She squeezed him tight, then let go and walked into the cabin. He hoped she’d look back, but she didn’t.

Frowning, he looked at the girls. “Tell her I’ll be by to pick her up tonight.” The girls looked between Cassie and him then leveled him with hard glares.

“You fucked up,” Vera said simply. “You know, brother, I used to think you were smart. Obviously I overestimated your intelligence by mucho .”

“Totally,” Alison said, nodding quickly.

Sarina stepped forward and glared feminine daggers at him. Damn these women were like a pack of lionesses. “You better get your shit together before you lose something that not everyone gets a second chance to have.”

“Mind your own business, Sarina.”

She arched a dainty eyebrow then shut the door in his face.

What a night. Darien headed back to his cabin. His gut felt sick like he’d eaten something bad, and his damn chest hurt. He wished he were back in his single cabin in the middle of nowhere.

He looked back at the cabin where the feisty little vampire was and wished things were different. He wished he could give her what she wanted.

Chapter 13

“Tell us everything that happened,” Sarina said.

Cassie took a deep breath that did nothing to steady her or her wobbly head, and told them everything.

Alison was biting off her fingernails by time she finished and Sarina had grumpily chugged her glass of milk. Vera frowned though, shaking her head.

“My brother’s always been stubborn. I don’t know what it’ll take to make him realize that he does care for you.”

Cassie scoffed. “He doesn’t care. The only thing he cares about with me is that his ‘seed is in my belly’. I never should have had sex with him. Then at least he couldn’t use that as some kind of lame excuse.”

“He’d probably just find some other excuse to use as a crutch,” Sarina said.

“Maybe I should go talk to him,” Vera said thoughtfully. Her words were slurred from the amount of hard lemonades she’d drunk.

“Don’t.” Cassie shook her head and the room spun a few extra times with the motion. “I heard your brothers going at him before I got there. Looks like they already had the convo with him. Didn’t make a lick of difference. He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t want me. But I love him.” She said that last with such ferocity that the girls all quieted.

“He’ll come around,” Sarina said stoutly. The others didn’t look so hopeful.

“Hey guys, what does ‘lumara’ mean?”

Everyone looked turned to look at her with openmouthed astonishment?

“Did he call you that?” Vera asked with a big grin.

“Well yes, today when we were in the shower. He was still pretty tired. He’d just woken up, but I’ve never heard that word before.”

The Kategan women turned to grin at each other before turning back to Cassie. “It means truemate or bondmate. That’s a special term we use with some we really love, usually our mate,” Alison explained.

Wow. Cassie’s heart leapt at the news. The fact that he called her this didn’t make her feel better though, it made her feel worse. This only gave her more questions. Did he only say it because he was half-asleep? Did he actually mean it? Maybe some part of him did recognize the connection between them like she did.

Cassie wanted to curl up and cry herself to sleep. Her heart was breaking in her chest and the alcohol was only making the pain more depressing. He didn’t love her. He didn’t even want her. He only cared about making sure she wasn’t pregnant. He’d protect her long enough for that, and then go back to brooding in his stupid little cabin.

Cassie perked up at the thought of burning it down. But he’d built it with his own two hands, he’d just build another. If her declaration of love wasn’t enough to turn him around, then nothing she could do work. The thought was like a blow to the heart.

“I’m gonna go use the bathroom,” Cassie mumbled and came to a shaky stand. The room teetered around her and she grabbed onto the back of a chair to steady herself.

“Careful now. When you get back, we’ll trash the male species and make a list of better, hotter guys we can totally set you up with,” Alison chimed.

The girl’s applauded the idea while she escaped to the bathroom. She tossed the lock on the door and went to the sink to toss some cold water on her face. The water felt frigid against her hot cheeks. She blotted her face dry with a hand towel but couldn’t do anything to staunch the flow of fresh tears running down her cheeks.

She glanced out the bathroom window. The drop to the ground was probably about twenty feet. The distance to the forest was about fifty yards. Even now she could see a sentry guard walking along that area.

Her gut clenched with fear and anxiety. She grabbed her stomach. Or maybe she was just going to hurl?

No, she hadn’t drank that much. Okay, maybe she did. She sniffled and went back to the faucet, turning on the water. She checked to make sure it was clear out the window, then she unlocked it and slowly lifted it.

The window made an awful squeak and she winced, pausing. When no one came banging on the door, she lifted it all the way. She glanced down at the drop and swallowed hard. Tossing first one leg out the window, then the other, she took a seat in the window, then jumped down.

The fall went by quickly. Now her heart was pounding hard and fast and loud in her ears. She looked left and right, then focused on the sentry. Using her vampiric speed, she raced across the field to the sentry and tackled him straight to the ground. He moved to attack her, and she stifled her surprise. Well of course he was going to fight her back!

She had no clue how to actually fight a trained warrior like this. Quickly, locking her arms and legs around his big body she looked into his eyes and quickly said, “Please don’t tell anyone. I just want to go. Darien can’t know. Please.” The sentry stopped what was probably going to be a painful attack and relaxed against her.

He looked from her, back to the window that was still open. What seemed like forever later, he finally shook his head and said, “Go but I make no promise. My loyalty is to the Kategans. The first thing I will do is tell Vane. If you want to leave then I suggest you hurry.”

Instead of feeling a burst of happiness at her freedom, she felt overwhelming sadness. She nodded her thanks to the guard and sprinted into the forest.

It was dark and her vision wasn’t the greatest at night. That coupled with the amount of alcohol she’d drank, and she’d pounded them back, had her tripping over tree limbs and her own damned feet.

She kept looking back over her shoulder, panic making her think that at any second she’d see the big lykaen barreling after her. Her heart was tightened with pain, and tears fell faster the further she got from the cabin, from Darien. Soon the tears were cascading down her face.

She tripped over a fallen tree and went flying through the air. Her stomach bottomed out from her like she was falling on a roller coaster. She skidded against the dirt with her landing, scraping her cheek, hands, and legs against the wet dirt floor.

She started to lift herself back up, but collapsed back down with bone-numbing exhaustion. She was pathetic, a miserable weak woman that couldn’t even run.

She smelled him first. Her heart stuttered in her chest and the tears flowed faster.

A big hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her over. His smile was cruel and very happy.

“I told you, I’d get you back, Cassandra.” She saw the fist flying at her but didn’t move. For once in her life, the fresh pain was welcoming. She saw blurry trees before her eyes, and then another hit rocked the other side of her face and she was out.

Chapter 14

Darien slammed the cabin door behind him. It croaked in protest and shuddered at the treatment.