Jess Haines - Stalking the Others

“Tell me,” he commanded, “what’s wrong.”

The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “My dad was right. I’m not a Waynest anymore. Not myself anymore. Just another vampire’s puppet.”

My eyes popped open and I slapped my hands over my mouth before I could say anything more damning. Royce’s expression was unreadable, his gaze burning into mine.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered from behind my hands.

I couldn’t tell by his expression if he was angry with me for being honest with him, but it was far too late to take the words back, and I’d never been good at hiding my thoughts from him. Especially when he was staring at me so intently, like he could see right past my eyes to the darkest thoughts buried in the back of my mind. Like he knew all the horrible things I didn’t want anybody to know. He might not judge me for them—but that didn’t mean I wanted him to know every thought inside my head as intimately as he’d come to learn the secrets of my body last night.

Not wanting to meet his gaze, I buried my face against his chest, practically vibrating with tension. Maybe he got the picture that his actions were only making things worse. His voice, when he finally spoke, was strangely gentle, and made me feel like an even bigger fool for finding comfort in it.

“Even after last night? You still think that I was only using you, or would abandon you once I got what I wanted?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. He kept running his fingers through my hair and down my back, not saying anything for a time. It took a while, but after the worst of my trembling tapered off, he slid a hand between us and nudged my chin up so he could peer into my eyes.

“What is it you fear has changed about you? What do you feel I have taken from you?”

Biting my lip, I looked away again before answering him. The tears made it a little hard to speak clearly, but I’m pretty sure he still heard me just fine. “My soul. My free will.”

Shaking from a mix of stress and fatigue and a sickness more of mind than body, I jerked out of his grip and put some distance between us, turning my back on him as I drew the covers up to my chin. He might own me now, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

What hurt worst of all was knowing that my dad was right. I wasn’t fit to be a Waynest. I wasn’t even my own person anymore. Without the belt, I was just another helpless, hapless human, at the mercy of a monster who could feed on or kill me at any time with no cost to himself. No safety nets. No taking it back. I’d put myself here, and now I would have to suffer the consequences of my own choices.

The vampire’s hand settled on my shoulder. The irony of that possessive gesture coinciding with my thoughts wasn’t lost on me. If anything, it made it harder to get the tears under control. When I didn’t turn around, he gripped my upper arm, not tight enough to hurt, but definitely enough to keep me from pulling away from him again.

“Shiarra, please look at me.”

I wouldn’t—couldn’t do it. He made a soft, frustrated sound in his throat before speaking.

“I wish I had some way of expressing to you how much you mean to me in a way that you would accept. You saved my life, Shiarra, back when I meant nothing to you. You’re brave when you have every reason to run scared, you’ve shown a remarkable ability to think on your feet, and you’re resourceful. You’ve faced many of your fears, which is more than could be said for some of the most loyal of my number—but you hold to this idea that belonging to me makes you less than a person, and it’s simply not true. You are no less the woman you were before you let me touch you last night, and I have no intentions of discarding you like some broken toy.”

“This isn’t something you can fix, Royce,” I said. My voice might have been thick with tears, but I was proud of myself for being able to say what I was thinking for once instead of choking on my own angst like a brooding teenager. “You were just ... you. It was my choice. I let it happen.”

His voice was deadly cold and quiet. “Are you telling me you consider last night a mistake?”

I twisted to look at him, shocked.

He leaned in, using his grip on my arm to push me to my back. Before I knew it, his fingers, icy and implacable, tightened around my wrists. The growl rumbling in his throat made my knees quiver, and I gasped as my hands were abruptly pinned above my head, his lips brushing over my throat with a teasing rake of fangs as he leaned into me. His usually smooth voice came out rough, ragged, and I could very nearly taste the anger and frustration radiating from him around the bitter flavor of fear on my tongue.

“You are the most aggravating woman I have ever encountered! I have fought everything that I am to be what I thought you would desire of me. I have left you to live your life as you wished it, rather than as I willed it. Do you know how difficult it was to wait idly by while you hemmed and hawed about whether you could trust me? Don’t you know that the temptation to interfere with your choices was nearly unbearable? I have been as kind and generous and understanding as I know how to be, Shiarra. I waited for you to come to me of your own will—and now that you have, you think that what we did was a mistake? After all that I have done? Still you spurn me, fear me. Am I not generous enough? Have I not been merciful? What must I say or do to make you understand that I have leashed everything that I am so that you would choose me of your own will?”

Though my heart was still beating a million miles a minute and every breath was taken on a gasp thanks to the adrenaline rush, I didn’t struggle. It took some effort to calm down, but his grip eased up as the tension in my body did. His lips were still but a hairsbreadth away from my jugular, but I didn’t think he was about to bite me. Not yet, anyway. My reply came out small-voiced, not in the accusatory tone I was going for.

“You’re taking away what makes me ... me. You scare me, Royce. You scare me half to death, but I want you, too, and that just makes it worse. Am I even human anymore, or am I just a reflection of who you think I should be?”

My question gave him pause. He withdrew—though he didn’t let me go—and I relaxed marginally as the harsh edge left his voice.

“You are every bit as human now as you were when you first entered my home last night. I have done nothing— nothing —to change that. Don’t hate yourself for letting me make you feel good. Giving in to me isn’t a crime. Liking the things I make you feel isn’t a sin against your family or your God. There is no shame in it. I won’t tolerate these misconceptions any longer, or see you destroy yourself, physically or emotionally, now that you’re finally mine—do you understand? You mean too much to me for me to allow that to happen.”

I shuddered at his pronouncement. Though a part of me was absurdly pleased with his words, the rest of me was screaming in horror at that finally mine part. It only validated the terror of losing my own identity, only to be overshadowed by a new “master” I couldn’t live without.

“Damn it, Shiarra, look at me!”

I did. His normally black eyes were blazing red with anger, shining like bright beads of precious stones set in a lake of tar. He lifted one of my hands and pressed it to his cheek, twining his fingers with mine, much like we had done last night.

“Why do you not believe me when I say you will remain your own person? Is it because you are frightened by what I made you feel? I still taste you, crave you, want to be inside of you again. Can you honestly tell me you don’t want that, too? That you don’t want me?”