Bitten by the Vampires

“You should try to sleep,” Matthew finally says.

“Close your eyes, Tyana,” Eli agrees.

Benjamin stays silent, and I want to ask him what he’s thinking about, or if this changes anything, but I know that it doesn’t. I know that no matter what happens next, everything’s going to change.

From here on out, things will be different.

Wilder, maybe, and perhaps they’ll be more painful. I don’t know. I reach for my lips, though, and I touch them. I kind of can’t believe I did that.

“Sleep,” Eli says again. This time, there’s a bit of an edge to his voice.

“Why won’t she do what you say?” Benjamin asks. His voice sounds louder than usual in the darkness.

“I don’t have to obey him just because he’s bossy,” I snap.

“No, you have to obey him because he’s a fucking vampire,” Benjamin says.

“Do humans usually just do what you say?”

I think about the people of Eagleton. They were running around wildly, trying their best not to let the vampires capture them, but in the end, they were taken. All of them. I can’t imagine any of them just doing what a vampire told them to do.

“In an intimate setting like this? Yes,” Eli says out loud. “Generally speaking, vampires have a bit of...sway...when it comes to getting humans to obey.”

“I’ve heard about this.”

Then again, I’ve heard a lot of things about vampires.

“I’m sure you have.”

“So why isn’t it working?” Benjamin asks again. “She hasn’t listened at all.”

“Mad I kissed you, huh?” I ask, and he growls in the darkness.

“Brother, relax...” Matthew speaks now.

“Are you actually brothers?”

“It’s a term of endearment,” Matthew explains.

“The reason she’s not obeying is because she’s our mate,” Eli tells Benjamin. He speaks as though I’m not even here, and I’m not sure whether that’s sexy or horrifying. I think it might be a mixture of both things.

“I didn’t ask for her,” Benjamin says, and somehow, that fucking hurts.

Okay, well I didn’t ask for them, either. I definitely didn’t ask for a vampire mate. I certainly didn’t ask for three. So why don’t they just turn me and release me into the wild? They don’t have to keep me. I’m not the kind of girl who needs to be babysat.

Besides, being in the wild will be totally fine.

They can release me and let me go, and that’ll be just totally okay. I don’t need them to promise me anything. They don’t need to pretend to take care of me. They don’t need to tell me that I’m going to get some sort of happy ending. I’m not asking for any of that.

All I want is my own damn freedom, but somehow, I get the feeling that that’s what these guys want more than anything else-.

“A vampire’s mate is never asked for, but destined by the gods,” Eli says.

“But we can’t even control her,” Benjamin says. “What’s the point?” He slumps back against the carriage. I can’t really see him, but I can hear him, and besides, his shitty attitude is permeating the space we’re in.

All I can think about is how damn disappointed he is that out of all of the mates in the world he could have landed, he got stuck with

me.