Page 38

Danny

D anny was in pain.

Roman’s absence was an ever-present ache in his chest, which was ridiculous—his vampire had barely been gone a day. But nonetheless, there it was. Pain.

Danny couldn’t help but fear that their goodbyes over the phone were the last they’d say to each other.

From across the kitchen counter, Soren rolled his pale eyes at him.

“What?” Danny snapped. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“No,” Soren drawled. “You’ve just sighed approximately five hundred times in the past ten minutes.”

A blatant exaggeration.

Soren rolled his eyes again. Danny hoped they got stuck that way if the blond vampire kept it up. “He’ll be fine, human.”

Danny fiddled with his now empty coffee cup. He’d for some reason decided caffeine was the solution to missing Roman, but so far it had just added an elevated heart rate to his sad-sack symptoms. “You don’t think Luc will hurt him?”

Soren made a noncommittal noise. “Hurt him, maybe. Kill him though? Probably not.”

“ Probably not?” Would Roman forgive him if Danny stabbed his annoying friend with a spoon?

Soren grinned that maniacal grin, but his eyes weren’t unkind. “I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought he’d get himself killed, human. There are very few people I actually like in this world. He’s one of them.”

“But what if…even then…” Danny forced himself to voice his fears out loud. “What if he decides to just keep moving? That’s it not safe enough…or worth it…to come back.”

Soren shook his head at Danny, exasperation in his voice. “He’s not going to stay away from you forever. He can’t .”

“How do you know that though?”

“Because I believe you’re mates. Real fated mates.

” Soren’s grin dropped, and he looked at Danny seriously.

“I’ve been around a long time, little human.

And I wasn’t always as isolated from the vampire world as I am now.

I’ve seen mated pairs. I’ve talked to a few.

And they all described a…pull to that other person.

One that’s stronger than anything they’ve felt, one that might not even make sense. I see that pull between you and Roman.”

Danny didn’t think he was imagining the wistful look in Soren’s eyes. “And you’ve never felt that pull yourself?”

“You don’t see me with a mate, do you?” Soren asked harshly.

“Sorry.” Danny should really stop prying into other people’s love lives.

“It’s fine.” Soren waved a hand at him, his mood turning in an instant, as it often did. “Go pick up your boring brother.”

Danny huffed. “Will you stop calling him that? Just because he didn’t entertain his stalker doesn’t make him boring.”

“No, his being boring makes him boring.”

Danny wasn’t so sure. He’d heard Soren talking to Roman earlier. He was pretty sure “boring” was Soren’s code for “straight.” Danny could have told Soren that his brother was bi and that Danny knew he’d been with men in the past.

But that wasn’t Danny’s truth to tell.

He kept his mouth shut about his brother. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t have any blood orgies while I’m gone.”

“What’s a blood orgy?” Soren sounded disturbingly intrigued.

“I don’t know, it just sounds like something you’d do.”

Soren’s grin flashed again, more unhinged than ever. “It does, doesn’t it?”

See? Disturbing.

Danny ignored an incoming call from an unknown number on the way to his car. Always with the spam phone calls.

He was feeling relieved and a little more hopeful as he drove to the hospital to pick up Gabe. Danny knew there were risks. He knew Roman wasn’t out of danger, but there was a certain relief in hearing Soren validate what Danny felt on the inside—that he and Roman were connected. They were mates .

Danny was feeling that relief right up until the moment his car was run off the road.

Danny blinked slowly, warm wetness running into his eyes. He wasn’t sure if he’d actually lost consciousness or was just stunned.

Everything hurt.

He closed his eyes and tried to take mental stock of his injuries.

His left shoulder and chest were agony—probably from where the seat belt had held him in when the car crashed.

And he must have some sort of head injury, because that definitely wasn’t rain dripping down off his forehead.

He wasn’t crushed into smithereens, though, so that was a plus.

The other car must have hit the back end of his?

Danny hadn’t even seen it coming. There hadn’t been any cars around at all when he was passing through the intersection. The other driver must have been going at practically highway speeds.

An itchy panic was building under Danny’s skin.

He started to reach over to pull at the handle of his door with his right hand, but his healthcare training kicked in.

He shouldn’t be twisting or moving his neck at all.

