I didn’t want to let go.
I knew I should.
It would be the wise thing to do.
Because I was minutes away from stripping her naked next to a head of lettuce. That damn well would cause a need for clean-up on aisle four.
“Relax…” she whispered. “…it’s just grocery shopping and a little hand-holding. It’s not marriage. You don’t have to keep me.” Her heart stuttered a bit.
I felt her pain, the intense need to be needed. Wanted.
“It would be more than marriage.” I spoke in a quiet voice, releasing her hand in order to grab the same lettuce I was hell-bent on pushing her up against. Carrots. I mindlessly started tossing things in the cart without any sort of purpose to keep my hands occupied. They wanted her skin so bad I couldn’t focus. My teeth kept pressing against my inside cheek, imagining piercing her soft flesh.
I gripped the cart again.
Serenity seemed to know the storm that brewed inside as she very gently kept rubbing her thumb over my hand.
“It’s scary. This whole mating business.”
A fresh wave of guilt hit me. “I wish it wasn’t me.”
She stopped walking.
A horrified expression had me picking her up into my arms and holding her against my chest. “Get that thought out of your head. It’s not you… I’m just…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “…I’m a broken, dirty mess, and you don’t deserve the mess. You deserve the masterpiece.”
Tears filled her eyes as she reached for my face then slowly cupped my cheek. “Mason, the mess is the masterpiece.”
And then, very gently, she pressed her lips to mine in a chaste kiss that had my lungs burning for more, my body hard and aching.
“I wish…” My eyes searched hers. “…I wish I believed you.”
“Me too.” She gave me a sad look as she slid down my body.
I felt her breasts against my chest; I wanted to grab them, see them fit into my massive hands, watch her scream my name. I wanted so much.
I didn’t know how to have her — without losing control.
Without giving in to whatever the hell was wrong with me.
“I don’t want to hurt you again,” I admitted in front of a box of Cheerios.
She grabbed the cereal and tossed it into the cart. “Have you ever thought that maybe if you drank more blood you’d be able to think clearly?”
I frowned. “But wolves don’t drink blood.”
“Right, but you’re… not… just a wolf.” She said it with slight hesitation.
“Are you suddenly a vet?” I joked and grabbed ten more boxes of cereal. Genesis loved cereal, and Hope, it seemed, was either pregnant or Alex needed to feed her more. She constantly ate at midnight, giant bowls, sometimes three.
“I could be wrong.” She eyed some oatmeal and tossed it in the cart. “If I’m wrong, I’ll go hunting with you.”
My ears perked up. “Do you think you can keep up?”
She smacked me in the chest.
It only stung a bit.
I rubbed the spot and winked.
She was so pretty, my mate.
Hell.
I needed to stop thinking that way before I screw us both, making it so she couldn’t escape me, escape the bond.
But she was pretty.
So pretty.
Her eyes flickered green.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“Starving,” she admitted. “I would probably eat two of your steaks.”
I groaned at the erotic picture. “Wolves like to make food for…” I didn’t say mates, but that was what it was. It was our job to hunt the food, prepare it, provide for their every need.
I frowned at the memory of my last mate not liking steak but eating it because I’d wanted her to.
Then frowned harder.
“You alright?” Serenity asked, steering the cart into the meat aisle,
“Yeah, I’m just—” My mouth went completely dry.
“Stunned into silence over meat?”
She crossed her arms while I stared, while I lusted, while I briefly imagined becoming a butcher and licking the table after I prepared the food.
And then Serenity, in all her beauty, reached for some steak, sniffed it, then held it out. “This one’s good.”
I’d never been so wrongly aroused in my entire existence as she licked her lips, held the steak out to me, and provided the only two things I needed in life in one shiny package.
Her.
Steak.
Her.
Steak.
I felt my body give way. I tried to control the urge, but I was too late. I opened my mouth to say something, probably run, but before the word could get out, she grabbed my hand and jerked me into a door that was for employees only. She tore at her own arm then held it to my mouth.
I took her blood.
My wolf roared to life as I pressed her up against the wall, my teeth locking onto her wrist, my body pinning her next to the employee-of-the-month chart, my damn eyes glued on Bart, the winner of February, and then the chart fell to the floor as Serenity rubbed her body against mine.
The friction in my jeans was too much.
She reached down and flicked open the button.
And then my mouth was on hers.
Hers on mine.
