Marked: a Vampire Romance (10 page)

She hoped that was a promise.

When it was done and all the pleasure and more had been wrung out of Gold, she cuddled up to Adam, her hand curled possessively over his heart. There was a pleasant ache in her thigh where he’d taken her blood, and she still tingled with the aftermath of their shared lovemaking. She’d heard it once said that vampire’s flesh was as cold as the dead, but he was warm and very much alive right next to her.

“I’m sorry for trying to kill you,” she said.

Adam burst out laughing, the sound filling the room, his lungs expanding beneath her fingers. “If this is the outcome, I welcome as many death threats as you’ll give me.” He picked up her arm and held it near his own, the mirrored marks shining. “It doesn’t seem very deadly.”

She’d studied it a dozen times already, the cracked, twisting lines practically burned into her eyeballs. But he was right. When she didn’t hold the mark next to his, it seemed like a normal, if a bit overdone, tattoo. She reached out a finger and stroked from one end to the other. “You’d think it would hurt.”

“We can find a way to stop this.” He rolled onto his side so that he faced her completely. Gold looked into his dark eyes and tried to discern if he really believed that.

“You can’t fight fate.” Not the kind that killed a woman for refusing to kill the man she loved.

“People have spent centuries, millennia, arguing quite the opposite, love.” When he called her ‘love,’ his voice lilted up, the accent of his human years sneaking through.

Something niggled at the back of Gold’s mind. “I have a question, and I’m not sure I want the answer.”

Adam’s eyes sparked and he grinned, sweeping a kiss across her forehead, “Go on.”

“In my research…” She almost shuddered remembering the things she’d learned. “Your victim pro—your MO? Ugh,” she shook her head, “Never mind. I can’t ask.”

He grew grim, understanding what she meant. “It was the war. The Civil War,” he clarified. “I was a right bastard before then. Not a care in the world except for fun. After that, I didn’t… I didn’t reform then, not exactly.” He shook his head, trying to put his thoughts in order. “But the excesses of some of my brethren, I couldn’t stand it. And so I hunted down the worst of them, letting their exploits stand as my own. I had a name to protect, after all.”

She wanted to press him for more, but now wasn’t the time. God, he fascinated her. “Who were you?” she asked, “Before you were you?” She reached up and pushed a lock of his hair out of his eyes. Adam grinned and kissed her palm before she pulled it away. Her own hair had to be a rat’s nest now, tangled all around her shoulders and pouring over her breasts.

There was a wistfulness in his voice when he answered. “I wasn’t anyone but a bit of a scoundrel. A whore at times. The failed son of a baker who would have ended up dead in an alley before thirty if I hadn’t become what I became.” His brow furrowed and he grinned. “In fact, I was dying in an alley when he found me.”

“Who?” She didn’t know how much time they had together, but she wanted every scrap of detail to take with her. Even the things she didn’t want to know.

Adam trailed a finger lazily up her shoulder and down her arm. Now that they’d shed their clothes he couldn’t seem to help himself, the casual caresses mounting. Gold loved it and understood the urge entirely.

“He was a lonely bloodsucker, too old for the world and looking for a companion. God only knows why he chose me.” He gave a wry grin. “Good thing he spared me the details, else I would have never agreed to it.”

“You’re not talking about murder, are you?” The twinkle in his eye would never be raised by the specter of his sins.

“No, not that. But try telling a drunken, horny young man that he’ll never find release in the willing arms of a beautiful woman again and see if he takes your offer of immortality.” He pulled her forward and she felt the hard length of his cock pressed against her stomach.

She yelped and laughed, then moaned as his lips closed on her neck, teeth barely scraping against the delicate skin. He was saving the fangs for later. “You really haven’t had sex in three hundred years?” She couldn’t believe it. Not with the way he played her like a finely strung harp. “Then how is
this
possible?”

“Your blood? The mark? Love? Whatever it is, I’ll savor it with you until my last breath.” He held her against him so closely that she heard his heart beating. Even the suggestion of his breath ceasing hurt.

Then she thought for a moment about what he just said. “Wait, was that ‘the mark, love’ that you said? As in the endearment?” This was one of the times she wished people spoke their commas out loud. He’d told her that he was hers, but neither of them had admitted the rest out loud.

Adam’s little laugh rumbled against her and he kissed her ear through the mass of hair. “I wouldn’t let just anyone kill me, love,” he promised.

At nearly five in the morning, Adam’s mind still reeled. He kept his arms hugged tightly around Gold as if she could disappear into dust if he gave her even an extra inch to breathe. But snuggled up against him and clinging to his arm, she seemed to have no complaints. In a perfect world, he’d stay here like this with her all day. And then all night and again through the entire weekend.

But he'd be kind. He’d let her break for snacks.

