Accidentally Married to…a Vampire?(Accidentally Yours #2)(35)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

She stopped in front of the fireplace, staring into its glow. It was winter now, and the snow fell in a soft, thick blanket outside. She stretched out her pale arms to warm her hands.

“Yes,” he answered coldly. “Anything. Just say you love me and mean it. Truly, mean it!” His long dark hair was a disheveled mop, his shirt was rumpled with several buttons missing. “Money, my horses and homes, I don’t give a shit. Just say the words and mean them. Give me this one thing, that is all I ask.”

Boldly, she turned. “I want your sworn loyalty. Forever.”

He didn’t bat an eyelash. To devote himself to her forever? He could ask for nothing more. “It is yours. Always has been.” At the time, his heart filled with the deepest joy, believing that she truly loved him the entire time but had been simply waiting for him to declare his undying love. So simple, he thought. So damned simple!

“Are you certain, my precious Andrus? Because there is no turning back.”

Oh God, yes. He marched across the room and claimed her soft lips. Like the rest of her pale face, they were warmed by the fire. “I said anything, and I meant it. Now, tell me. Say the words,” he demanded. His heart pounded with anticipation.

She pulled away from him just enough to see his eyes. Her face was filled with sorrow. “Hold still, my love, I’ll try to make it quick.”

Confused, Andrus attempted to pull back, but she immobilized him in her iron grasp and tugged him close to her body…before sinking her teeth into his neck. She drew deeply from the gash. Andrus jerked and flailed against her impossible strength until he was too weak to move.

Finally, she dropped him like a sack of wet sand to the floor and bit down on her own wrist, drawing her blood into her mouth. Slowly, she bent to him then kissed him hard, letting her blood spill into his mouth. A trickle escaped down the side of his cheek as he hacked and sputtered.

Andrus stared up at her, his eyes burning with confusion and betrayal, his heart pumping wildly. “What did you—you—do to me?” he gasped.

She hovered over his paralyzed body, the life slowly seeping from his muscles. Her eyes were cold as ice. “Andrus, I love you and only you. I’m sorry.” The words did not touch her eyes, and he screamed as the darkness took hold of his soul.

***

Helena covered her mouth and pushed back the tears of sympathy. “She—she made you into a vampire? That…bitch!”

Andrus’ lips curled for a fraction of a second. “Yes, she’s a bitch.”

“So, you’re a vampire?”

He shook his head and continued staring at the road, clumps of snow pelted the windshield. “Not exactly.”

“Then what ‘exactly?’” Helena’s phone suddenly beeped. “Oh. Jeez. Not now.” She glanced at her phone. The message was from Jess: Hey Lena, WTF? Ignoringyour day-turnal frenz again?

Helena froze for a fraction of a second. Jess knows about vampires? Wait…she had texted them while on the bus earlier that day, saying she’d be working nights for a while so not to call during the day. She thought it might cut down on having to lie so much.

Helena released a breath and responded: Can’t chat now. K? Catch u ltr.

Jess responded: Loser!

She glanced apologetically at Andrus. “Sorry. My friends. I don’t want them to worry and say something to my mom.”

Andrus nodded, but didn’t continue speaking.

“Please, I want to hear the rest.” Helena thought her head would spin off if he didn’t tell her.

He shot her a look.

“Please?” she whined.

His jaw worked for several moments before he spoke. “Days later I woke and was a vampire. Thirsty and cold, I could think of nothing but killing. Women, children—I didn’t care who—I just wanted blood and lots of it.”

Helena’s eyes were wide. “You ate…children?” Please say no. Please say no. Please say…

“She was there to stop me. The queen’s final trap. Reyna knew how much I hated her for what she’d done. But I hated myself more for what I craved. I didn’t want to kill innocent people for survival. Yet, that was all I could think of doing. I was a depraved monster. So, instead of informing me that I could learn to control the thirst, she offered me an out.”

Helena didn’t move or breathe.

“Reyna said if I did what she asked and served loyally, I would never thirst and, therefore, never kill a Forbidden: an innocent soul.”

Helena looked down at her hands, fully comprehending his situation. “So, you agreed?”

Andrus nodded. “Yes.”

“What was the deal? What did she make you do?” Helena almost hated to ask. His story was already too hard to hear.

“Reyna locked me in an iron box and shipped me off. I didn’t know where I was going or if I’d survive the madness from the hunger. It was months of hell, unimaginable pain. When the box was finally opened, I found myself in the jungle, somewhere in Mexico. That’s when I saw them.” He shook his head, clearly pained by the memory. “They were so beautiful, I thought they were angels coming to save me.” He stopped talking for several moments.

Helena’s face was filled with anguish. “Andrus?” she prodded.

He didn’t respond, his jaw grinding again.

“Who were they?” she pushed.

He continued on, “They threw me into a cenote, an ancient Mayan ceremonial pool, their portal. They dragged me to the other side to make me like them. Well, half anyway.”

Helena was thoroughly confused. Why wouldn’t he tell her? “Who were ‘they?’”

“The gods. They put their light inside me,” he said, almost sounding ashamed.

Gods? What the…? No way! “Sorry? Did you say ‘gods?’”

“Yes. Obscuros were out of control because that bitch of a queen is useless. The gods were finally fed up, about to kill her. So she offered up an alternative to save her skin: to help them create a powerful race that could kill Obscuros and whom they could command—the Demilords. She bartered our lives for hers.”

Wow! First vampires. Then gods. Now…vampire—gods? What’s next? Werewolves? Smurfs? Were-Smurfs?

“Do you have any powers?” she asked.

“I possess certain talents.”

Her eyes popped open. “Can you sift?”

“I track and kill. I have the skills necessary to be good at both. That’s it.”

“Oh.” Helena sank into the seat, digesting for several moments. Even for her, a relatively open-minded woman who’d studied science, this was a bit much. But regardless of how she felt, Andrus had done the honorable thing. He loved—albeit in an obsessive, stalker-like fashion, but he loved—then he was betrayed. Afterward, he’d tried to make the best of it and not eat children. Where was the shame in that?