Nursing a busted lip and multiple contusions she couldn’t feel but knew covered her body, Cordray headed back to the ranch, racing along the highway. It was after one o’clock in the morning, and at least for a few hours, she had been able to push Trace from her thoughts. But she couldn’t avoid him forever. After all, she was his boss.
Almost two hundred vampires and drecks had been at Grudge Match tonight. For her first fight, she had been paired with a dreck named Sonia. Red hair, green eyes, and one tough bitch. Cordray hadn’t learned much about Sonia, but one thing was clear. Sonia was a master at Krav Maga. And Cordray’s still-bloody lip proved it.
Speaking of which, her lip wasn’t healing as fast as it should. Probably because the excitement of the last couple of days had depleted her energy and she was due for a feeding.
Later. Right now, she just wanted to get inside, shower, eat, go to bed, and avoid Trace as if he were a rabid piranha. Not necessarily in that order.
She slowed and turned onto Asylum’s long, gravel driveway. Ghostly ribbons of fog hovered a few feet over the ground in front of her, breaking and churning like smoke as she sliced through them.
She parked the Ducati in the garage, shut off the engine, pulled off her helmet, and let her gaze fall to the dark oil stain that had soaked into the concrete years ago.
She was alone. With an oil stain. How symbolic was that? Because didn’t she feel like a stain herself most of the time? A smear of living tissue that was only half alive, meandering through existence, her heart dead?
Well, not exactly dead. Because if it were really dead, she wouldn’t have reacted to Trace the way she had earlier today, and she wouldn’t be both dreading and looking forward to going inside, where she might run into him before she could escape to her bedroom and lock the door.
As if locking her door would keep a male like Trace out if he wanted to get to her.
The point was, the idea of never seeing Trace again was enough to spear dread into that four-chambered muscle that steadily thump-thumped inside her ribcage. So, yeah. Heart not dead. Got it.
With a frustrated sigh, she made her way out of the garage to the back door. She was in the habit of scanning the yard before going inside rather than entering the house through the garage. Call it an occupational hazard.
As she started up the steps to the back door, she glanced in the direction of the dorm and sensed the children sleeping inside. All except Leon and Riley.
Stopping, she scanned the yard, scowling as dread sank into the pit of her stomach. Those two had been steadily progressing toward taking their relationship to the next level for weeks. Had they finally gone there? Had they finally consummated their fledgling love to set certain tragedy into motion when—someday—Leon mated another or Riley’s true mate found her and stole her away?
Stretching out her senses, she swept the property until . . .
There. In the barn. The scent of sex drifted into her nose a moment later. Then her sharpened hearing picked up a quiet moan.
What the hell? It was after one in the morning!
Those two would never learn. Did Riley want to end up like her when Leon mated someone else? She wouldn’t be able to stop it. Leon might say he loved her now, and he might promise her the moon, the stars, and the entire universe, but when his biology stirred for another, he would leave her behind without a glance. She would be nothing. Nobody but a heartbroken female, left alone to suffer the emotional turmoil of being cast aside while Leon bonded to his mate and created a family.
Cordray rushed to the barn, desperate to stop what was happening. Needing to stop it. She couldn’t let Riley end up like her.
She threw open the doors, making them rattle as they swung and cracked against the wall.
And there they were, on a stack of hay. Leon on top of Riley, his hands fisted around hers as he rocked into her, holding down her arms beside her head, her legs around his hips, her shirt pushed high to reveal her breasts.
Their heads shot up and around, fear catapulting into their expressions. In an instant, they scuttled away from each other, pulling their clothes back into place as they clambered to their feet. Leon’s erection left nothing to the imagination. Riley’s downturned face was shaded bright red.
“What are you two doing out here?” Cordray stormed toward Leon, seeing Gideon. “How could you do this to her? She’s innocent. Only a child.”
“It’s not like that,” Riley said, reaching for Leon.
Cordray batted her hand away. “Don’t touch him.”
“But I love him!” Riley’s eyes filled with tears.
“And I love her!” Leon’s hand shot out and grabbed Riley’s before Cordray could prevent it.
Cordray saw red. How could they know what love was? Or how Riley’s love for him would destroy her when they reached the end of their transformation into adult vampires?
