Dark Promises(23)

His breath hissed out and his eyes went flat and cold. Hard. Terrifying. His hand wrapped around her throat and for one moment she thought he’d actually break her neck. Or strangle her. Her pulse beat into the palm of his hand. She held his stare, but it was difficult. Very, very difficult. The gaping wound in his chest was already closed, his shirt clean of all blood. How he’d managed that she didn’t know, but it made her all the more angry at him.

“Do not ever say I did not give you a chance to explain.”

She stuck her chin in the air. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I have nothing at all to say to you. Nothing.” She nearly spat the last word at him.

Her heart nearly stopped beating when he transferred his hold from her throat to her hair. He bunched the long strands in his fist, and there was nothing gentle about the way he twisted his hand so that his grip was anchored close to her scalp. He turned and walked rapidly in the opposite direction, forcing her, by her hair, to go with him.

She bit back a scream of pain and beat at his hand and arm. When that didn’t slow him down—in fact he didn’t even appear to notice—she tried to concentrate on activating the bracelet. Even that let her down. She fought, but the hold on her hair was relentless and every movement she made, from attempting to kick him to hitting him as hard as possible, only increased the agony in her scalp.

Aleksei thrust his lifemate inside the walls of his home. Each of the ancients had their own personal space and this was his. The bare bones of a house. Nothing on the walls. No furniture. What was the need? The ground was the floor. The soil his bed. He waved his hand and instantly there was a soft carpet covering the dirt. That was all she was going to get.

He would have killed her outside. Before. Before he’d uttered the ritual binding words and bound her soul to his. He should have. Another mistake on his part. A big one. Now, he couldn’t kill her. It was impossible to kill one’s lifemate after the ritual words bound them together. He either had to keep her or meet the dawn, something that was so against his nature that he had come here to this monastery, where others like him viewed it as a cowardly act.

He’d lived a life of honor to be brought to this, so close to his downfall he could feel it. The darkness spreading like a virus through him. A breath away. Waiting to take him. He had lived too many centuries and had skills not many had. He would make a terrifying vampire, one that would kill hundreds if not thousands before he was brought down. He knew that. He knew it with every fiber of his being.

He shoved the woman away from him, down to her knees. She had brought him to this. She was Carpathian and she knew the consequences of her actions to her lifemate should she betray him. Even her tear-streaked face couldn’t stop the rush of fury at her. She would not only bring him down, but she would be indirectly responsible for the innocents he would kill should he turn. And he would turn if he didn’t finish this and make this treacherous wench fully his.

He tried to shut down his emotions so her tears wouldn’t get to him, wouldn’t soften him, but his fury was too great, the darkness taking hold of him so firmly he feared if they didn’t complete the bonding he would lose it and kill her and as many others as possible. Should the ancients have to destroy him, they would turn as well. Because of her. This harlot. She put them all in danger.

“Take off your clothes.”

Every vestige of color drained from her face, leaving her skin pale and her eyes enormous. She shook her head, wrapped her arms around her body and bit hard at her lip.

He wasn’t about to repeat himself. He stepped close to her, caught her hair in his fist and dragged her to her feet. It took a moment with her struggling to get her feet under her. He didn’t help her. The moment she was up, he leaned in and sank his teeth into her neck, right over that tempting, pounding pulse.

She cried out, but he let go of her hair and jerked her tight against him. Her blood spilled into his mouth. Saturated his cells. Ruby red. The finest he’d ever tasted. Ever. In all the centuries of living, of surviving, of taking blood to sustain him, there had been no other blood that tasted so amazing. Nothing had prepared him for the taste of her. She burst on his tongue like fine bubbles, teasing and eluding his ability to name the mixture of tastes.

He knew he was instantly addicted. He would crave her for eternity. And that was just fine with him. She was his, and she’d earned her place as his slave. No more. No lifemate status for such a treacherous woman. He would feed on her. Enjoy every drop he took from her.

As he fed, he stripped the clothes from her body with his mind, taking great care not to enter her mind. He didn’t dare. He didn’t want to see her treachery, what she’d done with this other man. That would send him crashing over the edge. He knew it, those images, her feelings for another man. Her betrayal.