The Bite That Binds (The Deep In Your Veins #2) (36 page)

“Me neither,” said Jared as he came up on my other side. Tension was still thrumming through him and I had a feeling he was thinking, just as I was, that if Moira’s gift had been to induce a fatal sleep as opposed to a temporary one, the squad would be nothing but ashes now. It was scary to think that no matter how well we trained them, it might only take a vampire with a unique gift to kill them all − and us, for that matter.

Antonio exhaled heavily. “It is a relief to know that the operation has been put to a halt, but I still have to locate the couples who purchased the human babies who were taken from their mothers.”

I doubted that that would be an easy feat. “I take it you’re sending Sebastian?”

Antonio nodded. “Once he returns from finding the brothers, I will do so. I have sent out a message to all vampirekind that if these couples give themselves up to me, they will not be punished with death. If they do not do this, however, they will be executed once Sebastian has hunted them down – and he
will
hunt them down. That is something that I am certain about.”

“What are you going to do with the babies once you have them?” asked Jared.

“The only thing I can do: I plan to hand them over to human authorities. Of course it is not possible to return them to their mothers, but they still have fathers and other relatives. It is up to the humans to return the children to the right families − that is something I have no control over.”

“Poor Jude,” I said quietly, looking at the woman in question, who was at the other side of the infirmary. She hadn’t spoken a word since we got back. “Every single cell of her must want her daughter back even though she understands it can’t happen.”

“Yes, it has to be heart-breaking.” Antonio sighed.

“Do you think she might stay, if we asked her?”

“If that is your way of requesting for a place to be made for her here, then yes.”

Nodding my thanks at him, I walked over to where she sat beside Chico’s bed. I’d noticed that they spent a little time together, but there was nothing going on between them as far as I knew. “Hi.”

She smiled at me, but it wasn’t a full smile. “Hi.”

“How do you feel?”

She blew out a breath. “Tired. Tired in too many ways to count. You know, I didn’t expect that I’d feel better afterwards, so it’s no surprise that I don’t. But I guess I’m…relieved. I feel like I got vengeance for Holly, for the life she should have had.”

“For the life you
both
should have had,” I corrected.

“It’s weird. Now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do. For so long, I’ve been running on a need for vengeance. Now that I have it, I feel…”

Seeing that she was struggling for words, I offered, “without purpose.” She nodded. “You could stay. You could make a place for yourself here.”

She glanced fleetingly at Chico. “Thanks. Maybe.”

I doubted that she truly would stay. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jude spent her life watching over her daughter, looking out for her from a distance. That was what I’d have done in her position.

Feeling that Jared was behind me, I turned to him.

“Ready to go?” At my nod, he took my hand in his and teleported us to the living area of our apartment. There, he pulled me to him, fitting me against him. Trapping my gaze with his, he slid both hands into my hair. “You’re okay.”

And that was no little thing, given just how powerful those vampires had been tonight. “Yes.”

“If you had been one of the people lying on an infirmary bed, I really don’t think I could have taken it.” Of course he couldn’t have taken it. He’d been pushed to his limits so many times already this week.

“But I’m not. I’m fine. And I’m here. With you.”

Then he was on me. Mouths fused together, tongues tangling, teeth biting, we stumbled through the apartment − stripping as we went. We had only gotten as far as the kitchen when Jared ended the kiss. “I can’t wait. I need this.” With an impatient growl, he tore the only remaining clothes from my body − my jeans and panties − and slammed me against the kitchen cupboards. Just as impatient, I ripped open the fly of his jeans. His cock was hot and throbbing in my hand as I pumped fast.

He rested his forehead against mine. “Harder.”

When I gave him what he wanted, he groaned loudly. But it wasn’t long before he tried pulling my hand away. I resisted.

