He sounds angry. Almost like he’s done just that, went on a wild goose chase, only to end up empty-handed.
“It doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been reading my mind.”
“I didn’t mean to be intrusive—I don’t purposely try to listen in on your thoughts. I only ever hear them when they’re screaming at me. Like when you’re extremely upset or frightened—it’s hard to ignore.
At that moment Stacey sits back down, looking between us. “Do you need me to leave again?”
“No,” I say, and at the same time the server arrives with our food. We continue to eat in silence, all while I try my hardest to shut down all thoughts. If Julian can read my mind, I don’t want to give him any more of an upper hand.
I stew the whole way home. No matter how much I try not to think about anything, I think about everything. The closer we get to home, the angrier I am. Julian drops Stacey off at the estate entrance, Katina meeting him at the door.
“Katina, please take Stacey to her room for the evening. Marina will be staying with me.”
Katina’s eyebrow lifts, but she doesn’t say a word as she ushers Stacey away. Stacey waves her goodbye, knowing I’m in no mood to talk. She didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not angry with her. No. This is between Julian and me. There are some boundaries not to be crossed and lying is one of them.
If he can’t help hearing my thoughts, fine. I don’t like it, but it can’t be helped. It’s keeping it a secret and taking advantage that I’m not all right with. If he’s holding things back from me now, how are we supposed to move forward? There are so many obstacles in our way already that withholding information makes it impossible to have a relationship.
Julian told me on the way home that I would be staying with him tonight. It’s not what I want, but we can’t exactly have the talk that I want to have in the main house. He’s said many times—as has Katina—that there are eyes and ears everywhere in that place, and I plan on being loud with my frustration.
Julian parks the car and starts up the Gator—a motorized vehicle much like a golf cart, only bigger—which is what he uses to get back to his home. We drive in silence until we are parked and I’m jumping off.
“Marina, please,” Julian says to my back, but I march into the house, slamming the door open. His strong hand reaches out, grabbing my elbow and twisting me around, my chest hitting his.
“Stop. Listen to me.”
I yank his hands off me and push him away. “No. You listen to me,” I command. “I am sick and tired of being kept in the dark. I’m always five steps behind you, and that makes this relationship uneven. I’m not going to do it anymore, Julian. You’re either going to tell me everything I need to know, or this ends here, and I don’t care if the Council has marked me. I’ll leave.”
Looking dejected, Julian asks, “What do you want to know? I told you everything at the diner.”
“How many people have you slept with?”
He throws his head back. “That’s such a human thing to ask, Marina. There’s no way you’re going to like the answer. I can’t win here. I have been around for centuries and there have been years in that time when all I could do was drown in someone else. It wasn’t love. I can’t be held accountable for that.”
It’s an unfair question, one I didn’t think through. But now that I’ve asked, I’m following it through. “Just answer the question, Julian.”
“I don’t know,” he says, throwing his hands up. “I have not even the slightest idea.”
I’m being childish right now, so I put that one aside, because really, at the end of the day, I don’t want to know, and it’s not really what I’m upset about. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Once. I’ve been in love once,” he admits, and my stomach nosedives, vomit creeping up my throat.
“Who is she?” I whisper, unsure that this is a great idea. It won’t change anything, and most likely, it will only hurt my ego more.
He closes his eyes. “You really don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
I know without a shadow of a doubt it was Adèle. He nods his head, clearly reading it in my mind. It was obvious in the way he looked at her.
“I love Adèle, but not in that way, Marina. I love her like family.”
If I could see my face, I imagine it would be green. The fact that he loves her in any way is more than I can bear.
“We attempted to have a relationship more than a hundred years ago, and it didn’t work. She needs her freedom, and honestly, I was all right with that.”
“You’re engaged to her. Am I to believe that your devotion to your family won’t end in a broken heart for me?”
“A month ago, I might’ve tried to convince her to settle down, but then you walked into my life, and everything changed. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but you changed everything. I love you, Marina. Only you. Always.”
Tingles. They start at my fingertips, then work their way up my arms, over my shoulders, and down my back. He loves me. He said it.
He pulls me into him again. “I will say it to you a thousand times if that’s what you need, because I love you.” He places a small kiss on my cheek. “I love your smart mouth, and the way you try so hard to be brave when you are scared to death. I love the way you stood tall even when your knees were shaking at the auction. I love the way you care about a girl that you’ve only just met. The way you would go toe to toe with a vampire to keep her safe. It’s the stuff of vampire legends. I would do anything to keep you safe. I would lay down my crown. I swear it to you.”
The stuff of vampire legends.
“You want to know my secrets, Marina? You want to know everything my father died to protect?”
I don’t say a word, allowing him the chance to tell me every detail. To fill in the missing pieces. He knows that’s all I want; there is no point in saying it.
“My father knew of the familiar legend of Borns. He hunted down hedge witches for information, foretelling, but he always came up short. Until Madame Shante. She told him three sisters would be born in the twentieth century. These three sisters would harness the power his sons needed to rule all vampires. Their blood alone would be the cure.”
