Blood Mate (21 page)

“I’m not sure
what’s real. I don’t know if you’re real or if I’m in a
padded room right now hallucinating.”

August’s eyes
widened. “Oh.”

“Oh? Oh what?”

“I fed you my
blood while my emotions were erratic. It may have affected you and
your dreams.”

“I thought you
couldn’t control me.”

He rolled his
eyes. “Obviously I can control you in various ways. But you are not
my mental puppet. I can’t
enthrall you. I can tempt you. I can make you want me like you’ve
never wanted anything else, but what you do with that desire is
yours. But blood exchanges… I didn’t think about potential side
effects, I apologize.”

He held his arms
out to her, but she regarded him with suspicion. “Did you direct
the content of my dream? Did you intentionally make any of that
happen?”

“It doesn’t
work that way.”

“How do I know
that? How can I
trust
that?” In fact, the more she thought
about it, the more foolish it felt to listen to anything he said
about anything. Since she didn’t know about the rules of his world
or his nature, he could make anything up, and she’d have no choice
but to go along with it. Just because he said something didn’t mean
she should smile and nod and go along as if it were obviously the
truth.

“Nicolette, I
have no idea what you dreamed. So if you’re going to accuse me of
something, kindly give me enough information to know what is so bad.”

She dropped onto
the bed. “I was at the hospital. They said I’d been there for
months. You were a delusion.”

“Again?
Nicolette, you’ve never been crazy. Do you understand that you
can’t be delusional
and
have a mind too strong for a vampire
to control? It’s completely illogical.”

“Do
you
understand that vampires aren’t real, and it’s perfectly logical
to assume that if I’m seeing one and living with one that it would
be normal to question that reality and my sanity?”

“I understand
you’ve experienced a lot of intense things in the past few months.
Over time life will normalize and you’ll know this is real. I’m
sorry you had a dream that frightened you so much and called
everything into question. I won’t give you my blood when I’m
upset like that again.” He started to leave.

“August, wait.”

“Yes?”

Nicole went to him
and allowed him to embrace her. She wasn’t sure now that she was
supposedly awake that she wanted this to be her life, but she knew
she didn’t want her life to be padded rooms and drugs and no
control.

“Why don’t you
come downstairs and eat something?”

She didn’t
protest as he led her to the kitchen.

“There isn’t
much. Just some frozen dinners.”

“Anything is
fine.”

He took a box from
the freezer and popped it into the microwave then sat across from
her, worry in his eyes.

She ran her
fingers over the wood grain of the table. It was no more or less real
than the table in the institution that she’d… dreamed? So how did
she know which table was the real table?

August leaned
forward and pressed his wrist to her forehead as if he were checking
for a fever. “Your skin is a bit clammy. I’m concerned.”

“Well, I can’t
die, right?”

“So then I
shouldn’t worry if you experience any discomfort in life? Since
you’re immortal, my concern is unwelcome?”

“That’s not
what I meant.”

The microwave
dinged, saving her from trying to figure out what she did mean or how
to express it. He slid the carton to her and retrieved a fork from
the drawer.

“I need you
lucid. Dominic will rise soon. You’ll have to feed him.”

Nicole hadn’t
realized it would be so quick or maybe she’d slept longer than she
thought. Who knew how long vampire-blood induced sleep lasted? She
wasn’t sure she was ready to see her husband in his new state yet.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about him rising at all.

“He’s not
going to be like me. We’ll know immediately if he can feed from
you. If he can, he won’t have to kill.” Genuine fear shone from
the vampire’s eyes—maybe fear he’d cursed Dominic to the fate
he’d carried for centuries.

“If he has to
kill, I will never… ” Her voice wavered.

“I know. I won’t
forgive myself, either.”

Nicole went back
to the Salisbury steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes. It tasted
like cardboard, like every other frozen meal in existence. The mashed
potatoes were particularly revolting. They were covered in a tangy
brown gravy that masked the potatoes. But nothing could mask the
gravy. It was two kinds of horrible fighting to disguise the other
and both failing miserably.

