Delivered by the Defender (Kindred Tales)

I was young, he argued with himself. The Blood Hunger was new to me. It ruled me—drove me! I couldn’t help myself.

But he knew it was a lie. He could have helped himself—should have helped himself. He could still remember the bloody fang marks on Ka’leesa’s neck, where she had torn away from him after his first bite, without even letting him heal her.

His first bride had wanted nothing to do with such a mate—maybe she had sensed the savagery inside him. She had wept and sobbed and begged him to leave her alone and Valen had promised he would…and then he had vowed he would never hurt another female with his fangs as he had hurt Ka’leesa.

A vow you broke, whispered the accusing voice in his head. But at least you can stop now and keep your other vow—your vow never to call a bride. You don’t deserve a lovely Elite like Selena—you don’t deserve anything but to be alone forever.

“Valen?” Selena’s soft voice interrupted his miserable, self-incriminating thoughts. “I don’t understand,” she said, looking up at him. “What did I do? Why are you mad at me?”

Valen only shook his head. He wished he could stay and explain—tell her why he didn’t deserve her. But after tasting her and biting her, every fiber of his being longed to Claim her. And he couldn’t do that—couldn’t even risk being near her any longer. Despite his guilt, his shaft was throbbing with the need to fill her and his fangs were aching to sink into her soft throat—this time to inject his Essence and bond her to him forever.

“I must go,” he said in a low voice. “I think…” He cleared his throat. “Think it’s better if we don’t speak of what happened tonight, though I beg your forgiveness for the pain I caused you.”

Her eyes widened.

“But—”

“In fact, I think it’s better that we don’t speak much at all,” Valen interrupted her ruthlessly. “I’ll take you to the gala tomorrow but as soon as you play, you must leave Ma’shorka Centra because I can no longer act as your Master.”

“What? I don’t understand!” Her big brown eyes filled with tears and the look of sudden misery on her face made Valen’s heart ache. “What…what did I do wrong?” she whispered.

“Nothing.” Valen’s voice sounded tight and choked in his own ears. “I’m the one who’s wrong, little one. And I’m afraid I can never be made right.”

Then he turned on his heel and left her, hating himself more than he could ever remember.

52

Selena sat there, frozen, tears running down her face as the door shut behind the big Kindred. What had happened to make him so upset? Was he mad at her for her reaction to his bite? But she hadn’t been able to help herself! The orgasm had overwhelmed her completely. It was like a force of nature—a tidal wave sweeping in to uproot and level everything in its path. She must have fainted from the extreme pleasure.

And when I woke up he was mad at me and wanting to distance himself from me all over again!

It was a pattern with Valen that she had recognized before—as soon as the big Kindred started getting too close to her, he drew away and put distance between them. Only this time, Selena was afraid the distance would be permanent.

Well, what did you expect? You knew about his vow right from the start. He made it abundantly clear he didn’t want you and that the two of you could never be together.

But she’d never met a man she had such an instant connection with before! And she’d certainly never been with anyone who fulfilled her fantasies the way Valen had. It felt like she’d found her perfect match…but he didn’t want to be with her.

In short, it hurt like hell.

Forget about it, Selena told herself. Get some sleep—you have the gala tomorrow. You need to be fresh if you’re going to play Paganini’s Caprices.

The 24 Caprices by Niccolo Paganini were fiendishly difficult pieces of music, some of which she had chosen as her solo for the gala. They were so hard to play, in fact, that back when Paganini had written them, he was rumored to be in league with the devil. If she was going to nail such difficult music, she needed to get her sleep.

But it was a long, long time after she went to bed that Selena’s eyes finally drifted shut, and even then she had troubled dreams. In them, she seemed to see Valen when he was younger. He was with a young woman with white blonde hair and frightened eyes—a woman with bloody marks on her neck who cried and cringed away from the big Kindred as though she was trying to ward him off. Valen turned away from her, a look of self-hatred on his strong features, as though he despised himself.