Reborn Yesterday - Tessa Bailey Page 0,60

times his mate has been human.”

“Which is not only very unusual, Ginny,” Roksana said slowly, her gaze uncharacteristically sympathetic. “It comes with some…difficulties.”

“What are they?” Suddenly none of them would look at her. Not even Elias, who didn’t seem the type to hesitate while delivering bad news. “Just tell me.”

“A vampire senses his mate, but until he tastes her blood, he remains Silenced,” Roksana explained. “Last night…you made his heart beat again.”

Pure joy caused her lungs to seize. “How is that a bad thing?” Ginny cried. “Is he…human now?”

Tucker squatted down beside her, sympathy etched in his features. “Far from it. Still can’t be exposed to the sun, still has his abilities and needs blood to sustain himself. He’s actually more vampiric than before—and Roksana is right. It comes with a lot of complications.” He sighed. “Now that’s he’s tasted his human mate’s blood, he can’t drink from anyone or anywhere else.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Or he can…but it won’t make a dent in the thirst. Won’t nourish him and he’ll…”

“Weaken,” Elias said succinctly. “Die.”

Ginny’s ribs caved inward. “No.” She shook her head and tried to gain her feet once more, pushing at Roksana’s traitorous hands. “You weren’t going to tell me this? You thought I would let him die?”

“He made me promise,” she said, lunging to her feet in between Ginny and the door, fending her off with outstretched hands. “Put yourself in his position. He doesn’t want you to spend your life as a…as a-a—”

“Snack,” Elias pronounced. “A permanent one. Every day of your life.”

The ground shook under the intensity of Jonas’s next bellow. Dust puffed down from the ceiling, distracting her three friends long enough to allow Ginny to lunge for the door, shaking the handle. “Open it. Let me go to him.”

“Think first, sweetheart,” Tucker said, oh-so-casually laying a hand on the door to keep it closed. “He’s our friend. He saved our lives, once upon a time. We don’t want to watch him die any more than you do. But he made his wishes clear.”

Ginny’s mind went back to their conversation in the alley outside the bar. Before she truly knew what they were talking about. “Elias said he wouldn’t want to keep me away if he knew the separation was causing me pain.”

“Pain that will subside if he…” Elias paced down the hallway and halted, hands on hips. “When he eventually goes.”

Every snapping nerve ending in her body screamed at her to get inside the apartment, but she bore down hard on the impulse, attempting to break through the hold desperation had on her. Something inside of her was alive, like a current. And it ran directly to Jonas. But she was her own person. She was a single, solitary woman and in that moment, a trail diverged in front of her.

If she went one direction, her life ahead was a complete mystery. What did it mean to be the mate of a vampire? To quench his thirst each and every day.

She ignored the arousal and satisfaction that tried to make her rush. Instead, she imagined the consequences of embracing this life.

“Will I continue to get older?” she whispered.

Tucker looked down at the floor and nodded.

She absorbed that. “What happens to him when I die?”

“We don’t know,” Elias said, still turned away. “The few times in the past a vampire mated with a human…they were either executed by the King or…”

“Or?”

“Or their attempt to Silence them didn’t work.”

Ginny’s temples beat heavily, making her dizzy. She closed her eyes and felt Jonas’s presence inside the apartment, taciturn and heartsick and miserable. “Me too, Dreamboat,” she whispered, splaying a palm on the door.

What if she took the other path?

The one with the much clearer future?

She continued to work at the funeral home, surrounded by memories of happy times with her father, while never making more happy memories. Of her own.

The very idea of waking up in her bed every morning and knowing Jonas no longer walked the earth flooded her with burning acid. She fell against the door and wheezed through an inhale—and she knew. She knew that searing agony would never go away. It wouldn’t fade like the remnants of some crush. Twice now she’d experienced his pain. Hadn’t she? Yes. A connection like that didn’t die. Letting it die without a fight would be a travesty.

Furthermore, she wasn’t sure she could live without him.

Call it intuition, but she was no longer simply herself. Not merely Ginny. She bore the