Chapter 21
“Uh, Miguel,” I whispered when Katherine had left the room to gather her medical supplies.
I was sitting on the mattress cross-legged, and he was unbuttoning the shirt he’d just put on because his niece insisted that she had to coat his wounds in a special salve she’d made. He’d already dropped his drawers.
“Yeah?”
“Your, ah, niece is a little, um, intense, isn’t she?”
He chuckled. “Katie is scary as fuck and smart as a whip. Nobody messes with my girl.”
“Your girl?” I asked in a broken voice.
My mate’s warm brown eyes settled on me and he tilted his mouth up in a crooked grin. “Oh, come on, now. You know what I mean.” He squatted down in front of me, his shirt hanging open, exposing his muscular chest, and took my hands in his, then rested them on his thigh next to his thick, mouthwatering shaft. “Katie grew up next door to my nephew. I’ve known her since she was knee-high. And she was the first person I turned, making her one of only two, with Ted being the other.” He shrugged. “She’s my girl. But, Ethan.” He looked deep into my eyes. “What I feel for her after several hundred years can’t touch what I feel for you after a couple of weeks. I know you have one hell of a jealous and possessive streak in you.” He paused and grinned. “And truth be told, I like it. But, baby, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to my loyalty and affection. I am all yours.”
“Show me,” I said, my voice husky and gritty, barely like my own.
He reached for my shorts in a flash, tugged the button open, pulled the zipper down, and fished my rapidly expanding flesh out. Then he rolled onto his back on the floor and took me with him. He spread his legs so I could settle between them and kept my hard prick in his hand, stroking it with the same desperation I felt.
“Can you reach the cream?” he asked.
I moaned and closed my eyes as I humped his hand.
“Ethan, baby.” Miguel stretched his mouth up and nipped at my throat. “Your dick is the same size as your arm. Get the cream. It’s right behind you, next to the bag.”
The feeling of his long fingers around me was incredible, and all I could think about was his warm touch making me feel so good, so right.
“Damn, baby, come on, now.” He planted his feet on the floor and canted his hips up. Then he moved his hand, and my shaft with it, until my crown touched his pucker.
“Ah!” I cried out in need, wanting to get inside that tight hole more than I’d ever wanted anything.
“There we go,” he said with a chuckle. “Now that I have your attention, reach over there and get the cream.”
I twisted my still clothed body and stretched over to the pile of items on the floor, feverishly pushing everything aside until I had the container of cream in my grasp. I knelt between my mate’s knees and worked off the lid with shaking hands before scooping a generous portion onto my fingers and then reaching for the nude body in front of me.
“Mmm, that’s it,” Miguel moaned when I coated his wrinkled flesh and then pushed my slick finger inside. He moved his hand up and swiped some cream off mine and then spread it on my throbbing erection.
“Ungh,” I moaned. “Oh, Lord, I can’t…” I gulped. “I…”
He brushed my hand aside and pulled me forward by my prick, not stopping until I pressed against his entrance. Then he wrapped his long legs around me and propped his heels on my backside, pressing down and forcing my erection into his body.
“Miguel!” I cried.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “Love how you feel inside me.” I bottomed out and we both gasped for air, the pleasure nearly overwhelming in its intensity. “Damn, never would have thought I’d like it this much,” he said. “But with you, I do.”
I planted my hands on either side of his neck and gazed into his eyes as I pulled back slowly and then shoved back in fast and hard.
“Fuck!” he shouted as he arched his back. “Again, just like that. Do it again.”
So I did. Sweat dripped from my temples as I set a punishing pace, moving faster than ever before, slamming into my mate’s body over and over again.
“Ah, ah, ah,” I grunted frantically, knowing I couldn’t hold back much longer.
Miguel curled his hand around the back of my head and yanked me down for a bruising kiss. I felt his hand make its way between our bellies, felt him wrap it around his hard flesh and start to yank up and down. And then he pushed my head to the side, sank his fangs into my neck, and drew out my blood, sending me into a soaring orgasm that caused my vision to go dark and my throat to go hoarse from the power of my cries.
