice growing rougher. “But you’re still Danny. And I didn’t lose you. I had to know.”

“Just because I didn’t immediately try to eat you, doesn’t mean I’m still the same person,” I said, much gentler than I meant to. In reality, I wanted to snap at him, but I couldn’t quite make myself do it. “Neither one of us knows the way through this, or what to expect.”

“When have we ever?” Michael shot back, raising his eyebrows at me, like he was daring me to contradict him. “It’s not like there’s ever been a rulebook, right?”

“What if I had bitten you?”

“You wouldn’t have drained me. If I had told you to stop, you would have.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually.” Michael laughed a little, shaking his head. “Look, I know it sounds completely insane, but it’s like there’s this part of me—the part of me that’s the most me —and it’s telling me you would never, in a million years, ever hurt me. And I believe it.”

“And if I hadn’t stopped when you’d asked me to?”

“Then I would have put a fucking bullet in your heart,” Michael replied, without missing a beat. “A silver one—I swapped the wood out for the silver while you were out, just in case. It wouldn’t have killed you, obviously, but it would’ve stopped what you were doing long enough for me to get away. I’m not a total idiot.”

“Five-plus years of history begs to differ.”

Michael grinned at that. And I couldn’t help but smile back a little as well, my anger with him subsiding immediately. In more than half a decade, I’ve never managed to stay mad at Michael longer than an hour, two at most. Usually it’s only been a few minutes, at most.

He eyed my expression. “So, I’m no longer in the doghouse?”

I scowled at that, but it was clearly enough of an answer for him, because he visibly relaxed. He plopped down into a sitting position, putting his back to the wall of the barn, and patted the ground next to him.

“Sit next to me?” Then he hesitated and added. “It’s not causing you any pain, right? To be near me, I mean.”

“There’s no pain,” I replied honestly.

When he had stormed out of the barn earlier, the burning in my throat had returned full force. And the gnawing hunger had, in fact, been like ground glass cutting up my insides. The pain of it had been blinding, driving all rational thought from my mind, except for doing anything I could to stop it. But now that he was here, present with me, there was none of that. I could think again. It was effortless to not attack him.

So, trusting in that more than I knew I probably should have, I crossed the barn and settled down beside him. I could feel the heat radiating off his body. And his scent enveloped me again, driving all possibility of hurting him from my mind. It reminded me again, sharply, of being warm and cared for and safe. Even if all those memories from my childhood had ultimately ended up being a lie.

“So, I’m supposed to help you hang onto your humanity. That’s what Bryan told me to do. Granted, he also told me that you’d be so out of your mind with hunger that you’d be like a wild animal, so I dunno if that’s still the playbook. But let’s say it is—I’m supposed to remind you of times when you were still human.”

“You mean, what? Yesterday?”

“We could start there,” Michael agreed. He gave me a sideways sort of look. “Or… earlier tonight.”

I understood immediately.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was—I got jealous,” I admitted.

I hated doing it. Because it tipped us dangerously into the sort of touchy-feely waters I’d been avoiding for months. But somehow, having died tonight, I cared way less about that than I ever had before. And I couldn’t stand the idea of Michael blaming himself. Because it wasn’t his fault this had happened. It was mine. And him not hurting and not feeling guilty was more important than protecting my delicate—well, whatever I was now.

“I saw you dancing with the twink and I was an idiot. You’d think that years of watching you going off and hooking up with whatever rando hits you up on Grindr would’ve been enough that I didn’t get even a little jealous anymore. But I got pissed. And then, when I saw the vamp leaving with her victim, I followed her.” I paused, feeling a fresh dose of shame wash through me. Because I was acutely aware that it was all my fault that we were sitting here right now, having this conversation in the first place. “You were doing exactly what we’d planned on. I was the one who fucked this whole thing up.”

“I can’t count the number of times I’ve fucked up a hunt for us. I’m at a dozen, easy. You still need to catch up. Then we’ll talk.”

“No offense, but it’s never been quite so spectacular, so I still win,” I shot back, turning to give him some side-eye in the process. “I mean, you’ve never gotten anyone killed.”

He caught my gaze and held it. “But you’re not dead.”

I held out my wrist. “Check if you don’t believe me. No pulse. Pretty sure that equals dead.”

