Marked by the Vampire

by Cynthia Eden

  “Lost it,” David muttered as he rocked back and forth. “Lost my beast, lost my beast!”

  Shane, bleeding but still standing, crossed to Olivia’s side. He tore the ropes away from her raw wrists even as he kept his glare on David. “Guess that means you aren’t an alpha any longer.”

  Shane was looking at the wrong threat. “I wish you’d let her go,” Olivia said to Donald.

  He nodded. “Right…” His voice was soft. “I will…let her go…”

  And he shoved the knife into his daughter’s chest.

  Olivia screamed as Chloe fell to the ground.

  “I let her go,” Donald whispered.

  Horror froze Olivia. Too late, she remembered that a djinn’s wishes were twisted. What had she been told? That they could turn dreams into nightmares?

  She’d just killed Chloe! “I wish she was alive!” The words tumbled from her in a frantic shout. “I wish—”

  “Olivia, no!” Shane grabbed her and held tight. “Stop it! He’s pushing you! Manipulating you!”

  But Chloe was moving now. Gasping. Shuddering. Alive.

  “You are as strong as they say,” Donald murmured, with a flash of his fangs. “How fucking wonderful.”

  Another vehicle raced to the scene. A big, black van. The driver’s side opened and Pate leapt out. Connor and Duncan jumped out, too, and they rushed toward the senator.

  David kept whimpering on the ground. “Lost my beast, lost…”

  “It’s over, senator.” Pate’s voice rang out, strong and clear. “You’re done.”

  “Oh? And here I thought I was just getting started…”

  Olivia had clamped her lips together. She wanted to make another wish. Wanted it so badly.

  But it was a dark wish. Evil.

  I shouldn’t wish for a man’s death.

  “They’ve been using you, Olivia,” Donald called out as Pate and Connor closed in on him. Duncan stalked toward David. “I told you…the way to control a djinn is through the heart. I would’ve kept your heart safe, but what do you think the vampire will do to it?”

  Shane’s arms tightened around her.

  “His family is corrupt. They’ve bathed in blood for centuries. Do you know how many innocents your lover slaughtered? He and his family—they’re the reason vampires exist today. The reason so many humans hunt and kill.”

  Pate yanked the bloody knife from Donald’s hand. “Guess where you’re going, senator? I’m glad you liked Purgatory so much because it’s going to be your new home.”

  Donald didn’t look at him. His eyes were on Olivia. “He didn’t even have to cut out your heart in order to control you. All the vampire had to do was make you love him. You gave him your heart, and he’ll use it. He’ll use your power. You’ll do anything, everything, he wants now, and you’ll be helpless.”

  Pate locked his hands around the senator’s shoulder, but Donald jerked away from him.

  “They’ve all been using you!” He screamed at Olivia.

  She kept her mouth closed. Don’t wish his death…don’t!

  “The vampire marked you because he wanted that power for himself! He doesn’t love you, he’s just screwing you for—”

  Shane rushed at the senator. He grabbed the man’s shirt. Lifted him high into the air. “You were going to cut out her heart!”

  The senator smiled. “One day, I will,” he promised. “I’ll come back. I won’t stop, I’ll have everything—”

  “You’ll have nothing.” Then Shane sank his teeth into the senator’s throat. Donald howled and slashed out at Shane with his claws. He punched and twisted, but Shane didn’t let him go.

  He kept drinking. Kept taking.

  Kept…killing?

  “Stop,” Olivia whispered.

  Shane instantly stilled.

  “Send him to Purgatory,” she said, her voice weak, but determined. Because death would be too easy for that bastard. “Let the prisoners there torture him.” You can see what it’s like to be locked up with them.

  Shane dropped the senator to the ground. Donald didn’t move as the blood gushed from his throat. He didn’t move…at first.

  Then he started to laugh. The laugh was rough and broken, and evil. “I…made Purgatory. My monsters…planning to attack. They won’t hurt me.” He pushed to his feet. “We’ll be stronger. We’ll never stop! No one will ever stop me—”

  “I will,” Chloe said. She was on her feet, too, swaying. She lifted her hands and Olivia saw that her friend had grabbed a gun. A gun that she must have taken from one of the downed guards. “Goodbye, daddy.” She fired the weapon.

  The bullet slammed into the senator.

  “Silver,” Shane muttered. “Straight to the heart.”

