Sanibel Seduction - Vampire Werewolf Menage (Fanged Romance Series Book Four) (28 page)

He opened the door slowly, easing through as if she were a cornered animal he didn’t want to frighten. “I will respect your privacy in every way I can, Bride. If you want me to step back outside while you continue to work your mind through things, I will. I have all the patience you need.”

Apparently so, since she’d been holed up for four days.

“May I sit with you?”

“I still need some space,” she answered kindly, yet firmly.

“I’ve never hurt you. We’ve shared our bodies in the most intimate way possible and I never once hurt you…on purpose,” he qualified with a snort.

“I know you never will.” He always melted her, so she gestured for him to sit down, opening her eyes only to stare at her mother’s old quilt folded atop a box. Tiny blue flowers dotted the white cotton and a long piece of torn lace hung down. “I should have sewn that for her, made it look better, especially since it was on her deathbed.” A hard knot settled in her chest while
he
settled next to her, close to her, reaching out his hand and linking fingers with hers. She didn’t know why this was pouring out of her, but it was. “I was working too much at the time, getting work experience at a nearby convalescent home, holding everyone else’s hand while they died but my mother’s. Sure, I took care of all of her physical needs, but not her emotional ones. What kind of daughter was I? I selfishly avoided her because I could deal with everyone else dying, but not her. Just couldn’t deal. I don’t know how to climb over that shame. And I don’t know why I’m talking about it right now.”

“It sounds normal,” he whispered. “You held others hands that weren’t your mother’s because it was easier than letting go of the woman who brought you into this world. That’s how you
dealt
as you say. But think upon this, my Azure. Maybe you were the only one holding the others’ hands. Maybe their offspring or other familial relations weren’t there for them. Have you thought upon that?”

“Not really.”

He brought his lips to her temple, kissing it before he said, “Because you find it easy to hate yourself.”

“I used to put myself in the position of martyr quite frequently. I didn’t know how to stop. I sure don’t like it. But the night I nearly died in the Everglades” - the night she thought was a dream - “I wanted to change my ways, still helping others while making myself happy, too.”

“Are you going to stick with that plan?”

“If I can,” she said with a slight shrug, “Old habits and all of that.”

His voice dropped an octave, “Perhaps I should take to spanking you in the customary Were way.”

Considering how much she liked spankings, she replied, “It wouldn’t be much of a punishment if that’s what you’re going for.”

“I miss you in my bed, Azure.”

She missed them, too. She hadn’t wanted to leave this room.

Then, he decided to play Nick’s role as psychiatrist and totally change the subject.

“Females, I’m told, tend to need their fathers. I understand that you had none.”

She felt herself flinch at the conversational shift, couldn’t stop it. “My mother didn’t even remember his name or names since there was more than one possibility of sperm donors.” She gave him a sideways glance. “I think she was drunk, high, or maybe both. She sure liked her bottle.” One of the reasons they never had anything, since she drank their money away. “She only stopped drinking when the cancer worsened, right before she died.”

“So,” he said, holding their joined hands between them, “we have some things in common.”

She could feel him truly listening to her, drawn by deep-rooted feelings she was only beginning to understand. “Your parents?”

“I’m told, are dead. Though I never knew them,” he brought his voice to a low whisper, and she could feel his indignation rising. “I was imprisoned in a breeding facility.” He swallowed, stalling out for a long moment. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t know what to say. Her complaints palled in comparison to that uttered sentence, and her shame grew. “I am half Habaline. My mother was a Species Vampire and werewolf mixed blood.”

“T-they can mix like that?” Over the past few days, everyone she’d recently met had visited her. Coming to this very room to help her assimilate and answer any question she hurled at them, even the beautiful blonde woman named Tatum who, apparently, was the
Alpha’s
queen. She didn’t want anything, but to be Azure’s friend, talking to her for hours with a sleeve of saltine crackers in her hand as she fended off her morning sickness.

They even brought in Nick to watch a movie with her. He thought she was having a rough day over her mother’s death. Clearly, he knew nothing of these other species, and she was happy for him.

“Species and Habalines do not find it problematic to breed in that way. The moon governs werewolves since their bodies are celestial. More, uh” – he tilted his head, thinking – “what would be the human word?”