“I want inside you,” he growled, again tugging at my hand. This time, I let him go. Then with our mouths again meshed together, he slid his hands to the back of my thighs, lifted me, and placed me on the countertop. When his probing fingers discovered that I was wet and ready, a growl of approval rumbled its way up his chest. “Just how I like it.” Angling my hips just right, he slammed home, and my muscles rippled around him. “Christ, Sam.”

He held himself still, giving me a minute to adjust to him, but I didn’t want that minute. I scratched at his back. “Move, move, move.”

He did. There was no teasing this time. His fingertips bit into my skin as he gripped my hips tightly, possessively, and punched his cock in and out of me. All the while, he groaned into the crook of my neck, whispering about how good I felt, about how amazing I was to him, about how much he needed to feel me come apart around him.

He wouldn’t have to wait long for that, because the tension was quickly building inside me, burning me hotter and hotter, and sending me closer and closer to finding my release. But I didn’t want to find it yet, didn’t want it to end so soon.

Obviously sensing that I was fighting it, Jared sucked on my earlobe and began circling my clit with his thumb. “Let go.”

I shook my head, trying to pull his hand away from my clit. The sod wouldn’t let me. “I don’t want to come yet. Please.”

Ignoring me, he continued toying with my clit. “Give me what I need, baby. Come all over me.”

I might have continued to fight it, but then his teeth sank deep into my neck, sending me hurtling over the edge and screaming. He didn’t pull back after a few swallows the way he usually would. Instead, he kept on drinking, drawing out my orgasm. Only once I slumped against him, totally satiated, did he − with one final hard thrust − come deep inside me.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed locked like that, as I was pretty much drifting to sleep when he spoke.

“I love you, baby.”

I smiled lazily against his shoulder. The fact that he didn’t say it often only made it all that more fulfilling to hear. “And I love you,” I more or less slurred.

“As much as I want to kill the brothers for what they’ve done to you, I was glad of it tonight. Glad you had that extra strength and power. They said that, didn’t they? They said that what they’ve done would be something I’d one day appreciate. They were right.”

Frowning at the bitterness in his voice, I lifted my head, seeking his gaze. “Hey, if you want the truth, I was glad as well.” Not that I wanted to stay a hybrid, but it had certainly been an advantage.

Looking at me curiously, he shook his head in what seemed to be incredulity. “Since the first night I met you, you’ve had me messed up. You’re my weakness − pure and simple. But you’re also the only thing that I really couldn’t live without.”

“You won’t have to,” I assured him. But I knew as well as he did that with two sociopaths out there, wanting to get their hands on their ‘project’, I wasn’t truly safe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

(Sam)

“Will you bloody relax, woman,” Fletcher repeated for, like, the twelfth time as he flopped onto the sofa beside me.

Trying again, and failing again, to stop fidgeting, I huffed. “How exactly am I supposed to relax when it’s my Binding ceremony tomorrow evening?”

“Well that’s what this little Pamper Party was for.” He gestured to the numerous females that were leaving my apartment after having given me several spa treatments. But even after a full body massage, some reflexology, a holistic facial, and an Indian head massage, I was still tense.

Not that the women weren’t good at what they did. In all honesty, I wasn’t a big fan of spas and massages, but I’d found these treatments surprisingly enjoyable. I simply wasn’t relaxed. But, seriously, could anybody blame me for that?

I let my hand delve into the bowl of hazelnuts on the coffee table. One of the best parts of this little get together had been the nibbles, pastries, and cakes. Oh and the Butlers in the Buff who had served the snacks and NSTs…they’d certainly been a nice addition.

“You do realise that you’re comfort-eating, don’t you? Stressed or not, attacking pastries won’t do you any good.”

I threw Fletcher a dirty look. “Shut your noise, I’ll eat what I want.”

“I think you’ll enjoy what’s coming next.”

The excitement in his tone had me instantly intrigued. “What is it?”

“We’re going to have a pedicure.”

And there went my intrigue. “That’s it? We don’t need manicures or pedicures – we’re vampires, our nails are all perfect.”

