GRAYSON
After Kyle left, Belle glanced up, scanning the room.
Her brows furrowed when she didn’t find my beta. “Where_7”
I cut her question short by sweeping her off her feet and marching her to the bed–or should I say, her mattress on the floor.
I pushed down the feeling of fury caused by the fact that it still smelled like Liam Blackwood and sat down on the mattress with my back to the wall and Belle on my lap.
She clung to me tightly, her arms wrapped around my neck. I had to pry her off my chest to get her to look at me, but I never ceased my purring. It calmed her and made her less afraid.
That’s what she needed right now.
At the same time, the smell of her arousal was only growing the longer I purred. She shifted restlessly on my lap, her cheeks flushed with bright pink.
Huh, so it seemed as though purring had two effects on my gorgeous mate.
I carefully brushed a lock of brown hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ear. I cupped. her jaw.
“How are you doing, baby? Are you feeling better?” I asked her, running the pad of
her cute chin.
of my
thumb over
She nodded. “Yes.”
She placed her hand over my vibrating chest. I put my hand over hers, holding it there.
“I, uh…,” she whispered. “I have some questions.”
I gently squeezed her hand. My purrs increased just the slightest bit. “Ask me anything, beautiful.”
Her pupils were blown out and large. She licked her lips and shifted her hips against me once again. I could tell she was trying to hold herself back by the way she kept glancing at my lips.
“Could you…,” she started. “Could you, um, stop purring? I–I’m having a hard time concentrating.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. This was a useful little trick my vampire had given me. I would
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But for now, I let the sound of the purrs roll to an end, giving her some reprieve.
She let out a deep breath, her body slumping a bit in relief. “Thank you.
Now that my purrs weren’t calming her anymore, she stiffened just slightly.
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Afraid she would try to run from me again if given the opportunity, I gripped her hips and pulled her closer, ensuring she had no way out.
“What are your questions, Belle?” I coaxed.
I noticed her studying my eyes.
I hadn’t been paying attention to what color they were, too focused on my mate, but now I realized that they were a dark red–a mix of black and red for both my wolf and vampire.
They were both at the front of my consciousness, watching Belle with just as much interest as I was.
“So you’re a… vampire now?” she asked, her voice quict and mock.
“A hybrid,” I corrected softly. “My wolf is still here. I have both creatures in me.”
“And that’s why you’re so big now?” Her eyes scanned over my chest and my arms. I could hear her heart rate jump slightly. “Becoming a vampire…made you grow?”
“Sort of.” I rubbed her hips soothingly, holding myself back from purring once again since it seemed to make her so calm the last time, and she looked terrified now.
“When I went through the transition, my vampire made me stronger, faster, the ultimate predator. The change in size just came with it.”
“Are you–Are you dangerous?”
“Never to you. Do you understand that, Belle? My vampire loves you, just like my wolf, just like I love you. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. I would never even lay a hand on you.”
Her eyes dropped from me. “You said that before too.”
She took a deep breath. “And Kyle is a–a hybrid too now?”
I nodded. “He was bitten too. So he went through the transition as well.”
Her small hand went to my neck and gently touched the scar where Azazel had sunk his teeth into
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The two little puncture wounds were barely even visible anymore and would completely heal with
time.
I had almost forgotten about the scar but was glad that Belle had found it. It was further proof that what I was saying was the truth.
Her eyes darted back to mine. “You were bitten by the king of vampires?”
I nodded. If she needed to hear all of it again, I would happily repeat myself until she felt like she understood. “Former king of vampires.”
“And he turned you into a hybrid werewolf–vampire?”
“Yes.”
“And took over your body for months?”
“Yes.“”
She dropped her face into her hands. “This is a lot to take in. I don’t even know if I can believe you. This story is just too insane.”
Out of pure instinct, I started to purr again, but this time I was quieter so that she could barely even
hear me.
Her body could sense the vibrations, though, and she visibly relaxed. Good. When she relaxed, I did
too.
“I know, love. I’ve got you,” I replied. I gently pulled her back to me and tucked her into my chest. She let me take all of her weight and even nuzzled into me.
Intense relief swelled inside of me. She was finally listening to me. She was letting me hold her without fighting. She was giving in to the bond.
My hand ran up and down her spine. She shivered against me.
“So…it wasn’t you who said all of those…horrible things to me about how you would only ever want me for pleasure and power?” Her words were thick with tears.
I tensed when I realized she was about to start crying again.
“It wasn’t you who hit me multiple times and tried to sleep with someone else when I wouldn’t?”
“No. It wasn’t me.” My heart tightened, doing rolls behind my rib cage. “But I was there. I could see
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“I was trapped, forced to watch my mate being tortured.”
Her eyes were wide and round. “You could see everything?”
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I nodded. “I fought hard to get free. It was why he spent so little time around you. Every time he went anywhere near you in my body, I fought against him, pounding on his consciousness.
“It made him weak. But I couldn’t get free, no matter how hard I tried. My wolf did once.”
“Your wolf!” she exclaimed. “That day you broke my cheekbone–he took care of me.”
As if on cue, my wolf growled softly in my chest, letting her know he was there. Belle smiled softly
at the sound.
“No way I thought to myself. “I didn’t break your cheekbone,” I said, reminding her. “I would never even think of hurting you like that. Azazel Mortar was the one who hit you.”
“He did it to mess with me, to make me angry and prove that he had control over me and could do whatever he wanted to you, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Except I did.
“My anger was so great when he hurt you that my wolf was able to break through the dark magic blocking us and tend to you.
“But as I’m sure you noticed, he’s not the best communicator in the world, so he couldn’t explain to you what was going on. He could only apologize.”
My wolf bristled inside of me at the memory. We had never felt more powerless than we had at that
moment.
“I remember,” Belle muttered quietly, pain filling her voice.
I hugged her tighter to me. A moment of silence passed as I let her process everything that I was telling her.
“So….” Belle started. “You’re you again? You promise there’s no more evil vampire inside of you?”
“Yes. I’m me again. No more evil vampire. You have no idea how long I’ve waited to tell you.”
Belle looked up at me, hesitancy filling her gaze. “But how do I know it won’t happen again? How do I know you won’t just…change on me again? I don’t know…” She shuttered.
“I don’t think I can handle that again.”
“Because it won’t. I won’t let it. I’m stronger now than I was before. I know how to prevent it. And Chapter 26 of 59: Chapter 26
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She leaned back, hesitating for a moment. Then she tried to get off of
I quickly grabbed her waist, pulling her back to me. “What are you doing?”
“…I think I need a moment,” she whispered. “I need time to process,
around you. You make my brain stop working.”
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And I can’t do that
“It’s the mate bond. It wants us together because that’s where you belong. With me. You need me just as much as I need you. We need each other.”
I gripped her waist tighter, not enough to hurt her, just to show her how desperate I was. “Please don’t make me leave you again.”
She seemed to struggle internally for several seconds. “I need to have a clear head. So I can think.” She shook her head. “I just need some time.”
It was physically painful to let her crawl from my lap. She walked to the door of her apartment and opened it. She looked at me, waiting.
I got up slowly, never breaking eye contact with her. When I was standing in front of her, I gently grabbed her face with both hands, tilting her head up so she was looking directly into my eyes.
“Take all the time you need, mate. I’ll wait for you forever,” I told her. Then I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “You let me know when you’re ready.”
And then, with great effort, I left her.
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