Marked: a Vampire Romance (2 page)

When hunting unknown vampires, it was unwise to dive in head first. They were stronger than huntresses, faster, and meaner, and had decades—sometimes centuries—more experience than even the best human had to offer. Fighting a vampire without first researching its identity was worse than fighting blind. It was fighting blind, bleeding, and with one arm chopped off.

But Gold couldn’t just ignore the vampire on the corner. She had a duty to her people and her town. She had to keep Jasperton safe. Even at the cost of her own life.

She was no fool. And she wasn’t ready to fight. But that didn’t mean she was going to leave him alone tonight.

She parked her SUV in a parking lot downtown and took off for Highdale Park. It was open to the road, brightly lit, and technically closed. With the Highdale Chapel on the other side, it was the perfect place to meet a monster.

Though she grudgingly admitted that he didn’t look like a monster.

It was a toss-up with vamps. Ghouls and zombies at least had the decency to look like the shambling undead, skin sagging and sloughing off, the stench of rot thick around them.

Vampires didn’t rot. Some of them were a bit pale, but they never really looked dead. Of the handful of vamps that Gold had ever seen in person, only half had looked monstrous, their fangs grown out beyond their lips, eyes wild and red, fingernails twisted and hardened into wickedly sharp claws.

Those monsters were damned hard to kill. And one had taken her aunt down with him, right in front of Gold when she was eighteen. Too young to fight on her own, but too old to be kept away from a hunt. She’d been the one to plant the stake in that monster’s heart as the blood gushing from Aunt Eileen’s innards distracted him.

Bile rose in her throat as she remembered that night seven years ago. Gold took a deep breath and tamped it down. Distraction got a girl killed.

But no, the vampire on the corner hadn’t been one of the monstrous ones. He’d been the most beautiful man that she’d ever seen in person. His muscles rippled under the light white shirt he wore as he lifted up that bookcase by himself. It was certainly too heavy for a human to lift. If it had been daylight, someone would have noticed. But if it had been daylight, the vampire would not have been out.

His hair was long and held back at the nape of his neck like some Colonial soldier. And the scruff on his chin only enhanced the rest of his features. It was that iffy color between brown and blond, or at least appeared so under the light from the store.

If he was human, she might have had dreams about the feel of his lips against her skin. She might have imagined his impossibly dark, sinful eyes looming over her in the night as he took her to the heights of pleasure.

But she’d never think those things about a vampire. She wouldn’t let herself. And even if he’d been human, she’d know to stay away. No man that sexy was ever worth it. They always let you down.

Gold shook her head, a wry smile on her lips. God, she needed to get laid. Fantasizing about a
vampire
! What kind of madness was that?

The SUV was just a breadcrumb for the vamp to follow. Gold didn’t try to hide her trail as she crossed the street to Highdale Park. She even hummed a little tune, off-key, but loud enough for any vamp in the area to hear.

During the day, Highdale Park bustled with people. Young mothers and fathers played with their children at the small playground. Dogs and their owners ran around the wide green meadow, fenced in to prevent runaways. Runners ran, joggers jogged, walkers walked, and you couldn’t go more than three minutes without saying hello to someone.

After dark, it was a different story. While they kept the lights on for safety and visibility, the park was closed and cops walked by every hour to make sure it stayed empty. A wrought iron gate blocked the entrance from the main sidewalk, but the lock had been broken for years.

Gold pulled on the gate entrance and left it open behind her, another breadcrumb for her stalker. She opened up her senses and picked up his trail. He was a block behind her and quickly heading toward the park.

But something was off. The signature she’d felt while hunting the ghoul had been slimy and grating, like broken glass dragged across her skin. The vampire behind her was as blood-soaked as any she’d ever sensed, but there was no slime. He wasn’t the same vampire she’d sensed earlier.

Two vamps near Jasperton. She needed to alert her family immediately. But the beautiful vampire slid into the park behind her, giving Gold only two options. Face him, or run away. The chapel at the other end of the park would offer sanctuary. The combined force of the parishioners’ belief made it safe from evil creatures. But she might be stuck until sunrise.

