Page 41 of Fanged Secrets
I recalled the crackle of electricity when I first slid that ring onto Amara’s finger, the intoxicating sweetness of her blood on my tongue. My heart slowed to deep rhythmic beats, reverberating through my entire body.
But Jordan was relentless as ever, unblinking eyes never leaving my face for a moment. “Dylan? Tell me why.”
“Because she’s my mate!” The words burst from my lips before I could swallow them, tearing through my chest with teeth and claws.
The room fell into stunned silence, even the highborns shocked at my booming declaration. The admission left me breathless, the confounding truth shaking me to the very core. But the words shimmered before my eyes, and they felt… right.
Jordan’s eyes widened but there was a softness there, and the corner of her mouth curled into a smile. “Your mate?”
I nodded, feeling a sense of calm wash over me now that the truth was out. "Yes. Amara is my mate. I can't let you wipe her memory. I won't."
The room was silent for a few moments, the weight of my revelation sinking in, but Jordan just stood there with that strange smile on her lips. It was almost like she’d expected it. At her elbow, River watched me with a knowing smirk. I realized in a rush that Jordan had been pushing me to confess, in front of everyone, for a reason.
I’d proclaimed Amara to be my mate. According to our own rules, no one could touch her.
"Well, this complicates things.” Jordan sat down again and laced her fingers under her chin, her voice much softer than before. “But if she truly is your mate, we will need to find another way.”
All I could do was nod mutely, reeling from the confession that had torn from my lips. Acknowledging it, saying it out loud, made me more sure of what I had known from the very beginning. Some part of me had known the moment I laid eyes on her what she was. Who she was to me. My head just hadn’t caught up with my heart.
Amara was back home, probably fast asleep on the sofa where I left her. But I could sense her with every fiber of my being.
Chapter 22
Amara
After the fiasco out in the countryside, Dylan’s crew had apparently decided that I needed a babysitter when my actual wife wasn’t around to keep an eye on me. We’d barely had time to pull our clothes on, let alone discuss what had gone down between us before one of the Leyore members came knocking on the motel door.
We’d been driven back to the city in the blink of an eye, and Dylan had been whisked off for an emergency meeting the moment we arrived at the apartment. I’d been left in the company of one Maxine Belmonte.
Dylan hadn’t been gone very long but it felt like an eternity with the dainty young woman yapping away beside me. Maxine’s lips moved a hundred miles an hour and she jumped from one topic to the next with the attention span of a cocker spaniel.
I had no idea there was so much to be said about shoes. And bags. And“Have you considered getting your nails done? I know a great place on Fifth Avenue…”
There was little time to contemplate everything that had happened, not with Maxine grilling me on my skincare routine. I found myself wandering into the kitchen under the guise of making coffee, desperate for a moment alone to think. I left the other woman lounging on the sofa, eyeing the blood-streaked carpet with a scandalized grimace.
I rifled around the sparse cupboards in search of coffee beans, ruminating on the complicated spider's web I’d found myself caught in. Dylan was a vampire – vampires were real. Were there more? Did the Leyore gang know what she was, or was it a secret?
And what about the dragon shifters, did my father have something to do with them? What exactly did Don know? Also, was Maxine part of the Leyore syndicate? She carried herself like a pampered poodle, not a cutthroat peddler of narcotics.
And most importantly –What happens now?
Against all odds, Dylan had secured a place in my heart. I couldn’t put her at the mercy of my father. I couldn’t tell Don what she really was. Unless he already knew…
I slammed a coffee mug down on the counter. Putting the pieces together made my head hurt.
When the coffee was done brewing and I had no legitimate excuse to avoid her any longer, I trudged back into the living room to face Maxine, stealing myself for another torrent of word vomit I could barely make sense of.
But I was not fated to tolerate another word about the latest Louis Vuitton, as the front door swung open and Dylan barged in like a mad woman. When her bright eyes alighted on me, her face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she stumbled through the door in a kind of giddy stupor.
“I’m so sorry!” She tried to sign the words, but her arms were laden with shopping bags and they swung all over the place as she gestured. She dumped them unceremoniously on the floor,speaking and signing with sympathetic sincerity. “I can’t believe I left you alone with the most annoying woman alive.”
Maxine glanced up from a home decor magazine she had pulled from God knows where, curiously tilting her head at the pile of bags at Dylan’s feet.
“Always a pleasure, Dylan.” I watched her pink lips purse as she spoke, shimmering lip gloss perfectly applied. She swept an arm at the blood still smeared on the floorboards. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
“What’s all this?” I signed to Dylan, gesturing at the pile of bags.
“Your new wardrobe,” she signed back with an exaggerated flourish. “And an outfit for the ceremony.”