“The cure for what?” I question, not following Madame Shante’s cryptic message.
“That is what my father was trying to uncover. He was searching for the three sisters, but he never found them.”
“What does this have to do with me, Julian?”
“In this century, something happened to my brothers and me. We all had a strong pull to travel. It led us to small towns all over the Midwest. We were on a wild goose chase that we couldn’t explain. It started on April 13, 1994.”
The room stills. My heart picks up speed.
“My birthday,” I whisper.
“Something was different for Marcellus. He experienced the need, but within minutes, bone-crushing sadness took over, and he’s never recovered.”
I ruminate on his words, digesting everything he’s said and all that he hasn’t. Three brothers and three . . . sisters. Three sisters all born on April 13, 1994.
“You think it’s us,” I stammer. “You think we are your familiars.”
“You, Marina. You are my familiar.”
He leaves no room for argument, but that’s all I want to do. There is no way I’m his familiar. I’m a regular girl, and he’s drunk my blood, and nothing spectacular outside of reading my thoughts has happened.
“Marina. Say something,” he demands.
My back straightens, and I wipe away stray tears. Anger is the prominent emotion coursing through me. I hold on to it.
“You’re trying to tell me that I possess blood that can make you one of the most powerful beings on earth? That I alone can enable you to harness that capability.” I throw my hands in the air. “It’s bullshit, Julian. I’m just a human and you’re sadly mistaken. Your father was sadly mistaken. You said earlier it was a myth. So now you’re saying I’
m it? I’m the legend?”
“I didn’t know until recently. I started to suspect after New Orleans, but it was Shante who confirmed it. I couldn’t admit it to you. It puts you in grave danger, Marina.”
“Bullshit. I’m in danger no matter where I am. You’re confusing me and for what? I can’t be your familiar. I’m human. Nothing special.”
“You’re more special than you could ever know. My father looked for you because he knew it too. If he had found you, he would’ve told you all of this.”
He’s wrong about one thing—his father or the Council did find us. Everything from my childhood suddenly makes sense. The monsters that stalked me and Maggie, the ones who caused her death, came because they thought we were something that we’re not. It was all for nothing.
“I’ve been uprooted from my life and for what? My sister died because vampires wouldn’t stop coming. She was trying to protect me.” I jab my finger into my chest, needing to feel pain. Anything other than the crushing sadness.
“It wasn’t for nothing. You are my familiar. Maggie was Law’s and Molly was Marcellus’s. He is the way he is because he can’t get over the grief of losing her.”
“No,” I yell. “It can’t be true. Maggie is dead. If she was Law’s familiar, he’d be broken like Marcellus. Yet he seems fine.”
“Law is stronger than Marcellus. He’s learned to deal with his grief in other ways—alcohol, women.”
I grimace, realizing how similar Law is to my parents, hiding from their sadness with some of the same things.
“I knew something was different the moment I drank from you at the auction. It was the way my body hummed from your blood. The need to protect you became so acute it was almost debilitating. But even before that, when I walked into the room, you called to me. It’s what brought me to the stage. I can’t explain it—it was as if I could hear your soul calling to mine. I just didn’t realize it at that time.”
My knees shake and my eyes roll back into my head at his words. I feel it all. Everything he’s described times ten. When he’s near, my body comes alive. I’ve never felt this way, and I knew it was something more from the beginning. It was my lack of experience with love that had me second-guessing myself, but I knew. It was different.
“Marina, I brought you here to keep you safe, but I’m keeping you here out of necessity. The Council is not merciful. If they came into the knowledge that you existed, and our bond was true, you’d endure terrible things. They’d never allow you to live.” He takes a deep breath. “No matter where we could go, they’d hunt us until the end.”
“If the legends are true, I can make you stronger than any of them. You’ve drunk my blood; why hasn’t anything happened?”
“I have to drink directly from you. You’re not ready for that.”
He’s wrong. I am. I’ve been ready.
All of my insecurities and fear for our future dissipate, making me feel stronger.
Somehow in my bones, I know we’ll find a way. Julian’s eyes darken. He walks around me, stalking, drinking me in with his eyes, and I feel bared to him in this moment. Where I would’ve felt insecure moments ago under his gaze, I feel emboldened, beautiful, wanted.
My need for Julian has reached a climax, and there’s nothing that I can do to stop it. I want him to mark me. To claim me. To make me his. It doesn’t change that I’ll never be a vampire, but I will be his human until the day I die.
“Show me what my blood can do. Make me believe.”
He growls, pulling me in and bringing his lips to my neck. He breathes in deeply and exhales in a groan. Everything in me tightens and wetness pools.
“Please,” I beg.
He runs his lips up the curve of my neck, torturing me in the most exquisite way.
“This will only hurt for a moment. Do you trust me?”
“I trust you,” I whisper, eager for what’s to come.
A tight pinch draws a swift intake of air. Heat floods my body, running through my veins.
Electrical pulses stimulate every nerve ending. Euphoria temporarily blinds me. I call out to him, needing more. He answers my cry by tilting my head, opening my neck up to him, drinking me in as if I’m the fluid he needs to survive.
