Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN || DANNY

“ I t’s a small miracle you haven’t fed from your friend,” Thierry remarked a half hour later. We had moved from the living room and into the kitchen, which was even more trashed, but still had counter space. He looked up from the cooler he’d brought with him, giving me a strange, almost puzzled, look. “You’re a newborn without a maker to guide you. You should have torn into him the moment you opened your eyes. You should still be trying right now.”

Feeding on Michael was the last thing on my mind. His scent was still all around me, a calming presence, reminding me that he was right there , with just a single wall separating us. But I could sense the tension coiled through him, even from the living room, and he was debating with himself on whether he wanted to ignore Thierry’s command and join us. He didn’t like the idea of what we were doing in here. He didn’t like the idea of my being alone with the strange vampire much, either.

“If I had hurt him, I never would have forgiven myself,” I told him. “And he’s not just my friend.”

“Perhaps you mean that,” Thierry replied, his voice growing softer. “But you’d be surprised what a vampire is able to forgive themselves for, once their humanity is gone.”

There it was again: the hint that Thierry wasn’t nearly as blasé about all of this as he pretended to be. This situation— ensuring I didn’t hurt anyone and lose myself in the process—was somehow personal for him. Very strange.

He threatened Michael, I reminded myself. And he was still planning to separate us. And what would happen to Michael if I wasn’t there to stop it? Nothing good, I was pretty sure.

The kitchen wasn’t an inviting space. The floor was oddly soft in places and the entire place reeked of mildew. There were years upon years’ worth of graffiti on the walls. Trash and cigarette butts were strewn everywhere. Most of the windows were boarded up, but cracks of steadily brightening light filtered in. I instinctively gave it wide berth. Daylight isn’t fatal to vampires, but I knew that it would be unpleasant to be out in it.

“You’re doing quite well with all of this,” Thierry remarked, popping the lid off the cooler. “But it’s best we don’t push it. Nathaniel will be upset with me if I let you lose your humanity.”

“Bryan and Tobias would be pissed, too,” I added.

Thierry shot me a lazy smile over his shoulder. “Oh, they don’t worry me, darling. They can think or feel whatever they want about me. It wouldn’t bother me a bit.”

“Okay, seriously, who in the hell are you?” I asked, not liking the dismissive way he talked about them. “And are you really here to help?”

Thierry snorted. “I’ve already told you: I’m not here for you .” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “But I am obligated to help you, at least until Bryan and Tobias show up and make everyone present want to vomit with their long lingering looks and simpering smiles—”

“It’s called being a happy couple! Maybe you could at least try to be happy for them, too?”

“No,” Thierry said shortly, pulling a small plastic bag filled with dark fluid from the cooler. “I can’t. But thanks for playing.”

Without warning, he tossed the bag at me.

My reflexes kicked in and I snatched it out of the air before it could whack me in the face.

“It’s blood,” Thierry told me cheerfully. “You’re a vampire now, so you’ll need to drink fresh blood almost every day.”

I stared down at the blood bag, feeling uneasy. Thierry had stolen it so that I could eat.

Thierry laughed. “How uptight were you in your mortal life? It’s blood and you’re a hungry newborn vampire. You don’t need to kill anyone for your first meal, which makes you luckier than most. So, bottom’s up.”

“It’s not my first meal.”

The amusement drained from Thierry’s face. “You’re joking.”

“I fed from Michael earlier. I didn’t want to, but he insisted. I’m not—”

I had been about to tell him I wasn’t interested in the blood. But then a sharp wang of hunger slammed through me, causing me to break off in mid-sentence. My throat began to burn again as I stared down at the bag of dark fluid I held in my hands.

Blood.

And it was mine for the taking.

Hey, is everything going okay in there?

Michael’s sudden mental voice caused me to flinch. He must’ve sensed… what, exactly? The sudden greedy desire I felt? The knife-sharp edge of need that I hadn’t even realized I possessed? The belated pain rising in my body, driving me to do anything—anything at all—to put a stop to it?

Everything is fine, I replied, focusing on him as I spoke the silent words. But I felt a sudden wariness steal through me. Michael had direct access to my innermost thoughts. It was easy enough to see all the ways that might go south in a hurry.

The worry distracted me enough that it took me several long moments to realize that Thierry had never replied to me. When the silence stretched between us for much longer than it should have, I raised my gaze to find him staring at me with a guileless sort of wide-eyed open-mouthed shock. Then he blinked rapidly, and his expression darkened.

“You fed on him,” Thierry said flatly. “And how, exactly, did he stop you, once you got started?”

“He didn’t. I did. I was afraid I might hurt him.”

“Impossible. Almost as unlikely as the fact that you’re able to stand being in the same room as him. The pain must be excruciating. Are you some sort of masochist?”

“It doesn’t—I don’t feel—”

I grimaced and broke off. I wanted to say that the pain wasn’t there, but that wouldn’t have been true. I had no idea how I had been able to ignore it for most of the evening, but the pain was definitely making its reappearance—with interest.

A cramp that felt like getting whacked in the stomach with a softball—made of red-hot razor blades—almost doubled me over. And I sucked in a sharp inhalation, my eyes abruptly watering.

I had thought I knew what pain was before that moment. But it turned out, I had no idea. I had never experienced pain before. Not really.

