Forbidden Blood (Vampire Venators Romance Series) (26 page)

Her gaze followed him now. He shoved some clothes and ammunition into a black holdall that would fit in the space behind the two seats of his car. He placed it beside Amber and then took her clothes and handbag and piled them into the bag on top of his things.

“Where are we going?”

Kearn glanced at her. What he was considering was either a wise move or insanity.

“Down to the car.” He took the bag from the bed and slung it over his shoulder. “You will have to close your eyes again.”

She looked nervous but nodded. Kearn scooped her up into his arms, angling her so she faced his chest as he cradled her. He couldn’t let her walk. She would slip on the blood or would see it on her shoes.

He stared at the door. Nerves twisted his stomach.

Amber looked up at him.

“Promise me you will not look.” He needed to know that she wouldn’t see what he had done, what he was capable of because of her. “And take a deep breath and do not let it go until I tell you.”

“Promise,” she whispered and buried her face in his neck. He heard her breathe in and motioned with his hand, opening the bedroom door.

He was across the apartment in a heartbeat and out of the front door. He shut it behind him, shifting the locks into place, and walked down the hall. When he reached the end he said, “You can breathe now.”

He would need to contact someone to clean his apartment. He knew a man who could take care of it. Once he had Amber somewhere safe, he would see if they were available for an immediate clean up, and would ask them about improved security for the building while he was at it.

Kearn set Amber down when they reached the ground floor and drew his gun. His arm tingled and then blue light shone from the marks on his fingers. He shook it away. The vampires who had attacked him hadn’t taken forbidden blood. The man was playing one hell of a game sending innocent vampires his way. It wasn’t as though he wouldn’t kill anyone who stood between him and his quarry, and who tried to harm Amber.

The blood bank truck door was open and the smell of vampire blood was strong in the air.

Venator Greystone.

He dropped the bag from his shoulder and holstered his gun.

He found her sitting on the floor desperately trying to heal a deep cut on her arm. Blood covered her black jacket sleeve and the metal floor, stark against the silver material and pristine white environment. Her fear tainted the air. Her bloodline was weak enough that she could bleed to death from the right sort of wound.

This one looked right.

He went to mount the metal steps into the truck to help her but stopped when he sensed a shift in Amber’s feelings.

A glance over his shoulder confirmed that she was watching him, her eyes narrowed in a challenge. She hadn’t shown her jealousy earlier but it was painted in neon across her face right now. He wanted to tell her that his helping the Venator meant nothing. There was no reason for Amber to be jealous. He had no interest in the other woman.

Amber’s eyes widened an almost imperceptible amount and he knew she had picked up the message from his blood. She blushed. It was a delightful colour on her. He saw a flash of her on her back beneath him, her cheeks crimson and flushed, her lips parted with staccato breathing and her neck bloodied, marked by two puncture wounds.

The vision faded and he stared at her.

She didn’t take her eyes away from his while she raised her hand to her throat. Her fingers grazed the bandage there.

Kearn turned away, clearing the vision from his mind and closing the connection between them a fraction. Her blood was influencing him too much and he needed to think straight. He stepped into the truck and took the Venator’s arm. She tried to pull away but he didn’t let her go. He tore the sleeve off her black jacket, revealing a long gash down her upper arm. Part of him didn’t want to heal her, not when Amber was watching, waiting for him to make a wrong move like this, but he had to help her. He licked the wound until he was sure that it had stopped bleeding and then grabbed the bandage she held and wrapped it around her arm.

“I apologise, Lord Savernake.” Venator Greystone bowed her head. “Men came after you had left. They were too strong for me. One wore a mask.”

Kearn sensed Amber tense.

“They attempted to kill me. I managed to get one of them.” Venator Greystone tried to stand. Kearn stood and offered his hand. She took it, pulled herself up, and held her arm. “The vial. I had finished testing it when they attacked me. They took the vial. It tested positive.”

