Bound: A Vampire Romance (Marked by Night Book 2)

by Sara Thorn

  “One…” he whispered. His quiet voice encircled me like an intoxicating smoke.

  I could feel the tips of his gloved fingers reach out from his side to touch my thigh.

  I tried not to breathe him in, but when I held my breath for even a second, it sent my heartbeat rattling irrhythmically inside my ribcage.

  “Two...”

  I felt his chest rise up and down against me in slow and heavy breaths.

  “Breathe, Mara,” he said.

  I sucked in a breath of air and could taste his closeness on the tip of my tongue. My mouth opened on its own as I tasted the air between us. I waited for the count of three. I waited to hear him say the word before my body betrayed me and did something foolish. Why is “three” taking so long?

  Quinn swelled against me, and I felt his gloved hand gently pull my waist slightly toward him.

  Where in the hell is “three?”

  I was scared to open my mouth to ask him to say three, for fear that it would invite his tongue inside. I stood there transfixed until Cassius suddenly came into the hall and threw Quinn backward.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted at Quinn. Rage bubbled over like black lava in his eyes.

  Quinn got to his feet and stood looking at me from behind Cassius’s body between us.

  “Are you okay?” Cassius asked me.

  I felt as if I had just come off of a hugely intoxicating high. “Yes, I’m fine. Cassius, I’m sorry, nothing happened, I swear,” I clamored.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said to me.

  I was kind of surprised. I expected him to be angry at me for not moving away from Quinn.

  “He was using a fae glamour on you.”

  “What?” I yelled at Quinn. “You used magic on me? Why would you do that to me?”

  “There was no glamour being used,” Quinn said. “I assure you.”

  “That’s a lie,” Cassius hissed. “I can see through your shallow magical spells. I could see the aura of the glamour. Don’t think you can lie to me.”

  “There was no glamour,” Quinn said again.

  Cassius was starting to lose his cool with the situation.

  Then I remembered our deal. “You told me I could take off your gloves,” I said.

  Cassius looked at me with a shaking head. “You made a deal with him?”

  “Only to stand still for the count of three,” I said. “He promised that I could take off his gloves to see his hands if I didn’t move.”

  “Do it,” Cassius snarled at him. “She held up her end of the bargain, even though you cheated by using magic on her. Take off the gloves and show her.”

  Quinn slowly pulled the long glove off of his right hand and then proceeded to push up the sleeves of his white shirt until they reached his elbows.

  I gasped when I saw it. Every finger, his whole hand, stretching all the way up past his elbow, was black. It was the same with the other side once he had removed both gloves and rolled up both sleeves. He held both of his hands in the air to show us and then unbuttoned his shirt to slide the collar off his right shoulder. There, covering his shoulder and spreading onto his chest, the blackness stretched out over his body like tendrils.

  “Oh my God, Quinn, what has happened?” I asked as I felt the tears sting at my eyes.

  “You need to get help for this,” Cassius said. “This magical degradation will continue to spread unless you seek help.”

  “And what kind of help do you suggest that I seek?” Quinn said condescendingly. “Sen was the best healer among my people, but she is dead. Love has power against such things, but you seem to have stolen that from me, too. Who exactly is it that you think is able to pull the cost of all the shadow magic that you and your brother have made me do from my veins?”

  Cassius stood speechless as he faced Quinn.

  “That’s what I thought,” Quinn said as he turned and walked away.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked Cassius, still shaken by what I had seen. I cared for Quinn, that much hadn’t changed, and I couldn’t bear to see some sort of consequential magical plague overtake him. “We have to help him.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said as he took my hand. “But I need you to stay away from Quinn for now.”

  “Why? I told you that nothing happened,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to abandon him in his current state. I’ve already abandoned him once, and that’s partially what led to this problem now.”

  “None of this is your fault, Mara. And I know that nothing happened between you, I trust you. But there’s something not right with Quinn now, not just the cursed cost of the magic he used; there’s something else that’s off as well. Until I can figure out what it is, I need you to promise me that you’ll stay away from him.”

  “Okay,” I said, not wanting to argue with him about it.

  As we walked out of the hallway together, I remembered my dream, the one where Quinn was a giant raven that came and sat by me. Something didn’t feel right in that dream, and it was the same something that didn’t feel right now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cassius acted on-edge the next day and the day after that. No matter how many times I told him that he had nothing to worry about, it didn’t seem to help. Quinn also didn’t seem to be getting the point. The stares and close contact didn’t slow down; in fact, I thought they might have even been more frequent since the incident in the hallway had happened. The fact that I kept wrestling with myself over whether I did or did not have any lingering feelings for Quinn was only making matters worse and harder to deal with on all sides.

  “I think we need to make a statement that will dissuade Quinn from any further attempts to try to steal you away,” Cassius said over coffee.

  “You don’t think he knows that by now after everything we’ve been through together? And the fact that even though I could now leave at any time, I am still here with you?”

