Bite, My Love (16 page)

“
Before I carried the curse of the bloodline I was a
plunderer.” Daniel is intensely still. His voice is quiet and
scarier for it. “Life was to take. Hoard. It was the nature of
those who surrounded me as well. Life was hard. It created men of
cruelty more often than kindness. Becoming this,” he motions to his
body, “amplified my defects. I am– No.” He rocks onto his heels. “I
hear your thoughts. I am not kind, Harmony. There can be no greater
mistake in believing so.”

“
You are to me.”

The
sponge is flung to the floor.

Daniel
shifts onto his knees. He takes my head in both hands, fingers
tunnelling my hair and digging into my scalp.

He drags
me over the edge of the tub until my stomach presses into the
rim.

Water
drips onto the stone floor in steady plunks.

Startled,
my heart bangs against my breastbone. I grab his forearms and
splash water over us both. Bubbles dribble from my hands down his
arm to pop on his elbow.

I
shake.

He forces
my head to turn. “I fed on you.” His wintry voice is infused with
power. Each syllable punches my eardrum. “I fucked you. I took you
to do both at my leisure.”

I jerk my head around. Close
.
His nose brushes mine, and his breath blows over
my wet lips. My gaze alternates from his left eye to his right. The
right one has a hazel splotch edging his iris. His pupils contract
to slits. Witchy. His catlike traits are peculiar. Something I
never thought I’d call beautiful.

His
intensity no longer frightens me. Isn’t that funny? He uses such
clever tactics to scare people, to hold them at arm’s length.
Unearthing more of his thorny character is the prize after
withstanding these dynamic moments.

“
I’m not offended.” Keeping eye contact, I kiss the tip of his
nose. “I won’t run from you. You say things to scare me, but in
case you haven’t noticed, I end up thinking the opposite of what
you want.”

“
I hear you rationalizing. You think you can take the measure
of a man who admits his faults.” His fingers dig harder. “That you
can endure him if you know deep inside he is good and
honourable.”

“
I refuse to be intimidated. Not this time.” Crisp hairs
dampen under my palms as I stroke his forearms. “Nothing has been
forced on me. I left with you. Willingly. I gave my body to
you,
willingly
.
My choice.”

His lips drift closer to mine until they
touch
. ‘Naïve. I manipulate. My nature
twists any endeavour I attempt. You are a conquest.’

‘
You think you control me. That the things you do for me out
of kindness are for your benefit.’

‘
There is no emotion you feel that does not pass your lovely
face. There is no word you say that does not give insight to your
every thought. Even those are not hidden from me. I anticipate what
you will do, what you will say. I use it to my advantage.
Everything is used to my advantage.’

‘
I’m young compared to you, but my mind is mine. So are my
actions. Anyone can guess what someone will do. How does being
observant of those around you make you unkind?’

‘
The core of my kindness is deceit. A self-serving that
ensures my best interests.’

My forehead furrows. ‘
Well,
everything we do is self-serving. Altruism is a myth suggesting
we’re stronger than our baser nature.’
I
shrug.
‘You’re up front. I respect your
honesty.’

He lets
me go, and I slip back into the tub.

“
You will learn.” He is frustrated, eyes distant and cold.
“Wet your hair.”

Grinding
my teeth, I meet his glare and remain still. “Don’t order me
around. I’m young not a child.”

Shaking,
I shove my hips forward and dip my head. My arched back pushes my
breasts out of the water, and my nipples tighten in the colder
air.

He does
not touch me, not as I wish him to.

Sex is
easy. The body can communicate in ways the mind cannot match. I
know how to react to Daniel when he wants inside me. The atlas of
his mind is something else entirely. Those pieces don’t fit. They
don’t always make sense nor have a way to be touched.

I wrap my
arms around my knees and curl inward.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Gentle and methodical, Daniel soaps my
head with shampoo that smells like lavender. His nails lightly
scrub my scalp, and he lifts the heavy mass of my hair to rub the
ends.

I stifle a giggle as suds crawl down my
neck in a lingering tickle.

The last notes of the piano fade
away.

I rinse then stand. The water sluices
down my body and wets the stone. “And the music? I still don’t
understand.”

Daniel folds me into a towel and dries
my face with the edge. He follows the contours of my chin
reverently. “I hate others can find pleasure in what I create when
I cannot. Music lost its hold on me long ago. The magic left.” He
looks lost when he says this. He doesn’t know why he no longer
finds pleasure in his own music. “So I play for none but
myself.”

Touched, he explained something so
important, I brush my hands through the strands of his hair. “We do
what we need to stay sane. I’m grateful you felt you could share
some with me. Maybe one day you’ll play for me.”

His gaze flashes to mine then away. “I
wanted to give you something ... good to remember me
by.”

“
Stop. I’ll pass this
stupid test, and then you’ll have to spend the rest of my life
making it up to me.”

“
The rest of your life.”
His whisper is aggrieved. “So short.”

“
Don’t.”

His demeanor darkens. “You would have
left anyway.”

“
I said stop.” I tug
viciously on his hair. “You can’t use that as an excuse to push me
away. Death is a natural cost of life. You’d give up everything we
could have for something that will happen decades from
now?”

“
Drinking my blood would
help. A friend of mine.… No, a brother, Sebastian was besotted by
his Bride. She was Human, and drank from him to extend her life. It
worked, but after so many years her mind … cracked.” His voice is
brittle. Empty. “The taint stretched her sanity to breaking. Dug
deep and took hold. Ben tried for years to persuade him to let her
pass. Nia longed for it, but Sebastian couldn’t bear to give her
up.”