There is no pain, only intense pleasure. I’m basking in it, until his voice rings loud and clear in my head.
I won’t let anything happen to her. I’m hers, forever. She is the one.
His words flow like a waterfall. I can hear him.
He jerks back. “You heard my thoughts?”
I smile mischievously. “I did.”
“Incredible. That’s never happened, Marina. Even with the Familiar connection, you’re supposed to drink my blood to in order to share my gifts.”
I don’t mention how I was able to block him from my subconscious. Some things are best left unsaid. Right now, I don’t want to ruin the moment.
“The legends could be a bit off then?”
He kisses me deeply, pouring every emotion into this, not needing to say anything. Regardless of whether I am his familiar or not, we share a bond that can’t be broken. I’m his and he’s mine. We spend the rest of the night wrapped up in each other, cementing our love in every kiss, every caress.
Let the Council try to separate us. I’ll die fighting.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The next day, Stacey and I spend all day preparing for Law’s party, both of us so excited, we can hardly contain ourselves. The revelation that I am vital to Julian fills me with a pride I’ve never known. After my blowup with Julian, followed by the bite and a night full of lovemaking, I’m on cloud nine. Elation flows through me, enough to make my chest burst.
I’ve never been this happy in all my life. I found my home in Julian. My smile hasn’t left my face. Stacey appraises me with a grin.
“You’re doing that whole glowing thing again. I’m taking it last night turned around?”
I turn to her. “Yes. It’s all good. It’s so much better, even.”
She beams. “Honestly, you have no idea how happy I am to hear that. The two of you give me hope for a future. I know he loves you, which means he’d do anything for you.” She grabs my hands in hers. “Use that to help the humans who continue to be stolen every day, Marina. You have the power to change things.”
It’s a lot of pressure, but she’s right. Maybe Julian and I together can find a way to stop the auction.
“I don’t know how much I can do, but I’ll try.”
Are there other vampires besides Katina who agree with him about the auction? Or would it only be leading him into a war that would end humanity? It’s too much to think about, and there’s no getting out of this party.
“I’m so glad I’ve found your friendship through all of this, Stacey. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
She hugs me tightly. “Same. You’re my savior.”
I squeeze her back. It wasn’t me who saved her, but Julian.
Throwing on the finishing touches, we are both ready to dance the night away.
“Ready?” I say, taking a look at how beautiful Stacey is tonight.
She nods her head eagerly. “Never been more ready.”
The hedge witch wasn’t lying. Law has transformed his castle—and no, I’m not exaggerating, it quite possibly is larger than the main estate—into something out of a fairy tale. A large ballroom lined with windows spans the entire backside, overlooking a beautiful wooded lot, adorned with rich, heavy tapestries and set up with tables lining one wall full of every type of appetizer you could think of. Another wall has tables lined with every kind of dessert, from pies to cakes to cookies.
Servers dressed in head-to-toe black walk around with silver trays full of shrimp cocktail and chicken Cordon Bleu. It’s lavish and ostentatious, everything Law promised.
“Brother. I’m so glad you could join us,” Lawrence greets. “I’ve been trying to get him to bring you here since the auction,” he remarks. “He’s intent on keeping you hol
ed up in that gaudy house. I can only imagine the things he’s done with you,” he says with a grin.
Julian smacks him in the stomach, eliciting a grunt.
Stacey and I chuckle.
“Where exactly did you round up all these humans?” Julian asks.
Looking around, I notice that everyone is in fact human. The only vampires in the room, from what I can tell, are Julian and Law.
“Surely you remember how popular I am amongst the people of New Orleans. All I needed to do was send out invitations, and every human with class within a hundred-mile radius was chomping at the bit to show up.”
Julian rolls his eyes. “Yes, of course. Lawrence Bellamy and his aptitude for throwing lavish affairs.” His sarcasm has me smothering a laugh, not wanting to insult our host.
“Ladies, go eat. Enjoy yourselves. No need to stand around Julian for tonight. You’re my guests of honor.” He waves us off.
Stacey grabs my hand, running toward the sweets table. “This is incredible,” she says excitedly. “I’ve never seen so many desserts in one place.”
She begins piling a plate high with every sugary confection available. I can’t help but laugh.
We eat, we dance, and we people-watch.
“I need to use the restroom,” I tell Stacey, hoping she’ll come with me. Instead she simply nods her head, continuing to watch those dancing. I stand and walk toward the hallway, not exactly sure where I’m going. I’m walking down a wide hallway when a girl appears at the end. She’s wearing a yellow dress that matches her golden blond hair, and there’s something haunting about her. Maggie?
My eyes squint, trying to see her more clearly. She turns and walks out of sight. I go to follow her when I hear Julian call out to me.
“Marina. I was looking for you. Will you dance with me?” He bows low, quite the gentleman. I smile, forgetting my entire reason for coming out here, and take my love’s hand.
Blood That Binds: A Vampire Romance (Blood Legends Duet) Page 26