  “Obviously, it hasn’t been enough to make him desist.” He wasn’t wrong.

  “What do you suggest?” I ask.

  “Maybe something symbolic, like making you one of the head consuls of Mystreuce. Something that would show him that I preside over this world now and that you have a stake in governance, too. It would further solidify your attachment here and your attachment to me.”

  “So, I get to rule over some stuff?” I teased. “That sounds kind of fun.”

  Cassius tugged gently at my hand until I got up to come to sit in his lap. I straddled my legs on both sides of his waist and rolled my hips against him. I loved being able to make him moan in the morning.

  “You rule over me always,” he said.

  I leaned down and kissed him, leading into a moment that would soon be more desirable than finishing our coffees.

  “Ahem,” Quinn cleared his throat at the end of the table, which he had just sat down at.

  I turned to see over my shoulder, Quinn waving his blackened fingers at me. He had decided that now that the cat was out of the bag, there was no reason for him to cover up his magical affliction. “Sorry to interrupt, but could you pass me the coffee carafe?”

  I looked back to Cassius, who was intensely glaring down the table at Quinn.

  “Okay,” I said to him. “Let’s do it.”

  ***

  There would be a magical binding ceremony that would crown Cassius as the ruler over the vampires on Mystreuce. The other sects of peoples were free to choose their own rulers to crown as well, and all would be given a similar ceremony. But since the vampires were the most powerful of the bunch, and since Cassius being the only dhampir among them here was the most powerful amongst the vampires, his crowning was essentially handing him the keys to the entire land of Mystreuce.

  Cassius felt that the ceremony would also be a good time to appoint me as a consul. There would already be a ceremony and a lavish party following his crowning, so he thought it would be a nice addition for me to be able to enjoy the celeb
rations after an appointment to be one of the head consuls of Mystreuce, well actually the only consul until we decided to appoint another as well. There were whispers circulating amongst everyone about my being the first-ever human consul of Mystreuce, and it seemed like although it was something that had never been done before, that most everyone seemed pleased with the decision. And, it had been so long since Cassius had thrown one of his lavish and over-the-top revelries, that everyone was eagerly looking forward to what felt like a long-overdue celebration.

  Everyone, that was, except for Quinn. I honestly didn’t see what the big deal was anyway; it wasn’t like it would change anything. I just felt like it would be cool to have some sort of special title and that it would help appease Cassius's concerns and back-off Quinn a bit. Quinn, however, was acting almost as though it were a funeral that we were preparing for, and he sulked around the castle with an expression that looked like he was keeping a secret that he was just dying to tell.

  When the day of the magical binding ceremony arrived, I smiled so hard while watching Cassius’s crowning ritual that my cheeks hurt for several minutes afterward. I was so overjoyed that we had finally made it to this day, where he was able to accept his rightful reign. That also made me wonder if Athan was finally dead down in the dungeons beneath the castle. I was sure that he had to be after all these days left down there to rot. I shifted my thoughts and attention back to the ceremony. The people all seemed to love Cassius, and how could they not? He would be a wonderful ruler and had already begun uniting the people of his world and mine.

  When it was my turn, I went to sit by Cassius as one of the older fae women put a delicate amulet around my neck. It had a beautiful stone set into it, not a gemstone, but an actual river rock that was smooth and glistened with a dark charcoal-gray hue. She said a few words that I didn’t understand in a language that I didn’t know and then touched her hand to the stone that rested against the top of my ribcage. Then she went back to the others who had all been watching and erupted into cheerful clapping.

  “Is that it? Is it done?” I asked.

  Cassius smiled. “Yep, I’m the ruler of Mystreuce, and you are my head consul and advisor. Now we get to go enjoy the party.”

  This was the first of Cassius’s parties that I would be attending as his equal instead of his slave.

  Some of the fae had decorated the great rooms of the castle with magical foliage and twinkling lights that looked like stars beneath the glowing moon. Everyone was cheerfully exuberant, and as the food and wine started to flow out onto the tables to enjoy. Some of the fae began to play music and dance, and the humans were enthralled by having never seen something as extraordinary as a supernatural party. Cassius and I walked to the head table to sit down beside each other to talk and laugh and enjoy the evening together.

  “This is amazing!” David said as he came up to us.

  “I’m glad you decided to stay here on Mystreuce,” I smiled at him. “I always thought you were a little too constricted by the conservatory.”

  David laughed as he looked around at some of the beautiful fae who were dancing alone to the music. “Don’t get me wrong; I still love to dance. I’m just grateful that it will be with all of these lovely beauties instead of Gillian.”

  I laughed as he immersed himself into the dancing crowd.

  “Congratulations, Mara,” Quinn said as he came to sit down in the seat next to me.

  Cassius put his arm around my waist and pulled me slightly closer. Quinn noticed it, too.

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry about her running off anywhere now,” Quinn said to him.

  “I’ve never worried about her running off,” Cassius said. He had an alpha tone to his voice that was clearly warning Quinn not to start trouble at the party.

