Page 32
“Tell me everything,” Carson demanded, pushing upright despite the dizziness. His voice cracked but held steel. “No more half-truths. No more protection. What is this bond really doing to us?”
Mathias lifted his gaze, dark eyes haunted. “Soul-mate legends are envied and feared across every camp I’ve known. Rare as starfall, they say. A human whose blood sings to one of us, granting warmth, quieting the sun’s harvest for a time. But the price...” He exhaled, a long, measured stream that carried centuries of weight. “Without turning you, the bond frays us both. It amplifies everything—my hunger, your cravings. The weight of it could drive me mad as surely as it unravels you. Elias...he was the last I dared love this deeply. The legends warn that severed soul mates leave the vampire hollowed, sun-mad in weeks. And the human? A shadow, forever chasing shattered euphoria that never quite fill the void.”
The confession landed like a blow. “You knew this. All along. And you still gave me drops, still took me in front of your camp, still let me fall.”
“I couldn’t stop,” Mathias admitted, voice an ancient rough ruin. “You are the other half I never believed I’d find. But Gina was right about one thing—I’m dooming us both.”
The confrontation ignited like dry tinder.
“You swore you wouldn’t ruin me!” Carson shouted, voice cracking as he shoved a hand through his hair. “I’ve basically lost my fucking job, Drew looked at me like I was already dead, and Joe and Tim barely remember my name anymore. And I saw it, all of it, in that poisoned blood. The madness. The elders screaming as they burned. The fractures tearing your camp apart.”
Mathias flinched, but his jaw tightened. “You think I don’t carry that weight every night?” His voice dropped, raw and rough. “Leading a fracturing camp that’s one bad decision away from collapsing while knowing the sun is whispering louder because I can’t stay away from you. Terrified that I’m becoming just another elder she’ll harvest.” He took a step closer, eyes dark with anguish and hunger. “Terrified that my selfish need to have you is going to destroy us both.”
Tears burned at the corners of Carson’s eyes, but even as his chest heaved with anger and grief, heat pooled low in his belly. His cock stirred traitorously against his thigh, hardening at the mere proximity of Mathias. The scent of him, the intensity in those ancient eyes, and the way his presence filled the room. Carson’s body didn’t care about betrayal or ruin. It only wanted.
“I need air,” Carson finally choked out. “Space. From all of this.” He dressed with shaking hands and fled into the late-afternoon light, closing Mathias in the space with no exit, the door slamming behind him like a final fracture.
***
The human world felt hollow.
Carson wandered the familiar streets like a ghost haunting his own life. He passed the diner where he and Joe used to grab lunch, the booth now empty of any shared laughter or easy camaraderie. Joe no longer remembered their nights—the club, the laughter, the friendship. Past the office building where Drew had looked at him with pity and finality before cutting him loose. Each step drove cramping longings twisting deeper through his muscles, an all-over physical ache that made his thighs quiver and his throat burn with the need for cool skin and the sharp iron taste of blood.
Hours faded together. Night fell. And still the pull dragged him back, stronger than reason, stronger than betrayal, stronger than the anger and hatred he tried so desperately to hold on to.
He found himself at the warehouse before he consciously chose it, slipping through the sagging doors into the shadowed interior. Mathias was there, waiting in the center of the empty space, as if the bond had telegraphed his approach.
“Carson.” The name was a prayer and a warning, satin over gravel.
Carson crossed to him in unsteady strides and crashed into Mathias’ arms. Their mouths met in a desperate, devouring kiss—teeth clashing against sharp fangs, their tongues tangled with fragmented euphoria. Mathias lifted him effortlessly, Carson’s legs wrapping around his waist as they sank to the cold floor. Cool hands stripped clothing with urgent reverence, possessive hold bruising hips in that perfect pleasure-pain Carson craved.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Carson gasped against his throat, even as his body arched into every touch. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
Mathias didn’t answer with words.
Instead, memories flooded Carson’s mind through the bond—vivid, overwhelming, projected with raw honesty.
The first time Mathias saw him. The crowded bar, the electric prickle across Mathias’ skin at the first hint of Carson’s scent. The way he had stood motionless against the wall, watching Carson dance with barely restrained hunger, every graceful movement pulling at something ancient and lonely inside him.
The dancing. Mathias’ desire so sharp it ached—watching other hands touch what should have been his, fighting the urge to snarl and claim Carson right there on the dance floor. The duel of gazes across the room that had felt more intimate than any touch.
The first night in Carson’s apartment. The careful way Mathias had followed him home, the overwhelming need mixed with tenderness as he held Carson through the night, fighting every instinct that called on him to take more than he should.
And woven through it all, the single word that would forever link them, spoken in that gravel-filled voice like a sacred vow:
Exquisite.
Carson shuddered as the memories washed over him, the depth of Mathias’ feelings crashing through the bond—centuries of loneliness, the terror of losing another mate, the fierce, all-consuming love that had driven every risky choice. The anger and hatred he had been clinging to cracked, then crumbled. Understanding bloomed in its place, painful and undeniable.
Mathias thrust deep in one claiming stroke, bodies fusing once more in this raw, forbidden union. “Then leave,” he growled, hips snapping with devastating precision. “But you won’t. Not yet.”
Ecstasy built like a storm, those cramping longings easing into blinding pleasure. Carson clung tighter, nails raking down Mathias’ back as the high crested, the bond between them deeper and more real than ever before.
Chapter Sixteen
Mathias
Mathias moved through the underbelly tunnels like vengeance given form, shadows clinging to him as he tracked Gina’s scent. The dam had gone to ground after her betrayal and would normally be untouchable, but the bond’s splinters with Carson had sharpened his senses to a razor’s edge. Camp law was clear. He knew that internal threats like sun-mad elders or those with fractured loyalties could not be tolerated. She had nearly killed his soul mate with tainted blood. For that, she would face judgment.
