Micah's Calling Read Online Free Page B

life she had entered by becoming his mate.
Would she ever get used to this world he lived in? A world she never even knew
existed until she stepped into that parking garage to find a handsome,
mysterious stranger being beaten to death by a bunch of would-be thugs. Only he
hadn't been just a regular stranger and those hadn't been regular thugs. He had
been a vampire, and the thugs had been drecks, and when she shot Apostle, she had
sealed her own fate.
    "Having regrets?" Micah said softly, his profile
unreadable.
    Obviously he could see what she was thinking. At least there
would never be dishonesty between them. "No."
    "You sure?"
    She reached for his hand and squeezed it. "Yes."
    Micah squeezed her hand back. "You're not in Kansas,
anymore, Sam. It's a scary place I live in."
    "I don't want to be in Kansas. And I don't care how
scary it is."
    They pulled up to a stop light and he turned toward her, his
eyes searching her face. "Why not?"
    Sam smiled wistfully and looked at their joined hands.
"Because you're here. And I want to be with you."
    She glanced back up and he blinked and smiled at her with a
gentle nod.
    "And I'm so glad for that," he said.
    "Why?"
    "Because if you weren't here with me, I wouldn't be
here, either."
     

CHAPTER THREE
    Micah gazed at Sam, his savior. He had been ready to die
before she stepped into his life. After Jackson had left him, Micah had been
ready to check out. For good.
    But then Sam had shown up, smelling of lilacs and looking
like an angel. She had saved his life and given him a reason to live again, and
he could feel himself slowly morphing back into the male he had been centuries
ago, before his first mate's death. Maybe now he would rise up to become what
he had seemed destined to become back then.
    If things had happened differently, he would be the team's
leader right now, not Tristan. Because that's what he had been before. He had
been Tristan's commander. Now it was the other way around.
    He gazed at Sam, reflecting a moment longer, then caught the
glow from the light as it turned green. He returned his gaze to the front and
hit the gas.
    He still found it hard to believe that he had changed so
much in the past few weeks. And he couldn't believe fortune had finally smiled
down on him after centuries of misery after losing Katarina in the late Middle
Ages. But all that was behind him now, and he suddenly found himself
considering a future of happiness. One where he could actually smile and laugh
again.
    He'd been laughing a lot with Sam.
    But he also couldn't forget how dangerous the world he lived
in was. And now Sam was part of that world.
    They held hands in silence as he took them out of the city
and into the burbs. Her mind was processing everything he had told her, chewing
it up, mulling it over, and filing it away.
    "Okay," she said out of the blue. "So how
many mixed-bloods are there, proportionately speaking?"
    Micah shrugged. "I don't know. I know there are more
pure bloods than mixed-bloods. Maybe a four to one ratio. Possibly even three
to one. Why?"
    She sighed as if she was trying to figure something out.
"Well, it just seems like since humans outnumber vampires — and I assume
they do since you vampires keep yourselves so secret from humans — there would
be a lot more mixed-bloods running around."
    Micah was impressed. What an astute observation.
    "Okay, so what's your question?"
    She smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. "Can't you just poke
inside my head and see it?"
    "Yes, but it's so much nicer to hear your sexy
voice." He grinned sweetly back.
    Sam laughed and shook her head. "You're
incorrigible."
    "So they tell me." He turned the Audi toward the
north. "Do you want to know why we aren't overrun by mixed-bloods? Is that
your question?"
    "Yeah, I can't figure that one out. If male vampires
are only fertile during their calling— "
    "Not only," he said, correcting her. "But
they are most fertile at that time."
    Sam nodded. "Okay, so if that's the case, are