Honeymoon Bite (Golden Vampire Legacy) (3 page)

He stared at his sister’s cool steel blue eyes. Had he overstepped his bounds?

Laurel studied him as she raised Anne’s left hand and showed him the wedding ring.

She is married?

Envy and anger shot through his body. How could someone take from him what he’d been waiting for all these years? Who would dare do such a thing?

Laurel lowered Anne’s arm and tucked the comforter up around her neck, straightening her brown curls still caked in blood. With a finger to her lips, Laurel guided Marcus through the archway to his bedchamber and closed the door.

“This complicates our position here, Marcus.”

The words hung like weights attached to his heart. “Yes. I’ll pay the price if I must. No reason for you to suffer. Once she is out of danger, you should leave and not know anything about her.”

“No. I mean the marriage. She is not free to be your fated female. She belongs to another, Marcus.”

“But the fating . . . I
feel
it, Laurel.”

“And I believe you, but she is taken already. You know you will have to ask permission. What if her husband is human?”

Marcus’s huge frame collapsed to a sitting position on his bed. He glanced around the room. He had hoped tomorrow or the next night he could begin to spend eternity here with his fated female, at last. He would lovingly guide her, show her their ways. Bring her to life, to a life he hoped she would cherish and make her own. Give her time to feel the fating, and then they would mate, mate forever. He felt trapped in a fantasy of his own making.

His insides felt hollow as he spoke. “Then I will not touch her until I have permission. I will ask them immediately, after she has fully accepted the turning.”

“But you gave her life without their permission.”

“Yes. I had to protect her.” He looked up into the gentle face of his sister, his biggest supporter. A woman who had not yet found her mate, who devoted her life to making him comfortable. Her long face and quietly beautiful features never needed makeup, and she wore none. Her peach skin had a natural glow, framed by a perfectly heart-shaped mouth. Her long shiny light brown hair was tied back in a chignon.

They had spent the last century easing each other’s pain with a deep devotion and filial friendship. She had been his constant companion and kept him distracted from the fact that he had not yet met his fated female. If Marcus was right about Anne, Laurel would soon be left alone. He opened his arms to her and she kneeled to his embrace. “We’ll figure something out,” he whispered to the top of her head. “Maybe I just won’t tell the Council everything.”

Laurel separated, but remained kneeling in front of him.

“The Council will know what you’ve done. You can’t hide this for more than a day or two.”

“Yes, but by then, you’ll not be suspected of helping,” he said as he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“Is this worth the risk to you?”

“It is fated. I wasn’t given a choice but to answer the call to save her. Maya forced my hand.”

“As she does every time when it comes to you. The woman will claim your soul yet.”

“Her time will come,” he said. He stood, transferred a catheter to another bag, and resumed draining more blood, handing Laurel two full bags. “I must be protector first. Warrior second.” He pumped his forearm up and down. “Thank you, Laurel, from the bottom of my heart.”

“I only hope when I find my fated male it doesn’t cause me the amount of pain this is going to cause you. And everyone around you.”

“And then I will come to your aid, if needed.” He patted the top of her head. “Go tend to your patient, sister. Tell me she needs my touch, my blood.”

Laurel moved back to where Anne lay, and gave Anne Marcus’s blood. As minutes passed and the last drops drained, Anne opened her eyes and became fully conscious, inhaling deeply as if she’d nearly drowned. Marcus watched from the crack in his bedroom doorway.

“Where am I?” Anne whispered, suddenly looking at the plastic blood packet hanging from the stand.

“You’re at our clinic,” Laurel answered. “A private clinic, dear.”

“Where?”

“I think very near where you were . . . attacked.” Laurel picked up a chart and began to write in it. “May I have your name?”

“Anne Bal—”

Anne.
Marcus whispered it, but noticed both women looked to the crack in the door. Had she heard him?

“Well, Anne, you are very lucky we came upon you when we did. I’m quite sure you would have died in that alleyway tonight.”

