“You heard?” Nadine asked.
“Heard and felt your bond pulsating behind me. You two are lucky you found each other.” He walked past them. “Come on.”
Marex eyed him, as if they would go this far and not follow him into the home.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she murmured under her breath. “But we can’t run. Sunrise is too close. You still don’t trust him?”
“It’s hard for me to trust anyone these days. Except you.”
Not knowing what to expect when they walked in, she was startled when Marex broke into a grin, shocked, and exclaimed, “Jean-Luc! Brogan! What are you doing here?”
Her tension eased away when the two vampires smiled in relief to see him, each shaking his hand and slapping his back.
The more muscular one, Jean-Luc, rested his hands on his hips. “We wouldn’t let Eisley here go alone. We were forming our own mission to break you out, but were intercepted, and were told something else was already in motion.” He cast Nadine a charming, sexy smile. “Enchanté.”
He went to grasp her hand, but Marex stopped him. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to introduce yourself hands-free. She’s my fated.”
In the first week or so of newly avowed or fated couples, touch from another male was forbidden, even in the most innocent form. Not just out of respect, but also because her skin was incredibly sensitive to another’s touch. She would only be able to bear Marex’s, for a short time.
“Ah,” Jean-Luc nodded. “Only you could pull that off. Congrats.”
Marex gestured to his compatriots. “Nadine, meet Jean-Luc and Brogan. Two of my closest friends. They were there when I was taken. Almost got themselves killed trying to fight the soldiers who kidnapped me.”
Hearing this, they instantly had her heart and her reverence. With a curving smile, Nadine gave a respectful nod. “Pleasure to meet you both.”
“Your what?” exclaimed the dark-skinned Brogan, stepping forward. “You’re sentenced to death one night and find your soul mate the next? I love how the creation goddess plays these mind games.”
“Nadine found me right on time,” Marex explained with a proud glint in his eye. “We’ll have to tell you about her clever little plan, but not right now.” He glanced at Eisley. “I have a feeling we can’t relax anytime soon.”
The handsome vampire slapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Correct. I’m afraid the reunion will have to wait. The UCC will track our trail eventually. Have you gentlemen brought the supplies?”
Jean-Luc pointed to the table. “We brought a change of clothes for you and your lady. I apologize if the outfit doesn’t fit you, Nadine. We weren’t aware you were part of the plan until Eisley told us last night.”
“Whatever you brought will be fine,” she assured him as she went to rummage through the bag. Anything would be better than wearing this lingerie and coat much longer. She found a plain black, long-sleeved top and a pair of yoga pants. Jean-Luc caught her eye and winked. She shook her head with a smile and went to change.
He looked at Marex. “Nothing has come on the wire about your escape even though it’s been three hours.”
“They’re probably too embarrassed to broadcast their fuck-up,” Marex said, crossing his arms.
All three men nodded in agreement.
“At least for the first few days, they’ll search for you in secret, before they start to panic,” added Jean-Luc.
“Actually,” Nadine said, coming out in her new, vastly more comfortable outfit, “from what I know about the UCC, they’ll send out hunters to look for us, but ultimately will wait for us to make a move. They’re too big and arrogant to be embarrassed.”
Brogan gave a half smile, eyes twinkling. “Your mate has intelligence and beauty?”
She cocked her head with a chiding smile. “Will you stop talking about me in third person?”
“And wit!” chimed in Jean-Luc. “You blessed bastard. Anyway, time is not on our side. We must go.”
“We?” Marex’s dark brows shot down. “No. You all have put yourselves in too much danger as it is. You shouldn’t cuff your fates with mine.”
“Ours,” Nadine emphasized.
He took her hand and kissed it. “Ours. Forgive me. Force of habit. I’ve always been alone.”
Her heart lurched at his admission. “Never again.”
Eisley groaned. “Ugh. Soul mates. I won’t even tell you what occurred in my backseat on our way here,” he said to Marex’s friends, whose brows rose in unison.
