Page 14 of Taming His Vampire Mate

I should have felt relief. Or the instinct to chase him down and make him admit he belonged to me. He was my mate. My true mate. I didn’t like it, but my feelings didn’t change a damn thing.

Instead, I felt almost amused. And unworried he’d left. A bone-deep part of me knew we’d meet again. If it was destined, it would be.

Though I might still try to fight it.

“You know what?” I said aloud, to no one but the trees overhead. “I don’t doubt it. You probablyareextra special.”

Then I shifted into wolf form.

In sharp contrast to my human self, every part of my wolf clamored to chase him. I forced myself to run the other way. The sun was almost up.

But even as I ran, I couldn’t shake what he’d murmured before waking:Not him. Don’t.

The thought clung to me, ephemeral and inescapable like a ghost as I ran for miles, deeper into the forest. Because if he truly couldn’t care for anyone but himself, why would something bad happening to another person bother him at all?

CHAPTER FIVE || THIERRY

It wasn’t like the other dreams I’d been having lately. For one thing, there was blood on the sidewalk. Not nearly as much as a horror movie might show, but enough to know whoever had lost it hadn’t survived.

I stood staring at the large bloodstain for a long time, almost as though in a trance. It had dried to a deep, dark rust where it soaked into the concrete. It had been here for days. But there was no body. No source.

Then, from the corner of my eye, a flicker of movement at the far end of the street. But when I looked, moving oddly slow, as though the air itself was too thick, everything was still. I was alone.

I frowned.

The sun beat down on me, but I didn’t feel it. I was standing on some kind of historic Main Street in a town that must have been prosperous when first built. The wooden buildings on either side of the deserted street were two stories tall and pressed tightly together, with only narrow alleys between them. Quaint, in that contrived way meant to make people long for a “simpler time” that never really existed.

Shops were advertised above the awnings on matching carved wooden signs painted gold: a bookstore, a café, an old-timey pharmacy supposedly in business since 1941, if the gilt lettering on the window was true. A handful of boutiques lookedexpensive enough to bankrupt the entire vampire population of Seattle.

Strangely, cars lined both sides of the street, but not a soul was around. All the stores appeared closed, despite it seeming to be midday.

I stepped away from the bloodstain and peered through the pharmacy window. A sign hastily scrawled in Sharpie on printer paper was taped to the glass:The Rookwood Pharmacy is closed until further notice. We apologize for the inconvenience.

My brows knit. Odd. No reason given. No date to reopen. Doubly strange, considering the town must have relied on this place for medicine.

Inside, shelves had been overturned, pills and bottles scattered across the floor. Another puddle of blood near the registers had already soaked into the hardwood floor. It must have been spilled days ago. Again, no body.

If I focused, I realized the very air—even outside—smelled faintly metallic. As if the whole town had been bathed in blood.

Further along, more shops bore taped signs. Some were locked, lights off, no explanation at all, as though the shopkeepers had left in a hurry.

But the cars were still here. Far too many for that.

Something bad had happened in Rookwood.

Time passed, and I suddenly became aware of him.

Abruptly, he was walking beside me, as though he’d been there all along. I hadn’t heard him approach. He’d simply… materialized. I couldn’t feel the oppressive heat of the sun, but I could feel his warmth, and his scent—just as it had been that first night in the forest clearing a month ago—curled around me. Church incense and freshly cut grass.

Home.

I shoved down the longing his scent stirred and ignored him, peeking into more shop windows. Overturned shelves. Scattered goods. Another bloodstain, near the back of one of the shops.

He followed silently, close behind.

After several minutes, I grew annoyed. I wasn’t sure if it was his presence or his silence that frustrated me more.

Finally, I broke down and glared at him.