Anne searched the room, her eyes darting over sterile instruments and a jar of bougainvillea blossoms Lauren had placed on the counter. Marcus knew she would think this odd for a hospital room. Her gaze rested on the stand that held the bag of blood.

“I needed blood?” she asked at last.

“Yes. You were drained to within an ounce of your life. How do you feel?”

Anne clutched the blanket close to her, and then looked under it.

“I’m naked. I guess a little cold.”

“You feel well enough for a warm shower? It might do you some good, but only if you feel up to it.”

“Oh, yes, I’d like to get clean, get all this . . .” She fingered the long curls matted with dark red blood.

Laurel helped her fragile, naked body up. Damn. She was still wrapped in that damned comforter. He longed to see her naked form. Anne allowed Laurel to escort her to the bathroom so she could wash up. Marcus had to work not to throw himself in there and rip that blanket off.

Anne, I could warm you, warm you in ways you can’t comprehend.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Marcus heard his sister whisper.

“Yes, oddly.”

“We use lots of lemons here, so I have wonderful smelling lemon soap and blood orange shampoo. But keep the bandage on your neck for overnight.”

Laurel closed the bathroom door and shot Marcus a disapproving frown. She scooted him away and closed the door behind her as she whispered her disapproval, “Voyeur! Mind yourself.”

She barred the door to his prying eyes and listened, waiting for her patient to finish. He returned to his bedchamber to retire for the evening, alone.

Marcus knew Laurel would make a good sister to Anne, in time. His fated female was going to need a confidant if they were all going to survive together. He heard the loud click of a lock and knew Laurel had intended to keep him away from her tonight.

He smiled at the thought. Nothing could ever keep him away. Not now.

Anne had been convinced she was in an outpatient treatment center and had decided to stay overnight and until mid-morning the next day. She was dosed with another infusion of the blood cocktail she’d received the night before, and the blood seemed to heal her further. Marcus wanted to join them for breakfast, but Laurel insisted he not. Anne didn’t finish her eggs, but took three glassfuls of blood-laced orange juice.

“What is this? It’s delicious.”

“I put a spot of my sweet tomato puree into the orange juice, along with some cranberry juice. Unlikely combination, I know, but our water here doesn’t taste very good and this masks it.”

“Never had it before. I love it.”

Laurel explained they were a neighborhood center run by a charity that tended to victims of street violence, alcoholics, and drug addicts. Marcus overheard her tell Anne they liked to operate outside the jurisdiction of local police, but offered her the chance to file a report, which Anne declined.

“You’re going to feel a little different, as you heal. I have given you our ‘miracle drug,’ formulated for this very purpose. It aids especially in the healing of skin scrapes, and . . . puncture wounds, like those on your neck,” Laurel said.

“But she bit me.”

“No, I think you hit your neck against a couple of sharp objects, perhaps some glass, as you fell against the curb. In these dark places at night, it is easy for the imagination to fly.”

Marcus could tell Anne wouldn’t argue, but she didn’t believe Laurel one bit.

“You may hear strange sounds—even think your hearing is changed. And you might have more difficulty sleeping. You’ll have the desire for more . . . protein, especially meat, which would be good for you right now. But stay indoors at night. And don’t wander around alone.”

“But I am alone.”

“Forgive me, but I see that you are wearing a wedding ring. Surely your husband must be curious where you spent the night last night?”

“No. He’s back in California. I am here alone.”

“Most unusual for a woman to be traveling alone.”

“It wasn’t planned that way. It was supposed to be my honeymoon. I was married just two days ago.”

“Ah, then perhaps it would be better to go back to him, now that this has happened?”

Marcus’s hands balled into fists and he clenched his jaw. The thought of his woman going back to the arms of her husband in California filled him with fury. How could a true and honorable man allow his new bride to travel unaccompanied?

“No. I’m afraid the wedding has been a huge mistake, so I’m going on without him. I planned it, paid for it. I’ve always wanted to drive the coast of the Mediterranean, and I’m going to do it. All alone.”