He gave me a cheeky smile. “Ah, but this is a different kind of pedicure.”

“There’s more than one kind of pedicure?”

As the door closed behind the last beauty therapist, he said, “So…are you going to tell me the
real
reason why you now seem to have the same enchanting glamour that Keja vampires have?”

The camp sod was too astute for his own good – it really was a good job that I adored him. There was no sense in lying to him, but I also couldn’t tell him. Not that I thought Fletcher would blab. I just didn’t want anyone plucking the info from his mind. “If I could tell you, I would. I’m sorry.”

He grabbed my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I appreciate you not giving me an ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’; that would have hurt. But, if you’re not going to tell me about that, you can at least answer my question of why you’re so anxious about tomorrow evening.”

“Doesn’t every ‘bride’ have a last minute attack of the jitters, or whatever they call it?”

“There’s being jittery, and there’s being bloody petrified. Why are you so scared? What could you possibly have to be scared of?”

“The mysterious dress you’ve designed?” I offered. He’d brought it with him in a full-size protective bag which he’d placed in my bedroom.

He huffed at me. “Stop stalling, Lady Jane, and spill the beans.”

Persistent little bugger.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Definitely not.”

“Are you worried that he’s not going to show up? If so, that’s daft. We can safely say that he’ll be there.”

“It’s not that, it’s just that…Binding…it’s not like marriage. There’s no divorce, no annulment, no get-out clause. Once you Bind yourself to someone, you have a life-long psychic connection to them that can only be broken if one of you dies. Even if the couple grew to despise each other or had come to care for somebody else, there’s no getting out of the bond.”

“And that scares you,” he guessed.

“Actually, no. I thought it would. It probably should. But the idea that it can’t be broken makes me feel more secure, strangely enough.”

“I don’t understand. What’s the problem, then?”

“The problem is that Jared gets temptation thrown in his face constantly – you’ve seen what women are like around him. I’m not saying he’s shallow, he’s far from it, though I didn’t realise that at first. But I can’t help worrying that he might one day fall for one of them. Not because I don’t trust him or because I don’t believe he loves me. But because it scares me that I’d be able to
feel
what he felt for her. Knowing that he loved someone else would be bad enough. But to be able to
feel
it, and to have no way of saving myself from that…I couldn’t deal with that Fletcher, I know I couldn’t. I wouldn’t need to kill myself to break the bond: it would destroy me.”

Fletcher pulled me against him and locked his arm around me. Patting my arm, he gently said, “Yes, he has women throwing themselves at him all the time, which is daft of them since they know you could, and would happily, whip them to death. But who can blame them, really? I mean, he’s gorgeous, he’s powerful, he’s got that dominant vibe going on, and he’s the Heir – it’s a combination that will have most females downright bloody horny.”

“Fletch, you’re not helping,” I said dryly.

He held up his index finger. “Wait, I’m not done. What I was about to say before you rudely interrupted me, was that I’ve been around him when he’s had women slobbering over him. Not once has it ever got him hot and bothered – I’d have sensed it. He actually gets annoyed about it. Sometimes there’s even a bit of resentment there, but I’m not sure what that’s about.”

The latter made me think back to Evan’s words of how Jared resented just how much attention his looks got him, of how he resented that he looked like his mother.

“Before you came here, Jared was hard. Cynical. You didn’t need to be an Empath to know that. I wouldn’t say he’s changed. No, he’s still like that in many ways. But my point is
that he’s not like that with you. When he’s with you, he’s relaxed. He trusts you. I’d say that’s a big thing for Jared. I can sense that he’s not a very trusting person, just as I can sense that he absolutely adores you. Oh, luv, if you’d have felt how beside himself he was when your gifts were on the blink, you wouldn’t be worrying like this. If there was any doubt in my mind about his commitment to you, I’d be trying to talk you out of the Binding. I’m a meddling sod like that.”