Honeymoon Bite (Golden Vampire Legacy) (2 page)

BOOK: Honeymoon Bite (Golden Vampire Legacy)
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“You’re going to have to get that changed.” He fingered her passport.

“First thing when I get back, don’t worry.”

She was itching for a shower to wipe off all the traces Robert had ever been in her life.

The flight to New York was uneventful, except they upgraded a Realtor to the first class seat her husband was to have. Anne wanted to sleep, but the woman just liked to hear herself talk. The stewardess must have guessed Anne’s pain from the state of Anne’s makeup and her red eyes, because she kept Anne’s wine glass filled. In time, the drone of the Realtor’s voice merged with the drone of the plane engines, and Anne gratefully fell asleep.

She woke up when the tires hit the tarmac at JFK with a jolt. Her neck was stiff and drool had dried down her chin. After exiting the plane, she hobbled to a nearby women’s restroom and washed her face, reapplying makeup and deodorant. With soapy fingers, she tried removing her wedding band, but it was no use. The detritus of her marriage was going to have to stay for a while.

Her carefully coifed curls were tamed, secured with a red scrunchie. She added red lip-gloss and lots of blush. She was a desperate woman, after all. Who but a truly bad person would leave her five thousand dollar wedding gown in a garbage can on the street? She added more red to her cheeks.

Better.

Her cell phone had practically been glowing with calls and messages
.
Her brother wasn’t someone she could ignore. After texting him, saying she was on her way to Tuscany,
by herself
, she asked him to return all the wedding gifts.

Sam: Sis, u OK?

Anne: *&^&*^*%

Sam: LOL That’s my baby sister. Now I’ll stop worrying.

Anne: Shred the license.

Sam: ??

Anne: The wedding license from the minister. I didn’t sign it. It goes away.

Sam: It never happened. Consider it gone.

Anne: Tnx. Luv U. ttfn.

She flipped her phone shut and turned it off.

With a pounding headache, she boarded the nonstop to Genoa at midnight. The glittering lights of New York moved beyond her line of sight in the tiny window at her side. She adjusted the air, turned off the reading lamp and, all alone, in the dark, under the skimpy green airplane blanket, began to cry herself to sleep.

 

The pink Italian sun timidly poked its afternoon nose into Anne’s heart as she exited the airport in Genoa. She was transported to the Swiss Hotel, and within minutes was standing with her bag in the middle of the bridal suite. She took a shower and fell asleep under the cool sheets and heavy damask comforter.

Anne awoke a couple of hours later to a bright orange and purple sunset that bathed the already warm colors of the ancient village square around the corner from her hotel. She passed by open-air cafes crowded with locals, noticing couples holding hands all around her.

Is the whole world in love except me?

Violin music called to her from a neighborhood gypsy café a block off the square. She was going to wait in line, but flickering candlelight that illuminated a chapel at the end of a cobblestoned street caught her eye. She changed course and entered the sanctuary of light as a heavy bell rang, startling her.

Inside, the lonely violin music echoed off carved stone columns in the narthex. The floor was travertine and heavily veined marble in shades of grey, black and sienna. At the front of the church a couple sat, whispering with a priest, their heads bowed. She dipped her fingers into the cool water of the sacristy and, as if they could hear the droplets coming off her fingers, the trio looked up at her.

Anne moved to the side, where a table was covered in garnet-colored votive candles. She lit a votive, and using a stubby yellow pencil from a basket filled with scraps of paper, she wrote her prayer, folded it once, and slipped it under a votive. Her last view up to the nave as she left the chapel was that of the three figures, now standing, ready to leave.

As she wandered the streets of Genoa, the scent of citrus blossoms filled the night air. The dark streets felt oddly safe and familiar. She turned a corner and slammed into someone. She gasped and looked up to see a woman with jet-black hair, dark eyes, and a muscled and toned body. She wore the strong perfumed scent of a woman, and her lips were neon red.

Anne was about to apologize for her distraction when the woman’s lips pulled back in a smile, revealing two large white fangs.

