Blood Destiny (6 page)

Blood Destiny

by Tessa Dawn

to know things she shouldn't have known. Humans were typically incapable of picking up on a vampire's mind control.

"I apologize." He said it respectfully. "I was concerned for you. With your...erratic behavior...and all. I was simply seeking answers. No, you do not have to tell me if you do not wish it."

Nathaniel really wanted to know what had happened—

perhaps he even needed to know—but this human was unusually courageous, and he didn't want to violate her wishes unless he had to.

They walked for a time in silence, and then Jocelyn spoke in a hesitant voice. "I don't suppose it would be pushing my luck to ask for my gun back...."

Nathaniel eyed her warily. "Will you shoot yourself?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not as long as you don't make any sudden moves."

He laughed. "Will you shoot me?"

"Would it work?"

"No, it wouldn't."

As if swept away into an invisible vacuum, the humor left the air, even as the color left the woman's face. "What are you, Nathaniel?" she asked. "I mean the truth. What kind of a...being...are you?"

Nathaniel frowned. "You ask questions for which you already have the answers."

Jocelyn blanched.

He sighed then, wishing she didn't know so much. "I am someone who is going to give you your gun back and ask you, nicely, to please refrain from shooting me." He was 52

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teasing, hoping to set her mind back at ease. Then he carefully retrieved the gun from the rear waistband of his jeans and handed it back to her, the barrel facing away.

"Once again, I apologize—I didn't mean to frighten you with my answer. Perhaps I should have lied."

Jocelyn shook her head adamantly. "No, that's the last thing I want. For you to lie to me." She bit her lower lip and gestured with her hands. "If you're telling me the truth about what you are, then maybe you're telling me the truth about letting me go...right?" Her long eyelashes fluttered up and down as she appeared, once again, to be fighting back tears.

"Right," he said softly.

"Nathaniel?"

"Right!"

Nathaniel still couldn't understand why this woman believed he was a vampire. He certainly had not approached her with blood-red eyes or fangs. And even if he had startled her by taking her gun away so easily, vampire was hardly the logical conclusion. Hell, superhero should have come before mythical creature of the night.

And he knew he had not given her any reason to fear him, personally, because he honestly intended her no harm. It was hard to pick up on something that wasn't there.

He frowned. It would be a relief to get her back to town and remove her memories. Perhaps relieve some of her suffering. And the sooner the better.

He still wished he knew what had scared her so badly, but he wasn't going to ask. And he wasn't going to take the information from her mind without her consent.

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"I am telling you the truth, Jocelyn." He spoke with as much conviction as he could. "About everything."

Jocelyn wiped her lower lashes with the pads of her thumbs, looking a bit embarrassed. "You promise?"

He was silent then, cautiously reviewing all the words he had spoken so far, wanting to be sure that he had, indeed, been completely honest in all of his statements.

"Yes, I promise."

"And you're really not going to hurt me?"

"I'm really not going to hurt you."

"And you'll let me go?"

"I will let you go."

She nodded and shrugged her shoulders, her full lips accentuating a breathtaking smile. "Then I'm counting on it, just so you know."

"And you have every reason to count on it," he said. "Just so you know." He chose his next words carefully: "You do understand, however, that I cannot allow you to...keep...the thoughts you are thinking. About me. About what you believe I am."

"About what I know you are," she corrected, looking him straight in the eyes. She froze then, clearly waiting for a response. When he didn't speak, she asked, "What will you do?" Despite her casual voice, her eyes betrayed her fear.

He gently lifted her chin. "Relax. I am not going to hurt you. I have already made you that promise."

The human nodded and closed her eyes, "You still haven't answered my question."

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"It is not complicated, brave one," he assured her. "I will simply remove your memories. You will not recall this conversation or anything else that happened between us this night." He paused, wishing he could offer a better explanation. "You are an extremely intelligent woman, Jocelyn. You know very well that I cannot allow you to retain such information. But please don't be afraid. I promise; it won't hurt."

"Does it involve drinking blood?" she asked. Her eyes were as wide as saucers.

Nathaniel laughed then—he couldn't help himself. "Why in the world would erasing one's memories involve taking their blood? You do have an active imagination, don't you?"

Jocelyn frowned. "I guess this is all very amusing to you, isn't it? Maybe you should try standing in my shoes."

Nathaniel's heart warmed at her words. "You are right, of course. And I apologize, again. I suppose it is not very funny from your point of view. No, my dear lady, I have no intention of taking your blood. In fact, I won't even need to touch you."

Jocelyn tilted her head to the side and studied him for an extended moment before slowly exhaling a clear sigh of relief.

"I think I can live with that."

Nathaniel smiled. And then...very subtly...he checked her mind again, just to be sure that she was really starting to believe him. And there it was.

She expected him to let her go. He exhaled right along with her.

Although the human deeply disliked the idea of anyone messing around with her memories, she believed that his 55

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ability to do so was her saving grace: that if he had wanted to hurt her, he would have already done it. Now that she knew he could erase her memories, she realized that she posed no lasting threat. Like the first flicker of a candle igniting, a faint light began to gleam in her eyes. Trust was slowly awakening.

Without thinking, Nathaniel bent down and brushed a soft kiss on the top of her head, his touch as light as a butterfly's wing: a parent giving comfort to a frightened child.

"I am so glad to hear it." He sighed. "You must know by now that this world is a far better place with you in it. It is too bad we didn't meet each other under different circumstances.

I believe we would have been friends."

The woman blushed, her high cheekbones turning a faint, rosy red as she shook her head and rubbed her eyes. "I don't know how to respond to that," she whispered. "Thank you."

She looked up into his eyes—as if seeing him for the first time—and then quickly glanced away like a curious teenager who had been caught peeking.

