Bound in Darkness (Bound #2)(8)

Had Elsa told her this BS?

“If we can just find me a cure…” Allison continued, voice desperate, “I’ll be okay. Whatever’s happening…it can stop. It stopped for years. Nothing happened to me until just a few weeks ago—”

She had no clue. “You’re not infected.” The vamps who’d attacked her had no doubt realized the truth about Allison with one bite. They would have tasted the power in her blood. “You’re a pureblood.”

Allison blinked. “I’m a what?”

“A human who is born to the call of blood. You don’t have to get a blood exchange in order to change. You’re one of the rare few who will change on your own.”

She shook her head at him again. Right. Why believe what he had to say? Figured. He exhaled on a rough sigh. “That family of yours that died, I’m betting they weren’t your real family, were they?”

“They sure as hell were!”

Ah, now she was showing some bite.

He cocked his head as he studied her. “Easy. I meant, they weren’t your blood family, right?” No way two humans could have created her. That wasn’t the way purebloods were made.

Her jaw tightened. “I don’t have any clue who my birth parents were, okay? All I know is they dumped me on the steps of a hospital and never looked back.”

“To leave a pureblood behind, they probably couldn’t look back.”

A furrow appeared between her brows. No clue. He tried to explain by saying, “Purebloods are rare. Only newly turned vamps can have kids, and they don’t just toss ‘em out.” No matter what else you could say about the vamps, they protected their own. “Your parents…”

She watched him with troubled, lost eyes, not speaking.

Cade exhaled. “I’m guessing they were being hunted, and if they never came back for you, that means…”

They died.

Her lashes lowered, and he knew she understood. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and, still not looking back at him, she said, “I-I can’t be…”

Deal with it. Life sucks, sweetheart. It’s a lesson we all learn. “You are. In just a few days, you’ll be kissing your human life good-bye.” Then what was he supposed to do? Stake her? Cut off that pretty head?

No.

Her cheeks grew even paler.

But it was best that she go ahead and understand this now. An infection? Not for her. “You’re gonna change. By the time the full moon rises, you’ll be a vampire.”

“I can stop it! Elsa said there was a cure, I can—”

“There is no stopping it for you. Elsa just set you up to die.”

She flinched at his words. Right. The truth could hurt, huh? Better to shatter all her illusions now. “There’s no cure. There’s not a damn thing you can do to stop the change.”

Her body trembled.

“You will be a vampire.” His hand lifted, and traced the thick scar that circled his neck. A scar that he’d received when he’d been too young to readily pull forth the full wolf within. “And then…”

“Then?” Allison whispered.

“Then you’ll go for the throat of any * dumb enough to get near you.”

“You—you…hate vampires.” Her eyes had fallen to the hand that slid across his scar.

He stared at her, caught by her words. “Yeah, I f*cking do.” Fury broke beneath the words. He hated those parasites and wanted them all in the ground—so why was he standing there, talking to her, wanting her?

Offering to protect her?

Cade spun away. “Stay the night. You’ll be safe here.” He’d know if anyone tried to sneak onto his land.

“Thank you.” Her whisper followed him.

Cade glanced back. She’d wrapped her arms around her stomach. She stared after him, looking lost.

Fuck.

“Don’t thank me,” he growled. Don’t thank me because you don’t know what I’m going to do yet. You don’t know what I want.

Soon enough, she would.

***

It was the same nightmare she always had. Allison knew it was a nightmare, but she still couldn’t wake up. Her parents were dead around her, their blood staining the white carpet a dark red. Her neck hurt, and she could feel the wetness sliding down her skin.

Her blood.

“We’ll be seeing you again…” The vampire told her, smiling with a flash of his blood-stained teeth. “Grow up for us, get strong…we’ll be seeing you again.”

Because she was one of them. Just like them. She’d kill, torture, listen to her prey scream—

“Wake up, Allison.” Hands were wrapped around her arms, shaking her not-so-gently. “Dammit, wake up!”

Her eyes flew open, and she found Cade crouched over her. She almost screamed again.

Just in time, she managed to stop herself. “I—is something wrong?” Her heart thudded in her chest and her voice came out far too husky.

She was in the bed. His bed. He’d taken the couch and offered his room to her.

A nice gesture for a killer.

“You were screaming.”

And now she was awake, in bed, mostly naked, with a bare-chested werewolf crouching over her. “Bad dream,” she managed.