Liam’s Mate (The Vampire Coalition #4)(3)
Author: J.S. Scott

“Of course I can.” He rose to his knees and crossed his arms over his chest as they glowered at each other. Despite his delight at her little flash of temper, this wasn’t a battle that Liam intended to lose. “I’m your friend…I’m male…and I’m a vampire,” he told her seriously, like that explained everything that she needed to know.

Regan tossed her head and broke his gaze as she flopped onto her back, rolling with laughter. “Oh my God, Liam! You can be so arrogant and chauvinistic sometimes.” She rolled onto her side to look up at him as she continued to chortle and choked out, “Just when I think you’re coming into the twenty-first century, you go all knight-in-shining-armor on me.”

His arms stayed crossed and he gave her a dark look as he replied, “I’m not that old. And I don’t see women as inferior, but they are not as physically strong and sometimes require protection.” And damn it, he’d be more than willing to slay dragons for her if she had any stalking her.

“Tarzan?” she suggested, still giggling.

“Completely fictional,” he answered in denial.

“Tyrant?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment and replied, “Possibly.”

Regan propped herself on her elbows, tears of mirth flowing down her cheeks, and said lightly, “Come back to the twenty-first century, Grandpa. We need to discuss this rationally.”

Liam took a deep breath to tell her there was no way he was letting her mate with someone who wasn’t good enough for her when his phone started vibrating on the table.

Nathan. “Yeah, Nathan,” he ground out irritably.

“Liam? Can you meet us all downtown? We have a ‘fallen’ situation.”

Since Nathan was all business, Liam took the location of the meeting, promising he would get there as soon as he could.

“I have to go help my brothers…but this discussion isn’t over,”

Liam warned her ominously as he ended the phone call abruptly.

Regan frowned and stood up as Liam rose to his feet. “Please tell me you aren’t going out to destroy fallen vampires.” Her voice was trembling, all traces of amusement gone.

“I’ll just assist. Don’t worry.” Liam couldn’t resist and bent down to try to kiss away the worry lines between her eyes. They didn’t disappear, but he had that brief, fleeting moment of feeling her soft skin beneath his lips and breathing in the light sent of lilacs before he started to fade.

He knew his brothers were waiting for him so he started summoning the power to teleport himself to the designated meeting place.

“Please be careful.”

That sweet, feminine voice and the sight of her lightly touching the spot where he had pressed a butterfly kiss were last things he heard and saw before he was abruptly transported to his brothers.

And all hell broke loose.

*****

Chapter 2

Was Liam a complete masochist, or just a vampire with a constant death wish?

Regan had been contemplating the same question for the last two hours as she paced Liam’s large, tastefully decorated living room. She had long since cleaned up any remnants of their Chinese meal even though Liam could have done it with a wave of his hand. The task had occupied her body, but it didn’t stop her mind from racing with fear for his safety.

Damn it! When would the stubborn vampire admit that, as a vampire healer, he was different? He couldn’t fight battles with the fallen and come out unscathed. She had watched him suffer way too often not feel outraged over the entire situation. His brothers needed to know, but Liam certainly wasn’t going to be the one to enlighten them.

Liam was her friend, she reminded herself as she stopped pacing before she wore a hole in the plush carpeting and flopped onto a comfortable leather sofa. When he was hurting, it nearly killed her.

Because Liam is your mate!

Regan wanted to shake her head in denial, but it wouldn’t help. Liam was her mate, but he could never know the truth. How many times had she wanted to tell him to see if they could solve the mystery of the intimacy clause in the Book Of The Vampire Healer?

You love him.

God help her, but she did love Liam Hale with every breath in her body, which is why he could never know that she was his chosen mate. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when she had known that she loved him, but his safety had become her number one priority.

Regan had known the truth about being his mate since her sister had mated with his brother Nathan eight months ago. It hadn’t been difficult to figure out who the mark that was imprinted on her hip belonged to after she had seen Sasha’s marking and her sister had revealed its meaning. Liam had been the last unmated brother and his mark was very similar to Nathan’s. The mark of the dragon.

Regan curled her body into the corner of the sofa and shivered as she remembered the horror of the night the mage council had come to her home, shortly after Sasha had mated with Nathan, stripping her naked to look for the mating mark of the vampire on her body. Her own mother had ratted Regan out, remembering that her youngest daughter had the strange birthmark. While Sasha’s mark had appeared on her eighteenth birthday, Regan had been born with hers. After slowly and painfully altering the mark, the council had given her a choice – mate with the mage of their choice or see Liam killed by the mage league of assassins.

Tears leaked from Regan’s eyes as she rubbed the altered mark on her hip. While the pain of the alteration had been excruciating, the fact that Liam would never be hers hurt even more. She could never risk him, never tell him that they were destined mates. And oh…how she wanted to blurt out the truth and try every intimate act that she could think of to fire his mating instinct.

But would Liam even want her?

He was fond her. Regan knew that. What she didn’t know was whether he would really want her as a mate. He treated her like buddy or a sister and while she knew he wanted her company, would he ever want her as she wanted him? Yeah…he threw her an occasional compliment, but she suspected it was more out of sympathy than any other emotion.

Maybe she should just mate with the mage council’s choice and get it over with. She would be forcefully separated from Liam’s company and possibly get over her raging desire for Liam. Getting over it would be good since he would never be hers. Why prolong the agony?

Liam insisted that being a healer kept him too busy and that he would never mate because he couldn’t be a good partner. Did he mean that, or was he only saying it to make himself feel better about the slim possibility of finding his mate?