Gold stirred awake, her body consciously rubbing against his, reveling in the intimacy they now shared. “Good morning,” she mumbled.

Adam’s hands trailed over her stomach, the light caress raising the delicate hair on her arms. “Good morning,” he replied, brushing his lips against the space where her neck met her shoulders.

Her phone—the one she'd bought to replace the one he'd stolen, lying somewhere in a pile of clothing strewn about the room—beeped with an incoming text message, an unwelcome intrusion from the outside world.

“Ignore it,” Adam told her. They still had enough time to steal a few more moments. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so complete. If the entire rest of the world fell away, he would have no complaints. Gold was the only thing that mattered.

“I can’t.” She rolled out from under the covers and started picking through the clothing on the floor. They had not been neat in their haste. “My mom is probably freaking out right now.”

“I would have thought she’d be waiting outside with a tank by now,” he joked. Knowing Gold’s purpose for coming to him last night, it was startling that she didn’t come with any backup.

She stopped her search and looked over at him, solemn. “I didn’t tell her where you live.” She bent back down and picked up her jacket, rooting through the pockets to find her phone.

Then she hadn’t expected to make it out of his house alive, even if she killed him. Maybe it hadn’t been intentional, but there was no other reason for keeping his address from her hunter friends. Even as this bond between them killed her, she was protecting him. It took Adam’s breath away. “Gold—”

But she wasn’t looking at him. She’d pulled her phone out of the pocket of her pants and her face went white. “I need to leave. Right now.”

Adam sat up from where he’d been laying on his side. “What’s wrong?”

Gold shook her head, fingers scraping against the bright screen. She didn’t answer for a moment, as if it was impossible to find the words. When she could, she whispered, “I don’t know. Something bad.”

“I’m going with you.” It wasn’t even a question. Whatever was in that text message was bad enough to stop her in her tracks. She needed help.

“It’s almost sunrise, you can’t.” She was gathering up her clothes, slipping her pants back on and searching around for her bra.

Adam found it right next to where he was sitting and tossed it toward her. He got out of bed and grabbed his own clothes. “I’m coming with you,” he said again.

Gold looked at him for a few seconds and then nodded. There was no more argument. They dressed quickly and Gold retrieved her weapons. Before they headed upstairs, she stepped close and hugged him tight. “Thank you.”

Adam squeezed her back, offering silent comfort.

Then the moment passed and they were moving. Without discussion, they climbed into Gold’s SUV and took off down the road, heading back toward town. After a mile or so, she turned off the highway onto one of the back roads.

She reached into her pocket and handed over her phone. “Text her back. Three happy emojis and then one with a dog.”

“A code?”

“Sort of.”

Adam looked at the text box and saw that she’d been sent a series of random smiling yellow faces from her mom. There was no rhyme or reason to the symbols. “Does this mean something?”

She shook her head, fingers tightening against the steering wheel and turning her knuckles white. “No, it’s like she just smashed whatever she could.”

As instructed, Adam responded to the text. There was no reply.

They rolled down the dark roads. Sunrise would be coming soon, quick and deadly, but there was nothing that Adam could do about it at the moment. Gold’s mom wouldn’t appreciate his presence.

He couldn’t ever remember meeting a lover’s parents, but especially not under these tense circumstances. He wouldn't be wanted there, but if this emergency was because of Okano, then they just might need him. No matter what, the Joneses would get used to him. Because there was nothing that was going to keep him from Gold’s side.

A few minutes later, Gold pulled up to a well-lit, nicely landscaped farmhouse. A commuter never would have guessed that a band of demon hunters lived there, but the name “Jones” on the mailbox proclaimed that it was her family residence.

She stopped the car and Adam could just make out that the front door hung open. The lights were off around the porch, but it was bright enough to see the shadow. He unbuckled his belt, but Gold put a hand on his chest to stop him from getting out of the car.

“Wait,” she said. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, her brow furrowing. “There’s a vampire out back in the woods. Okano.” She sounded certain.

“You can sense that?” She’d already demonstrated inhuman reflexes and a taste for danger. That she also possessed some minor psychic power didn’t surprise him.

She shrugged. “Most of the time.” But she didn’t explain the exceptions. They didn’t have time.

Adam opened the car door and smelled blood thick in the air. Human, with only the faintest trace of vampire. There’d been a fight and it hadn’t gone well for the Joneses.

Gold sensed it as well. She took off running toward the front door, and once they climbed the white wood porch that wrapped around the house, Adam saw the thick, wet streaks of blood heading toward the entrance. Gold was a few steps ahead of him and crossed the threshold, gasping out at what she saw.

A middle aged woman sat against the back of a dark couch, a pool of blood getting thicker around her by the moment. Her face was lined with pain, but the resemblance to Gold was unmistakable. Her mother.

