Chasing Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (15 page)

I don’t know for how long I stood that way, but the next thing I knew, Mark had entered the bedroom—I hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs. I turned to him as he shut the door, and was shocked when he was in front of me in two long strides, his mouth crushing mine in a fierce, almost painful kiss. His arms were like vises around my body, but somehow I found room between us to grab at his shirt, wanting nothing more right then than to feel his sparsely-haired chest beneath my hands. My mind barely registered the tearing of the fabric, followed by more tearing when Mark returned the favor and tore my own shirt open. Even as he continued to punish my mouth, his tongue tangling with mine or roving over my teeth, feeling the sharp points of my fangs as they came down, his hands moved to my front where he next grabbed hold of my bra and tore it as well. He took a breast in each hand, pinching and rubbing my nipples as he had earlier that day, and I moaned with pleasure.

I kicked off my shoes and reached to pull my socks off, then shimmied out of my jeans and underwear. I reached for Mark’s jeans and opened his fly, desperate now for the feel of him in my hands, inside my body. I had just pushed his pants and briefs past his hips, freeing his already throbbing erection, when he spun me around and bent me forward. I lay down on my forearms on top of the low dresser to give him better access, and a second later I cried out as he took me from behind. One of his hands grabbed my shoulder as the other reached around me and massaged my clitoris. Already waves of pleasure began to spread through me and I moaned again, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

The sound of skin slapping against skin was strangely erotic to me, and I found myself crying out, “Yes! Oh, yes!” At the sound of my voice, Mark groaned and began thrusting harder, faster, and I moved with him, meeting each of his thrusts with a backward movement of my hips. The speed of the fingers massaging my overly sensitive nub increased to match the pace of his gyrations, and I began to feel a massive orgasm building in my core. When it hit me I screamed in ecstasy and instinctively grabbed hold of the hand grasping my shoulder. I brought it to my mouth, biting down on his wrist.

Blood flooded my mouth, and the flavor of it was like nothing I had ever tasted before—warm and thick, it was richer than the finest Swiss chocolate, with just the right amount of salty tang. It was incredible! I realized that my enjoyment of it was increasing the pleasure I felt from my orgasm, and I held him to me tighter as I took more and more of it, never wanting the sensations washing over me to end.

Somehow, some way, a sound broke through the fog of my feeding frenzy. I couldn’t say what it was, but it dawned on me with sudden, alarming clarity that I was drinking Mark’s blood. With an anguished cry I threw his hand away from me and disengaged our still-joined bodies, turning around just in time to catch him as he fell.

“Oh God, what have I done?” I breathed in horror as I retracted my fangs and lowered us to the floor, grabbing his wrist to put pressure on the wound—the wound I had caused. “Mark? Please, oh please, say something! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

Mark moaned, and a moment later his eyes fluttered open. His gaze was clouded, like he’d been dazed by a blow to the head.

“Mark, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!” I said.

He struggled to sit up, swaying as he did so. I held him still with my free hand, and when he had taken a few deep breaths, he removed my hand from his wrist. Already the bite wound had closed, the teeth marks no doubt the angry pink of a fresh scar, which I knew might well be gone in hours. Yet I feared that it would, like the shrapnel wound on his neck, leave a permanent reminder.

“I’m so sorry,” I said again, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I never meant to hurt you.”

He reached up and brushed my tears away. “You didn’t hurt me,” he said slowly. “Felt like a bee sting, honest.”

I couldn’t believe he was being so casual about it. “Mark, I drank your blood! I haven’t lost control like that in nearly two hundred years—hell, I haven’t even had human blood since I was fifty years old! Please forgive me, I didn’t mean to—”

Mark hushed me by placing his lips over mine. When he sat back, he said, “Saphrona,
it’s
okay. Hell, it’s probably my fault. “

“How is it your fault that I attacked you?” I asked.

He sighed, and I noticed he wore a chagrined expression. “I all but forced myself on you—I’m the one who should be apologizing. It’s just… I couldn’t seem to help myself. Once I saw you, all I wanted to do was take what was mine. You were probably reacting to that. I can’t blame you for following your instincts.”

“If I’d thought you were forcing yourself on me, Mark, I wouldn’t have given myself so freely,” I said.

He looked at me with a small smile on his lips, and other things occurred to me suddenly: the sounds…and the smells. Although with my heightened senses I could hear and smell more than a normal human, the blood I had just ingested—
dhunphyr
blood—made every sound and every smell so much sharper and clearer. The thump-thump of Mark’s heartbeat seemed louder, and I could now hear the whoosh of his blood as it flowed through his veins. I knew just from listening to it that his pressure was low, but again, that was my fault. And the smells! The musky odor of sex was ripe in the air, but stronger and much more attention-grabbing was the scent of Mark’s blood. I found myself licking my lips and looking down at the wrist I had bitten, and I recalled how delicious it had tasted. How warm and rich. I began to salivate just thinking of the wonderful texture of that hot, thick fluid washing down my throat.

With a sound like a roar I stood and threw myself away from him, and stood with my back against the bedroom door, my chest heaving. “I am a monster!”

“Saphrona,” Mark said, standing slowly. When he had to lean a hand on the dresser to steady
himself
, a strangled cry escaped me. “You are not a monster.”

“I drank your blood. I could have killed you!” I cried. “The man I love, whom I have loved for more than two centuries, and I have done that which I swore I would never do! And what is worse is that I know I’ll only want more—even now, I can think of nothing else but having another taste!”

“You said that you love me,” Mark began, shucking his jeans completely and taking a step closer. “I think that because of that love, that’s why you stopped. You didn’t kill me, Saphrona, and I don’t think you could. Whether you want my blood because it’s human instead of animal or because I’m a
dhunphyr
, you still stopped.”

