Marked: a Vampire Romance (7 page)

Adam was a fool. He’d spent the last week pining after the huntress and hoping she’d return to the store, knowing he was even more an idiot for changing his mind about abandoning it. Each morning as he curled up in his bed just past sunrise, he’d close his eyes and let the increasingly erotic dreams take over. And when he’d woken up today, he’d been certain that if he only stroked himself long enough, he’d find his release.

But it didn’t work like that for vampires, and he was not fool enough to try.

He should have never taken her blood. It had been a foolish move after she’d left him, but it had been everywhere and he’d been so thirsty. All told, he’d been able to scrape together enough to get a good taste, but not a satisfying feed.

Yet it was only now, more than a week later, that the first pangs of hunger were starting to hit him. He’d have to find someone to sate it, but after his taste of Gold, he didn’t know how anyone would live up to it ever again. If vampires could become addicted, then he was well on the road to being hooked on her.

In an effort to keep at least some level of sanity, Adam had doubled down on his quest to find Okano. There’d been no sign of him since he disappeared at the Great West Hotel. Adam had driven down and walked the area, hiking into the woods and trekking around the abandoned warehouses in that part of town.

No bodies. No mutilated animals. No vampire.

But searching for one beast led him on the tail of another, which brought him to the Jasperton Cemetery at midnight on a Thursday. All the signs: two torn up raccoons, busted windows on a family crypt, and a lack of any other wildlife pointed to a fresh ghoul.

It was late enough that he was the only person in the cemetery. At least that was what he thought, until he heard footsteps heading toward him. Suspecting that it was a security guard, he ducked behind a tall obelisk just off the gravel path.

A moment later, his senses told him that it wasn’t a security guard. It was Gold.

He knew he should leave. She had to be back in fighting form by now and had no reason to give him the time of day—well, night, to be exact. But Adam couldn’t help himself. The urge to see her, to speak with her, overrode his hard earned sense of self preservation.

He stepped out onto the path.

Gold stopped and looked him up and down, smirking. “Did you come to hang out with people your own age?” She wore dark jeans and a dark top covered with a leather jacket. In her hand she held that wicked edged silver knife that she’d had at his house. Her blonde hair was held back in a tight braid. A warrior princess.

Adam grinned and nodded down the path. “I've got a poker game with an old bag of bones in a crypt down the way.”

A laugh escaped, but she cut it short. “What are you doing here, Adam?”

She’d never called him by his first name before. He just kept grinning. Maybe they weren’t on the verge of bloodshed, after all. He shrugged and answered. “Same as you, I think.” She was good at her job and had probably tracked the ghoul as well.

She gave her head a little shake and started down the path. Adam went with her, expecting her to try and stop him, but she said nothing. She looked good in the moonlight. Her movements were smooth, unhampered by the injury she’d recovered from. He wanted to ask how she was doing, but he worried that if he spoke, she’d tell him to piss off.

He couldn’t have that. So they walked in silence.

It was a large cemetery, used by most of the people who lived out their lives and died in the Jasperton area. Some of the gravestones had dates reaching all the way back to the town’s founding in 1824, though they were all clustered in a gated area near the entrance.

He and Gold walked through a newer area, the gravestones only going back twenty years or so. Trees and saplings formed neat lines between the rows of graves, and every thirty yards or so, there was a monument or family crypt. The cemetery had spread out like a city, naturally growing as more and more citizens died. At night it was peaceful, if not for the threat of the stalking ghoul.

An owl hooted, but Adam reacted to the sound on instinct, stepping close to Gold and putting his hands up, ready to fight. She’d jumped into action, her knife held high, back to his, trusting him to shield her from threats coming from behind.

Realizing what it was, they both stepped back, keeping a healthy distance between themselves. They walked on in silence, not mentioning the defensive posture.

Several more minutes passed with nothing but the sound of their footsteps and breathing. Adam was coming to realize that if the ghoul had ever been here, it had moved on for the night.

“I already read it,” Gold said out of nowhere once they came to a stop, her eyes scanning the edge of the cemetery. They’d reached the hedge that acted as the northern fence of the property. No ghouls, no vandals, no vampires.

Except him, of course.

“The Art of War?” Even he wasn’t sure why he’d given her both books. Or why he’d written the note. They’d reached a nice clearing between graves, only a crypt off the path offering cover in a fight.

He wanted to taste her, but he didn’t want to hurt her.

“No.” She took a deep breath and said, “Pride & Prejudice.”

Adam barely breathed as he walked over to her. He wanted to reach out and cup her face in his hands, lean in, and taste her lips. They were connected somehow, through the marks on their flesh and through their battles. He wanted them connected in body as well.

“Have you fed on anyone since…?” She trailed off, not quite looking at him while she asked the question. Her voice was so low that if he hadn’t been a vampire, he doubted that he could have heard her.

“Why?” She knew he was a vampire, knew he had to feed. That he hadn’t been able to think of feeding on anyone but her was beside the point.

She held her hand up but then pulled it back and grabbed onto her opposite elbow. “Because I can't just let a vampire go around eating people.” She threw up the arm she’d been moving. “It's not right.”

“What do you suggest? That I drink only from you?” He meant it in jest, more or less.

Gold put her knife back into its sheath, silently admitting that they were no longer on a hunt. And that she wouldn’t hurt him. “What's it like?” She tried to sound casual.

“What?” Adam could have tripped on a pebble at that moment. He’d been sure that they were playing a game, that his feelings would never—could never—be reciprocated. He hadn’t really let himself believe that she might be struggling with the same attraction.

“I've been having these… whatever.” She trailed off again, giving up on trying to explain. “I don't know. Never mind.”