“Love doesn’t matter!” Her anger flared. “When you’ve grown up and come of age, you’ll understand that whether or not you love one another won’t make a damn bit of difference.” She glared at Riley as she pointed at Leon. “How many times do I have to tell you this, Riley? He will take a mate, and the odds are stacked against you that you will be the one his body chooses. And where will that leave you?” Then she turned her ire on Leon. “And what if another mates Riley? What will you do then? Because King Bain’s laws are explicit. A mated male’s rights are sacrosanct. His rights to her body will trump your love for her, no matter how long you’ve been together, and you will be left out in the cold.”
Leon’s face warped into a mask of anger and refusal. “That won’t happen.”
She laughed bitterly. “Oh, really. And you know this how? From your vast experience as an adult vampire?”
Leon’s face flushed, and he dropped his gaze to his feet.
“I thought so.” Cordray paced away. “Do you really think you’ll stand a chance if another male waltzes into Riley’s life and mates her? You won’t, Leon. She will be obligated to answer her mate’s call. She won’t be able to resist it. I’ve told both of you this time and again, and yet here I find you together, screwing one another as if you think you have forever in front of you. But you don’t!” She slammed the side of her fist against the wall as she turned on Riley. “Is this really what you want? This pain? Because I can assure you, pain is all you’ll have when one of you mates someone else.”
Unless, like her, the agony ended up being so raw that it annihilated every nerve ending so that she never felt anything again.
“I don’t care!” Riley’s fierce grasp on Leon’s hand turned her knuckles white. “I love him now. And he loves me now. I want him and he wants me. What’s so wrong with that?”
“Everything!” Cordray clenched her fists. Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t they understand?
Leon wrapped his arm around Riley’s shoulders and tucked her protectively against his body, the way a mate would. “We can’t live for what tomorrow might bring, C,” he said, his voice unusually calm. Remarkably confident. “Because tomorrow might not come. And if it doesn’t, I don’t want to waste even a moment I could have spent with her.”
Cordray’s eyes tightened as she studied Leon. He spoke beyond his years, his voice strong and sure despite his usually quiet demeanor. It was clear he had thought about this a lot, and when Cordray glanced at Riley, it was obvious she had, too.
Riley’s gaze implored her. “C, we can’t control what happens tomorrow, next week, or years from now. We can only control what we do today. And today, I love Leon. I want to be with him. I want to plan a life with him.” She paused, looked at the dusty, straw-strewn floor, and said in a small voice, “If he ends up not being my mate, I’ll cross that bridge when I have to. For now, can’t you just let us be happy with one another? Can’t you just let us enjoy what we have while we have it?”
Cordray rocked back. Riley knew the risks, as well as the unattractive odds that Leon might not end up being her mate. So did Leon. But they refused to let the possibility of a stark future affect them in the present. Like a cancer patient who knows he only has three months to live, Riley and Leon wanted to make the most of those three months, not live in fear of the end.
Because of her painful past, Cordray only saw the suffering Riley and Leon were destined for. When she’d been their age, she had only felt the thrill Gideon had given her, not the fear of their relationship’s inevitable doom. Love and elation had ruled her decisions. Her awareness had been dominated by the way her heart skipped when she saw him ride around the bend in the lane, his gaze lifting to the window where he knew he would find her waiting and watching for him. In her youth, Cordray would have retaliated against anyone who tried to warn her away from Gideon the same way Riley and Leon resisted her now.
With the gift of hindsight, would she really have done anything differently? Would she have ended her relationship with Gideon knowing he would mate someone else? Knowing that she would lose her sense of touch because of it?
Honestly? No. Because despite the pain, those all-too-brief years with Gideon were some of the best memories of her life. How could she purposefully deny herself that?
“Go inside,” she said quietly as an emotion she couldn’t describe beat against her heart. “Both of you. We’ll talk about this later.”
“But—” Leon began to protest.
“Now!” Cordray pointed toward the door. “Go back to bed. Your own beds. You have to be up for school in a few hours.” Leon was in college, but in vampire years he was still a juvenile, at least until he completed his transition. While Riley was old enough to be in college, she had fallen a couple of grades behind during the turmoil she’d endured before coming to Asylum, so she was still in her final year of high school.
They hung their heads, and Leon wrapped his hand securely around Riley’s as he led her toward the open door.
After they were gone, Cordray slumped into a deck chair that would eventually find its way to the porch now that summer was upon them.
