Page 83 of Kentucky Nights
I raise myself a few inches on the horn, using every bit of strength and energy I have to break free from this spear of a horn.
I can’t.
I sag onto the bull’s head, urging my body, my molecules to heal.
I need to get to her. I need her.
Ineed.
“Kentucky! Stop! Sweetheart, please, stop. Don’t move!” she cries, a constant flow of tears wetting her angelic cheeks. “Please.”
The scent of her fear is bitter. I’m taken back to when I found and saved her from the shed. She was so afraid of me and had every reason to be. I hated the smell of her terror then, and I hate it even more now.
“Get your fucking hands off my mate.” The words are broken with a wheeze after every breath. “Your issue is with me. Let her go.” Deep crimson rivulets flow down the horn, and the putrid scent of dying clings to the cells.
“My issue is with both of you, Dad. Can I call you that?” He dares to lick the side of my mate’s neck. “She’s delicious. Something about her calls to me. I finally figured it out.”
“I don’t have kids. I can’t have children. You have the wrong man. Let my Beloved go. Or I swear, I’ll fucking kill you!” I roar at a monstrous volume, the timbre vibrating the bleachers.
“Tsk, tsk. You might want to be careful and reserve your energy. From the smell of things, the two of you aren’t doing very well, are you, Dad? Papa? Father? What do you prefer?”
I sneer, trying to launch myself off the horn again. “Where is Lorcan?”
“Kentucky, don’t. Calm down. You must. The more your blood pressure rises, the quicker you’ll bleed out. With us decomposing, Kentucky, you have to be careful.”
I gasp again. Blood drips off my bottom lip in thick strings. I don’t have the energy to spit. “We’re fine, Dru. Everything is okay. We will be okay.” She knows the truth. She’s being too cavalier about decomposing. It isn’t the time to talk about it, given the circumstances.
When we get out of here, I’ll tell her everything I’ve been keeping from her.
“Don’t lie to her, Dad.”
I cut my eyes to him, groaning when the bull adjusts his stance. “Don’t call me that. I don’t fucking know you. I have no idea who you are or why you have the delusion that I’m yourfather. I’m not. I have no kids. I can’t have kids. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that. Please,” I hang my head in exhaustion. “Let her go. She’s innocent in this. If you’re problem is with me, let’s handle this like men.”
“Come here.” The stranger tugs Dru by the throat with his hand, forcing her to follow him as he steps closer to me. “I said, come here!” he yells, throwing her onto the ground.
“Dru!” I roar for her, causing more blood to seep from the wound.
With a tight grip on the back of her neck, he lifts her again, leaving four superficial marks across her throat.
If only I had bitten her. She’d heal. I’m a stupid man. I should have protected her. I failed my mate.
“Okay. Let’s turn back time a little. Shall we? Your friend Lorcan? He got called away to reap the souls in the next town over. All one thousand and twenty-two souls. It might take him a bit.”
Dru sobs, covering her mouth with her hand in horror.
“You killed a thousand people? Why? What did they do to you?” I ask, realizing I’m staring at a vampire whom I was afraid of becoming. The longer I stare at him, the more I begin to notice the resemblance between us.
He has lighter hair than I do, but the same eyes as me. Our facial structure is similar. Same jaw. Same eyebrow shape. Same eyes. People look alike every day and aren’t related—that has to be the case here.
I do not have children, and I refuse to acknowledge that I do from a vampire such as himself.
And if I did, I sure as Hell wouldn’t accept a son like him. No one touches my mate or disrespects her. I might be impaled now, and I might not have the strength to heal, but I refuse to die without having her in my arms. I don’t know what I have to do to make that happen.
Dying alone is no longer an option when my heart is being held by the best company there is.
“How else was I going to get you alone without alerting the Void? You know he can never deny a call for souls. As for Dru, I realize why I’m so keen on her. It’s because she—” he tucks her hair behind her ear, and she flinches away from him, whimpering when he digs his nails into the canvas of her throat even deeper than the last time. “—Is your fated mate. I’ve heard of bloodlines being attracted to another’s mate, even feeling drawn to them in a way. She isn’t my fated mate. Don’t get confused. The obsession with her though is intoxicating, Dad.”
“Stop! Stop calling me that. Enough. Let her go. She isn’t yours. You admitted that yourself. She’s mine.Mine.” I shout when Gunpowder slings me to the left and right, jostling the horn through my chest.
