Unafraid by Cat Miller

of
ever introducing me to your family or friends. You are currently
engaged to a woman that is acceptable to you and your family, not
to mention the Nation of people you will help lead. Mason very
helpfully explained that you will suffer a day’s pain over losing
me after you bond to your mate and wash away any feelings you have
for me. So, when you move on, I will be the one left lost and
broken. Does that about cover it?”
    He stared slack-jawed at her grief stricken
face. It sounded really bad when she put it that way. No matter
what his original intentions had been everything was different now.
He had no idea how he was going to fix this. He only knew he didn’t
want to ever lose Tessa. He loved her and her alone.
    “Please give me a chance,” he pleaded.
    “What do you want a chance to do? What’s the
plan?” she asked.
    Nothing. He had nothing. Not a clue about
where to begin or how to make her understand the wall he was up
against.
    “Just leave, Griffin. Leave, and never come
back.” She stepped inside and shut the door in his face. Griffin
listened to her slide down the door and begin sobbing her heart out
onto the worn linoleum floor.
     
    SEVEN
    They say when you fall in love with someone
that person becomes like a drug, an addiction you don’t want to
live without. In Griffin’s opinion, being in love was more like
being slowly poisoned. You suffer an unrelenting pain that can only
be alleviated by completely purging the drug, or person, from your
system. This process took much longer than the initial poisoning or
addiction had taken. Though he did agree that no matter how sure a
person was that they would be rejected, the idiot desperately
wanted to return to the source of all of the pain and misery. Just
like a junkie.
    After leaving Tessa to her misery the night
she ended their relationship, Griffin was angry and hurting. There
was only one person he could blame at the time. He went straight to
Mason’s house and was greeted in the foyer by his ‘ex’-best friend.
He was spoiling for a fight and Mason knew it. Griffin couldn’t
even speak at first. The pain of his loss and the betrayal
perpetrated by Mason lodged in his throat to block all sound.
    Sounding annoyed and unconcerned, Mason said,
“Let’s take this outside. I’ll not have you trashing my mate’s
home. She’s worked hard to get things just the way she likes
them.”
    That statement sent Griffin over the edge.
Mason had the nerve to discount the budding love between Griffin
and Tessa and then rub his new blood bond in Griffin’s face.
Griffin was suffering the loss of his only love and Mason was
worried about not wrinkling his mate’s curtains or scuffing her
polished floors?
    As soon as Mason opened the door to exit the
house, Griffin tackled him. They rolled together down the few steps
that led to the front lawn. He felt like a mad man rolling,
wrestling and punching wildly. The hurt and anger combined to make
him senseless. He wanted blood for Mason’s part in Tessa leaving
him. Mason had not pulled any punches with Tessa when it came to
how the Vampire Nation would view her humanity. He’d left her
feeling worthless and used. For that, Mason deserved every crushing
blow Griffin could land. They fought like wild beasts and Griffin
was lost to the battle.
    Mason and he were evenly matched. They were
roughly the same size, but Griffin was broader in the shoulders and
chest. They’d trained and learned to fight together starting when
they were kids. Griffin plowed his fist repeatedly into Mason’s
torso and hoped to inflict a few broken ribs. They tumbled and
fought for a time and it felt good. Griffin would have gone on
until they beat each other into the ground but Mason leapt away
from him suddenly and looked toward his huge new house.
    Blood trickled from Mason’s nose and mouth.
One eye was swollen shut and his knuckles were worn and raw. “You
son of a bitch!” he snarled at Griffin and ran into the house. A
sick