Page 39

Danny

F ear. Worry. Guilt. Worry. Rage. Worry.

Danny opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling above him slowly coming into focus, much lower than the one from the warehouse.

And he was no longer on a hard cement floor but in a comfortable bed.

His own bed—he could smell the familiar scent of his detergent, as well as hints of himself and Roman.

Danny felt…different. He was having a hard time coming back to himself. How had he gotten here? He tried to remember.

Danny could remember…pain. First the sharp pain of traumatic wounds from the crash. Right, he’d been in a car crash. That was coming back to him. But that earlier pain was overshadowed by the last moments he remembered, after Luc had pounced.

“Danny.” Roman’s voice, husky and strained, broke through Danny’s remembrances.

Roman was here.

Danny sat up quicker than he should have been able to, turning to look to the side.

Roman had a chair pulled up to the edge of the bed and was leaning forward, hands clasped tightly together on his knees.

Looking at his vampire, Danny realized he had never seen Roman look truly miserable before.

The vampire’s normally pristine suit was wrinkled and covered in dirt and other sketchy bits that looked suspiciously like dried blood.

His straight dark hair was mussed, and his blue eyes were rimmed in red.

Had Danny’s vampire been crying?

“Hi,” Danny greeted a little lamely. He’d expected his voice to come out as a croak, but he didn’t sound even the slightest bit hoarse.

Danny sounded…refreshed. Taking mental stock, he felt refreshed.

Which was odd. His whole body should have been one big ache.

He should have been in the hospital, especially after Luc had… had…

Luc had bitten him.

Asshole.

Danny lifted a hand to his throat, pressing his fingers along the side, but he couldn’t feel anything unusual there—no gaping wound, no tender, bruised skin.

“Where is he?” Danny asked.

“He’s…contained. You’re safe.” Roman didn’t have to ask who Danny meant by “he.”

Danny eyed Roman, trying to see any obvious injuries, resisting the urge to leap out of bed and into his lover’s arms. Roman sounded worried. He looked worried. He felt worried. The demon inside him was restless, concerned about his mate—concerned about Danny.

Hold up.

Danny really could feel Roman’s worry. He closed his eyes and focused on the strange sensation, a part of Danny but also not. Worry. Anger. And love. So much love for Danny that it was overwhelming in its intensity.

Danny opened his eyes in time to see Roman looking momentarily stunned by the wide grin Danny suddenly couldn’t help. “I can feel you,” Danny explained, awe in his voice.

Roman nodded, and there was a spike of another emotion—shame, maybe?—flaring up through their connection. “I can feel you too, little king. It’s an effect of the mate bond, I think. Now that it’s been…solidified.”

Danny pondered that for a second. Their mate bond had been solidified? Had there been some sort of ceremony Danny had missed out on while he’d been unconscious?

“You must be hungry,” Roman said, his tone strangely cautious.

Danny was, in fact. Hungry in a way he hadn’t really felt before.

It wasn’t the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach he was used to feeling at the end of a long shift without a chance for a lunch break. Or rather, that was there, but there was also a…buzzing under Danny’s skin. Like an internal itch that needed to be scratched.

And then the pieces were coming together. Danny had been bitten, drained to the point of death. His body, which should be broken, was feeling shiny and new. His mate bond was properly in place. And he was hungry for something other than food.

Danny focused inward, not on his connection with Roman but on himself.

Danny could feel it, pulsing under his skin, now that he was paying attention.

There was a whole new presence there. It was hungry, definitely—animalistic, even—like all Danny’s baser instincts given their own voice inside his head, their own entity inside his body.

But the new presence wasn’t raging or feral or any of the other things Danny had been warned about a new vampire feeling. It was relatively…calm. Soothed by Roman at their side. Danny could even feel that new part of him calling out to Roman’s restless demon, trying to calm him in turn.

“I’m a vampire.” He said it out loud, needing to hear it.

Luc hadn’t killed Danny. But he’d turned him.

Danny wasn’t human anymore.

He looked back to Roman, understanding the worry in his vampire’s eyes now. It wasn’t about Danny’s injuries. It was about Danny’s reaction .

“I’m sorry.” Roman’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Why?” Danny asked. “You didn’t turn me.” A troubling thought came to him. “Did you—did you not want me to turn after all? Were you hoping I would stay human?”

