Page 85

“What if I’d bitten you? Would I have accidentally bound us together for life?”

“Would you have accidentally bitten me?”

She gave it a moment of consideration, then shook her head. “We can’t bite by accident. It’s always a choice.”

“Right. But if you had decided to bite me, then I’d need to bite back. The second bite seals what the first bite begins.”

“Oh my gosh,” she whispered, suddenly statue-still, her mouth twisted in a grimace of horror. “That means if a vampire wanted to force himself… If he bit me…”

“No, no, no. It doesn’t work like that.”

“The second person has to bite back and seal it.” Her fingers dug into his forearm with such strength she might bruise him. “Oh, Ryker, that’s horrible.”

“No. Hey. Take a breath, Leslie. A literal physical breath.”

She did, and it rasped in her throat. She breathed again, and this one was deeper, silent.

“Good. Okay, now listen. The bite doesn’t override your will. We can’t do that to each other. Shoot, we can’t even do that to humans; the worst we can do is knock them out with our gaze. You know all this, right?”

She nodded, still shaky but focused.

“If a vampire off the street walked up and bit you, what would you do?”

Her face crinkled up, then smoothed out in sudden knowledge. “I’d tear him to pieces with my bare hands.”

“Exactly. The bite between lovers is different. The bloodbound covenant is always, always mutual. I promise, Leslie.”

“Okay.” Slowly the frozen statue began to melt. She caved into him, and he held her in his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder and sank her fingers into his hair, and he hummed with pleasure at her touch. “Okay. I’m okay now.”

“Can I ask you a question?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You reacted as if…as if you might have been…”

“Oh. Not me. But, Ryker, my friends at home are humans. Of course I know women who’ve been hurt like that. Every woman knows women who have. It’s different for vampire women, because we can crush a human guy who tries it. And if a vampire guy tries it, it’s more or less a fight between equals. But forhuman women… Anyway, that’s what I was seeing in my head. The ones I know who couldn’t fight back, the ones who tried to fight back and lost.”

“And you thought the bite might put you at the same sort of risk.”

“Yeah.”

No wonder she had been so scared. He looked away as his eyes must be throwing sparks right now.

“I’m glad it makes you angry,” she said.

“It does. I hate it, Leslie.”

“That’s good. Keep hating it, and keep your eyes open for ways to stand against it. Like the night you met Tai.”

His laugh was a little too harsh. “That turned out not to be helpful.”

“You went into action, Ryker. Tons of men wouldn’t have. Even when you don’t know the outcome, as a man you can always choose to act when other guys are predatory, and that’s what you did, and I’m proud of you for it.”

His actions shouldn’t be outstanding. They should be simple decency. He rested his head on the back of the couch and resettled his arms around her. They stayed that way until his parents arrived for dinner.

Time with Dad and Mama was enjoyable as always. Every time she met them, Leslie seemed more at home in their presence. He’d be glad for this in any case, but the strain of the questions she couldn’t ask her own parents made her ease with his feel even more important. The conversation meandered over Asian fusion delivery cuisine—Dad’s favorite, Mama’s second after Indian.

“Y’all have plans tonight?” Dad said halfway through the meal.