Call Her Mine Read online

  In all truth, Adriel, his mother, should have been a council member, but having a female on the board was unheard of. Of the nine families that resided on the farm, the eldest male member of each stood as a representative of the council.

  Christian had no father to speak of, so he was it. They were the smallest family on the farm, he and his mother. The Schrock line was short, but Delilah would change all that. Mated immortals shared immeasurable chemistry and that would eventually outmatch her anger with being transitioned against her will.

  Many mated members of The Order took a modern approach to mating. It was ridiculous. The results were cut and dry. Once an immortal was called, they either mated or died. The females all came around eventually—for the most part. He did not see the point in all the wavering and persuasion. It was necessary for them to mate and for Delilah to be transitioned. Now they had eternity to work out the kinks. Once the kinks were worked out he’d introduce her to the others and share his news.

  The law stated that no other could involve themselves with the personal affairs between husband and wife—mates. Family law was to be decided by the male of the family and Christian had always known he preferred tradition to the newer, lackadaisical methods of family living.

  He gazed at the face of his scowling mate. She was going to take some work.

  “Do you not care for your lunch?”

  “There’s meat on it,” she said snidely.

  He’d forgotten about her little vegetarian statement earlier. It was absurd for a vampyre not to eat meat. They survived mainly off of animal blood on the farm. She needed to overcome this little issue.

  “Delilah, we are Amish. Our main source of sustenance comes from the animals here on the farm.”

  “That’s barbaric,” she whispered, her face turning a soft shade of green.

  It wasn’t barbaric. They treated their stock very well. In Europe there were no such rules. Their kind simply fed off the hoof meaning they drank from human victims. Here, it was only permitted to feed from one’s mate, the animals on the farm, and off the hoof in a pinch. Human blood was suggested to be avoided, although it was much more potent than the blood of animals.

  Still, they never drained their donors. They merely took what they needed and left the animals to run and play. Their livestock was a lot happier than the corralled, tagged, mass-marketed animals on other farms in the area.

  “It is the cycle of life. There are merciful ways of surviving off what we need. We do not mass-produce our supply. We only take what we need to get by here on the farm. We are not involved with the English world in trade like other farmers are.”

  She slid her plate away and stared at the floor, sandwich untouched. She needed to eat. She’d barely taken his blood earlier. Her hunger beat at him and he sensed it was too soon to make her feed again. His only option was actual food. It was his job to keep her safe and healthy.

  Christian sighed and stood. Carrying her plate to the counter he dumped the sandwich into the rubbish and placed the dish in the sink. In the pantry he retrieved a jar of homemade peanut butter and jam from the last berry harvest.

  “Do you prefer grape or berry jam?”

  She turned and looked at him. The glassy sheen in her eyes gave him pause. Had she been crying?

  He placed the jars on the dry sink and turned to go to her. Something about her posture made him hesitate. She blinked her tears away before a single one could be shed and her expression became guarded.

  “Thank you,” she rasped, her voice strained.

  He nodded and returned to make her sandwich. Her gratitude sunk like a heavy weight in his chest. He ached for her, finally coming to accept that her situation had to be extremely confusing. At the same time, something warm and fiery bloomed inside of his chest at the sound of her thanks. He’d done something she liked. It felt very good to please her.

  He returned to the table with a new—meatless—sandwich. She picked it up and ate it quickly, sipping from her glass of milk in between bites. She must have been starving indeed. When she finished she leaned back in the wooden chair and patted her flat belly. The press of her decorated nipples showed through the fine material of her shift.

  She sighed.

  “Would you like a bath?”

  Her eyes opened and that skeptical glint was back in her sharp gaze. “Alone?”

  Disappointment weighed heavy on his shoulders. Would she ever surrender to him again like she had the night before? So freely and willing, he’d never forget how she offered herself to him, how she accepted him into her body, held him to her, and cried out her pleasure as he brought her to climax again and again. “Yes, alone.”

  She nodded.

  Rather than leave her to clean the dishes while he filled her tub, he asked her to come upstairs with him. Christian did not want her running away again. She’d been lucky it was only his half-brother, Dane, who had seen her dressed in next to nothing.

  Dane was a half-breed. He, too, was a bastard of the male who fathered Christian. Apparently, their father, had a long line of half-breeds roaming the continents, as The Order was coming to find out.

  This had been news to Christian of course, being that his mother never spoke of her time with her mate. It was unheard of for a female to leave her true mate, but apparently, Adriel, the rebel that she was, had done just that.

  It wasn’t until recently that certain events led to her divulging some important details of her past. His father was supposed to have been ‘detained’, yet somehow managed to escape. There were very few ways to detain an immortal. Apparently, his father had escaped his confinement over twenty years ago, going by Dane’s age.

  Christian still didn’t have the details of his parents’ courtship. It was not his business. The only thing Christian knew for sure was that he was denied a father over the entirety of his life, a choice taken out of his hands while still in his mother’s womb. His acceptance and resentment wavered decade to decade on the subject. Currently he was too distracted with his own mate to give the matter much thought.