“Particular?” She offered.

“That will fit.
Particular
.” He drew his knee to his chest and settled his free hand on it. “It is difficult for werewolves or
Were beasts
to produce offspring with anyone other than their true mates. A rarity if it happens. But it does. You’re proof of that, Azure Blue. I’m so grateful that you were born.” He brought their hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles worshipfully. “Not only are you a given Bride to my Species blood, you are my Beast’s celestially given mate. Just as you now belong to Gage, as well. Perhaps, you don’t actually understand what that means, but in time, you will.”

“Werewolves,” she muttered, shaking her head dismally.

“Why did your mother name you Azure when you have extraordinary, golden eyes?”

She gave a derisive snort. “She said the sky was so blue overhead that it was her way of memorializing the day.”

“Hmmm.”

“You don’t believe it, either.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Maybe she was so blue, you know, so depressed on the day I was born that she couldn’t name me anything but Azure.”

“I definitely do not believe that.” He rubbed his thumb over her inner wrist, stroking her pulse point.

“Then what?”

“I’m thinking more in the lines of your father,” he offered simply. “That your mother really knew the male who procreated you.”

“Sayer, I’ve never heard of a man named Azure.”

“Probably not,” Gage answered, misting in next to her while flashing his otherworldly blues, “but his eyes could have been. There’s a possibility that your mother thought more of him than she admitted. Maybe, she knew who your father was from the beginning. Those stories about her binge drinking and whoring, lining up too many candidates to narrow down your biological father were, in all likelihood, a farce. One she concocted to spare you. She didn’t want you in our immortal world – your true world.”

With his words, he straightened her spine, layering her backbone right when she needed it. Gage had skipped work, stayed with her all day - day after day - as she dealt with what had happened. He’d sat on the floor with her. Fed her slices of fruit and soft cheeses, eased chicken broth between her trembling lips and told her about his entire life – the good parts and the bad. By what she’d heard, he held nothing back. Even the part where he had thought he loved the woman named Clarice, and the queen named Tatum. But realized none of those feelings came close to what he now felt for her. He said that love had never touched his heart until he held her in his arms. Just yesterday, he’d said, ‘I won’t hold my heart back any longer. I cannot slow it down in order for your human sensibilities to catch up. Pull from your Were side, Azure. That side draws from the love I have for you. I love you, Azure. I have to say it aloud now. Every damned day, because it’s true’.

She curled her fingers around his, still marveling at how much larger Gage was than her, and pulled his hand onto her lap alongside Sayer’s. They fit. No matter their genetic makeup, they were a family. Azure needed to hear more about Sayer in order to understand those shadows lurking in his eyes. “So, you were imprisoned?”

“By what humans would refer to as a mad scientist.”

“Maybe in movies, but in real life that person would be pure evil.”

“Evil? Yes, Azure Blue. I’ve stared evil in the face.” He cupped her cheek and kissed her tenderly as Gage nuzzled her shoulder. When he pulled back, he admitted wearily, “I still sense your fear. It burns my tongue like acid. I don’t like this feeling between us, this distrust.”

Distrust for him was something she didn’t feel at all. But anyone who could change into an animal while keeping a silver dagger through his chest was a force to be reckoned with. “Keep talking. Just tell me more about you. Are you truly twenty-one?” She understood that Gage was centuries old, maybe Sayer was, too.

“Yes. I am.” He paused a moment, before offering more. “In the facility that bred us, we trained as mercenaries and readied for an immortal war. The pureblood Habalines mated the females in order to increase their army. Mostly males were born. I haven’t any inkling of the reasons behind that, but we were never allowed around females anyway. Not even our mothers.”

How cold and desolate, she couldn’t imagine living in such a manner. “So your old life consisted of training to kill others.”

“Other
immortals
,” he corrected, “from an early age on, yes. The night the vampires took you from me, I had never incurred immortal fire. If it weren’t for that, I could have killed those Species easily.” His broad chest puffed out. “On the balcony, I absorbed those age-old Druid spells into my body so I could dissimilate those wielding it.”

“Absorbing them when that vampire held you with his dagger?” That must have been excruciating, she thought.

