An Unacceptable Mate

Chapter Thirty

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    "Holy crap," I blurted softly, eyes like globes as they absorbed the building before me. "This is your house?"

  "Shush," Inerra snapped.

I glanced up at him, hoping to find some sort of fondness for the place he'd been brought up in. I was let down. There was nothing affectionate in his expression. His blue eyes were cold and hating and his lips were pressed together in a thin line.

Wordlessly, he hauled me back against him so he could move at superhuman speed inside the red and black palace that seemed to stretch for at least a mile. The turrets were black with red tiled roofs. There were a few windows framed pearl white and golden ivory crawled up the walls in a beautifully intricate fashion. To be frank, it looked like a twisted sex haven.

And somewhere inside lurked him; waiting; anticipating. Had he planned his own reaction out as well? I mean, I was going to try and keep quiet and refrain from passing out, but had he mentally prepared himself? Did he even care?

My heart had a slow, steady beat but as the pallet of colours around me shifted from green forestry to cream corridor walls, it picked up, skipped a few beats and then pounded dramatically in my ears.

  "We have successfully infiltrated," Inerra whispered to no one in particular, or was he doing some sort of mind connection thing with someone? I decided I didn't care.

The fiery arms released me. I inhaled deeply, glancing up and down the corridor. It looked so medieval with paintings of the moon and other ominous looking images dotted across the walls. I briefly remembered the vision I'd experienced where Acera and the king had travelled down a corridor similar to this to see the queen only to have her nearly maul him to death.

Lord, I'd felt so helpless.

  "Can you please shut your mind up for five minutes while I think," Inerra growled, never having looked so serious.

I tried not to fire an insult back, scowling deeply. How do you stop thinking?

  "This way," he muttered after a moment, starting to walk like a silent fox. I followed, focussed on keeping my breaths shallow and my mind thoughtless so as not to piss him off even more. Ever since we'd woken up on the plane, he hadn't said a single positive thing to me. Not that I'd expected him to. That was the last time anything remotely sexual occurred between us.

I was certain of it.

We rounded a sharp corner and then all of a sudden the breath was taken from me. My stomach attempted to fight the butterflies whilst adrenaline pumped the blood through my veins at a terrifying rate, bringing an irrevocable heat to my cheeks. A door stood at the end of this corridor, dark brown with golden writing. Just reading his name brought the entire world to a stop.

I couldn't believe this was happening. After such a separation at such a critical time in our relationship, was it even possible to feel love for this pureblood again? Maybe he wasn't as pretty as I'd remembered, or as caring and selfless and fixed on protecting me? What if he was actually the bad brother and had tried to make me fall for him when really he sought nothing more than to be my destruction.

No. I didn't want to think of him like that, whether it be true or not.

  "You can sense him," Inerra breathed in half-wonder, half-sincerity when I stumbled a little closer to the door.

My palms were sweating as I nodded. I'd never been more nervous in my life. But I wasn't afraid. Not of him, at least. Perhaps of what he might want to do to me, but not of him.

As we crept like mice, I slid my cautious gaze to Inerra's face. It was unreadable up until we reached the door where he lifted his pale hand. He inhaled deeply, blue eyes abruptly vulnerable and face a picture of concern. No doubt, as he twisted the golden handle, my face was even more evidently worried. This was it. Acera was only a few feet away, behind this door. My heart crashed louder than ever before, stomach dropping to my toes.

A clock chimed seven while Inerra gestured for me to follow him inside the grand room. The floor was a deep oak with a four-poster bed pushed up against the back wall. Scarlet was the theme of his bedspread and I realised my dress matched. Ignoring any further furniture, my desperate gaze scanned the room for any signs that read gorgeous vampire.

I swayed a little to the right, reaching for the door handle to steady myself. He was here. A deep red robe hung from perfect shoulders as he faced away from us, raven black hair slightly windswept. He seemed consumed with the sunset occurring outside that bathed the forest in an orange softness.

Why wasn't he turning around? Had he heard us come in?

Did he even give a damn that I was here?

        "Charlie?" was all he said. I couldn't identify the emotion in his voice. I wasn't even sure if there had been one.

My legs trembled a little, heart now spiralling off the scales and lungs working overboard. I closed my eyes for a lingering second and then exhaled, opening them as my mate began to move round.

Remember and keep quiet, I warned myself. Inerra is right here with you. He'll snap your neck before you get the chance to faint and make a noise.

Yet the instant his tentative but sure amber orbs locked with mine, I couldn't contain the thousands and thousands of emotions coursing through me all at once.

Much to my sheer heartache, the Prince of Darkness averted his now glower to Inerra, face clouding over. Every muscle in his richly immaculate body tightened with fury.

Of course. Acera wasn't interested in seeing me at all. His long lost, evil brother was here. I might as well have been a piece of furniture for my mate's only concern was killing Inerra.

It was like taking a physical punch to my now bleeding heart.