Two

Kiara’s POV

The first thing that flashed in my mind when my eyes opened was that this wasn’t home. I was in a thin, narrow bed that was just enough to fit me. It was dim, the room so small and stuffy that I felt immediately claustrophobic.

My head was banging like crazy and it worsened when I tried to sit up. My mind was a bit foggy but I was conscious enough to know I was in a strange place and probably in some sort of danger. I did my best to clear the cobwebs from my head and blinked at the simple, cluttered room I was in.

There were only two doors, both of which I would be testing the moment I could feel my legs properly. Furniture was sparse except for a table with an empty bowl and the chair in the corner─

I gasped at the dark steely eyes that bored into me. In the poor lighting, I couldn’t exactly make out their color, but the look in them, the expression on that handsome face made my heart race and my stomach clench and not out of fear.

His salt and pepper-colored hair was tied back in what had to be the sexiest man bun I’ve ever seen and my fingers twitched with the desire to comb through the silken strands.

He raised a glass filled with some dark red liquid. From the smell and the way he sipped it deliberately, taking his sweet time to pour some of the liquid between his full lips while keeping his eyes fixed on me, I could tell it was blood. He dropped the glass on the table with a ‘tap’ sound that echoed throughout the room.

Eyes on me the entire time, he rose. Alarmed, I slipped my fingers behind my leg, trying to find the knife I keep strapped to my calves but I came up empty. I calculated the risk of shifting but I would be vulnerable in the few seconds before I turned from human to wolf.

I was forced to sit there and watch him, mouth drying in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with how freaking hot he was as he stalked towards me.

He looked and me like prey and my traitorous wolf, eager to go to him now that she had found something we’d been desperately seeking for years, itched to be hunted. To be taken. I fisted my hand to my sight and gritted my teeth against the entirely unwilling onset of lust.

I didn’t want to notice but I couldn’t help but look at the way his jeans rode low on his hips. The way his cream silk shirt gaped at the neck, revealing a smooth, well-defined chest. The way the sleeves were tight around his bicep.

The faint smear of blood at the corner of his mouth as he smirked down at me. He pulled out my missing knife, a twinkle in those wicked eyes. I could see now that he was close that his eyes were blue. Not blue like a Robbin’s egg, but like a tempestuous sea or sky, just before the storm. I tried not to get swept up in its weight.

“Looking for this?” He said dangling it in front of me. I made a mad grab for the knife and he snatched his hand away,

“No no. It’s mine now.” The look he gave me was almost impressed, certainly curious. “I thought you wolves had a thing against silver.” He examined the knife carefully “This is excellent craftsmanship. Really old design, pure silver.” He looked back at me. “How are you able to even wield it?”

It was true that wolves couldn’t bear to touch much less fight using silver but I’ve been taking bits of liquid silver and training with such blades since I was ten. My father had made sure of it.

I wasn’t completely immune to high doses of it, but I could certainly tolerate holding a knife long enough to bury it into an enemy’s throat. Pity said enemy had a hold of it now.

“Why don’t you hand it over to me so you can find out? I could gut you in a second to prove it.”

He threw his head back and laughed eyes glittering with challenge, dropped the knife on the floor, and told me to try it. I hesitated, not sure what to do now.

To get the knife, I’d have to dive down to his feet. That wasn’t a very advantageous position to begin a fight, especially against a vampire. Besides, I didn’t like the way my body was craving to touch his. My wolf liked the idea of falling at his feet a little too much for comfort. It was best to stay away.

No sooner had I thought this, did he lean towards me. I tried to scramble away but he grabbed my hand and pulled me down to the bed, trapping his legs with mine and caging my head in between his powerful arms.

“Get off!” I yelled furiously but my heart rate sped up, my body trembling when his muscular thighs settled firmly between my legs.

“Why?” He said pressing his muscular body into me. I whimpered and spread my legs a little wilder all the while desperately trying to remind myself that I didn’t want to do something like this with him. My body didn’t believe me at all.

He leaned down, lips trailing over my face, my jaw, my neck. I arched into him with a soft cry when he bit down gently. His hips moved again, pinning mine to the bed as his hard length rubbed against my center.

It took all of my willpower not to undo our clothes and demand he mark me the way my body wanted. The way my wolf wanted. His lips raised my neck after another little nip that had me yelping and moved to my ear.

He ran a tongue over the outline which had me shivering before whispering in a low, deep voice that further drove me mad “I will see you on your birthday tomorrow at midnight. You will come to me.”

I blinked, a bit of the sexual haze I was trapped under coming off me. “You’re crazy. Why the hell would I do that?” I felt his lips curl against my skin and panted when that tongue came out, licking at a spot that made me shudder all over again. Oh, Moon Goddess!

“Meet me at the tree we met. I’m sure you remember it. It’s the one where I had your delicious blood in my mouth for the first time.” He nipped at my neck again and I whimpered. “Certainly not the last.”

“G─Get away from me! Let me go!”

To my surprise, he stood leaving me feeling both relieved and disappointed. I cursed my body for acting too wanton.

“You should not cross me tigress. It will not be pleasant. Tomorrow at midnight.” He repeated then returned to his seat and picked up his glass of blood.

I stood up and picked up my knife then pointed it at him. He didn’t move. I crept slowly towards the door. Again he said and did nothing, merely watching me with those intense deep blue eyes.

“I’m leaving!” I said, unable to believe he’d just let me slip away after going through all this trouble to kidnap me.

He shrugged. “Tomorrow night little wolf. I have no qualms about where you choose to be until then.”

I didn’t wait for an explanation or for him to change his mind. I turned around and fled the old cabin. I shifted to my wolf form immediately I got outside and hit the ground running. My thoughts raced circles around me.

A Vampire was my mate. All this time and it turns out that a fucking Vampire of all the creatures that walked the planet, was my chosen mate. Wasn’t nature cruel?

This had never happened in thousands of years! I’ve only ever heard of it in theory. And yet here I was; a connection open with a Vampire that should I choose to establish, would never again measure up to anything else. My mate. A bloodsucker. A vile, arrogant one at that. Clearly, he knew who I was even though I had no idea how. He knows my birthday is tomorrow. I was so fucked.

I shifted when I got home and climbed through my window, employing some of the tactics of my teenage years so that my parents wouldn’t see me coming home by almost three AM.

As chill as they were about many things about me, it would piss them off to know I’d been out lurking so late especially with fucking Vampires crawling everywhere. Like the one I’d met today who was my mate and a total dick.

I switched on the light and my gaze fell on a figure on my bed. I screeched, grabbing the nearest item I could get my hands on -a book on my reading desk- and chucked it at the figure.

“Hey!” Caden protested, easily dodging the book. “Not that such a pathetic throw had any chance of nicking me, but what was that for?”

“You scared me!” I said and he snorted. He took me in and his eyes narrowed, a smirk playing about his lips. Uh-oh.

“Uh… Kiara? Where on earth are you coming from at past three in the morning?”