“My dear girl,” she whispered, rubbing a hand up and down my back. “I’m so happy he has you.”
One glance to the side showed that Dair seemed just as stunned by his mother’s reaction as me. I tentatively patted at the woman’s blonde hair, resisting the urge to whisper “there, there” as I would to a crying toddler.
When she finally pulled away, her face was blotchy and swollen. She sniffled once.
From somewhere in the house, a baby began to cry. I stiffened.
A baby?
As the man kissed his lover’s cheek and rushed back inside, I realized they were hiding more than just a hidden relationship.
If the King caught wind of this...
No, I decided resolutely. He never would. I would make sure of it.
“Come, my dear children,” Juliet said, linking her arm with mine and pulling me inside. When Dair remained standing on the front porch, a dumb-struck look on his face, I pulled his arm and tugged him in after us. “Let’s have dinner.”
“And you can tell us all about how you met,” Angelica added wickedly.
And so it began.
THIRTY-FOUR
JAX
Light penetrated the darkness I had found myself in.
“Z?” I whispered desperately. I scrambled to my feet and placed one hand against the blood-soaked walls. Even after all this time, they continued to bleed. And bleed. And bleed. And bleed. The enticing scent of copper permeated the air. I wanted nothing more than to press my tongue to the wall...
No! I told myself I would never feast on blood again no matter how hungry I got.
And I was famished.
My stomach growled painfully, almost a reminder and confirmation all at once. Pain. It was all I ever knew. Normally, I could ignore it. Shove it under the rug and pretend it didn’t exist.
This time, my need very nearly consumed me. It pelted me repeatedly in the face until I was dizzy with the madness of it all.
Thirsty.
Bleeding walls.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The light was abruptly snatched away, and the darkness returned.
With a dizzying clarity, I realized I was all alone. Trapped in my own mind.
Trapped.
Blood.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I curled into a ball and began to rock, whispering nonsense to myself in an attempt to calm my racing heart.
She had done it. She had left me, and she wasn’t planning on returning. She had taken my brothers with her, finally relieving them of the thankless task of watching over the crazed, eccentric Vampire.
Alone.
So, so alone.
I called her name, but she never answered. It was only then that realization pierced me, a killing blow.
She wasn’t coming back.
For the first time in my life, I was really, truly alone. Emotion clogged my throat, and I released a whimpering sob.
The walls continued to drip blood, taunting me. The urge to feed was nearly overwhelming.
Alone.
You deserve it, I whispered to myself. Images of Sasha flashed through my mind, one after another. I hugged my knees tighter to my chest in a desperate attempt to tame the rising storm inside of me.
Alone.
And so I waited, with bated breath, for death to finally claim me.
THIRTY-FIVE
Z
“I like your family,” I said as the boat sliced cleanly through the water. “They’re...homey.”
Dinner hadn’t been as bad as I had expected. After being peppered with rather embarrassing questions, we had sat together around the table for a home cooked meal of fish and clams. It struck me as odd that they were eating their brethren, but I didn’t complain. The food was delicious.
Dair’s youngest sister, only a year old, was named Shelly, after the seashells she had immediately grabbed to play with after she was born. Juliet had apparently kept up her relationship with her mate even after marrying the Mermaid King, unbeknownst to him. This was a crime punishable by death.
I discovered through our conversations that Juliet’s mate’s name was Pearce. I also discovered that they had a second home at the very bottom of the water.
A wistful part of me wanted to see the castle in the water - something that sounded like it came out of a fantasy book - and Dair assured me he would find a way.
After hours of senseless chatting and another hour of them in their Mermaid form, we left with our bellies full and chaste kisses to our cheeks.
“Homey.” Dair snorted at my description of his family. “I never heard that one before.”
“Your mother and father really love each other,” I mused, and that was what Juliet and Pearce were to him. His parents. Pearce may not have been blood, but I could see the familial love between the two of them. Dair thought the world of the man with the boisterous laugh and sharp-witted tongue.
He needed that. Dair needed a father-figure who looked out for him, who loved him unconditionally, who remembered silly aspects of his life such as his favorite dessert (clam cake).
“You were glorious with them,” Dair whispered. He moved away from the steering wheel to stand directly in front of me. His hot breath fanned my face. “Shelly adored you. I had never seen her laugh so much before. Angelica and Pearce loved you as well. I had never seen my mother so taken with a stranger before.”
“Do you bring a lot of strangers to your house?” I asked, only half-joking. The thought of him introducing another girl to his parents filled me with unease.
“No.”
And then he was kissing me, or I was kissing him. At that point, it didn’t matter. We were devouring each other, telling a story with our lips alone. My soft, supple body fit perfectly against his hard one, and I wrapped my arms around his waist.
“You’re mine now,” he whispered roughly. Before I could comment, could agree, he snaked his hands beneath my ass and hoisted me up. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist as he held me. “Because now that you’re mine, I’m never letting you go.”
With those words, I was crushed tighter in his arms, our lips once more chasing each other in an endless race. My body melted against his.
He