Venator Greystone glanced at Amber and then looked back at him. Her green eyes shone with understanding.

“I can see you were only helping the human survive and will report so. I must report what happened though, Lord Savernake.”

Kearn nodded, wishing that she would stop calling him that name because Amber stared at him every time.

“I will file a full report.” He intended to do no such thing. The Sovereignty already knew what had happened and that he would test positive. There was no point in reporting it.

His name was on the screen of the laptop on the white work surface above the cupboards, along with the results of his blood test. It troubled him that they had taken the vial. Did they intend to blackmail him?

If they threatened him, if they wanted Amber in exchange, he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t let them have her. He hoped they were only after the remnant of her blood in his but he couldn’t think why they would need it.

He bowed to Venator Greystone and she lowered her head.

Amber backed down the steps when he approached her and stood on the pavement.

“Where are we going?” The lingering trace of her fear still ran in his veins, tainted by jealousy and a hint of anger.

He stepped down from the truck, his expression pensive.

There was only one place where they might be safe.

It would be almost impossible for the vampire to get Amber while she was there. He would make her stay there while he hunted the man alone. She wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t have a choice. It was too dangerous for her to go with him. He had to keep his promise and protect her.

He was getting ahead of himself.

He had to get them to accept his request first and that wasn’t going to be easy.

Could sixty years heal the pain he had caused?

Kearn stared at Amber. There was no other way. The man had compromised his apartment and he needed to take her to a safe place. He could only hope they wouldn’t turn him away.

If they refused, it would be the final blow.

He would bear the pain and sever ties with his family forever.

CHAPTER 18

A
mber sat in the passenger seat of Kearn’s car. The silence was oppressive but her thoughts weighed so heavily on her that she couldn’t find her voice to break it.

Everything had happened so quickly back at Kearn’s apartment and she was still trying to catch up. She had fallen asleep on the couch and had a fantastic dream about him biting her that had felt incredibly real and then she had awoken to the sound of the door opening. She had fought the two men, all the while calling out for Kearn.

And then she had known he was coming for her.

Amber looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was deep in thought, his silver finger-length hair swept back out of his face to reveal his handsome profile, but that wasn’t the only reason he was quiet. He was worried.

“I knew you were coming for me,” she whispered, afraid to voice it any louder in case he thought she was insane.

“It is my blood.” He glanced at her.

His blood. She touched her lips. Her curiosity had driven her to taste it and she had been surprised to find that it tasted the same as hers did—metallic. She had thought that vampire blood would taste different. Perhaps it was because she had blood like a vampire’s that hers tasted the same.

Did they taste the same to him? He had licked his own blood and even that other Venator’s without taking any pleasure from it. When he licked her blood, it was as though he had tasted something intoxicating and heavenly, and she always had the feeling that he wanted more.

His gaze dropped to her throat and then he fixed it back on the dark road ahead of them.

“Your blood is still with mine. A theory says that it is your blood transmitting back to you from within mine, causing a cycle within us both—a connection,” he said.

Maybe she wasn’t insane then. There really was a connection between them and she really had felt his feelings. And he really could turn it off. She frowned when she realised that she couldn’t detect his worry now. He had shut her out.

“It is how I knew you were in danger.” He turned a corner. They were heading down onto an empty motorway. Where was he taking her? “Your blood called to me and mine relayed my feelings back to you.”

Amber went quiet again. At the truck, she had felt what he had wanted to tell her. He didn’t want the female Venator. He desired her.

She blushed and felt his eyes on her.

The silence grew heavy again and she tried to think of something to say. The only thing that leapt to the front of her mind was probably something she shouldn’t ask, but she had to know.

“At the apartment… what did you do?”

That question hung in the air between them. Kearn’s look darkened and he glared at the road.

“You do not need to know.” He seemed to think there was a lot that she didn’t need to know, but she did. She had to know what he had done and why he hadn’t wanted her to look. Was it so horrible that he hadn’t wanted her to see?

