Unbound (62 page)

Mason had never been so proud in his life. Chase was going to be a fine man. Unfortunately, Danielle would not be there for the life he dreamed they would share.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cayden snapped.

“I told you I was protecting her! It was her right to tell people when she was ready and not before. It’s not like she gave it to me willingly. I couldn’t betray her. She told you she wasn’t what you thought she was,” Chase shook his head. “Please tell me this wasn’t the reason you refused to bond with her. It was, wasn’t it? You are such an ass!”

* * *

“She said we could have human kids and she didn’t know how long she would live. I was afraid, and it will be the biggest regret of my life.” Cayden left the locker room and stomped away, embarrassed and
angry
. Even Darren was able to accept her for what she was and Cayden had pushed her away. He had to get far, far away from her now. He never wanted to see her sweet face again.

* * *

Danielle let out a scream and began to thrash about in Chase’s arms. Her eyes were open but she didn’t seem to be seeing anything. “What is wrong baby? Mommy is here now. Shhh…” Tessa tried to comfort her but she continued to twist in Chase’s arms and clutch at him in pain. Chase was whispering to her and Gage was trying to hold Darren back.

“Give her to me now!” Darren demanded. He could feel his mate’s agony and needed to comfort her. “Why is she burning? It hurts!”

“What is happening to her, Griffin?” Tessa was panicked.

Danielle seemed to come around a bit and clutched Chase’s arms. “Chase! It hurts! Make it stop burning!” She gripped him to her like a lifeline. “Don’t let them hurt me anymore!” She was begging, gasping for air and panting.

“I know it hurts, baby. It will be over soon. Just hold on, my lovely Soleil. I will stay with you.” He soothed her and rocked her like a baby in his arms. He looked up at Darren with disgust. “She will never forgive you for this. You have taken a precious part of her that she will mourn forever.”

“What is happening to her?” Tessa was pissed and wanted answers.

“She is changing, Tessa. Darren had to give her so much blood to save her life that the vampire blood is trying to overtake her human blood. There’s a war raging inside her body. This is usually done in stages so the person can adjust slowly, with a better chance of survival, but she was forced to bypass a more gentle tra
nsition,
” Griffin explained. “Our baby is losing her humanity. I didn’t know if it would happen, given she was already a vampire.”

“No. She was perfect and precious just the way she was.” Tessa fell into his arms weeping.

“I want her now, Gage. She needs her mate,” Darren growled. Gage went to Chase and held out his arms to cradle the suffering girl.

“We must hand her over, son. I don’t want to arrest you or anyone else here.” Gage removed Dani from Chase’s tight grasp but she clutched at him trying to hold on.

“Don’t let them take me!” Dani held onto Chase and pleaded with him. His heart was shattering but he had no choice. Gage took her and handed her to Darren, who immediately walked away murmuring comfort and praise to his mate.

Chase wanted to die. He
had just gotten her back. He
experienced heaven in her arms just hours ago. Finally, he had been bathed in the smell and taste of her. Finally, sh
e’
d held him in her arms and shared her mind, body and soul with him all at once. Her scent still clung to his skin after the bliss of their lovemaking. But now she is gone. The sun had been forever snatched from his sky. His world would not be allowed to revolve around Soleil.

* * *

She came awake suddenly. Confused she looked around the strange room and the huge four-poster bed with sheer curtains around it. Where the hell was she? She got up unsteadily. Her legs felt like noodles but other than that,
she felt great. What
happened? Something important lingered around the edges of her memory. She had no clue where she was. Making her way to the door, she saw herself in the mirror. Great, she was all black-eyed freak, again. No wonder she felt so weird. She was starving. The door opened and Darren stuck his head in the room.

“I knew you were up, Danielle. I felt your mind stirring. I’ve been so worried.” Darren embraced her and stroked her face lovingly.  “Would you prefer I call you Danielle or Soleil?” he inquired brightly.

“I don’t care what you call me. What do you mean you felt my mind stirring?” This was passing weird. What was she doing here with Darren, wherever here was?

“Okay. Since Danielle is the name I have used the most, I’ll stick with that unless you change your mind. You look hungry my love. Come back to bed and I will let you feed. I have been anxious to feel you at my neck since our bonding.” Darren led her back to the bed.

The world suddenly tilted on its axis as the memories flooded
back. He
betrayed her to the rogue. He let him rip her t
hroat out. She should be dead but he
saved her with his own blood. Oh no, please no! She couldn’t be his mate. She loved Chase. She couldn’t do this.

“You’ve been resting for several days. You lost so much blood I was frightened, but Doc said your body just needed time to adjust to the change. It was very hard on you due to the speed with which it was done. Doc said if you hadn’t been half vampire already you would have died.” He came to stand between her legs where she sat on the edge of the bed. “You can imagine that everyone is very upset with m
e but
I don’t care. I love you and you are my mate.” He paused and looked at her sheepishly. “Are you angry with me? I’m sorry for the way I went about it, but I knew he wouldn’t let you live in peace until he got what he wanted.”

“I’m so confused. What changed about me? I think I still feel my power but I feel so weak.” She needed to get her head on straight and Darren was looking at her like his most prized possession.
It was creepy.

“He wasn’t able to take your power because it was rooted in your humanity. Your gifts came mostly from your mother and were, shall we say, activated and amplified by your father
’s blood
when you came of
age. The rogue can’t absorb
human powers,
” Darren explained while pushing her farther back on the bed.

“I guess I understand that, but I don’t understand why you think I’ve changed.” She tried to crawl away, but he had a tight grip on her.