Yesterday, Mya had suggested that Trace might be the mate she’d thought she’d found in Gideon. Could that be true? Could she be pushing him away for fear he would make her feel the pain all over again when instead he was her true mate?
Was that why she could feel him?
Was that why she was so drawn to him?
She turned her head in the direction of the house. Trace was there. So close she could be in his room and against his body in less than two minutes. Feeling his lips against hers again.
Feeling!
That alone was enough to terrify her. What if something happened and her sense of touch shut off again after she allowed herself to get close to him? She wasn’t sure she could take that. To be given the sun and stars only to have them all supernova at the same time would devastate her. The universe had a reputation for playing cruel tricks on her, so her trust in things working out this time wasn’t exactly high.
And then there was Micah and Sam. Trace had a bizarre relationship with them. If he mated her, how would that pan out?
The mysterious heaviness in her chest spread. Her shoulders dragged forward, and she bowed her head. Her hands shook, and she raised her palm and pressed it over her heart, which felt like it was about to pound out of her chest. She could barely breathe. Tears broke in her eyes. A moment later, she squeezed her eyelids shut as a gut-wrenching sob ripped through her throat.
Fear.
She was afraid.
So much had been taken from her. But now, when everything she had always wanted might possibly be within reach, she was too scared to take a chance. Too afraid to risk it all again for fear the results would turn out the same.
Only a coward would resist taking a chance. Someone with courage would see the possibility for a very real, very tragic outcome but not let that stop her cold. Someone with courage would throw that potential future the proverbial middle finger and shout, “Fuck you! I’m doing this anyway!”
But for all her bravado, she couldn’t muster even a single ounce of courage. Trace was right there. Within reach. And all she wanted to do was run away from him.
If only she had a friend. Someone she could confide in. Who could listen and offer advice. Trouble was, she didn’t have a lot of friends. Mya. Brenna. That was about it. But they weren’t who she needed. She needed someone who was both impartial and informed. Someone who could serve as a link between her and Trace. Someone vested in Trace’s future.
Sam.
But was Sam really a friend? They’d share a couple of laughs, but that was about it.
Fuck it. Maybe she had wussed out on stealing into Trace’s room and rubbing herself all over him like a cat in heat, but she still had enough lady balls to face Sam.
She was on her feet in an instant, out the door, and practically running to the garage.
Snagging her helmet, she shoved it over her head, swung her leg over the seat of her Ducati, and lit up the engine.
Seconds later, she gunned the gas and sped back toward the road.
By the time she arrived at Micah’s home, desperation had her firmly in its grip.
She pounded on the door, her whole body clutched so tightly that if one muscle spasmed, she would fall over.
Sam opened the door and immediately frowned. “Cordray?”
Without waiting for an invitation, she rushed inside.
Sam shut the door. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is it Trace?” Sam hurriedly followed her into the living room. “Is he okay?”
Of course Sam would worry that her visit was about Trace. She was practically mated to the guy, living with him, engaging in threesomes with him, even if she and Trace never touched each other. At least not in that way. Not in a way that would put his very worthy, very ample cock inside her.
She spun around. “Hit me.”
Sam recoiled. “What? No!”
“Hit me!” She grabbed Sam’s wrist and pulled her forward.
“Stop! I’m not going to hit you. Are you crazy?”
“Just do it, for God’s sake! Hit me!”
Sam stiffened, and for a heartbeat, Cordray didn’t think she’d do it. And then . . .
Smack!
Sam slapped her then immediately gasped as she pulled back, hand over her mouth, staring at her as if she were a freak.
Freak.
Just like Trace. Just like she’d seen in Trace’s mind when those kids from his childhood had teased and bullied him, making his life hell.
She was a freak, too, because she couldn’t feel a thing. She had seen Sam’s hand shoot toward her face. She’d heard the harsh clap of flesh on flesh. Her head had even snapped to the side. She possessed all the sensory evidence necessary to prove Sam had hit her except for the sensation of feeling the contact.
“Harder, Sam. Hit me harder.”
“Cordray . . .?”
“Just do it!”
SMACK!
This time, Sam struck her with enough force to knock her sideways. She stumbled then righted herself. Still nothing. No pain stung her cheek. No lingering echoes fired her nerve endings.
She was as unfeeling as one of Null’s cold, heavy rocks. She was a jagged stone. Able to cause pain but not feel it.
“Harder!” she commanded.