What if he had a spinal cord injury? Danny needed to keep still and wait for the paramedics.

Wait, had anyone even called the paramedics? Fuck, was the other car okay?

Danny was considering reaching blindly into his back pocket for his phone to call 911 when he heard the screeching sound of tearing metal. His door was being torn open.

No, not open. Off . Torn completely off its hinges.

Danny resisted the urge to turn his head to look at whoever was currently opening his car like a tin can. He was not going to paralyze himself out of curiosity. “Roman?” he asked hopefully.

He heard a murmured “how sweet” in response, but the ringing Danny was just now noticing in his ears made it hard to distinguish the voice. It wasn’t Roman though. Danny would know his voice, even through the ringing.

“Soren?” he asked. Please be Soren .

“I’m afraid not.” Strong hands ripped Danny’s seat belt into pieces and grabbed him by the shoulders. Danny whimpered and shut his eyes tight as white heat ran through his left shoulder at the rough touch.

A feeling of dread came over him, followed immediately by grief and terror. Danny knew that voice now. And if Luc was here, what had happened to Roman?

“Tell—tell me. Is…alive?” Danny tried to get the words out clearly, but his mouth was having trouble following instructions. He managed a sort of slurred whisper. Hopefully it was good enough.

He must have made some sort of sense, because the rough hands paused in pulling him out of the car. Danny didn’t exactly see because he was refusing to open his eyes at the moment. If he couldn’t see what was happening, it wasn’t happening. Right?

“Ohh, little human. You’re covered in blood.

You smell delicious, by the way. Probably have some internal hemorrhaging as well.

Definitely a fractured clavicle here on the left.

Overall, you must be in excruciating pain, and you’re asking after the welfare of your beloved?

” There was taunting in Luc’s voice, but also…

envy? Danny’s stomach churned as he was lifted abruptly into strong arms. “You should worry about yourself now, Daniel.”

Danny was definitely worrying about himself, but he didn’t feel like telling Luc that. The fact was if Luc was here and Roman was…gone…then it was more than likely Danny was going to die very, very soon.

He found himself swimming in and out of consciousness as he was carried away. They seemed to be walking some distance, at least as far as Danny could tell with his eyes closed and his brain only aware half the time.

A memory surfaced. Some stranger-danger presentation in junior high, where a police officer had warned Danny’s class their chances of surviving a kidnapping dropped exponentially if they were ever brought to a secondary location by the kidnapper.

Did those statistics hold true for vampire kidnappings?

Danny almost giggled at the thought, which considering his most likely imminent death, did not bode well for his mental state. Maybe he had a concussion. Or a brain bleed.

When he surfaced again, Danny was being placed with more gentleness than he would have expected onto a hard, cold floor. He opened his eyes fully for the first time since his car door had been ripped off. Gray concrete. Lots of exposed beams. Danny was in some kind of…abandoned warehouse?

How cliché.

Danny heard the rustling of clothing as Luc settled in beside him, and he decided to finally stop being a baby and face the vampire. He even turned his head to look because, hey, spinal precautions probably weren’t important at this point anymore, right?

Luc was looking completely untouched by the accident, the asshole.

Barely a hair out of place. Maybe he hadn’t even been in the car.

Maybe he’d just, like, tossed an SUV at Danny.

How strong exactly were vampires? It felt like something Danny needed to know right about now.

Why hadn’t he asked Roman more specifics?

Luc smirked down at him. “How are you feeling?”

“I hurt.” Danny’s voice might have sounded a little petulant, but it was warranted as far as he was concerned.

“Yes, well, sorry about that. I thought maybe the crash would kill you, but I suppose vehicular homicide isn’t my specialty.”

“Why do you want to kill me anyway?” Danny was relieved that he seemed to be capable of normal speech again. Maybe he didn’t have a brain bleed after all. “Does Roman finding love really make you that angry?”

Luc’s smirk dropped, and he stared at Danny for a long moment.

The vampire didn’t look angry exactly. More…

contemplative. “I thought that was it, at first. When I realized what he thought he’d found with you.

I’ll admit there’s a part of me that goes a little crazy at the thought of Roman finding eternal happiness after sabotaging mine. ”

“He didn’t sabotage—”

Luc shushed Danny. “Don’t start. I don’t want to talk about Victoria. And I don’t think you want to piss me off right now, hm?”

