Night Unbound [Claiming series, #1]

- 11 -

ADULT CONTENT WARNING: Some parts in this chapter contain content of an adult nature and are for mature audiences only ages 18+. Proper caution should be exercised. Reader discretion is advised.

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He lay on his bed, still dress, wondering how Julie was going to take this. He was a fool to have ever let her get this close. In fact, he should have listened to himself to begin with when he thought he needed his head examined.

He knew what he'd just revealed to her and understood her response to it. It revolted him, too. It was one of the impulses he hated most in himself. But he couldn't deny it existed. And if Julie was going to remain in his life, for however long or short a period, she needed to know exactly what she was dealing with: a vampire, not simply a human who didn't age.

Sometimes, though not as often anymore, he wished he had died on that field at Waterloo. These days he didn't wish it as often mainly because he'd found a way to live with what he was, a way to justify his existence beyond the merely predatory.

But he'd seen himself reflected in Julie's blue eyes out there, and he didn't like what he saw. He was a monster. A controlled monster, but still a monster.

He put his arm over his hypersensitive eyes, shielding them from the little bit of light that trickled through two doors from the outer office. Over the past few decades or so, he thought he'd come to terms with the way things were. He'd found a kind of peace with the self-control he'd practiced for well over a hundred years. He'd even learned to live comfortably in a constant state of need. He'd stopped pining endlessly for the things he wanted but felt he couldn't mortally take.

He'd reached a compromise he could live with.

And then he looked into one woman's eyes and knew that no amount of self-control could change his nature, or make him anything but what he was: monstrous.

"Asher?"

Julie's tentative voice made him lift his arm and looked toward the doorway. He was actually surprised she had come this close. "Yes?"

"Come I come in?"

And torment him some more with her exquisite scent, her incredible beauty? "Sure." He deserved the torments of the damned, he supposed.

She stepped in. "Will the door lock if I close it?"

"Yes, but you can still get out. It may prevent anyone from getting in here during daylight hours, but it doesn't prevent anyone from leaving."

She turned and closed the heavy vault door. The locks automatically thunked into placed, but simply pressing down the bar that served as a handle on the inside would open it. And whether she realized it or now, he had just handed her a way to kill him.

She stepped closer, and her luscious aroma began to perfume the air around him. Not that it had ever entirely dissipated.

"I'm sorry, Asher."

"For what?"

"For making you feel bad. I know I did. I was just...shocked."

"You have every right to feel shocked."

"Maybe." She came closer until finally she stood beside him. She stared down at him, and he could hear her heart begin to beat heavily.

Hunger rose in him; a force of nature he couldn't prevent himself from feeling. Instead, he chose to remain perfectly still, for fear that if he left himself move even the least bit, he might do something he would never forgive himself for.