“Yes. They are all dead. I am a worthy protector for you, Bride. And now, if needed, I can wield immortal fire.”

“But we’ll keep that to ourselves,” Gage interjected. “No need advertising that special skill, okay?”

“Good idea,” Azure said, “Yes, uh, Sayer, both of you are worthy protectors.” Still, she couldn’t think about being someone’s mate or Bride while living for an
eternity
. “And, um, you were never around females until this Ciaran freed you?” Ciaran, the monster in the ocean who absorbed the immortal fire Sayer threw down. “When, approximately, were you freed?”

“During the time you were in Scotland.” At her gasp, he added, “When your dreams began. Of…
monsters
, as you called them, chasing you. Somewhere our paths crossed there. It started your cycle in the female werewolf way. You went into heat.” She bowed her head, looking at the floor, though still listening. “I am your male. The one you’ve received in your body. When you think upon me as a monster, it stills my blood, making my heart full of sludge.”

“No wonder Nick,” she stalled out, thinking about how Nick consoled all of those women Sayer had sex with. Obviously, he had a lot of backed-up energy to exude.

“Nick?”

“Never mind.”

“I would like to know what you’re thinking, please.” His gazed dipped to hers, his eyes now glittering like the desert sun. There was nothing human inside Sayer. Nothing. But his heart was bigger than most of those who were human. “This honesty between us should feel right.”

“Okay, well, Nick consoled the women you one-timed.”

“What is this one-timed?”

“Sexed and dumped,” Gage cut in.

“Ah.” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to feel. Hmmm.”

“Jealous,” Gage filled in, understanding Sayer’s way of thinking.

“Yes, jealously is painful. But in all honesty, I tried to rut females many times. It didn’t happen for me. From what I now understand, after I had encountered you somewhere along the way in Scotland, my Beast and my Species recoiled from those women. I’m glad that you were my first, my
only
.”

“But they remembered -”

He placed his fingertips on her lips with his free hand. “They remembered something wonderful that never happened because, don’t run, okay?” He tightened his grip on hers. “Please, don’t stir me up by running.”

“I vote you don’t run, Love,” Gage agreed. “I’m a little edgy from lack of sex.” He raised a horny eyebrow, sucking that lush bottom lip of his between his teeth. “The full moon is high.” His eyes flashed again, the ones denoting his werewolf. It was staring right at her. Predator and prey. Hunter and hunted. “Soon it will be overhead.”

Full moon? Don’t run? This must be bad, she thought, forcing her eyes away from a creature within a creature to focus on Sayer. “Just say it.”

“I altered their memories to hide the fact that I fed on them in the true way of the vampire,” he rushed out. “I was so sick of feeding on males that I only took to the female persuasion after moving here. And I would get so hard and aching, I wanted to spend in them. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, Azure. I couldn’t bring myself to do it because you were out there. My one and only was near. You can imagine how much I enjoyed touching you that night in my car. You spent, um, climaxed in my arms for the first time.” She noticed that the more agitated he was, the harder it was for him to remember English. “How much I enjoyed bringing you to release, your scent filling my nose as your body hardened mine.”

“Seriously, I’m the only woman you’ve ever been with?” She stopped, wrapping her head around that. Then, she told herself that if she could believe in immortals and breeding prisons, she sure could believe in twenty-one year old virgins who were as mouthwatering as Sayer. Right on the heels of that thought, a double take smacked her brain, causing her to backtrack. “Women you
fed
on?” Jealousy, Gage had said. Yes, a new monster was in the room, joining the ranks, an
internal
one breaking free from her. Jealousy painted her vision, red and angry. “If you truly need blood, who have you been feeding on
recently
?” She dropped his hand, instead jabbing her finger at his glorious face. “It hasn’t been me, and we’re sharing a bed!”

A wordless grunt left his body, chased by a primordial hiss. Sayer wrapped his hand around her throat, strumming her jugular up and down. His body tightening with lust, his head canted, looking from beneath his ebony brows with glittering eyes. “Don’t tempt me, especially if you’re not ready to back up your actions,” his voice vibrated with something unnamed though not necessarily unwelcomed.