Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN || MICHAEL

I made it out of the house, blinking against the too-bright morning sun. I didn’t care that it hurt my eyes. I needed the air. I wasn’t sure I could breathe.

Somehow, the moment Danny had woken up as a vampire and I saw that he wasn’t crazed with bloodlust, I had assumed that some sort of miracle had occurred. That maybe, because we were supposed to be together, it had somehow tempered some of his urges. That maybe there wouldn’t be any all-consuming bloodlust. I had bet my own safety on it, in fact.

But it wasn’t all that different, was it? It just wasn’t an all-consuming bloodlust with me. Just like I instinctively knew I was safe around him, in a way that even five years of life experience couldn’t disagree with, his own instincts rearranged themselves for me. But that was as far as it went. He wasn’t the exception when it came to being a vampire. He was just as much in danger of losing himself to it as anyone had ever been.

I walked about fifty feet from the house and then stopped, sucking in deep lungfuls of breath and letting them out as slowly as I could manage, intent on calming myself down. Danny didn’t need to see me freak out like this. None of this was really his fault. It just was.

I stared out across the empty fields surrounding us without really seeing them. There was a cherry-red Porsche with black leather seats, top down, parked beside the van. Thierry’s, no doubt. It was a wonder the car had made it, given that a fair amount of the road to get here was unpaved. And there wasn’t a soul around for miles.

Outside, alone, I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my temples. I let out a long, shuddering breath. I dragged in another, doggedly forcing myself to calm down.

I knew I was being shitty. I didn’t want that. But I couldn’t stop it, either.

Because the vampires who had killed Joshua had drained him with that same sort of mindless frenzy. Though, when they finished, they’d turned on me and I had seen that they weren’t crazed at all. They stared at me, grinning with teeth stained red as my lover’s blood dripped off their chins, watching me with the sharp, calculating gazes of predators. And then I had realized, horror flooding through me, that they had enjoyed themselves. They enjoyed making me watch. They were enjoying my fear.

Then Danny had kicked the door in. He had taken one of the vamps out immediately—a female—with a wooden bolt to the chest, fired from a crossbow. The other vamp, a burly guy with long, scraggly black hair, froze for an instant, disbelieving. Then he’d rushed Danny.

Danny took his head off with a machete in one fluid movement. The vamp’s body went in one direction, and the head went the other. And I had just stood there, completely fucking useless. The only reason I hadn’t been sobbing like goddamn child was because I was so frozen solid with stunned disbelief and denial that I couldn’t move a muscle until it was all over. It had taken Danny coiling into a crouch beside Joshua to galvanize me into action.

I dropped to my knees beside Joshua, ready to stop the bleeding.

But the blood wasn’t coming anymore. Because Joshua had already stopped breathing by then. His heart was already still in his chest. His eyes were staring. And he was the wrong color. Too pale. I had loved him and I had just stood by and watched. I hadn’t been able to do a single thing to save him. Logic told me that anything I had tried probably wouldn’t have done any good. After all, I didn’t know how to stop them then.

Everything—my entire world—had died with him that night.

I hadn’t wanted to stay in that town after that. Or in our cozy one-bedroom house, surrounded by his scent and enough memories to choke me into incoherent blubbering. I couldn’t be someone who had seen what I had seen and still be a small-town mechanic, either. So many Friday nights had been spent with Joshua in the shop we owned together, eating takeout from the little Mexican restaurant halfway down the block, drinking way too many beers, singing classic rock songs off-key together at the top of our lungs, all while I worked on the baby blue 1967 Chevy Corvette that I’d gotten for a song because every single piece of it had needed to be replaced. We’d made love in that garage so often that we had a stash of blankets and lube on-hand at all times. Those had been some of the best nights of my life, up until that night. But I couldn’t have that life anymore. Not after what I had seen. Not without Joshua. The man who had loved him had died too.

So, whoever that guy was, he wasn’t me anymore. Or I wasn’t him. Whichever. And I couldn’t be him anymore. We didn’t want the same things at all. He had wanted to drink beer and eat tacos, get hitched to his boyfriend, have a white picket fence, and maybe even adopt a kid. He was normal .

And me… well, I hadn’t been that in a really long time. I was the guy who could disassemble and reassemble his trusty Glock in under forty seconds. I was the guy who knew ambush tactics. Who studied occult sigils and knew how to whip up compounds that could disable species of creatures that weren’t supposed to exist at all, except in books and scary stories. I knew what it felt like to behead something that looked human but wasn’t anymore. And all of that—literally all of it—had been driven by hatred.

