Son of Our Blood (8 page)

“Said to tell you if you stay, he’ll
make it worth your while.”

“No thanks.” When she tried to pay him
for damages, she was informed that the owner again took care of it. “Well,
thanks.”

She was sitting in her beater of a truck
trying to start it when the passenger door swung open and Mac climbed in. She
thought about demanding that he get out, but knew it was a lost cause. Instead,
she finally got the engine to turn over and she pulled out of the lot.

She didn’t care if he came or not. If he
really was a vampire, by the time they got to where she planned to stop for the
day, he’d be a crispy critter because she figured the sun was going to be up in
about an hour. Turning on the radio as loud as it would go, she pulled out into
traffic and drove on. This was going to be a really long trip.

~~~

Zachariah rose with the setting sun. He
reached beyond the lower levels where he was and found the house to be mostly
empty. He stretched his muscles and got out of his coffin. Moving to the
bathroom, he took a long, hot shower and dressed. By the time he made it to the
upper levels he was nearly an hour past sunset.

“Good evening, sir. There are several
messages for you. Most of them are your family. I dealt with the majority of
them, but there are…they are not happy with me.”

Zachariah figured they weren’t happy
with him either. He moved to the chair and sat, taking the notes from his
houseman with him. He skimmed over them without really seeing them and then
laid them down in front of him and looked at Gregory. “What is it that they
aren’t happy with you about? Maybe I can fix it.” He didn’t think it mattered
one way or the other if he did or didn’t, but he would say anything to keep
Gregory loyal to him. “And for the record, I don’t really care for any of them
right now.”

He snorted and took out a sheet of paper
from his coat. The man asked to sit and Zachariah nodded. “They wish for me to
get them donors. All of them. And one each. They are inviting so many guests to
this wedding I do not see how it would be possible. How would I even begin to
get each of the six hundred guests a donor? And where would I keep them? That
is the most…I must say, sir, I don’t understand the necessity of all this for a
human and a vampire.”

Neither did Zachariah. He didn’t
understand a great many things his family did, but letting his sister marry a
human, a human who had no intentions of converting, was just stupid. The man
wasn’t immortal and could and would die at any time. He looked down at the list
he was to fix and noted that his mother had said he was to make Gregory listen
to her. He took that one, crumpled it up, and threw it toward the trash can.

“Let me have your list and I’ll see if I
can get them to cut it in half. I’ll try for getting it all simply disposed of,
but I wouldn’t count on that.” He looked over the list. “Wedding cake? For one
human? That’ll have to go right away.”

He was handed a pen by Gregory and he
spent the next ten minutes going over the list. Of the one hundred and ten
things on it, he marked off all but five. And those five he was still thinking
about. He handed it back to Gregory.

“Make me a copy of this list and then
I’ll take it to them.” Zachariah stood up. “They think that because this is supposed
to be the marriage of the decade, everyone will want it to be a showy wedding.
I think she would be better off draining the human and then moving on.”

Gregory snickered and then started on
another list he’d pulled from his other pocket. “This one, sire, is to be for
the vampire dedication you were to have in two weeks. It is also, I believe,
your loyalty dinner. Should we try to have some fresh donors for this?”

Fuck, he forgot about that. It was a
yearly requirement that he hated. He had so few people who came, and those that
came only stayed long enough for them to say that they pledged themselves to
him and then they usually left. But his year part of the vampire council was
coming. It was part of the new look they were trying to bring about. A more
touchy-feely type of council.

“Do what you need to do and make it look
good.” He moved to the door and started out. “Don’t invite my family. Having
them here for this wedding shit is bad enough. I certainly don’t want them here
for this as well.”

Zachariah went out the door and into the
night. He needed to feed and he needed the spike. He shifted into his animal,
the bat, and smiled when he thought of what people thought of vampires and what
he did to make them believe that. He saw the woman about a minute before she
went into the store and landed in a tree to wait for her. He could almost taste
her now and couldn’t wait to get her. Moving closer to the ground, he shifted
again and stood with the shadows pulled around him. Tonight he was going to
kill twice. He was already excited enough to want to go and kill right fucking
now.

Chapter 7

Mac was pissed. No, that wasn’t true. He
was livid. He waited for her to say something…anything so that he could pounce
on her, but she simply sang along with the radio and ignored him. He looked out
the front window and realized that he had less than twenty minutes before the
sun would be too much for him.

He could stay out in the early hours. Sometimes
until ten or so, but not much later. The sun would be too bright and he’d be in
trouble very soon. He glanced over at her, wondering if that was her plan. To
fry him up and blow his ashes out the door as she sped down the road.

“I like her. You should probably try
talking to her rather than sitting there acting like the injured party. Sort of
like I’ve been doing with you and your aunt.”
His dad laughed in his mind.
“Of
course, you could find a nice hotel somewhere and mate with her. That would
make your mother very happy.”

“No. I thought you said you weren’t
speaking to me.”
He was glad that his dad had contacted him. It hurt him that his own father
didn’t understand
. “And I’d very much appreciate it if you’d just leave her
and me alone.”

“No. I can’t do that. Like I said, I
like her.”
He could feel his dad’s pain and held his breath waiting for the next words.
“I’m
sorry about this, son, but I feel that you’ve given me no choice.”

The truck swerved. And, when it did, Mac
knew that this dad had done this. Glancing at Brandi while he tried to get the
truck back on the road and under control by grabbing at the wheel, he realized
she was asleep or unconscious. He wondered if his dad was trying to make it so
he met the sun with her in his arms when he saw Tristan standing on the side of
the road just as the truck lurched to a stop when it hit a guardrail. Mac felt
his head explode in pain and his last thought was that Brandi was going to be
pissed about her vehicle.