Face the vampire then, and get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

“Isn’t it a little late to be wandering around the park?” he asked, walking under the light closest to her. He looked dangerous, but not the kind of dangerous that would hurt her. Not physically, anyway.

“I think I can handle myself.” Now that there were only a few feet between them, Gold got a better look at him. The bastard was just as handsome as he’d been several minutes ago, and now she saw that he was at least six feet tall. She was weak for tall men.

But not this one. Not a vampire.

He spread out his hands, offering a little bow. “By all means. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

He held himself loosely, ready to pounce on her if she took off, but trying to disguise his coiled strength. If he was looking for it, he’d see her in a similar fighter’s stance, but few men ever noticed when a woman was moments from violence.

She needed to figure out who he was. The huntress database listed fifty-three active vampires in the U.S. Vampires were incredibly powerful, but thankfully rare, and since they possessed human intelligence, they were much more difficult to take out than the ghouls and zombies that popped up. Since he was a man, she knocked out fifteen of the names from the list. That still left thirty-seven. Accounting for race, there were still too many options.

“Then why did you follow me?” If she kept him talking, she might learn enough. And if she kept him interested, he might just let her live.

The vampire shrugged, the motion practiced. He wore sin like a cloak, his every movement calculated to show him in the most seductive light. “You looked interesting.” He had the slightest hint of an accent, his r’s a little too thick. English, perhaps, but not for a long time.

“Do you often follow interesting women at midnight?” If he’d been human, she would be creeped out. But the threat he posed heated her blood, excitement sizzling in her veins. She never felt more alive than in these pre-fight moments, where her death could be dealt in seconds.

It was the curse of her destiny.

“Oh,” he drawled, taking a lazy step toward her. “I wouldn’t say it’s the middle of the night.” His cologne was woodsy and intoxicating.

Gold smiled, she couldn’t help it. While doing so, she reached into her pocket and grabbed the most dangerous weapon she possessed. Her cell phone. She swiped the screen open and pointed it at him. “It’s 10:57, that’s close enough.”

He waved his hand, making a dismissive sound. “Not nearly midnight. The night is still young.”

Gold crossed her arms and leaned back, keeping her phone close. “So, do you have a name?”

“Adam.” He offered it with a smile and a glint of white teeth. “And what about you?”

Adam Luther. The Scourge of the Somme. Ice chilled her spine and any forbidden desire went up in smoke. A hundred years before, he’d torn through Europe, killing soldiers on both sides of the war and wreaking general havoc.

The earliest sighting of him was more than three hundred years earlier, making him one of the oldest known vampires in existence. And no vampire lived that long without learning to wield cruelty and violence like a finely honed blade. There was no such thing as a good vampire. Especially not a good
old
vampire. She was in more danger than she could have imagined.

How had he come to town and no one sensed it? He’d been working at a bookstore, for God’s sake. How long had he been in Jasperton? Even standing right in front of her, he was hard to sense without her trying. She could feel the vampiric presence pressing against her psyche, but if she didn’t focus on it, it faded into white noise.

Was this a skill that vampires could learn?

Her heart was pounding too hard. She knew it in the split second when his nostrils flared. In half a blink, Adam was beside her, one of her hands gripped in his own. She tried to struggle against him, but he was too strong. He raised her wrist to his lips and his fangs flashed.

He was going to kill her.

His fangs scraped against the delicate skin of her wrist, and the movement would have been almost seductive if not for the fear. With her other hand, Gold struggled with her phone, blindly unlocking it and punching at the screen. Lily was too far away to help, but that didn’t mean she was defenseless.

He sank his teeth, blood pooling on the surface of her skin, and sirens blared.

One siren, actually.

It was enough to startle him. Gold pulled her arm back and took off, sprinting toward the sanctuary. She clasped at the bite marks on her wrist, trying to staunch the blood. But her heart was pounding too fast and something about a vampire’s bite didn’t let wounds close quickly.

