“Ready, baby?” His face is next to mine, and I turn and give him a quick kiss never realizing how having someone call me that could make me feel so…precious.
“As ready as I can be.”
He smiles and closes the door, oblivious to the depth of my statement. The dash reads 11:45 P.M., and in another world I would be giving myself to a stranger for all of eternity right now, trading my own happiness for the security of the Messina family’s continued protection.
Instead, I’m putting us all in harm’s way for my own selfish desires.
As we glide down the driveway and stop at the gate to my family’s estate, Maxim rolls his window down and punches in the code, and the heavy iron swings away.
I stare, and he looks over at me, tipping his head. “I was prepared to do what was necessary to get to you, Seleme. Forgive me, but I had Dimitri text me the security code to your gate. It was on my phone when I checked it before we left. I was coming for you tonight, one way or the other.”
I reach out and rest my hand on his arm. “Maxim…” The words catch in my throat, but I force them forward. “I don’t care about that. There’s something you need to know.”
As he eases the sedan forward, I see the candlelight inside the mansion warming the windows with a soft blue glow, a color used in vampire society to welcome honored guests and promise safety.
They’re here.
It’s happening.
I can’t let him walk into an ambush.
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
He looks over, and the tension knots inside of me.
“Really?” His brow tightens. “There’s more than you just marrying someone before midnight?”
“Yes. Something that might change everything. Will change me, and it frightens me to think how you might react. But you deserve to know before we go inside.”
Maxim parks and turns off the engine, then turns to look me squarely in the eye. “I want to know everything about you, Seleme. But nothing is going to change the way I feel. I never want you to think you can’t tell me anything.”
A chill rips through me as he reaches for my hand, and the scent of him changes. It’s his blood I smell now, and my mouth begins to water. The truth I see in his eyes gives me some comfort, but in the next thirty seconds, that all could change.
I’m salivating. A low growl vibrates inside me.
“I’m not like the other girls,” I say, willing him to understand the reality behind the vague words. “I’m not like most people.”
He nods, arching an eyebrow. “Clearly. Tell me something I don’t know.”
My mind scrambles, trying to find the words that will make it all okay, but finally I decide they don’t exist, and the truth spills out.
“I’m a vampire.”
Those three words hang in the air between us, and they would sound ridiculous if not for the tears brimming in my eyes. I can hear Maxim’s heart rate increase as his eyes narrow and he takes a moment to absorb the meaning.
The truth of what I’m telling him.
His silence urges me on. “After tonight, I’ll turn completely. My mother is…I mean she was human, when I was conceived. She was turned afterwards, and at that point she gained all of the vampire strengths. Their glamor, their power, their slower ageing. My father…my father was born a vampire, almost eight hundred years ago. At midnight tonight, I’m not just supposed get married. That’s a part of it, but it’s more. It was to be a union of two families as I come of age and become everything I’m supposed to be. This marriage was the price to be paid for protection, for all of us, past, present and future. You see, there was a prophecy a long time ago, and I’m a part of it. A lot of other vampire families want me dead. They think I’ll be too powerful once I’m a full vampire. I can feel myself changing already. The human in me is weakening, and my vampire is taking control.” I do my best to control the quiver in my voice, but the sincerity is there. There isn’t a hint of humor, and I let out a long breath, relieved to have the truth out of me. “I’m a vampire. This isn’t a joke.”
Maxim looks at the house then back to me. “I shouldn’t believe you, but I do. Explains some things, too.”
“You believe me?” My incredulous reply makes him smile.
“Before tonight, before I fucked you, I told you, you made me believe in things I never did before. I meant that shit.” He chuckles, then finishes, “I didn’t mean it literally at the time, or I didn’t think I did, but I guess you called me on it, and the cards are right there on the table. I gotta say, I have about a thousand questions, but I do believe you. None of that changes us, Seleme. You’re mine — bloodsucker or not, you belong to me now. I know that more than I know anything.”