This. This is what I should have done yesterday.
This.
She gripped my length as I rubbed instinctively against her, devouring every cry she made as if it was the sole purpose I’d been put on this earth.
Not here.
We couldn’t. She was better than that.
But I couldn’t stop.
I was going to have to call Ethan from prison.
And explain that I mounted my mate in the employee break room of Whole Foods — and liked it.
“Mason…” She purred my name as I cupped one of her perfect breasts in my hands. It was heavy and formed perfectly for my palm. It was mine.
I dug beneath her shirt, desperate for more, just as she reared back and sank her teeth into my neck.
My wolf roared within
My vision cleared as tiny particles of dust floated in the air around me, as the heartbeats of hundreds of people in the store flooded my ears, their thoughts, their souls in all their colors flashing for me to see.
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.
br />
“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.
If he was afraid of what was inside…
Then I should be too.
And yet I held his hand. I squeezed it tight, and I felt the slow purr of breath escape between his lips, as if my touch made him happy.
Tears filled my eyes. So much uncertainty, so much we I didn’t know, and so much I didn’t want to know.
Because what if I’d just found someone to spend my eternity with — who would end up either rejecting me or hurting me in the process?
To my knowledge, immortals never mated in that way; they didn’t cross breed. It was considered forbidden.
The only time I’d ever heard of anything remotely similar to it happening had been when angels bred with humans, creating Dark Ones, and look how wonderful that had turned out for everyone.
Mason snorted. “Tell me about it.”
Crap.
He sighed as my tension increased in my shoulders. “I can only hear flickers of your thoughts, when you’re really scared or upset. It’s easy to pick out from a million other crowds, but I’m not good at it yet. Maybe—” He stopped himself.
“More blood,” I answered for him. “Just imagine how powerful you’ll be when you drink your fill.”
The car chilled.
I shouldn’t have said it.
His demeanor darkened right along with the sky.
And as torrential rain started slamming onto the windshield, I was left again with more questions than answers.
It was driving me insane.
I was about to ask him if he could pull over and give me a minute when something crashed into the car, sending us careening off the road and against a tree.
Mason turned his body my way, shielding me. It all happened in slow motion — the fear on his face, then determination as he wrapped his body around me before immediately morphing into a white wolf. His fur pressed against my skin as metal twisted around our bodies, and then an explosion of white enveloped us as our car disappeared, and a fallen walked right through, a look of curiosity on its angelic face.
“I was wondering…” Mason barked out. “…when you would sniff us all out. Curious?”
The fallen smiled; he was one of the Watchers, the ones who’d watched for a thousand years until the first angel fell, until Sariel created Cassius with his love for his human wife.
Until the twelve brothers who were set to watch over the human realm fell with them, allowing their eyes to shift from their purpose to the very ones they were supposed to be protecting.
The ones who watched had jet black hair with red shot throughout, as a mark to human or immortal that they were not fully angelic, not anymore.
The red was proof that they had to earn their spot back into Heaven.
The black was proof they most likely never would.
A chained tattoo wrapped around his neck like a vice then rippled down his arm and coiled around each finger as if someone else was controlling him.
“Come, Gadreel.” The fallen held out his hand. “Do you not recognize your brother?”
Mason shook his head and then gave out a sharp bark that sounded like a laugh, only with more teeth. “I’m clearly a wolf. You’ve been locked up too long. Making me regret even setting you free a few weeks ago. Aren’t you supposed to be reporting to your archangel? The one who has you by the ass so you don’t go to the bad place where they take your pretty feathers?”
The fallen closed his eyes. His lips began to move, and suddenly, Mason just collapsed right in front of me.
“What did you do to him!” I screamed, falling to my knees.
The fallen tilted his head at me. “I knew you would awaken him. Only one who can.”
Fear trickled down my spine as he took a step closer, his eyes menacing. “We are stronger together. Cassius knows this. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“For what?” I knelt next to Mason, and he shuddered and gave a little howl before I pressed a hand to his fur. “What are you going to do?”
“Whatever it takes…” His teeth clenched. “…to go home.”
He disappeared just like he’d come, leaving a chill so icy cold that I almost crawled into Mason’s lap and shivered.
He moved to a sitting position, his eyes blazing blue before he gave his head a shake and nuzzled my neck. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “You?”
He didn’t answer.
Maybe he didn’t have to.
