Page 5 of Make Me Bleed (Sanctuary #2)

CHAPTER 4

HONEY BEAR

T he border spell tingles against my skin as Dyea welcomes me back.

I guess my earlier worries that I would get lost in the woods and never find it again were unfounded. When all I’m thinking about is getting away , the to wasn’t as important. I ran, and as though the witch coven’s magic was drawing me home, I see the back of the sanctuary town peeking at me through the trees.

I left the bear far behind me. Part of me was terrified he’d either chase after me in his skin, or maybe shift to his bear again so that his limbs would eat up the ground between us. I swear I heard a thunderous cry split the air as I fled, like a roar of warning… or recognition. Like he knew the same thing I inexplicably suspected with my first taste of his blood.

That’s he’s my beloved—and I’m his mate .

Could it be? Never if he was a true Alaskan grizzly, but though most vampires choose to settle down with another of our kind, I’ve heard of some mixed-matings. Like Bridget the witch and her wolf shifter mate Conall, it’s possible that my fated mate could be another type of shifter.

But a predator?

A bear ?

I just… it was too much for me to deal with. The realization that, after more than thirty years of searching, I found him and his first impression of me is that I’m a blood thief? His blood made me warm—as did my first stolen glimpse of his aroused body—but I nearly vomit it all up as my nerves twist my stomach up in knots.

Will he be able to follow me? My vampire speed gave me the slight advantage, but left a scent trail straight from the bear—from that male —to the sanctuary. Clinging to the knowledge that the magic of Dyea only welcomes those who belong here, I slow my pace to a more casual stroll as I approach the town.

The echoing, ear-splitting, animalistic roar that erupts from the woods beyond the sanctuary’s borders not only seems to shake the trees, but my whole body trembles.

It’s him. I… I know it’s him. Whether or not he can breach the borders, the roar—and how close it is—makes it obvious that he can follow me.

He can, and he has .

I let out a frantic moan, mind blank as I stand there, heels frozen to the dirt. My temporary paralysis only lasts a few seconds before I glance over my shoulder, searching the trees for some sign that the male is close.

Is that him? I peer closer, not sure if that’s a flash of his tanned skin or his dark hair—or if I want it to be.

Either way, I can’t stay where I am. My instincts urge me to run, to hide, to escape the predator chasing me as if I’m his prey. Another vampire might be disgusted by the notion that any other creature would consider a fanged bloodsucker prey. Not me. After the way Peter’s relentlessly stalked me for months before I left Clarity, all I can think is that this is another male who is trying to claim something that I’m not sure I can give him.

Mate .

Swallowing the lump lodged in my throat, I start running again.

Going to my house seems like a bad idea. Do I have a reason? Not even a little. I just… I just don’t like the idea of leading this stranger to my personal territory. Besides, over the past year or so, I’ve grown used to Bridget standing between a threatening male and me. Before, I would do anything I could to dissuade her without admitting the truth that vampires exist. Now? I know how powerful she is. I know how protective her mate is.

Which is precisely why I run straight for the house the Bridget shares with Conall at the far end of the sanctuary.

Like me, Conall leaves his front door unlocked. For one reason, Bridget’s extended me the same open-door invitation that I have to her; for another, the only predatory shifter in Dyea has no concerns that one of our villagers will step foot onto his personal territory without permission unless they want his testy wolf to take it as a challenge.

Without breaking my stride—and completing disregarding anyone in the town square who might wonder why Elise is running like a lunatic—I push open the door, slam it shut behind me, and stare wide-eyed at Bridget and Conall.

I hadn’t expected my bestie and her wolf to be standing in the middle of the living room. Luckily, they’re dressed; these days, odds are just as good that I could find the newly mated couple enjoying each other in front of the fireplace that Conall built for Bridge, and that she keeps gushing about. Since they are, I beseech them.

“I’m not here,” I gasp. My hands fly up as I worry my bottom lip with my right fang, shaking my head. “I need to hide.” Hiding is good. Between Conall’s alpha musk, Bridget’s innate fire, and the scent of their sex overlaying the entire house, maybe he won’t be able to scent me… “Bridget where can I hide?” I glance around, eyes widening when I spy the open entrance in front of me. “I know! Kitchen.”

Before they can say anything in response, I dash across the room. Pausing in the doorway, I turn to look over my shoulder at the visibly puzzled Bridget and the resigned Conall. “I’m not here,” I repeat, then duck further into the kitchen.

There’s an exit off the back. If I need an escape, this is perfect. And if I overreacted and the bear didn’t follow me—if Dyea refused to let him inside the settlement—then I can sit at the table, maybe bang my head against the wood, and try to make sense of just how much my life has changed since I saw Bridget last.

Over the thrumming of my pulse, I can hear Conall murmur something to his mate, though I can’t make out the exact words. Considering we only get on for Bridge’s sake, I can only imagine, but whatever it is, he replaces those murmurs with a growl that sends shivers skittering up my spine.

“Conall?”

He growls again, words this time, and loud enough that I can’t miss it even from my hiding place in the kitchen.

“ Predator .”

Crap. No.

