No Escape From Destiny (20 page)

It was just past dawn when Damian was given his room. He was exhausted but didn’t think he would be able to sleep. The little female had taken so much blood, and then Mikhaila took more. He should have been fast asleep by now. The only thing keeping him awake was thinking about why he would be so similar to
Nikkos
.

He was of no relation to the prince as far as he knew. His family and
Nikkos’s
family surely did not share the same circle of friends. He had never met anyone from the royal family before the first day of training, when
Nikkos
had walked into the classroom and introduced himself. That first day, he had felt something familiar with the other male, but had no idea what it was, a connection of some sort. He had thought it was just the fact that
Nikkos
was a warrior, and he was in the training program to hopefully become a warrior, too.

He had always felt out of place in his family, but when he joined the warriors he felt at home, like he was made to be one of them. Now he wasn’t sure. The whole thing had him so confused he didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe the blood tests would show something. Damian had been adopted when he was younger and was told that his parents had died when he was only a few days old. Could he somehow be related to the prince’s family?

Who knew though, stranger things had happened in his life. There had been several times in the recent years that people told him that he looked like the prince, but he just didn’t see it. Thinking of that, he stood in front of the mirror and pulled his long hair back away from his face. Studying himself closely, he thought maybe there might be a little resemblance. But close enough to be related?

He didn’t think so. Their hair was the same color, except Damian wore his down to his shoulders and
Nikkos’s
was cut short.
Nikkos’s
eyes were turquoise in color, and Damian’s were amethyst. Maybe they were related, one never knew what life was going to throw at them next. Finding out he had family still living would be a dream come true. After all, his entire family had been killed by the
kynigos
about three years ago, when he was just fifteen, leaving him living in an orphanage. He hadn’t even been eighteen when he had left the orphanage and moved out on his own and joined the warriors three months ago.

He needed some good news in his life for once. He missed his mother and father more as the days went on. He thought maybe that was why he felt a connection to the prince. Everyone knew
Nikkos’s
parents and brother were killed, leaving him the only member of his family, too. This was all too much to think about right now. He was tired, and he was hungry, and he had to talk to
Adrian
later today. He needed to get some sleep.

He stripped down naked and climbed between the silk sheets in the biggest bed he had even slept in, in his life. It felt strange, but he felt like he was home.

Damian had been resting in his room when Lucian came looking for him and told him that the prince wanted to see him in the study immediately. Well, maybe “resting” wasn’t the correct word for it. He had been trying to relax, but he was restless. He wasn’t sure why, but it almost felt like someone else’s emotions were invading him, and he couldn’t control himself.

When he first woke, he felt unparalleled arousal and had to fight the urge to stroke his already rock-hard cock. Mixed in was a great hunger that caused his fangs to elongate, his stomach to rumble, and his jaw to ache with the need to feed. He was confused when the hunger quickly subsided and the paralyzing fear set in. It was a fear he was familiar with, but it was still alien to him. It was a fear of the unknown, but there was also some hope mixed in.

When his parents had died and he had been placed in the orphanage, he’d had that same fear. He hadn’t known where he was going but somehow knew there was a reason for where he ended up. He had held onto his hope to get through the years of loneliness in the orphanage. Yes, there were a lot of other kids there, but no one was like
him
,
so he was still alone, even surrounded by dozens of other orphans.

The strangest thing about the orphanage had been the fact that he’d lived there for just short of three years and had never made any friends his own age. The only friend he had made was a small little girl who had come in about six months after he moved in. His mind wandered back to the day she was brought in by the social worker.

She was about two and a half at the time. She came in because, according to what he eavesdropped social services saying, her mother had died, and her father was just sent to jail for a year. Her name according to them was
Alice
, but when he had asked her that first day what her name was, even though she was only two she told him her name was Kassie. The others at the orphanage called her
Alice
, but somehow Damian knew she was telling the truth, and she was Kassie.

He wasn’t sure why, but he felt an immediate connection to the child, which at first the personnel at the orphanage frowned upon, as he was fifteen and she was only two, but soon he was the only one that could soothe her crying at night. There were some nights that the child was inconsolable and would cry for her mother.

The first night this had happened, the employees tried everything they could think of to stop the crying but nothing worked. Finally, they had left her alone in her crib in a room all by herself to cry herself to sleep. Damian could hear her screaming from his room a floor above hers. He couldn’t stand to hear the child suffering, so he snuck down the stairs and into her room. Kassie was standing in her crib, tears streaming down her cherub cheeks, and eyelashes matted together, and it broke Damian’s heart. He rushed to her side and plucked her out of the crib and held her close.

“Shhhh, little one, please don’t cry. I have you, and everything is fine now.”

At the sound of his voice, she quieted, and her sobs soon became sniffles until she snuggled into his neck and fell fast asleep like the angel he knew she was. By the time the staff had come to check on her, Damian had sat down in the chair next to her crib and fallen asleep himself. At first they had tried to take the child from him, but she clung to him in her sleep and started to cry as soon as anyone else touched her. They let him stay with her and hold her while she slept, but watched him closely like he was going to hurt the child.

