Page 4 of Don't Bite the Botanist
The vampire closed her eyes, inhaling Ethan’s scent. Then she pulled back and fixed an appraising stare on him. Her dark brown eyes took in every inch of his face, those nearly black irises expanding and contracting as they roamed over him.
“It’s almost a shame,” she said, her tongue swiping out to lick up a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth. “To have to kill someone so… intriguing. So intelligent. A pity, really.”
Ethan swallowed roughly and struggled in her iron grip to no avail. The inevitability of his death lingered heavily in the air, his clock ticking down. If she thought he was going beg for mercy, though, she was going to be sorely disappointed. Ethan didn’t beg for anything, and he certainly wasn’t about to start in the final moments of his life.
“Do it,” he bit out. “I’d rather die than spend another second looking at your hideous face.”
Her lips twitched in a faint grin, like a snake amused that the mouse dared to fight back.
“In that case,” she replied, the vacant depths of her soulless eyes offering him a glimpse of his demise, “your wish is granted.”
A second set of teeth descended behind her normal ones, and when the fangs were fully exposed, she struck.
And Ethan let out a gut-wrenching scream.
Chapter three
Tressa
Mate.
The word flashed through Tressa’s brain like someone flipped the switch on a neon strobe light.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
The vanilla aroma suddenly made so much more sense. Of course the other half of her soul would smell like that.
He’s my mate.
He’s incredible.
He’s… still screaming.
“Hey, calm down,” she cried, grabbing the sides of his face with her hands. Those solid gray eyes locked on hers, but there was something empty in them, something that told her he wasn’t actuallyseeingher.
Fuck! She couldn’t compel him to relax because he was her mate, but maybe her Gift would still work on him?
“Ethan,” she said firmly, gripping his face even tighter. “You’re okay. Just breathe. Focus on me.” She forced every ounce of calm she could summon into her words and waited for it to penetrate the haze of his panic.
The blood-curdling scream continued for another second before fading away. Ethan let out a small whimper, then collapsed back onto the bed.
“Are you—”
Tressa never got to hear the rest of his question because the door slammed open behind her, and a team of doctors and nurses raced in, shouting orders.
They elbowed her to the side, and she used the chaos of the moment to slip out of the room before someone started asking questions about who she was and why she was there.
Now more than ever she couldn’t risk getting kicked out. Her mate was in that room, and nothing was going to keep her from returning to his side as soon as possible.
Two hours and four compelled medical professionals later, Tressa was able to get back into Ethan’s room and take up a spot in the chair beside his bed. She couldn’t tell if they’d sedated him again or he’d naturally fallen asleep, but regardless, he was snoring softly, and the tension lines around his eyes were back. Whatever knocked him out apparently hadn’t sent him to a better place than before.
What exactly was he dreaming about that had him screaming bloody murder when he woke up?
Most likely whatever landed him in a coma, Tressa thought, scooting the guest chair a little closer to his bed. She was half-tempted to say fuck it and climb under the sheets with him, but she couldn’t imaginethat would be the best way to start their story. Just because women were considerably more forward in these modern times didn’t mean Ethan wanted to wake up in a stranger’s arms.
No, Tressa would just have to suck it up and settle for holding his hand, helpless to do anything to ease whatever torment was plaguing him. Now she had some inkling of what her cousin Saiden had gone through with Cora, and she felt a little bad about all the times she’d teased him.
But only a little. When you lived for centuries, you either became a cynic like Saiden, or you decided that forever was a long time to be unhappy, so you might as well shove all the unpleasantness somewhere deep inside and choose to have fun instead.
