Bite Marks (The Lycans 5)

What I knew for sure was if I ever found my female, she’d be sure to hate me, to loathe who and what I was. She’d look into my cold, dead eyes and know I didn't have a heart to give. Of course, instinctively I'd be drawn to her, the need to protect her taking over. I’d heard enough about the mating phenomenon to know how it worked. But to care for her wholly? To love her?

I wasn't capable of such emotions. I wasn't capable of any.

I stood there a few more moments, staring at the gyrating bodies, seeing nothing but livestock below, bags of flesh and blood, short life spans, and hollow dreams. The doors to the main club room opened and broke up the flashing lights and hazy atmosphere of the interior. The hallway from those doors to the front ones that led outside was short and allowed me a momentary glimpse of the long line of customers salivating to get inside.

Two patrons, a man and a woman, were allowed entrance, and the next two waiting to come in stepped up to the red velvet rope, blocking off the double doors.

I saw a flash of long golden-brown hair, glimpsed strips of too much alabaster skin on display. She was tiny, waiting behind those ropes, the bouncer Ivan dwarfing her so she looked like a fragile, breakable doll. Ivan unhooked the rope and gestured to a dark-haired woman to enter. And then she stepped fully forward. Every predator instinct in me fired up as I tracked her down that short hallway to the opening of the main club floor.

I felt something in my body shift, come alive. Although my heart had been beating for a century and a half, this was the first time it functioned other than keeping me alive. It beat for her. The air I took into my lungs was for her. Every single thing I did from this point on would always be with her in mind, for her protection, her happiness… her pleasure.

My eyes turned red, illuminating my office in a hazy ruby glow as I tracked her through the club, took in every single inch of her as if I hadn’t consumed a drop of blood in a millennium and was so starved I was a dried-out husk inside.

My dick hardened, the first time I’d ever had any kind of arousal, the ache in my balls painful. I panted and braced my hands on the glass, curling my fingers against it until I worried I’d crack the partition separating me from everyone else, like releasing a beast on the vulnerable.

Mine. Mine. Mineminemine!

That one word was a roar in my head, filling my body, coursing through my veins. I’d never known bloodlust like this… never felt desire like what was licking at my fingers and toes and spreading inward to consume my very dark and dangerous soul.

Things had gotten exponentially more interesting.

And as I tracked her through the club, unable to look away, knowing what I’d do and the lengths I’d go to, to link her to me, to fuse our bodies and souls as one, I knew the situation had just gotten very real and very dangerous for that tiny—very human—female.

Only mine.

Oh, I’d make her mine, and she’d hate me for it. I’d take her body but wouldn't be able to give her my heart. How could I, when it wasn’t something I had to offer?

And so I let my feral grin spread even more over my lips as anticipation for the hunt of my prey took root in my body.

She didn’t know it yet, but she had just become the mate to the most dangerous vampire in the world.

I had tunnel vision as I made my way out of my office and stalked through the back hallways of the club, winding my way downstairs. I could hear the low growling that came from me. I had one focus, one goal, and that was to get to my female.

For far too long, I stood there and watched as she danced, swaying her hips, her lithe body barely clad. The jealous, possessive rage in me grew, and it was suffocating. I’d seen men looking at her, human males and vampires alike who I could snap in half as easily as if they were nothing but a twig underneath my boot.

James rounded the corner and came to a stop but right away retreated a step as he took in my appearance. “Adryan?”

I knew my eyes were red, the glow strong enough it lit the area in front of me, my vision ruby as my emotions over finding my Coveted One so intense I had no control right now.

Let him try to stop me.

“Adryan. I… I—”

I found myself taking a step toward him. “Move.”

“What’s wrong? Your eyes. Is there a threat?”