Page 95 of Hunted

As if I didn’t just bargain a kiss with a vampire and hear the words ‘fated’ and ‘blood’ spoken in a sentence.

I stand there for several seconds, frozen by my own thoughts, listening to the absence, to my pulse roaring in my ears, to the lingering imprint of his scent.

I should call Selphine.

That’s the logical next step.

Selphine knows things. Selphine’s shop is a nest of secrets and potions and half-truths wrapped in musty velvet. If anyone can verify whether vampires truly have mates, it’s her.

I reach for my phone. Then stop.

Because Selphine also withholds things. And calling the witch means saying it aloud. Means admitting I kissed the most powerful vampire in the world on a wing, a prayer, and a boatload of insane lust. Means hearing myself say fated mate and waiting through Selphine’s savage, knowing silence.

I can’t handle that right now.

My sanctuary feels too small. He has invaded my space, and now the walls feel closer, the air watchful.

I pace, short restless steps, trying to burn off the panic.

Valentin believes Lyra Hannigan is his fated mate.

And I’m standing here wearing Lyra Hannigan’s skin beneath armour I built to survive.

My breath turns uneven. I press my fingers to my mouth, anchoring myself to the one sensation that doesn’t feel like it’s spinning.

His taste.

Proof that this happened. That I didn’t hallucinate a kiss, a confession and a threat.

Tomorrow. By morning. Or else.

I stop pacing and stare into the dim reflection in the window. The face I chose. The eyes that have seen too much.

Something cold crawls through my chest, heavier than fear.

If fate exists, if blood can reach across years and lock on to a woman like a claim, then I’m not being hunted by strategy any more.

I’m being hunted by inevitability. And inevitability in the hands of a vampire is not romance.

It’s captivity with a pulse.

I lower my hand from my mouth and force air back into my lungs, because collapsing is a luxury I don’t have.

Still, the thought returns, relentless and final.

I’m a vampire’s fated mate. A fate I know in my bones is worse than death.

21

EIRA

Dawn sneaks in pale and thin at the edges of the curtains, and I wake feeling as if I’ve spent the night being hunted through my own skull.

Which, to be fair, is not far from the truth.

Sleep came in ugly fragments. Valentin’s voice. Valentin’s mouth. Those two cursed words tolling through me like a bell I could not un-hear.

Fated mate.