“Cordray, I—what’s going on?” Tears glistened Sam’s eyes, and her face was contorted in horror mixed with disgust.
“Just hit me, goddammit!”
This time, Sam’s fist shot out, clocking her on the chin.
Cordray staggered backward then tripped over her own feet, spinning and nose-diving to the floor.
“Cordray! Oh God! I’m sorry.” In an instant, Sam was kneeling beside her, her hands gripping her arms as she tried to help her up.
But there was no helping her.
Not in the true sense of the word.
She was defunct. Damaged. Broken.
Gideon had broken her.
In one fateful moment, he’d shattered her heart and stolen her sense of touch. He’d destroyed her.
Tears welled in her eyes. Her throat tightened abruptly. A moment later, she sobbed, face in the carpet.
“Why can’t I feel anything?” Until Trace, she had been able to live with her disability. But now that he’d reminded her of all she’d lost, she just wanted it back.
Sam stopped trying to help her. Instead, she brushed Cordray’s hair off her face, sniffling. “What do you mean? Are you saying you can’t feel?”
She shook her head.
“At all?”
Cordray shook her head again. “Nothing.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “What’s wrong with me?”
Sam sniffled again. “You’re asking the wrong person, Cordray. I’m out of my depth here.”
Cordray lifted her head and looked at her. Two wet trails extended down Sam’s face, one on each cheek. A tear dripped off her chin.
“Why? Why me?” It was the self-pitying question she hadn’t allowed herself to ask for eight centuries, but she was asking it now. For once, she wanted an answer.
Sam shook her head, and two more fat tears dropped from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Cordray. I don’t know.”
They stared at each other like that for a long time. Just the two of them. On the floor. Crying and staring.
Then Sam dabbed the skin over her upper lip with her fingers. When she spoke, her voice was gentle and persuasive. “Did something happen between you and Trace?”
That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it?
“No. Yes.” She sighed, wiping the humiliating tears from her face. “I mean, no.”
But something had happened. Not just in her bedroom when she’d awakened to find him on top of her, but in the living room earlier in the evening, with Aiden and Null, when they’d looked like a family. When they’d talked to each other like two people who actually liked one another. And then something incredible had happened after they’d tucked the kids into bed. Something wondrous and fiery and all-absorbing.
“Cordray . . .?” Sam tugged on her arm again, goading her to sit up.
She did. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Sam.”
Sam’s wispy eyebrows crowded together as she slowly shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then you’re obviously not paying attention.”
Sam sighed and ass-parked on the couch. “Oh, I’m paying attention, Cordray. More than you know.” She spoke as if she held a crystal ball that revealed all.
“What do you mean?”
Sam let out a breathy huff then pushed herself off the couch. “Do you want some tea? Coffee?” She hesitated and glanced toward the mini-bar. “Something harder? I could use something harder myself.”
“Got any whiskey?”
Sam firmly nodded her head as if putting a period on a sentence. “Yep.”
As Sam poured their drinks, Cordray pulled herself off the floor and took a seat in one of the club chairs, drying the rest of the tears from her cheeks. She hated crying in front of people. Hell, she hated crying period. She hadn’t cried in forever, but just as with her sense of touch, Trace appeared to have awakened all sorts of long-forgotten emotions inside her.
Sam returned and handed her a double of Jack then set the bottle on the coffee table in front of her before taking the seat across from her, cradling her own glass.
“Smart woman.” She nodded toward the bottle.
“Yeah, well, it feels like it’s going to be that kind of conversation.”
She took a hardy gulp of the burning liquid. “What kind of conversation is that?”
“The kind where you finally admit you’re in love with Trace.”
She pulled in an abrupt breath. “I’m not in love with him.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Like I said, it’s going to be that kind of conversation.” She sipped her drink. “Why don’t you just start from the beginning.”
The beginning. She scoffed. “You really want to know?”
Sam studied her for a long, pensive moment. “Yes.”
“Fine.” She sat back and gulped down the rest of the contents of her glass then held it out for more. If she was going to do this, she needed all the liquid fortification she could get.
Sam poured her another then set the bottle back down with a resounding thunk.
“Start talking, Cordray. I’m here as long as you need me.”
“What about Micah?”
“He’s working. And when he gets home, if you’re still here, he’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Why? Because the two of you are so close he’ll do anything for you?” She couldn’t keep the resentful bite out of her tone.
