Once Bitten, Twice Burned

He pulled her into his arms. Pressed his mouth to hers. “Let them come.” Didn’t she understand yet? No one was going to take her again. He wasn’t leaving her side, no matter what the hell happened next.

Her hands rose to his shoulders. Held tight. He liked the bite of her nails on his skin. Liked her bite more.

He kissed her again and his tongue pushed into her mouth. The kiss wasn’t wild or rough, not like before. Because this time, he wanted to comfort her.

To make her feel safe.

He kept the kiss light. A hard task, when his instincts demanded that he take. When Ryder felt his body tightening, he pulled his mouth from hers. Ryder pressed his forehead against Sabine’s. “You’re not alone.”

She’d never be.

He caught her hand. Pulled her toward the couch. She looked up at him, so sexy that she made him ache. His c**k was fully erect, eager for her.

But this time, she needed more.

“My family betrayed me, too.” A confession that few had ever heard from him, but he wanted to share his past with her.

She sat down on the edge of the couch and stared up at him. Waited. Her lips were red from his mouth.

“I’ve walked the earth for a very, very long time, Sabine.” Longer than she probably realized. He’d stopped aging long ago. “As far as I know, I was the first vampire.”

Her eyes widened. “You—”

“I took a sickness when I was human. A disease that ravaged through me, seeming to consume me from the inside out.” He could still hear the sound of his own desperate screams. His mother’s wild pleas for help.

Help had finally come.

But it hadn’t been what he’d expected.

“The disease spread to others in my family.” A plague, that was what they would call it in the Middle Ages. A virus. A sickness, now.

“I recovered.” Flat. He held her gaze. “Most did not. Only my brother and I were spared. Everyone else . . . they perished.” The deaths hadn’t been easy. So much suffering. Agony. The bodies had been twisted. Spotted. Blackened. The rotting stench had filled the air. Death had come to his land.

“My brother was weakened from the disease. He could barely walk. His skin was mottled, scarred, but I—I was fine within a few nights.” His body had been strong.

Too strong.

“My blood has always been different.” Or else the virus would have ravaged him, too. “Something was . . . off with me.” He’d known it from the time he was just a child. There had been a darkness in him. An instinctive urge to hunt. To be the predator.

To destroy prey.

Evil? Maybe. Maybe that’s what he was. But he’d always tried to fight his deadly instincts, as best he could.

“Within just a few days, I noticed the new . . . hunger.”

Her gaze locked on his. “For blood.”

He nodded. “My teeth burned in my mouth. They stretched. Sharpened. My senses became more acute. When I touched my servant’s neck, I could hear the whoosh of his blood.” His hands fisted. “The first time I drank, I killed.”

She swallowed.

Tell her all. Show her the beast. “I enjoyed the kill.”

The silence in the room was deafening, but though Sabine tensed, she didn’t try to run from him. She just kept sitting there, staring up at him with those dark eyes of hers.

So he told her more. “I killed others. My hunger was insatiable. I wanted the blood. I gorged myself on it. In those first days, I was half-mad. A beast that had survived hell and wanted only blood.”

Human food had no longer been able to sustain him.

“Many tried to kill me.”

But their weapons hadn’t worked against him. Not any longer. They could slice his flesh or break his bones, but he quickly healed from those injuries.

“I was stronger, faster, so my attackers were the ones who died.” And the blood kept flowing.

“Why are you telling me this?” Sabine demanded.

“Because I want you to see what I am.” And to stay with me anyway. The whisper came from deep within. He ignored it. She had no choice. She had to stay with him. Too many were after her. To survive, Sabine needed his protection.

“I know what you are.” Her words were stark. Sad.

He flinched. I killed you, so yes, you do know. His hands fisted. “I told you . . . one of my brothers survived, but he was weak from the sickness.” Weak and still diseased. The scent of death had clung to him. “I . . . wanted to help him.” Because even though the bloodlust had created a monster in him, the man inside had still fought to rise to the surface. “My body was different. I knew that. So I thought that my blood must be different, too.”