They quickly learned that he would never hurt the child and that he loved her like he would his own sister. They even broke the rules and ended up putting them in the same room just so that she would sleep. They were inseparable. He cared for all of her needs, and the staff didn’t have to do anything for her.

She had no other family and was to be kept there until her father did his time and was released. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on whose point of view one were looking from, that plan did not work out like it was supposed to. About eight months after she arrived, word came that her father pissed off the wrong person while in jail and had his throat slashed after he was tortured in the laundry room.

Within two weeks, his little angel was gone, adopted into a new family. He begged the orphanage to not let her be taken until he was eighteen and could adopt her himself, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He only had her love for eight months and four days, but she would be in his heart for the rest of his life. He knew where she went and had been watching her almost every day since she left him until her new family had moved out of state.

It seemed, since there were no living relatives, that adoption records were sealed so the adoptive parents would never have to tell the child who her real father was. He had his ways of finding her and would keep an eye on her for the rest of her life.

As long as she was happy and taken care of, he would keep his distance and watch over her, but if anything ever happened to her or the couple that adopted her hurt her in any way, she wouldn’t spend another minute with them. He didn’t care if it was kidnapping or not, he knew he could take her and disappear without a trace.

Chapter Twenty

Bringing his thoughts back to the study and the present situation, he hoped everything with the prince’s female was okay and that the prince didn’t have second thoughts and wasn’t angry with him for feeding her. He wasn’t sure what effects his blood may have on her. He knew it was illegal to give blood to a human, but when the race’s prince had asked him to do it, he hadn’t thought twice about it. He did as he was asked and was happy that the prince chose him for the favor

So Damian was now sitting uncomfortably in the study while Mikhaila and Marcus both paced and Lucian lounged in front of the fireplace like he didn’t have a care in the world. It made Damian even twitchier that Lucian was cool and calm while Mikhaila and Marcus were pacing. Every time he had met Marcus in the past, he was always collected, and this restlessness was unnerving.

It wasn’t just Marcus’s uneasiness—more emotions were invading his mind. After the fear and hope, there was extreme lust that had him leaving his bed and finding his way into his shower to release a little tension. Then the fear had returned and stayed and seemed to be getting stronger. He knew they weren’t his emotions but didn’t know where they came from or how to stop them.

Just when Damian thought he was going to lose his mind from the overload, the study door swung open. He jumped to his feet and saw
Nikkos
glance his way cautiously, and Damian
knew
there was something wrong. The female was holding
Nikkos’s
hand and looked like she was fine, but he could feel her unease. He suddenly realized the emotions he was feeling were coming from her. All the emotions flowing through her were enough to make him gasp as his legs decided to stop working, and he slumped back into the chair he had just occupied.

* * * *

Nikkos
saw the male collapse into the chair and knew he was feeling Anstice’s emotions. He could feel the turmoil running through her but had gotten used to it and was able to guard himself from her strongest emotion, fear. However Damian was still young and probably had never fed anyone before and didn’t know how to block her out, even though she was a tiny little human.

This was going to get interesting. He was going to have to teach his baby brother—wow, never thought he’d be able think of anyone as his baby brother again—how to block her out soon or, their life would be quite an adventure the next time she, Adrian, and
Nikkos
were together intimately. Hopefully he hadn’t been feeling her earlier today when they were in the bed, and then later when they were in the gym.

Nikkos
knew Anstice’s mood was affecting Damian and knew he should ask her to leave and put some distance between them. The problem with that was that he was a selfish bastard and couldn’t be without the strength she provided him when he broke the news to Damian. Quietly, he asked Adrian to take Anstice and sit behind his desk away from Damian so he could go talk to the other male and maybe help him block the emotions a little so they could talk.

Nikkos
approached Damian and squatted in front of where he sat. He could see the fine sheen of sweat covering Damian’s forehead. He looked over to
Adrian
. “Calm her down if you can before she makes him pass out.”

Adrian nodded his head and took Anstice tightly into his arms while she sat on his lap in the chair behind the desk. He rubbed his hands up and down her back and whispered soothing words into her ear.

His attention back on Damian,
Nikkos
said, “You feel her emotions because she fed from you. You can learn to block her out, but it will take time to block everything. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of that when I asked you to help her.”

Damian immediately responded, “Please don’t apologize, my
Kyrios
, I am no one for you to worry about. I will be fine. I’m just glad your female is okay.”

Nikkos
looked down at his hands where they were clasped in front of him. “Don’t call me that, please. We have a lot to talk about, and it will be easier if we can just talk male to male.”

“Yes,
Kyr…
Sorry, habit. I have been taught my entire life to have respect for you and your family. By the way, I’m sorry for the loss of your family. I lost my family, too. Not that my family should mean anything to you, but, well…” He trailed off, and he bit his bottom lip. “Sorry, when I’m nervous I tend to ramble on and on. My mom always used to have to interrupt me when I went off on my tangents or no one else could get a word in edgewise.”