  The senator fell then, his face slack with surprise.

  Chloe dropped the gun. “He was a monster,” she said, pain heavy in her voice, “long before he became a werewolf.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “She can’t just run loose out in the world, Shane.” Pate was seated behind his desk, and currently sweating one hell of a lot. “She’s too dangerous.”

  Shane leaned forward. He was done with the Para Unit…for now. He had other plans. Other priorities. Priority one was Olivia. But Pate had taken her back into custody, and that shit just wasn’t flying for Shane. “You found the senator’s Intel on her.”

  Pate nodded. “Her wishes…she can wreck the world. There is no limit to her power. If she speaks it, it happens. Only her wishes twist up and can hurt thousands. With a djinn, no wish is a simple matter—they are all dark.”

  Shane’s eyes narrowed. “Olivia isn’t evil.”

  “No, dammit, I know she’s not.” Pate yanked a hand through his hair. “It’s all about her and her emotions. Don’t you see that? If she’s happy, then freaking fantastic—her wishes will come out good and smooth and millions won’t die.” His chair squeaked as he leaned forward. “But if she’s scared…if she’s angry…if someone pisses her off, then her wishes are designed to wreck and punish. It’s the way of the djinn—”

  “That’s not Olivia. She’s not evil,” he said again. Olivia was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  “She’s not,” Pate agreed once more, but he paused. Pate swallowed as his eyelids flickered. Then he slowly asked, “But are you?”

  Really, the SOB had just gone there?

  “Because the senator was right,” Pate said. “You don’t have to cut out her heart to control that woman. I saw the way she looks at you. She’s half in love with you already. And according to the senator’s research, a djinn has to grant the wishes of the person he or she loves. Hell, that’s why Olivia’s father didn’t kill her when she was a kid and he went on that rampage. Her mother wished for Olivia’s safety, for her protection.”

  Shane didn’t like where this was going.

  “I know what you’ve done,” Pate spoke quietly, the words low and intense. “And I know what you could do. Are you seriously telling me that you trust yourself with her? Can you promise me that you’d never use her?”

  His back teeth ground together. “I only want her safe. Happy.”

  Pate shoved to his feet. “Right. That’s the damn problem. You want her happy so you wish there would never be a threat to her.” Pate snapped his fingers together. “Boom…your girl just took out all the werewolves in existence.”

  Shane rose, slowly.

  “Some bitch in a store says something catty to Olivia one day, and you wish the chick would shut her mouth…” Pate snapped his fingers again. “Boom…that woman doesn’t have a mouth. She can never talk.”

  “I wouldn’t wish—”

  “Donald found some damn shaman who told him that when a djinn mates—truly mates—she doesn’t even have to hear her lover’s wishes. She can feel his emotions. She grants all that he desires.” Pate lifted his hand, his fingers poised to snap once more. “So if—”

  Shane grabbed his hand. “Don’t.”

  A muscle jer
ked in Pate’s jaw. “It’s not even her voice that gives power to the wish. She just has to think it.” He stared into Shane’s eyes. “Go ask her if she wished for Donald’s death, because I think she did. Chloe can’t even remember attacking her father. She doesn’t remember anything that happened to her after Donald shoved that silver knife in her chest.”

  Shane glanced away from him. “So what the hell are you suggesting we do with Olivia? Keep her locked up? Forever?”

  “That’s an option.”

  Shane grabbed his friend and pinned him to the wall. “The hell it is. No one cages her.”

  Pate swallowed.

  “What’s the second option?”

  Pate didn’t speak.

  Shane leaned in close. “You better not be fucking thinking death.”

  “I-I didn’t realize how powerful she’d be—we have to stop the djinn inside of her…” Pate shook his head. “There’s a reason the djinn were killed off. Because if they’re not taken out, they’ll destroy the rest of us!”

  He nearly destroyed Pate in that moment. “No one will hurt her. I won’t let that happen.”

  Pate’s laugh was strangled. “She…doesn’t need you for protection. She’s got all her powers now. The woman could kill us all right at this moment, and we’d never have the chance to fight.”

  “Not now,” Shane snarled. “Because you have her in a cell, caged with your damn blood marks!”

  “It’s the only thing keeping her in check!”

  Shane bared his fangs.

  “Man…” Now fear entered Pate’s voice. “It’s me. Me. I’m your friend.”