Adam tried to step in to help, to do something, but he hadn’t been invited. He was blocked at the threshold.

Gold crouched at her mother’s side, her hands hovering a few inches above her as if she were afraid that touching her would make the injuries worse. “What happened?” she asked.

Her mother rolled her head toward Adam and betrayal flashed in her eyes when she sensed what he was. “You brought that…” She was prevented from finishing the sentence by a racking cough. He could hear the blood in her lungs.

Finally, Gold looked over at him and realized that he was stranded outside. “You may enter, Adam,” she said and the magical barrier in front of the door dissolved like cotton candy. “He’s here to help. Now, tell me what happened.” Emotion drained from her voice, replaced by harsh resolve. She was no longer a daughter worried for her mother, but a huntress on the job.

That tone was enough to break Gold’s mom out her hate-fueled staring contest. Her injuries were such that she could barely gasp out half sentences. “Charlie’s in the panic room. Lily gone. Vamp took her. One of the crazy ones. The one we were looking for. Happened twenty minutes ago.”

“Adam, call an ambulance.” She didn’t explain who Charlie and Lily were, but he figured they were other hunters, perhaps her other relatives. There was a phone lying beside Ms. Jones and Adam reached for it, having left his own at home in their haste.

“Don’t!” her mom coughed out. “Not until sunrise. The sirens’ll attract it. Charlie’ll help me.” It, he knew, meant Okano. If they called for help, the paramedics would be at risk.

It was thirty minutes until sunrise. Adam was intimately familiar with how much blood a human could lose and still survive. Ms. Jones was already nearing that limit. In thirty minutes, she’d be dead. He knew it, she knew it, and from the set of Gold’s shoulder, she realized it as well.

He crouched down beside Gold and placed his hand on the small of her back. Anything stronger than that small gesture of comfort would have to wait.

“Your sister's still alive,” Ms. Jones rasped, the ambulance issue settled. “Sure of it. Knows the woods.” So Lily was Gold's sister, probably younger judging by Ms. Jones's age.

“We’ll find her,” Gold said. She leaned over her mother’s form and kissed her forehead. “I’ll get Charlie. Then we’ll find Lily. Just… just stay alive.” She took off toward the back of the house, leaving Adam alone with Ms. Jones.

He reached behind his head and pulled off his shirt by the collar, using it as a makeshift bandage. The wound was on her abdomen and had just missed her stomach. If she got care in time, she could survive.

But Ms. Jones was past looking out for herself. “You’re going to kill her,” she accused. There was little malice in her voice, though. She didn’t have the strength anymore.

Adam pressed his t-shirt lightly against her, trying to balance between helping and hurting. “I won’t let that happen.” Gold was not going to die until she was at least 103 and surrounded by a bevy of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He couldn’t allow anything else.

Ms. Jones didn’t have an answer for that. But a minute later, she started shaking, teeth chattering. “It’s cold.”

Shock. She didn’t have much time now. Sunrise was still in thirty minutes.

She only needed to make it long enough to get to the hospital. And kneeling in a puddle of her blood, the red staining his fingertips as it soaked through his shirt, he realized that he could help. If she would accept. “I can buy you time. My blood.” It wouldn’t turn her, but vampire blood had healing properties. Just a sip and she’d make it.

“No. Won’t—” She couldn’t get the full denial out without a drop of her own blood leaking out of her mouth. At this rate, she wouldn’t be alive by the time that Gold made it back to them.

“Your daughter just damn near broke herself to please you,” said Adam, the anger from what Gold had almost done bubbling up. He had no family, but he could remember what it had been like. And in the few minutes he’d seen Gold in front of her mom, he saw the devotion between them. They were close. Her mother’s death would be a blow she couldn’t deal with. Not right now. “She loves you,” he continued. “You have a traumatized kid out there who’s going to need you when we bring her back. If you think I’m going to let you hurt Gold like this because of your pride…”

Using what little strength she had, she reached out and grasped his arm, fingers falling across the mark on his arm. “Promise me you’ll take care of it. If she can’t.”

It. Gold’s life. His death.

“Will you let me help you?” Some would call it a lopsided bargain, one where he was the only one slated to die, but Adam had made plenty of bad deals in his life. He was still breathing.

Ms. Jones nodded. “If you promise.”

“Gold will be safe,” he said. “I’ll keep her alive. At any cost.” Even if he had to walk into the sun to do it.

Adam ripped open a gash on his wrist and pressed it against Ms. Jones’s mouth. Her face rippled in revulsion as his blood touched her tongue, but as the tangy spice of power washed over him, the revulsion faded into dark desperation. He only let her cling to him for a few seconds before pulling away. Already her color was returning and her breathing eased. He used his shirt to wipe away the ring of his blood that had been left around her mouth.

He’d saved her life. Now it was time to save Gold’s.