Page 23 of Bound By Blood

What he hadn’t been planning on, was how hard it was to have her in his home. In his space. Her scent was seemingly everywhere now, and there was no escaping it. The smell alone was making him hungry again, which was dangerous, and that was why he was trying to keep his distance from her. It wasn’t working as well as he had hoped though, and he found himself wanting nothing more than to taste her again. In fact, it was all he could think about. Then, her bringing up Kata made him suddenly feel as though he had been doused in ice water.

Granted, he knew the subject of Kata, and what she knew about the connection between them, was going to come up eventually, but he hadn’t expected her to actually want to meet with the vampire herself. That wasn’t even remotely a possibility. Who knew what kind of state Kata was in after centuries of solitude? That kind of isolation was torture for a vampire, and he wouldn’t subject Carly to that. He couldn’t risk it.

Landon’s jaw clenched in willful determination. “No,” he said simply.

“I didn’t ask for your permission,” Carly retorted bitterly. “Where is she?”

Her stubbornness and lack of self-preservation were going to get her killed, he knew that. But he would be damned if he had any part in it. “Carly, I said no. I’m not telling you where she is so that you can go off and get yourself killed. You may not care about what happens to you, but I do. And I won’t be responsible for your death.” Even if he nearly had been the night they first met. But they had moved past that.

“How can you just sit there with no answers?” she ground out through clenched teeth. “I can’t live like that. How can you?”

“I am almost seven hundred years old,” he stated casually. “Do you really think I have the answers to every question I have ever had? You learn to live with it.”

It wasn’t easy to do, but he had learned a long time ago how to deal with disappointment. Carly would learn that as well, in time. Until he found a way to get the two of them to Kata’s without anyone else figuring it out, she had no choice in the matter.

Carly, however, didn’t seem to agree with him as she glared angrily. “So, where does that leave us then? Because, I don’t know about you, but I can’t go back to normal life. I need answers, Landon. I will find them on my own if you don’t help me.”

For several moments, Landon said nothing as he processed what she said and contemplated what came next. Her response had shown him what he was going to have to do in order to save her life. She was in too deep already, and he wasn’t about to let her dig herself into a bigger, more dangerous hole. One that she would never be able to escape. If she wasn’t going to look out for herself, then he was going to have to do it for her. Whether she liked it or not.

She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be looking into his world, and he should have noticed that before. He should have taken more time to assess her instead of instantly trying to introduce her to his world. A part of him had just been so intrigued by the prospect of an actual friend, something he hadn’t had in a very long time, that he hadn’t been thinking straight. He regretted that now.

Carly was going to get herself killed, and he wasn’t going to stick around to watch that happen. It was time for him to do what he should have done after that first night. He needed to put some distance between them and start trying to put Carly out of his mind. That was the only sane option either one of them had.

Landon nodded, mostly to himself, and pushed himself to his feet. “Clearly, this was a mistake,” he told her. While he hadn’t raised his voice, he had left no room for argument. “I’ll call you a cab, and you can see yourself out.”

A look of confusion and hurt crossed her features, which Landon forced himself to ignore despite the queasy feeling they created in his stomach. He didn’t like hurting her, that much was clear. But this was for her own good as well as his own.

“So that’s it? You’re just done with me?”

Landon shrugged, trying to play it off as if he were unaffected even though that wasn’t the case. “You aren’t giving me a choice. I won’t stand by and watch you get yourself killed, Carly. I never should have brought you here in the first place, never should have come back to you after I couldn’t kill you that night. You aren’t ready for my world and the darkness it holds. And if you keep being as stubborn and hard-headed as you are, you never will be.”

Carly slowly stood up and lifted her face to his, her body tense. “What do I need to do to be ready then?”

He shook his head, needing to get her out of there before he ended up changing his mind. It was difficult for him to keep saying no to her, and he briefly wondered if she knew that and was trying to use it to her advantage. “Nothing,” he retorted. “Like I said, this was a mistake. You need to go, and I need to feed.”

She stared at him for a while, her jaw ticking. All the while, he was mentally preparing himself to fight her more on this. He couldn’t back down, not if he wanted her to stay alive, and despite the kind of monster he was, he definitely wanted her to live. Why? He didn’t know, but it was the truth.

“Fine. I made it this far on my own, I don’t need your help anyway.” Carly stormed past him, toward the elevator. When she reached it, she slammed her finger down on the button.

Without looking back at her, Landon sighed softly, feeling some of the tension releasing from his muscles. “Take care of yourself, Carly.” And he meant it too.

It may take a while, but he wanted her to go back to living her life. He wanted her happy. Humans were simple creatures, and he knew that she would get there eventually.

“You’re such an ass,” she growled in response. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped inside. The sound of them closing gave him a sense of finality he didn’t like or appreciate.

Landon pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed the cab company, requesting one of their cars and paying the tab for her as well. It was the least he could do after he had led her on the way he did. When that was taken care of, he shot a text off to one of his men, one of the select few who were loyal to him and him alone.

He told the guy to go to Carly’s house immediately and clear out all of the information she had pertaining to him or vampires in general. He then went on to state that when he was done with that, he wanted him to do the same at the Town Archives. He didn’t want anything left behind because he didn’t want Carly to get her hands on that information again. It was best if they made a clean break from one another.

After shoving his phone back into his pocket, he moved toward the window and watched as Carly stormed outside. He took a sip of the whiskey he had poured himself, his heart growing cold inside his chest once more.

He hated that it had come to this, but he was trying to protect her in his own way. He still didn’t understand why he needed to protect her, but he decided to stop fighting it. The Elders were right, she was important to him, despite not knowing what that meant. As much as it hurt to admit it, he knew this was for the best because it would keep her out of danger. Somehow, he just knew that if anything were to happen to her, it would be devastating for him.

He hadn’t been lying when he said he wanted answers too, but he also knew the risks far better than she did. He was patient enough to hold off until he knew that they could make the trip without his father discovering what he was up to. Carly, however, was not a patient person. She was the kind of person to go off half-cocked, and that was not something she should be doing when it came to a vampire as unstable as Kata. And he was willing to bet his life that Kata was unstable. There was no way she wasn’t.

After a few minutes, Landon watched as a cab pulled into the driveway and Carly climbed in. He watched the cab pull away and drive off with her inside. She hadn’t looked back once, leading him to believe that she was done with him. He downed the rest of his drink and decided to go out and feed as he had said he was going to. He needed to get away from the penthouse for a while and the scent of Carly that still lingered in the air as if taunting him.

Even the elevator held traces of that floral scent that turned him nearly feral as he rode it down to the parking garage. With his lips turned up in a snarl, he climbed into his car and sped out of the garage. As he was driving down the road, he realized that the thought of feeding off another female made him nauseous, yet another sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time. Because he wasn’t in the mood to deal with what that could possibly mean for him and his future, he made the snap decision to find a male to feed. Even now that he had cut her off, Carly was still affecting him. The thought had him slamming his hands against the steering wheel. God help the man he found to feed on.