Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER NINETEEN || DANNY

I faded in and out of awareness. Something else—something that was dark and cold, a creature of pure logic and monstrous urges—had taken control of my limbs and senses. And I was in a place that wasn’t really a place, watching, struggling to maintain some semblance of awareness.

My body moved with blinding speed, pausing for only an instant at the entrance to the mine. The sun was going to rise soon. Which was unfortunate, because my body was still hungry. However, there was a cold and rational part of my mind which understood perfectly that getting caught in the crosshairs of the sun would spell certain death. After draining that human, no doubt the irritating little group of do-gooders back in the mine would want justice. Getting caught in the sun would make that outcome far more likely.

Grief and horror struck me all over again. What had I done? Had the young man lived? I hadn’t checked for a pulse. I didn’t know how badly I had hurt him. But I had the awful feeling I had hurt him very badly indeed. Had I killed him?

Shut up! A cold voice echoed through my mind. It was utterly flat, uncaring. We were hungry and now we’re less hungry.

I recoiled. But there was nowhere left to go. Because I wasn’t anywhere. I was barely even there at all.

Barely even a ghost. The voice agreed. I had the sensation of running, but it was distant, like it was happening from somewhere far away. The voice added, No more than a lingering nuisance.

I wanted to protest, to fight against the voice. But I was so tired. Exhausted.

The voice was right, wasn’t it? I was barely even there at all. Eventually, I would have to let go. Eventually, I would go to sleep and I would never wake up.

But I couldn’t, yet. Even though every part of me that was still me screamed in protest, wanting to give in to the crushing darkness.

Because this thing that had taken over my body wasn’t me.

It was something else.

Something other.

And it was dangerous. It might hurt someone. It might hurt Michael.

At the thought of my mate, some of the exhaustion receded. It wasn’t gone. I knew it would come back soon. And it would be stronger than before. But I couldn’t let this creature wearing my skin do what it wanted. I sensed its dark intentions all too well.

Michael needed me. He needed me to hold on for long enough to stop this creature that thought it was me but wasn’t.

And I would stop it. I would fight this, before I faded away into the darkness for good. I would hold on long enough for Michael to do what he needed to do. He had promised me that he wouldn’t let me be a monster.

Unable to do anything else for the moment, I watched and listened.

And waited.

* * *

The annoyingly emotional inner voice had gone silent as I ran. But I could sense it, still there. It was deep within my chest, a lingering presence of otherness. But it was buried deep enough that it could do me no harm. It was powerless.

And it would be gone soon.

The others might wish to kill me, of course. Though, Michael would stop them from getting too far with that particular plan. He would want to save me.

My lips twitched into a smile at the thought of him. Ah, Michael. My Michael.

He and I were bonded, after all.

No, he wouldn’t allow them to end my life. He already knew he belonged to me. He was mine. And I would come back for him, sooner rather than later. The telepathic bond between us would come in quite handy, eventually.

But not now.

I focused on throwing up a psychic wall between us. I knew from my interactions with Bryan—it seemed like a lifetime ago, like it had happened to someone else—that it was possible to shut out one’s mate with an intentional act of will.

Michael’s mind receded from mine at once.

The mere intention to shut him out was all that was needed. It was startlingly easy, requiring barely any effort at all.

So much for the power of true love.

But rather than feeling triumph, I instead scowled at the abrupt feeling of being alone. My body didn’t like it. And that wordless part of myself that had stopped me from feeding upon Michael earlier, the annoyingly emotional inner voice that belonged to this body, didn’t like it either.

I felt resistance bucking from somewhere deep inside my chest.

I ignored it, even though it made me uneasy. That part of me wasn’t nearly as faint as it should have been. No matter. It would fade with time.

Besides, shutting out my mate was entirely necessary.

Michael couldn’t know what I intended. Nor where I slept. He might say too much, perhaps without even meaning to. Or he might be foolish enough to let his pesky humanity get in the way of my fun. I wasn’t sure what I would do if that happened, but I didn’t want to run the risk of breaking him.

I would never break my favorite toy, after all.

We were going to have so much fun together. Once he had learned how to see things my way. We could do anything we wanted. Anything at all. We could—and would —be together again, just like we had been all along.

