Free Blood Ecstasy (Blood Curse Series Book 8) by Tessa Dawn Page A

pursed his lips together in contemplation. “I’m a soldier of sorts, a tracker for my kind, the Vampyr, and I have a lot of serious duties—so my head is usually straight. And when I’m not working, I spend a lot of time alone—it’s just the way it is—and every now and again, I just need a break. A vacation from the noise.” He paused, considering his next words carefully. “You’ve seen me high more times in the last two days than I’ve been in the last few months. It’s just a thing, baby. I don’t know what else to say.”
    She eyed him intensely, like she was trying to see his soul, and then she continued to work on the tray, saying nothing in reply.
    He cleared his throat. “And what about you?”
    She raised her eyebrows.
    “When I glimpsed your mind, when I made contact with your thoughts, I saw all kinds of random images: a support group, a shit-load of locks on your apartment door, a recent request for a concealed-carry license. What’s up with that, baby?”
    Rebecca visibly paled. “You saw all that? You read my mind?”
    “Didn’t read it,” he replied. “Just walked through the room.”
    She furrowed her brow in consternation, and then she sat forward. “Well, as long as we’re being candid: When I was twenty-one years old, I met the wrong guy. I spent one year falling in love with him and another year trying to get away from him. He followed me from Nevada to New Mexico and everywhere between. He told me he was going to kill me, and I believe that he will try. So maybe that’s what you saw.”
    Something dark, primal, and unexpected rose in Julien’s soul, and he clenched his hands into fists, trying to reroutethe energy into his fingers. “What’s the bastard’s name?”
    Rebecca frowned and shook her head. “What difference does that make?”
    Julien licked his lips in a lazy glide of his tongue, and then they both drew back into a snarl. “Dead men should have something to put on their headstones.”
    She sputtered, spraying water from her mouth in surprise. “You’re kidding, right?”
    He chuckled, but there wasn’t a humorous tone in the sound. “Let me make something exceedingly clear, baby girl. You might think you’ve wandered into the lion’s den—and it just might be true—but the fact of the matter is this: You are safer now— with me —than you have ever been in your life. You may not know it. You may not feel it. But it’s true, just the same. And while you don’t yet understand all the intricacies of the Curse, all the complexities of my kind, there is one thing that has never changed: My species is extremelyterritorial. We are as possessive as we are loyal. And we don’t adhere to human laws. We are not bound by human conventions. That man”—he reached inside her mind to retrieve the stalker’s name—“ Trevor : He was dead the day he met you. He was dead the day the gods chose you for me. And now? Now that I know what he has done to you…and your life…to your sense of safety, to your world? His death will not be swift or painless. Mark my words, sweet Rebecca; you no longer have a stalker.”  
    Rebecca gaped at him like he had just arrived from another planet.  
    She opened her mouth to respond and stuttered something incoherent, before instantly trying again. “And that somehow makes this okay? What you’ve done? What you’re doing… to me ? Snatching me out of your driveway, and this whole crazy Curse?” Her voice rose in both angst and volume as she quoted him word for word. “To put it in terms you understand: You are my wife, my mate, the woman who is about to give me a son…all of it is preordained. None of it is optional. And that is why you are here. So, you’re gonna kill Trevor—my territorial vampire is going to murder my ex-boyfriend—and then I’m just going to… to what ? Oh yeah, have your sons, have your twins, let you sacrifice the demonic one to… to what ? And then, you and I, we just do, what? Live happily