Instead, he slid his hand next to mine and held it, apparently with zero trepidation whatsoever. I expected to feel the urge to pull away from him, but I didn’t. Instead, his touch felt… nice. Too nice. I felt my cock begin to harden a bit at the feel of his warm skin next to mine. Which was mighty fucking weird, because holding hands with anyone—even with the prettiest of the girls I’d ever messed around with—had never done that to me before.

“Vampire isn’t the same as dead, Danny,” he told me firmly, still holding my gaze captive like he was some kind of fucking sorcerer. “You were dead for about five hours. And I completely lost my shit until you woke back up. I ugly cried and everything. So, yeah. I think I fucking know the difference.”

I swallowed, not wanting to think about what he had been through. What if he were the one who had turned? Would I have really done anything so different? Or would I have wanted to believe—with every fiber of my being—that he was still here with me? That he could still be okay? I think I would have. I think I would have gambled everything on that bet, no matter how much of a long shot it really was. Because I couldn’t imagine a world without him in it.

“Anyway, it wasn’t your fault,” I replied, my voice sounding gruff and short to my own ears. I dropped my gaze down to our joined hands. Any moment now, he was going to let go. Or I would. One of us would, for sure. “None of it was your fault at all. I got jealous and I fucked everything up. End of story.”

A silence fell between us, and Michael and I just sat side-by-side in the abandoned barn, holding hands. And I let him. And he let me. And I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I liked it plenty. And I had zero urge to feed on him. I might’ve still been human, with how little my body reminded me that it was a hungry newborn vampire sitting next to a human man, filled with warm blood, ripe for the taking. And any moment now, it would all end, because anytime I had something good, even for a moment, it always—

“I don’t, you know.”

I did a double take, glancing back up at him. “You don’t what?”

“I don’t hook up anymore.”

A bark of surprised laughter escaped my lips before I could stop it. “Wait. What? ”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Um. I’ve been leaving though. So you’d think I had.”

“I’ve seen the Grindr messages. You’ve made a point to let me see you messaging your tricks. You even showed me a couple of photos. Recently.”

He let out a long breath. He gave me a tentative smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, I’m kind of fucked up sometimes. That wasn’t cool of me. The thing is—I started canceling on these poor guys at the last second. I didn’t really mean to, at first. I thought I was going to do it. But then, I got halfway there and I just—I couldn’t go through with it. So I started just hanging out in the car for a couple hours. I didn’t want you to know.”

“You—” I broke off, understanding dawning for me. “Wait. When did you stop hooking up?”

His cheeks went a little red. “About the same time we met Bryan and Tobias.”

“When I said—” I broke off yet again, swallowing hard. Oh fuck. This was it. We were about to have the talk. And I had just trundled right the fuck into it, hadn’t I?

“When you said you were in love with me,” Michael confirmed, going even redder. But apparently hell-bent on continuing, regardless. “Yeah. That’s when I stopped. Just… you know. For the record. I stopped.”

I stared at him, my brain hamster-wheeling wildly. This was really happening, and I wasn’t even remotely ready for it. But he’d already gone there. And now, I would have to… what, exactly? Pledge my—I supposed now, quite literally—undying love for him? Change the subject and shut him down completely? Explain how I was technically straight and interested in him purely romantically but not sexually, however confusing and selfish and weird that might be?

“You really want to have this conversation now?” I demanded, deciding that the best defense really is a good offense. “I mean, I might rip you to shreds at any moment.”

He rolled his eyes a little at that. But when he met my gaze again, his expression was serious. And imploring. “Please, don’t .”

“Rip you to shreds?” I asked hopefully.

“ Danny. Just—stop, okay? I’m asking you not to do this. I want you to talk to me.” He paused. “Here it is—all my cards on the table. I fucking thought you were dead earlier. Before I realized you were going to come back to me. And I thought I might die, too, because it hurt so much. And I realized that we’d never know . And I—well, I need to know.” He swallowed hard, and there was a flicker of raw vulnerability that flashed across his face. “So, look, please don’t shut me down right now. I’m not sure I could deal with that.”

I scowled a little. But the moment his words registered, I felt all of my resistance drain away from me. I didn’t want to shut him down anymore, no matter what it cost me. All because he had asked me not to. All because he’d just told me, in no uncertain terms, that he needed me not to.

