Forbidden Blood (Vampire Venators Romance Series) (40 page)

Kearn nodded.

His thumb pressed into the underside of her chin and he tilted her head back. Her heart pounded. Her blood chilled. It didn’t feel right. His body pressed into hers, his other arm slid around her waist, and he dipped his mouth towards her neck, his lips parting to reveal his fangs. It didn’t feel at all as she had expected.

She felt anxious, not excited. Something deep within her cried out for her to escape and filled her with panic, fear, and anger.

Kyran murmured where he lay sprawled out on the floor. Her gaze fell to him.

Her anger increased when his eyes snapped open and she realised that it wasn’t her feeling. It was his.

He was on his feet before she could blink, his hand gripping Kearn’s shoulder and tearing him away from her. She stumbled backwards and fell onto the couch as he tossed Kearn across the room, sending him smashing into the wall. Kearn fell to the floor just as her backside hit the couch seat.

Amber stared up at Kyran, her hands pressing into the padded seat either side of her knees. Her heart lodged in her throat and fluttered there.

Kyran frowned at her, and then down at himself, looking at his hands, and then turned to face Kearn. She couldn’t watch as they clashed. She curled up and closed her eyes, afraid of seeing the fight. The sound of it alone was terrifying.

“Run,” Kearn said and she wanted to, only she wasn’t strong enough. She could barely walk.

“Stay right there,” Kyran shouted and she looked at him. “Do not believe a word he says. That is not me!”

Amber stared at them both, catching glimpses of their faces as they fought, punching and kicking, moving so quickly it was hard for her to keep up. She didn’t know what to do or who to believe. Conflict reigned in her blood. She watched them, trying to figure everything out.

“This is an illusion, Amber, and you know it is,” Kyran said and she shook her head. She wouldn’t believe him. He was a liar and he had hurt her.

“Run, Amber, get out of here. Leave us alone,” Kearn said and looked at her, his eyes pleading her as much as her blood was. She pressed her hand to her chest and then gasped when Kyran punched him, sending him crashing to the ground. He was on his feet again in an instant, growling and throwing himself at his brother.

“Do not listen to him, Amber! Listen to your blood.” Kyran threw Kearn across the room again, shattering the plaster on the far wall.

Amber did. She focused on her blood just as she had been practicing and tried to open a connection to the real Kearn. It was hard to tell who was who even in her blood. She wasn’t any good at this. She couldn’t tell, couldn’t get the myriad of feelings in it straight.

Kearn threw himself at Kyran, knocking him down and pinning him to the ground. She couldn’t watch as he hit him, knocking his head back and forth, bloodying it with a quick succession of punches.

Her heart ached.

Panic filled her.

What if she was wrong? What if Kearn really was Kyran and Kyran really was Kearn? She had to do something. She had to find out the truth.

It hit her like a freight train and her head snapped around to face them.

“Tell me something only you know, Kearn,” she said and then realised that she really hadn’t thought her plan through. What would Kearn know that Kyran didn’t, but that she would actually know herself?

Kyran forced Kearn across the room, throwing him with nothing more than a wave of his hands, and got to his feet.

He turned to her, his blue eyes shining with regret.

“I killed my pregnant fiancée… and the child was Kyran’s.”

Those words fell like lead on the room, causing immediate silence. A sense of anger and disbelief filled her blood. She looked at Kearn. The expression of sheer horror on his face was enough to confirm that it was his feelings, and that he hadn’t known.

Amber immediately reached for Kyran and was in his arms the moment their fingers touched. He held her close, cradling her against his chest, and ran out of the room. The lights in the hall outside came on, illuminating a wide gallery. Cold wet air blasted in through the broken windows, tousling the torn curtains, and most of the plaster on the walls was either missing or fractured. He leapt over a buckled and broken patch of the wooden floor and kept running. Was this the result of the explosions she had heard?

“We have to get you out of here,” he said and she hoped that she had made the right decision. It felt wrong to be in Kyran’s arms. If she was mistaken, she had just signed her own death sentence. “I cannot risk fighting him alone, and with you here. I do not intend to break my promise to protect you.”

