Page 30 of Justice
“If you insist on not using my full name, you can call me Libby. A name is a thing of respect, and I think we’ve all earned your respect by freeing you, wouldn’t you say?”
Her eyes waited, assessing me, and I didn’t want to argue that the term mate was higher respect than a name because not a vampire nor human would truly understand the value. “I have stated my gratitude.”
“Then show it to me,” she snapped back, and I didn’t know if I should be impressed that my mate had such strength behind her words or disappointed that she dared speak to me in such a manner.
I sighed, the resignation coursing through my bones. “If you wish I don’t call you mate, then I will not.” Then for good effect, I added her placebo name, “Libby.”
“Thank you.” She paused, then that look took over again. The soft tender worried look, “Justice, I want you to prepare for the worst, just in case.”
“There is nojust in case.” I refused to entertain that option.
“I know. I know. But you have to understand; no one has heard from your people since you left. They just vanished. What that means isn’t clear, but I want you to prepare for all options.”
I didn’t know what she was trying to prepare me for. Another round of disappointment? The truth that they may not have made it to the bunker, they may not have made it at all? But she didn’t know Horo, she didn’t know my family, she didn’t realize that perseverance was written in the coding of our blood, down to the very fiber that molds us and if there were a way for us to prosper, my people would do it. I didn’t question if they were alive; I felt it in my morrow; it was where they were surviving at the moment that I needed to find out.
But then again, she wouldn’t understand. She was only human, after all. With vampire blood running through her veins. She’s already disrespected me and my people by using her mate bond to control me, a power so sacred it should never be used except in dire circumstances. Did I really want to take the time to explain that my people would not fail me? If they failed me, it’s because they were dead. All of them. They would fight if need be until the very last survivor’s heart had stopped beating.
“They are alive.”
She leaned forward, her hand hovering over my knee for a moment before she pulled it back, and for a moment, the loss caused sorrow. The thought of her touch disgusted me, but a part deeper than I could control felt the longing to have her hands on my skin. I watched as her tongue poke out for a second, wetting her lips before she continued, “It’s been sixty years.”
“And how long do you think a shifter lives?”
Her hands found each other, knotting together in fluster. Her back straightened, and this time when her eyes met mine, I felt the nervousness. I nearly scoffed, my fated mate, nervous around me? The ridiculousness was unimaginable. “I – I don’t really know to be honest. I’m just learning about this world and the creatures in it.”
“Creatures? Do you think of me as a creature?”
“I -” she began but never finished, her arrogant vampire mate cut in.
“I prefer the word beast.”
An inhuman sound poured from my mouth, and within the blink of an eye, my hand was around his throat, my claws digging into his skin just enough to pierce the layers, causing small droplets of blood to trickle down. “I am Royalty. Do you not get the magnitude of what that means? The naturally born will always trump the made in this world, yet you dare to test me?”
His words were strained as they left his mouth. “Yet, for being so powerful, you got yourself trapped.”
The fur of my animal sprouted from my arms. “One lapse in judgment does not define my power.”
“Maybe so, but it defines your weakness.”
My claw squeezed, and the vampire wheezed under my grip. The blood trickled down the column of his neck, and Libby’s eyes followed. She blinked a few times before her fingers pried at my own. She had no strength to her, her fingers not forcing my own to budge at all, but still, I loosened my grip, letting her remove my hand from the abomination’s throat. She held it in her palms, the size engulfing hers.
“He is not an abomination.” Her eyes fell to the blood that still coated my paw before meeting my eyes again. “And you are not a powerless beast.”
Her eyes went to the blood again before she brought my paw to her mouth, her tongue darting out and lapping at the blood that coated it. A shiver racked my body. One that only intensified when her lips wrapped around my skin as she sucked the blood from it. I didn’t want to react; I hated that my body did so unwillingly, but I couldn’t deny that I liked it. I couldn’t deny that under other circumstances, I may have broken traditions and gone after a human girl if the fates deemed it necessary. But these weren’t under the ideal circumstances. And she wasn’t just human; she was a vampire. Parasitic to her core, whether she admitted it or not.
I pulled my hand away, more aggressively than I intended, before leaning back and glaring. I had nothing to say, not to them, and that fact didn’t seem to phase her one bit, not when the moment my skin left her lips, she had already turned to the vile vampire, lapping at his tiny wounds in sympathy. Disgusting. Fowl. Repulsive. That’s what this whole situation I had gotten myself into was, and I was expected to . . .
Mate?
Mate with that? Mate with a vampire? Create an heir to my legacy with a hybrid?
My stomach souring had nothing to do with the plane’s sudden descent and everything to do with the present company and the unrealistic plans that fate had bestowed upon me. A pair was never matched unless an offspring was in fate’s works, a fact I utterly forgot until now. A fact I might’ve let my mind intentionally block out. But regardless, the fact remained true. The rarity of a shifter child was an act only done by fates. A treasure. A fucking blessing. My fucking curse.
It wasanother thirty minutes before the plane landed. The longest thirty minutes of my fucking life, and I couldn’t figure out why that was. The reasons were vast. My mate? The vampires? The chance that I wouldn’t find my people? Maybe it was all those packaged foods I’d tried mixed with the plane’s movement, but I suddenly felt queasy.
What if I didn’t find my people? I’d spent more time on a plane than not since I’d been turned back to my human form, and yet, not once did that option ever solidly cross my mind. But now, as I stepped my feet off the tiny carrier and onto the desert sand of Arizona, I couldn’t help but wonder what I would do next. What would happen without my people?
“There’s nothing out here,” Ellis pointed out.