~~~

Moaning, he came awake slowly. His mind
was fuzzy, but he could see that they were in his lair. It only took him
seconds to realize that Tristan, one of his uncles who had the ability to go
over long distances very quickly, had brought him back home. Mac reached for
and found Brandi by his side. He reached for the lamp and turned it on.

Her head was bloodied. There was a knot
on her forehead about the size of a lemon and both her eyes were blackened
already. He touched her mind to see if she had any brain damage and found that
while she did have a concussion and needed some stitches, she was fine there. He
stood up off the bed and walked to the side she was laying on.

Her leg wasn’t broken, but bruised
badly. Her ribs were cracked, three he thought, but nothing that was life
threatening. He ran his hand over the rest of her body and found some minor
cuts and bumps, but again nothing life threatening.

If he gave her his blood she’d heal a
great deal faster. If he didn’t, she’d live, but would be sore for a very long
time. He looked at her face, trying to figure out what he needed to do.

She was beautiful, her bruises
notwithstanding. Her eyes were a light purple to a darker almost black when she
was pissed. Smiling, he thought she was mad at him most of the time so he’d
seen very little of them light-colored. Her hair was dark; he thought it was
black, but right now he could see highlights of reds and almost blues. He ran
his hand over her full lower lip.

She was certainly kissable. He
remembered the dreams he’d had of her before he’d met her. He had no idea why
they had connected, but it had been incredible. She was responsive to him and
he found he wanted to see if she would be that way if they were actually
together. He leaned down and buried his nose in her throat. He wanted to sink
his fangs deep into her vein and drink from her. He lifted his head and bit
into his own wrist, then placed the open wound over her mouth.

“Drink from me, love,” he whispered into
her ear. “Drink from me so that we can be one.”

He wanted them to be one, too. When she
swallowed he felt his cock stir in his jeans. When she suckled at his wrist Mac
had a hard time not joining her on the bed and stripping her naked. He wanted
to watch her wake, wanted to wake her with his mouth.

 Running his free hand down her body, he
reached the juncture at her thighs. He pressed his thumb over her clit over and
over while she drank. When he pulled his wrist away and sealed the wound she
whimpered. Mac stood up and looked down at her. “Wake. Wake now, Brandi. I need
to see you.” Her eyes fluttered open and he commanded her again. She leaned up
on her elbows and looked at him.

“What happened?”

He knew she meant the accident, but he
decided to ignore that for now. His dad had a lot to answer for.

“I fed you with my blood so that you’d
heal. You drank from me.” Her eyes widened and she bit her lip. Christ, he
wanted her. “You’re mine, Brandi. Do you know what that means?”

“No. But if it means you and I are a
couple you’re off your rocker. You can’t simply just think all of a sudden that
you want me. You said all along that you’re going to kill yourself. Why the
fuck would I want you if you’re going to run out the first chance you get and
off yourself?”

He started to roar at her because he
said so, but he had a feeling she’d not take that well. He decided on the
truth, not that he could lie to her. “I was pissed and hurt. I didn’t want to
be a night walker. I think I knew that it would probably be that way for me and
I decided that…I decided that…”

“You decided that you’d be a big baby
and make someone pay for you not getting your way.” She rolled over the bed and
stood on the other side. “You said you gave me your blood. Since I don’t see
any transfusion machines I can assume that you gave it to me by mouth.”

He nodded. “Yes. It was the only way to
make your pain go away. I didn’t want to see you suffer.”

“I wasn’t. Suffering, I mean. I was out
cold. Why did you really do it? I’m assuming this, too, has something to do
with this whole mate thing.”

“You and I have exchanged blood and that
means we’ve bonded.” He looked at the distance between them and wondered if she
would leave when he told her the rest. “In order to be mates, we have to bond
and mate. Mating means exchanging blood while we have sex, a climax to be
exact.”

She moved to the chair and sat down. The
feeling of relief was profound. When she began rubbing her leg he stepped
toward her and she raised her hand. “No more touching until you clear a few
things up.” She nodded to the other chair and he moved slowly to it.

He was afraid if he told the truth she’d
leave him. And that, for whatever reason, hurt him tremendously.

“How badly was I hurt? The reason I’m
asking is because I hurt like a mother fucker now and if you made me better, I
think I might have been really hurt.”

“You had three or four cracked ribs. Your
leg was hurt, bruised, but not broken. You hit your head on the steering wheel
and had a concussion, but nothing life threatening.” He shifted in the chair. “You
would hurt a great deal more if I hadn’t healed you.”

“And me not wanting you to heal me
wouldn’t have had any bearing on what you wanted, correct?”

He didn’t answer her because he felt it
was a trap and anything he said would have been wrong.

“Why me?”

That threw him off. “You’re my mate.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t understand. You and I are meant
to be one and that’s why it is required of me to make you have no pain. I have
to protect you at all costs.”

“Not that you want to, just that it’s
required of you. I see. Well, that explains a great deal.” He didn’t understand
and when she stood, so did he. “I have to get out of town. I’m assuming that my
truck is wrecked. Did you have anything to do with that?”

“No.” He felt compelled to tell her his
dad did it so that they’d be together, but didn’t think she’d appreciate that
either. “I only gave you my blood. The accident wasn’t my fault.”

She moved to the door and tried to open
it. She wouldn’t be able to, not unless he let her. The door was there to
protect him from someone coming to harm him if he was resting during the day. She
turned to him and glared.