Bound by Danger (The Alliance #6) - Brenda K. Davies Page 0,70

one day, he might not return to her at all. It was a bleak life, and the best thing he could offer her was himself. He was acutely aware that it wasn’t much. She deserved her freedom, concerts, friends, and dreams, but he couldn’t give those things to her.

He could only give her himself, and he wasn’t sure it was enough to make her happy.

“Yes, I want you to stay here forever with me,” Lucien said.

Callie didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. Did he want her to stay here as a human? But that didn’t make any sense. Humans didn’t live forever.

Her stomach hit her toes, and her blood turned to ice as it pumped sluggishly through her veins. Despite her growing love for him, she’d never considered forever, because he’d never mentioned it.

Now, the implications of what it entailed sank in. He would have to bite her again. He said it didn’t hurt if the person was willing, and she doubted the mated vamps here would have so many bite marks on them if it were as awful for them as it was for her, but she still wasn’t ready to leap into trying it out again.

Plus, she was reasonably sure she’d have to die to become a vampire, and she wasn’t exactly in a rush for that to happen. Then there was the whole drinking blood thing. She gulped as she fought back her nausea.

“And by forever do you mean as a… a vampire?” she asked.

Lucien forced himself to remain calm even as the dread in her eyes scared him in a way he’d only ever been scared once before. Then, he’d been standing over the bodies of his slaughtered family. Then, he’d felt a madness growing inside him as he cradled Coralie to his chest and felt her blood coating his hands.

He’d been on the verge of becoming like the monster who shattered her young life and robbed Lucien of the only one friend he had. If Yannis hadn’t shown himself and allowed Lucien to focus his building rage on someone, he may have turned Savage that day.

“Yes, and live with me as my mate,” he said.

Her mouth parted, but she didn’t say anything as the seconds stretched into minutes, and he wondered if he’d blown this completely. He wasn’t one for words; he was one for action. He scrambled to think of something romantic that would make her agree to stay, but he was afraid it would come out sounding like, me Tarzan, you Jane, no matter what he said.

His hand constricted on her lock of hair as he searched her eyes, but all he saw there was continuing uncertainty and trepidation. Those were the last two things he wanted to see after revealing his plans to the one he hoped to share his life.

He hadn’t expected her to be overwhelmed with joy, but this complete lack of a reaction was worse than if she’d laughed or told him no. Was she trying to figure out how to get away from him?

“Would I ever leave these walls again?” she asked.

Lucien opened his mouth to tell her no, she wouldn’t, but the words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t tell her that. Forever was a long time to spend wandering this compound. The idea of it was a form of hell he wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Many hunter women willingly stayed locked away, but they had a shorter life expectancy than vampires, and not all of them took it well. Some of them were training to hunt alongside their men. Before the Alliance, such a thing never would have happened, but a few women were almost ready to go into the field, and they would do it soon.

The other hunter women were content to retain their traditions, but he couldn’t expect Callie to be the same way. She knew the outside world; she’d experienced the joy of it.

Telling her that she had to remain trapped here forever was the equivalent of cutting her wings and throwing her in a cage. It would break her spirit, and as much as he longed to keep her safe, he couldn’t do that to her.

“Yes, you would,” he said. “I would take you out when you asked to go out to see or do things.”

“But I couldn’t travel freely?”

“No. There are too many others here that we have to protect. Few of them know where this compound is; I understand your desire for freedom, but you