Eternal Blood: The Mark of the Vampire (5 page)

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Authors: Laura Wright

BOOK: Eternal Blood: The Mark of the Vampire
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Her hair was soaked, her face alive and impassioned and pissed off. She looked hot. Way too hot for him to want to knock her out. Knock her up though . . .
She grabbed him around the neck, squeezed just a fraction of an inch. “You know I allowed you to pull me in here, right?”
His fangs dropped. “Why. Did. You. Come. For. Me?”
She leaned in, her mouth close to his, and she lapped at one sharp, white fang with her tongue. “I’ve never
come
for you, Gray.”
His cock twitched and started to rise. Fuck her. Screw her and her games.
She grinned at him. “And I don’t ever want you thinking you can put your hands on me without my permission.” Completely wet now, she leaned back against the shower wall and crossed her arms over her chest.
Gray stared, a hunger fisting inside him as he took in her body and the wet clothes that clung to it. Her white shirt was totally see through, the bra too, and it made his breath catch in his throat. Round, achingly pretty breasts assaulted his vision, but it was her nipples, hard and highly edible, that made the skin over his bones convulse.
He was hard now, his cock rock solid and pulsing against his stomach as though it had a heartbeat of its own. “Sara ask you to keep watch on me, D? Is that was this is all about? A favor for your fantasy girlfriend?”
Within the confines of the swirling steam, her face remained calm, but implacable. “She would never forgive me if I let something happen to you—something I could prevent.”
“You’re such a good friend.”
“I try.”
“Yeah, I know you do.” He raised a brow. “Again and again to no avail. Talk about chasing something that can never be changed.”
Her lip curled and her gaze drifted down his body. “Glad to see the cock still goes up and down, Impure.”
“For anything with a nice set of tits.” He leveled her with a callous gaze. “You know how that is, D.”
She laughed. “If only I had a cock. Oh, the damage I could do.”
His body went instantly on alert, heating up, rising up. “What kind of damage?”
She laughed at him.
She was so good at it, at making him feel like a dick, like a fool . . .
Like an Impure.
And yet, he wanted her. Wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything.
“Tell me about the damage, D,” he said, trying to control the shudder in his voice, the desire to pounce on her, then pound her senseless. “Or better yet, show me.”
“You couldn’t handle it, Gray.”
There was not a trace of teasing or bitchiness in her tone or words this time. Nothing but truth, grave truth. And something else, something deep within her hazel eyes. It flashed there, a warning light.
But when had he ever stopped on red?
“Try me,” he challenged.
She smiled—it may have been a sad, pitying smile, but he didn’t care. She was away from the wall and coming at him like a tiger, graceful and deadly. Her fangs flashed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and captured his mouth.
Holy shit.
Gray felt as though he were dying, drowning. And he welcomed it—hell, he would’ve begged for it. It was the kind of kiss that consumed. The kind of kiss that didn’t need to force the breath from your body because you handed it over without question or complaint. It was unlike any kiss Gray had ever experienced and as he gripped her waist and yanked her closer, impossibly closer, he let go of all thought, all concern. As the water rained down on both of them, and the world grew lava hot, Gray let the veana who both tortured and turned him on kiss the shit out of him.
Goddamn, her lips were so soft, impossibly soft—and luscious and teasing and when her tongue began to thrust into his mouth, back and forth with a sexual power that sent come to the tip of his cock, his fangs descended further and trembled with a desire he’d never experienced.
A desire maybe he should never have experienced because it would make every kiss pale in comparison after this.
She pulled back then, her eyes finding and locking with his. “I’ll let you finish up in here.”
She left the shower, walked right out of the bathroom, dripping wet and sans towel.
Gray hesitated for less than a second, the sight of her walking away wrenching something deep inside him. He forgot everything else, even the running shower, and bolted after her. The hallway was empty, but he spotted her wet footprints and followed her down the stairs. He knew, his brain knew, that the wisest course of action was not the one he was taking. And yet, it was as though an animal’s instinct, hunger, primal need had taken over and he was just along for the ride.
He cleared the last step, stood there for a moment sniffing. Where was she? Wet and cruel. Where had she run off to?
Then he spied droplets of water in the carpet leading down another hallway. He took off, ran down its length and into a room that contained her scent, her wet, teasing, diabolical scent.
Could’ve been the kitchen, could’ve been the garage—he was too blind to everything else but her to notice or care. He thought maybe there was a bed on one wall, but all he saw, all he wanted was the veana undressing near the window. He was on her in seconds, had her around the waist, had her yanked back against his chest, and without thought had his mouth on the back of her neck.
She tasted like sweat, and it was the sweetest, most erotic flavor to ever hit his tongue.
His fangs extended to pin-prick sharpness.
“Fuck, Gray!”
She wrenched free, turned in his grasp and slapped him hard in the face with the palm of her hand.
It felt like the brush of a butterfly’s wings. That’s how gone he was—beside himself. Hunger like he’d never known—predatory desire like he’d never known—coursed through his blood. The need was insatiable and he was unstoppable. He moved forward, struck again at her neck and this time made contact.
Dillon sucked in air, gripped his shoulders hard, painfully hard, but she didn’t push him away. He knew she could—knew she was stronger than him by a thousand.
Blood, delectable blood snaked down his throat, and as it did he heard her moan, felt her nipples—naked and cool—grow hard against his chest. Oh shit, he wanted to fuck her senseless. His head dropped further, his fangs plunging deeper into her skin until he could do nothing but drink, drink and lap at her skin with his tongue.
“Fuck,” she cried out, her nails digging into his skin. “Fuck!” And then she was slapping him. Slapping his face, his cheek, over and over as she ground her hips against his.
It only made him drink harder, deeper.
She knew her effect on him.
He knew she knew it.
Suddenly, he stilled, stopped feeding, his mind racing. But how did he know it? It wasn’t in her head. The thoughts, the silent cries of need, the ever present push to keep going, harder, faster, deeper, that he’d heard in the heads of every female he’d ever bedded.
The world, the moment, once wide and fever-pitched, shrunk down to a pinprick. He rocketed back, his fangs pulling out of her skin in one clean movement. What the hell was going on here? His breath coming in heavy gasps, he wiped the blood from his mouth and stared at her.
She grinned at him, her breathing normal—her eyes clear, not glazed with passion. “You have a very nice set there, Impure. Sharp. Thick. Got the job done and then some.”
She was unaffected. Completely and utterly. And he wanted to rage at her about it, force her to admit her attraction to him, but there was something far more worrisome on his heart at that moment. Eyes narrowed, completely uncaring of his nude frame and heavy cock, he said, “I can’t hear you.”
She turned away, grabbed a tank top and threw it on. “No worries. The buzzing will wear off in a moment. It’s my blood. Pure, powerful—”
“No.” He shook his head. She had to be thinking. Right now she had to have some thought in her head. But he was picking up nothing. She was a blank screen.
It was impossible.
Her eyes narrowed on him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Did he tell her? Did he share his concern and ask her for a probable answer to the mystery? His head cocked, his gaze took in her fine features, cat eyes and firm set of her mouth. She seemed way too closed and he wasn’t in a very trusting mood. Until he figured out the reason for this blip in his gift himself, he wasn’t about to share it with the class.
“Maybe you need to go lie down,” she said, nodding toward the door. Her bedroom door, he now realized. “Get some sleep.”
Her bedroom. His gaze moved around the room. White walls, white bed, white, white, white except for the small stuffed animal wedged in between her pillows. A cat, or some kind of wild feline, he couldn’t tell.
“Your room’s upstairs,” she said, her voice tearing him from the bed, from the odd plaything among all that virginal white. “It’s right next to the bathroom.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.” Then headed for the door.
“And when you wake up,” she called after him, “all this—everything that’s happened––will have been just a bad dream.”
His hand closed around the doorknob.
“And I mean,
everything
.”
Slowly, he glanced over his shoulder. Dillon stood there in a black tank and jeans, her hair a little wild, her eyes trained on him—her thoughts a mystery. She looked hard, mean, insensitive and untouchable, and if Gray would have allowed himself to sink back into hunter mode, he’d have been all over that. Again.
“You understand, right?” she said, dropping her chin, her eyes narrowing. “You get it?”
“Get what, D?” he said with barely restrained bitterness.
She shrugged. “You know. It was as close as I’m ever going to get to Sara.”
He stared at her. For one very long, agonizing moment. It stung. Her words. Stung like a motherfucker, and instead of wanting to walk out of the room, it made the newly unleashed predator in him want to prove her words a lie. But he was tired, tired of getting dicked around, and so he did it—turned and walked out. He walked down the hall, up the stairs, past the bathroom still heavy with steam and into the bedroom that supposedly belonged to him. He sank down on the mattress and prepared to wait. A minute, an hour, however long it took for her to forget that he existed so he could get the fuck out of Dodge and back where he belonged.
Where he had always belonged.
 