Closing my eyes, I reach out with my senses. They shouldn’t normally work since this is their home, not mine, and I don’t have an instinctive need to protect this space as my lair, but I swallow another gasp as something deep inside of me senses a pull, then a tug as my beloved… he answers my call.

A blood-bond can be formed long before a mate bond. It only takes one half of an exchange, but the male—or female—I’m drinking from needs to choose to allow it to for. They have to choose me as someone they wouldn’t mind being bonded to. It’s a weak tie existing through blood, and it only lingers as long as their blood is in my veins. It makes it so that I can find them if necessary, usually because a vampire is in need of their donor again.

I never would’ve expected the bear to wordlessly create a blood-bond when I bit him. But if he is my mate… I’m not surprised if he did. This sliver of a thread I feel spooling deep in my gut? It’s attached to someone, and as Bridget’s voice grows hard, asking Conall ‘what’ and ‘where’, I can’t deny that it must be the male from the woods.

What do I do? Run? Let Conall and Bridget distract him while I?—

What? Hide? He seems to have tracked me here. If the bear can feel the blood-bond at all, he can find me. Plus, he’s a predator. A hunter.

And that’s not all.

Of all supes, shifters are the most obsessive when it comes to claiming their mates. Whether I was born to be his or this is just some fluke brought on by my thirst, if he thinks I’m his mate, there will be no escape until I accept him, reject him, or figure out why just the thought I might have the chance to taste him again has my fangs elongated again as my mouth waters…

Bridget must not like Conall’s explanation that another predator is approaching—though I’m slightly stunned when he tells her he’s thinking it’s a bear… and he’s right —because over the other potent scents in their den, I now smell fire .

“Whoever it is, I’ll get rid of them. A little singed fur will get this bear to understand he doesn’t want to mess with us.” Her footsteps head away from me as she commands Conall, “Watch my back.”

“I always will,” he rumbles back, adoration in the wolf’s gruff voice, though he’d probably snap his fangs at me if I pointed it out.

I can’t say that. I can’t say anything. My hands are worrying the skirt of my dress as I rock back on the points of my dirt- covered heels. I want to stop them. I want to warn them about the bear, about who he could be, and why I can feel him growing closer and closer to the front of the house. Only… I don’t. I don’t even race for the back door, or duck deeper in the kitchen so that on one knows I’m here.

Instead, I edge closer to the door, peeking out as Bridget dampens the fireball hovering over her right hand so that she can fling open the front door. An instant later, she conjures it again, both hands covered in flames as she glares protectively up at the male looming in the doorway.

Earlier, I was stunned stupid by his naked body. I got a quick look at the rest of him, but the size of his cock is definitely branded in my memory. The rest is just vague descriptors. Size? Huge. Hair? Dark. Body? Delectable.

His eyes, though… I remember his eyes. They’re just as lovely as before; even more, in fact, since he’s wide awake instead of half asleep.

He’s also partly covered up.

I understand how I managed to keep my lead on him. Sometime after I bolted, he must’ve stopped and grabbed a pair of blue denim jeans. He doesn’t have a shirt, leaving his sculpted muscles—and surprisingly bare chest—on display. No shoes, either, and the size of his feet make it obvious I didn’t imagine how well-endowed he is. The jeans fit snugly, the button the only bit of decency on this male, and I try to ignore the sense of relief running through me that he isn’t flashing Bridget.

His face is gorgeous. Seriously. Maybe I’m biased because he might… might be my beloved, but the sharp planes of his cheekbones highlight his lush lips. His shaggy hair falls debonairly forward, slightly tousled and begging for me to run my fingers through it to see if it was soft as it felt brushing against my cheek before.

And his neck…

I bit him. I can’t deny that. The proof of it is on his neck—but the fact that it’s still on his neck is a problem.

Shifters heal nearly as quickly as vampires do. Our regenerative properties are amazing, and I would’ve expected my fang marks to be long healed by now.

Unless he kept them.

Shifters mark their mates. It’s part of their mating ritual. They bite their mates so everyone knows their taken, and before the bond is finalized, their mate must mark them in return. Even Bridget marked Conall in her way. She admitted that there’s a burn scar on Conall’s ass from the whole ‘lighting his tail on fire’ incident that he prizes as her mark on him.

This bear? He kept my bite .

I shudder, not sure if I’m terrified of what that could mean—or even more turned on by the prospect of it…

Conall surges forward, joining Bridget. His nostrils flare as he takes an obvious sniff before growling. “This is my territory, bear. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The answering tug in my gut yanks , and I stumble forward, fingers wrapped around the door jamb before I land flat on my face in the living room. Catching myself, I nearly choke on my tongue as I fly backward, head cradled against the wall so that I’m hidden again.

“What am I doing?” rumbles the male, and his voice is as deliciously deep and sinful as it was when he said the word ‘mate’. And then, as if I almost dared him to call me that again by remembering that charged moment in the woods, he says, “I’m here for my mate.”

There’s a moment where everything is quiet. Calm. His chest is heaving, fingers flexing at his side as though he’s prepared to go through Conall and Bridget to get to me. Conall braces his feet against the hardwood floor. And Bridget…

Her fire blossoms, growing in size, and I just know she’s about to toss one at the bear.

