Destined for a Vampire (Blood Like Poison 2)

Idiot! I scolded myself.

“You’ve done this before?” Bo asked incredulously.

I could tell that Bo was having a hard time with the information, especially just having suffered such a devastating wound. It was a miracle he could think at all.

“Of course. How do you think you’ve spent the last few hundred years?”

Sebastian chuckled, a series of sardonic barks. “Oh, that’s right. Your memory is…

well, it’s a little faulty now. Has been for a while. I guess it’s all the tampering. Not that it matters now anyway. You’ll be immune to it in the future since you’ve had the blood of your mate, but you’ll never get those memories back. Or erase the painful ones from this life.”

Sebastian’s eyes glowed with pleasure, his handsome face a cruel mask. He actually enjoyed torturing Bo, enjoyed telling him hurtful things and watching him squirm.

Bo closed his eyes. At first I thought he was in pain, and he was. Only this pain was of the emotional variety. He was still grieving for the only parents he’d ever known.

“And the woman who was my mother, will you kill her?”

“Not yet. But ultimately, that will be up to you.”

After giving it a couple seconds to sink in, Sebastian continued. “Well,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I suppose it’s time to get this show on the road.

That’s all the time we have today for a heartfelt reunion. Now, we must get down to business. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories, so you know that I’m here for one thing and one thing only: to kill you.”

According to Lucius’s stories and the translated texts in Sebastian’s office, killing Bo was an impossibility. But even so, it still terrified me to hear an angel talk about taking the life of the man that held my heart.

“Go for it,” Bo ground out between labored breaths.

“Well, there is a little something that I must learn first. That’s why I’ve asked sweet Ridley to join us,” Sebastian said dramatically, sweeping his arm toward me.

“If you hurt her…” Bo spat.

“What was that?” Sebastian cupped his ear theatrically. “I couldn’t quite make that out. I guess it’s the silver dagger sticking out of your heart. Makes it hard to understand you.”

“I’ll rip you apart,” Bo huffed weakly.

“Mmm, let’s save that for another time, shall we?”

Sebastian walked back toward me, stopping at my side.

“She’s quite stunning, you know,” he said, reaching out to take a lock of my hair that had fallen down across my breast and twirl it around his finger. “It must be a father-son thing, the love we have for beautiful women.” Sebastian faced me full on and said quietly, “And their love for us.”

Reaching around me to a small table that sat to my right, Sebastian took hold of an oddly familiar wooden stake. I don’t know why it seemed like I’d seen it before, but I was certain I recognized it. He hefted it in his hand, as if testing the weight, and then he turned and hurled it across the room at Bo.

With a loud thump, the stake buried its tip in Bo’s side, to the right of his navel, evidently penetrating his body to embed in the wide beam behind him. When he cried out in agony, it felt as if I had been impaled as well. His pain lanced through me in a physical way, piercing my guts like a scalpel.

“No!” I screamed, but once more it was smothered by Heather’s hand.

Sebastian faced me again. “Not enough? Would you like to see more?”

With that, he reached for another stake and, in one fluid motion, pivoted and threw it unerringly at Bo. This one landed deep in his left thigh.

Bo must’ve gasped in anguish and gotten choked. He coughed and sputtered, blood spewing from his mouth.

The room swayed before my eyes so I squeezed them shut, unable to watch, unable to bear his torture.

Viciously strong fingers grabbed my face and my eyes flew open. Sebastian was glaring down at me, his lips thin and set in a straight, angry line.

“More?”

In horror, I watched as he took yet another stake from the table and flung it at Bo. It penetrated his knee with a splintering sound. I knew it wasn’t the stake giving way; it was Bo’s bone.

“Oh, God, please,” I mumbled behind Heather’s hand.

Sebastian turned back to me, rage etched on every sharp angle of his face.

“God? You dare to call on Him in my presence?”

Furiously, Sebastian grabbed another thick chunk of the familiar whittled wood from the table. I shook my head desperately, but still he turned and launched it at Bo. I watched his arm extend and his hand release the stake, each motion slow and exaggerated, as if he was moving in molasses. I saw every rotation the projectile made on its way to Bo. I heard the hiss of Bo’s breath as it neared him. I felt the way he braced himself against the pain, felt it as surely as if it were happening to me.

As the wood buried itself in Bo’s right shoulder, blood spurted out, droplets flying through the air and peppering his gorgeous face. I surveyed his broken and bloodied body, my heart wrenching inside my tight chest. The anguish I felt for Bo began to meld with another sensation, one that I’d felt before. It was more than fear, more than love, more than helplessness or anger. It was a sweet hurt that I immediately recognized and embraced.

Yes, the terror was there and the rage, but also the feeling that an old friend—

a trusted friend, a powerful friend—had arrived to lend a hand. And with one shaky breath, I let her have her way.

Inside me, she built more quickly this time—the familiar pressure in my chest that oozed into my stomach, where it churned angrily. Within seconds, she had flooded my veins, mingling with my blood and carrying my tie with Bo to the surface, where it throbbed and pulsed just beneath the covering of my flesh.

I knew what was coming next, and when it did, I welcomed the razors that sliced at me, welcomed the exquisite agony of my skin pulling away to let free the power that prowled inside me. I shook with it, trembled with it. It vibrated through me, forcing Heather’s hand away from my mouth.

I closed my eyes as a glorious laugh spilled from between my lips. It was followed by the scream that had been brewing in my chest. I felt my love for Bo pouring through me—the desperation of it, the overwhelming force of it. It promised to save us both and I let it flow.

When I opened my eyes, they found Bo’s like a magnet. My body, my life, my soul was attached and attracted to him, finding him with an undeniable certainty.