Love Bites

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“You’re, at best, a half-vamp. I think your partial humanity would exempt you. At any rate, you didn’t complete the change. I did. Which makes me Emily’s sire.” He grimaced. “Officially.”

“But what about me? If I decide to change, then what?” She saw the truth in his eyes. She’d waited too long. Her chance for Kellan to be her sire had passed.

“If you decide to change over completely, Lucas would have to do it. Or another vampire of your choosing.” To say he looked pained was an understatement. “I’m sorry.”

“Another vampire of my choosing?” She used her anger to avoid thinking about what she’d lost. Even if she hadn’t been ready to accept what he offered, now that the option was gone, she felt bereft. Why couldn’t she ever realize what she wanted before the possibility was extinguished? “Do you think I know that many?”

“I could contact someone for you, if you’d rather it not be Lucas.” He let out a slow breath, as if he were trying to calm himself. “Does this mean you’re ready to accept being a vampire? To acknowledge your true nature?”

“I already called myself one. Sounds like I’m getting there, right?” She hated her snappish tone, but it couldn’t be helped. First, she’d had the niggling worry that Kellan and Emily would want to get frisky. Now, Lucas would have to sire her. “What will this mean?” she asked after a moment.

“What?”

“The four of us, the way we’re tangled up…the lines have blurred between us. Fated mates or otherwise, you bring bloodletting into the equation and we’re all wrapped up in each other. If Emily ends up being attracted to you, and maybe even me, thanks to our suck-neck session, and I end up being attracted to Lucas—”

“More than you already are, you mean,” he said dryly.

She ignored him. “It gets real complicated, real fast.”

“Why do you think most mates are sired by their loved one? It can become difficult otherwise. We all have sires, and we don’t all end up with them. Lucas and I have fared well enough without Alysia in our lives, but had she been, we both would have been pulled. It’s an unbreakable bond.”

“You don’t even like Emily,” she muttered.

“Neither did you, the last time you were here.”

“Touché.” God, she wanted to scream. Why did everything have to be so hard? “He won’t want to sire me. He’d rather kill me, after he learns what I did.”

“You had no choice. I had no choice. He should damn well be grateful to us he still even has a mate. Foolish woman, playing with things she thinks she understands.”

“Kellan, you don’t know her background. I don’t know it all either, but what I do know is not good.” She shuddered, thinking of what she’d seen in Emily’s eyes as she’d spoke of killing her rapist. “She was at the breaking point.”

“Regardless, her impulsive act altered the course of four lives. And in time, she’ll understand just what that means, for all of us.”

She almost pushed him for more information on that subject, but she decided she’d had enough for one evening. She still had other, less explosive questions to ask. “What about your family?”

“What about it?”

“Do you have one?”

“A father. He died a few years ago.”

Her head cocked at his emotionless tone. “You didn’t remain in contact with him?”

“No. Lucas and I ended our association with our families once we’d changed over. It’s the usual way of things. Vampires mostly keep to their own, other than searching out snacks. Or lays.”

“What about Luke’s family?”

“It was harder for him. He had a bunch of sisters, his parents, cousins. Severing that link was difficult, but it had to be done. Living in this world is hard enough. But trying to straddle two? Watching your family age and die while you don’t change breaks the hardest heart. Easier to leave early on and pretend they’re still living their lives just fine without you.”

Sydney stared down at the table. All of a sudden, the enormity of the changes in her life weighed down her shoulders to the point that even breathing ached. “I have a mother,” she whispered. “She’s remarried a bunch of times, and now she lives down south. You’re saying I wouldn’t be able to see her again.”

“It would be your choice. But as the years pass, it would become more difficult for you.” He exhaled noisily. “And Sydney, if you don’t take a sire, you will die yourself. You’re not immortal now, just harder to kill. According to those books of Emily’s, your lifespan would be extended, but it’s not infinite.”

“He won’t sire me. Maybe staying as I am is the best option.”

Before he could argue with her, she jerked to her feet and rushed down the hall to her room. Well, Lucas’s room. She needed to be on her own right now. Even if Emily snored. Loudly.