“Wow, so you were telling the truth in that letter you sent me,” Katherine said. “You really are feeding from a shifter.”
Miguel pulled his mouth back and yanked my shirt down so it covered my bare backside right quick. I was still buried inside him, the mating knot keeping me there. He quickly lapped at my neck and then turned his head to face the doorway.
“Katie!” he shouted. “For fuck’s sake! Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”
“The door was open, so knocking wouldn’t have made a lot of sense.” She walked over to the mattress and plopped down. “Plus, as loud as you were, I seriously doubt you would have heard me.” She cocked her chin in my direction. “I mean, you didn’t even have the presence of mind to take off his clothes. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Why rush a good thing?”
She opened her bag, looked through it, and eventually pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil. “All right, let’s get down to business. Does it hurt after you feed?” she asked Miguel, her pad propped on her knee and her pencil at the ready. “How many times have you done it?” My jaw dropped open in shock at her choice of timing for this conversation. “Do you have to take in a certain amount of human blood in between?”
“He only feeds from me!” I shouted, forgetting for a moment that I had my pecker shoved up inside my nude mate and wanting to make clear that he’d never again be drinking from another.
Miguel combed his fingers through my hair in a comforting gesture. “Seriously, Katie. Get the fuck out so I can put some clothes on, and then we can finish this inquisition.”
“Who’s stopping you? Get dressed. I know you’re a man,” she said with a smirk on her face. “But I’m pretty sure you can talk and put your pants on at the same time. That’s not an overwhelming amount of multitasking, is it?”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Miguel said to me and then kissed my forehead. “She’s crazy, but she means well.”
“Hey!” Katie said in what I was pretty sure was mock offense. “You’re the one who sent me a letter asking for help with your shifter’s blood issue. And, seriously, I know I was joking around before, but this is an awkward way to have a conversation. Can you at least get out from under the man and put some pants on?”
“We can’t separate yet, so how about you go run a couple of laps or bang your head against the wall or something to occupy yourself and we’ll call you when we’re done,” Miguel said.
She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean you can’t separate yet? Despite a lack of personal experience of the carnal sort, I’m very familiar with how the male body works, and I’m pretty sure it’s just another version of what goes in must come out.”
“I cannot believe I am having this conversation,” Miguel said in frustration.
“I think we’re good now,” I whispered to him as I wiggled and worked my prick out of his body. “Everything’s, uh, gone down.”
“That was fast,” he said.
“Are you referring to your stamina?” Katie asked. “Because that would be really, really hilarious.”
“You are going to be wearing a pine overcoat if you can’t keep your mouth shut,” Miguel barked. “Either get out or turn your head so I can get up and get dressed.”
“What, now you’re shy all of a sudden? I’ve seen you naked before.”
I growled low in my throat.
“Girl, I am going to end you!” he yelled at her.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” Katie said. “Fine.” She twisted around so she faced the wall. “So did I hear your wolf right?” she said, sounding more serious, nervous even. “Did he say you’d taken him as your chosen?”
Miguel paused with his pants halfway up his thighs. “Yeah,” he said. “You heard right.”
“Your chosen?” I asked.
He sighed deeply and put his pants to rights before coming over and sitting next to me. “Chosen blood donor,” he said. “It’s what a vampire calls a human who he chooses to be his exclusive food source.”
“I’ve never heard of it happening with a shifter,” Katie said. “It’s rare even with humans, and from what I’ve heard, very, very dangerous. Are you… Hey, can I turn around now? We’re having a life and death conversation here, and I’m talking to a wall.”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Miguel answered.
“Life and death?” I asked at the same time.
“Not for you, baby,” Miguel said to me as he pulled me onto his lap. “You’re safe.”
“That’s not a promise you can make him,” Katie said. “Based on my research, I know that it’s very common for a vampire who takes a chosen to drain them too often, make them too weak, and then the human ends up dying and ending the vampire’s life-thread right along with him.”
