Fatal Cravings: Immortal Keeper Vampire Paranormal Romance Series by Daniella Starre (affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

As Maxwell glared at me, a single strand of hair crept down onto his forehead. Without thinking, I reached up and brushed it back for him. His hair was as soft as he was hard, and I swallowed hard, hating the way he was glaring at me but also accepting that I had caused a major issue for him just by coming here.

Hell, I had caused a massive issue just by killing a vampire. I wasn’t the first human to kill one, and I wouldn’t be the last, but most humans who kill a vampire are killed and brutally within a short amount of time.

Most but not all.

At least, that was what I was hoping.

“I hadn’t realized you two were connected,” I murmured.

“And if you had known?” Maxwell asked. He hadn’t flinched away from my touch, but he also hadn’t responded to it or acknowledged it at all.

Clearly, I was affected by him far greater than he was affected by me.

Unsurprising on so many levels.

I was weak, but he was strong.

I was vulnerable, but he was powerful.

I was desperate, but he was calm.

Well, he was relatively calm. Outwardly for now at least. I, on the other hand, was like a raging tempest on the inside, terrified that the future would have me six foot under.

He was old even though he appeared to be in his late twenties. He was wise and capable.

I thought I needed him when I was eighteen.

I was wrong.

Now was when I needed him, and it was possible that my stating I needed him before might cause me to not have him when I truly actually did need him.

“If you had known Viktor was my rival,” Maxwell prompted.

I had been so lost in my thoughts I forgot he had asked me a question.

“I might not have come,” I informed him. “I would have tried to run and hide and become a ghost. I would’ve changed—”

Maxwell held up a finger. “Anything you could have changed would not have been good enough.”

“He wants me dead,” I said, “and honestly, I guess I can’t really blame him. Accident or not, I killed his son. If I had a son—”

“Have you a son?”

“No.” His question took me aback.

“Have you a husband?”

I considered him more than I did the absurd, ludicrous question. His voice was absolutely delicious, but it had only the barest hint of an accent. Honestly, with how long he’d lived in the United States, it’s a bit surprising that he had an accent at all. Then again, he had lived in various parts of Europe after he fled Italy once he had been turned.

As far as my research showed, he had never returned to Italy, not once. That always intrigued me.

He opened his mouth, perhaps to repeat his question, but I hadn’t forgotten it.

Not that I answered it.

Instead, I crossed my arms. “Have you a wife?”

Maxwell circled around me as he had before, but this time, I remained rooted in one spot, allowing my back to be to him. If he held any rage against me for killing a vampire, he would have attacked me when I first alerted him to my transgression. No, I was safe here with him.

Relatively safe.

Finally, he stopped when he was directly behind me. “I presented you with a golden necklace.”

I nodded.

“Do you know what that entailed?”

“The ouroboros? Yes,” I breathed.

“Being my patron won’t be enough protection,” he said firmly.

“If you can’t help me—”

“I didn’t say that,” he said, almost snapping, and I whirled around.

“You aren’t saying much at all.”

“Maybe I would if you would let me speak.” His dark eyes narrowed to the point that I couldn’t see any bits of gold anymore. “I learned a long time ago to not bother with small talk. Words can be rather useless, so why speak more than must be done?”

A valid enough point, even though I would want to red mark his little speech to cut out a few words here or there. I might not have had a proper, formal education growing up, but once I became a hacker, I taught myself a lot more. My mom taught me to read, but her own education had been lacking. They had sent Amber and me to public school for a bit, but when the teachers started to notice that we never had food for lunch, the teachers started to ask too many questions, and my parents yanked us. The teachers never followed up once we weren't their pupils anymore. I used to wonder what might have happened to us if a teacher had pried and wrestled us away from my parents. How different my life could've been. Would Maxwell have still sought me out and given me what I needed?

Who could say? The vampire had been a mystery since I first met him, since I first fell in love with him, and he remained a mystery to me still.

And his speech about small talk meant I wouldn’t learn every detail about his long-lived life. I won’t ever get to know him.

Why do I care? Why was I so drawn to him?

It was almost… No. No, I didn’t believe in—

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” I blurted.

Maxwell blinked a few times and even took a step back. “I tell you I don’t bother with small talk, and you ask me a completely random question?”

“It’s not random,” I argued. “I was thinking about my childhood, and how it could have been different, and why there is a…”

I couldn’t quite continue, and I gazed at him, wishing he would urge me to continue. Maybe then I could find the strength to admit my thoughts aloud.

But he didn’t.

And I didn’t either.

“The only way for you to be saved from Viktor—” Maxwell started.

Again, I interrupted him. “Maybe I don’t deserve to be—”

Maxwell raised a hand as if to strike me, but he slowly curled his fingers into a tight, angry fist that he then slowly smacked