Nobody would be okay after that.
When I turned around to start walking, the Jeep was idling as if it hadn’t just been rammed into a tree, as if we hadn’t just had a visit from some creepy fallen angel with a revenge plan.
Mason eyed me then the car, and with a sigh said, “Get in.”
We were five minutes away from the house when it set in. The burning, the need to bite him was so intense that my mouth started to water. The ache so great I was ready to lose my mind.
I focused on the trees we passed. Counted to a hundred.
And breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled up to the driveway.
“Don’t tell them,” Mason whispered.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Mason, you have to tell them. Something’s going on, something big. You’re — you’re a hybrid. You have—” I left out the DNA part. “—you have vampire molecules in your bloodstream. That’s not normal. What if it makes you more powerful?”
“What if…” He hit the brakes. “…it takes over completely?”
“It won’t.” I didn’t know that for sure. I suddenly realized I didn’t know anything. “Tell Cassius. He can help.”
Mason shook his head and then pressed his lips together in a grimace. “Maybe. I don’t…” He gave me a quick glance. “I felt him in me.”
“Who?”
“The fallen, as if I knew him. He was probing me, speaking to me in a language I understood, and now I can’t remember what he said.”
“Maybe he was just trying to provoke you?”
“No.” Mason’s teeth clenched. “Trust me, that’s not it.”
He suddenly jerked the wheel to the side as we pulled up to the massive gate and into the driveway. A few vampires stood watch outside, looking more like bored GQ models than anything.
I got out of the car and flinched when one’s gaze lingered on my face and then breasts too long for my liking. I was about to say something when Mason had him by the throat and pressed against the wall at least two feet off the ground.
“You as much as exhale six feet away from her, and I’ll put your head on a spike and give you just enough blood to survive while I set wild dogs to your flesh!” Claws protruded out of Mason’s hands, piercing the skin of the vampire’s flesh, causing silver blood to drip down his skin. “Do we have an understanding?” Mason’s voice deepened as huge fangs elongated from his mouth past his lower lip like he was getting ready for a midnight snack, and then his eyes glowed blue, only to go completely red as he leaned in.
“Mason!” Cassius barked. “That’s enough.”
Alex appeared in the doorway next, his smile smug. “Finally. Hungry, Wolf?”
Hope peeked around Alex and moved toward Mason, but Alex put his arm out and gave his head a shake.
As if Mason was dangerous
.
As if he’d hurt her.
Ethan and Genesis shared looks of concern.
And I was left wondering if I was even safe with Mason, when neither of us knew what he was even capable of.
“Mason,” Cassius said it again, “leave him.”
Slowly, Mason shook his head as his eyes went back to the more piercing brown I was used to.
The vampire stumbled away while Mason pressed his hands to his head. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“Someone needs sex,” Alex muttered.
Mason jerked his head toward Alex then gave him a shove, sending Alex careening back into the entryway and slamming against the wall with a crack. A few pictures fell, and a split grew in the wall.
Alex got up and dusted himself off. “That’s gonna bruise in the morning.”
“Mason. Alex.” Cassius, the clear voice of reason shook his head and ushered everyone inside.
Timber was there. “I see it’s progressing.”
“Progressing?” Mason repeated. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“He’s bigger,” Hope pointed out.
Alex scowled. “So, he grew a few muscles.”
Genesis whistled. “I’d say a few dozen at least.”
Hope grinned. “Maybe more.”
A sudden wave of heat blasted through the room, causing the freaking houseplant to shake and then combust.
“Was that necessary?” Cassius directed the question to Alex. “Take your jealousy elsewhere.”
“I’m not jealous.” Alex grunted.
Hope patted him on the shoulder and then leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “You’re cute when you lie.”
“So…” Timber set down his coffee. “…are we going to talk about the elephant in the room first, or the immortal numbers and how the hell we’re planning on wrangling up the ones who watch?”
“Elephant?” Mason looked genuinely confused. “Stop referring to me as an elephant. I’m a wolf. Calling me an elephant is an insult. It’s like calling Alex ugly.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Thanks, man.”
“I get you.” Mason nodded and then flipped him off behind his back while Alex did the same back to Mason.
Cassius slammed his hands onto the kitchen table. “Children, all of you.”
I could tell it was on the tip of Alex’s tongue to say something like he started, but he held back. Instead, the room fell into a state of complete silence.