Page 82 of Night of the Vampire
When I could do no more without burning myself alive, I stood in the center of the hall, breathing hard. But not from exertion, no. I could rip this house apart. Tear out trees. Run for days and hardly feel it at all.
But because I had no other way to release the pain inside of me.
What had I done?
Ripping off my sweater, I threw it to the floor. I was suffocating, my blood burning like fire in my veins, my heart like a bomb in my chest, every beat more painful than the last until I wanted to rip it out. If I thought it would make any difference, I would do it, and give to Lizzy. It was hers, anyway.
The tips of my fingers dug into the center of my chest as I fell to my knees on the hard wood, my head falling forward as the weight of defeat pressed me down.
What the fuck had I done?
She had left me. My Acushla. My pulse. The reason my heart beat within my chest. I'd given her the choice, and she'd taken it. She didn't want to be with me. Didn't want any part of this life. No part of the immortality I could offer her. The protection. The loyalty. The love.
She wasn't mine. She never was.
Rain began to fall, echoing off the tin roof above me. The wind kicked up, blowing in gusts through the holes I'd made in the walls, wetting the shite floors. If it hit me at all, I didn't know. I was there, but I was gone, drowning in the loss of my mate. How did anyone survive this? How could I go for days, months, without seeing her? Without smelling her clean skin or the sweet scent of her blood? How could I go about my days knowing she was out there in the world on her own without me there to protect her? Without watching the way she walked across a room? Or feeling the soft strands of her hair sliding across my palms, my bare chest?
The thought of another watching her, talking to her, wanting her as I did was enough to make me completely mad.
But I couldn't force her to stay with me. I'd tried that before, first with Jamal, and then with the others. They didn't hate me as Jamal did, for unlike him, I'd given them the choice to become vampires, but they still weren't mine. Not really. I was their creator. The master of their coven. At times their friend and at other times nothing but a pain in their asses. They stayed with me because I made them what they were and they owed me that loyalty, but that was all.
I was constantly alone in a house full of people. And I could deal with that.
Finding Lizzy, however, had been something entirely different.
Her, I loved enough to let go.
I don't know how long I stayed there as I was, kneeling on the floor. I'd retracted inside of myself, living in the few memories I had of my mate. Her smile. The sounds she made when I was inside of her. I would give anything to hear her moan in passion, or even to have her ranting at me in anger. It was infinitely better than this reality.
"Killian?"
She sounded so real. Like she was right there in front of me.
"Killian? What are you doing?"
A heavy blanket was thrown over my shoulders, dragging me from the comfort of my mind. I blinked open my eyes. "Lizzy?" My voice was raspy, like I hadn't used it in a very long time, or had screamed it away. Breathing in deep, I inhaled her scent. Immediately, my fangs shot down, aching to sink into her soft flesh. It made me woozy and I swayed on my heels.
"I've been waiting for you to come home," she said. "Kenya told me she hadn't seen you in days and they were all starting to get worried. She was going to come out here to see if you were here but I told her I'd come. I thought I'd find you licking your wounds, not destroying the place."
She was teasing me. She was here and she was teasing me.
With a shaking hand, I reached for her. "Acushla."
And then she was on her knees in front of me. Her smile blinding me. "I'm here."
A low growl rose from the depths of my pain. I was afraid to move. Afraid she would disappear.
Lizzy smiled even harder when she heard it.
Questions, so many fucking questions, flew through my mind. But I couldn't grasp one enough to ask it. Lizzy was here. She had come back to me.
And this time, I wasn't letting her go.
I was suddenly on my feet pulling her up from the floor and into my arms. A second later, my fangs sank deep into her throat. Her blood flooded my mouth, coating my dry throat. I hadn't realized how starved I was until she was there in front of me.
She moaned as I drew on her vein, tilting her head away to give me more room and I released her vein only to strike again, deeper this time. I wanted to talk to her, to find out why she was here and how long she planned to stay, but my vampire instincts had taken over completely.
MINE.
