Saeed was through playing games. He’d never been one to beat around the bush and he wasn’t interested in wasting any more time. Cerys paused on the sidewalk, her mouth slack. He continued to walk and after a moment the sound of her hurried footsteps caught up to him.
“Hang on a second.”
Saeed wasn’t about to stop. He needed to keep her just left of center so she wouldn’t think too hard about what he’d said. They could stand on the sidewalk and hash this out all night. She’d poke holes in his reasoning, find excuses to talk herself out of the truth. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Saeed, stop!”
Not a chance. The voices of the Collective tugged at Saeed’s mind and the dry heat of his renewed thirst burned the back of his throat. Reason became nonexistent as his thoughts lingered on piercing the flesh at Cerys’s throat. Stop? Not until they were back at his apartment, away from prying eyes. There was no stopping until he got her alone.
“Surely you’re capable of talking and walking at the same time,” Saeed remarked. “You’ve been doing it most of the night.”
“Infuriating vampire,” Cerys muttered under her breath.
Saeed smiled. He never would’ve imagined he could enjoy getting a rise out of her. “You have a curfew, no?”
“What? Well, yeah. But I don’t see how that—”
“I’m not willing to waste a single second of time alone with you.” Saeed cut her off. “Talk all you want once we get back to my apartment. Because I refuse to let the minutes slip by standing on the sidewalk.”
Cerys let out a frustrated breath. “You can’t just throw something like that at me and not expect me to want to talk about it right now.”
A corner of Saeed’s mouth hitched in a half smile. “I never said you couldn’t talk. I simply said we weren’t going to stop.”
“Fine.” Cerys fell into step beside him. “We’ll walk and talk.”
Saeed grasped his hands behind his back as he continued down the sidewalk. “Perfect.”
Cerys let out another frustrated breath. Saeed couldn’t deny he found her agitation both entertaining and alluring. “I know how vampire mate bonds work. You’re soulless until your mate tethers you. I can see souls, Saeed. Sort of a perk of what I can do. And you don’t have one. If I was your mate, you’d have your soul back.”
“Not necessarily.” He found it fascinating that she could see souls. He couldn’t help but wonder what they looked like to her. He tucked his curiosity to the back of his mind. “I’ve found my mate, but her lack of a soul makes the tethering … problematic.”
“You’re certifiable. You know that, right?” Cerys gave a shake of her head. “You’re insane if you think I’m somehow your mate.”
“Oh, I’m quite insane,” Saeed agreed. “But have no doubt that I believe with every fiber of my being that you are mine.”
“Yours,” Cerys scoffed. “Like I’m just something you can own. Maybe you have more in common with Rin than I thought.”
Saeed frowned. He didn’t like being compared to that piece of shit. Cerys wasn’t a vampire. She didn’t understand the intricacies of the tether in the same way Saeed did. Which was why he needed to prove it to her. “It’s not a matter of ownership,” he explained. “At least, not in the way you think. You are not my property in any sense of the word. My soul is tied to yours. And yours is tied to mine. It is a connection that can only be severed through death.”
Cerys kept her gaze focused straight ahead as she continued to walk. “You seem pretty confident despite the fact neither of us currently has a soul. Pretty hard to tether something that isn’t there.”
And gods, did it ever frustrate him. “I need no soul to prove it to me. I know in my heart of hearts, and that is enough.”
“Your heart?” Cerys gave a rueful laugh. “I don’t know about you, but I feel nothing.”
Saeed’s heart broke for her. The absence of his soul might have lent him a certain amount of detachment, but he was far from apathetic. He knew what it was to feel deeply. He’d only been without his soul for months, while Cerys had been without hers for over a millennium. Time and Rin’s cruelty had washed away her emotions, nothing else.
“You’ve chosen to feel nothing,” Saeed corrected. He refused to let her talk herself out of any possibilities. “You’ve done what you needed to do to protect yourself.”
She laughed in earnest this time. “Protect myself?” Her incredulous tone scraped against him like fingernails. “Saeed, I am the thing that everyone protects themselves from.”
She thought herself a monster. Unworthy of love. It only made Saeed want to punish Rin more for all of the things he’d done to her. “You are none of the things you think you are.”
“Saeed.” Cerys gave a sad shake of her head. “I am all of those things and more.”
Her defeated tone was a fist to his gut. It knocked the air from his lungs and Saeed fought for a deep breath. The Collective had given him glimpses of her. Bits and pieces of her life and history. It had not shown him the deeds she’d done under Rin’s command and he knew it was those things that had broken her.
“We all have our crosses to bear. The important thing is not to dwell on the past.”
“We’re immortal,” Cerys said simply. “We can’t escape our memories. They follow us through the ages, taunting us.”
“There is nothing on the face of this earth that is truly immortal. Never forget that. But because of our long lives, it is not our pasts that live on. Our futures are infinite with infinite possibilities.”
