Hybrid
“There was no way I’d let you mark me if you kept me confined in this tower,” I said while walking down the stairs from the room upstairs. “And without respect, there could be no true connection between us.”
“I had my ways to put a pretty mark on that neck of yours.”
I paused on the stairs, my back stiffening at his words. “It still wouldn’t be a true bond,” I reminded him.
He turned around and I finally saw his face at the end of the stairs. His gaze was dark with my response. As he took a step up, I moved my feet back on the stair behind and stood still. He was intimidating, very intimidating.
“Don’t tell me about respecting the mate bond here, Aurora. I thought it was just yesterday when you married another man.”
I held my ground and nodded. “Yes, I married another man. But it wasn’t out of love or connection. It was a decision I had to make to save my mother. He promised to give a vampire’s blood to me, to save her, and I believed him.”
“Whatever you said didn’t change the fact that you married that old hag. And now you expected me to accept you as my mate, to embrace a bond that had been tainted? Forgive me, but it was going to take a while before I could show you some pity.” His gaze remained guarded, his expression hardened.
I became silent and he turned. We left the tower together and he took me back into the house. There was no purpose in arguing with a man like him. I had made a mistake—I didn’t have to be punished for it.
I hadn’t known I was going to find my mate on the same night I was getting married. If I had, I wouldn’t have done what I did.
In the morning, the sight of the mountains bathed in sunlight greeted me. The air was still cold, but there was a flicker of warmth in it. The house continued to appear haunted, even with the sun showering its light on it. I followed him into the house and then into a large dining room.
Rays of sunlight filtered through the windows, casting a glow over the polished table. My mate gestured for me to take a seat and I obliged, choosing a chair at the opposite end of the table from where he sat.
“You had such a way with your actions, my dear Aurora. Choosing the chair farthest away from me? Was this your way of expressing how much you despised me as of now?” His tone dripped with a hint of mockery.
“I had heard a lot of stories about vampires attacking. I preferred to have a clear view of the exit in case you decided to unleash your true nature upon me.” I gave him a cool stare and his smirk faded as he took in my words.
“It was great you were taking caution because—” Suddenly, his chair became empty and he stood behind me, his hand on my shoulder and his mouth inches away from my neck. Mere inches. “This was how easily I could attack you,” he whispered, his breath warm.
My body tensed, but not in the right way—not in the way I wanted it to. He trailed his hand away from my shoulder, his fingertips brushing over my neck just so slightly that every hair over my body stood.
His crimson eyes glimmered under the dim light as he sat on the seat next to me. The predatory look never left his face. I swallowed hard, regaining my control before I lost it completely. He was a monster—I reminded myself—also my mate.
I was conflicted.
“Don’t scare the girl, Lucien.” A warm, soft voice pierced through the tension, breaking the moment.
I raised my head and glanced at the door. A woman walked in, wearing an apron, her graying hair pulled back into a neat bun. Her eyes flashed at my mate in disapproval before she reached us.
Lucien.
That was the name carved on the wall in the tower. It was his name?
“Estella,” my mate’s voice was a low growl, but there was no real threat behind it. It was clear he respected the woman, maybe even feared her a little. She wasn’t just a maid, I realized. “This is—”
“Oh, I knew who she was,” the woman walked closer to me, inching near till she was only a small distance away from me. Her pupils widened the longer she stared at me. It was an odd stare, one I had never received before. Before I knew it, her fingers were under my chin, raising my head.
“You’re beautiful and it’s so great to finally meet you.”
My heart skipped a beat, but I held back my surprise. The way she spoke reminded me of my own mother. It was almost as if she was here now.
“Thank you,” I managed to say.
She gave me a comforting smile while her hand dropped away from my chin. She glanced over at my mate before looking back at me. “There was no need to fear the man next to you. Under whatever circumstances he had brought you here, I assured you he didn’t have a bone in his body to harm you. That much I could vouch for.”
My mate cleared his throat from across the table. “Are you sure about that, Estella?”
“Don’t make me warn you again, Lucien.” The woman moved away from me and headed over to him. Her voice lowered suddenly and I couldn’t help but tune into the conversation even more. “Your mother wasn’t here this time to clean up your mistakes, so be cautious.”
I watched him—my mate, Lucien—intently. His jaw clenched at the mention of his mother, and he nodded slightly at the woman. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment more before she turned away from him and back to me.
“Now, now, what would you like to eat?” she asked me. “There was plenty of food here, a lot you might enjoy, and I was well-trained in cooking anything you desired. All you had to do was let me know.”
I smiled at her and nodded. “I would love to have some coffee if that wasn’t too much trouble,” I said, trying to ease myself into whatever was going on here.
“Of course not. I’d get that for you as soon as it was possible,” she finally turned and left the room.
At her departure, the room fell into an uneasy silence. I couldn’t shake off the tension Estella had left behind. It had left me with many more questions. A few I might never even get answers to.
My head raised and I met with my mate’s gaze. His name was imprinted in my mind and thoughts, but I couldn’t understand why it was carved on the wall of that tower I was forced to reside in. Had he been in there too? Maybe locked up? Or maybe not.
“Your name,” I caught his attention and continued. “I saw a carving of it in the bedroom you’d given me. I thought it would be another prisoner, but I guessed it wasn’t.”
The crimson in his eyes appeared once more as he chuckled. It quickly faded away before I had the time to even stare at it for longer. Such oddness. “Prisoner?” he repeated, a grin spreading across his face. “Now that was interesting. Though I hadn’t been one, I had spent plenty of time in that tower as a child. It was my sanctuary for a while—”
“From the blood on the walls, I could surely see what kind of sanctuary it was.” My face scrunched with disgust as I imagined the worst.
Poor people being ripped by this half-bred vampire.
The smile on his face faded at my comment, a twinge of something that looked like pain flashing in his dark eyes. “The blood—it wasn’t from—” he began, his voice a low murmur, but he stopped himself, clearing his throat.
When he didn’t finish, I finished for him. “From the victims fed from?” I hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but the image of what I’d seen in that tower—the blood, the signs of struggle, the chains, the loneliness—they all added up to something horrific.
He leaned back in his chair while his expression hardened. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t feed directly on people. I hadn’t, not for a long while.”
I stared at him in disbelief. There couldn’t be any truth to that. Vampires enjoyed feeding on werewolves and humans. They cherished the fact they could easily mind-control and overpower another person. It asserted more than just dominance. It gave them power, and it fed into their nature.
And my mate was a half-vampire, if not whole.