Page 64 of Secret of the Vampire
“I couldn’t leave you here alone to fight him, Alex.”
“Why not?”
I frowned. “Why not?”
A smile played around the corners of his mouth. “Yes. Why not, Kenya? Why couldn’t you leave me?”
Heat travelled from my chest to my neck and finally my cheeks. “You know why.”
“I do. But I want to hear you say it.”
It wasn’t an order, more of a plea. And when I looked up at him, I could see the longing in his beautiful eyes, the apprehension.
“Because you’re mine,” I whispered.
He swallowed hard. “And?”
“And…” My heart began to race, the words getting stuck in my throat.
Alex touched my face, his eyes on mine, holding me there so I couldn’t look away as he waited. I thought of Shea and her love for her djinn. And she did love him. Anyone with eyes could see that.
“And I think I’m falling in love with you,” I confessed.
Out of all the things I thought I would feel at this moment—fear, nervousness, doubt—relief wasn’t one of them. But that was exactly how I felt, relieved to finally tell him. Relieved the others finally knew. Relieved we didn’t have to hide anymore. I found myself blinking away tears as my heart filled my chest to the point that I thought it was going to explode.
“That’s good,” he told me, taking my hands in his and holding them on my lap. “Because I’ve known from the moment I saw you lying in that bed back there,”—he lifted his chin toward the back of the house—“your hair a tangle of frizzy curls around your gorgeous face and your beautiful skin gray with whatever the hell that disease was Marcus cast on you, that you were meant for me. Maybe even before that, if I’m going to be completely honest. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. And the thought of you dying…” He stopped, glancing away as he cleared his throat. “Kenya, I had to save you. I fucking had to.”
Something in his voice drew my attention. “You knew,” I said. “You knew it would bring out the djinn side of you.”
He just looked at me.
“Alex…”
But he shook his head. “I didn’t know what it was, exactly, only that it was something dark and unlike any other magic I’d ever known.” He looked down at our joined hands, and when his eyes came back to mine, they were full of a stubborn rebelliousness. “I knew what it would do to me, to tap into it. But I couldn’t allow you to die. I wasn’t going to give you up. Not for a curse. Not for a fucking djinn. You’remine, Kenya. And he can’t fucking have you.”
“Why not?” I threw his own question back at him.
Alex’s expression softened. Lifting my hands to his mouth, he kissed the insides of both my wrists one at a time, something that always made butterflies flutter in my stomach, then he leaned in and brushed my lips with his. “Because I’m falling in love with you, too,” he whispered against my mouth.
I moaned as he kissed me. His mouth possessive on mine. His magic wrapping around me. Only this time, I wasn’t frightened by it.
When he finally broke away from me, he said, “I can’t stand to be away from you. But we need to get you home before the sun comes up.”
“Come back to the house with me,” I told him.
He stood, pulling me up beside him. “Killian won’t like that.”
“Killian will have to get used to it.”
Surprised by the vehemence in my voice, he stopped. “I guess he will.”
“Yes, he will. Because I’m hungry for you, Alex.”
He growled low in his throat and caught me up against him, his body hard, ready.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him, not hiding anything from him this time.
“Kenya…” he moaned. “Ah, honey.” His arms tightened around me, and then he swooped down and gathered me up into his arms. Striding through the house, he willed the front door open and took me out to the car, all the while telling me all of the dirty things he wanted to do to me as I grazed his throat with my fangs, drops of his blood teasing my tongue.
