Page 41 of A Hunt Bound in Blood
He raised an eyebrow, and I flashed him a smile that soon petered out.
“Three people in the world know what I am,” I emphasized, pointedly leaving out the potential file with my name on it hidden somewhere in Matthew Segrew’s office. “You are now one of the few who have the power to destroy me if you wanted to.”
“I don’t.”
My breath caught in my throat, that aggravating attraction wheedling its way deeper into my blood.
His eyes were crimson once more, but swirls of black danced around the edges. “It turns out this mission is far more interesting with you beside me. Makes me wonder what other trouble we might get into.”
My cheeks flushed, and I didn’t know how to reply. If he had said any of this before the bite, I would have disregarded the comment as an attempt to get a meal out of me, but now I felt as though I walked on eggshells—a single sentence away from manipulating him into acting contrary to his true wishes. So I swallowed any potential answer and directed my attention to the ground, watching for other rocks or holes that might attempt to trip me.
“What would happen?” he asked after the silence had stretched on for a while.
I frowned and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“If you were to bite me again.”
My mouth fell open, but I caught myself before I transformed into a fish. “The first bite initiates the bond. The second completes it.”
“And what does a completed bond entail?”
I assessed his tone, peeling back every syllable for a trace of twisted, bond-driven interest, but found only curiosity. The thread of anger I’d detected between us earlier was still there, but it hadn’t grown. This was the question of an explorer unveiling some new site.
“A complete bond is permanent. Most vampires don’t take things that far unless they’re mating because the connection digs deeper into both parties. The desire to protect, the awareness of the other’s emotions. It’s a vow of forever. Beautiful when it’s consensual. Terrifying otherwise.”
Cammon shuddered. “You’re not kidding. Sounds the same as the demon mating ritual, except for us, one bite does the trick. Though with our bond, it’s more than an emotional connection or compulsion to protect. Shared lives. Shared power.” He nudged my shoulder. “Guess that means we’re a third of the way to being stuck together forever.”
My laugh stuck halfway through my airway and came out more as a cough.
Another stretch of silence ensued. My spine began to curve under the weight of my pack, and my eyelids grew heavy. Cammon’s blood had worked wonders to heal me and the rush of the fight had kept me going this long, but as nighttime waned, my injuries reminded me they still existed. We had a long way to go, but all I could think about was closing my eyes and lying down. Just for a few hours.
Once again, Cammon was the one to break the quiet. “You speak of the bond with a note of reverence. You’ve witnessed a success story?”
This time, my smile came easily, without the smallest hint of embarrassment. I didn’t know why he was asking—to learn more about me or to provide himself with more fuel to betray me—but I answered before I could think better of it. “My parents. My mum is a mage, my father is—was—a vampire. Their love for each other was purer than any relationship I’ve seen since. They made me think it was possible that one day…” I shrugged. “It didn’t take me long to accept how unlikely that was, or to realize how important it would be for me to solidify my place in society.”
I flinched as I heard myself. So whiny and downtrodden. Everything I strove not to be. My nature wasn’t something I could control. It was who I was, and if anyone had an issue with it, that was on them, not me. It was nothing to be ashamed of or depressed over.
But no matter how many times I told myself that was the case, as I’d done millions of times over the years, my loneliness bore down on me. I pressed my lips together and turned my face away, hoping Cammon wouldn’t notice.
“What changed your mind?” There was no pity in his question or in the emotions I now sensed from him—I might have died for good this time if there had been—but his voice was softer, as though he knew it might be a painful subject.
“My father…” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Just like me, he had to hide what he was. More challenging for him because he couldn’t go out in full sunlight and didn’t usually need to eat. He was a journalist, which gave him the freedom to work strange hours, and he travelled quite a bit. For the first few years of my life, his greatest priority was teaching me how to control my urges and tamp down my instincts. Not the easiest lessons for a toddler. But he and mum were patient, and Dad had years of experience. But then one day…”
The lump that formed in my throat nearly choked me. How long had it been since I’d talked about my father? I thought of him almost every day, but with the exception of my mother, most of the world had probably forgotten he’d existed, he’d been that good at going unnoticed.
“He died.” There. Once the words were out, the rest of it came a bit easier. “He was murdered, actually. He left to follow a story, and— well, we don’t really know what happened, but he never came home. Because of the bond, Mum knew—she knew when his life gave out, and it broke something inside her. She was still my mother, she was still loving and caring and did everything she could to make sure I could take care of myself, but a light in her eyes died when he did. I was nine years old. Just old enough to appreciate that for all the beauty that exists in the bond, there’s endless pain as well.” I forced a laugh. “It was enough to make me think that sort of connection wasn’t for me. Not when my future was so uncertain.”
“It never should have been like that,” Cammon said. “It shouldn’t be like that now. Not what happened to your father or that the policies of an indifferent ruler make you believe you don’t deserve to have something like what they shared. I’m sorry.”
The depth of his sincerity and his anger on my behalf were novel and intoxicating. Other than Ashara, who had ever spoken up for me before? Again I reminded myself that none of what ran through the bond was real, but oh, how I wished it were.
Pushing down my disappointment but allowing myself to feel grateful for his consideration, I offered him a weak smile. “Who would I share it with? No one knows the truth about what I am, remember? It’s not like I could get into a relationship and keep something like that a secret forever. I failed to hide it from you, and it’s only been a week. No, solitude is my best guarantee of safety, and that’s what I’ll get when I return to King Evaniel with this amulet.”
My foot slipped into another dip in the road, and again Cammon caught me, his strong arm tight around my waist. As I leaned my weight on him, exhaustion swept over me. “Do you think we’ve crossed the territory line yet?”
He chuckled. “And then some by now, I’d say. Think you can go a little farther?”
I groaned, and then gasped as he tugged my bags off my back and slung them over his shoulders.