Page 73 of Blood and Magic
“Kodiak, I’m…” How exactly was I supposed to confess this to him? If I said I craved her blood, that I had been since that night in her room when she ran her fingers over my lips, covering them in the delicious stuff, he’d confine me to quarters until Morwyn figured out what was wrong with me. But fuck, hadn’t I been the one to push Maeve away? Hadn’t I been the one to recognize there was something distinctly messed up about my attraction to her? “There’s something wrong with me.”
“Oh, I am well aware,” he said. “I’m glad you’re finally admitting it.”
“Taking her blood during her transition was bad enough,” I said, running my hands over my jeans. “But this morning, I couldn’t stop myself. I fucked her and then I drank from her and I…”
I loved it. She loved it.
Kodiak ran his hands over his face and head before planting them on the table to lean toward me.
“Listen, it’s not your fault, okay?” He adopted his gentle voice, the one he usually reserved for cubs. “You didn’t ask to die and be brought back to life. You didn’t make the call to leave the ranch unprotected. And you can’t help whatever’s going on with Maeve.”
I blinked back tears, the weight on my chest nearly suffocating me despite Kodiak’s words.
“I need to kill them,” I said. “It’s a fire inside me. I have to take them out.”
“Which is why you will take Maeve to Morwyn as soon as she’s awake. I want a full workup on both of you.”
That confused me. “You think it’s biological?”
“I think something happened to you when you worked on the ranch seventeen years ago.”
I heard what he wasn’t saying. My heart stammered, my hands balling into fists. “No, she’s not my?—”
Despite being hazy from the change, my wolf yipped in my head, perking its ears and wagging its tail. It agreed with Kodiak, and maybe deep down inside, I’d known all along. It was why Guin didn’t smell like me after her transition, why our connection faded so quickly afterward.
I thought of the first time I’d seen Maeve, brace-faced and wearing her hair in pigtails. She’d been a child, and my instincts then were more protective than anything else. After I left, I tried to move on with my life, but no one else satisfied me the way simply being in her presence could. When I saw her again at Orion’s wedding, my entire body reacted like I’d suddenly been catapulted to life.
“Being alpha means I have a connection to all of you,” he said. “When you join the pack, you make a blood bond with me, and it is through me that our magic is unified. What no one else knows, what only another alpha can know, is that I feel you all. I see you in my mind like a web, interconnected by relationships and friendships and genetics. For a long time, you’ve had a faint line trailing from you, disappearing off the map.”
I drew in deep breaths while he continued, my pulse thundering in my veins as his explanation started to ring true.
“I thought it was Guin, but once I met her, once I met Maeve, my hypothesis changed.”
“What is it?” I asked the question, but I didn’t need to because I already knew the answer.
“You tell me,” he said, his eyes imploring me to come to my own conclusions.
“Do you think that’s why I crave her blood? Do you think I’m…” I couldn’t say the words, but I had to. I fucking had to. “Do you think I’m a vampire, Kodiak?”
“No,” he said. “And I remain convinced you’re not a threat to the rest of the pack, but something else is going on here, something you’ve been trying to avoid for a long time."
The human side of me couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Kodiak was implying I was mated to Maeve, that I had been since the first time I met her, but if that was the case, how could I have helped Guin through her transition? Fuck, how could I even stand to be apart from her?
A small voice spoke in the back of my mind.
But what if he’s right?
What if I had formed a mating bond to her all those years ago? Would my wolf understand I had to wait until she was old enough? That I would have to be with others until she transitioned? The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. She made me feel alive. As much as I’d told myself to keep my hands off her, I couldn’t resist her. Being near her was like bathing in the light of the full moon, radiant and beaming and beautiful.
“What if I kill her?” I asked. “What if I can’t control myself next time? What if I drain her dry?”
“That’s why I need you to go to Morwyn,” he said. “My wolf is telling me to be wary, to tread carefully around whatever magic brought you back to us.” Kodiak let out a breath and leaned back in his seat. “And that beast is never wrong.”
He dismissed me from the meeting room, and I stalked through the homestead to my cabin. I opened the door and walked into the living room and kitchen combo, stomping my feet to shake off the mud.
The running water from the shower echoed in the distance, and I walked through my bedroom to the bathroom, pushing open the door enough to see Maeve in the mirror’s reflection. She ran her hands through her dark hair, wringing it out as she moaned under the water’s stream. I didn’t deserve to join her. The last time we were alone together, I’d disparaged her for letting me bite her, for even being interested in me in the first place. But like always, when it came to her, I couldn’t stop myself.
I yanked my shirt over my head, shucked my pants to the ground, and kicked off my boots before stepping out of the denim. I closed the door behind me as I walked in. She turned when she heard my footsteps, staring at me with desire and reticence.