And then, once we’d met Bryan and Tobias, even that hatred had mostly left me. I had been stoking it for five years and it had fizzled out, practically in one evening, all the sharp edges and claws removed from it. Because I couldn’t keep on wanting them all dead if I knew that some vamps were still people. People who never would have done what those two monsters did to Joshua.

How did I reconcile that? Not very well. But I was trying.

And now… I was in love with one of them.

A vampire.

He had been overcome by that same frenzy I had seen before. First on that night, when Joshua had been murdered, and then dozens of times since. When a vamp gives themselves over completely to their darkest urges, it’s almost impossible for them to stop, unless you kill them before they can drain whoever they’re snacking on.

But unlike them, Danny was still a person. He still had a shot at a life. And he was precious. The most precious and fragile thing in my whole world.

I had known when I let him bite me—I still did know, deep in my bones—that, even if I was bleeding in front of him and he was starving, that Danny wouldn’t have hurt me. Not in a million years. That was the bond between us, rock-solid and mystical or some bullshit, but also it was just us. It had always been that way. He and I. And it was always going to be he and I.

And his becoming a vampire wasn’t going to change that. Even after seeing him like that. His face smeared with blood, unable to listen to anyone or anything until his appetite had been sated. And the horror he had stared at me with afterward—

Christ, I was such an asshole, wasn’t I?

I should’ve dropped to my knees and put my arms around him then and there. I should have held him and let him get all of the horror and grief out. Instead, I had backed away slowly and left him.

The realization turned my stomach. Some fucking mate I was. I didn’t deserve him.

But now I knew, didn’t I?

I wasn’t quite as cool with the vamp thing as I had thought. There were some parts of it that were going to require more effort than others to get past. But big fucking deal. Every relationship had problems. No reason for us to be the exception. It just meant knowing the shit that was there and then making a game plan for working through it.

Danny was worth that, a thousand times over. Not just because he was my mate, but because he was Danny. Kind. Smart. Always willing to call me on my bullshit. And somehow, still deeply vulnerable, even when he was acting like a tough guy. No one else could probably see it, but I could. And it made me love him more—it always had. At the end of the day, he was the one who had taught me that bravery is a choice we make, not a quality we inherently possess. It’s okay to be scared shitless, but real courage means doing the right thing—the best thing—regardless. And the right thing—the only true thing—for me to do now was show up for him when he needed me.

I gritted my teeth.

I could have a reaction to some stuff, sure. I probably wouldn’t be able to help it. But I was just going to have to shove my way through it anyway. Because Danny wasn’t like the vamps who had hurt Joshua. He still had his humanity. He was still a person. The best person. My person. My ride or die. And he always would be.

And Thierry was probably in there right now, doing damage control. I should have been doing that, not some stranger. Danny wasn’t going to need to go through this alone for a moment longer. I would be with him every step of the way.

Thierry could go to hell if he thought for even an instant that I would willingly leave Danny’s side for even a day, much less months, while he worked through the single worst thing that had ever happened to him. Over my dead body. I wouldn’t abandon him like that. Never. No, I wasn’t going anywhere.

* * *

Danny looked beaten when I walked back into the kitchen. He was no longer on his knees. Instead, he had shoved his back against the cupboard below the sink, his legs splayed out before him. Thierry stood over him, his lips pursed with disapproval.

“Seattle is a safe haven for vampires. You’ll be amongst friends. You’ll be with people who are experienced in dealing with your situation. You’ll—”

I could tell that Danny was barely listening to him. His mind was locked up with numb disbelief. I saw my own face echoing in his mind through the bond, how I had stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. It was seared into his brain. The scene was playing on a loop, over and over again. And I couldn’t quite catch the exact words of his thoughts, but I caught their shape well enough: I had seen what he was now—what he really was—and now it was only a matter of time before I rejected him. Before I left him behind. Just like everyone else had.

Guilt tore through me. I had caused that. I had caused him to doubt me.

“I assume you’ve come to your senses,” Thierry remarked, when I paused in the doorway.

Danny didn’t look up at me, but his body went more rigid. A muscle flexed in his jaw. And I could sense the way he steeled himself for my rejection.

Not on your fucking life, buddy.

“Yeah, I have,” I said shortly, staring Thierry down. “Give us some privacy.”

Thierry blinked at me, looking more puzzled than anything else. “I may have misheard you. There’s little chance you were asking to be alone with him. That would be ridiculous. Not after you just saw—”

“I. Don’t. Care.” My words came out flat and with just the barest hint of menace. Danny looked up at me then, his eyebrows rising and his eyes going a little wide. His lips parted and he looked almost afraid to believe. I met his gaze and held it. “I needed a minute. It was totally my bad. But I’m not going anywhere again. Ever. ”

“Stupid hunter,” Thierry breathed, though he almost sounded more impressed than annoyed.