They watched her walk away from the villa down an uneven street. Marcus wanted to go with her, help with her new life, but knew it was unwise. He hoped Maya didn’t know Anne still lived. Watching her disappear around the corner was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

“She is lovely, Marcus. A perfect match.”

“Yes. I felt that the instant our eyes met.”

“But I wonder, will it be enough?” Laurel was always the practical one.

“It has to be,” he answered, and put his arm around his sister. “It just has to be.”

“Then there is hope for me yet, brother.”

“Always. There’s always hope. I’d almost given up, but now there’s a bright future.”

“I must pack. You are sure I shouldn’t stay behind for a few more days?”

“No, Laurel. It’s too dangerous. Best only one of us is exposed to it. I don’t want you anywhere around when the summons comes from the Golden Vampire Council. And they
will
summon me.”

Bright pink bougainvillea covered the villa. He did think the flowers bloomed brighter this morning. As soon as Laurel was distracted with her packing and left the house, he would find Anne again.

Chapter 3

When Anne had awoken in the hospital that morning, it hadn’t taken long for her to learn she was now able to hear through walls and smell things from far away. The cacophony of conversations rolling around in her head made her dizzy.

Her flesh felt firm and smooth, as if stretched over cool marble. Colors were intensified. She could even smell the droplets of water holding fast to the walls of the clinic’s stainless steel sink. Even the wind had a woodsy taste.

The nurse had said things would change, and she would need protein. She was absolutely starved for a burger. All meat. No bun.

She made her way back to her hotel, stopping at a kebab vendor on the way and devouring four skewers of hot lamb. With each step she took, her muscles seemed to expand and harden. The smell of jasmine and lemon blossoms created a heady elixir. She let her hair down to fall over her face and neck, enjoying the sensual caress.

And she was horny as hell.

By the time she made it to the hotel room, she felt like showering again. She stripped and stepped inside the marble alcove, luxuriating in the feel of her own hands caressing her skin as she squeezed her breasts and pretended a dark lover was suckling them. She placed her fingers between her legs and stroked herself, causing spasms to twist her body inside out. As if some dark lover pressed himself against her back, she felt addicted to his scent, the smell of his need of her. Looking behind her, all she saw was steam. Anne wanted him.

Who was this dark fantasy man?Where did this image come from?

The new clothes the nurse at the clinic had given her even smelled like him.

Anne had made up her mind not to get involved with any man until she could heal, but now, in her newly aroused state, she was in need of a man as she never had been. She was steeped in dangerous and wicked thoughts of tasting and
mating
. Not sex, but
mating,
needing it like an animal in heat. She felt stronger than any man she met on the street, but ached for the man that would tame her, breed with her. A dark instinct was gaining dominance over her emotions.

I am in season.

Marcus should have left her alone, but he couldn’t. He was drawn to her body just as if there were tethers connecting them, tethers he would gladly wear. Chains even. He didn’t care.

But that was a foolish thought.

Having done his duty by seeing her safe return to her hotel, he could have just walked off into the misty streets like any number of gentlemen coming home from a rendezvous. But he couldn’t help himself, and instead stood under the blooming pear tree outside her hotel room. He needed to feed in her arousal, bask in her desire. Her scent worked like a homing beacon, a searchlight over the dark and dusty waters of the last three hundred years. He wrapped himself around the lamppost to keep from
tracing
a path to her. He had to be careful. She was not fully available, though he knew she belonged to him. And though it burned a hole in his soul, he stood strong and drank of this bitter cup.

He heard water. Anne was showering. He saw opportunity.

He traced to her bathroom, and, without showing his form, invisibly watched her naked body for the first time. He then wondered how long he’d be able to contain himself but couldn’t bring himself to leave.

She bent over, extending her hand to feel the warmth of the water, and then adjusted the brown fluffy curls of her hair with a clip. He would buy her a diamond-encrusted one, he thought. He would be the only one allowed to lace his fingers through her hair and remove that clip and have her locks fall down over his chest as she released herself to him in every way possible.