by Lexi Blake
Marcus was different. Vampires are different. My Fae lovers hadn’t needed me for anything beyond sex and companionship. Making love with a vampire was something altogether different. Royal vampires needed consorts to be the best they could be, and they always wanted to excel. I had to wonder now if royal vampires were simply vampires whose DNA hadn’t strayed so far from their earthbound counterparts. If I thought a royal was trouble, I wasn’t sure what Marcus was. According to Bris, he wouldn’t simply crave me. He would be addicted to me.
Why did that thought not scare me the way it should have?
I made my way through the thicket of trees, following the path the fertility god had set out for me. We’d had a Green Man in our tribe, but his powers were nothing compared to the god who resided in Devinshea’s body. He could coax crops to grow, but nothing like this.
I followed the path until I reached a small clearing and I spied him. He was standing there, the late afternoon sun on his skin since he’d taken off his shirt and was wearing only a pair of dark slacks now. I could see where he’d hung up the white dress shirt he’d been wearing when I’d met him. He was still, his head down as though he was in prayer.
I studied the man for a moment, not wanting to interrupt him. I didn’t know if he was praying for a way off this plane or for strength for what was to come. Or perhaps he was simply trying to get through the next few hours or minutes. I knew I’d done that from time to time.
He was stunning, a study in contrasts. His hair was so dark I would swear it had a bit of midnight blue in it. Like a raven’s wing. His features were sharp and should have made the man seem hard, but somehow I found incredible beauty in them. Like a predator who could also find a way to be soft when he needed to be.
Of course, wouldn’t that be the most effective of all predators? The one who got his prey to come to him?
“What do you want, bella? I think there’s a stag nearby,” he murmured quietly. “I don’t want to frighten him off.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I kept my voice down not because I was worried about the stag, but because it seemed wrong to pierce the serene quiet of this place. We were far enough away that even preternatural ears shouldn’t be able to hear our conversation, but I liked pretending that we were the only two beings in the forest. “You can never tell in a forest like this. Maybe it’s an ordinary stag, or you’ll find yourself trying to feed off an aspect of some Fae god and you’ll be in trouble. Or perhaps you’ve already tried the water creatures and you’re looking to sample what the land has to offer.”
His head came up and a hint of a smile lifted his lips. “The seafood portion of today’s menu did not agree with me.”
“Then maybe you should try the sure thing.” I stepped into the clearing with him, the grass soft and green at my feet. I noticed the deeper green stopped under his loafers. “Marcus, you helped me. Let me help you.”
He frowned. “How did you find me? I made sure I didn’t leave a trail.”
So he’d absolutely wanted to get away from us, likely from temptation, and that was me. I pointed to the grass beneath him. “Devinshea has tricks up his sleeve.”
His gaze followed the trail he hadn’t intended to make and he sighed. “You should use that trail to take you back to him. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here.”
“Because you don’t want the addiction? We’re not entirely sure that will happen. Despite the fact that I was conceived on the Earth plane, I’m not truly a consor…companion. I’ve allowed my body to become mortal, but I’ve never been human. That’s what it is, right? I read somewhere that humans with angelic ancestors are companions or consorts, as we would call them here.”
His eyes came up and found mine, practically singeing me, but I didn’t move back. “Make no mistake, Summer. You are a companion. You are the brightest companion I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen your mother. If your father is a vampire king, then she is definitely a queen. You are something more. I know that if I tasted you, I would never want to feed from another again. You would be the end of me, and I would welcome it in a heartbeat if I thought you were ready. You are not. You don’t want me.”
I hated the sorrow in his voice. “I don’t know you.”
“I don’t need to know you. I know deep inside that we were meant to be together. I knew it the moment you attacked me.”
So he was a guy who was into bad girls who glowed. “Devinshea said something about a prophecy.”
He seemed to realize I wasn’t going away. He turned toward me. “Years ago, I was approached by a prophet named Jacob who wanted me to protect a woman. She was a companion and the prophet wanted to ensure that she was never found and taken by a vampire. Back in those days, any companion would have been immediately taken to the Council headquarters in Paris and sold to the highest bidder. It would not have mattered if she had a husband or lover. She would have been viewed as property of Vampire and her previous life would have been erased.”
“Yes, I understand how that goes. Here it all depends on what plane they find you on. Fae women and men can choose to place themselves up for auction or tournament. But if you aren’t from an easily accessible plane, if you’re brought here via Planeswalker, you don’t get a choice.”
“Yes, I will be talking to your father about that as soon as I can,” Marcus vowed.
“So this woman was a companion and the prophet didn’t want to see her sold to a vampire. He promised you something? It must have been hard for you to not take her.”
“It wasn’t. I don’t keep a companion with me at all times. I have to form a connection with a woman. I want connection, not merely the strength I would get from her blood. What I truly crave is the strength I get from being close to a woman I care about. So I didn’t have a difficult time protecting the companion.”
