Soul-Mate (Immortal Love 1) (16 page)

“We don’t have a Jacuzzi,” she said, distracted by her food.

“The hotel does. I might have booked us a room.”

She raised her eyes to watch me. “I’m getting worried about this. You seem to have a well-planned night for us.”

“And why would you be worried?” I asked, frowning.

“You might want to convince me to stay with you this weekend.”

“I might, but maybe I just want to take advantage of you while you are here, since I’m doomed to spend the weekend alone.”

“I’m all in favor of you taking advantage of me,” she teased back, ignoring my manipulative words.

I smirked and tried again. “Maybe you can spend the next weekend with me. Or maybe we can go somewhere else.”

“I promise that I’ll think about it. Is that good enough for you?”

“Yes, it will do for now.” I drank my wine, pleased by her words. It might take a while, but she would eventually open up with me. I would eventually find out why she was so secretive about her life and family. One thing was for sure: Annabel could have a lot of secrets, but she had the kindest soul and the gentlest heart. I was extremely pleased about that.

TIME FLIES BY
when we are happy. That was never more true to me than now. Three weeks went by in a flash. After my parents’s death, happiness was the last thing I thought I would experience again. But even if finding my mate was exulting, at the same time I was feeling extremely guilty for postponing my other life, my quest, in order to stay there with Shane. Guilty because I thought I could be doing something else to help my brother. Jason and the rest of my crew were trying to find a pureblood vampire. But their search was turning out to be as futile as mine. Jessica kept me updated; Jason kept insisting that I leave and get back home. But I was still hoping that the answer to my problems was there; that, or I was just reluctant to leave Shane, hoping that he would understand why I couldn’t live in that town with him.

My time was running out. School would be over in a week, and I had to report back to my superiors and explain to Jason how my time there was a dead end. I had no idea where the vampire’s lair was; I had no idea who the king of those lands was; and I didn’t believe anymore that there were evil people hiding there. Shane was anything but evil. Everybody else seemed nice and friendly. I was an active member of the community, even if I hadn’t had my face-to-face with the king and pledged my allegiance to him. I was still on probation, and between my school work, the patrolling, and Shane, I had little time to myself.

“You were slower today,” Shane mumbled, caressing my hair. “Are you feeling okay?”

We had gone for a run in the woods and were seated near a tree, watching the sunset and resting. The place where he lived was amazing. I had fallen in love with it, and I wished I could stay there with him. He was amazing, and I couldn’t see my life without him anymore. He was obliterating all my defenses, even without the marking.

“I’m okay,” I whispered, opening my eyes while caressing his face. I noticed how his eyes were still shining with his wolf. I loved his wolf; he had a beautiful gray and white wolf. He liked to cuddle with me after running in the open air, with me following behind him in my vampire form. We stared at each other for hours after the long walks in the forest. We also had a lot of fun patrolling; when he taught me the shortcuts, he showed me the waterfalls and the hidden caves. Being me had never been as fun! I’d never felt so free and in sync with the universe, with the mysteries of life.

“It’s amazing how much you like to stay under the sun,” he whispered, smiling at me. “You are the weirdest vampire I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not weird. I just like the sun. Blame my panther side. Felines like the sun.”

“True,” he agreed, caressing the hair away from my face. “You are also the most beautiful vampire I’ve ever seen.”

“No, I’m not,” I said, covering my face and trying to relax so my fangs hid and my eyes became normal again.

“Don’t do that. I like to look at you like that. Don’t be shy—I love your vampire form.”

“You are the one being weird.”

“Because I’m a werewolf in love with a vampire?”

“No, because you get aroused by my fangs,” I whispered, teasing him by showing my teeth and leaving the tip of my tongue over my right fang. He tensed. I felt his hard muscles against my lap. His eyes turned amber, and I chuckled. Even if I was laughing, I loved the fact that he would get aroused by it.

“You can’t blame me for that. I’ve already told you that I love you in any shape. Besides, your eyes are extremely beautiful when they are purple. Do you know why they are purple and not black?”

