“Find an explanation. I’ll be damned if I’m the reason she dies.”
8
Lyric
“Marriage, mate,” I said, pacing the length of Avianna’s giant room. The same room she’d offered up to me the night Alek had dropped the M-bomb on me. I was both terrified and exhilarated at the idea of being Alek’s…anything. “I’m not saying I don’t feel it,” I continued, eying Avianna, who waited as patiently as ever for me to speak. Sometimes I swore compassion and patience were her superpowers because she had the innate ability to listen deeply, speak with value, and offer unconditional support without batting an eye. “I do. I feel him every second of the day. I feel the pull. But…marriage?”
“Have you never considered the outcome before?” she asked, her voice free of any judgment. “Being married?”
I opened and closed my lips a few times. My blood whirled with a new sensation I couldn’t place, one just beyond the pulsing beacon with Alek’s name on it. This one—this rushing, screaming pulse was a mixture of starvation and need and uncertainty. I didn’t like it—I couldn’t tell if it was me starved for him or him starved for me or a warning for something much more sinister, but either way, I was completely unnerved.
“Of course, I’ve thought about it. The way any…human does, I guess.” I shrugged, shocked I hadn’t stumbled over the way I’d said human. “But, being handed from foster home to foster home my entire life, never knowing who my true family was, I got used to doing things on my own. Depending on no one but myself. Whenever I thought of marriage, it was because I thought about how the rest of the world would see me, not the other way around. I knew some people would breathe easier seeing me attached to another person as opposed to always being on my own.” Like the lenders who’d asked me three times if I was engaged when I applied for a loan to buy my apartment in the city outright.
“That’s understandable,” she said, nodding as she lounged casually on the chaise tucked into the corner of her room. It was positioned next to a faux window, backed with some sort of light system that portrayed the sunrise over a white-sand beach, a turquoise ocean touching the horizon. Beautiful, but also tragic—that she had to depend on these things to remind her of life in the sun.
If I accepted my fate as Alek’s mate, accepted his world, and my role in it, I would lose all those things. Despite being human or whatever I was, despite having the ability to walk in the sun—which somehow made me more powerful than the incredible creatures surrounding me—I would have to give it up. Because even being away from him these past days had been nearly unbearable. Every second of the day, I’d wanted to run to him, even if he was in the war room with his assassins. I’d wanted to kick the door in and claim him as mine. And I knew it in the marrow of my bones, I’d give up everything—even the sun—to be with him. I’d always preferred the night anyway.
But my doctorate. The book I wanted to write. Everything I’d worked my entire life for. That meant something to me. And Valor, the only real friend I’d ever had before meeting Avianna. I needed to see her, to show her that I was okay. These two things…I could not budge on these. Sunlight? Fruity drinks on a faraway beach? Those would not be as hard to sacrifice.
“Call him,” I asked, my voice almost a whisper. “Would you? Please, Avi?” I sank onto the end of the chaise, my thighs nearly grazing the pointed tips of her lavender pumps.
She arched a brow at me, sitting up to swing her feet to the ground. “You could, you know,” she said, her eyes pure mischief. “It’s a perk among mates.”
My lips parted on a gasp. “How?”
She tilted her head back and forth, her smooth black hair cascading over her bare shoulders. “I attended an all-female academy, so I’ve only ever read about mates or heard stories relayed, but you should be able to focus and draw him to you. Think of it like meditation. Close your eyes, and let everything else fall away except the pieces of Alek that are in your blood. Draw those pieces up to you.”
I blew out a breath, highly doubting I’d be able to do any such thing, but closed my eyes just the same. Slowly, as I breathed deeply, Avianna’s room faded, the sound of her steady presence next to mine faded, until nothing but blackness filled the backs of my eyes, my mind.
I sank deeper and deeper into my mind, my body. There, pulsing and flickering like the tips of flames, silver orbs of glowing light burst in the most brilliant array of colors and movement.
Alek.
His essence, his blood, our connection, I didn’t know. I just knew these bursts of light inside me were made up entirely of him. I imagined delicately plucking an orb and drawing it near me—
A hurried knock sounded on Avianna’s door, the sound jarring me out of my concentration. “See,” I said, sighing as I opened my eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I told you it wouldn’t—”
“That is both creepy and convenient,” Avi said as she swung open her door. I hadn’t even felt her move from her spot beside me.
The world shifted beneath my feet as I set eyes on the man beyond her door, the one now blinking into the space before me. I jolted at his sudden nearness. Jolted and sighed a breath I felt all the way in the dregs of my soul.
“Alek,” I said, breathless.
“You called me,” he said, almost as if he were speaking only to himself. His blue-gray eyes scanned every inch of my face, then my body, as if he were searching for some ailment or injury. “Are you all right?”
I wanted to cry. Legit, I could feel the tears welling up behind my eyes at just the sight of him. Who had I become to need someone this much? To connect and hunger for someone on levels I didn’t even know I possessed?
Alek’s. That’s who I’ve become.
And I knew this but…
“No,” I finally said, pushing off the chaise and standing to my full height. My body ached to melt into his, to feel his strong touch, his possessive bite, but I held firm. “No. I’m not okay.”
He stood too, his head tilting as his eyes darted from me to his sister who leaned against the opened doorway. She waved at him with one gloved hand as if to say you know what you have to do.
“What troubles you?”
There was such genuine concern in his eyes—and a threat to anyone who was causing me this invisible harm—it almost made me forget everything I was about to say.
I started pacing because I couldn’t stand still and not reach out for him. “I understand you have rules. Laws. Ancient covenants.” I ticked off the items on my fingers. “I understand you are the king, and you have…obligations.” I sighed, finally locking eyes with him. “I understand that you are vampire and I am human and somehow, something happened where fate selected us as…mates.” I swallowed hard, telling my racing heart to settle. Yes, I understood these facts, maybe even I’d accepted them, but there was one barrier in my way. One wall I couldn’t see around, and it would be up to him if he helped me or not.
“But…” His voice was dark, menacing even as he slid his hands into his pockets, almost as if he too feared what he would do the longer he let them be free.