Darkest Temptation (The Dark Ones Saga 4)

I saw it all.

I saw the world through new eyes.

And I was greedy for more.

Serenity sucked through her lips and then fell back against the wall, mouth parted, blood dripping from her lower lip as her crazed green eyes met mine in confusion and wonder.

Chests heaving, we stared at one another.

I couldn’t speak.

Slowly, I righted her clothes as she wiped her mouth and then in a stunned voice confessed, “You’re half vampire.”

I brought a shaking hand to my face and wiped my mouth. “How?”

“I don’t have the power to change someone, to even awaken something that’s been dormant. There’s… there’s no way. I’m not part of the council. I’m not old enough I’m—” She kept shaking her head.

“Cassius—” I grabbed her hand. “—Cassius will know. Let’s grab the food and go.”

“If the cart’s still there.” She shot me a small smile.

I returned it with a brilliant one of my own. “We were in a hurry.”

“Next time…”

Did that mean there would be a next time? Could I even handle it without exploding on the spot?

“…we go slow.”

“Slow,” I agreed, not sure if I could do anything slow when it came to her. “We’ll go slow.”

I could have sworn I heard a dark chuckle from somewhere and a whisper that said, “Lie.”

SERENITY

My gums ached.

It started slowly like I’d bruised something in my mouth; the pain lessened then intensified so much that I was ready to press my hand against my teeth just to see if the agony would stop.

“What’s wrong?” Mason’s gravelly voice shook me out of my pain. “You’re hurt.” He said it like he knew it.

Like he knew me.

He reached over and grabbed my hand. The pain didn’t stop, but it didn’t increase again. I clenched his hand as tight as I could, my mind a whirlwind of impossibilities.

Impossible that he was half vampire.

Impossible that the blood I tasted on my tongue had my DNA.

Impossible that a half-wolf-half-vampire existed.

Impossible that he was my mate.

Impossible that we could mate.

He was a beast, a beast within a man, along with something other lurking beneath the surface — something he hadn’t even faced in all of his centuries of living.