“Sorin, what’s wrong with you? What are you doing?”
“So you saddled your pack with a weak alpha male and then tried to cheat the ritual that would have given them a proper one by using your blood and your body to make me your slave?” His eyes burned like torches in the hands of an angry mob. “That makes you a pathetic lupa and a manipulative bitch, does it not?”
Shock shot through her body, dropping her jaw and widening her eyes. Pain and anger warred in her heart, each one fighting for the right to respond.
“If you could stop throwing a tantrum for two seconds and actually let me explain things to you, you’d realized what a complete ass you’re making of yourself,” she ground out, almost choking on the desire to drag her claws down his haggard face.
“Oh?”
“Shut up! Just listen.” Her beast howled inside her, bemoaning the anger radiating from Sorin. She took a deep breath, trying to think past her beast’s pain and her human’s anger so she could make him understand. “Aphrodite’s Hunt doesn’t enslave anyone. It’s a gift.”
“If it is such a gift, why did you—”
“I wanted to have a choice!”
Sorin fell silent, staring at her with suspicion in his eyes. She ignored the fresh stab of pain and continued.
“Humans choose their mates for all kinds of reasons. A wolf doesn’t. A wolf chooses a mate based on survival. Aphrodite’s Hunt gives the wolf inside an alpha the strength to overcome her human side and find a true mate. Someone strong enough to protect her, someone who can make her feel safe enough to truly find peace.” She looked into Sorin’s eyes, desperately searching for some sign that what she was saying registered. His expression was too guarded, giving her nothing.
“Aphrodite’s Hunt is a gift,” she continued quietly. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel happy when you’re with me. That you don’t feel,” her voice wavered and she didn’t bother to fight it, “safe.”
“Safe?”
He whispered the word so softly that if she hadn’t been looking at his mouth she may have missed it. Her wolf’s hackles went up as tension crackled in the air between her and Sorin.
“Safe?” he repeated. “How could I feel safe? You have destroyed everything.” He took a step forward, a fine tremble running over his body. “I fought for years to control my beast, I fought even longer to control my bloodlust. I finally had my life as I wanted it and you . . .”
Gia gasped as he suddenly appeared before her, moving too fast for her eyes to follow. His face stopped inches from her own, his eyes so close to hers that she could practically see the fire of his fury in their depths.
“You smeared your cursed blood on my lips, reached into my body and pulled out the monster I fought so hard to imprison! You let your goddess bind us together, crushing my free will and enslaving me to a ravenous hunger for your blood and your body. How can I feel safe when you have infected my ordered life with your bestial chaos? How can I feel human?”
He choked and the sound pierced her heart like a knife. “Sorin,” she whispered, raising her hands to hold his face. “I can help you. The control you had wasn’t natural, it was repression. I can teach you a true control. Accept the gift—”
“Stop calling it that! It is a curse.” He reared back and Gia cried out as he tore his face from her hands. “Your false promises won’t help you. You will stay here chained up until I am free of this spell.”
Anger swam up through her pain like a shark through storm-tossed waters. It broke the surface with a fantastic splash and she shot to her feet.
“I am lupa of the Red Water clan and I will not be treated this way. You think you’re such a gentleman, well then honor the bargain you made. Get me out of these chains.”
“You were remiss in your mention of the details of our bargain,” Sorin sneered. “You specified only that you would offer up your blood in exchange for my protection. You did not clarify the conditions under which you would remain protected. I assure you, you are quite safe here.”
Before she could open her mouth to voice her rage, he pointed a finger at her.
“I would remind you that, before you demand the respect due to your position, you should remember for a moment what that position means. You keep offering to help me control my beast, but you seem to forget that it was you who ripped it out of me in the first place. You came here thinking I was just a vampire, but you figured out I was suffering the effects of your Hunt long before you revealed its existence to me.”
He stepped closer and her body ached with awareness of his proximity. She clenched her teeth and fought not to let her reaction show on her face.
“You saw me struggling and you still put your own needs first. Just as you put your needs ahead of your pack’s when choosing a mate, you put your own needs ahead of a wolf that was suffering. Tell me,
lupa
, exactly how much respect do you feel you deserve?”
Rage, pain, and frustration swirled like an angry wind inside her. Part of her wanted to deny his accusations, to justify her actions. How dare he judge her? She had a right to control her own life, to have a say in who she spread her legs for. Who the hell was he to sit in judgment on her?
He’s not wrong.
A parade of wolves flowed through her mind. Each one was a new wolf she’d had to train, a new hand she’d had to hold as they fought to maintain their humanity in the face of the change. She’d held them while they cried, supported them while they screamed, and born the brunt of their misplaced anger when they fought it. She knew better than anyone what kind of chaos enveloped a new wolf.
Guilt closed its jaws around her heart and she closed her eyes as she fought the pain. Sorin was right. She’d abandoned her duties as lupa, thrown away her claim to the position’s respect. She’d torn his beast out and left him to deal with it alone—worse, she’d left him to deal with a beast locked in the grip of Aphrodite.
Grasping the ragged ends of her control, she slowly shoved her own pain and anger deeper inside her. There would be time for that later. Right now, she had amends to make.
