My Fated Mate Chose My Sister, So I Claimed the Vampire Heir novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Mark

"It's a mate mark," Evander said.

He had taken my wrist in both hands and turned it to the window.

The silver half circle pulsed against my skin, slow and steady.

"Wolves get them at the ceremony. Vampires get them when the bond is true." His thumb stopped just short of it. "It doesn't show for a pretend bond. It doesn't show for a bond that isn't real."

"Mine isn't real. I made you up in a classroom."

"The Goddess didn't get the message."

I stared at the mark.

"You said humans were gone," I said. "You said it's why no one could smell me."

"A vampire's fated mate is always human. That's why the old courts hunted them." His voice was rough. "I stopped looking years ago. I thought the last of them died with my mother."

"She."

"You."

I could not breathe properly.

The mark burned, and it burned hotter when he took his hands away.

I made a sound, and he caught my wrist again at once.

The burning eased under his fingers, and a long shudder went through me.

"It wants you close," he said. "It's called the fever. It will get worse until we..."

"Until we what?"

He did not answer.

He did not need to.

"Those were your terms," I said. My voice shook. "No feelings. No bite. No blood."

"Yes."

"They're a lie."

"They were a lie in the quad," he said quietly. "They were a lie in the closet when you cut your hand. I have broken every one of them in my head since the first day I saw you."

I looked up.

His eyes were black and steady and very close.

"I'm not asking you for anything," he said. "Tell me to leave, and I'll stand in the hall all night."

"Stay."

"Seren."

"Stay," I said, and I stood on my toes and kissed him.

He made a sound low in his chest.

Then his arms were around me, and he lifted me off the floor and set me on the edge of the bed.

He knelt between my knees and looked up at me.

"Tell me if it's too much."

"Take the dress off me."

His hands shook on the zipper.

He drew it down slowly, one tooth at a time, and the green silk slid off my shoulders and pooled around my waist.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"I've thought about this for five months," he said. "I thought I'd lose my mind before I got to see it."

He kissed my collarbone, and the swell of my breast, and the hard tip of it through the thin cotton.

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