An Unacceptable Mate

Chapter Seventeen

The stake had been long forgotten, shimmering like a coned ruby, blood having soaked it through. My arms were sleeved with blood all the way up to my elbows. These vampires were awake, but chained down so hard, I could kill them with my bare hands.

    "You're an ugly one as well," I spat, gauging the eyeballs out of the hundredth one. He cried out, but it was barely audible compared to all of the moans of pain or panic. I'd not killed them all, I'd left some to bleed out. A couple had already disintegrated after death.

  "Please! Please, we don't deserve this! Inerra stole us! He's the one you should be slaughtering!" someone shouted out.

I wiped my face with a bloody hand, smearing my cheek and smiling brightly. "Inerra has pissed me off considerably, but he's steadily working his way into my good books by letting me kill all of you."

The groans of torture and fear increased in reaction to my words.

I clasped a scarily thin female's head in my hands tightly and then twisted to the side, snapping her neck. My god that felt good.

    "So you do like me."

I whipped round to find empty space. My nails were filled with clotted, dry blood which would usually irritate me, but I wore it as a sign of glee.

    "And I see you have acquired a little artistic skill along the way," he purred into my ear, warm hands stroking down my arms. I very nearly shivered.

  "I'm not done," I told him, turning my face a fraction to glare. His blue eyes were the deep sapphire colour again. It seemed when he was feeling something intensely, his gaze brightened to an electric blue.

He smiled some more, pushing a strand of damp hair from my face. "I didn't say you were. I've decided to come and watch you."

  "You enjoy watching your own kind get murdered?" I asked in disbelief.

    "You'll come to learn that I enjoy many, many things, Charlie. There's this one thing I love that girls can do with their hands. If you learn that, I might consider letting you go," he hissed, pulling me back against him and breathing heavily on my neck.

  "Bribery doesn't work on me," I whispered lethally, staying perfectly still.

    "Tell me what does? Or will you leave it for me to discover?" he breathed on my shoulder, touching his fangs there. My eyes widened a little. His fangs were so much bigger than any other vampire's I'd seen. Even bigger than Acera's.

  "You'll never get what you want with me, Inerra," I warned him, pronouncing his name as sultrily as I could.

His sparkly dark eyes smouldered as if I'd just turned on the devil himself. "There are other ways to persuade you than bribery, sweet heart," he assured, stroking his hand from my hip down to mid-thigh and then back up again.

  "Not when it comes to me. Nothing works," I lied sternly, watching him with slits for eyes. I was trying so very hard not to succumb to the way he watched me so seductively or how he touched me in the most sensitive ways. How did he have this effect?

    "We'll see about that, Miss Rose," he murmured, smirking like a satisfied cat when I gave into a shudder.

Don't let him get to you, I reminded myself. He's not as playful as you think. He's good at mind games.

I swallowed against a dry throat and then gently pushed him aside. He allowed me to do this for some reason, eyes lit with humour as if he had read my mind. "If you don't mind, I have some unfinished business to take care of."

He spun on his heel. "Yes you do, my juicy human. Get back to work."

When Inerra called me his, I was slightly repulsed. My mind flashed back to Acera just under ten hours ago when we'd kissed with such rough desire I'd been prepared to blurt my love right then and there. When he was possessive of me, my heart fluttered like a butterfly's wing.

And then reality came crashing down on me. I wasn't with Acera anymore. I was alone. Kidnapped and alone. Never to see Matt or Dremos or Katria again. Never to see him.

A fit of rage soared through me, bringing my fist into the jaw of my next victim. I started to cry, each hit weakening. And then I fell to my knees, head in my hands.

    "I am so in love with you," I croaked. "And I can never have you. We are so wrong for each other. But I love you."

Amber eyes burned in my mind for the last time. I had to force myself to forget about him; forget Inerra had a younger brother; forget I'd ever thought of him as my lover; forget Acera.

After two more hours of where I did nothing but sit with my eyes closed – forehead pressed to my knees, breaths ragged, heart intermittent – I wiped at my hot, puffy cheeks and looked up into the bright lights. This was it. Time to forget.

Acera no longer ever existed in my life.