“Okay,” I said, feeling the last my resistance to him give. It was a terrifying sensation. Without it, I felt naked and raw. “I meant what I said. I wouldn’t have just said it. You already know that, though.”

Michael kept silent, his gaze never leaving mine. And I realized that I had just done it again. He’d made himself excruciatingly vulnerable to me, but I hadn’t given him the same in return.

I took a deep breath, feeling grateful that it still had the power to steady me, even if it wasn’t necessary for my body any longer.

“I’ve been in love with you for years, I think.” I hesitated, watching as the words registered for him, softening the edges of his knife-edged gaze. I added, “You’re reckless and you do dumb stuff all the time that gets both of us into trouble, and your heart is always out on your goddamn sleeve. And you’re braver than anyone else I’ve ever met in my entire fucking life. And underneath all the asshole, you’re actually a really, really good person. And you try to be better, every goddamn day. I’ve watched you set aside years of hatred and fear, the moment you realized Bryan was different—that the world is a lot grayer than either of us realized. And so, yeah, I love you. I’m in love with you. How could I not be?”

His expression melted and his eyes went all soft and warm.

“ Danny ,” he whispered, swallowing hard. He looked almost bewildered. “I—I didn’t know all that.”

I felt shaken by what I had just said. The words I had just spoken to him had the power to rip both of us to shreds, didn’t they? After all, I wasn’t human any longer and neither of us knew what that meant. And if I had been worried about Michael leaving me before—everyone leaves—it was nothing compared to the reasons he had to do so now.

And if he didn’t really feel the same way—

“I love you,” he said simply and firmly. “I don’t know that I want to go to mush, like you just did, though.”

I let out a startled laugh that sounded all wrong to my ears—too ragged to belong to me. “Asshole.”

He grinned a little at that. “Pretty much always. But yeah, I love you too. You said before that you’d do just about anything for me. And I’d do anything for you, too. I hope you know that by now. But in case you don’t, here’s me saying it. I would.”

He might fight monsters for me. And open his heart to let me see the ooey-gooey parts of him. If you’d told me a year ago that he’d ever be willing to do that, I would’ve called you a crazy person. But the thing I really needed from him was the thing I couldn’t be sure of at all—and it was something I would never ask. I needed him to stay.

“You’re only attracted to women, though,” Michael said, bringing me back to the present moment.

“Right.”

He frowned thoughtfully at that. “But have you ever had a relationship with a woman?”

“I tried, once. After my brother and my dad were both gone. I was nineteen. I went back to live with my mother for a while —almost a year—and I was determined to try giving normal a shot.”

“You haven’t told me this.”

“I know. It’s not exactly a part of the Danny highlight reel,” I replied, grimacing. But I suddenly wanted to share all of this with him. I wanted to share everything. While I still could. While he was still here to share it with. “Anyway, I got a job at the supermarket, and I dated the nicest, most normal girl in town. Her name was Becca. She was normal and pretty and a really sweet person. It lasted almost two months. She was great. But I just—well, I didn’t feel anything. I liked her just fine, but none of it was… real. And she sensed that, I think.”

“Then what happened?”

“What do you think? I realized that a white picket fence wasn’t in the cards for me—it never has been—and I left town. I went right back to doing what I had been raised to do. I met you a couple months later.”

“And you feel things for me that you didn’t feel for Becca?”

“I feel things for you I’ve never felt for anyone else.” But I had to look away from him when I said it, because it was so fucking weird and selfish, that I was admitting any of this, when it couldn’t ever actually be real. “Pretty fucked up, right?”

“Not really. You’re at least bi-romantic. Or maybe just homoromantic.”

“Now you’re just making up words.”

“Asshole. I might be a small-town mechanic turned monster hunter, but I do read. It means that you fall in love with guys, but that you’re not necessarily sexually attracted to them.” He paused. “You can be bisexual, heterosexual, pansexual, or some shade of asexual and still want to enter into a romantic relationship with guys, or with guys and girls equally. That’s sometimes a thing that happens.”

He said it so simply and matter-of-factly that I had to turn back to him. He’d just put into a single sentence the crux of why I’d felt so fucked up for months. And very likely why I had spent my entire life alone, for that matter. And why I’d probably spend my undead eternity alone, too.

He seemed to catch my look, because he smiled back at me, a little ruefully. And I couldn’t help the way my heart seemed to swell in my chest at the sight of it. I liked looking at him now, more than I ever had before. Had he always been so handsome?

