“No, it isn’t.” Her matter-of-fact tone coaxed a smile to his face. He enjoyed her argumentative nature. “I can feel the lie, taste it on my tongue, when I call you Michael, so I won’t call you that. No matter how much you want me to.”
Extraordinary. If what she said was true, her instincts were more akin to a vampire’s than a human’s. Just one more oddity that tempted to steer him to believe that Claire was in fact a mysterious Vessel. “I like the way it sounds when you say it. No one has called me Mikhail in a very long time.”
“Ronan calls you Mikhail,” Claire pointed out yet again.
“True. But it doesn’t sound half as sweet when he says it.”
Claire paused, turned to him, and a brilliant smile spread across her face. “Did you just pay me a compliment, Mikhail?”
Gods. It was torture to be so close to her and not reach out and touch. Claire was beautiful and intelligent; her wit was quick and sharp. “I did,” he replied, forcing his attention to the pasta he pushed around his plate with the fork. “Does it please you?”
He gave her a sidelong glance and his gut clenched as crimson bloomed on her cheeks. “Maybe,” she said, popping a bite of chicken into her mouth.
Did it matter whether she was a Vessel or not? Michael knew without a doubt that his want of her would not diminish, either way. Likewise, he was certain that this mindless desire would most assuredly doom them both.
CHAPTER
15
“Do you have any fours?”
“No. Go fish.”
If Ronan could see him now, camped out on the living-room floor, the male would suffocate from bouts of laughter. But Michael didn’t care. Every moment spent with Claire was precious; each new day, a gift he couldn’t wait to unwrap.
Another three days had passed. Three days shut up in his tomb of a house while Ronan acted as his envoy, reaching out to the strongest dhampir covens and bringing them into their fold, allies who were capable of sustaining the change. An army of vampire warriors to fight the Sortiari. So he could protect Claire.
His mate. The Vessel and mother of the vampire race.
Or so he hoped.
“It’s your turn.”
Michael looked up at Claire’s expectant face, a sweet smile curving her full pink lips. Gods, how he wanted to touch her again. Taste her. Feel the petal softness of her mouth against his. “Sorry. Do you have any aces?”
Claire screwed her mouth into a petulant pout and handed over a card. The distance that separated them now was mere inches, though it felt like a cavernous expanse that stretched on for miles. He didn’t know how to close the gap. What to do, to say, that would make her fully trust him. His heart had ceased beating two days ago and never had he felt the absence as acutely as he did now. Claire’s blood no longer sustained him, and if he didn’t feed again soon he would lose himself to the bloodlust and take her vein whether she wanted him to or not.
“Your eyes are silver.”
Michael sorted out four aces and set the cards aside. “Are they.” He didn’t need confirmation. His emotions teetered on the edge. Volatile. Each passing moment spent with Claire was heaven and hell all at once. Or, perhaps more to the point, purgatory.
“Something’s upsetting you,” she remarked in the matter-of-fact way that he admired. “Or you’re thinking about working some of your mind-control mojo on me.”
As if that would work. Michael let out a chuff of breath. “I’m…” Words escaped him. Clogged his mind like slush trying to pass down a frozen stream. “Frustrated.”#p#分页标题#e#
“I don’t know why.” Claire’s tone was light, but her eyes were hooded. Dark gold in a midnight sky. “You’re winning.”
“I’d hoped the distance between us would close, but it seems with each passing day it grows wider.” The frustration he’d tried to squash built inside of him, boiling and churning like a river current. “You still don’t trust me.”
“No.” Claire set her cards aside and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them close. “I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you still want me to call you Michael for starters.”
Again with this foolishness? Michael pushed himself up from the floor and blew out a gust of breath. “It shouldn’t matter to you what name I choose to go by.”
“It matters if it’s a lie.”
Infuriating female. “It’s only a lie if you choose to see it as one. It doesn’t change who I am.”
“Exactly!” Claire stood as well, scattering cards in her wake. Her hair cascaded over one shoulder in a golden sheet and her cheeks flushed with anger that sparked his bloodlust further. “So why lie about it? It doesn’t change who you are, Mikhail.”