Right. Because there was a difference between a quick, relatively painless death and a slow, very painful death. Call him crazy, but Danny had never been much into the idea of being tortured.

Luc nodded approvingly at his silence. “Tell me about how he made you feel. Your mate,” he demanded.

Made . Past tense. Danny couldn’t let himself dwell on that, couldn’t let himself think that maybe Roman hadn’t made it. If Danny was leaving this world, he wanted to leave believing Roman was still in it.

“Why would I tell you?” There it was, petulance again.

“Because I want to know.”

Danny considered refusing to answer out of spite. But maybe if Danny stalled, Soren would still be able to find them. Assuming Soren was even okay. “He makes me feel…safe.”

There was a pause. Luc seemed to be waiting for Danny to say more. Then, “That’s it? That’s your description of your fated mate ? Safety? That’s just a glorified bodyguard.”

Danny snorted, which ended up being kind of gross because it felt like maybe some blood bubbled out of his nose when he did it. Ew. “You’re so centered on violence you don’t even know what I mean.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Before I met him, I was so…lonely. And tired. And afraid. Afraid of living my life. Of letting anyone in. When I met him, he was clearly dangerous. But even so, I felt…safe. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

” Danny narrowed his eyes at Luc. “Beyond the physical. I knew he’d hold on to my heart.

That he’d protect it. Even when my mind was trying to scare me with my own insecurities, it was like my soul knew it. Knows it.”

Danny was panting for breath by the end of his explanation. Speechifying was exhausting when your body was broken, turned out. Now would probably be a good time to go to the hospital.

Except, right, he’d been kidnapped by a psychotic vampire with a thirst for vengeance. No hospital for Danny.

“Victoria never felt safe with me,” Luc mused. “No matter how wild, how joyful she seemed. There was always an undercurrent of fear. I could smell it. Taste it. Always.”

I don’t fucking blame her , was the thought Danny sagely decided not to voice out loud.

“You really don’t fear him?” Luc asked.

“Never.”

Luc hummed. “He’s not dead, you know. He’s on his way to you now. Your knight in fucking shining armor.”

The relief was so overwhelming that Danny found it hard to breathe. Or maybe he just had a punctured lung. Luc was watching his reaction with interest.

“So what’s the plan?” Danny asked between gasps. “You’re going to kill me before he can get here? Force him to live with the same rage and guilt you’ve been living with?”

Luc shrugged a shoulder. “Possibly. I wanted to see. Special fated mates, he should get here in time, right?”

That didn’t really add up to Danny. “If you want to take free will out of the equation entirely, I guess?”

Luc ignored him after that.

Danny waited for what felt like forever for the attack, but it didn’t come. Luc never made a move.

Danny had a realization. “You want him to get here in time, don’t you?”

Luc smiled down at him, but it didn’t reach his black eyes. “Why would I want that? You think I care about your pitiful life that much?”

“Not me. You want to know if fated mates are real. You want them to be real. Victoria’s death rocked your faith in them, and you’ve been living a life of misery and loneliness ever since.”

“Watch yourself,” Luc chided mildly.

“Am I wrong?” Danny was on a roll now. “You want to know if your person could still be out there. I get it. But if you kill me before Roman gets here, he’ll kill you, and you’ll never find out for sure.”

“If I kill you, and it turns out they’re not real, I’ll be glad to let him.” Luc said the words so quietly Danny almost didn’t catch them.

And there it was. Luc was still desperate for a mate.

“If you let yourself go completely, become feral, it won’t matter if they’re real. You’ll be lost before you ever find yours. Is vengeance really worth that?”

Luc cocked his head, but maybe he heard something outside the warehouse, because he only seemed half-focused on Danny.

“You’ve got a point there.” He paused a beat longer, listening to something Danny couldn’t hear.

Then he smiled, fangs glinting, and focused back on Danny.

“Still, I should give Roman one last little gift, hm?”

Then Luc was on him, and the world around Danny blurred. A sharp sting, and then Danny felt like his blood was boiling. Like he was being burned alive from the inside out. He tried to scream, but all he could manage was a whimper.

The last thing he heard before the world turned to black was a cry of rage.

It sounded like heartbreak.