“What did he promise you?”
“He promised me that if I protected this woman, if she was allowed to find love in the human world, one day her descendant would be the woman I would fall so in love with that I followed her out of this life.”
“Earthbound vampires are immortal.” I knew that much. The vampires I knew were long lived, but then so were the Fae. But vampires here did age, though more slowly than a human. That wasn’t the case with my father or Marcus. If they didn’t get a stake to the heart, burned up in a fire, or get their heads lopped off, they would live for as long as there was a plane to walk upon. I’d often thought about how horrible it would be when my father lost my mother to old age.
“Unless we get a condition called sympathetic transference,” Marcus explained. “It’s particularly bad with a class of vampires called academics.”
“Class?” I sat on a tree stump and found myself happy to have the vampire to myself for a moment. He wasn’t pressuring me, and I liked the sound of his voice and the lyrical quality to his accent. I liked simply being with the male.
“We classify ourselves by our powers, which from what I understand, vampires here don’t have.”
“They’re strong, but they don’t have your mental powers. They’re clever and innovative, but they rely on their technology. It’s considered uncouth to be too primal. Unless they’re fighting—and they don’t like to do that—they hide their fangs. Not all of them, of course. They have a military, and many companies hire private armies and security teams. Those males and females tend to be a bit more primal.”
“I think I would find that society fascinating,” he admitted. “But in mine we are classified by our powers. I’m what’s known as an academic. My powers are mostly mental. I’m excellent at persuasion and getting inside minds.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Don’t blame me. You’re wide open. When you wanted me out, you shoved me away. You need to have shields up at all times. And the boy is quite strong, but again, he does not know how to protect himself or even how to keep his thoughts from slipping out. He needs training. But I digress. I was explaining how I came to believe you are t
he woman the prophet spoke of. An academic bonds so closely to his lover that he can sense when she is in danger, knows her moods, taste the food she eats.”
That was a powerful bond. What would it be like to have someone so attuned to me? I often felt alone in the world, like a freak who would never truly be able to touch anyone or anything. “So what you’re saying is you’re picky, and that’s why you didn’t want the woman you were tasked to protect.”
“No. She was lovely, though you should understand that I stayed away from her. I watched over her for years and ensured no vampire crossed her path. When she had a son, I was relieved. On our plane only females carry the companion genes. I checked in on the family over the years. The son married and he as well had only a son. I decided I’d been tricked. I was able to go back to my normal life while Harry Wharton grew to manhood.”
I should have seen that twist coming. “My grandfather? You protected my great-great-grandmother?”
“I did, and I was promised a woman of her line would be my fated mate.”
My heart ached for him because he was going to be so disappointed. “Marcus, you have to understand that I’m not truly of her line. I wasn’t born the way humans are born. I know you look at me and I have a glow, but it was given to me by my father. Think of it as an echo of his dreams. Honestly, from what I remember my mother didn’t have much to do with my conception. I was born of high faery magic from the deepest wishes of a male who loved a female he thought he couldn’t have. I was a projection of the life he wanted. I’m not real.”
“You look real to me, bella.” He came to stand in front of me and took my hand in his. “Tell me this flesh is not real. Tell me it’s not warm and alive.”
It felt really warm and alive the minute he touched me. His skin was slightly cool to the touch, but in a pleasant way. Like my own blood ran far too hot and he could balance me, like he was peace and serenity. “Are you pushing that sense of peace at me?”
“Only because you need it,” he admitted. “I can stop. Or I could teach you how to force me out entirely. But you need to understand that you are real. You might not have come to being in a normal fashion, but you are real. You have a soul.”
I sometimes wondered. I wasn’t sure and I didn’t think I wanted the ultimate answer to that question. But I found it interesting that Marcus seemed to believe it so vehemently. “How can you know that?”
“Because you were born from Daniel Donovan’s greatest wish. I assure you, you have a beautiful soul.”
I had to blink to clear my vision because I did remember that. I remember looking into my father’s soul and him questioning if he’d even had one. He’d touched me carefully, as though he’d worried about sullying me. I’d wanted him to hold me so badly, to wrap me up in his strong arms and be my father, but he’d held back because he’d hated his own nature. He’d feared what he could do if he ever unleashed his true nature.
I wasn’t so far from where my father had been that day. “Is he happy now?”
Perhaps if my father had found a way to reconcile his nature, there could be some peace for me.
Marcus let my hand go and I missed the feel of him. “He is. Zoey and Devinshea, they have completed him in a way I did not understand was possible. They are happy together, but you should know there is always a current of sadness between the three of them.”
“Because of me.”
“Because they lost you,” Marcus explained. “Because they want to know that you are okay, happy and well cared for. I will not be able to give them comfort in this. What has happened to you? Why are you not with your tribe? You should be at the center of a great Fae family, worshipped and loved for the magic you bring them.”