My stomach dropped. “Is that true?” I asked in horror.
Miguel sighed. “Yes, it’s true, but not for you.”
“How can you promise that?” Katie shouted.
“Because I’ve seen how chosens react after being drained!” Miguel yelled. “I’ve seen them get so weak they can’t leave the bed for days on end and then, eventually”—Miguel’s voice broke—“they don’t leave the bed at all.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Uncle Miguel.” Katie lowered her voice in reaction to Miguel’s show of emotion. “It’s rare for chosens to live long, and then the vampire perishes with them. If you keep feeding just from him, you’ll bond and then you’ll be limited to his blood, and when he gets weak—”
“You think I’d be doing this if I thought it would hurt Ethan?” Miguel asked in disgust. “He’s different; Ethan acts nothing like my mother!” Miguel shouted.
Well, all right, then. I had to admit that I hadn’t seen that one coming. And based on Katie’s gaping fish impression, I got the sense she hadn’t either.
“Your mother was a chosen?” she asked in shock.
Miguel petted my hair with one hand and stroked my neck with the other; the action seemed to calm him. “Yes,” he said quietly. “She was my father’s chosen.”
Katie lost all the color in her face. “But…how?”
“What do you mean how? They were married, had three kids, he was turned, and she wanted to be his chosen.”
We sat in silence while Katie processed what Miguel done told her. I was doing the same, thinking back to what little I knew about his family and then to what he’d just said.
“Miguel?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah, baby?”
“You told me your family died.” I swallowed nervously, fearful I’d upset my mate by prying, but needing to understand what Katie meant when she said I could end Miguel’s life-thread, that drinking only from me could make him perish. “What happened to them?”
He didn’t answer for a fair bit, just sat quietly and stroked my skin. I waited patiently, knowing he’d answer in time.
“My mother wasn’t like you,” he said eventually. “She had trouble keeping up with my father’s need for blood, so she was weak all the time, tired. Eventually, they realized he couldn’t keep taking from her without killing her, but by then it was too late for him to hunt outside the house. She’d been his chosen for years, and they’d bonded.” He paused. “So he started feeding from us.”
Katie’s hand flew over her mouth and she gasped.
“Turns out a bonded vampire can drink from a chosen’s family member.” Miguel chuckled darkly and landed his pain-filled gaze on Katie. “Did you know that? Is that something you learned through your research? Except it isn’t exactly the same, not quite as sustaining. So the vampire keeps drinking more and more. And because he already bonded with one chosen, he can’t bond his life-thread to another, which means they keep getting weaker, until—”
“He killed them,” Katie said in horror.
“One of them, yeah.” Miguel nodded. “He hadn’t fed from my younger sister, Maricela. She was too young. So he would alternate between my mother, my older sister, and me. Until my sister died. Then it was just my mother and me, and we both kept getting weaker until one day I passed out when he was feeding, and when I woke again, I’d been turned and they were dead. Maricela said he turned me, waited to make sure I was alive, and then walked into the sun. When he died, my mother passed too.”
Katie seemed to be struck mute after that story, which was really saying something because even the sight of Miguel and I going at it hadn’t stopped her from running at the mouth.
I turned in my mate’s lap until I was straddling him and then I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry, Miguel,” I whispered in his ear.
“It was a long time ago. I’m over it,” he said, but the slight hitch in his voice and the way he held me just a bit too tight told me different.
“I love you,” I whispered in his ear.
He choked back a cry and cupped the back of my head, pulling me so close that air couldn’t pass between us. “I love you too,” he said. “And you have to know that I’d walk outside at high noon before I’d let anything happen to you. Your reaction to feeding is different. If you got weak, I wouldn’t do it. But you don’t. After I drink from you, you’re—”
“I’m stronger. I know,” I said. “My body makes enough blood for both of us. I’m not worried about you hurting me. But I need to understand what she meant about life-threads because, Miguel”—I pulled my head back so I could look into his eyes—“I don’t want to hurt you either.”