The memory of last night’s happiness tortured her like an embarrassing home movie. It played over and over in her head, taunting her with the sensation of her dopey smiles and the sounds of her breathy voice as she practically giggled in Sorin’s arms. She wasn’t lupa of the Red Water clan—she was Aphrodite’s bitch.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “Whether or not these feelings between us are a gift or not, I was wrong to go about it like I did. I forgot my duties and that was selfish.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t have to tell you that Aphrodite’s Hunt can be a little disorienting. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Sorin stared at her with suspicion plain on his face. “Your apology is very droll, but I still have no intention of unchaining you.”
It would have been nice to have a little rage to throw back at that comment, but Gia just didn’t have the will for it. The happiness she’d felt last night that had come as such a welcome surprise to her was now more of an embarrassment than a gift. It was hard to hold onto her dignity enough to be angry under the combined weight of that embarrassment and her own guilt over letting Sorin suffer through the feelings of the Hunt ignorant and alone.
“Keeping me chained up here won’t help you. I’m the one who did this to you, please let me make things right. Come back to my pack with me. I can help you learn true control over your wolf.”
“Do you truly think phrasing it differently will fool me?” Sorin scoffed. “You think I am so ignorant that I would release my prisoner only to walk into her own camp—surrounded by her soldiers?”
“You’ll be free to leave whenever you want. I only want to help you.” A vice closed tighter and tighter around her chest the more she spoke. Having him with her would be torture. Even now, with all the emotional turmoil and cutting words, her body ached for him. She hadn’t wanted to find a new mate, but she had. He stood right in front of her, strong and sure. And he didn’t want her. “Just let me try to make things right, Sorin,” she said softly, hating the threat of tears in her voice. “No strings attached. You have my word.”
“I have seen no evidence that your word is worth anything.”
A flicker of anger flared to life beneath her self-loathing, but she shoved it down. He had a right to be angry.
“It’s all I have to give.”
“No. Release me from the magic and I will rebuild my life myself.”
Frustration clenched her teeth. “I told you, I can’t do anything about that.”
“Then you will remain chained up until it wears off or until Grigore can use his alchemy to defeat it.”
“It’s not magic, you arrogant prick! It’s—”
The word caught in her throat and a burning blush set fire to her cheeks. Embarrassed and angry with herself and with Sorin, she turned away.
“Please, finish,” Sorin said softly.
She grit her teeth, desperately trying to ignore the mocking tone in his voice.
“It is love? Is that what you were going to say?”
The blush burned hotter until she was sure her cheeks would turn black. Humiliation nearly brought tears to her eyes.
A hand on her cheek made her heart leap into her throat and she whipped around just in time to see Sorin lean in for a kiss. Too shocked to react, she held perfectly still as his lips brushed hers.
Electricity crackled between them as their lips slid over one another. The delicate sensuality seemed such a contrast to their surroundings, so out of place in all the stone and metal. Gia’s head spun as his tongue probed her mouth and she parted her lips with a sigh.
His tongue swirled over hers, sending a fresh rush of wet heat between her legs. Her heart soared from the pit it had been cast into, given wings by the joy of his touch. His harsh words and hateful accusation were all but forgotten in the passion he called to life inside her. Caught up in the moment, she forgot the finer points of French-kissing a vampire.
She gasped as she nicked her tongue on his fang. His arms shot around her waist, crushing her to his chest as he poured himself into the kiss with renewed fervor. Her beast danced inside her, brushing against the front of her body as if trying to get closer to the wolf inside Sorin. She moaned and raised her arms around his neck to hold on as sensations rolled like heavy waves over her body.
Suddenly her pulled away from her, breaking the kiss, but not pulling back far enough to tear her arms from around his neck. Disoriented by the pleasure of his kiss, she could only blink at him as she struggled to pull her thoughts together. Sorin stared down into her face, his green eyes alight with hunger—for blood or sex, she wasn’t sure.
“This is not love,” he whispered harshly. “This is sex magic. I crave you like a drug, there is no free will.”
He licked her blood off his lip, anger showing in the tightening of his eyes. His body trembled beneath her hands and she didn’t need to read his mind to know he was fighting off the urge to throw her to the ground and bury his cock and his fangs inside her. The thought sent a thrill between her legs even as the anger shining in his eyes sent a wave of fear down her spine.
“If I am still in such a poor state when the full moon is over, you will remain here in these chains,” he choked. “One way or another, I will free myself of this enslavement.” He shook her once, hard. “Only a beast would think this carnal obsession is love.”
His tireless mockery of her tender feelings stretched her temper until it snapped. Frustration and shame sharpened her anger to a fine point and she brandished it like the weapon it was. Pulling her lips back in a snarl, she grabbed his head between her hands and used her mind to reach deep into his body until she “felt” the fur of his wolf. With a vicious tug, she ripped the beast from his body.
Sorin fell to the ground with an animalistic cry. The fury and despair in that one sound stabbed at Gia’s heart, but it couldn’t pierce the armor of anger that had grown up in her own defense. She’d apologized and he mocked her. She’d offered to make amends and he’d scorned her attempts. She’d held out an olive branch and he’d snatched it away and beaten her with it.
Cold anger applied its icy grip to her heated flesh, cooling her arousal if only slightly. He’d called her a beast. It was time he faced his own.
His clothes shredded under the scrabbling legs of his wolf and he fell to the floor in his attempt to free himself from what had once been his gentleman’s armor. The tattered clothing fell like tangible pieces of his calm façade.
They didn’t belong on him anyway.