Page 9 of Taming His Vampire Mate

My older sister, Lindsey, had been waiting for me, already in wolf form. The pack was gathered and watching in silence. Ian and Reed were both at my back, still more boys than men, just like me—gangly limbs and anxious, worried I couldn’t do it.

But then I did.

I’d wanted to weep. If I’d been in human form, I would have, right there in front of my pack. That feeling of coming home to myself, of total belonging, was so absolute that not even teenage pride could have held it in. A wordless beauty that drew its power from its simplicity and completeness. This scent brought all of that back.

Now, acting on instinct, I shifted again, stepping out of the wolf and rising as a man. I straightened, feeling the caress of the cool wind on my suddenly too-hot skin. Wonders were waiting in the clearing.

The promise of… something.

Something so much like that moment of true belonging, when I shifted for the first time. I knew it. And all I had to do wastake a single step forward, and it would be mine for the taking, whatever it turned out to be.

I sucked in a deep breath.

The scent was becoming stronger, drawing nearer. And for the first time in a year, I felt a flicker of hope slice through me. Then I stepped out of the trees and into the clearing.

CHAPTER THREE || THIERRY

Far too keyed up to sleep and unable to stomach the idea of going back into the house and playing nice with everyone under that damned roof, I ran instead. Not for any particular purpose, but simply for the pleasure of moving my body. I let myself go so fast the trees around me seemed to blend and warp into an endless wall of blackness.

Seeing my brother’s face again had shaken me.

He had been innocent, but that hadn’t saved him from becoming a monster all those years ago. Before he became a vampire, he had been one of the kindest and most good-hearted people I’d ever met. Until Magnus forced him to make his first kill. After that, he lost everything that had made him a person. The only thing left was his bloodlust. It was worse than if he had died, because something that believed it was still him had been born that night—a vicious mockery of the man he’d been.

Magnus did it to punish me. To break me. And even after I escaped, the only kindness I’d ever been able to give my brother was to end his life.

He was dead. He had to be dead. The visions Poppy’s spell had induced couldn’t possibly have been real.

I sprinted through the trees like I might outrun my ghosts if I was just fast enough, until I realized there was a wordless pull urging me onward, deeper into the forest.

Already, I was far off anything that resembled a beaten path and much farther than I’d intended to travel. Plants snatched at my clothing now and again, but it hardly slowed me. Mentally, I wanted to stop, but the compulsion that had seized me wouldn’t allow it.

After miles southward through the Cascade Mountain Range, the urging sensation in my chest stopped.

And then I slowed to a walk.

The timing was strange because an instant after I stopped running, I stepped into a large circular clearing. The ground was flat, with only tall grass growing in patches. It glowed silver, courtesy of the full moon hanging directly overhead.

The moment felt hushed, as if reality had sucked in a sharp breath and was waiting, poised at the precipice of something miraculous.

I stopped in the center of the clearing.

Ahead, movement through the trees—a pale shape coming closer.

And then a naked man stepped into view.

Apart from his nudity, the first thing I noticed was his piercing blue eyes as he paused and locked gazes with me. His lips, almost too soft for a man, parted in wonder. His ruggedly handsome face was clean-shaven, but his sandy blond hair was shaggy, hanging almost to his shoulders, like it had been far too long since he’d cut it. He was taller and broader than me, packed with thick muscle. He wasn’t all lean and chiseled perfection, the way some men are nowadays with their protein shakes, endless hours in the gym, and single-digit body fat. Instead, this man had clearly worked for every one of those muscles. If he’d been wearing a cowboy hat and boots, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

He seemed rough somehow. Halfway to feral. But also oddly… familiar.

Something fluttered in my chest again. A wordless knowing. This man belonged to me.

And I belonged to him, too.

It wasn’t like a lightning bolt. It was as though the ground beneath me rearranged itself in a completely irrevocable way—impossible to deny or stop. The shift within me was silent, but tectonic and total.

I’ve never been one to lie to myself—except when I do—and I couldn’t deny the truth I instinctively understood.

Whoever he was, this man was my mate.