  “Yes, but now you really don’t need to worry about it. Not even with just me, but at all.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” I asked, feeling that there was something he wanted to say but was pussyfooting around it.

  “Now that you’re tied to the land of Mystreuce and all, you can never leave.” Quinn looked at the blank expression on my face. “Oops, looks like you didn’t know that,” he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “How could you not have known about this?” I yelled.

  “I swear to you, Mara, I had no idea. How would I have ever known about something like this? I’ve never been a ruler or appointed anyone as consul. I’ve never even been involved with a human before,” Cassius said as he tried to calm me down.

  Never. I can never leave.

  It wasn’t that I had intended to leave or even wanted to. But the thought of never being able even to visit my home again or leave this world was daunting and suffocating. It wasn’t about wanting to leave; it was about being able to.

  Quinn brought in the fae woman who had performed the ritual for us to talk to and get some answers. She looked rather old, which in fae terms meant that she was probably thousands of years old.

  “Can you tell us what the ceremony did to Mara?” Cassius asked her.

  “The ceremony appointed her high consul of Mystreuce,” the woman answered.

  “Yes, we know that part,” Cassius said as he got more frustrated.

  The woman looked confused about what she had been summoned for.

  “They want to know the part about why she can’t leave,” Quinn said as he waved his dark hand in the air, casually sweeping it in a circle above his head in the shape of a crown.

  “The appointment binds her to the land. She has been granted special powers by her acceptance to be high consul, powers that no human has ever had here. In return for her position of governance, Mystreuce has bound her to itself. She is as tied to the land as you are,” she said to Cassius.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I can leave here whenever I please. So why, too, wouldn’t she be able to?”

  “Tying a human to a supernatural world brings with it some unexpected consequences,” she said.

  I snapped at the woman without meaning to, but I just couldn’t help feeling as though someone should have told me about all of this beforehand. It may not have changed my decision, but at least I wouldn’t be standing here, feeling as though I had been tricked.

  “How do I fix it?” I asked her sharply. “How do I make it so that I can return home again if I ever desire to?”

  “Fix it?” the woman said, bewildered as to why I would ever want to leave. “You can’t fix it. Even if you renounced your new position, it would not undo what has been done. You can never leave Mystreuce or return to your world again.”

  I didn’t know whether to cry or scream. I hadn’t even thought about going back to Boston, but now I suddenly wanted to more than I ever had before. “Ugh!” I shrieked as I walked out of the room away from all of them.

  “Mara, wait!” Cassius called after me.

  I swung around and glared at him. “If I find out that you knew about this and tricked me into this whole thing just because of your jealousy of Quinn—”

  “I swear to you that I knew nothing of this,” he pleaded with me. “Please believe me.”

  “Fine, I believe you,” I said. “I need a few minutes alone to think.” I stomped off to leave the castle and get some fresh air to clear my head.

  After a while, Quinn walked out to join me as I sat on the hilltop, looking out over the land that I was somehow now magically tied to. I looked up and glared at him.

  “I am the angriest at you,” I said as he sat down beside me.

  “Me?” he asked, surprised. “What did I do? I’m not the one who appointed you consul. I had no part in it.”

  “You knew,” I said. “You knew this would happen, and you didn’t warn me. I saw you slinking around the castle before the ceremony even started. You should have told me.”

  Quinn laughed. “Right, because you would have definitely listened and believed me, instead of thinking that I was just trying to make Cassius look bad
so I could have you all to myself.”

  He had a point. I probably wouldn’t have listened.

  “Besides, it’s not that bad.”

  “Easy for you to say. Mystreuce is your home, and you’re already here. You aren’t the one who has just been banished from your home world.”

  “You haven’t been banished,” Quinn chuckled. “There are other ways to get there.”

  “Like what? God, I forgot to ask what would happen to me if I tried to go back home, even just for a short visit.”

  Quinn made a face like he had swallowed something sour. “Oh, you don’t want to know probably; it’s bound to be ugly. Mystreuce doesn’t fool around with things like binding spells and such. But if you ever want to visit your home, all you have to do is ask. I can take you.”

  “How?”

  Quinn lifted his hands and wiggled his blackened fingers at me.

  “But wouldn’t I still be—”

  “Nope,” he interrupted. “My shadow magic would soak up anything that happened, and you would be protected completely.”

  “Well, as reassuring as that sounds, I don’t think you should be using that shadow magic anymore. Look at what it’s done to you already.”

  “Eh, it’s not that bad, either. Just think of it as an impressive ink job,” he joked.

  “It can’t kill you?” I asked. I had wanted to ask him that question since the moment he pulled his gloves off but didn’t know quite how to say it without seeming crass.

  “No.”

  It made me feel a little bit better knowing that there might still be a way for me to visit home in the future and that Quinn’s affliction wasn’t something fatal.

  “The part that I would think you should be most upset and troubled by is that Cassius knew all along and intended to trap you here with him.”