Blood Mate by Kitty Thomas Page A

her trail, he lost
it again. And the weaker he got, the harder it was to pick up.
    He needed to feed.
He needed to kill someone. After the red haze that had come over him
with Dominic—the momentary belief that he could kill without
remorse—August was back to a sense of dread over the prospect. What
was the point of taking Nicolette—of destroying her life—if he
would go back to killing? If he allowed himself to succumb to his
urges, every shred of who he’d once been would be lost forever, and
Nicolette’s sacrifice would become meaningless.
    Either way, she’d
be alone out there. When her husband and family and friends were
gone, she’d be alone, like him. He needed her. She needed him. She
just didn’t know it yet. He wouldn’t leave her as a lone freak to
face the aging world unchanged.
    Except for his
foot on the gas, he held his body absolutely still. He sensed her
nearby. She’d stopped moving. He sped forward, as if she were
pulling him to her on an invisible leash. He wondered if she would
get a sudden sense of dread—of fear—if she’d know he was coming
for her in time to run.
    He smiled when he
saw the silver Lexus parked next to the last room of a run-down
motel. Motels were public places. No invitation needed.
    August didn’t
bother knocking or issuing threats; he forced the door open and
stepped inside. She sprawled on one of the double beds, watching a
show on television. Her eyes rose to his, wide and horrified when he
slammed the door. She scrambled off the bed to get to the bathroom,
but he grabbed her before she reached it.
    “Were you
planning to fly out of the country?” She’d picked a motel next to
an airport. If she’d flown far enough away, he might not have found
her, at least not without killing a few people first. But as long as
Dominic was alive, she wouldn’t leave the country without him.
August was glad he’d resisted the urge to kill the attorney.
    “I… um…”
    “Close your
eyes.”
    “What?”
    Those obviously
weren’t the words she’d expected from him after five days of
hunting her.
    “Close your
eyes.” He shouldn’t feel bad about her having to endure a bite
from an ugly, rotting vampire. It was her fault he’d gotten to this
state. Her running.
    “Are you going
to hurt me?”
    “Why would I
hurt you?”
    “I ran.”
    “And it was
pointless. Wasn’t it? What did you feel you would accomplish? Is
this how you wish to go on for the rest of eternity with me? Run and
get caught by a grotesque monster every few days? Wouldn’t you
prefer I fed from you in a more attractive form?”
    “No.”
    There it was. That
ridiculous guilt of hers. The martyr complex.
    “You’ll have
to drink my blood tonight.”
    She tried to
struggle free of his grasp. “What? No! You said… ”
    “Unless you want
to suffer. The amount of blood I’ll have to take from you at this
stage, you’ll heal, but it will be painful without my help, even
with the link between us. I told you I wouldn’t allow you to suffer
unnecessarily. I gave my word.”
    He’d also
promised Dominic would die of natural causes and she could stay with
her husband until then. And yet, he’d almost broken that vow.
    August didn’t
have to be able to read her mind to know she had a death wish
already. He’d seen a reflection of his own eyes in hers, the slump
of shoulders, the resignation, the burning need to escape it all. She
was his mirror.
    “Nicolette, we
have to be together. We’ll both go mad otherwise. You may not think
you need me now, but you will. And I need you. You have no idea how
much.”
    He was surprised
when she let him pull her closer, her eyes squeezed shut as he’d
requested. He struck at her throat, feeding as quickly as possible.
She cringed against him, and he wasn’t sure if it was his current
ugliness and decay or if the bond between them still caused the bite
to feel like pleasure.
    Savoring her blood
was something for another time. He drained her like he was