Her hands, clutching the towel, were trembling so much, she put them behind her back. Vampire. The word came unbidden to her mind. “It isn’t true,” she denied in a whisper. “It’s impossible. I am not anything like that. I won’t believe you.”
Shea. His voice was calm, tranquil, as she became more agitated. He needed all his memories, not these shattered bits and pieces that frustrated him so.
“Jacques, you might be a vampire. I’m so confused, I’ll almost believe anything. But I am not like that.” She was talking more to herself than to him. Every horrible tale of vampires ever told rose up to haunt her. Her hand crept up to her neck as she recalled the vicious way he had taken her blood the first time they had met. He’d nearly killed her. “You didn’t because you needed me to help you,” she said suddenly, softly. It didn’t occur to her that she had become so accustomed to his reading her mind, she simply accepted that he would know what she was talking about. Was he controlling her all the time? Couldn’t vampires do that?
Jacques watched her closely, his body motionless, his icy black eyes unblinking. He could taste her fear in his mouth, feel it beat at him in his mind. Even while she was afraid, her brain processed information at a remarkable rate. The way she shoved emotion aside to concentrate on the intellectual was a protection. He had given her a glimpse of the darkness in him, the violence. It was something that was as natural to him as breathing. Sooner or later she would have to face what and who he really was.
Shea felt caught in the trap of his merciless, empty black eyes, like a mesmerized rabbit. As frozen as she was, her body wanted to move toward him, as if under a strange compulsion. “Answer me, Jacques. You know everything I’m thinking. Answer me.”
After seven years of pain and starvation, little red hair, after torment and suffering, I thought to take your blood.
“My life,” she corrected bravely, needing all the pieces of the puzzle.
He stared relentlessly, the watchful eyes of a predator. Shea twisted her fingers together in agitation. He looked a stranger, an invincible being with no real emotion, only a hard resolve and a killer’s instincts. She cleared her throat. “You needed me.”
I had no thought but to feed. My body recognized yours before my mind did.
“I don’t understand.”
Once I recognized you as my lifemate, my first thought was to punish you for leaving me in torment, then bind you to me for eternity. There was no apology, only a waiting.
Shea sensed danger, but she did not back down. “How did you bind me to you?”
The exchange of our blood.
Her heart slammed painfully. “What does that mean, exactly?”
The blood bond is strong. I am in your mind, as you are in mine. It is impossible for us to lie to one another. 1 feel your emotions and know your thoughts as you do mine.
She shook her head in denial. “That may be true for you, but not for me. I feel your pain at times, but I never know your thoughts.”
That is because you choose not to merge with me. Your mind seeks the touch and reassurance of mine often, yet you refuse to allow it, so I merge with you to prevent your discomfort.
Shea could not deny the truth in his words. Often she felt her mind tuning itself to his, reaching out for him. Disturbed by the unwanted and unfamiliar need, she always imposed a strict discipline on herself. It was unconscious on her part, something she did automatically for self-protection. Jacques, within minutes of her need arising, always reached for her to merge them.
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “You seem to know more about what is happening here than I do, Jacques. Tell me.”
Lifemates are bound together for all eternity. One cannot exist without the other. We balance one another. You are the light to my darkness. We must share one another often.
Her face paled. Her legs weakened. She sat down abruptly on the floor. Her mother. All of her life she had condemned her mother for living a shadow existence. If Jacques was telling the truth, and something in her feared he was, had this happened to her mother? Had Jacques sentenced Shea to the same terrible fate?