She turned her head to face him and the sorrow in her light eyes gutted him. “Poetic,” she said with a soft snort. “And enigmatic, just like you.”
“For you, I’m an open book. All you have to do is ask.”
“All right.” The challenge in her tone heated Saeed’s blood. “Why are you so sure that I’m your mate?”
She got right to the point. He liked that. “I know for the same reasons that have compromised my sanity. What do you know of the Collective?”
Cerys’s brow furrowed. “Nothing.”
For as much time as Rin and Cerys had kept in the company of vampires over the centuries it was apparent they shared very little of their secrets with them. Obviously those long dead vampires had known better than to trust Rinieri de Rege. Saeed was more than happy to share his secrets with Cerys. She was, after all, his mate. “If the legends are to be believed, all vampires are created from a single source. The blood that created the first one of us is passed from vampire to vampire. Through that magic, we are all interconnected. And that includes our memories.”
Cerys walked quietly beside him. She didn’t utter a single word but Saeed knew she listened intently.
“The Collective is the amassed memories of every vampire that has ever existed. Upon our turning, those memories are passed on to us. At first, it’s hard to resist the pull of those memories. So easy to fall headlong into lives once lived. I fell victim to that pull and was unable to loosen its hold on me.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
Again, right to the point. Saeed smiled. “I found you there. In the Collective. Over and again, night after night, I saw you through the eyes of dead vampires.” Saeed took a deep breath. “The fae with hair like fire.”
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. She met his gaze for the barest moment before looking away, as though embarrassed. “You saw me?”
“You sound surprised,” Saeed said with a laugh. “Rin preferred the company of vampires, did he not? It seems inevitable that you would have a constant presence in the accumulated memories of my ancestors.”
“I guess you’re right. I had no idea.” She turned toward him. “I don’t think Rin has any idea either. He’d shit a brick if he knew. Wouldn’t like the thought of anyone spying on him even in memories.”
“Then we’ll keep this between us,” Saeed said.
Cerys nodded in agreement. “But seeing me in a bunch of memories doesn’t mean I’m your mate.”
She would use every opportunity to shut him down. But Saeed’s determination could not be squashed. “I felt it.” Even now, walking beside her, he was possessed of a sensation of rightness. As though he’d always been meant to be here, walking beside her on the sidewalk. “I feel it now. The return of my soul will confirm what I already know. Which is why I won’t stop until I’ve taken your soul back from Rin and give to you what I know you will give to me.”
* * *
Gods. Talk about pressure. Cerys stared at Saeed, dumbstruck. He was so confident, so utterly convinced she would tether him. That she was his mate. All because of a bunch of memories. When things didn’t go down the way he planned it would ruin him.
“How can you trust the Collective? Aren’t those memories what drove you to madness?”
A space of silence stretched out between them. From the corner of her eye Cerys watched Saeed walk, his back ramrod straight, his hands grasped neatly behind his back. So calm. So completely collected. He seemed unflappable. She wondered what it would be like to see the composed vampire come undone.
“I hear the voices even now.” His eyes drifted shut for the barest moment. “Calling to me. I used to spend hours there. Searching for you. Waiting for just a glimpse.”
Cerys’s heart fluttered in her chest. His words affected her even though she didn’t want to admit it. To be wanted by such a male was a heady thing. She was undeserving of the honor. Cold. Detached. Dead inside. Soulless.
“How do the others keep the memories from taking over?” She thought it best to veer away from the subject of their supposed tethering and instead focus on the Collective and its hold over Saeed. “Surely there’s a way to push them to the back of your mind?”
“There are ways,” Saeed agreed. “Feeding regularly is one of them.”
A rush of warmth spread through Cerys’s limbs. The memory of his bite, the sting accompanied by delicious, searing heat, nearly made her knees buckle. “Everybody needs food.” Cerys ate ravenously to help fill the gaping hole where her soul once was. “Helps to keep your strength up, you know?”
“True. Vampires are often possessed of the urge to feed only from their mates, however.”
Butterflies swirled in a wild tangle in Cerys’s stomach. She couldn’t allow herself to be sucked into Saeed’s fantasy. Not when reality could so easily swoop down to crush them both.
“So what are you saying? That before you came to Seattle, you starved yourself?” No wonder he found it hard to fight the pull of the Collective. He’d intentionally weakened himself.
“I fed when it became necessary.”
A fresh wave of unfamiliar jealousy flared in Cerys’s chest. The thought of Saeed’s mouth against anyone else’s flesh spurred her to thoughts of violence. She cleared her throat and asked against her better judgment, “Who fed you?”
Saeed grinned, showcasing the sharp points of his dual fangs. “Jealous?”
Damn him. “No.” She couldn’t manage more than the one word.
Saeed chuckled. The warm sound sent gentle shivers throughout Cerys’s body. “Sasha and Diego, my closest friends and most trusted confidants, offered their veins when I needed them. I made them vampires and left the well-being of my coven in their keeping.”
