Worth Dying For (19 page)

Bane flinched. “Not at first. That’s another reason why the ones who accept their new lives and survive the change are so well protected.”

“Bound to one man or enslaved by another. It’s not much to offer a girl, Bane.” Her weak smile made it clear how she felt at the prospect.

Her reaction sobered him—he hadn’t given much thought to what she would think of their way of life. “Those are not the only choices for you.”

“But you said—”

“I only need to claim you to prevent Ulrich using you and, if you wished it so, I would leave you in peace after that.”

Her answer wasn’t the one he had hoped for. “Why doesn’t Ulrich just take the women he wants? He has absolute power after all.”

“He used to but he lost so many of his strongest men, who died fighting trying to rescue their women, that he relented. I think finding his daughter made him understand.”

“He found Katerina?”

“Many hundreds of years ago, he stumbled across a child abandoned in a forest. He took her home and raised her as his own, out of curiosity more than love. By the time she reached adulthood, he felt like a father to her and changed her on her twenty-first birthday to keep her with him forever.”

Bane explained why Katerina and her family had so much power. Ulrich was one of the original vampires—born in a time when dragons roamed the earth and the people lived side by side with such mythical creatures and beings.

“There are only a few ancient species that survive today. Vampires, werewolves and shape shifters, having the advantage of a more developed brain, quickly rose to the top of the food chain.”

Amber’s nimble mind leapt to another subject. “If he is so powerful, why does he need to court politicians and use soldiers to protect him?”

“To prevent his homeland being invaded and himself from attack, human or otherwise. There are other clans of vampires in different parts of the world. Ulrich and his family are not the only abomination your God inflicted on the world.”

The change of subject caught her unawares. She swivelled around to look at him.

“He’s not just
my
God. Don’t you believe in him?”

“You would not believe either if you had seen what I’ve seen.”

“But I have seen it remember, and I still believe.”

The conviction in her voice made him sad. Did humans cling to the myth of a deity because reality was too horrific to bear?

She ran her fingers across his hand, bringing his attention back to her. “That’s the reason I could never give up my soul. I believe in Heaven and the hereafter. When I die, I want to go to a better place.”

Bane shrugged her off, frustrated by her blind belief. “You would give up eternity in exchange for a fairytale?”

Amber tried to pull him back to her but he resisted. “If you could guarantee eternity then it would be a different matter, but I have seen your kind die too.”

“And your loving God would judge you on something you had no choice in?”

“But I do have a choice Bane. To end my life by agreeing to what you suggest is suicide. It is a mortal sin punishable in only one way. As guilty as I feel about his death, I have no desire to join Tom in Hell.”

“You choose to believe that. You’re using it as a way to punish yourself.”

She flinched. “It’s the way I was raised. The thought of him being there horrifies me but I can’t dismiss what I know to be true just because I can’t handle thinking about it.”

“But if I took away your choice—did it regardless of your wishes?” He smiled to show her he had no intention of acting on his words—not right then at least.

 
“Then I suppose my soul would be saved, but I would feel about you as you do Katerina. Is that what you want, Malachi?” He shook his head but she didn’t let him off so easily. “You have to promise me that you won’t do it against my will. Promise me, Bane.”

He gave her his word, vowing that she could trust him…but unsure that he could trust himself to simply watch her die.

* * * *

Amber learnt more about the man who was now her lover, as well as her saviour, over the following days.

She learnt he had an easy humour and liked to laugh, that he loved her spirit and fire but hated it when she swore. He said it surprised him to hear the ugly words coming out of such a beautiful mouth. Amber had rolled her eyes and told him to kiss her ass. Bane
had
laughed at that.

But he refused to believe that she wanted him sexually, insisting she was simply reacting to stimuli designed to trap and kill her. Still, he didn’t object when Amber tried to prove him wrong. He would never allow her to be under him though, worried that the urge to bite her rather than himself would be too much. Nor would he let her kiss him as she wanted to.

Amber watched him often, unsure if he knew she was doing it. She saw inside his seemingly fearless exterior and found nothing but loneliness and painful desolation. His absolute conviction in the belief that her life had more value than his scared her. She imagined she represented salvation to him or a kind of absolution for his sins he hoped to find through sacrificing his life for hers.

Amber thought more about the solution he had offered, to become a vampire like him. She didn’t envy Bane his personal hatred and lonely life, albeit self inflicted. And she couldn’t handle the thought of never seeing her family and friends again. But more than anything else, she couldn’t ignore her fear of eternal damnation. Bane argued that God and the Devil were nothing more than myths, created in medieval times to control the peasants. But if she had ever doubted the existence of true evil before, she believed in it now. What she seen and heard since the day Bane came into her life had convinced her.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d had time to calmly assess her feelings for Bane. Amber knew that terrifying circumstances like these could throw even the most stoic of people into another’s arms. She didn’t trust her growing affection for him, despite the fact it made her time on the island easier.

Amber awoke one morning, less than a week since she’d left her home and everything she knew, to find him staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. His rigid posture made her think something was wrong at first but he simply said he’d been waiting for her to wake up. He dragged her from the bed, insisting they had much to do.

“Can it wait a minute? I need to pee.” She smiled, hoping to ease the tension between them but he simply nodded and turned away, telling her to be quick about it.

“What’s going on?” she asked five minutes later, when she came back to find him pacing the floor.

“Nothing, I remembered I need to show you something.” He didn’t look at her and walked away, obviously expecting her to follow.