Her phone fell out of her hand, but she couldn’t stop to grab it. Adam was close on her heels and if she quit moving for an instant he’d be upon her. She didn’t look back. She could sense him, his hunger adding spice to his psychic imprint. There were less than twenty feet between them.

But the chapel was just across the street and there was no fence on this side of the park to separate it from the street. She could make it.

She ran blindly, not looking for cars. A truck’s horn blasted and she felt the gust of wind as it drove by behind her. A white picket fence demarcated the chapel yard from city property. Gold vaulted over it, falling onto her back when she came down.

She rolled onto her knees and sprang up. Adam had frozen on the other side of the fence.

His eyes narrowed. “I thought you were interesting before, love. But this is truly surprising.” He bowed to her, his hands flourishing like a courtier. Then he held up her phone. “Until we meet again, Marigold Jones.”

Adam rolled her name around in his mind. Marigold Jones. He wouldn’t have known it if not for the email notification on her lock screen. He liked the name, and the woman.

A huntress in his town. He should have known, but Adam had spent the last twelve years trying to live a simple life. He didn’t seek out danger or trouble, and only fought when monsters like ghouls and zombies threatened his neighbors. If there were such a thing as a vampire monk, the term might have fit, despite his well-earned reputation.

He didn’t linger at the Highdale Chapel. A huntress never worked alone, and there had to be a phone inside. He wouldn’t wait for her friends to show up. But on the off chance that her friends were nearby and ready to follow him, Adam didn’t try heading back to his house outside of town. He would not risk his security during daylight.

Besides, if he wanted to get any information off the phone, he’d need a computer. At home, he only had a tablet. So he headed back to the bookshop. Marigold had already seen him there and, while he doubted that she would hurt other humans to get to him, after tonight he couldn’t risk going back. It would be his final goodbye to his second home.

The walk back was short and he let himself in through the front door. Though the lights were off, his superior vampire senses and the glow from the street lamp outside provided enough light for him to see by.

When he stepped into the store, something felt off. The hairs on his arms stood on end and his mind screamed for caution. He wasn’t alone.

He opened the door to the back office and flipped on the light, ready to fight or to flee depending on what he found. Instead, he was shocked still. A ghost from his past stood in the middle of the room, a newspaper clutched under his arm.

He was short for a modern man, though when they’d met a hundred years ago, he’d been of average height, at 5’8” or so. His black hair was clipped short, and just as he’d loved to after the war, he wore red and black, the specter of violence evident in his clothing.

Richard Okano, former friend and one of the most dangerous bastards in the world.

Adam slid Marigold’s cell phone into his pocket. He didn’t trust Okano with it. The huntress was his to deal with, and he hadn’t settled on how he would handle the situation yet. But Okano only had one solution to dealing with his adversaries, and it had been true even when he was human.

Kill them all. Violently. Back then, it had been great sport, but Adam was not the same man these days.

And Richard didn’t know that Marigold was his enemy.

Her blood coursed through Adam’s veins, humming a symphony. Could an enemy make him feel like that? He’d barely drunk half a sip, but it was like taking in pure liquid energy. One pint from her and he’d be sated for months. No, he didn’t want to kill her. But he wanted to drink deep. Almost forgotten desire surged within him.

If he buried his cock deep into her, would he find the pleasure that he’d been robbed of for centuries? He ached to find out.

But not right now. Adam locked down those thoughts. If Okano found out about her, he’d want to join in. Marigold would be dead before the morning, and no one was going to hurt her, not until he was done with her.

Okano raised an eyebrow and Adam realized that he’d been staring at him dumbly for several seconds. "What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were in Sierra Leone.” He wasn’t afraid; Okano wouldn’t hurt him. But that didn’t mean that Adam wanted to be anywhere near the man.

Okano laughed. He took the paper out from under his arm and dropped it down onto the desk. The entire back room was half office/half stock room, and entirely too tiny for both of their egos. "Not for a decade at least. Do you realize how sunny it is in Africa?" Vampires and sunlight did not mix, just as the legends said. Walking into the sun was like diving into a vat of acid and then stepping through fire. If you got out in time, you might survive, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.

