His onyx eyebrows knitted hard and his jaw clenched. “Do not say it.”
Grave ignored him, his smile growing even more sly and wicked, if that was possible.
“The elf is your fated one.”
Those words fell on her like bombs, each one rocking her, shaking her a little more. She stood shell-shocked, her mind going blank and ears ringing as she stared at Hartt, as she looked at him for a denial or an explanation.
He diligently kept his eyes away from her.
Was he her fated one? Was she his ki’ara?
Did it change anything if the vampire was telling the truth?
No, it didn’t. Hartt clearly still had feelings for Iolanthe, and Mackenzie wasn’t about to sign up for being his mate anyway.
“I’m not interested in becoming someone’s mate just because destiny says we belong together. My heart isn’t a slave to fate, and I won’t be a slave to any male. I’m definitely not about to go gaga over a man who’s in love with someone else.”
Hartt finally looked at her, shock shining in his clear violet eyes as he stared at her.
Mackenzie tried to convince herself to leave it at that, to draw the line between them and hope he took the hint and gave up. Her mouth had other ideas though, listened to her foolish heart and put the challenge out there before she could stop it.
“The only male I’m interested in is one who can win my heart.”
And he had already lost that fight.
Her heart whispered.
Or had he?
Chapter 21
Mackenzie’s words struck a chord in Hartt, one that rang loud enough that he vibrated with an awareness of her and the hope she had just given him. A second chance he wasn’t sure he deserved, but one he wouldn’t squander. Somehow, he would show her that they were the same.
Like her, he didn’t want a mate just because fate had some plan and had picked someone out for him. He wanted to pick someone for himself, thought he had done just that, only he had been mistaken. Iolanthe wasn’t the one for him.
Mackenzie was.
He released the vampire. “Leave us alone for a minute.”
Grave arched an eyebrow at him and straightened his shirt. “It’s my home. I’m not going anywhere.”
The male looked at Mackenzie, his pale blue eyes filled with concern that flooded Hartt with a need to growl at him, to snarl and snap fangs until he stopped looking at her as if he cared about her.
“I’ll be fine,” she husked softly, a hint of a smile touching her rosy lips.
The brunet vampire huffed and glared at Hartt. “You get a minute. Nothing more. And I’m waiting outside the door.”
He shoved past Hartt, knocking his right shoulder back, and slammed the door behind him with enough force to rattle the windowpanes.
Hartt cleared his throat, pressure building inside him as he felt every second he was wasting. He was sure the vampire would keep his word and give him only sixty of them to convince Mackenzie that she was wrong about him. He should have asked for more time because he felt sure it was going to take hours, if not days to make her believe him.
If it took forever, he would keep on trying to convince her. He wouldn’t give up on this. On her.
On them.
Grave knocked on the door. “Time is up.”
“Five more minutes,” Hartt growled as he clenched his fists, reining in the urge to storm to the door, open it and convince the vampire to leave through violence.
It wouldn’t be a wise move. He had already antagonised Grave by fighting his men, even though he had only wounded the ones who had insisted on being in his way—between him and Mackenzie. Somehow, the gods only knew how, he had managed to refrain from killing the vampires.
“Fine.” Grave’s voice came through the door. “I shall give you twenty, because I am nice.”
Hartt suspected it was more because he had something else he wanted to do, and he had a feeling that something involved his own mate.
He waited for the vampire to drift beyond the sphere of his senses before he turned back to Mackenzie. She stood where she had been, a window at her back and the warm light of the oil lamp flickering over her beautiful face, brightening the gold of her eyes.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
Put every female he had ever known to shame, including Iolanthe.
She flicked the soft waves of her flame-red hair over her shoulder, something he had noticed she did whenever she was nervous, and he hated that part of her was afraid of being left alone with him.
“I don’t want to cage you,” he said, the words falling from his lips without permission, pulled up from and spoken by his heart. She had looked so angry and afraid when she had flung those words at him, as if she honestly believed he would seek to hold her against her will. “I wouldn’t. No matter how things go here… I would never take away your freedom.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, her fingers pressing into the waist of her burgundy leather corset. “Just say what you want to say and then you can go.”
He couldn’t stop himself from frowning at that, barely resisted the urge to step closer to her as a desperate need to make her take back those words ran through him. He feared she had already made up her mind and nothing he said could change it. He pulled down a fortifying breath and calmed his mind, and his turbulent emotions with it. He wouldn’t be swayed, wouldn’t give up hope.
“What you said about mates,” he started and lined up the words, weighed each one carefully so he didn’t mess this up. “It is how I feel too. I have never really believed in fated mates. I wanted love, real love, and I am starting to believe I have found it.”
“With Iolanthe,” she bit out, and he didn’t miss the hurt that flared in her eyes, there and gone in an instant as rage shone in them.
He slowly shook his head and risked a step towards her, unable to deny the ache to be closer to her, to be within reach of her in case she tried to teleport. He wasn’t sure he would be able to stop her in time if she decided to leave like that, wasn’t sure he should try to stop her when he had said he wouldn’t force her into anything. It would probably be better to let her go and then try again another time, but the part of him that recognised her as his ki’ara raged at the thought of being parted from her for even a brief span of time.
“What I felt for Iolanthe… I am beginning to feel it was more like infatuation.” He raked a hand through his hair and frowned as he struggled with putting his feelings into words. “It was love, but a pale shadow of true love… and I should have seen that when she left me and I didn’t see her for centuries… and I never tried to find her.”
He risked another step closer, relief washing through him when Mackenzie didn’t back away or teleport out of his life. Her gaze remained steady on his, open and inviting him to continue. He hoped that was a good thing.
“I could have found her if I had wanted, but I didn’t.” He glanced at his boots, his eyebrows knitting hard, and then lifted his gaze back to hers because he needed to look into her eyes and see that he was reaching her, that he was doing things right this time. “I didn’t even think about her. I moved on with my life. That is not true love.”
Her eyes softened, just enough for him to notice and feel he was getting through to her. “And what is true love?”