“That’s right,” I said shortly. “I am a hunter. I’m not some innocent bystander off the street. Whatever happens next is on me. Which means that you can give us some space. Now, please.”

“And when he attacks you, tears out your throat, and loses any trace of what makes him Danny? What then?”

Danny let out a miserable sound at that. I was reasonably confident that he hadn’t meant to make it, either. I wrenched my gaze away from my mate to glare daggers at Thierry. I had to fight not to reach for my Glock and make the blond vampire regret his words. It might have been fun, but it wouldn’t have helped anything. Besides, he wasn’t there to do us any harm, even if he did have the bedside manner of a razor-wire fence.

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know that.” Thierry frowned at me. But he did take a step away from Danny, moving in the direction of the door. “Look, Michael, I understand that something has taken place between the two of you, and I can admit that perhaps I have come across as less… patient … than I would have liked. But you don’t know that he won’t hurt you. You want to believe it, but you don’t know. ”

I supposed I understood well enough. Thierry didn’t understand Danny like I did. And he probably didn’t have much experience with newborn vampires who had already found their destined mate. He didn’t understand us. He didn’t have my rock-solid inner certainty.

“No. I do know. He won’t. He wouldn’t be able to. And he wouldn’t want to, either.” I met Danny’s gaze again. I’m sorry I left you. I won’t do it again. I swear it.

Something crumpled in Danny’s expression and his eyes went abruptly wet. He nodded back at me, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to speak.

Thierry froze, clearly catching the non-verbal communication. His eyes went wide as he stared at us. “Did you and Danny happen to exchange blood?”

I couldn’t force myself to raise my gaze from Danny’s, but I nodded. “Yeah. We did.”

“And are you—”

“Yeah. We are.”

“Keep your gun close at hand, hunter.” He heaved the world’s most dramatic sigh, and I would’ve bet good money that he’d rolled his eyes too, though I wasn’t watching him, so I couldn’t be sure. But he turned on his heel and headed for the door. I heard his footsteps recede into the living room. And I was fairly certain I heard him mutter under his breath, “Fated mates. Every fucking time. They’re supposed to be rare. ”

When it was just us, I dropped down beside Danny.

He flinched a little and turned his face away from mine. But I was pretty sure his eyes were just as wet as before.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. It sounded useless. Hollow. Empty. Just words.

It was anything but.

“I couldn’t stop,” Danny said, giving a hollow-sounding laugh. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had put a bullet in me. I’m pretty sure I still wouldn’t, even now.”

“The fact that you can say that to me just proves that I’m a dick. And that I shouldn’t have left you alone with Count Chucklefuck.”

Danny snorted a little, shaking his head. “He’s such an—”

“Asshole?” I suggested.

I glanced over at him at the same moment he did, and we both laughed.

Danny had wiped his face in my absence, but there were a couple smears of blood he’d missed. But I had seen him bloody plenty of times before. How could I have let that come between us? It was such a small thing.

“That wasn’t what it was, and you know it.” I should have felt startled that he’d heard my thoughts, but I didn’t. It was already our new normal. Danny lost his smile. “Michael… look, I don’t ever really say this, but I’m kind of freaked right now.”

“It’d be pretty fucking weird if you weren’t.”

“I feel like me. But that —that wasn’t me. It was something else. ”

I let out a breath and nodded.

If I couldn’t be Michael the mundane and I couldn’t be Michael the hunter, then I would be Michael the—well, fuck. The guy who was in love with Danny. I hoped he was enough.

“Look, it makes sense. You’ve got these urges now. These impulses that aren’t fully human anymore. That’s going to take some time to get used to. For both of us.”

“Listen, if I go too far, I need you to kill me.”

“You can fuck right off with that bullshit. We covered this. I’m safe around you.”

Definitely still Michael, the guy who loved Danny. Love was good, but it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows, was it? Sometimes it had teeth. And sometimes that was necessary.

“I mean it. If you can’t do it, call Aubrey. Or someone. Or, hell, have Tobias turn me into a tea cozy or something. But please don’t let me be a monster who hurts people.”

“No. There is no world in which I would ever fucking do that, Danny. And it won’t come to that. I won’t let it. If I have to spend every moment of my life—”

“Michael, stop it! Don’t feel like you have to be the hero here! If you at least need some time to figure out how you actually feel about any of this, I get it. This is—I don’t even know what this is. But it’s a lot. And it’s okay if you want—”

“Look, what I want is to be the kind of guy who doesn’t run out on you the second things get a little weird!” I snapped. I didn’t want to get angry with him, but it was important for him to understand. “This whole thing, just now— I was the one who screwed this up! Not you.”