He had stepped closer to me with each word, until he was standing right in front of me. I looked up at him, knowing a mixture of fear and hunger was in my eyes. “But what if it happens again? What if next time I can’t stop?”

Mark raised his hands to cup my face and leaned closer, and when he spoke I felt the warmth of his breath on my face. “You’ll stop,” he said simply, and gently touched his lips to mine.

I could only wish to have as much conviction in my entire body as he had put in those two little words.

*****

I did not sleep that night. After he had kissed me, Mark picked me up and carried me over to the bed, where he set me down and then lay beside me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me against his chest. While I relished the closeness and the warmth of his body, I did not find any comfort in the circle of his arms.

I was too busy cursing myself for what I had done. What I still wanted to do. I had harmed the best thing that had ever happened to me, and there was a very real chance I would hurt him again. Now that I had tasted his blood I was only going to want more of it. His ready forgiveness for that act of transgression astounded me—I simply did not understand how he could be so confident that I would stop if I were to bite him again, and I did not think that I deserved his faith in me.

As soon as I was assured by the steady rise and fall of his chest that Mark was asleep, I extricated myself from his arms and got out of bed. Putting on a robe, I went downstairs and found Moe and Cissy asleep on the couch. They raised their heads and looked at me when they heard my cautious approach. I patted both on the head and scratched behind their ears, whispering an apology that they had been shut out of the bedroom. Content that their mistress was alright, the Chihuahuas laid their heads back down, and with a tandem sigh both went back to sleep.

In the kitchen I found everything as I had left it, and morosely began the task of cleaning up. I tried to be quiet so as not to disturb Mark or the dogs, scraping the left-over food into a small bucket I’d retrieved from under the sink to be carried out to the pigs in the morning. After washing the dishes and turning out the kitchen light, I retreated back upstairs. I felt restless, my body still buzzing from the power of Mark’s blood. After a look in the bedroom at his still-sleeping form, I went downstairs once more and padded into my office, where I fired up my computer and…

At first I sat staring numbly at the screen, unable to think of what to say. Then, thinking of how much I hated myself for having enjoyed drinking from Mark, I leant forward and began typing furiously. Word after word appeared on the screen, page after page was filled, and by the time I heard the alarm go off in the bedroom, I had written another ten chapters. Unfortunately for my protagonist, she was now going through the same thing I was: self-loathing.

Saving the latest addition to my story, I shut down the computer and got up. Though I had not heard him rise, I found Mark in the bathroom washing the dried blood from his arm. My gut twisted to see that there was still evidence of what I had
done.

Seeing my expression, Mark gave me what I assume was supposed to be a reassuring smile as he showed me his wrist. “See?
Didn’t even scar.
Maybe only mortal wounds scar me,” he said with a shrug.

“But what if I attack you again?” I countered. “I still hate myself for betraying you like that.”

With a groan that spoke clearly of his exasperation, Mark turned to me. “Saphrona, stop it. You did not betray me, okay? So you bit me in the heat of the moment, so what? Stop beating yourself up for doing something that’s only in your nature to do.”

“But what if that nature leads me to kill you someday? I could not go on living if I ever lost you.”

He reached for me and I went willingly into his arms, wrapping my own tightly around his waist. “I don’t believe you would do that. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I also know that you love me, and your love for me would never let you go that far. At least you didn’t turn me, right? I’m not in the midst of becoming a vampire, though at least if I were I’d be assured of being able to love you forever.”

“You won’t turn, Mark, hybrids don’t…” I looked up, startled. “Did…did you just say you love me?”

Mark smiled. “I guess I did. And I mean it, too. The rational part of my mind can’t help wondering how it’s possible when we’ve only just met, but it’s something else that I just
know
is true. Like how I know that if you ever bite me again, you’ll stop before you go too far.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And you’re okay with that? That I could bite you again and drink your blood?”

He shrugged. “If it makes you happy, or it’s something you need…”

His voice trailed off, and I felt his eyes on me. I knew it was because heat had flushed my cheeks, for I had recalled just how happy drinking his blood as I came had made me, having given me the most mind-blowing orgasm I’d ever had. I hadn’t wanted to dwell on that as I kicked myself all night because of how much I hated the fact that I’d bitten him in the first place.

“What is it?” he asked.

I shook my head, not wanting to answer, but Mark took my chin in his hand and turned my head so that I had no choice but to look at him. “Tell me what you’re thinking, love.”

“Nothing.
It’s just… Biting you when I did, at that precise moment…”

A sly, sexy grin spread across his face as realization dawned. “You liked it,” he concluded. “Not just because you were drinking my blood, but because you came harder than you’ve ever come before. I like that.”

And then his mouth came down on mine. My lips parted to allow his tongue entrance, and mine tangled with it as our mouths fused and our hands roamed over each other. Mark pushed my robe aside and fondled my breasts, while I splayed my hands across the planes of his tight, muscled chest. In the next moment I was being lifted so that my rear was on the edge of the sink. I reached down and pushed the sweatpants he had donned down his hips, pleased to see that he wore nothing else
underneath, and that he was once again as ready for me as I was for him.

I spread my legs and he stepped into them, entering my quivering folds as I braced my feet against the door of the cabinet under the sink. He kissed and licked his way from my mouth and down my throat, until he had the hard pebble of my right nipple in his mouth, sucking and licking until I gasped. He switched his attention to my left breast, his hips thrusting in a gentle rhythm as I rocked on the edge of the marble countertop, one of my hands grasping his firm, perfect rear, the other fisting in his hair.

Incrementally Mark increased his pace, and I knew that he was coming close to his climax, just as I was mine. He lifted his head and looked into my eyes, which were languorously heavy-lidded.