“
You’re not telling me this
story because it has a happy ending.”

“
It would be the same with you.”
Introspective and unfocused, his fingers tighten on the towel.
“Poisoned until there is nothing but sickness that
devours.”

There is a point to what he’s saying.
Complicated and wrathful as he can be, I’m not sure I want to learn
it.

“
You’re trying to scare
me.”

Can’t say it isn’t working.

“
Scare you?” Daniel is
amused. “I have no need to, sweetling. The night I tried to kill
Ben, Sebastian visited Castle with Nia. He was offered a choice, to
stand by my side or Ben’s. He chose wrong.” Daniel studies me. He
taps my shoulders. “Go ahead. Speak your mind, I haven’t
looked.”

I chew on my bottom lip.
‘I’ve learnt not to
assume when it comes to you.’
I’m beginning to peek around the façade Daniel is
so talented at presenting. He drops provocative statements into
conversation then moves aside to watch. People lose sight of who he
is. They make horrible assumptions, and throw accusations at his
feet. How often has someone proved him wrong and waited for him to
confirm or deny what he or she is thinking? I’d been guilty of
judging him without fully understanding what had happened too.
Falling victim to that neutral expression he uses to cloak his
emotions. When I learnt he’d killed Sean, I assumed he’d done it
because he’s wicked and spiteful, not because he was defending
himself. “My first thought was you killed them in cold blood, but
it’s all gray with you, isn’t it?”

“
I rebelled against the new
Child.” He’s thoughtful, eyeing me in a new light. “My opinion was
not radical, only my actions. My followers felt as strongly as I.
The most loyal of them, Damien, took Nia’s life when Sebastian made
it clear what he thought. He saw no honour in my campaign. Damien
gave me the loyalty I wished from my Protégée, but he was not half
the man Ben is.” Broad shoulders slump in a rare show of distress.
“Their death is not what I wanted. He said there was nothing left
for him. He begged me to end it. So I did.”

“
What happened to
Damien?”

“
Destroyed. Those who
followed me were considered too dangerous and put down. Ben would
never allow those who’d endangered his Bride to survive.” Daniel
chuckles. “Except me, of course, but the mercy to spare my life
came from Lee herself.”

“
Such loss.”

“
Thousands of years of
experience destroyed because I could not bear him finding the
elusive thing, other than power, that I desired and believed I had
lost.”

White hot, viscous jealousy. “Anya. You
believed there was no hope for you to love again because you
thought you’d lost your Bride.”

He studies me.

“
You loved her.”

Still nothing.

“
Love her?”

“
Love?” He repeats the word
as if he can’t comprehend it. As if it’s sticky or
contagious.

“
It’s not a
disease.”

“
I ask myself that question now
and know I do not, did not. We brought out the worst in each other.
I took from her and she from me. Respecting the limits of others
has never been a strength of mine. I took too much. The body of her
Sire.” He lowers his head. “The life of her son.”

“
Her son?”

“
I thought you would have asked
about the Sire.”

I want every detail about the Sire to
torture myself with, but I’m too proud to ask. “You’re like, old,
right?” I roll my eyes, jealous but amused. “I’d be worried if you
hadn’t, you know, with others. It’s alright.”

His lips twitch. “How gracious of you.”
The tension between us eases some, and he spreads his hands across
my waist. “Anya fed her boy blood to keep him with her throughout
her reign. She gave me immortality, but still I was envious of him.
He stole her from me.”

“
She was his mother. If she
was desperate enough to feed him tainted blood of course she would
spend time with him.”

“
I never said my
relationship with her is healthy.”

“
Was. She’s
dust.”

Daniel blinks. “I forgot. Time has
passed.”

Awkward.

“
You killed her
son?”

“
He was a murderer. Sick in
the head.” Daniel squeezes my waist until I meet his gaze. “I told
you. The blood destroys the mind. Our mutated bodies can handle it,
but Human flesh is not designed to contain such wickedness. It’s
why we die and change when we become what we are.”

“
So what if he was a
murderer? You don’t give the impression you care if people live or
die.”

“
The need to kill
indiscriminately is the mark of a weak man with a weaker mind. I
kill without hesitation but never without provocation. His death
was past due. My motivation was wrong, but the justification in the
eyes of moral obligation unquestionably right.”

I’m astounded. It does my heart good to
know I’d been right to learn about the Vampires myself rather than
depend on tales told to me as a pup by the Pack.

“
I’m surprised Ben didn’t
see your uprising coming. It’s going to be hard for him to forgive
you.”

“
Ah, sweetling, you think
he’ll try.” Daniel flicks me under the chin. “How
old-world.”

I catch his hand and move it from my
face. “Jesus, Daniel.”

“
Do you know what
infuriates me? I meant to help. Ben never saw that or he would have
tried to hear me. Though I never even attempted to explain to her,
Lee did. She understood. To this day, I’m convinced that is why she
could not end me. Though there are moments I seriously disapprove
of her benevolence.” His smile is small but genuine. “Times I do
not are when I think of you.”

He makes sure my back and chest are dry
before squeezing the water from my hair and patting it
down.

That Daniel has lost so much so
recently broke my heart. “I’m so, so sorry. Sebastian sounded,
well, he sounded cool.”

“
Cool?” Chuckling, Daniel
wraps the towel under my arms, knotting the front so I’m wearing a
terrycloth dress. “It happened, and I’m over it.” He meets my eyes
again, and there’s no pretense. “I was the moment I took his pain
away. I pray his soul found hers. No one deserved an afterlife
more.”

He pulls the bath plug. The water
drains.

“
I offered the same to Lee
once.”

“
An afterlife?”