Forever.

But first, shelter. Safety.

So, running at top speed, far faster than a car would have been able to travel, I made my way through the foothills, moving as far from civilization as I could get. The elevation gave way to seemingly endless flat, hard earth. And then, at last, just as the sun was beginning to rise behind me, I reached the edge of a forest. I ran deeply into it, only slowing down once the trees began to grow more closely together, the layers of canopy overhead causing the shadows to lengthen and deepen around me, despite the fact that it had to be well into morning now.

Finally, I came to a ramshackle cabin deep in the forest, so dilapidated, remote, and overgrown with moss that it was almost certain no one had used it in years. A good thing, too, because if I had encountered any human beings in my efforts to escape the others, I would have had to stop to feed and wasted precious time.

My throat was engulfed in flames and the pain I felt was obscene, like it might tear me into pieces. I could understand how so many of the vampires Michael and I had hunted over the years were so sloppy. They were driven half-mad by thirst, willing to do anything to stop it.

I broke the rusted lock latching the door shut, snapping it in two effortlessly with a small display of strength. Then I pushed the door in and stepped inside. I made certain to close the door properly behind me. Any signs that the cabin had been disturbed might cause someone to come investigate. And I needed to be smart about my kills. I wouldn’t allow my base instincts to put me in the crosshairs of a hunter. Not when I knew better. A vampire is immortal. Not invulnerable.

The cabin was a one-room affair with holes in the roof, the inside just as mossy as the outside. It smelled strongly of mildew and decay. The floor was alarmingly soft under my feet. There was a broken wooden table listing to one side. In the corner, there was a bed made of metal, the mattress so deeply stained and overgrown with mold that it had turned almost completely black.

Charming.

I sighed, resigned, and settled down with my back against the wall opposite the door, my legs splayed out before me. I would wait out the day here, but the first order of business would be to find a foreclosed house, perhaps on the outskirts of some suburb, with few neighbors around to act as witnesses.

I smiled at the thought. The possibilities for the eternity stretching before me were endless and absolutely delicious. So long as I stayed smart, I could probably get away with anything. I knew how hunters operated, after all.

Oddly, no one had followed me. I had expected that Thierry might, at least. Then again, he was foolish enough to have feelings about things. Perhaps they were still reeling at what had become of me, even though that had been hours ago. Plenty of time to get over it and make a plan.

But then, they didn’t understand how absolutely freeing it was, to not care.

Michael would have told them by now that I was still wearing the talisman protecting me from magic, which meant that any spell they tried in order to obtain my location would surely fail. But then, perhaps Michael was banking on being able to find me through the bond we shared. I knew that I was.

Or, again, perhaps they were simply licking their wounds.

Abruptly, I felt tempted to drop my walls for an instant, to check on Michael. The impulse was startling in its power. It came from deep within me, from a place that wasn’t cold-edged and rational.

I frowned.

That was an insane notion, after the efforts I had just taken to flee. It would likely ruin everything, it would tip Michael off to my location the moment I opened my mind to his. Even the briefest of check-ins would make it that much more likely that I would be discovered.

Michael was with Bryan and Tobias. Not to mention Thierry, who had proven himself quite lethal. No, he was fine.

Still, there was a nagging sensation in the pit of my stomach that felt suspiciously like worry. How strange. If his safety wasn’t in jeopardy, that could only mean that some part of me still cared about his feelings. That some dim part of me was worried about how he was handling what had happened.

But even that was natural, wasn’t it?

He was mine . His wellness was my responsibility. Given that he still possessed human emotions—for now—it wouldn’t do for him to suffer needlessly. After all, I would never break my favorite toy. Not when he had already proven that he was so much fun to play with.

It isn’t that and you know it.

I froze.

The voice hadn’t come from Michael at all. It had, instead, come from somewhere deep inside of me. A part of me that wasn’t quite extinguished yet. Yes, it was still there. Still far more present than it should have been.

I scowled in fury, my eyes narrowing at the moss-covered wall across the room, even though it wasn’t the source of my ire.

But I didn’t bother to respond to the strange inner voice. There was no need. It would be dead soon enough.