"I must have missed the postcard." Adam crossed his arms and leaned back against the small sliver of wall beside the door. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually spoken to Okano, and until tonight, he’d been happy to keep it that way.

"You always were the funny one, Luther." He took a seat at Adam’s desk and leaned back, clasping his hands behind his dark hair.

"We can't all be as pretty as you." During the war and the years after, they’d had a rhythm. Adam could feel the siren song of old habits, but he resisted, and it wasn’t even difficult. He wasn’t that man anymore.

"You're full of shit. I like that." Okano turned his attention away from Adam and picked up a framed staff photo beside the computer screen. It was from a charity dinner his employees had hosted two years ago. "Who's the redhead? She looks delicious."

He knew that tone of voice. Okano was already fantasizing about what he could do to Kelly, a sweet girl who’d worked for him that summer. "I can't remember her name," Adam lied. "But she screamed beautifully as I drained her." Okano didn’t need to know that she was still alive; it was the best way to keep her safe. And he
really
didn’t need to know that Adam hadn’t killed to feed in a very long time. Since making the choice, he’d lost power, but he’d never felt more clear headed.

"Is that what this is?” Okano asked, looking around the back room. “Your own little farm? You always were clever." Some vampires did that, groomed humans and raised them as food. During the old days, Adam had disdained the lack of sport. Now he found the practice purely horrific.

"What are you doing here, Richard?" Adam demanded. He wasn’t going to waste the night speaking to a man he hoped to never see again.

"Can a man not drop in on his oldest friend?” Okano looked legitimately hurt. Adam wondered what kind of world a man had to be living in where he could think that the two of them were still friends. “What is the country coming to?"

Okano reached over and flipped open the newspaper, the spread covering all of the documents on the desk, along with the computer keyboard. "Anyway, I wanted to let you know I was in the city. The
actual
city, of course, not this little… place.” He was referring to Chicago. “Drop in if you're ready for a bit of sport.” He placed a red and black business card on top of the newspaper. “By the way, you'll need to fix the lock on your back door. Some miscreant broke it." Without waiting for Adam to pick up the card or read the paper, he took off.

Adam waited until he heard the back door bang shut before he placed the business card to the side and picked up the paper. It was obvious what article he was supposed to read. A smiling picture of a young blonde girl sat next to a picture of a beach with police tape set up around the parking lot.

The body of Hannah Barrons, 19, of Kankakee, washed up onto Loyola Beach… Police speculate this was an accident… Ms. Barrons was a student at Northwestern… Her body was mutilated… ship’s rudder… terrible tragedy.

It went on and on, but Adam got the picture. Okano had just declared that Chicago was his. Adam doubted that Ms. Barrons was Okano’s first victim, and the fact that she’d washed up on the shore meant he was still making some effort to disguise his kills. If the corpse was so badly mutilated that the police thought she’d been killed by a ship, it meant that Okano’s cruelty and ferocity had increased a hundredfold.

Was it the blood madness? In the olden days, it had nipped at Adam’s heels, the seductive call begging for death and destruction. Those that surrendered to it lost all semblance of their humanity. They transformed into beasts, growing out claws and fangs as big as a jungle cat’s. Adam hadn’t tangled with that beast since he stopped killing, but he could remember the darkest days when he almost gave himself over.

Okano hadn’t completely surrendered to it, not yet. If he had, he would have never been able to come and speak to Adam. Was it a cry for help? A final plea before the darkness took hold? Or was it as he said, an invitation to the revelry?

Adam took a seat and rested his head in his hand. He was old and tired. A small but growing part of him longed to see the sun one final time. And now he had to face a maddening vampire and a huntress who tasted like daylight and power.

He pulled out Marigold’s phone and hit the home button.

>>ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED<<

He sighed and tossed it onto the counter. His talk with Okano had taken too long, and she’d bricked it, either using a computer at the chapel or calling one of her friends to do the job. Adam cursed. All he had was her name.

But he was going to find Marigold Jones. After all, he knew of a dangerous vampire that she might be interested in learning about. They both had to keep their city safe.