He’d been given his inch, and he wasn’t letting it go. “I can give you a taste. Just a sip.” Adam took her hand and brought her knuckles up to his mouth. He brushed his lips against her warm skin, his fingers sliding down until he felt her racing pulse. He could see the dark lines of the mark on her skin creeping out from the sleeve of her shirt.

“I'm sure that's what you tell all the girls.” She tried to sound flippant, but there was a catch in her voice.

“It will feel good, I promise.” He’d had centuries to perfect bringing pleasure to his lovers. A feed, to be truly enjoyable, needed to be a decadent experience for the woman he took. When done right, it was more intimate than sex. “You're the only person I've wanted since we met.” The thought of drinking from another woman repulsed him. Gold was the focal point of all of his desires.

Gold flipped her hand over, clasping his hand. She pulled him off the path and pushed him down onto the stone bench beside one of the crypts. They were already alone in the cemetery, but now they were also out of sight if anyone did walk by. “Do it before I change my mind.” She said it quickly, but her eyes were bright with fear and excitement. Anticipation.

This was not how he’d expected the night to go. To taste Gold, straight from her veins, to have her offer herself up to him. This felt too real to be a dream, but it was almost impossible to believe that it was reality.

She was staring down at where their hands were intertwined. Adam flipped her palm up and stroked his thumb against the faint veins beneath her skin. Her fingers curled in instinctively.

This wasn’t just about blood.

He looked up at her and reached over with his other hand to tilt her head up by her chin. A million words raced through his mind, warring for what to say to her. She could get scared at any moment, so he had to make this good for her. He had to be worth it.

And yet, he’d give up the taste of her blood for just one kiss.

Those dreams had turned him into a maudlin fool. He’d survived for centuries by acting quickly and taking what he needed, ignoring what he wanted until he was sure he’d survive.

Screw survival.

Adam leaned forward and swiped his lips against hers, tasting the chemical berry flavor of her lip gloss and the alluring feminine flavor of
her
underneath. Her mouth opened under him, tongue cautiously peeking out, taking her time to savor him. He felt her hands bury themselves in his hair, casually undoing the tie he’d used to hold it back, and Adam groaned, pulling her close.

She was soft against him, her chest flush against his. This was life, this was why he’d sought her out. Kissing her in the flesh was so unbelievably better than it had been in the dream. How had he ever mistaken
that
for pleasure?

Already his cock stirred, hard for her. He couldn’t explain this sexual hunger. It was tied up with his need for blood and yet separate at the same time.

He kissed along her chin and down her neck, taking his time to taste every inch of her that was bare to the night. Adam nipped at the pulse in her throat, almost able to taste the hot blood pumping.

Gold pushed against his chest and he pulled back, afraid that he’d gone too far.

Instead, she offered him her wrist. “Here,” she said. “I can’t cover up my neck as easily.”

When she said that, he perversely wanted to bite her throat and mark her as his. But he took her hand and kissed the pulse there, rolling up his eyes. “As you wish, love.” The endearment slipped out and Adam’s own heart swelled.

It wasn’t true. Not right now, not yet. He only knew the idea of her, only knew what she’d shown him. But if they kept this up, he’d fall over the cliff and never try to climb back up. No, if they kept this up, he’d dive off that cliff head first.

Adam traced the dark lines of the mark around her wrist with his tongue and she gasped. He still didn’t understand what it was, how it connected them, but on her it was beautiful. Then in a flash he broke her skin and her blood flowed.

It was pure lightning, red energy beating through her body, pumped by her heart. Her blood was the best, most powerful thing he’d ever tasted.

Electricity flashed behind his eyes, turning everything white and blanking out the rest of his senses. There was only Gold. It was like the dreams again, but this time he could truly taste her. A connection bloomed between them, the branches of the mark on his own arm climbing across his vision until they merged with hers.

An impossible knowing overtook him. He had no other way to describe it. He could see into Gold’s soul, see the goodness, and those few specks of darkness, that made her who she was. She shined with the bright light of the sun, fierce in her purpose, bright enough to burn him to cinders. Instead, he basked, the light not blinding, but warm and comforting, enveloping him completely.

This knowing didn’t give him facts. He didn’t know her birthday or the name of her third grade teacher or any of the millions of details that made her who she was.

It gave him truth. He’d been certain he wasn’t in love with her, but now her heart beat in time with his own and he couldn’t be sure.

The world fell away and then it was just the two of them. They were no longer sitting on a bench in the Jasperton Cemetery. Adam no longer had his teeth buried in Gold’s wrist.

They stood in a forest of barren birch trees, white trunks growing high up around them, empty branches in a naked canopy above. A blanket of fresh leaves crinkled beneath his feet.

“What is this place?” asked Gold. She stepped close to him and Adam grabbed her hand, keeping her close.

“I’m not doing this.” He was speaking to her in this vision, but was vacantly aware that they were also still back in Jasperton.

This is where it ends.

The words echoed around them, bouncing off the trees. It was an eerie, ghost-like voice. Gold’s fingers squeezed his tight.

And then the vision dissolved and Adam was back on the hard bench with Gold practically sitting in his lap, her wrist held tightly to his face. He pulled back, reaching into his pocket and grabbing a handkerchief.

Adam wrapped his fingers against her wrist. “It will stop bleeding soon,” he said.

Gold placed one of her hands on top of his own. “We’ve got time.” She leaned in and kissed him again.

The taste of her mouth mixed with the taste of her blood, and desire roared inside Adam. It was impossible, but he was absolutely certain that if he took her right now, he’d empty himself inside of her, bringing pleasure to them both. Her blood was so powerful, the strange bond between them so firm, she was returning this lost bit of his humanity to him.