so,” I said reluctantly. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I never thought Tamlel would actually bite me—after all, Gadrael hadn’t. And then I assumed he’d stop when he had enough.” I glanced at Tamlel, who was looking stoic. Was he in the same kind of trouble I was?
“So we have two possibilities here,” Azazel said in his cold, emotionless voice after a long moment. “The most likely is that Gadrael was less grievously wounded than you thought. Don’t interrupt,” he added as he saw me start to protest. “With him, the taste of blood, even the wrong blood, was enough to bring him back. You are here only as a partner for Raziel, you have no bonding to him, and while it is unusual, it seems likely that you are Tamlel’s mate and neither of you realized it.”
“No,” said Raziel in a low, savage voice.
Ignoring Raziel, I glanced at Tamlel. He seemed sweet, charming, but I didn’t want to be his mate. I didn’t want to kiss him, fuck him, fight with him. . . . I glanced back at Raziel, who looked ready to explode. Raziel was a different matter. I couldn’t begin to know what I wanted, needed, from him, not now, when I was too weary to think clearly. I only knew that I needed him.
Damn it. And he’d probably read that revealing thought, smashing what few defenses I had left.
“Then there’s the other option, which seems unlikely.”
The silence in the room was so thick it was practically choking, and Azazel seemed in no mood to elaborate. I was beginning to get annoyed. I knew what was coming.
“Are you going to go on, or are we all going to sit here in uncomfortable silence?” I snapped.
“We’ve already discussed the possibility,” Azazel said forbiddingly. “We’re just considering it.”
Why in the world had lovely, sweet Sarah married such a hard-ass? I leaned forward. “But you forgot to include me in this discussion, which seems to concern me the most. I know your patriarchal bullshit style makes you forget that women have brains and opinions, but since this is about me, then you can just spit it out.”
“The only other alternative is that for some reason, by some cosmic joke or bizarre twist of fate, you are the new Source. Which doesn’t make sense.
The Source must be the bonded mate of one of the Fallen, and you haven’t had the bonding ceremony. Don’t think you’ve fooled me with your charade—I know perfectly well it was all an act. Besides, there has always been a long period of mourning before a new Source became apparent. Therefore it’s impossible for you to be the Source.”
“Impossible,” I agreed, my stomach churning. I’d known this was coming. I’d just hoped I was wrong. “But if I were? That doesn’t mean I have to be
If anything, Azazel looked more revolted by the thought than I was. “Hardly. The Source can belong to anyone.”
“ ‘Belong’?” My voice was dangerous. Once again I was being discussed as if I were a commodity, and I was getting past the point of being the Good Girl.
“If you are the Source, then it’s always possible your connection to Raziel is deeper than either of you want or realize.”
All the humor had left Raziel’s face. It was nothing compared to how I felt. He might be the most gorgeous male who had ever put his hands on me, but he was arrogant, brooding, manipulative, and lying, and worst of all, while he might have wanted me, he certainly didn’t love me. And damn it, I wanted love. True love, gushing, romantic, oh-my-darling love. Something Raziel was never going to give again, and certainly not to me.
The only defense I had was to push him away first. “So how do we find out?” I said in a practical voice. They looked startled. Clearly they’d been so caught up in horror over the possibility that I might somehow have a role in their little boys’ club that they hadn’t even thought about that. “What would happen if someone drank from me and I wasn’t the Source? Would he die?”
“Possibly,” Azazel said slowly. “At the very least he would become sick, run a fever, possibly throw up. We can’t tell with Tamlel or Gadrael because their bodies were already compromised by the wounds they had received.”
“Then we need a volunteer,” I said brightly. “It’s the only way we can be certain.”
Raziel rose, pushing back his chair, but Azazel fixed him with a look. “You know it can’t be you. If she’s your bonded mate, you’d be able to drink from her and you know it. I assume you haven’t done so as yet.”
“None of your damned business,” Raziel snapped.
“It’s all of our business,” the leader replied. “Sammael, you may try.”
Sammael was sitting near me, and I immediately held out my arm, more curious about Raziel’s reaction than anything else. I could feel the tension and rage washing over him, a mindless, animal response. He hadn’t resumed his seat; he was just standing there, vibrating with something I wasn’t sure I wanted to interpret.