“Why?” She turned on the seat to face him. He put his foot down and the engine roared. The world sped past in a constant line beyond his profile. His grip on the steering wheel tightened and his jaw tensed. She felt a glimmer of anger within him and something else. Fear. “Because I’m just a human? I won’t tell anyone… no one would believe me.”

“No!” The force behind that word made her jump. His tone softened. “No… not because of that… because you would fear me.”

Amber felt the pain in him. He didn’t want that to happen. She reached over and touched his left arm, curling her fingers around it.

“I already told you that I’m not afraid of you… Kearn,” she whispered and meant every word with all of her heart. He looked at her, his eyes fixed on hers, dark in the low light, and kept driving. She smiled. “That does frighten me. You can drive without looking.”

He smiled, and he was beautiful. The hope in his eyes, the fear she could feel mixing with relief, and the warmth. Everything about him in that moment was beautiful, and she wasn’t afraid of him. Whatever he had done, it had protected her from those men.

“Where are we going?” She tried it again.

He looked back at the road.

“My home.”

Amber frowned. “We were just at your home.”

“No.” The note of worry was back in his deep voice. “My family home.”

She swallowed at the thought of being around so many vampires again. Would she be safe there? Would his family protect her? Kyran had been cruel to Kearn at the ball. What if his family were like that too? She didn’t want him to go somewhere that would hurt him just to keep her safe or to find the man.

Kearn touched her knee and her gaze fell to his hand. It was pale against her dark jeans. Her thigh warmed beneath it, a buzz tingling where it rested.

“I will not allow my family to harm you.”

As she stared at his hand, it dawned on her that she wasn’t worried about herself. She was worried about him again and wanted to tell him that but the words evaded her. She stared into the darkness beyond him, thinking everything over. Back at the ball, women had called Kyran Marquess Savernake. Tonight, the Venator had kept calling Kearn Lord Savernake.

“Your family is powerful, isn’t it? That hunter… she was almost subservient.”

Kearn nodded. “The house of Savernake is a Noble bloodline and one of the three strongest and oldest. The Montagu bloodline is above mine, and above that is the family that has ruled us all for centuries. Pendragon. Their annual visit to my family is due shortly, but if we are there, I will not need to attend the formalities, and neither will you.”

Amber raised her eyebrows. “Because you’re a Venator?”

His expression turned grim and he nodded.

Just how lonely had his life been? How did he feel about killing his own kind? She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to take someone’s life. Had he grown used to it? He hadn’t hesitated back at the apartment. She had been too scared at the time to wonder what he had been doing but now she wanted to know. Had he killed them with his arm, with the power he held in it, or did he have other powers too? The more she knew about him, the more she realised that he had only shown her the tip of the iceberg. He had kept her in the dark and she wasn’t going to let it continue, not anymore. She wanted to know him, even if some of it frightened her, and she wasn’t going to give up until she did.

First, she wanted to know why his own species despised him.

She couldn’t quite believe it was because he was a Venator. They hadn’t treated the other Venator with contempt.

Was there another reason why?

Amber stared ahead at the road. Kearn pulled off the motorway and drove onto a smaller road, heading into the countryside and away from London.

His family were powerful. Their house would be as grand as Duke Montagu’s, she was sure of it. Would Kearn receive the same cold welcome there?

CHAPTER 19

N
erves rose in Kearn with every passing second of the long drive from the gates to the main house, until they gnawed at his insides and whispered dark words in his mind. He was insane to bring Amber to such a place, to return after all these years without warning, but he had no choice.

He stared always ahead, his eyes fixed on the golden wide façade of the palatial house. Most of the windows in the three rows were unlit. If he were lucky, the majority of the residents would be out hunting or on errands. If he wasn’t lucky? Well. He glanced at Amber. He could only hope that things didn’t turn violent. He didn’t want to have to fight his own family.