Page 44

BONUS POV: ROMAN

Roman

Roman’s demon raged inside him as he stared at the wreckage before him.

Danny’s car, the driver’s side bent in and twisted, the driver’s door ripped open.

Ripped off , by someone with inhuman strength.

Luc had done this; Roman knew it. He had taken Roman out, and he’d come back to harm the one person Roman couldn’t live without. All to punish Roman for imagined past transgressions. As if Roman hadn’t been punished enough over the years.

Maim him. Kill him. Rip him apart.

Roman’s demon was furious beyond measure. Raging that their Danny might die because Roman had failed to appease the monster he’d once called “friend.”

And then his demon refocused its energies, and its snarling order ripped Roman out of his momentary shock. Get. Our. Mate.

Roman followed the scent of blood.

He tried not to think about the fact that it was Danny’s blood. His sweet, lovely mate, leaking his life force onto the ground as Luc stole him away.

If Roman was too late…

It didn’t bear thinking about, because Roman’s decision was already made.

If he was too late, he would let the demon inside him take over.

He would go feral in sync with Danny’s last heartbeat and pray he would be put down shortly after.

Maybe Soren would do it. Maybe for once, the fates would be kind, and Roman would see his lovely Danny in the afterlife.

His demon did not like the fatalist edge to his thoughts.

Get. Our. Mate , it urged again.

Roman was running as fast as he could, pushed to the limits by his own panic and the vengeful force raging inside him. With his unnatural speed, he almost missed the turn to the warehouse, set back as it was behind a large lawn and a wrought-iron fence.

His demon yanked him in the right direction.

Danny. Lovely. Sweet. Here.

Roman burst inside the warehouse, his strength blowing the metal door off its hinges. He vaguely registered, somewhere in his hindbrain, the shape of a form against the far wall, the metallic scent of a vampire nearby.

But the rest of Roman’s attention was focused on the horror that greeted him.

Danny, covered in blood. The shape of his chest…wrong. Something broken. His clavicle? Pale—so pale—and writhing on the ground, his humanity burning away from the inside out.

Roman was too late.

The noise that fell from Roman’s lips was far from human. A bellow of rage from deep inside his bones. He’d never sounded so much like the beast he was.

He’d failed. He’d found his beautiful, perfect mate, and he’d failed to protect him. Danny was transitioning into a vampire, the choice stolen from him by a monster.

Roman dropped to his knees, gathering his mate’s rigid, pained form into his lap. “Hush, mon amour,” he soothed, the sound barely covering Danny’s pained whimpers. “It will be over soon.”

The first phase of the transition was horribly painful—Roman remembered that much—but it didn’t last long. Soon Danny would lose consciousness and be spared the agony of his body’s changes.

Roman carefully swept blood-soaked hair back from Danny’s lovely pale face, murmuring reassurances in every language he knew. When his little king finally went limp in his arms, unconscious and through the worst of it, Roman couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

You should have let him be , he berated himself. Left him alone. You should have dealt with Luc long before ever showing your face here.

The worst of it was the fact that—now that their mate was no longer suffering—his demon was…pleased. Because when he woke again, Danny would be theirs.

Precious. Perfect. Ours.

Roman had never hated the demon inside himself more.

But there was nothing more to be done now. All that was left was to wait and hope that when he woke, Danny wouldn’t loathe Roman forever for his unwilling part in this.

Then a sound had Roman raising his head.

No, waiting wasn’t all that was left, was it?

Luc was still there, on the far side of the warehouse. Lurking. Watching. Hoping to find out for himself if Roman’s claim of a fated mate was real.

Roman pressed a kiss to Danny’s bloody forehead. He laid his mate gently on the floor. And then, faster than a breath, Roman let his demon out.

He was at Luc’s side in an instant, his hands around Luc’s elegant throat, slamming the bastard’s head back against the wall. “You. Fucking. Parasite!” He slammed Luc again, his demon reveling in the crack of skull against concrete. “It was his choice. His choice! And you took it away!”

Luc let out a strangled sound, maybe a laugh. “Took you long en—”

Roman crushed Luc’s vocal cords with both hands.

He had no desire to hear what Luc had to say. Roman had borne enough of his taunts and torments to last a thousand lifetimes. Instead, he slammed his old friend’s head against the wall again and again and again until, even with his vampire strength, Luc fell unconscious.

Roman let him drop onto the ground, his demon’s need for vengeance momentarily sated. He stared down at the bloody lump in front of him. He could rip Luc’s head off now, end this forever. But Danny deserved vengeance too, didn’t he? He was a modern human. He would want…closure.

You just don’t want him to think of you as a killer.

Roman ignored that inner voice, crouching to snap Luc’s bruised and mangled neck.

There. That was enough time wasted on things that weren’t his mate.

Roman rushed back to Danny’s side, gathering that precious, limp form in his arms. He tucked Danny close to his chest with one arm, digging into his pocket for his phone.

“Soren.”

“Did you find him?” For once, Soren wasn’t wasting time with sass or teasing. “Is Danny okay?”

Roman had to clear his throat twice before speaking again. “I have Lucien. I’m going to drop a pin for you. Bring chains.”

“Chains?” Soren asked, voice full of incredulity. “You think I keep fucking chains in the trunk of my car?”

“Find something,” Roman barked. “I need to stay with—I have to—” He broke off, tried again. “ Soren .”

It was a plea, and Soren softened immediately. “I’ll figure it out. Send me the pin and do what you have to do, Rome.”

Roman made some sort of noise, hanging up. He kissed Danny again. On his hair. His cheek. His nose. He hoped that somewhere deep inside him, Danny knew Roman was there. Knew he hadn’t been left alone.

“Come, mon amour,” Roman said, barely registering that tears were falling again. “Let’s get you home.”

An eternity of hours later, with rage and guilt and worry roiling through him, Roman sat in Danny’s bedroom, watching and waiting.

He felt it the very moment Danny woke.

A bond—a tether—snapping into place. A new, soft presence at the back of his mind. Something—some one —unbearably lovely and sweet, someone who wasn’t weighed down by hundreds of years of misery.

Our mate , his demon crooned, worship in its devilish voice. Our mate is here. Complete. Perfect. Mine, mine, mine.

“Danny,” Roman whispered.

Danny bolted upright in bed, turning to look at Roman. His eyes traveled over Roman’s mussed and bloody clothes, his defeated posture, his reddened eyes. Taking in every inch of him, the way he always did. Discerning, astute, compassionate.

“Hi,” Danny said when his perusal was over. And somehow, he made that simple word sound beautiful.

Because he was here. And he was alive. And Roman hadn’t lost him.

There was much to discuss. Danny’s new state most of all, but also Luc and what Danny would want done with that particular monster. Much to discuss, yes.

But there was a still feeling within Roman as Danny gazed at him with clear, untroubled eyes, whole and healed and stronger than he’d ever been before.

It was done, regretful as the means of it may have been. Danny was a vampire.

And their life together was only just beginning.