The lights came on in a large room they passed through and Amber realised that it was his power doing it. Just as he had unlocked her door without a key, he could make the lights come on without having to flip the switch. As they reached a grand set of stairs and the foyer of the house, Kyran’s face began to change. The blue in his eyes faded to green, and his hair lengthened and turned silver.

Amber threw her arms around Kearn’s neck and held on to him, tears running down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and didn’t let go. She would never let go.

“Where are we going?” she breathed against his neck. He smelt like Kearn.

“To my family’s estate. They will protect you while I take care of Kyran.” He paused and then held her tighter against him. He was trembling. “I almost lost you. I cannot… I will not risk that happening again. I need you, Amber.”

She knew in her heart what he meant by those three words.

He was going to bite her.

Before, she had been afraid of stepping into his world, but she wasn’t now. When she had realised that Kyran would make her into a vampire purely to spite Kearn, she had also realised how much she wanted to be Kearn’s forever.

She wanted it more than anything.

She had only known him a short while but she couldn’t imagine her life without him, and she didn’t want to spend only a few short years with him as a human. She wanted to spend centuries with him as a vampire. Kyran was wrong about Kearn. He wouldn’t treat her like other Nobles treated humans. He would dote on her, dedicating himself to her and loving her forever.

The cold damp night air broke over her, drizzle saturating her hair and clothes. Kearn’s car was bright in the low light, parked near the Bentley that Kyran had forced her into. How far was it to the estate and whose house was this?

She looked over her shoulder at the mansion. It was dark on the outside but lights on the inside marked the path of escape they had taken. She traced it back to where they ended. Kyran was still alive. He would come after them.

There was a commotion from the other end of the building.

“We must leave,” Kearn said. “The Huntingdon family will be out for blood. My brother played a dangerous game by holding them hostage.”

“Will they kill him?” Amber whispered, too tired to raise her voice any louder. Kearn set her down in the passenger seat of his Audi and buckled her in.

“No. Earl Huntingdon and the countess will forgive him. Kyran will convince them to join him in his fight for power. Lesser Nobles such as the Huntingdons and the Greystones are easily swayed.”

“Greystone? Like the female Venator?”

He nodded, closed her door, rounded the car and got into the driver’s side.

“She was in league with Kyran.” Kearn started the car and reversed fast, spinning it around, and then drove away.

Amber looked back over her shoulder at the house.

“Was?” She frowned at the black Bentley. It couldn’t have been. Now that she was thinking about it, the driver had looked a little like the female Venator.

“I took care of her. The Sovereignty commanded it and I could not have her interfering in my fight against Kyran.” Kearn drove fast through the gates of the estate and out onto a quiet road.

Amber didn’t recognise her surroundings. She had been unconscious for the whole journey to the Huntingdon estate. It surprised her when they had only been driving a short time and they reached a road that she recognised. They had driven along it when heading to his family’s estate from London.

“The Huntingdons live close to you?”

Kearn nodded. Minutes later, they were heading through the heavily guarded gates of the Savernake estate.

“What’s going on?” Amber looked around her at all of the people in the grounds. Some of them had silver hair and wore a uniform like Kearn’s black and silver clothing. More Venators. Could they trust these ones?

“We are on alert. Kyran intends to kill Archduke Pendragon and any of Pendragon blood who stands in his way, and then destroy the house of Savernake to seize power.”

She gasped. He would kill his own parents and family? Kyran had never struck her as that sort of man. He had always been smiling and had always been proud of his family. She couldn’t imagine him wanting to kill everyone like that.

“He wants me to pay for what I did to him, and he wants mother and father to pay for exiling him. Archduke Pendragon refused to buy your blood and help him, so now he will pay too.”

“He wants it that badly? Can he even fight the archduke? You said he was power—”

“Believe me,” Kearn interjected, “right now, Kyran could take on the Sovereignty themselves and win.”

He was that powerful?

“It’s my blood isn’t it?” She touched her neck. “Kyran took a lot from me. Enough that he gained the true effects.”