“Right,” he shot back. “How’s this? If I hadn’t gotten jealous and gone off on my own, none of this would’ve happened in the first place. We could be kicking back a bottle of Jack together. Or sleeping. Probably sleeping. I wouldn’t be…”

He trailed off, like he wasn’t sure what words could adequately describe what he was now. But he sounded miserable again. And his emotions were taut like piano wire. I could feel his guilt. His grief. His shame, that this had become his life—and that I was determined to make it mine, too.

Unacceptable.

I threaded his fingers with mine. His skin was surprisingly warm to the touch. But then, Danny was always warm, wasn’t he? Underneath it all. It was something I’d loved about him for years.

“You told me you were in love with me months ago. If I had talked to you like I was a real person and not—whatever the hell it is that I’ve been instead—then yeah, none of this would’ve happened, either. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either.” Danny shot me a glare.

“Danny,” I chided him. “Maybe it can be both of our faults and neither of our faults. But it doesn’t change anything. I don’t want to go anywhere. What just happened doesn’t change that.”

Something gave in his expression: a tiny, jagged piece of armor he’d been clinging to so tightly it had been causing him to bleed. I felt it the moment he let go and allowed himself to believe me. To really believe me.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said again, knowing he’d hear it this time. “And it’s better that we know that your instincts can get like that sometimes. It’s better that this was with a blood bag and not something worse. I’m glad this happened. Now we know.”

“I’m going to need to leave,” Danny breathed, watching me with wide eyes. There was a fire burning in them. A naked, raw vulnerability, right there on the surface, that I had never seen in him before. “Thierry’s right about that part. I thought I had everything under control, but I don’t.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I guess it’s a good idea for you to take some time off the road and get a handle on all of this. It’s probably the best thing we can do in this situation. You ought to be around people who can help you get through this. But I’m coming with you.”

Danny swallowed, meeting my gaze again. “Michael, you don’t need to. I’d be fine. I’m more worried about you. What you’re giving up. By wanting to be with me.”

“I’m not giving up a goddamn thing.” I practically growled it. If I could I would have raised his asshole father from the grave, just so I could knock his teeth out and make him understand what true pain was as payback for what he had done to Danny. But Danny didn’t need my rage. He needed me to show up and be there for him. Because no one else ever had. I let out a long, steadying breath. And then said the words that had been bouncing around in my head for a very long time.

“I don’t know if I want to be a hunter anymore. My heart hasn’t been in it for months.”

Danny froze for a long moment. I could feel the cold dread. He wasn’t surprised. It was what he had been afraid of. But after a long moment, he nodded. “Yeah. I guess I knew that.”

“And I don’t know if I want a white picket fence anymore, either. I’m pretty sure that guy is gone for good. The only thing I do know is that we’re going to figure this shit out together, the way we always do. Because I don’t want a future that doesn’t include you. That’s non-negotiable.”

Danny sucked in a ragged breath and tears finally spilled over.

“I don’t know how to be normal,” Danny told me. “I tried to quit once. After my dad and brother were both gone. I moved in with my mom. I dated the nicest girl in town. I worked at the grocery store, graveyard shift, stocking the shelves. I tried to be normal. But it didn’t work out. I wasn’t—I couldn’t be what anyone around me wanted me to be. I guess I didn’t really know how. This is all I’ve ever done.” He paused, looking up at me, the tears running down his cheeks in a quiet sort of way, which is how Danny usually cried, on the rare occasions he did. “Being a hunter is the only thing I’ve ever wanted. It’s the only thing I’ve ever known how to do. Until I met you.”

“There will be other things,” I promised him. “You’re more than just what your dad and brother wanted you to be. And you’ll want more out of life than just me, too, eventually. And whatever that ends up being, I’ll be there to help you get it. I’m your partner. I always have been.”

“What if I lose my humanity?” Danny hesitated. “What if I become something like what we hunt?”

“Then I’m pretty sure I’d still follow you to the ends of the earth.” I gave him a rueful smile. “Sorry. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’d stop you from acting like a monster, over and over again, if I had to.”

He kissed me again. His lips were soft and warm. His cheek had the faintest scratch of stubble where I cupped it. And, for a blissful moment, it was just us. We weren’t sitting in the filthy kitchen of an abandoned farmhouse with an annoyed vampire in the other room. We were together in the warm, safe darkness, where nothing could ever hurt either one of us ever again.

“Michael, do you promise?”

I didn’t even hesitate. I couldn’t. Not when I meant the words so completely. “Yeah, Danny. I promise.”