I nodded. “Because I’ve never fed from the source.” Feeding from the source meant drinking from a vein. All the blood I drank was served either in a glass, inside a hospital bag, or from animals. However, as much as I didn’t like to think about the bloodlust, I was aware that my lack of strength the past few days was because I was changing and needed blood. I was just being stubborn, because I didn’t want to drink too much blood. I used to be able to survive by drinking blood once a week. It was becoming a daily obsession, however, and I was trying to control my urges and tame my thirst. The consequence was my lack of stamina to keep up with Shane and the others.

“Have you ever seen a black-eyed vampire?” Shane wondered.

“Yes. I’ve encountered several vampires before. There are a lot with black eyes in this community.”

“As long as they don’t kill humans and the humans are willing to donate their blood, we don’t interfere in their business.”

I nodded, my thoughts slipping to the image of Alaric’s red eyes. Red eyes were the sign of madness. Vampires with red eyes weren’t sane or safe to be around. In ancient times, they were put to death. Other vampires would go around and kill the sick vampire or the vampire would eventually kill himself. But an insane vampire had more probability of decimating an entire village, leaving behind an insane number of bodies. Every self-conscious vampire knew that insanity was the same as a true death. However, Alaric had managed to survive, to thrive on his madness and spread death and hate amongst the supernatural community.

“Where did you just go?” Shane asked, touching my chin with his hand. I looked down at him, trying to chase away the bad thoughts.

“I don’t want to lose my purple eyes,” I whispered, sharing something that concerned me.

“You won’t. But are you feeling… different? You know, hungry for blood? Do you want to hunt?”

“I’m just tired. It has been a long week.”

We had just hunted the other day. I didn’t want him to get worried.

His next words reminded me that the week was almost over. “You could stay and rest over the weekend.”

I turned my eyes away because I didn’t want to talk about the fact that we weren’t going to spend another weekend together. He had asked me the day before if I was going to stay. I had informed him that I couldn’t. He was insisting again. But I had other things to take care of, important things concerning my brother and me. Over the past few days, I’d had a hard time controlling my fangs; I was feeling tired and drained. I was becoming more vampire than panther. My DNA was mutating. I needed to run more exams on my blood, but the last ones that I’d done said that my DNA was mutating to vampire and would eventually lose my ability to shift to a panther. It was a painful process, and I didn’t normally shift, but the idea of losing my shifting ability was making me sad.

“I may lose my ability to shift to a panther,” I whispered, unable to keep it inside me any longer.

“How do you know that?”

“I’m having trouble connecting with my feline side, and it’s getting more painful to shift.”

“Would you rather be a panther than a vampire?”

“I love both,” I answered truthfully. “I’m not apologizing that all vampires are evil. I understand that blood is just part of our diet. But if I lose my ability to shift to a panther, will I lose a part of me? Like the part of me that loves the sun, that likes to jump and climb trees and gets satisfied by drinking animal blood instead of human blood? I don’t know what that will do to my personality.”

Shane remained silent for a while. I didn’t want to worry him, but I had to share this with him. He was my soul-mate. If he didn’t understand me, who would?

“It seems to me that you are maturing. Werewolves also mature. There comes a time when we merge our animal personality with our humanity, taming the shifting and the feral instincts. Maybe hybrid DNA battles to find a predominant form, and you aren’t losing a part of you, only evolving to your original self.”

I pondered his words. “We also need to understand how mating works between us.”

“What do you mean? I think it works rather well between us,” he teased, making me roll my eyes.

“I’m not talking about sex exclusively.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Hybrids weren’t supposed to procreate because we don’t have a soul-mate. But since we actually
do
have a soul-mate and we actually have sex, it came to my mind that I can actually get pregnant with your baby.”

“Oh!” He opened his eyes, putting two and two together and smirking. “Babies—I want four or six.”

“Sure you do,” I joked, pushing him out of my lap. “I’m too young to think about having babies.”