The Leader of the Impures
 
Her scent was still all over him when he walked into the warehouse twenty-four hours later and hit the stairs. Just as her taste was permanently tattooed on his tongue. Maybe he was the biggest idiot on the planet, but he wasn’t looking to alter that fact until he had to, was forced to. He was about to give himself over to the Cause, wholly and willingly, but there was one part of him that would always belong to her.
Deservedly or not.
Cruel, nad-crushing words, or not.
He trotted down the long hallway and when he reached the heavy metal door, he knocked. Six times, then a pause, then three more. At first he thought that no one was there, that perhaps they’d abandoned their home, their training grounds, or shit, they were just ignoring his empty-headed ass. But then the metal latch inside clicked. Then again. And Piper’s face, then body, appeared on the other side.
She lifted one pale brow. “Back so soon?”
They weren’t going to make it easy and that was fine. He didn’t really deserve easy. “You know where I was, Piper?”
“In the back of a limo, right?”
“After that.”
Riordon showed up beside her, his massive frame strange so near to Piper’s petite one. “Yeah, we know, Impure. Did the Order take your . . . blood?” He said the last word like it gave him just a touch of pleasure.
The hulk of an Impure would come to heel in time, Gray knew. He’d have to. Not only were they looking at their final puzzle piece, but the one with the most to lose, to gain—to discover.
“What they took is far more valuable than my ability or desire to fuck,” Gray told them in all seriousness.
Riordon sniffed. “Is anything more valuable than that to you, Gray?”
“Yes. My family, my father’s life. My love for my sister.” He paused, looked at each one in the eyes. “And the success and implementation of the Impure uprising.”
Riordon’s brow lifted, Piper’s mouth kicked up at the corners, and from behind them both, Gray heard Vincent’s words, both in his head and out,
“Get in here, Donohue
.”
The pair before him opened the door wide and Gray walked through. This time it was out of choice, out of care and thought—and out of a deep and unabashed need for vengeance.
As all three Impure warriors watched with amazed expressions, Gray went to stand over the symbol carved into the floor. He held out his hands to them, then closed his eyes and opened his mind.

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