“Do tell!” Jean-Luc encouraged, grabbing his coat from the rack.
“Not if you plan to live another night,” Marex said in a droll tone, while she laughed.
Nadine instantly took a liking to his friends, although they seemed so amiable and open compared to her Marex. Perhaps now that he was no longer a prisoner, a different side of him might reveal itself. Either way, she loved him fiercely, and couldn’t wait to get to know him for the rest of their lives. However long they might be.
After Marex changed into a pair of pants, shirt, and jacket, they followed Eisley to a basement. Brogan and Jean-Luc came with them despite Marex ordering them not to put their lives in jeopardy out of loyalty. Nadine could see, despite himself, he was relieved to have them at his side as well.
In the back of the basement, Eisley moved away a dusty large sheet hanging on a wire, revealing a metal door with a padlock and chains around the door handle. He took a key from around his neck and unlocked the padlock, and with the help of Marex, loosened the chains. Once the door was opened, only a pitch black endless hallway could be seen.
Eisley gestured to the tunnel. “This will take you to the heart of the New York City underground. To the subway. From there, you’re on your own.” He cast a backward glance to Marex’s friends. “So to speak.”
“You’re not coming?” Nadine asked, switching on the flashlight Brogan had handed to her.
“Ah, dry your eyes,” Eisley teased. “’Fraid not. Can’t leave my car here. Plus, my only assignment was to get you out of UCC territory, so my role here is done. But a piece of advice. The Centurias at the end of the year is your best and only chance to clear your name. Even if you track down the humans responsible, it won’t stop their ultimate agenda. Gather as much information as you can and present it there. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to live without looking over your shoulder again.”
Marex crossed his arms, brows furrowing. “You have a point.”
The Centurias was an exclusive ten-day gathering of the dark elite: the Nine vampire families, the royals, and the richest and most powerful fatebloods and pürbloods. Shadows were forbidden to attend.
Only commenced once a century, hundreds of vampires attended in celebration, bringing old ideals and new, forming alliances and breaking others, in order to secure prosperity and tradition for the next hundred years. Nadine herself hadn’t had cause to attend, knowing she’d be overwhelmed by its grandeur, excess, high tension, and lewd, sometimes risqué themes.
It also frightened her.
Her fiancé had gone to the last one, in the hopes of gathering support for his negotiations with the shifters, and a week after his return, he was dead.
She quickly looked at Marex, terrified at the thought of losing him.
“I need to lock up behind you,” Eisley spoke with urgency. “Sunrise is upon us in a quarter hour and I still have to hide my car in the garage and get back inside for cover.”
Marex shook Eisley’s hand. “Thank you. And thank—” He caught the warning look in Eisley’s eyes. “You know who.” He turned to her, cupping her face, searching her eyes. “I know this is all happening very fast, but I also know you’re strong, and that you’re with me. That’s all I need to know to keep going.”
She nodded, her senses coming alive at his caress. “I’m right beside you.”
Jean-Luc cleared his throat. “We have a long walk ahead of us. I hope you two can keep your hands off one another in the meanti
me.”
“If we can’t,” Marex lifted a brow, “then don’t wait. We’ll catch up to you.”
Brogan slapped Jean-Luc on the back with a short laugh, then walked in first. His friend, smirking, followed.
Sliding a hand around her waist, he kissed her for so long, she knew Brogan and Jean-Luc were way ahead of them.
Smiling, she linked her arm in his and together they walked into the tunnel.
“See you at the Centurias,” Eisley called before shutting the door and locking the chains.
They both looked back, and then at each other.
Marex rose a brow. “I didn’t say I’d go.”
“Do you think you should?”
A few beats of silence passed as they started to catch up to his friends. “Takes a considerable amount of money and connections to secure a key for admission. Or a sponsorship. I have a feeling the first two will be much easier than the latter.”
“Well, I think Eisley might be right. The Centurias could bring you the support and protection you need.” To encourage him to go was wiser than dissuading him. Eisley was right. It was his best chance, regardless of what happened to her former fiancé.