I yip. I don’t mean to do it, it definitely wasn’t on purpose, but the thought that my best friend could incinerate my beloved before I can fully process that he could be my beloved?

My instincts are screaming at me, telling me that I can’t let him get hurt. So I yip, and I poke my head out of the kitchen while saying quickly, “Bridget, no! Please, don’t hurt him!”

His pretty eyes land right on me. He makes a noise in the back of his throat. My blood— his blood—heats up, and as he takes a pointed step in my direction, I find myself easing back inside the living room as though the blood-bond was pulling me to him.

Conall throws up his hand, moving his body so that he’s between the bear and me and Bridge. “You. Bear. Stay where you are.”

I’m still gazing up at his eyes so I see it when the honey color of his irises seem to darken to a burnt orange shade. “Are you trying to keep me from my mate?”

Conall doesn’t move. “You claiming Elise as your mate doesn’t make her so. You know how it works. Instinct or not, a mate has to choose.”

He must because he doesn’t simply knock Conall aside to get to me. And based on his side and the sheer power in those coiled muscles of his? He totally could’ve…

“Lise?” he echoes, cutting off the first syllable of my name with a deep rumble that goes straight to my pussy. Fear’s never been an aphrodisiac to me, but the way his eyes heat up as he looks at me? If nothing else, I’m definitely attracted to him. “Is that your name?”

My breath catches in my throat. It hits me that he’s waiting for me to answer him.

Why is it so hard to remember my name?

I exhale. I’ve only ever been this intimidated before, and it was the first time I was called in front of Thorn Wilkins. I knew, looking at the leader of the Cadre, that he was the male who had the power to destroy my life.

This shifter, should he choose to, could do the same…

“Yes,” I finally say. “My name is Elise van Duren.”

I don’t tell him that I’m a vampire. That’s pointless. Besides the fact that my scent and cooler body temp would make it obvious to another supe, he opened his eyes to find me sucking on his neck.

Plus, you know, there’s those tell-tale fang marks on his neck…

Fang marks.

They’re mate marks.

And if I had any doubt that his bear considers me his mate enough to keep my bite instead of heal it, that all changes in the next moment as he shudders out a breath, hard face melting into an amazed expression as he settles back on his bare feet, hands shoving deep into the pockets of his low-slung jeans as he barks out a gentle laugh next.

“Well, bless this ol’ bear. I finally found her. Lise… you’re my Lise. My mate.”

I decide then and there that, whatever we are and whatever happens next, I’ll let him shorten my name if only in gratitude for the few mouthfuls of blood he allowed me while slumbering that seems to have completely knocked aside the last of my painful thirst.

And if that is another clue that he’s my beloved since vampire lore states that all it takes is a single drop of your true mate’s blood to satisfy you… I conveniently look past that as I hang back, still too hesitant to approach the massive male though every nerve in my body begs me to.

This is… this is more than I could hope for. He’s giving me a crooked grin, like he’s not only happy to find that his fated mate is a vampire who bit him, then ran, but he’s pleased by it. I’ve never heard of a shifter who didn’t struggle with their mate being other if only because the mating rules seem to differ. And, more often than not, the shifter is ready to mate instantly—their body and beast recognizing their mate, and their instincts telling them there’s no resign to hesitate claiming them—while a vampire mate or a human needs to more time to understand the enormity of what a mate bond with a shifter will mean.

Look at Conall. At first, he thought Bridget was a human, and he was sure she’d never want him. Then, after she lit his tail on fire, he discovered she was a witch… and he was still sure she would never want him as her mate. Mainly because, as a witch, she didn’t have a fated mate of her own, though she’s glad to be one.

Vampires can either create their beloved mate, or wait until Fate puts them in our path. I’ve always decided I would wait to find mine. It wouldn’t matter to me what they were—vamp, shifters, human, or some other type of supe—so if this male is mine, I would be happy to claim him.

But… but what if he isn’t?

There. My secret suspicion and the reason that I’m not flinging myself in his arms, letting him embrace me, relieved that I’ve finally forged a blood-bond with my beloved after all these years.

Is it the thrall? A vampire isn’t supposed to be able to charm their mate with their looks, their charm, and the magic inherent to our kind… but maybe I liked the taste of his blood so much I convinced myself he had to be my beloved—and then I convinced him I was his mate.

Until I can know for sure, I have to stay away.

I take a few steps back, heading toward the kitchen, when Bridget finally speaks up.

“Elise? What is going on? You know this guy?”

Before I can answer, the big bear clears his throat. He also, I notice, stays where he is as though he figured out that using his clear dominance against me isn’t going to help him claim his mate any sooner.

“Your wolf is right, ma’am,” he says, laying on the charm pretty thick as if also realizing that, if he wants a chance with me, he needs to be on good terms with the red-headed witch in the room. “I’m not quite a guy. I’m a bear shifter. Alaskan grizzly, in fact, by way of the Georgia black bears on my mother’s side. Name’s Henry Barrett. Folks who bother call me Hank.” His gaze flickers back to me as his slight Southern drawl washes over me. “If ya like, Lise, you can call me ‘honey bear’.”