“Do you want to see a doctor about that? Were you taking precautions?”

“It’s not like I have to worry about STDs, since I’m half shifter, half vampire, and you are a werewolf. Only humans get sick with those.”

Shane sat next to me with attentive eyes and a serious face. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, of course not,” I said, panicking with his question. “I’m not in heat season, and…” I bit my upper lip, looking at my hands, feeling shy. “I’ve tested it, just in case. It was negative.”

“We just need to work harder for it then,” he teased, and I pushed my hand against his shoulder, annoyed.

“Stop joking about that.”

“I can’t help it. I’m just imagining all the cute babies we both could make.”

“I don’t even know if we can
have
babies,” I mumbled with a sad voice, staring at his eyes, trapped in his arms. He was smiling, but he lost his smile and hugged me tight against him.

“You are too young, you’re right. And we have plenty of time to talk about that. I just want you to be okay. When the time is right, we’ll look for a doctor to test us. Besides, there are plenty of orphan kids in the world.” I nodded, feeling a lot better with his words. Then the oddity of the conversation hit me. We were making plans for the future, as if I was allowed to have a future, to have a family and be happy. “What’s wrong, Annabel?” he asked, sensing the tension in my body.

“I’ve just realized that…” I silenced myself, leaning back to watch his face. Shane was a part of my life and someone I wanted to have in my future. “I can’t see myself living without you.”

“That’s a good thing, because I can’t see myself living without you, either.”

“But… my life is messed-up.”

He chuckled, apparently amused by my affirmation; however, he had no idea how true that was.

“Just let me mark you and everything will fall into place,” he whispered alluringly, moving closer.

“You don’t know that,” I whispered, feeling helpless and craving the contact of his lips. I liked how sweet he was, but I was fully aware that he tried to manipulate me with words and kisses. He knew how much I loved him. But I couldn’t blame him: I was relying on his love for me to be patient.

In my defense, I had a good excuse for delaying the marking. Pureblood vampires have special powers to see their victims’s memories when they are drinking from them. The only warm blood I had inside of me was from animals; it worked differently from human blood. I had no idea if I had that power. Besides, what would I see in Shane’s head when I did bite him? Would I see his previous lovers? Would I see his kills, his fears and dark side? Marking each other would open a telepathic link between me and him. We would share memories and thoughts. I was scared of that—how couldn’t I be? He would see all my demons, my bad memories, and my fears.

I knew Shane struggled with that, too. He also had his demons, his bad dreams. So, even if he asked often, the lack of pressuring was a hint that he was delaying it as much as I was. But my time was running out. It was almost prom night, which meant my contract was finishing and school was almost over. I would have to accept a new contract there or leave, maybe live between places. Marking would just increase my need for Shane, my inability to stay away from him.

“You are the most beautiful thing in the world,” he whispered, staring at my purple eyes, touching my lips with his fingertips. “You have the most amazing red lips.” He moved closer to kiss me. I leaned down to meet his lips, molding my lips to his and trying not to cut him with my fangs. I loved the fact that he saw me as if I was the most perfect thing and not a simple blood-thirsty monster. “When are you going to let me mark you and bite me?” he asked, leaving space between us so he could look into my eyes and analyze my reaction. He was insisting again.

“Maybe next week,” I whispered, wanting to delay it but knowing that I didn’t have much time left.

“We have patrol tonight. After it, we’ll go to Sam’s Bar, if you don’t mind. Or do you want to skip this patrol and go to bed earlier?”

“Are you coming to bed with me?” I asked.

“I can’t skip the patrolling.”

“Then I’ll go patrolling with you. I don’t like when you are patrolling at night.”

“Duncan and Samuel will join me for patrolling tonight.”

“I would rather go on patrols with you than stay at home alone,” I said, caressing his face.

“We will probably just find couples making out in the woods or other kids playing tricks on their friends. It’s hot, and the days are longer. Everybody is excited about the summer holidays. Dangerous stuff hardly ever happens here.”

“I know, but I still want to go with you.”