Seeing what Sam had with Micah left a bittersweet taste in her mouth. They were so in tune with one another. So in love. Then again, they were mates. Wasn’t that how mates were supposed to be? One mind, one heart, one body, more or less?
She wouldn’t know. She’d never been mated. But she’d heard enough vampires speak of the mating phenomenon to understand how things worked.
Sam’s green eyes softened, and she briefly glanced away before nodding. “Yes, Micah and I are close, but that doesn’t mean we always see eye to eye. We just find a way to make our differences of opinion work. We’re a lot alike, Micah and I.” She paused. “You and Trace are a lot alike, too.”
“No, we’re not.” But they were. They were both similar beasts. Both freaks.
Sam crossed her legs and sank more deeply into her chair. “Cordray, you and Trace are cut from the same cloth. You’re both tough as iron on the outside but vulnerable inside. You’re both extremely powerful and care more deeply than you let on. Don’t try to deny it, because I can see it. You wouldn’t have broken down the way you did just now if that weren’t true.”
“I didn’t break down.”
Sam held up her hand and bowed her head in surrender. “Okay, fine. Forget I said that, but it doesn’t mean you don’t care on a very deep level.”
“So what if I do?”
“Then stop fighting it. Let go. If you want him, take him.”
Cordray stared into her drink. She did want him. But taking him would mean she was allowing herself to be hurt again, maybe even killed this time around. Hadn’t she learned her lesson? What kind of idiot would purposely allow herself to be put in harm’s way when she knew the consequences.
“I was in love once,” she said quietly.
A pulse of startled energy beat from Sam’s body, but she didn’t say anything.
Cordray sighed. “His name was Gideon, and we were in love.” She lowered her voice to a wistful whisper. “So in love.” Then she pulled her gaze from her glass and met Sam’s eyes.
Sam’s mouth had fallen open, and her expression was one of surprised curiosity.
“Does that shock you? That I actually loved someone who loved me back? Me? Big, bad, scary Cordray?” She took a contemptuous gulp of whiskey.
“You’re not scary—”
Cordray lifted her hand, palm out. “No, it’s okay. I know what people say about me. I know what they think. I can see inside their heads, remember?” She tapped her temple then choked down another gulp. “I’m Cruella Deville. I steal puppies for their fur and drink the blood of babies. I’m Medusa incarnate, haven’t you heard?”
“Cordray . . .”
All this woe-is-me bullshit rankled her blood, but she couldn’t seem to pull her head out of the septic tank, thanks to the alcohol quickly pulling her into its grasp.
“Everyone avoids me.” She laughed mockingly, raising her glass as if in a toast. “They cross busy streets just so they don’t have to pass me on the sidewalk. They avert their gazes as if meeting mine will turn them to stone.” She laughed at herself then drained her second glass. “I’m the boogey man, the thing that goes bump in the night, the monster hiding under your bed. I’m the stranger your parents warned you not to talk to when you were a little girl.”
She glanced away, seeing the memories of her long-ago past as if only a few weeks had passed instead of eight hundred years. “But it wasn’t always that way.”
When she paused and said nothing for several seconds, Sam refilled her glass. God love her. Sam knew how to keep her talking.
She took a healthy swig of whiskey, her body growing warm and loose as she settled more comfortably into her chair.
“When I was young, I was innocent and sweet. Docile even, if you can believe that.” Those days had been a lifetime ago. A hundred lifetimes ago. “I was as obedient and well-mannered as a princess.”
And wasn’t she? A princess? After all, her father had been the king. King Bain the First.
His affair with her mother, who had worked as a servant in her father’s employ until he mated her, had been so scandalous, yet so perfect.
But Father already had a queen. She wasn’t his biological mate, but she conceived a child, anyway. Cordray’s half-brother and heir to the throne, Bain the Second.
Her brother’s birth was practically a miracle. Unmated pairs struggled to bear young. That was the main reason why the vampire race hadn’t proliferated much in the early times. Arranged pairings had been commonplace then, especially among the more affluent.
All that changed when her father mated her mother outside his union to the queen. That was when he began writing new laws protecting human mates. Until King Bain the First, for a vampire male to take a human mate was verboten. That didn’t mean it didn’t happen, but those vampires who did mate humans lived in secret. Others remained tied to their vampire spouses on paper but maintained their mated relationships on the down-low. Callings were horrific for a male mated to a human and sometimes resulted in death if he wasn’t able to spend his fertile time with his true mate.