“Oh, thank fuck, someone is finally listening to reason,” Katie said. “Did you hear that, Uncle Miguel? Even your wolf knows it’s a bad idea to tie your life-thread to someone who isn’t immortal. He won’t live forever, and if you bond with him, you won’t either.”
I looked at Miguel and hoped with everything I had and everything I was that he’d tell her she was wrong. But he didn’t.
“You’re right. I won’t,” he said calmly. “And that’s okay.”
I was sure I’d throw up. “We’ll stop,” I told him. “You don’t have to feed only from me. I…I can handle it. We’ll just—”
Miguel cupped my cheeks in both hands and gazed into my eyes. “We’re not stopping anything, Ethan. We’re true mates, remember? That means I’m the only one for you and you’re the only one for me.”
“But it’ll kill you,” I sobbed.
“I’ll start aging, so, eventually, yeah, it probably will.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “But in life we take the good with the bad. I’ve lived for four hundred years, and spent almost every one of them feeling lonely and hungry and cold, deep down. But you changed all that. When I’m with you, when I feed from you, I feel warm and full and right. I won’t give that up.”
“You can still feed from me,” I said frantically. “Just feed from others too, so we don’t bond like Katie said. Then you’ll live forever.”
“No.” Miguel shook his head. “Baby, I am not feeding from anybody but you until forever comes. If we don’t bond, you’ll pass and I’ll be left here without you. I’ve done that, and it isn’t living. I know you’re scared, but listen to me, Ethan. Bonding to a chosen isn’t always a bad thing. If it’s a good match, the chosen and the vampire take on each other’s traits, so the human will live longer and, yes, the vampire will age where he didn’t before, but he’ll also be able to walk in the sun.”
I thought about what he said, really thought about it, and knew I’d make the same decision if I were in his place. I’d give up anything if it meant more time with my mate. And I wondered whether I was already starting to take on some of his traits: I was stronger; I could see in the dark; I could hear better than ever before. And, anyway, shifters who lost their true mates always perished right soon after. Miguel was a vampire, not a shifter, sure enough, but he was still my true mate, so wouldn’t that mean he’d die when I did, vampire-chosen bond or not?
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
He tugged me forward until I leaned my forehead on his. “Thank you, Ethan, for making my time on this earth actually feel like living.”
“You’d give up eternity just to have a few extra years with him?” Katie asked in disbelief.
Miguel sighed deeply. “It might be more than a few. It could be an extra lifetime or more. But even if that’s all it is…” Miguel turned his head toward her. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t do the same if it meant you could be with Sheila again?”
Katie’s mouth dropped open but no words came out. “I understand,” she finally said and wiped the back of her hand along her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, Uncle Miguel. You’re the only family I have. But I understand.” Then she climbed onto unsteady feet and started walking toward the door.
“Katie?” I said.
“Yeah?” she answered without turning around.
“I know we’ve just met, but I miss my family too. Maybe we can be there for each other.”
“That’d be nice,” she answered, her voice hoarse with tears. “I’m going to get some rest. I’ll see you both at sunset.”
I dropped my head onto Miguel’s shoulder and thought about everything that had happened that day.
“Longest damn day of my life,” he said, showing me he’d been doing the same. “The sun is going down in a few hours and we have a long drive ahead of us. How about we climb into bed and get some rest?”
“Okay,” I said and reluctantly moved off his lap.
He got to his feet and put his hand on my lower back, seemingly having the same desire to maintain contact, and we walked over to the mattress.
Miguel dropped his pants to the ground as I shucked my shirt. Then he lay down and pulled me on top of him, pushed his hands down the back of my shorts, and shoved them past my hips to my ankles. I kicked them off and then snuggled on my mate’s warm chest, enjoying the feeling of his skin against mine and the realization that I’d have this for the rest of my life.
“Until forever comes?” I asked him.
He kissed the top of my head and rubbed his big hand over my back. “Even longer if I can manage it,” he said.
I smiled and closed my eyes, feeling safe and content as I fell asleep in my true mate’s arms.