“It could also seal my fate.”
She shot a look at his profile. “You’re the master of your own fate, Marex.”
He stopped and looked straight into her eyes, shaking his head with a smile. Even in the dimness with only a flashlight to illuminate the space, she could see the heat in his gaze, feel the strength of his sensa calling to her. Bringing his hard form against hers, he forced her to walk backward until she was pressed against the brick wall. “And you’re the master of me.”
She softly smiled, gripping the lapels of his shirt, hiking her leg up to his waist. “This seems familiar. Us against the wall.”
Brogan and Jean-Luc’s voices were getting farther and farther away as Marex took her wrists and held them above her head. Skimming his free hand down the side of her breast, brushing his lips over hers, he whispered, “I think it’s time we revisit this position. And now it’s me and you. Against the world.”
Three
I’m alive. My fated found me. The humans want me dead.
These three thoughts rotated in Marex’s mind like a carousel. Just a handful of hours ago, he was in chains, his life bound for the executioner. And now he was hand in hand with the woman he’d been dreaming of, bound for a destiny unknown.
Free, but marked.
Were the gods that kind? Because it seemed if they favored anyone, it was the Nine Group, who had abominable wealth, power, and special abilities. The rest of their species had to make their own luck or be damned.
Just last night, alone, isolated, hopeless, he’d grudgingly accepted his fate. Had come to the conclusion he’d gone as far as he was destined to go. Now it seemed he was meant to go much further. It was invigorating, shocking, and admittedly scary.
He glanced back at Nadine.
Scary in the fact he had someone other than himself to worry about, protect, and his mindset would have to level up. Before, he was pretty careless about who he met, where he went, and chances he took to advance his quest. Over the past decade he’d been inside quite a few questionable places he wouldn’t dare bring Nadine to, regardless of her devotion and stunning courage. And with humans so driven to wipe his life—and good name—from existence, he had to be more vigilant. Which included culling some nefarious individuals he associated with. Ones he didn’t want anywhere near her. Even though the guard had insisted it was humans who’d set him up, he didn’t name any names, and that didn’t mean there weren’t vampires in his circle that didn’t betray him.
Could he trust Brogan and Jean-Luc?
Looking at the duo ahead, he aimed to keep his guard up, despite the fact they’d never given him pause before. Humans had set up the manufactured murder of a Vesser and framed him. Who knew if they’d infiltrated his closest friends to get it done? Ultimately, the only ones he could absolutely trust were himself and Nadine.
In the distance were the familiar sounds of subway trains moving along their tracks. They were close. “Brogan. Jean-Luc. A word.”
They each stopped, glanced at each other, and turned toward him.
Maybe his tone could be a little less asshole.
“What’s up?” Brogan asked.
“Following you blindly in this forsaken tunnel is one thing, but out in the city is another. What’s the final destination? Some kind of safehouse?”
It was Jean-Luc who replied. “Actually, we’re staying underground. The UCC have spies everywhere, especially in New York, and they’ll be on alert soon enough. Best to hide out for a bit. Or until you can get a sponsor for the Centurias.”
Once again, he seemed to be the only one hugely skeptical about getting sponsored, but this wasn’t the time or place to argue it, and he strove to keep an open mind. Anything was possible after finding his eternal mate, escaping the UCC, and evading certain death all in one night.
“When you say underground…” Nadine trailed.
Brogan nodded. “We mean the old train tunnels that haven’t been used since the forties. Blocked off and condemned and forgotten by humans. Hell, they’d need gas masks to even breathe where we’re going.”
“Sounds cozy,” she remarked dryly, but with a smile.
“Wait,” Marex said, putting the pieces together. “If I’m not mistaken, the tunnels you’re referring to are shifter territory.” He looked at Nadine. “We can’t stay with shifters, even if they’re friendlies. Too risky.”
Brogan’s face fell. “But it was they who offered the sanctuary. We didn’t go to them. They came to us.”
“So what?”