Sammael didn’t look any too happy about the idea, but he took hold of my arm as if it were an ear of corn, and his incisors elongated. I watched with fascination, wondering what set off that reaction. Was it blood flow, like an erection? Did old vampires have trouble getting it up, or down, or whatever?
Sammael set his mouth against my wrist, and I felt the twin pinpricks, just a quick, sharp pain. And then nothing at all as he fed at my wrist.
“Enough!” Raziel snapped, and Sammael pulled his mouth away quickly. “She has already lost too much blood from Tamlel’s carelessness.”
Azazel was focusing on Sammael. “Well? Are you feeling ill?”
Slowly Sammael shook his head. “She is the Source,” he said quietly.
“Shit.” Raziel’s muttered expletive expressed it for all of them, me included.
Dead silence. I considered whining, “But I don’t want to be the Source,” then thought better of it. I kept quiet, letting it sink in.
After a moment Azazel spoke, and his low, angry voice was defeated. “Very well. As blood-eaters we know that blood doesn’t lie. You’ll have to discover who your mate truly is—”
“She’s mine,” Raziel said fiercely, throwing himself back down into his chair. “No one else’s.”
“Well, we’ll leave you time to discover whether that, indeed, is true. In the meantime, the woman will have to be instructed in the duties of the Source, the proper diet and training, and she—”
“Hell, no,” I said. I’d had enough of this patriarchal crap.
Once more the silence was deafening. “What did you say?” Azazel demanded dangerously.
“I said hell, no. If you think I’m going to be Raziel’s sex slave and your personal blood bank, you have another thing coming. This is your problem—figure it out yourself.”
My magnificent exit was marred slightly when the flowing sleeve of my tunic caught on the door handle, but I yanked it free as dramatically as I could and strode from the room.
Once out of sight, I wanted to pump my fist in triumph. Assholes, all of them. I wasn’t about to let anyone push me around, particularly not Azazel and Raziel. They could find someone else to be their goddamn Source, preferably someone more like Sarah, with her serene smile and calm nature.
At the thought of her I wanted to cry, but I dashed the tears away. I needed fresh air and the smell of the ocean to clear my head of all that testosterone. If any of them made the mistake of trying to follow me, I would simply head over to the fire and grab a burning branch or something. I could even build a ring of fire around me if I felt the need. It would serve them right and probably make them crazy with frustration. I found I could manage a sour grin.
As I moved out into the sunlight I felt someone behind me, someone tall, and I knew who it was. I turned, ready to lash out at him.
Raziel looked as furious as I felt, which only made things escalate. “What’s your problem?” I demanded hotly. “It’s not like they’re expecting
“I don’t think that.” His low voice was surprising.
“You don’t?”
“No one is touching you but me,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHE WAS LOOKING SHELL-SHOCKED, and I couldn’t blame her. She’d witnessed the kind of carnage unthinkable for someone of her world, she’d watched people she cared about die, she’d lost too much blood because of Tamlel’s carelessness, and to complete the disaster, the worst possible scenario had come to pass. She wasn’t just bound to me—she was bound to all of us.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had plenty of warning. I had simply refused to recognize it. She was reading me, more and more. I had a will of iron, yet I hadn’t been able to keep away from her. I had known, deep in my heart, and I could deny it no longer. She was my bonded mate. I would watch her grow old and die, and just to twist the knife further, I would have to watch the others feed from her narrow, blue-veined wrist, and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it, even as my atavistic blood roared in response.
And I had hurt her. When I’d returned from sealing the wall, I’d found her down by the edge of the water, sitting back on her knees, Tamlel’s head in her lap while he drank from her. She was pale and dizzy from blood loss, and rage had swept over me, a killing rage that had only just abated. I’d ripped her away from Tamlel, too blind with jealous fury to realize what I was doing.
I’m not sure what I would have done to Tamlel if I hadn’t heard her quiet moan. I spun around in the blood-soaked sand to see her lying against a rock, and guilt and panic swept away the rage. The healers were too busy with the dying to help her—all I could do was bring her back to my rooms and tend to her as best I could, washing the blood and gore from her, letting my hands soothe and heal her. We all had healing power, some more than others, and it was always stronger with our mates. I should have known, when I’d held her hands and healed