This was one reason why Cordray’s father had changed the laws. He had refused to sit and watch their race die over archaic laws that had been written during a time before vampires had gained an understanding of how an existence shared with humans would pan out.
But his protection of mated males had also been about protecting his own mating. As the king, he couldn’t just up and flee with his human mate. He had a job to do. He couldn’t live a secret life with his mate and return home to his queen to make things look normal. He was, for all intents and purposes, a celebrity. Everything he did landed in the public eye. Legalizing vampire-human matings—as well as enforcing them—had been the only solution.
After his tragic death, her brother had continued their father’s legacy. Protecting mated males and biological unions had become a priority. One that her brother understood better than most after watching his father live in torment every day he couldn’t spend with Cordray’s mother.
Certain circles in the vampire community still clung to those old laws, though. Namely the purists, many of which were the well-to-do. They still believed in arranged unions and insisted on pairing their daughters with those they felt were best suited to create a strong match, despite the challenges those unions faced.
One of those challenges was that having children would be nearly impossible. Secondly, if the male of such an arranged pairing mated someone else, or another male mated the female, Bain was forced to step in and nullify the arrangement and honor the mated male’s rights.
This didn’t make him popular with the aristocratic families who’d coordinated arranged pairings, especially for those he had overturned. But as the king, popularity was the least of his concerns.
Cordray thought back on her parents’ mating. It had been hard on her mother not to be with her father when he was away being the king. And the way her father swept her mother into his arms every time he visited, holding her close for so long Cordray sometimes wondered if he would ever let her go, proved how hard it was for him not to be with her, too. She and her mother had treasured those few-and-far-between visits. So had her father.
His visits were how she ultimately met Gideon. Beautiful and passionate, Gideon had been a young warrior in her father’s court. A full-blood and fifteen years her senior, fully transitioned into an adult male. At the time, she had been a young, innocent, and impressionable nineteen-year-old, still in the early stages of her transition.
“I was a fair maiden,” she said scornfully. “A maiden who caught the eye of the most handsome male in the king’s guard.” She blinked heavily, meeting Sam’s gaze. “His name was Gideon.”
Sam seemed to sense what Cordray was about to reveal was the key to everything, because she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even move. This was the reason for all the scary tattoos, the piercings, the attitude. Her inability to sense touch.
She gulped down the last of her third glass and set it on the arm of the chair. “Gideon and I embarked on a passionate, whirlwind love affair,” she said, beginning the story.
Just as Leon and Riley vowed they would always be together, she and Gideon had vowed the same.
“We were so sure we’d be mates. So sure we were meant to be together forever. But week in and week out, year after year, his call to mate never fired. Despite how deeply we loved one another, Gideon never mated me.” She let out a brittle laugh. “I wanted his child so badly. My father had conceived with another who wasn’t his mate, and I thought the same thing could happen to me. That I would conceive a miracle child, too.” She lifted her glass to her lips only to remember it was empty. She lowered it again. “But it never happened. I never conceived.”
“How long were you together?” Sam asked quietly, as if she feared bursting the intimate bubble drawing them more tightly together.
“Six years. I met him as my transition to adulthood was just starting, and we were still together when it finished.” She smiled sourly. “We’d hoped that the reason he hadn’t mated me was because I wasn’t yet an adult. But even afterward, he didn’t mate me.”
Her intoxicated mind jumped ahead, no longer functioning linearly, as often happens when alcohol’s grip takes hold. Her thoughts fell to the night that changed everything. The night when she lost herself completely and life as she knew it shattered.
“He didn’t come to me that night.” Her body felt as flat and broken now as it had then. “He always came to me when the king visited, but that night, he didn’t. So I stole away to the stable. His horse was gone.” The memories were snap-shotting through her mind, the alcohol clouding the chronology. “I didn’t understand. Why would his horse be gone? There was only one place where he could be. The cottage in the woods. It was where we went to be together. Our hideaway. I assumed he was there waiting for me.”
The small one-room cottage in the woods, with its simple porch and small stone fireplace—paradise at the time—appeared in her mind.
“I darted into the woods, eager to see him. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t come to tell me he’d be there, waiting for me. All I knew was that I had to see him. Feel his touch.” Her gaze fell to the floor. She closed her eyes, remembering his touch. That night was the last time she’d felt it. The last time she’d felt anything until she met Trace.
