Read Online Caleb by Sarah McCarty - Free Book Online Page B

back of the hand pinning
her. “I hope you realize the hypocrisy in your position.”
    His
thumb stroked along her neck. “I’m no threat to you.”
    A
memory teased her consciousness. One of his eyes swirling with lights, a
horrible wound, his fangs, the vicious bite. So vivid, yet somehow surreal,
floating behind a veil she couldn’t part. Fact or fiction or a blend of both?
The memories danced through a distorted sense of time, her subconscious
composing images to fit the reality it needed to create, rearranging the mental
lies to make them seem real. A bit too real. She inched a little farther away,
gaining a centimeter until that big chest came down over hers, pinning her.
“You could have fooled me,” she gasped.
    “I
wouldn’t have converted you if I’d had a choice.”
    Images
of male faces set in hard lines along with a memory of steely resolution in
hazel eyes crashed into her brain. She continued her creep across the mattress.
“That wasn’t my impression.”
    Her
head was firmly stuck in the middle of the bed, but she’d managed to find the
edge with her foot.
    “The blood
loss weakened me.”
    Or
what? He would have succeeded in resisting, or something else? “You were trying
to die?”
    “No.”
Something brushed over her forehead. She flinched, feeling foolish once she
realized it was his fingers pushing her bangs out of her eyes. “Trying to
resist converting you,” he finished dryly.
    The
memory of three men’s joint resolve overwhelming her opposition crept forward
past her conviction that this was a dream. The memory disappeared as quickly as
it came, leaving her fumbling with the remnants. “They forced you?”
    It
seemed the very air absorbed his sudden stillness. “I’m not sure how much force
was involved.”
    Well,
that was honest.
    “Explain.”
She thought she understood, though. Because along with the pain and the fear,
she remembered other things. Words filled with agony, hope, determination.
Words that dragged her back from the darkness with the strength of the emotion
contained within them. Words that had saved her because of the will of iron
that had backed them. Caleb’s will.
    His
shrug felt like an apology. “They knew as weakened as I was, they could
influence me, make me do what they wanted.”
    “Which
was?” Good grief, this was like pulling teeth.
    “To
take my mate.”
    “Mate?
Who on Earth uses a word like that anymore?”
    “Vampires.”
    He
kept hammering that point, as if sheer repetition could make her believe it. He
had a lot to learn about dreams. The mind only absorbed what it wanted in
dreams, letting the rest drift around as unclaimed will-o’-the-wisps of
illusion. “Uh-huh. Well, you had a life before you became a vampire, and I’m
reasonably sure you remember it, so I think you can choose vocabulary to
reflect it.”
    “You
don’t like the word ‘mate’?”
    She
shook her head. “Way too caveman.”
    “Fine,
they wanted me to take my woman.”
    “My
woman.” Like that was a step up from mate. “Why?”
    The
pause between her question and his answer was thick with emotion she couldn’t
define but felt she should. For her safety and her sanity, but, from one blink
to the next, the strength to do so evaded her grasp.
    “To
keep me here.”
    “In
this life?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why
didn’t you want to stay?”
    “It
wasn’t so much I wanted to leave as much as I was determined to do the right
thing.”
    “By
me?”
    “Yes.”
    It
was probably the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her in or out of her
dreams. “Is that why you came around my shop every morning? Because you liked
me?”
    “I
couldn’t resist you.”
    She
was more the type of woman men had to get to know to appreciate than one who
overwhelmed them with lust. “Right.” She worked her other leg across the
mattress. His fingers stroked her pulse with soft persuasion.
    “You’re
the prettiest thing I’ve ever set eyes on.”
    “Thank
you.” She rubbed her