Bane took her back to the underground stream she had only just visited, pulling her onto his back and stepping into the shallow frigid water. The cave walls closed around them as they moved deeper inside the mountain and Amber felt the air getting thin as she struggled for breath inside the dark, moist corridors of rock.

Just as a sense of panic started to crawl up her spine and she was about to beg Bane to take her back, he turned a corner and she saw light flooding in through a small gap at the end of an even narrower tunnel. He let her slip down to stand on her own feet and led her closer to the hole.

“You’ll never fit through there,” she said, not understanding why he had shown it to her.

“That’s the point. This is your escape route. It leads directly to the beach.”

“Escape?”

Bane stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “If anything happens to me, this is your only hope. If I can’t fit in here, none of the others can either. It will keep you out of their reach until its safe for you to leave.”

“How will it ever be safe for me to leave with vampires on the island?”

“Stay in the middle of the tunnel until the sun comes up, and then crawl out into the open. They won’t be able to wait for you in the sunlight and even we can’t break through bedrock.” He pointed towards the gap to something outside. “I stole a jet ski a couple of days ago when I went to hunt and left it tethered at the water’s edge. Use it to get as far away as you can.”

“You didn’t tell me about the jet ski,” she teased, unsure what he was really trying to tell her. “You thought I would escape if I knew?”

“This is serious, Amber. I need to know that you have understood.”

She struggled from his arms, hurt by his impatience. “I know, hide in the hole until daybreak and then use a jet ski to run away.” He nodded, ignoring her sarcasm, apparently satisfied she had listened to what he had said.

“I know I am only an annoying and unworthy female but please explain what in the fuck the point of running away is.”

Bane didn’t take the bait. “If I am already dead, there may be no reason for Katerina to kill you.”

Amber braced her weight on the wall as a wave of the fear and dread she hadn’t felt in days washed over her—both at the thought of Bane dying and at the terrible retribution she had no doubt Katerina would unleash on her. She tried to take a deep breath to calm her reaction but the pitifully thin air did nothing except heighten her sense of panic.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Bane said, picking her up when she hadn’t moved or spoken for a few minutes. Amber said nothing more until they reached his living quarters.

“How likely is it either of us will survive this?”

“We’re not done for quite yet, my love.” Bane tried to hide the truth from her by turning away, but she saw the look of resignation in his eyes, despite his words. The unexpected endearment, along with the defeat in his voice brought a lump to her throat. She went to him, forcing him to turn around so she could bury her face against his chest as the tears came. He held her more fiercely than he ever had before.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he whispered into her hair.

“I don’t want you to die for me, Bane…but I can’t do what you want me to.” Another sob tore from her. “Please, don’t sacrifice yourself for me. If it seems you will lose, let them take me.”

Bane held her away from him, shaking her by the shoulders until she turned her face up to his. “I will never let that happen. If this ends badly for me, my only regret will be that I put your life in jeopardy by my actions and then failed to save you.”

“You didn’t know it would lead to this. I don’t blame you for anything.”

“Then don’t blame yourself either. This is about me. I am fighting for you but I’m fighting for myself too. Katerina has taken everyone I ever cared about. It ends now.”

Bane placed his lips on hers, kissing Amber in a tender way she hadn’t known him to be capable of. His touch left her breathless, but with emotion rather than passion. He groaned deep in his throat and Amber heard the centuries of pain and longing in the sound. She knew it would be echoing in the recesses of her mind for as long as she lived, no matter how much longer that proved to be.

He broke the contact, fervent endearments falling from his lips as he picked her up and carried her back through the cave and into the bedroom. “I didn’t know I could ever feel like this again, Amber. I just didn’t know…”

Naked and beneath him minutes later, Amber’s head reeled as it seemed Bane unleashed the full force of his passion on her. His hands caressed every inch of her body. He took his time, learning how she responded to each thing he did, working his way down to her groin and parting her already moist folds with a gentle finger. Amber needed him to put his mouth on her but she knew he had to be careful because of his venom. Bane worked over her, touching and testing until he got the response he wanted when he pressed a finger inside her and rubbed her clitoris with his thumb. He took over her mind as he controlled her body and she cried when he tried to deny his own release by giving her one orgasm after another.

When the spasms subsided for the second time, Amber grabbed his hair with both hands and dragged his head away from her groin, forcing him to kiss her. She groaned when he pulled away again and parted her thighs as he rose over her, wrapping her legs around his hips to stop him moving further.

“I want to feel you inside me,” she gasped into his ear when he stilled against her. ”Fuck me, Bane. Please.”

His reaction to her guttural plea was instant. Bane’s growl split the air, his hands grabbing her waist and holding her steady as he entered her fast and hard. Amber’s body jerked as wave after wave of pleasure went through her for the third time since Bane had carried her to the bed. He grunted above her, the sounds coming in time with his thrusts, his gaze never leaving her face. Amber focused on his mouth and the sharp teeth resting against his bottom lip as he gasped for air. He grabbed her arms, forcing them above her head and holding them with his own.

His climax started and he turned his face away from her, ready to inflict the damage on his own skin as he had before. “Bite me, Malachi,” she begged. “Please bite me, just this last time.”

Her words brought his attention back to her and, even as he continued to thrust, he searched her eyes for the smallest moment, his brow creased with confusion as if he couldn’t be sure he’d heard her properly. When she begged him again, he lunged forwards. His teeth grazed her skin, not yet penetrating and an image of him sinking them into her seared across her mind. Amber came again, her body anticipating the pain but exhilarated by the thought of the pleasure he would get from it. But the pain never came.