Her vision blurred with tears.
“As the cabin came into view, I saw the glow of the fire through the window. He was there. I was so happy. So unbelievably happy. We were going to be together again. He was going to make love to me, and everything would be all right.” She looked at Sam through a film of tears. Sam sat on the edge of her seat, eyes trained on her, her hands hugging her glass, which still had whiskey in it. “As I got closer, I heard muffled noises from inside. Gideon wasn’t alone.” Her heart ached all over again at the memory. “He was with a female. And they were making love.”
Sam let out a tiny gasp and covered her mouth. “Oh, Cordray, I’m so sorry.”
She held up her hand, already struggling to keep her shit together. She didn’t need Sam’s sympathy to send her totally over the edge. “Just wait, it gets better.” She blinked against the tears clouding her vision. “I stood on my tiptoes and peered through the window. It was covered with a film of dirt and pollen, but I could still see them. On the bed we’d shared so many nights, he had another female beneath him. He was holding her down the way he’d held me so many times, his body surging against hers the way it had surged against mine. And wave after wave of hormonal heat pulsed through the walls, assaulting me like a bad punchline.” She stilled and held her breath for a long moment. Then the air whooshed from her lungs. “He’d mated her. She was his mate, Sam. His goddamn mate.”
“Omigod.” The rushed exclamation breathed from Sam’s mouth like a whispery curse. “I’m so sorry.”
“What kind of cruel joke was that?” She slapped her palm on her chest. “He’d been mine for six years. I’d been his. I’d had a place in the world. With someone. An incredible, wonderful someone I’d given my heart to. But in the blink of an eye”—she snapped her fingers—“biology stole away the only male I’d ever loved. My first everything. He’d given me so much pleasure, made me feel desire, lifted me to rapturous heights with only the touch of his fingertips.” She swiped a tear from her cheek as she met Sam’s gaze. “Do you realize that I was so enthralled by him that he was able to send me into rapture with just a simple brush of his lips?”
Sam shook her head.
“It’s true. He touched me, and it was euphoria. He kissed me, and it was pure bliss.” Her gaze fell from Sam’s. “And now I can’t feel a thing.”
Silence stretched for several seconds. Then Sam asked the inevitable.
“Why? What happened?”
The memories flew through her mind once more.
“Seeing him come inside her—his mate—was beyond excruciating. Pain shot through me with such force that I screamed. Physical pain, Sam. It felt like my heart exploded. Like my lungs closed in on themselves then ruptured.
“Gideon’s head snapped around, and he saw me at the window. Guilt fell over his expression, but my heart was already shredding into pieces.
“I turned and ran. Just ran as fast as my legs could carry me. But he came after me. He was shouting my name. Telling me to stop. But I kept running. The only word I could say was no. Over and over, I just kept screaming no at him as branches sliced into my arms, my legs, my face.” She lifted her hand to her cheek, remembering the lashes and the feel of sticky blood cooling on her skin. “He was faster than I was and caught up to me. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around, and I screamed, because it burned. It physically burned being touched by him after I’d just seen him with another female. I loved him. Seeing him with another destroyed me.”
She sniffled, drawing in a trembling breath as the rest of the memory unfolded.
“He tried to calm me down. Tried to apologize. ‘I had no choice,’ he said. ‘My body chose another. I’m sorry, but I’ve mated someone else.’ I can still hear his voice as if he’s right here and just spoke those words to me.” She blinked heavily, and tears dropped from her eyes. “I fell to my knees, sobbing. Big tough Cordray, brought down by biology’s brutal slap in the face.” She uttered a bitter laugh. “But I was no match for life. It had played a cruel joke on me. It had given me a perfect male then ripped him away, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing I could do to get him back. Nothing. It was agony knowing I’d lost him and had no control.” She shook her head. “Why couldn’t he have mated me? What was wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Sam said. “He just wasn’t the right man for you.”
“Tell that to my body.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Something backfired in me that night, and I’ve never recovered.”
Sam tilted her head and frowned. “Are you talking about losing your sense of touch?”
Cordray swiped at the traitorous tears that wouldn’t stop leaking from her eyes. “He tried to comfort me. Tried to help me. But when he touched me, what felt like fire blasted through my body. The pain was indescribable. When I fell to the ground, screaming in agony, he tried to help me up. But as he gripped my arms, he only made the pain worse.