I couldn’t help but remember the way my body had responded to him, back in the motel room. My earlier trepidations around being close to him seemed suddenly strange, like they belonged to someone else. They were faint echoes, more than anything else.

The only fear that remained was the worst one: what if this ruined everything?

Could I be brave enough to try?

“Hate to break it to you,” Michael told me, oblivious to the internal struggle I felt. “But you’re not broken or even unique. So, you’re not fucked up at all. Sorry, not sorry. Plenty of folks out there are in exactly the same boat as you.”

“Oh,” I replied, my gaze suddenly lingering on his lips. They were firm and decidedly masculine, but I was betting they were warmer and softer than I might’ve expected. Just like the rest of him.

“Go ahead,” Michael said it like a dare, his gaze locked onto me. “If you want to, you can.”

I leaned forward, so close that I could feel his breath on my lips. “How do you know I’m not just hungry?”

“Don’t be a dick,” he whispered, holding very still, like he was afraid that any movement might send me running in the other direction.

And then, without thinking about what I was about to do, I kissed him.

His lips were somehow both soft and firm at the same time. And they were warm—far warmer than I expected. It started as a chaste kiss, just our lips touching. But then, seemingly of their own accord, my lips parted like my body knew exactly what to do, and he took that invitation and ran with it. His tongue met mine, making it all so much dirtier and more demanding. Wet and sloppy and masculine and warm and good .

So fucking good.

My cock hardened in an instant, my body responding to him in exactly the way I was afraid it never would. His strong arms circled my waist and back, and it was overwhelming and intoxicating, but I didn’t want it to stop. It was so much better than it had ever been with anyone else. I had never been kissed before. Not really. Not like Michael kissed me. Not in a way that blotted out the entire world, until there was just him with his powerful arms around me, his tongue in my mouth, my body on fire for him, needing everything he had to give.

I wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, but he ended up on top of me, his body pressed down on top of me. All of that delicious, masculine weight pressing me down onto the ground. The crunch of stale hay bit into my back and I didn’t give a shit about that at all. There was only Michael. He was the only thing that was real. He was the only thing that mattered.

I let my hands trail up his muscular back and I could feel my cock leaking precum inside my underwear, but I didn’t care about that either. My legs encircled his waist and I let out a sound of pure need.

I managed to break the kiss right before my fangs dropped for the very first time.

I froze and let out a startled breath, feeling the strange sensation of my teeth sharpening in my mouth. It wasn’t unpleasant. Instead, it felt almost like moving a muscle that had been right on the verge of going to sleep. It was a feeling of deep relief.

Shame flooded through me an instant later. It shouldn’t feel good for my fangs to be out. It shouldn’t ever feel good to be monstrous and inhuman. I turned my head away from him, praying he wouldn’t see.

Michael froze. “What is it? Do you need to stop?”

“I’m fine. I just—I can’t—I need a moment.”

Michael climbed off of me in a shot. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you need.”

But his voice went all hoarse and stricken. Like I’d just punched him in the face.

With my head still turned away from him, I scowled. My heart twisted in my chest. He was in pain and I had caused it. Unacceptable.

“No. It’s not like that. It was good—fuck, Michael, it was perfect . I’m just having a monster-moment and I don’t want to bite you on accident, okay?”

“Let me see,” Michael told me, firmly.

I turned back to him, my lips parted enough that he could, I was certain, make out the tips of my fangs from between them.

“Fuck. You’re beautiful,” he breathed. It was punctuated by a startled-sounding little laugh. His eyes were wide with a surprised kind of wonder as he saw my teeth. After a pause, he grinned at me, pulling his eyes up to meet my gaze dead-on. “You know, I expected to have to fight through a reaction or something, but instead I just really want to kiss you some more. This is just another part of you now.”

“You’re not freaked?”

“It’s weird to say this, but the truth is: not even a little.” He paused. “Uh—do you want to bite me?”

My jaw dropped at his question and alarm rocketed through me. “ What ?”

His grin widened and he looked completely serious, like his question was the most ordinary and normal thing in the whole world. “Yeah. I think I kind of want you to. Tobias said it can feel good, when it’s consensual.” He met my gaze again, completely unapologetic, his lips full and thoroughly kissed, his eyes still hooded with desire. “I want you to feed from me, Danny.”