Danny, are you okay? I could feel the alarm pouring through the bond. Somehow, I knew that Michael shot to his feet, even though he was still in the living room, where I couldn’t see him. Goddamn it, Danny, answer me!

But I couldn’t. Because, right then, another flash of pain tore through me. I fell to my knees. The world went hazy and red around the edges. And the answer to the pain was right there, in my hands.

I looked down at the blood bag and then—

I wasn’t quite sure what happened next. I didn’t exactly black out, but something animalistic took me over. And Danny wasn’t the guy driving the bus anymore.

I tore into the thick plastic of the bag with my teeth, which were abruptly fangs, even though I didn’t remember deciding to feed. And the blood was cold, but I had been suffocating and it was a gulp of fresh air. And then I could breathe again. My throat had been doused in flames and this was cold, clean water, putting out the fire. The burning stopped. The pain immediately gave way to raw, primal pleasure, but even that didn’t give me a chance to think.

Dimly, I was aware that I was making a mess. The blood dripped down my chin. My face was smeared with it. I didn’t care. I couldn’t even focus on the bond between Michael and I. The urge to feed , to consume, had blotted everything else out.

I finished the blood bag. Then I rounded on Thierry.

Or, no.

Not Thierry. The other vampire was merely my competition. Unimportant, unless he stopped me. My gaze zeroed in on the cooler he’d pulled the blood bag from.

“There he is,” Thierry whispered, staring at me. But he didn’t seem surprised. Just grim. “I was beginning to wonder.”

I dismissed it immediately. His words didn’t matter. Whatever he thought didn’t interest me.

But did he have more? That question did interest me. Because the burn in my throat demanded more. The pain in my midsection—deep in the core of me—demanded more.

Would he stop me?

If he tried, I would tear him limb from limb. I would rip him apart.

I needed more.

I didn’t decide to move. I simply did. I practically threw myself onto the cooler, spilling the blood bags onto the counter. There were easily a dozen of them. So much of the stuff I needed, right there for the taking.

I seized one, falling to my knees again. It was too cold. Much too cold.

But I bit into it anyway. My fangs punctured the thick plastic, tearing through it easily. And then I drank.

More blood, soothing the burn. Pouring down my chin. Smearing my mouth. My face. It didn’t matter.

I let out a strangled noise, almost animalistic, somewhere between a grunt and a moan of pleasure.

It was so good. It was pure vitality that I drank. I could have cried with relief. It was the blissful moment when the pain finally stops. It was moving a limb that’s gone to sleep, after you can’t stand the discomfort any longer. It was exactly what my body needed.

And I didn’t care about anything else.

I was hardly even aware that I was on my knees in the filthy kitchen, with a strange vampire staring down at me, or that Michael was in the other room, or that my face dripped blood.

None of it mattered.

I took another blood bag and drained it. Then another. I lost count. I hadn’t bothered to count in the first place. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was—

I blinked. The bag in my hands was empty. I didn’t really remember draining it.

The animalistic need receded.

And horror overtook me, as I realized how completely I had just lost myself. It had blotted everything else out. Everything that made me Danny. Everything that made me a person. The totality of me had been shrunk down to one, irresistible impulse: to feed .

Time had passed—it was impossible to know how much. I was startled to find that half a dozen empty bags were scattered around me. If I had been feeding on a person instead of the blood bags, I wouldn’t have been able to stop.

Not until there was nothing left.

“It will get easier to control,” Thierry whispered, sounding sympathetic. I didn’t know what expression I must have worn on my face, but it was obviously bad enough to make someone like Thierry want to use kid gloves with me. He added, his voice soft, soothing, “And this passes, sooner than you think. Every vampire goes through this, in the very beginning.”

I raised my gaze, not to meet his, but to meet Michael’s. The expression on his face was ghastly. His eyes were wide and he was rigidly staring at me, like he’d never seen me before.

I could feel his disbelief, like the world had stopped making sense to him.

And then I saw, the memory blooming between us, a flash of two vampires falling upon Joshua, sinking their teeth into him. And Michael just standing there, flabbergasted and useless, disbelieving that this was a thing that could happen—

Belatedly, I understood. A sick feeling washed through me.

He had come to the kitchen, hadn’t he? He had been summoned by the pain I had felt. He’d sensed it through the bond. And he had wanted to make sure I was okay. Because he loved me.

Which meant he had seen everything.

He had seen the way the vampiric impulses I now possessed blotted out everything else. That I had been taken over by something… other.

I lurched to my feet. I took a step in his direction.

Michael flinched.

And then something in my chest broke.

I let out a ragged breath. “Michael, I…”

But then I trailed off. I was surrounded by empty blood bags. He had seen everything. He had seen the way I had been beyond reason or rationality. And there was nothing I could say.

He was my mate. That was beyond question. Which meant that he was mated to a monster. A creature from a horror story. A creature like the ones we hunted.

“I need a minute,” Michael said. He didn’t sound like himself at all. And his mind felt too locked up with disbelief to even tell what he was thinking—if he was even thinking anything coherent. He took a step backward, his gaze locked on me, like he was afraid I would come after him next. His back hit the doorframe. Then he blinked rapidly. He turned and then, with his whole back ramrod-straight, his body so rigid and tense I could practically see him vibrating with it, he left the room without another word.