The vampire’s
nostrils flared and his eyes glowed. His head turned quickly toward
the kitchen door.

“August?”

He held up a hand.
“Shhh.” He stared in the direction of the hallway as if he saw…
or heard something. “Your husband is awake. Go feed him.” He
withdrew a key from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

“I… but… by
myself?”

“Well, I
certainly don’t wish to watch.”

“Why not? You
made
him
watch.”

August growled.
“Don’t test me right now, Nicolette.”

Chapter Fifteen

When Nicolette had
left the room, August took the fork from the putrid food and stabbed
it into the table, driving the prongs deep into the wood. From the
moment he’d taken her out of the hospital, it had been one stupid
choice after another. The anger toward Dominic was irrational. Of
course her husband couldn’t believe her. August’s vampiric
command made it impossible. The alternative was to think she was ill.
The same with her parents.

And yet, though
they’d been involved in locking his mate up, he hadn’t had a need
to punish them. Dominic fell into another category entirely. He was
supposed to watch out for her, protect her in August’s absence. It
was his job. Even if he couldn’t protect her from the vampire, he
wasn’t supposed to make anything else worse.

Taking her out of
the hospital had been a simple matter, but irrational anger flooded
him whenever someone else caused her pain.

August closed his
eyes and remembered in crisp detail the activities at her house with
Dominic. It hadn’t just been the anger. He’d thought about
this—the prospect of sharing her out in the open. However many
times he had to wipe her husband’s memory to keep him from going
off and telling someone or having a nervous breakdown, it would allow
Nicolette to stop feeling as if she were cheating. Even with the
blood link, she saw the human as her mate, and August as the
interloper.

No matter how hard
August fought to make things as easy as possible on her, he’d never
been able to let go of the guilt for what he was doing. It didn’t
matter how much he needed her. It didn’t matter how badly he’d
wanted to stop killing. It didn’t obligate her to him. And yet he’d
painted it that way as if she owed him her blood and body for the
rest of time just so he could control his vampire needs. He’d
guilted her and cornered her and done whatever was necessary to bring
them to this place, and now he was trying to fix it. But each choice
somehow made it all that much worse.

August made his
way down the hall and opened the door to the cellar as quietly as
possible. He slipped off his shoes and kept to the shadows, creeping
down the stairs, his footfalls silent. He didn’t want to watch
this, but he couldn’t
not
watch it. He had to know how the
rest of their existence together would be.

“I need you to
drink,” Nicolette said. She’d unlocked the cage and was inside
with him.

Dominic turned
away in revulsion and growled, his fangs bared, eyes glowing. “Get
the hell away from me, Nicole, I’ll hurt you!”

“You won’t.
It’s okay. You need to feed. You have to.”

“How can you
stand to look at me like this? I’m hideous.”

Though there was
no mirror in the cage, Dominic had no doubt seen his hands and arms
and gotten a decent enough idea about his face. It was the monstrous,
rotting that came over them without blood. If feeding from Nicolette
healed him, August would have his answer about whether or not the new
vampire would have to kill.

“It’s how
unfed vampires look. You’ll look like yourself again after you’ve
had blood. And as long as you feed regularly, you’ll be normal.”

Dominic growled
and turned back to her. “He’s fed from you looking like this,
hasn’t he? That monster fucking put his mouth on you looking like
he belonged in a leper colony.”

“Once. It was
after I ran away. He hadn’t fed for a few days because he didn’t
want to kill people.”

“So he’s a
moral
vampire. I see it now. I was confused when he was going
down on you in front of me.”

“Please don’t
do that.”

“Don’t do
what?”

“The jealousy. I
can hear it in your voice. I didn’t want this. I… he kept me
here… until… ”

Dominic shook his
head. “Stop, Nicole. You don’t have to explain. I know what he
did. He passed memories to me when he made me into
this
. I
don’t blame you. What other choice was there? He would have done
anything to keep you alive and anything to make things bad enough so
you’d give him what he wanted. You had no chance against someone
that old and strong. Neither of us did. The fact that you lasted so
long… I’m just hungry. Don’t pay attention to anything I say.”