Blood pounded through Anne, through her head. Sound muted. Her vision narrowed to focus on the sharpness and angle of the woman’s fangs. Her mind eliminated all other thoughts but the terror and havoc those fangs could cause. Her body refused to move. Blotches appeared before her eyes, as if she were having a cluster migraine.

“Your mistake to cross my path tonight, human. Now you’ll pay for it with your life.”

The woman’s words echoed through the empty night but Anne couldn’t make sense of what the woman’s words. She couldn’t run. Could only struggle to suck in oxygen. The vamp seized her body, then tossed her high in the air to let her fall to the ground. A sharp snap and pop sounded and pain shot through Anne. Her mind struggled to make sense of the attack, but all she knew was that something was broken inside her. Bones. Free will. Both.

 Anne’s scream was cut off abruptly as fangs lodged deep inside her neck. A sweet delirium engulfed her. She thought she heard fluttering in the background, perhaps voices, but the blotches in her vision started connecting with each other and at last, there was only darkness. She collapsed onto the cobblestone alleyway, into the arms of a dreamy sleep that she knew would surely precede her own death.

At least death didn’t cheat, she thought just before she lost consciousness.

 

Chapter 2

 

When the woman had entered the chapel, Marcus had seen her face for the first time. He’d known in his heart that he had found her at last. As she’d disappeared behind a pillar of stone, he’d been thirsty for the sight of her.

This is the fating calling to me
.

He heard the chicken scratch sounds as she wrote on a slip of paper, heard the pencil being put back into its basket, and the drop of her coin in the prayer box. The flame that roared to life when she struck a match roared an echo in his heart. Blood pulsed throughout his body, making his hands tingle and his face flush. She was so close to him now. After three hundred years of searching, she had finally arrived in his life. “I’ve found her at last,” he said to his companion and the priest. “My fated female.”

He heard the heavy doors at the entrance slam shut, echoing off the ancient stone, as his beloved left the chapel.

Marcus finished his business with the priest, begging off any further entanglements, postponing decisions, duties, and promises, and went in search of her.

As he passed by the bonfire of votives where she had stopped to write, he was compelled to stop. He wove his hands through the air and found the little candle flame that protected her prayer. His fingers were drawn to the stiff cream vellum. He drew it to his nose and drank her scent. He read the words aloud softly:


Help me find the true love of my life. Help me bring to him all the love that still lives in my soul. Please let me remember the magic and power of this place. Anne.”

Could she have been talking about him? As his eyes had moistened and he’d rubbed his forefinger against the words she had delicately crafted in pencil, he’d heard her scream. With horror, he’d realized the fantasy in his heart had put her life in danger. He’d looked around the chapel. Maya was no longer standing beside the priest or anywhere in the building.

He flew through the ancient doors and into the night, tracing the woman’s steps, until he came to the dirty alleyway where Maya crouched over his female. In an instant, he was at her side. He pulled the vamp by the hair, turning her face to his. The blood of his female was on Maya’s gums, dripping down her fangs and onto her chin. She smiled.

“She is delicious.”

How he wanted to end Maya’s life right there. The directive not to kill another golden on pain of death was the only thing that stopped him, but he felt the urge to twist her neck and remove her head. Gripping her long black locks at her scalp, he swung her like a hammer toss overhead and threw her as far as he could. She cackled, her voice sending an eerie promise of further evil as she catapulted through the sky, end over end until she landed some distance away. Her ghoulish deed had ruined his life, altered his path forever, and that of the woman he now knew as Anne.

He bent down. His female’s body looked pale and fragile. Her dark hair lay across the wet cobblestones, like a matted pillow. The ample mounds of her breasts pushed against her blouse; pert nipples made peaks in the bloodstained fabric. Her waist was small. One knee was bent, with her skirt hitched, to reveal creamy, unblemished flesh that covered her thigh. He cupped his palm under her knee and straightened her leg.

She had sustained a scrape on her forehead, which was bruising, but way too slowly. Her cheek was smeared with grit from the alleyway where she fell. He touched the bite wound on her neck with his fingertips coated in his own saliva. The blood stopped flowing, and she was the color of death. But still beautiful. The sun had set on this human life of hers.