Nathaniel smiled. He could hear the sudden increase in her heart rate, and a matching heat flushed over her skin. Only this time, her reaction wasn't motivated by fear. They walked in silence a-while longer before he cautiously made her an offer.

"You know, Jocelyn, whatever it is that frightened you earlier—whatever you saw before I showed up—I can remove that memory as well, if you like." He knew it was not entirely a selfless proposal.

Jocelyn stopped walking. "You would do that? For me?"

There was a slight catch in her voice.

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"Of course."

"Hmm." She studied his eyes.

Nathaniel's long black hair fell forward as he bent to look at her. She was standing perfectly still, studying his face. She followed the sharp lines of his jaw and the hard angles of his cheekbones until their eyes finally locked in the darkness. And then, Nathaniel sensed an icy shiver sweep down her spine, and he knew exactly what she was thinking about: the fact that he was a vampire.

Nathaniel stood motionless, allowing her to simply take it all in. The power and presence of such an unfamiliar being. A separate species. The fear and the awe. As he tracked the fluctuations in her pulse, he wondered what it must be like—

for a human—to come face to face with a vampire, the living creature of superstition and legend.

When she was finally done examining him, she blinked her eyes several times as if coming out of a trance...and she had completely forgotten his question.

"So, is that a yes?" he asked.

Jocelyn raised her eyebrows. "Huh?"

"On erasing the bad memories?"

She sighed and shook her head as her recognition came back. "Man, you have no idea how badly I wish I could let you do that, but I can't." Her voice was strong with conviction, her mind clearly made up. "Unfortunately, those are some bad memories I have to keep."

Nathaniel pushed his hair back away from his face with a casual sweep of his hand and nodded, but he didn't respond.

She had seen something in the shadow lands, and he really 57

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wanted to know what it was. He almost needed to know—for so many important reasons that had nothing to do with the human woman. But she was clear about her wishes. And he had given her his word.

Nathaniel could not bring himself to violate that trust or to lessen her strength by forcing her will. Moreover, he didn't believe that whatever she had seen posed any immediate danger to him or his brothers: to the descendants of Jadon.

Her blood had clearly not been taken. And if one of the Dark Ones had found her, he would have forced her right then and there. She was far too beautiful to escape unharmed. She would have been used to breed, kept carefully locked up until the birthing, and tossed aside upon her death.

No, if this woman had met a Dark One, she wouldn't be standing in front of him now. She wouldn't be alive.

Nathaniel gently brushed his hand over her cheek. "Very well, then," he said as he continued to walk lazily beside her.

* * * *

Without warning, the night air began to cool, the leaves in the trees began to rustle, and the sky darkened into a deep midnight blue. As dusty white clouds slowly evaporated from the heavens—leaving a blank slate in their wake—the sky grew darker still...until the muted canvas was completely transformed into a bottomless sea of black.

And then the moon began to change.

It turned from white to pink. From rose to wine. From wine to burgundy. Until it finally settled into a pure...blood red.

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And then, like the lighting of a thousand candles in a pitch dark room, the sky began to illuminate as one bright star after another appeared, and Cassiopeia, the ancient Greek constellation, materialized as a brilliant beacon gleaming in the heavens.

Nathaniel stood in stunned silence. Motionless. Utterly astonished by the magic before him. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. His eyes swept over the beautiful woman with the strange eyes, and he viewed her with reverence.

It just couldn't be.

It had been less than one month since Shelby had seen Orion, his own birth constellation, appear beneath a blood-red moon. Less than one month since Dalia...

The omens never happened this close together.

Yet, even as he denied it, the animal within the man began to reach for control, a primal impulse raging for release. The vampire's blood came alive, practically singing in his veins, as a primordial reaction as old as time itself took over.

The ancient Blood Curse was ingrained in Nathaniel's memory: a prophecy that flowed like an endless river from one generation to the next, washing over all of the descendants of Prince Jadon at one time or another.

Cassiopeia.

Nathaniel's own birth constellation. Gleaming in the pitch-black sky.

Nathaniel's canine teeth began to elongate and a low, feral growl escaped his throat. Like a male lion staking his claim, his territorial nature rose in response to the call.

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Nathaniel's people may have once been human, but the slain ones had cursed them—as all the descendants of King Sakarias had been cursed—and they were now creatures of the night. More animal than human. The blood-red moon called to the beast within, offering a chance to live truly immortal. The opportunity to love in a lifetime of otherwise solitary existence. Eternal solitary existence. Promising the hope of a child of light to continue his species.

Nathaniel felt Jocelyn's unusual eyes staring up at him in horror. They were wide with fright, yet her growing fear only heightened his arousal. Inflamed his response. Like a wild tiger, Nathaniel spun around and crouched down into a fiercely protective stance, a creature with perfect stealth and grace. Power settled over him like a thick, inky fog rising up from the sea, and his cavernous eyes grew darker than the midnight sky above. Coming deftly alive.

He knew he appeared every inch the supernatural predator he was, but that was of little consequence now.

Nathaniel had thirty days—one full moon—to avoid the fatal errors made by Shelby. To honor the Spirit of Jadon. To be forever released from the curse that had haunted him like a shadow since the day he was born.

Suddenly, whatever had frightened Jocelyn in the forest was of grave importance. Her attempt to commit suicide was a threat beyond imagining. And whatever excuse he had made to avoid extracting her memories no longer mattered.

At all.

Forgetting to be gentle, Nathaniel reached out and grabbed her by the left arm. He turned it over in a viselike 60

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grip, pinning her wrist as he searched for the familiar markings.

They were all there.

The undeniable spheres. The irrefutable lines. The unmistakable evidence. Nathaniel's very own birth constellation: Cassiopeia.