She eased closer
and knelt on the ground beside him, pulling her hair back. “That’s
why you have to feed. You’ll feel better after you’ve fed. You
know you can’t kill me.”

“No, but it will
hurt you.”

August smelled her
fear and knew she remembered the first time he’d drank from her,
the agonizing pain she’d endured, how terrified she’d been that
it might never stop. Even if this worked, she wasn’t Dominic’s in
the way she was August’s. The mystical link might offer her husband
a feeding option, but it wouldn’t stop the pain. It was yet another
thing the vampire hadn’t bothered to think through while he was
trying to undo Dominic’s murder before it was complete.

“M-maybe it
won’t.”

“It will. I’m
not going to hurt you.”

“You’ll suffer
until you feed, and if you don’t bite me, you’ll have to kill
people. Would you rather kill people?”

He scooted away
from her until he’d backed himself into a corner. “You have to
leave now.”

“Not until
you’ve fed. Please, Dominic… if you still love me… ”

He growled. “You
know I love you. If I didn’t fucking love you, I would have already
devoured you whole.”

She bit down hard
into her wrist. August’s nostrils flared as the scent of his mate’s
blood coated the air. He had to grip the wall to keep himself from
going to her. The effect on Dominic was even more potent—being
newly risen.

Dominic pounced on
her and held her down against the cold cellar floor. The moment
August felt her pain and heard her scream, he left his hiding place
and ripped Dominic off her.

The new vampire
smirked, the blood dripping down his now-perfect chin. He would feel
sorry for hurting Nicolette soon, but the sensations of the first
feeding were so exciting and intoxicating that the high lasted
longer.

Dominic had become
a more perfect version of himself, as if vampirism had retouched him,
smoothing fine lines, evening skin tone, chiseling muscles just a
little more, making lips fuller, jaw more squared,
eyes lighter and more hypnotic—even when they weren’t glowing.

He
wiped the blood off his mouth and looked at it in horror. “Oh my
God. I’m going to be sick.”

It
was a lot for a new vampire to take in. Seeing the woman he’d
previously seen as his wife now as his dinner.

“No,
you won’t,” August said. “Vampires don’t get sick.”

Dominic
glared at him. “I could kill you right now.”

“Yes,
but could you kill Nicolette? You know we’re linked.”

He’d
felt something shift when he’d passed the vampirism to
Dominic. There was a faint tear in the fabric of his immortality.

Nicolette moved
out from behind August. It took all his self control not to restrain
her. The question wasn’t if Nicolette would wish to continue
feeding her husband. She would. No matter how much he hurt her when
he did it, she wouldn’t allow him to become a murderer. The real
question was… how would August allow it? How would he listen to his
mate’s screams every night, knowing it was his fault she was in so
much pain?

In the end, surely
both vampires would veto this feeding pattern.

Dominic took a
step back from his wife, but she took another step closer and
embraced him. “I-I’ll get used to it. This is what we have to
do.”

“No. This will
not happen again.”

“So you want to
kill people? We’re talking about a few minutes of pain a day. You
don’t have to drink for long if you do it every day. I’ll be
fine. I’ll build a tolerance to it. This will all be fine.”

August watched
them as the kernel of an idea formed. “I want to try something.”

The two looked up
at him as if he were an unwanted guest at a party or someone who had
killed their puppy.

“Why should we
care about anything you want? This is all your fault,” Nicolette
said.

August growled.
“Would you have preferred to lose him? For him to age and die and
be gone? There is no scenario in which you can’t cast me as the
villain, but I may have a solution. What if we feed on you together?
The pleasure of my bite may cancel the pain from Dominic’s.”

***

Heat rose in
Nicole’s face as she imagined two hungry vampires feeding on her at
once, every night for the rest of eternity. After being fed on by
August, she’d become unable to separate the feeding act from the
sex act.