Roman was shaking his head before the words were fully out of Danny’s mouth. “He took away your choice, Danny. You were not yet ready. You needed more time, and he took that away from you.”

“He did.” Danny nodded. “That was very rude of him.”

Roman’s bark of laughter in response to Danny’s blasé reply seemed to surprise even him, but his expression immediately shifted back to concern. “I am so sorry, mon amour. I did not get to you in time. I did not protect you as I should have. I failed you.”

Overwhelmed by the depth of Roman’s self-blame, Danny reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling the vampire out of his chair and into the bed beside him. “Shh. Shh. None of that. You’re not going to hold yourself responsible for Luc’s actions. We’re just…not going to do that.”

Roman grunted in response, unconvinced, but he let Danny arrange him so he was lying on the bed next to Danny, close enough that their sides were touching and Danny was able to rest his head on his vampire’s shoulder.

Holy hell, his mate smelled good. So good. Danny could make out so many nuances to Roman’s scent that he hadn’t been able to before—each spice its own distinct note.

Vampire senses, hell yeah.

Danny’s hearing was heightened too. He could make out Gabe and Soren whispering together downstairs.

Someone must have picked up Gabe from the hospital after all, then.

That was good. Danny pushed down thoughts of his brother’s possible reaction to Danny’s less-than-human state.

Now was not the time. Danny focused on his other senses instead.

Everything looked sharper too. The sunlight coming through the window was even causing a bit of an ache behind his eyes, though nothing unbearable.

He wondered if his taste would be sharpened too. Which made him think of tasting the yummy-smelling vampire sitting right next to him. Would Roman let Danny lick him all over and compare the difference?

No, not the time. Focus , he told himself.

Danny cleared his throat. “I feel pretty good. Considering.” That was putting it mildly. The fatigue Danny had been feeling for—well, basically for years now—was fully gone for the first time. He hadn’t even realized how foggy it had made his head until it was gone.

Would this clearheadedness last though? “Am I going to get worse than this?” he asked. “I’m hungry, but I’m—I’m okay. I don’t feel like Mr. Demon is going to take over and get all snarly or anything.”

“No, you should not worsen,” Roman answered gently.

He had started nuzzling his chin against the top of Danny’s head, as if once he’d gotten permission to touch him, the vampire couldn’t get enough.

Danny could feel the satisfaction his mate’s demon was getting from the physical contact.

So cool. “New vampires usually wake up feeling already out of their minds. They then gradually improve and settle. They eventually devolve again, but that can take centuries. I think it may be the bond. I have never met a bonded pair, but I think maybe having been turned when you had already found your tethered soul… There must be benefits we had not considered.”

“So cool.” Danny said it out loud this time.

“You think so?” Roman’s voice was hesitant, almost shy.

“Duh,” Danny answered. “I’m a freaking magical creature, Roman. How is that not cool?”

Roman huffed a small laugh into Danny’s hair. “I thought maybe you would be a bit more…put out?…having your choice taken away.”

Danny considered that point. “Well,” he reasoned, “maybe not ideal circumstances. I didn’t enjoy the car crash part at all .

But I thought I was going to die, and I really didn’t want to, and now here I am, feeling good as new.

Besides, my main worries were about hurting people, being out of control, having to leave my mom because I couldn’t pull off pretending to be human.

But if I’m all chill and tethered and whatnot, I don’t have to worry about all that. ”

Danny could feel the rush of Roman’s immense relief as the vampire pulled Danny onto his lap, holding him tight—tighter than he ever would have held Danny’s human body. “I was so scared, lovely. When I found you, you looked—you—I thought—”

He’d thought Danny had died.

Danny could feel the grief Roman had gone through and decided to try something. He focused on pumping all the love and reassurance he could muster through their bond. He was rewarded with a small gasp from Roman, who leaned back enough to look into Danny’s eyes. “I can feel that, little king.”

Danny wriggled in Roman’s lap, immensely pleased with himself. He was such a good vampire mate already. He was going to be fucking amazing at this.

And now Danny was feeling…something else. A telltale bulge under his ass. Danny hummed, wriggling himself a little more deliberately now.

“Stop that,” Roman chided, tightening his arms to try and still Danny’s body.

“Why?” Danny pouted. “I think my demon wants to come out and play with your demon. And by play, I mean fu—”