Vampire Bound: Book Three by R. A. Steffan

Author:R. A. Steffan [Steffan, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampire, fae, Demons and Devils, witches and wizards, urban fantasy romance
Publisher: OtherLove Publishing, LLC
Published: 2020-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

I STOOD FROZEN in the steam-clouded bathroom, naked beneath a borrowed shirt with half its buttons ripped off. The hurt came first—lodging in my chest, predictable and unhelpful. It was replaced a moment later by anger, and finally, by a stubborn determination to have this out with him. That was something I could work with, so I stalked after Leonides, returning to the darkened bedroom.

I couldn’t see him at first. If he’d dissolved into mist and flown away from me, I decided I was going straight back to anger, and screw maturity. After feeling my way around the room to the hallway door, I fumbled for the switch and turned the light on.

He hadn’t left. He was standing at the window, his back to me. Apparently, we were going to have this conversation with all of our eye contact taking place via the medium of reflective surfaces.

“You’re a filthy liar,” I told him.

“Yes,” he agreed. “About so many things. But not about this.”

“Bullcrap, Mr. ‘Sex Doesn’t Have to Mean Anything,’” I said.

He was silent. It looked like we’d be doing this the hard way, then.

“So,” I pressed on, “since we both know perfectly well that you didn’t magically lose control of your dick just because you downed a few cc’s of second-hand succubus blood, the question becomes... why are you lying?”

The tendon at the corner of his jaw ticked. I let the silence stretch, to see if I could wait him out. It admittedly wasn’t a strategy I’d had much luck with in the past, but right now I was feeling pretty damned motivated. The atmosphere on his side grew thick with unspoken words until I imagined I could almost feel the shape of them.

“I can’t save you, Vonnie,” he said, biting it off angrily.

And... nope. Not what I’d expected, no clue where that had come from, or what I was supposed to do with it.

“Did I ask you to?” I asked, more than a little bewildered. After a beat, I added, “And that has what to do with the sex, exactly?”

“I can’t save anyone,” he continued. “I told you up front, just because I take in strays, it doesn’t mean I’m a safe person to be around. If today didn’t manage to drive that point home—”

“You saved Zorah,” I interrupted. “When you were running from the Fae, when she almost died—you saved her by turning her into a vampire.”

His voice was tight. “She’s bound to Nigellus, through her life-bond with Rans. The damned demon would have brought her back regardless... and he wouldn’t have left her a vampire afterward.”

“You saved Len,” I said. “When Kat’s ex put a knife through his lung.”

“An ambulance crew could’ve done the same thing.”

“You saved Albigard,” I went on inexorably. “In Dhuinne.”

“The fuck I did. You saved Albigard, and now you’re his personal fuel cell anytime he needs to draw power from someone.”

I took a deep breath, aware that I was entering dangerous waters. “You saved your wife.”

His hands landed heavily on the windowsill, as though he suddenly needed it to hold himself up.

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