I turned away, staring at the trees in front of me. I hated the idea of telling him what had happened. He might not think so highly of me, but then I’d known that from the beginning. “I didn’t come here to tell you the story of my life. I came to offer to feed you. According to Kelsey, you could get dangerous if you’re not properly nourished.”
“Well, if Kelsey says it’s true then it must be.” There was a deep sarcasm to his words.
“You nearly killed Dean. You said that was because you’re unbalanced.”
“It’s because I’m so hungry I can barely stand it.”
I turned again and the vampire was staring at me. His eyes had gone completely dark, not a hint of white in sight. His eyes were like a starless night, black velvet that threatened to draw me in. His fangs were out, so large that he couldn’t quite close his lips. He was alien and gorgeous. So unlike any vampire I’d ever met before. He was the primal ancestor of those civilized beings. It took everything I had not to step back. It also took everything I had not to move toward him.
Because he was beautiful.
“You saved me. I owe you some blood.”
He shook his head, but his eyes remained on me. “It wouldn’t merely be blood, Summer. It would mean something to me. It would mean something emotionally, and it would certainly mean something physical.”
“They told me about the addiction. Again, that would only happen if I was a real companion, and I’m not.” I touched the charm at my neck, the one he would have to push aside to get to my vein. “This makes me human, or as close to human as I can be. You won’t get addicted to me. Honestly, I’m hoping my blood doesn’t do something bad to you, but I think it’s worth the risk because the only real human here is Dean, and I can’t ask him to do this.”
“I wouldn’t feed off him,” Marcus said, his voice rough with emotion. “I cannot feed from anyone. Go away. Let me nourish myself in the old ways. It might not be perfect, but if I gorge myself, I think I can find some calm. I will stay here close to the door until we find a way to go home. I will bother you no more.”
I groaned my frustration. “So it’s either I love you or you won’t have anything to do with me? Do you understand how irrational you sound right now? I have a sister, apparently. How can you be sure she’s not your fated wife?”
His gaze seemed to burn through me. “I tasted the water when you drowned. I felt the minute your heart stopped beating. The whole time I was under that water, your panic threatened to overwhelm me, and beyond that, I felt that you were surprised to fight so hard because you’d always thought death might bring you peace. That wasn’t me in your brain. That was something I felt in my soul. It came from yours, so if you want to know how I am certain you have a soul, it’s because I’ve felt it reach out to mine.”
“No, that’s your powers.” I hadn’t been reaching out to him with my mind and yet he’d perfectly described what I’d been feeling.
“I was shielding, Summer. I know what it means to save a woman I care about. With one I’m bonded to, I often have to shut down those connections so I can think, so she doesn’t feel my own panic. I couldn’t shut you out.” A low snarl came from his throat, the sound twisting me up in ways I’d never imagined before. “So run back to your father.”
I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to leave him out here all alone. Maybe he was right. Maybe there was something between us. “I’m not going back to him.” My mind played around all the possible scenarios, finding ways to justify what I wanted. “I need you to take me and Dean to the Earth plane. Consider this a partnership, and good partners don’t let each other go insane from hunger.”
“I told you that blood won’t be all I want from you.”
“And I told you, I’ll feed you for as long as you need it.” I didn’t understand the whole addiction part, but I was sure there was some way to help the male detox when he could. “As for the rest of it, I think I wouldn’t mind that either. You’re very attractive, and it’s been a long time for me.”
He was suddenly in my space, until all I could see and hear and sense was him. “Are you offering to fuck me, bella?”
“I’m offering to help you out.” I wasn’t about to back down now because honestly, I could feel the heat coming off him. Oh, I was certain if I
touched him again, I would feel that cool serenity that seemed to pulse off his skin, but his eyes were telling me something different. His eyes were savage, and I wanted to know exactly how it would feel to have those big fangs sink into my skin. “And I’m offering because I’ll admit I’m curious. Here’s the deal. Until you find a way back to the Earth plane, I will serve as your companion. We renegotiate if I come to the Earth plane with you. Our relationship will be physical, but I don’t intend to get emotional with you. You need to understand what I’m willing to give you.”
“And you need to understand what I’m going to take,” Marcus declared, his voice deep. His big hands came out to cup my shoulders.
“And what’s that?” I asked, completely breathless because he was so close now. I had to tip my head back to see those midnight eyes and the fangs I kind of longed for.
“Everything, bella.” One hand moved to my hair, sliding up and twisting lightly until he drew my head to the side and fully exposed my neck.
I expected him to strike, automatically tensed, but then I felt him run his nose along the curve of my neck as though he was breathing me in. He could say he would take everything, but he could only take what I gave him. And I intended to withhold the most important things. My love. My trust. I wasn’t about to give them to a man I’d just met, a man who could prove dangerous to me.
He could have the comfort of my body because I wanted the comfort of his. He could have the life my blood could give him because he’d already proven he would sacrifice for me.