Fanged Love - Kylie Gilmore Page 0,65

am so sorry about the way you found out. That was a shock to the system, and you didn’t deserve that.”

“Thank you.” Why am I being polite to a killer’s accomplice? I should be running straight to the authorities. But something stops me. I want to believe they’re the good people I’ve come to know.

“Let me start at the very beginning…”

I listen as she tells me the most fantastical tale about Prince Bozhidar, how he came to be the form he is now from his humble beginnings, how he took her in when she was a child and treated her well, and how life has been for them in the centuries they’ve been bonded together.

“No human lives eight hundred years,” I say stubbornly. “You’re human. Completely normal.” There’s no way Neli is a vampire. She’s a beautiful woman in her twenties. Someone I would consider a friend. “And, to be totally honest, I don’t appreciate being lied to like this.” Especially because I don’t understand why they’re doing it.

“I’m not lying, Stella. I’m immortal,” she says. “I’m bonded to Boz, and I can only leave him when he releases me.”

I snort. This whole thing is an insult to my intelligence. Vampires. Immortality. Bonds. Stupid! “Oh. And I suppose you’re hoping I’ll step into your place and be bonded to him for the next eight hundred years. And then what? He bonds with someone else and sets me free? That sounds like slavery.”

“I am his slave,” she says on a sigh.

“What? That monster! You do all this hard work making his vineyard an award winner and he doesn’t even pay you? Neli, you can’t allow him to treat you like that!” And why am I even having this conversation? It’s not like I can believe a word she says. She and Boz are liars and killers.

“I’m going to explain slowly and carefully. All I ask is that you keep an open mind, okay?”

I nod, but really I’m thinking about how I’m going to keep my family safe from these two psychos who’ve become entrenched in our lives.

“When my parents gave me to him as a child, he never used me or turned me. He bonded me to him with a blood ritual. Our lives are tied, and now I cannot die unless he kills me. And, Stella, I want to die. I’ve been around longer than I ever dreamed possible. I want my freedom even if it means through death.”

I squeeze her arm. I might not believe in this whole vampire thing, but I believed her just now about wanting death. “Oh, Neli, I don’t want you to die. Is there someone I can call? Do you have a therapist?” Maybe she’s supposed to be on meds and forgot them back home. That would explain her state of temporary insanity and longing for death.

“I’m not suicidal, Stella. I’m immortal, and death is different when you’re immortal. Death is a relief. I have lived in that same damned castle for over five hundred years, doing the same damned thing year after year—take care of vampire, run vampire’s business, move vampire’s castle, hide vampire and myself from world. I’m tired of working! And, honestly, my only other option is to become a vampire, which would happen if I tried to end my own life or someone else killed me.”

“Let me get this straight. You believe your options are to die, become a vampire, or be his slave for eternity?” She needs help.

“I’m actually Boz’s majordomo.”

“What’s that?”

“I run the household,” she says proudly. “I’m at the top of the servant hierarchy.” At my confused look, she adds, “It’s a medieval thing.”

“But I never saw other servants.”

She huffs. “Can you give me a little dignity here? I prefer having a title to being called slave.”

“Oh, of course, sorry.” I try not to let my true feelings show through—she’s nuts!—and she should be in therapy. As for the fantasies she and Boz share, I think they’re engrained in some sort of delusion to justify their psychotic, killer tendencies.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?” Neli asks.

I stare blankly. I hate lying. I truly do. But I don’t know if she’s mentally stable enough to hear the truth.

“Fine. Here.” Neli grabs my hand and sandwiches it between hers. The look in her green eyes is suddenly intense, almost hypnotic. In an instant, I feel an energy pulsing through my hand, up my arm, and into my body. My heart starts pounding, and images of Boz flood my