Kearn nodded and pulled the car to a halt outside the lodge. He gripped the steering wheel and his hard expression softened, the corners of his lips tugging into the barest of smiles.

“I can defeat him.”

Amber ran her fingers over the cut on her throat. “If you have my blood too.”

He nodded again. Her hand fell from her neck and rested in her lap.

“I do not just want your blood, Amber… I… I want you too,” Kearn whispered, an ardent look filling his green eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat and then pounded hard against her ribs. She could only think of one reason why Kearn had stopped at the lodge rather than going to the main house. He was going to bite her now before anything else happened.

She touched her throat again, her fingers trembling against it. Kearn’s gaze fell there and his eyes turned red. Intense need flowed through her. His feelings. He couldn’t fight it anymore. His hunger and need were so strong that she couldn’t deny him. This was how she had expected it to feel—thrilling, deep and incredible.

“I need to know that you are mine, Amber, and mine alone… forever.” He reached across and touched her face. His fingers trembled against her cheek and she was tempted to close her eyes but kept looking into his, seeing everything her blood was telling her reflected in them. “Say you will be mine.”

Amber placed her hand over his and flattened his palm against her cheek. “I will always be yours.”

He closed his eyes and she felt his relief deep in her heart, and his happiness.

“I will give all that I can to make you strong enough to defeat Kyran.”

His eyes opened to reveal the shock she felt in her blood. The surprise receded, leaving warm feelings in its place. She meant what she had said. She would give him everything if he needed it to survive the coming fight. She didn’t want to lose him.

He left the car and rounded it to her side, opening the door for her. Amber stepped out and into his waiting arms, settling herself close to him and looking up at his face. The silver threads of his hair fell forwards when he looked down at her, his eyes vivid red and full of hunger.

“Are you certain about this?” he whispered and touched her cheek again. He pushed his fingers back, through the tangled lengths of her ponytail, and then ran them down her throat. “You will be weakened by my taking your blood but I will keep you safe. I will protect you this time. Do you trust me?”

Amber nodded and touched his shoulder. “I am, and I do. I’m not afraid… because… I love you.”

Kearn frowned, pulled her close, and kissed her hard. It was a struggle to breathe with his grip on her so tight but she kissed him back, her lips playing against his, revealing all of the passion and desire, and the need that she felt for him.

She had meant what she had said that night.

She wanted to be his forever. She wasn’t afraid.

He broke away, swept her into his arms and carried her into the lodge.

CHAPTER 28

A
mber sat on the end of the bed, trying to read Kearn’s feelings in his blood but her own nerves drowned them out. Kearn removed his black military-style jacket and sat beside her, his eyes firmly fixed on hers. She smiled but it faltered when he touched her knee. Was she really ready to do this?

The implications frightened her. She was going to leave her world behind, her family, her friends, and become a vampire, but she loved Kearn and knew that he felt the same way. He needed her love and her by his side, and he would have them forever.

Her nerves melted away, taking her rising fear with them, when she felt every feeling that was in his green eyes—love, need, devotion. He had never bitten a human before, had never made anyone into a vampire, and the emotions in her blood said that this meant something and that something was the world.

Amber reached around the back of her head and cleared the hair from the left side of her neck. When she tilted her chin up, offering her throat to Kearn, his eyes shifted there and turned red, but none of the feelings in them disappeared. Even in this state, they showed his love for her and how deeply this affected him.

His eyes met hers briefly and then he pulled her into his arms, settling her on his lap. Any feeling of self-consciousness she had from sitting on his thighs disappeared when he pressed a kiss to her throat. Her awareness of the world became an awareness of only Kearn. Where his hands touched her back, how delicious his arms felt around her, and the feel of his soft breathing against her throat, all of it stole her attention until there was only them, in an endless void, together and about to become that way forever.

“Do not fear me,” Kearn whispered on her throat and leaned his cheek against hers. She closed her eyes and savoured the feel of their skin touching. “Do not fear this, Amber. My heart is yours until the end of time, beyond forever, and I will worship you endlessly and never stop loving you.”