  Dane found his way to their farm through the Hartzler family, whom he was extraordinarily close to, sans the one daughter Grace, who apparently would not be in the same room with Dane. At first they had been a temporary responsibility of the one Hartzler twin. But they had come to find out that Dane and his young sister, Cybil, were actually, somehow, linked to their species. Shock did not begin to describe the council’s reaction to the news.

  Cybil, Dane’s sister, however, was a sad case. She’d suffered an accident and was no longer living in the mind of a child, but the broken mind of a delusional soul. Christian had only seen his half-sister on occasion and believed the council only agreed to let her survive in a cell at the Safe House as an act of mercy toward Dane who lost his entire family in a matter of years.

  The boy had come a long way. Not really a boy at all anymore. Dane had worked the farm and lived in his own home for the past two years. He was completely independent and rarely interfered with the way of things on the farm. He rarely pressed Christian for some sort of bond one might assume brothers should have and that was for the better.

  Christian preferred his quiet life. He liked living solitarily, and although sometimes he did get lonely he was not tempted to join the others for the social events among the farm. He had Delilah to keep him company now.

  Carrying the last bucket of steaming water up the stairs, Christian found Delilah waiting outside the washroom. He poured the hot water over the cooler water and placed the bucket to the side.

  Females liked flowery things. He probably should have arranged for her to have special soaps and the like. Frowning, he went to the linen closet and retrieved a jar of salts and shampoo. She was staring at the tub when he returned.

  He placed a folded bath sheet on the table beside the tub and set the salts and soaps on top.

  “Bath salts,” she hissed, stepping back.

  He frowned. She was quite odd at times. Backing out of the
room, he stood in the doorway observing her. Her long, dainty fingers touched the water, testing its temperature.

  As she approached the door his body drew up tight. Her nipples were hard and pebbled against her shift again and with the sun coming through the window high on the wall above, he could make out some of her tattoos under the fine material.

  She slowly stepped to the door, her gaze soft and promising. His body stiffened. She wore a look of intent. He wondered if she planned to kiss him. Thank him for yet another kind gesture?

  Her dainty fingers curled around the thick edge of the open door. His chest filled with a much needed breath. She smiled at him sweetly. Then the door slammed in his face.

  Right. So she was still upset about being taken from her old life and granted the gift of immortality and the honor of finding her mate. He’d explain it to her after she had time to calm her anger.

  Chapter Three

  As Delilah washed she noticed several things that were not quite normal. Her fingernails, which she always kept clipped short for work because they easily split and cracked, were strong and peeking past the tips of her fingers. Also, the scar she’d had on her knee since eighth grade when she fell off a dirt bike was gone. Most alarming, though, was that her tattoo, the one of a ladybug over her knuckle, the one she’d gotten before all the others, when she was just a girl, was fading. When she got back to her shop she’d have to touch it up.

  Like a feather, something tickled at the edge of her mind, irritating, and begging to be investigated. Like the fear of a small child too scared to peek under the bed, something deep within Li told her she shouldn’t examine the nagging instincts teasing her mind. For coping purposes, her gut told her to keep focusing on what she could handle and ignore the nagging sense that something absolutely terrible was happening.

  From the water pump situation to the style of clothing, it appeared she was back in time. Never in her life had she bathed without running water. The tub was comfortable enough, but not necessarily as large as a girl would prefer.

  The water turned oily as she used a jug to rinse the suds from her hair. Bathing old school was no picnic. The jug was heavy and her arms were tired by the time she was finished washing.

  The water had grown cold, but she was reluctant to get out, not wanting to face Christian again. She was so confused about what he expected of her and she wished he’d come right out and explain why he took her. She wasn’t staying. It was just a matter of escaping and getting to a phone.

  He baffled her. Sometimes he was a complete dick, but other times he looked at her as if he wanted, more than anything in the world, for her to…like him. She did like him, well, maybe lusted for him was the better way to put it. She’d suffered hardcore lust for the jerk—a lot—but the fact that he’d taken her against her will and drugged her, killed any soft feelings she could’ve had for him. He was an asshole and now her enemy, but her body kept getting all twitchy in his presence.

  Stupid hormones.

  Why couldn’t he have been a normal guy? He was drop dead gorgeous, so much so that when he was scowling or acting like a grump he was still sexy as hell. He was a champ in the sack and hung well enough to make a Clydesdale jealous.

  All he had to do was ask, give her a choice. She still would have replied with a big, fat hell no, but being asked rather than kidnapped and forced to join his Amish cult would have been considerate on some level.

  They could’ve gotten to know each other and maybe then…although the whole Amish thing did throw a wrench in the mix, they could have discussed it like two individuals. If he’d acted like a normal person, she might’ve been able to overlook some things. Then he’d gone and kidnapped her and turned her into a hostage. This was so not the morning after she imagined.

  She sloshed the cool water over her thighs with pruned fingers. He was probably waiting at the door. Maybe she could reason with him. Maybe she could explain that if they tried to start over this could work. It wouldn’t, of course, but she could lie.

