Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 72056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
It was a peaceful place. A beautiful place... But the demons eventually found us there. Or we were transferred to a different place.
"What is your choice, Hannah?"
Choice. That word again. "Do I truly have a choice?"
"Your blood binds you to me. To your king. But you've reached the age of consent in the vampire world."
"Wait. There's an age of consent?"
"Yes. Twenty-five years."
"So...you're telling me that for the last couple years I could have told you to fuck off?"
"Not exactly."
"What the hell do you mean then?" Damn. If only my head would stop throbbing. If only my brain would compute...
"You're still bound by blood. But if you choose to renounce your blood, you can do so. There is a way."
"You mean I can fight for the lycans?"
"If you so choose." His voice is low, solemn. And kind of—dare I think it?—sad.
He wants me to choose him. He wants me to choose my blood over my mate—except not my mate. Vamps don't have fated mates. Neither do humans, and I'm half human.
Blood... It all comes down to blood. But Rogan—mate or not—is also part of my blood. I thirst for his blood, draw strength from it. His blood nourishes me in a way my own doesn't, in a way my own could never. In a way no other blood could.
My father wants me to choose my blood over the man I love—the man I love whose fate I don't even know. Rogan was shot. He could be dead. But what is "my blood?" Is it my own? My father's? Or is it Rogan's, which satiates me more than anything ever has?
Rogan. He's not dead. I'd feel it if he were. I have no idea how I know, but I know it. Rogan is not dead...and he needs me. I'm in no condition to go to him, but I must. I must find a way.
I must fight the drugs in my system and go to him.
And so my choice has been made. It was never a choice to begin with. I've never purported to have any semblance of loyalty to my vampire lineage. For the first eighteen years of my life, I didn't even know vamps existed. And my human side? I love my mother and my sister, but Rogan is my future.
"Hannah?"
I meet my father's gaze. "I've chosen."
He clears his throat. "Rogan."
"I have to, Dad. I have to go to him. It was never a choice."
He's silent for a moment. Then—
"You've ultimately chosen Richard over me then, Hannah. And may whatever God there is have mercy on your soul."
41
“You’re wrong,” I tell my father. “I have not chosen Richard. I’ve chosen Rogan. I’ve chosen my—”
My mate.
I don’t say the words. Will my father even understand what I mean? He drinks the blood of young vampire studs, of unsuspecting humans, and then uses mind control so they don’t remember.
My father has never tasted the blood of an alpha wolf…
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” my father says. “A lot. Your mother, though it led to you and your sisters. But I hurt her deeply, and I have regrets. What I did to her drove her to Richard.”
I widen my eyes. Is my father truly taking responsibility for his past actions? I never thought I’d see the day.
“I can’t help who I am, Hannah. I’m a vampire. I’m a vampire who is attracted solely to men. I tried to rebel against both my heritage and my sexual orientation, and I did so with your mother. She was so beautiful—she still is—and so intelligent. Tall and graceful and full of vigor.”
Vigor? Not a word I’ve ever used to describe my mother.
“But I broke her,” he continues. “Me. My selfishness and my greed. I broke the only woman who ever meant anything to me. Other than you and your sister, of course.”
Of course. Did he add Larissa and me to that confession as an afterthought? Any other time, I’d be convinced he did, but now?
The look on his face—his handsome and sculpted face—is sheer regret. Sheer dejection.
I’ve seen the look before—in the mirror. My God, I look so much like this man, this vampire. Sometimes I’m not sure my human side exists anymore.
“My mother was vigorous?” I ask.
My mother has never seemed anything other than resigned to me. Resigned to her fate. Once Richard entered her life, she abandoned Larissa and me emotionally. She lit up when Richard gave her the attention my father never did, but she lost all feelings for her daughters.
And later? She stopped lighting up for Richard.
She just stopped lighting up.
“She was a force to be reckoned with,” Dad says. “So wild and spirited. Her beauty wasn’t just on the outside. It shone through every part of her. She had a good heart, and she felt things. That’s what drew me to her more than her beauty and intelligence, even. She could feel, and we shared that in common.”