“I pushed him away, screaming at him not to touch me. ‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ I said. Then I said—and I still remember the words as clearly as if they’re seared into my brain—‘You’ve killed me. I’m dead now. Dead! You’re dead to me!’”
Sam gasped.
Cordray pressed on. “He reared away from me. Pale. So pale. Terrified. Of me or for me, I don’t know, but it didn’t matter. The look on his face said it all. We were over, and he didn’t know me, anymore. Seemingly overnight, we’d gone from being as close as two people could be to being total strangers.” She let out a shaky sigh. “He apologized again, told me I’d never see him again, and left.
“I remained curled on the ground, knees to my chest, crying until I didn’t think I could cry anymore. He had someone warm to return to. He had another’s arms to console and comfort him, another’s lips to kiss away his pain. I had nothing and no one. After years thinking I’d found the male I would spend the rest of my life with, he was lost to another, and I was all alone.”
She sat quietly for a minute. Then she leaned forward, grabbed the bottle, and filled her glass to the brim before guzzling half of it down in one swallow.
“Hours later, I finally pushed myself up and headed back home. But as I trudged numbly along the path, I realized I couldn’t feel the dewy, damp undergrowth beneath my slippers. Or the coldness of the cobbled path that led from the woods to the stable gate.
“Within hours, Gideon and his mate were gone, but so was my sense of touch. I couldn’t feel anything. Nothing at all.”
Silence stretched between her and Sam. Recalling her past had felt both like a purge and a reliving of events, leaving her mentally worn and bone weary.
“Years later, I heard that Gideon’s mate and his young son were killed. I never learned what happened to Gideon, though. He disappeared, lost to his suffering, I’m sure. I don’t envy him that. That’s got to be a worse hell—or at least an equal one—than what I’ve gone through.”
“But it doesn’t mean you’ve been hurt any less,” Sam said, her voice maternal.
“But it doesn’t take away the hurt, either.” She downed another swallow of whiskey. “But all this time, I’ve felt nothing. Nothing at all.” Her eyes met Sam’s. “Until now. Until Trace.”
“What do you mean?”
Cordray chugged the remaining Jack in one swallow then clunked her glass on the table.
“I can feel him, Sam. He touches me, and I feel it. Everywhere, I feel it. What does that mean?” Her head buzzed thickly.
“I can tell you what I think it means, but I’m not sure you want to hear it.”
She thought back to what she had said to Gideon the last time she saw him. That he had killed her. That she was dead without him.
She hadn’t actually died, but in a manner of speaking, she had. Her desire had died. Her ability to feel had died. Her emotions and nervous system had died, making her an automaton. An unfeeling ghost.
Until now.
The more time she spent around Trace, the more her sense of touch revived, along with her emotions. He was pulling her back to the living. In his own way, he was resuscitating her. Resurrecting her heart. Isn’t that what she’d thought a couple of days ago?
Earlier tonight, she’d wanted to be where Null was, pressed against Trace’s body, her cheek against his chest, his hands rubbing her back, his warmth pouring into her. Not since Gideon had desire so strong commanded her thoughts.
I don’t hate you, Trace. Quite the opposite, in fact.
And then what she’d wanted actually happened. Trace had held her and pressed all that heat against her body. He’d kissed her. And it had felt so good. So incredibly perfect.
But then she had run away. As she had run from the cottage in the woods, so she had run from Trace. All because she feared he would do the same thing to her as Gideon had.
Even so, she couldn’t resist his magnetism. Even now, she could barely keep herself from jumping on her Ducati and racing back to Asylum so she could see him, touch him, and be touched by him. To hear his voice and watch him while he slept. To share her dreams with him and awaken with him between her legs again, wanton, hungry, aching with need. To drink from him as he drank from her. To spend forever with.
Forever.
Had she really just thought that? Yes, she had. She wanted forever. With him. With Trace.
“Oh, God.” She dropped her face into her palms.
“What? What’s wrong?” The cushions rustled as Sam scooted forward.
She peeled her hands away and turned beseeching eyes on Sam. “You’re right.”
“What do you mean, I’m right? Right about what?”
This couldn’t be happening. Please don’t let this be happening.
“I’m in love with him. I’ve fallen in love with Trace.”