“This is going to be hard for you to accept, but honestly it’s for the best. We’ll be able to live a normal life without people looking down on us for your flaws.” He stalled a moment searching for the right words. “You were so weak and close to death when I found you. I had to give you a lot blood to save you.” He peeked at her from below his long lashes and tried to crawl over her on the bed, but she forced him back.

“Tell
me what happened, Darren,” s
he demanded, letting the acid she was feeling leak into her voice.

“You’ve been made fully vampire. The amount of blood it took to keep you alive overwhelmed your human blood. You’ve lost your humanity, so you don’t have to worry about what people think of you anymore. We don’t even need to tell them you used to be half-human. Now that you’re perfect, the past is the past. Now come to me, love. I want to feel our bond more clearly.” He was so matter fact about it, as if he was talki
ng about his day at work. He
killed the most important part of her, the part of her that had been nurtured by her mother from birth. Now was she supposed to thank him and be accepting because of a forced blood bond? Was
she supposed to be happy that he
forced her to bond with him instead of the man she wanted to spend her life with?

“You’re a bastard!” She leapt off the bed and began to pace. “I thought you cared about me. I thought we were friends. How could you do this to me?”

“Danielle, please calm down. I never meant to hurt you. Your anger with me stings. It hurts me when you think hateful thoughts. Our bond will help you accept this if you relax and let me in. I have been struggling to reach you since we bonded. Please come to bed so we can be whole.” He pleaded pacing behind her. He tried to lead her back to the bed.

“You can feel my feelings?” Something wasn’t right.

“I can feel rough edges of them until you get upset. Then it stabs at me. I can feel the sweet warm light of your soul, but I can’t enter yet.” He was almost pouting. The bastard was pouting like a child.

She thought about that for a minute. Shouldn’t she be able to feel him? Shouldn’t she need to be near him if what they said about bonding was true? She should be bathing in their love and devotion right now, but she wasn’t. What she wanted to do was run. She wanted to cry for her lost humanity. She wanted to rage and scream to the heavens for vengeance. The last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near Darren.

Dani fel
l to the floor and began to cry
hysterically. She’d had the world in her hands and
he’d snatched it from her. He’
d plotted to destroy her happiness in order to create the phony love he
imagined they would have. He
disregarded her hopes and dreams to please himself. It took time, but slowly her tears turned to laughter. Darren rubbed her back and tried again to coax her onto the bed. He hadn’t noticed the change in her mood.

“Don’t cry, Danielle. This will pass quickly. I promise you it will,” he consoled.

Picking herself up off the floor she looked at him with the absolute loathing she now held in her heart for him and he was taken back.

“It has passed, Darren. In fact, it was never there to begin with. She froze
him where he stood. He wouldn’
t move until she was
long
gone.

“You thought you could drown my love for Chase with a forced blood bond? You thought I would wake up and fall into your arms gratefully and give you my soul and my body?” She laughed and wiped the tears from her eyes. Darren began to realize what she was telling him. His lower lip began to tremble with the tears he was holding back. Her rejection was painful.

“Let me tell you something. Your lies and tricks were no match for my humanity. You may have stolen my human blood, but my human heart remains, and that heart belongs to Chase Deidrick. It was his when you changed me and it still belongs to him. We have a deep connection that has nothing to do with blood and everything to do with one soul that lives in two beings. There is nothing in this universe that can overcome that love. You say you can feel me? Guess what? I feel nothing but disgust for you.”

* * *

Chase was gathering everything in his apartment that reminded him of Soleil. He couldn’t think of her anymore. He couldn’t keep torturing himself with thoughts of her warming someone else’s bed and sharing another man’s life. You’d think that a heart could only break so much before there’s nothing left but his just kept crumbling with no end in sight. He had to remove
her memory from his home. He
stripped the pretty peach bedding from the guest room and the girlie towels and shower curtain he’d hung to make her feel at home. Then he pulled the bedding from his bed because he could remember exactly how her pale skin contrasted with the dark gray of his sheets.

He went to the kitchen and wanted to toss the dishes they had eaten from together. That reminded him of the dining room table he would need to replace. Every time
they sat there together, he
imagined laying her on the table and taking her body. He would need to cancel his newspaper subscription because the crossword puzzle was too painful to look at. He needed to get rid of his high-tech stereo system because she could never figure out how to work it. When she finally had given up and let him turn it on for her, the cute little wrinkles in her annoyed brow were a
lmost enough to break him. He’
d done his best to pretend he wasn’t watching the sexy sway of her hips when she danced and cleaned the house that didn’t need cleaning, because he had maid service but she had gone stir crazy. He opened the coat closet where her jacket still hung and her scent hit him like a wrecking ball.

Ah Hell! He couldn’t stay here any longer. He would need to sell the whole damn condo and everything in it. He would go to his parent’s house until he found another place of his own. He grabbed his coat and went to the elevator, wanting to leave the wonderful and painful memories along with all of his belongings behind.

The elevator door opened and he actually thought he was losing his mind. He wanted his Lovely so badly his depraved mind must have projected her there. She was on the elevator, smiling at him, with visible fangs. Her eyes were black and she was wearing a long, silky, pink nightgown and slippers. She stepped off of the elevator and continued to smile up at him. If this were insanity, he would take it. When she reached out and touched his face, he realized that she was real.

“You’re here.” He held her hand to cheek and breathed in her
delicious
scent
deeply into his lungs
.

“I’m here and I love you. I need you, Chase. I need to know if you still need me. Can you love me knowing I lied about who and what I am… what I was? Can you love me now that I have been changed? I need to know, because you are my one true mate, my sanctuary. I don’t want to live this long life I’m facing if I can’t face it with you.” Her words were so heartfelt and sincere she choked on them when they caught in her throat.