Cerys still found it hard to believe he had left his life behind in order to find her. And even crazier that he would abandon so much on an unconfirmed hunch. Then again, Saeed himself admitted that he was far from sane. “When was the last time you fed?”
Saeed stopped. He turned to face her and Cerys’s breath stalled in her chest. The intensity of his silver rimmed eyes held her transfixed. Gods, he was magnificent. “From your wrist, that night in my foyer.”
Wow. He wasn’t messing around, was he? “You should feed.” She hadn’t intended to say the words but it was becoming apparent that when it came to Saeed, Cerys had no filter. She swallowed against the lump of anticipation that rose in her throat. “Before the Collective gets any louder in your head.”
Apparently, he needed no other invitation. Saeed seized Cerys in his arms and spun her away from the sidewalk and into a nearby alley. He pressed her against a cold brick wall and buried his face against her throat. Cerys gasped as his fangs pierced her and she melted against him as a wave of delicious heat rushed through her. Her hands acted of their own volition, wandering up his muscular arms, to his strong shoulders, and the back of his neck. Her fingers dove into the thick strands of his dark hair as she pressed him tighter into the crook of her neck.
She didn’t want this moment to end.
He cradled her in his arms as though she were precious. A rare and valuable treasure entrusted to his keeping. His body molded to hers and it felt so damned good that she didn’t think she could pull away from him if she wanted to. “Don’t stop.” The words left her lips in a desperate whisper. “Take what you need to make the memories go away.”
She didn’t want to care about him. Didn’t want to experience the ghosts of emotion that plagued her more and more with every day in his company. She couldn’t let this continue, and yet, she did nothing to stop him. Nope. Rather than pull away, she held him closer. Tighter, allowing her fingernails to scrape against his scalp.
With each deep pull of suction, Cerys’s mind became a little hazy. Her limbs grew heavy, and her breathing slowed. She’d never known such deep relaxation. Such euphoric bliss. She could float away on a cloud at any second and it wouldn’t bother her one bit. Gods, she hoped he never stopped.
Saeed’s fangs disengaged from her flesh and his tongue passed gently over the punctures. Cerys swallowed a desperate whimper of protest as he pulled away from her throat. Her eyes came slowly open to find him watching her with that same unnerving intensity that always managed to leave her rattled. He reached up and brushed the palm of his hand over her hair, pushing it away from her face. His gaze searched hers and for a moment, Cerys hoped he’d find whatever it was he was looking for.
“I’ve taken too much from you.”
His voice was a soft caress. Cerys shuddered as she tried to shake the dreamy lethargy that stole over her. “I’m fine.” Her own voice carried as much strength as Nick’s had earlier in the night. Saeed had compelled her as easily with his bite as he had the werewolf with his power infused words.
“You’re not fine.” Deep lines of concern marred Saeed’s features. “I’m sorry. My control isn’t what it should be.”
No shit. He’d been practically starving himself. If Cerys went that long without eating she’d decimate an all-you-can-eat buffet in a matter of minutes. Control would be nonexistent. “No more starving yourself,” she said, a little too breathy. “It’s not good for either of us. I need you at one-hundred percent, all the time. I’ll feed you, whenever you need it. No more starving yourself. Okay?”
Saeed’s gaze burned through her. “Agreed.”
He bit off the single word as though afraid he’d say more. Cerys wished she could crawl inside his head and hear his thoughts. Then again, she might not be prepared for what she might hear.
Cerys didn’t know how long they stood there. Her fingers slipped through the silky strands of his hair and wandered to the nape of his neck. As though slowly waking from a dream, some small measure of sense stabbed into Cerys’s brain. Her hands dropped to his shoulders and down to her side until the only contact that remained were his arms around her, holding her body against his.
“What you feel is the mate bond.” His voice, dark and decadent, held her attention like nothing else could. “And don’t try to deny it, because it will be a lie.”
A lie, yes. But Cerys couldn’t admit even to herself there was more between them than a simple physical attraction. Doing so would lend credence to his belief that they would eventually be a tethered pair. He promised to release her from the bonds of slavery only to replace her shackles with his tether. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seemed. Or at least, it would be the case if she believed any of it.
Her spine straightened as she pushed away. Her strength returned and she threw her shoulders back as she disentangled herself from the vampire’s hold. “Rin has eyes everywhere,” she said. “We need to keep moving.”
A deep groove cut into his forehead. His disappointment enveloped her like a too-warm blanket that Cerys was more than eager to cast off. “Our conversation isn’t over,” he said. “And I still have three hours before Rin expects you.”
She was his for the night. Cerys knew better than to argue. She’d learned very quickly that Saeed was a male who expected to have his way. “We can go back to your place,” she said. “But only if you order takeout.”
Some of the distress melted from his expression and was replaced with amusement. “You fed me. I’m more than happy to return the favor.”
The devilish glint in his dark eyes was a warning Cerys would be wise to heed. Too bad she’d never been very good at that sort of thing.