Page 2 of On the Run with His Vampire Mate

Then I froze, staring down at him, the predatory urge melting away like it had never been there at all. It was as though gravity had rearranged itself somehow, suddenly making him the very thing that was binding my body to the earth. There was a definite shift, all around me, as though I’d been seeing the room in drab and barren sepia tones and suddenly it was ablaze in vibrant technicolor.

Alive.

The dark-haired man was still asleep on the couch, oblivious.

I felt a flicker of genuine fear ripple through me.

Because what was this?

I had come so very close to killing him. And now…

No. No one must ever harm him. Not me, not anyone. Never.

His scent was no longer appealing to my hunger. It was almost like berries and cream. It reminded me sharply of when my mother used to make my dad and me strawberry shortcake in the summer, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, back when I was a kid. Good memories. Happy memories. Bright and shining, utterly devoid of horror. His scent was… home.

The golden-haired vampire appeared in the room, stopping in the doorway. Then he approached, coming to stand arm’s length from me.

“He smells good,” I whispered, unable to take my eyes off the dark-haired man, even though there was a threat so near. It mattered less than him. “Why does he smell so good?”

Somehow, every reason I’d had for existing, right up until this moment, was gone. The instructions I’d been given by my maker were forgotten. The desire to drink and drink until I was sated, until the predatory drive was temporarily satisfied, all of it vanished. The need to watch the terror on my victims’ faces with smug satisfaction—and to make more—evaporated in an instant.

All that mattered was him.

The sandy-haired more-than-human mortal approached, standing in the doorway. My brain filed it away as unimportant, despite the fact that they were collectively blocking my only escape. I didn’t want to escape. Not anymore.

I wanted to stay with him. With this strange dark-haired man, in his rumpled jeans and wrinkled button-down shirt. There was a thin black blanket over him. He’d clearly had too much to drink. Someone had led him here. Taken care of him. Good.

“If you lay a hand on him, I won’t hold back this time,” the golden-haired vampire said dangerously. I could feel his gaze on me but I couldn’t look away from the sleeping man. The vampire added, “I have my limits and Derek is one of them.”

“Derek,” I repeated. “That’s a good name. I like that name.”

“Step away from the human,” the vampire said. “Before we’re forced to use violence. Again.”

My brow furrowed at that. I remembered quite well what he was referring to. He’d already snapped my neck several times to render me unconscious during the drive up to—wherever we were now. He’d also nearly torn my heart out of my chest. The other one had stopped him. It had hurt like hell. But there had been no fear then, either.

Not like there was now. Would I harm Derek? Could I even do such a thing? It seemed impossible. But the idea of anything happening to him—this human, this stranger—filled me with the stirrings of something akin to panic.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” I said. I tried to put it into words. “He smells good. But not like food.”

The vampire stared at me. I caught it from the corner of my eye. I wasn’t sure I blamed him. It was insane. We were predators. But if he moved toward Derek, I’d stop him. I’d stop them both.

Just then, Derek shifted on the couch. He stretched languidly, a decidedly masculine motion, and opened his eyes. Then he grinned at me, his beautiful hazel eyes crinkling at the edges. “Dude, you’re a fucking mess.”

I blinked a few times, startled. I’d given absolutely no thought to my appearance for weeks, but I was probably dirty and covered in blood. I was still wearing the gas station uniform I’d died in. I grinned back at him, my fangs already gone. “Yeah, I am, aren’t I?”

“Um,” the sandy-haired man said from the doorway. He sounded deeply confused. “What’s going on?”

The vampire sighed. “It’s entirely possible he’s just discovered his fated mate.”

The other one took a beat too long to reply with, “That’s… good. But are we still hauling him into the dungeon?”

“Why do they want to take you into the dungeon?” Derek asked, sitting up. He stretched again and yawned. It was quite possibly the most adorable thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. Something warm and molten spread through me.

What was this? And what had the vampire meant by fated mate? What the hell was that?

But when I realized Derek was really asking—that he was waiting for my answer—my own questions became momentarily unimportant.

“I’ve hurt people,” I said softly, sobering at once. Oh, God. I’d harmed a lot of people, in fact. The memory of the way Jimmy, my manager, had stared at me in horror, asking me not to hurt him, abruptly swam to the surface of my mind. My stomach turned and my throat tightened. I managed to get out, “I’m guessing that’s why.”