There wasn’t any time to consider other options. He opened the blue vein at his wrist, puckered her chalky pink lips, pulled her jaw down to open her mouth, and poured a small stream of his own blood onto her tongue. She would come to life again. If he hadn’t been too late.

A minute passed with no reaction. He traced his thumb against her lower lip and blew into her face, whispering the ancient calling. There was always the possibility that the change wouldn’t take, that she was incompatible with the vampire blood gene, but he knew she was his fated female, and as such, his blood would heal her as nothing else could. She was getting cold. He rubbed her arms and cradled her against his chest.

All of a sudden, like something out of a fairytale, her body stirred. She arched up, inhaling deeply, but remained unconscious, eyes closed. His Snow White, needing a lover’s kiss to awaken her from a deep sleep.

He covered her mouth with his lips and tasted his fated female for the first time. Her coldness sent a shiver down his spine.

I’ve found you at last.

She would need more blood, and soon, and she would need medical attention. He was sure Maya had damaged Anne’s body, possibly gravely. But it was good she was breathing on her own.

Welcome to my world. Our world, my beloved. I didn’t want it to happen this way.

She would need undisturbed sleep, away from prying eyes and instruments, and then be given more of his blood. Cloaking them both, he basked in the feel of her head, gently propped against his chest, as he transported her through the night sky to the villa he shared with his sister. The touch of her breasts through the fabric of his silk shirt soothed his soul. She would live, he felt certain. He had given her the only chance she had at another life. As he drew her essence in and allowed it to fill his lungs, her scent coated his insides. Where her body touched him skin on skin, he tingled.

The villa appeared, covered with bright blooming pink bougainvillea that defied the night’s darkness. He brushed back her long, dark brown hair from her pale face that remained caked with her own blood. He laid her down in the small anteroom off his bedchamber. The smell of her wasted and violated blood was dangerous perfume. Anger burned a hole in his stomach.

He looked over the body of his beloved. Her full breasts rose and fell with her shallow breathing. His blood had brought a peach blush to her plump cheeks and full lips. Her delicate neck, marred with the wound that still gaped, had re-opened to reveal a faintly throbbing vein under pale flesh. He touched her there, tracing his finger up to her ear, and heard her moan. She must have felt the same delicious tingle he felt that extended up his arm, warming him all the way to his heart. He sifted his fingers through her hair, then positioned her face, rubbed her temples, and watched her arch and take one long, deep breath.

My touch is good for you. Yes, beloved. I will heal you inside and out.

He had hoped someday this little room would be a nursery, had planned it for over a hundred years. How fitting that he’d brought her here. It was her new birth, her new life of forever. She would take her first breaths as vampire here. Close to him, but not yet
in
his bed.

He wanted to lay next to her, naked, to take her in the ancient fating ritual, but he could not risk it until the turning was completed and she gained her preternatural strength. Not until she could look at him with her turned eyes and want him as her mate. He would not force her. But how he needed her!

He summoned his sister, Laurel, who examined Anne, then dressed the wound to let it bleed out and purge Anne’s body of Maya’s poison. Laurel objectively checked Anne’s vitals, something Marcus could not do. He retreated to his bedroom to prepare blood for Anne’s next feeding.

Laurel timidly entered his chamber and gave him the news that Anne would live. But Laurel did not smile, and instead told him that the turning had started and taken hold, that Anne was already strong in her new form. But still no smile graced Laurel’s lips.

“There’s a complication, brother,” she said.

Marcus didn’t like the dark timbre of her tone.

“Come, and I’ll show you.”

Laurel opened the door and the two of them approached his female, lying naked under a down comforter. He wished he had been the one to remove her clothes. He was jealous of even his sister’s touch upon Anne’s fragile skin. But he would not take what she wasn’t conscious to give her consent to. His fingers fluttered in the glorious feel of her deep breathing, just above her face, as he bent to touch the lips that would soon give back the flame of their eternal love.

Before his fingertips could caress her mouth, Laurel stopped him, gripping firm bony fingers around his wrist.

BOOK: Honeymoon Bite (Golden Vampire Legacy)
5.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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