  Nothing negated the thing he’d already done. She wasn’t completely unforgiving, but kidnapping and drugs reeked of boyfriend red flags. Still, part of her hated him for messing up what could have been a good thing. Sadly, the sexual part of her really wanted to like him and wished things had gone differently.

  At least the drugs had worn off. She no longer had that annoying buzz thump thing going on in her head and hadn’t hallucinated in a few hours. Since running away, she was convinced he was an actual farmer. There was no ignoring the endless fields of crops surrounding them. But weren’t farmers supposed to be relaxed good ol’ boys? Why was he so damn uptight? She needed to talk to him.

  With a sigh, Li lifted herself out of the tub. Water rushed from her skin and her feet stepped over the lip of the tub as she wrapped herself in the towel. Now what?

  She went to the door and turned the knob. It opened. Leaning her damp head into the hall, she looked left then right. Nada.

  Quietly, she tiptoed back to the room she’d stayed in. He wasn’t there either.

  On the bed sat a freshly laundered white chemise and a pair of pillowcase panties. Commando it is.

  She dressed and found a heavy, thick-bristled brush sitting next to a fresh pitcher of water. Perching on the edge of the bed she brushed out her damp hair, wishing she had some bobby pins with her to twist it into some sort of style. She needed makeup too.

  There was a soft knock at the door and it opened. “Delilah?”

  She silently acknowledged Christian. So pretty, so unfair. He seemed to be having some sort of trouble forming words.

  “Do you think I could get something other than a nightgown to wear?”

  His lips pressed together. “I am working on getting clothing for you, but I must wait a bit until I find a female willing to stitch them. I apologize for not having such things ready. Is there anything else you might need?”

  Why was he being so nice? It was easier when he was a jerk. “I don’t have any of my things.”

  “Things?”

  “Hair stuff, makeup—”

  “You do not need makeup and I will obtain a bonnet for you. There are straight pins in the box on the dresser for your hair.”

  He stepped toward the dresser and retrieved the small wooden box. Opening it up, she saw several shiny, silver pins. “Those are sewing needles.”

  “They are straight pins. They are what the females use to hold their braids.”

  Her brow lowered. “Don’t they end up stabbing themselves in the head?” Maybe that was why they agreed to live like it was the seventeen hundreds, pinholes in the head.

  Christian snapped the box closed and frowned. “The females reside on this farm and live in such a manner, because they choose to, Delilah. They do not judge the English females for their fast paced lifestyles, prideful clothes, or debauched choices, so I ask you not to judge them.”

  Her mouth opened and the beginning of an unfinished word slipped out as a grumble. How had he known what she was thinking? She shut her mouth.

  His gaze went to the bed and he hesitated as if he wanted to sit down, but was unsure of his welcome. He seemed a bit malleable at the moment and she figured it was a good a time as any to talk to him. “Would you like to sit?” she asked, waving her hand toward the bed.

  He nodded and sat beside her.

  “Christian—”

  “Delilah—”

  “Sorry,” she said. “You go.”

  He looked at the floor. “Delilah, I want us to understand one another.”

  “That would be good. Can we start with why you didn’t just ask me to come here with you? If memory serves, we were having an all right time up until you…”

  “I didn’t have much time. I needed you and I needed you right away. Our kind does not do well with waiting.”

  Was he talking about the Amish? One would think they’d be incredibly patient, what with having to wait for things to heat over a flame and not having any electrical amenities to
make life easier. “But you could’ve just asked. I might’ve said yes. I liked you.”

  “Liked?”

  “Christian, you kidnapped me. I want to go home. The longer you keep me here the less I’m going to like you.”

  He looked sad for a moment and then his expression hardened. “You cannot leave. Ever. This is where you will live. I am sorry if you are unhappy now, but I will do my best to give you a good life—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “Sorry, I’m not going to just roll over and let you decide my life for me. I’ll make your life hell before I let you take over mine. You need to let me go home.”

  “That is not an option.”

  “How do you intend to make me stay? You aren’t armed,” she pointed out, hoping she was right. “Will you fight me if I try to go?”

  “You cannot leave,” he repeated, his gaze darting away.

  “Why? Because you’re afraid I’ll tell someone about what you did? I won’t. I just want to go home. I have a shop to run and friends that will be worried.”

  “You will not survive out there. Things are different now. You must remain here where I can protect you.”

  She scoffed. “Protect me from what? Kidnappers?”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. Still not a fan of sarcasm. “Delilah, I need to tell you something and I do not want you to overreact. You are completely safe and, whether you realize it or not, this path was chosen for you the moment you were conceived. It is best you accept it and we move on from here.”

  She hated when he talked weird like that, like he knew some plan about her life that she wasn’t aware of. He assumed way too much about who she was. They might’ve bumped uglies, but he knew nothing. “Okay, let’s hear this plan of yours.”

  “It is not my plan, but God’s.”

  Wonderful. “Go on.”

  “I am not like you. I came here from Europe a long time ago when I was just a young boy. We traveled here by way of a vessel called The Charming Nancy. It was a long and uncomfortable voyage, but necessary to escape the evils that were infesting society. We decided this was the way we were to live. We only wanted our privacy and to live peacefully, removed from the rest of the world.