“Marex,” Jean-Luc stepped forward. “The offer came from Zander Kane himself.”
This gave Marex pause.
“Who’s Zander Kane?” Nadine asked him.
Marex crossed his arms. “The pack leader—the only pack leader who agreed to meet with me to discuss a possibility of a peace pact between us and them. The night I was taken was the night I was on my way to meet him.” He turned his attention back to his friends. “Maybe prison in the past few weeks has me a touch paranoid, but I’m wary of taking sanctuary from someone who could’ve been the catalyst to my capture in the first place.”
There was a flash of disbelief in Jean-Luc’s eyes. “Do you honestly think we would go through all this just to lead you to a trap?”
“Not you. Kane. How do you know for sure he’s on our side? What if this convenient refuge is nothing but a lure to another cage so anyone with enough cash is allowed to come take me, or execute me on the spot?” And, he thought with a hidden shudder, tear him and Nadine apart. What they would do to her...he couldn’t bear to imagine. “I can’t take the chance. Nadine and I will be better off on our own.” Taking her hand again, he brushed past Brogan and Jean-Luc. He loved them like brothers, but he couldn’t stomach putting his, and especially Nadine’s, life in the hands of a shifter leader he hadn’t even met yet.
“Don’t be a stubborn ass,” Brogan called after him. “He’s eager to meet with you. You know he’s taking just as big a risk as you are. Even if it was to betray us to the UCC, it’d be announced to the underworld in a matter of hours, and his kind would shun him just for meddling in vampire affairs. You know how much they spurn any form of organized governing enforcement. Other than their own, of course.”
It was Nadine who made him slow down. “He has a point.”
Marex stopped with a sigh. “If I didn’t have you, maybe I’d go, but I do have you. And I refuse to walk in a shifter’s den at their mercy. Things are different now, Nadine. I can’t just pick up where I left off. I’m not ready to meet Kane or with anyone until I know we’re safe.”
She glanced back at his friends, pressing her lips together, then taking both of his hands in hers. “Will we ever be safe? Even if we keep running, even if we disappear from society, will you ever feel you don’t have to look over your shou
lder, Marex? Every step we take is always going to contain some margin of risk.”
She was right. Even if Eisley hadn’t come along, and they’d been able to escape the UCC grounds in her car, the plan was to finish what he’d started. Yes, he wanted to hide away from the world with her for a little while before nose-diving into his quest again, but the opportunity he’d been working for years to accomplish was right in front of him, and to walk away from it was foolish. He might not get the chance again. Kane could see a refusal for sanctuary as a slight, one Marex could regret eternally, destroying his dream of proving shifters and vampires could unite.
Brogan and Jean-Luc approached him.
“We understand how you feel. I would be wary as hell, too,” Brogan said. “If you want, we can bypass the shifters and take a train to Jersey to stay with one of Jean-Luc’s women, and come up with a plan B. We’re with you regardless.”
His shoulders relaxed. Loyalty like this couldn’t be bought. “No. We’ll go with plan A. Just know if I detect a hint of a trap, Nadine and I are running. With or without you.”
His friends nodded equally and spoke in unison. “Understood.”
A few minutes later they left the cloak of the tunnel, walked through two shorter, dim-lit corridors, to a door that brought them directly to a busy station filled with commuters of all kinds minding their own business. Two train rides later, they got off between stops and followed Brogan and Jean-Luc down the tracks that led to the wolf shifter’s den. Well, one of their dens. They had many. He knew they preferred to be deep in nature surrounded by trees and soil rather than deep in man-made cement tunnels surrounded by rats.
His instincts were razor sharp and he planned to keep them that way, no matter what his friends said. They came to a piled boulder of rock blocking any further entry, crossed with large planks of wood and a “Keep Out: Toxic” sign nailed to them.
His jaw clenched. Point of no return. He sent a silent prayer to all nine gods to watch over them. Surely they wouldn’t let him get this far to end him now.
Marex_Paranormal Romance Novella Page 4