Mated & Blooded

Chapter 19

(Kalli's POV)

The last few days without Lucas have been so hard. I missed him so much. My wolf missed him just as much as me if not more. It was strange, I had spent most of my life without being touched, but now that I had experienced the joy of touching I felt like I couldn't live without it.

Nikoli was wonderful, I had a great time with him but he isn't my mate. I understand that I am his beloved; I just don't feel the same way about him. He is special to me, and I have a soft spot in my heart but it's not the same. I enjoy talking to him and it feels safe and warm when he is around but he doesn't ignite the fire in my belly that Lucas does except when I dream.

In my dreams Nikoli is my everything. It transcends the physical and moves into the pure spiritual. In my dreams there is nothing that I can't do with him at my side. He makes me the best me I can be. In my dreams, I know that the love I think I feel for Lucas is really my wolf and his wolves love. Lucas and I are just tools of it. In my dreams I know that my love for Nikoli is mine not my wolves. I feel his emotions like they are my own. I know his every thought. In my dreams his soul and mine are one.

Then I wake up to reality. In reality, I know that I can never be allowed to love Nikoli that way and he can never love me. In reality my blood is poison to him, and my wolf wants to shred him every time he even tries to touch me. I want so badly to feel what his skin under my fingertips would feel like.

His skin is flawless and looks like white porcelain, but from our very brief touches I somehow know it would feel like silk. While he appears thin and not nearly as muscular as Lucas I know that he is solid as a rock. Aside from missing Lucas, I have had a wonderful time with Nikoli. He somehow is pushing me to be a better person. He makes me own my fears, my abilities and maybe even my future; He has forced me to realize I was a victim because if I let myself be. Nikoli says that I never have to be a victim again.

We work every day on my fighting skills and my strength. He has shown me combat moves that I can easily do in my human form. Turns out, I am a better fighter and much stronger in my human form than as a wolf. Lucas says that's not because vampires are physically stronger than wolves, it's because they pull their abilities from their bodies, minds and spirit or soul as Nikoli prefers to call it.

The vampire blood in my system allows me to use some of those special talents like astral projection, Illusion manipulation, and some psionic inundation. Nikoli also said as a full vampire he also has additional abilities like psychometry and memory and mental manipulation. Nikoli isn't sure if I can tap into any of those. I chuckled to myself again just thinking about Nikoli trying to explain them to me, and worse trying to get me to do them.

"Okay Kalli lets start simple with astral projection. I know you can do this, because you were in a full astral projection the first night I met you. Focus on your soul and push it outside of your body. I know you did that without trying, but now I would like you to do it on command"

We'd spent hours trying over and over again. I couldn't make it happen. Then, Nikoli did it and just like that, I found my spirit rip away from my body and meet his. It had been the most amazing feeling. We were able to move in and out of each others non-corporal energy. I don't even have the words to explain how wonderful it was. It was like dancing souls touching everywhere and nowhere. It was a blending that simply couldn't happen with the flesh.

I tried to stay out for as long as I could but I kept snapping back to my body. Each time I did my wolf was a bit more agitated then the time before. Seems like she didn't like being separated from my soul, I on the other hand found it kind of refreshing to be without her. I spent hours the first day over and over again jumping out and blending with Nikoli. Eventually he had to ask me to stop. Seems I had exhausted myself and hadn't even realized it. Now, I spend a minimum of an hour a day working on astral projecting. I am hoping the more often I do it, the easier it will become and the longer I will be able to keep myself out of my body.

The next skill we worked on was psionic inundation. Nikoli wants me to master this skill quickly. He feels like it could be my life saver if I was ever hunted by a lot of wolves again. Basically, psionic inundation is the ability to overload a mind, causing pain, memory loss, lack of consciousness, vegetative state and/or death.

Nikoli forces me to practice it several hours a day. Not all at once, but a few times an hour. I send my waves towards a huge watermelon that he painted a face on. Nothing happens, and without a real person to send the waves at I'm not even sure if it's really working or not, but Nikoli insists it is. Part of me hopes I never really have to find out.

The last thing I've learned to do was Illusion manipulation. Nikoli swears that beyond a shadow of a doubt I have already mastered the illusions. Nikoli said that I do it so well, it's almost scary. All I have to do is focus on what I want them to see and bam, they think they are seeing it.

Just for fun, I had projected me walking across the room and plastering my lips on Nikoli's. I saw his face change as I pushed out the thoughts, then I heard him moan. I started laughing and that stopped the illusion. Nikoli said I did well, but for some reason I really don't think he was happy.

Anyhow, I begged him to try to teach me psychometry and memory and or mental manipulation, but he swears it takes a full blooded vampire to utilize them. He said it was better to keep practicing the ones he knew I could master and to work on our combat skills.

I looked around the room I was staying in and wondered where Nikoli had slipped off to again. I was kind of hungry but wasn't sure how I should broach the subject with him. I know he's a vampire and needs fresh blood I'm just not sure how he goes about getting it.

I know I am being silly and stupid but I am just uncomfortable having to talk about it. Also, I really don't know much about real vampires and some silly little part of me is afraid that he is going to bring some big breasted beautiful female into feed on. I really don't like the idea that he might have a bunch of gorgeous women stashed somewhere as blood donors.

I sighed loudly and sat down on the chair. I didn't like the places that my mind was trying to take me to so I decided to force myself to think about something else. The thing was, I couldn't come up with anything. Instead I kept seeing Nikoli with beautiful women. Touching them, kissing them.

"Ugg" I shouted out loud.

What was wrong with me? He is free to be with anyone he wants. I have a mate. Nikoli made his entrance only moments after I had my stupid outburst. He walked into the room took one look at my face raise his eyebrow and said

"Problems love?"

I couldn't help myself. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, looked him dead in the eye and said in the most confident demanding voice I thought I had

"I need to feed and she better not be beautiful"

Nikoli had the strangest reaction to my demand. He raised his eyebrow at me, smiled went into the loudest fit of belly chuckles I think I had ever heard.