  “And she’s everything. Everything to me.” He was far too close to attacking Pate. Shane forced himself to step back. To think.

  There had to be a way out of this mess. A way that didn’t involve losing Olivia. A way that would let them stay together, forever.

  Forever…

  He smiled.

  “You’re going to kill me,” Pate said, sounding utterly certain.

  “Not yet,” Shane told him. “But you’d better stop tempting me.” He whirled away. Headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Pate yelled.

  “To offer Olivia forever, if she’ll have me.”

  “What?”

  Shane slammed the door shut behind him.

  ***

  Her cell door flew open. Olivia jumped to her feet, and when she saw Shane rushing toward her, happiness seemed to explode within her. She grabbed him, wrapped her arms around him, and held tight.

  She wouldn’t have long with him. She knew that. Olivia had figured out the fate that waited for her already. So she’d hold him and enjoy him while she could.

  He kissed her. His mouth was desperate and hungry on hers. She couldn’t get close enough to him. His taste, his touch. She needed him so much.

  “It’s all right,” Shane whispered against her mouth. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  Her vampire was such a liar. There was no way things could be all right.

  Olivia knew exactly what she’d done.

  She’d raised the dead.

  She’d forced a daughter to kill her own father. Just with a thought.

  I just wished he’d die. That he’d feel the same betrayal I felt.

  And then Chloe had acted.

  I’m sorry, Chloe.

  Shane pulled back a bit. Stared into her eyes. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “And the most dangerous?” Olivia asked, voice breaking a bit. It was almost funny. She’d once interviewed monsters, never realizing that she was the biggest threat out there.

  Shane caught her hands in his. Stared down at her. Emotions swirled in his gaze.

  She dared to ask, “Pate plans to keep me locked up, doesn’t he?”

  Shane didn’t answer.

  “It…it’s probably the safest idea. Until I can learn to control myself.” If she could. Olivia wasn’t sure it was possible. No…no, be honest. “I won’t ever control myself. I can feel it…the power inside. Like a black hole that’s stretching and trying to take me over.”

  Shane shouldn’t be there with her. She wanted him close because—he’d gotten to her. Broken through her armor and reached the woman inside. Love shouldn’t happen so quickly.

  But then, wishes shouldn’t go dark, either.

  Life wasn’t fair. It was twisted—as twisted as her wishes—hard and cold. And beautiful. Sometimes, so beautiful and good.

  She wanted to remember the good times. When she spent years caged up, the good memories would be all that she had.

  “It won’t take you over.” He sounded so confident.

  He didn’t understand that it already had. She’d killed, with just a thought.

  But then Shane lowered before her, bowing down on his knees.

  Olivia shook her head and blinked in confusion. “What are you doing?”

  “I know you don’t believe in mates, but do you think you could believe in me? In us?” His hands held hers. “Because I do. And I pledge myself to you. Right here. Right now. I pledge that I will always be by your side. I will stay with you through any danger that comes. I will celebrate with you, and I will mourn with you.”

  His words seemed to wrap around her.

  “I will tie my life with yours.”

  Those words…it almost seemed like some kind of ceremony that he was performing. “What are you doing?”

  “Being with you, if you’ll have me.”

  She wanted no one else.

  He stared up at her. “I love you.”

  Olivia shook her head.

  “I wasn’t manipulating you. Wasn’t trying to seduce you into giving me your delectable body and, apparently, your all-powerful heart. I just wanted you. I needed you. And I would have done anything to have you.”

  She would have done anything to have him. But it wasn’t just about what she wanted. It wasn’t safe for him to be with her. It wasn’t safe for anyone to be with her. “You should go.” She had to blink away tears. I have to keep him safe. He’s only safe when he’s away from me. Everyone is safe…away from me.

  He stayed on his knees, and he shook his head.

  “Pate won’t let me out.” He had to see that.

  His lips thinned, and then Shane said, “We have two options.”

  Her heart slammed into her chest.

  “If you stay locked up, then I stay with you.”

  No, that couldn’t happen.

  “It won’t be Purgatory. It will be paradise, because I’ll be with you.”

  “Bullshit,” Olivia instantly called.

  His lips twitched.

  “It will be prison,” Olivia said, “and I won’t have that for you.”

  His hold tightened on her hands. “Then that gives us option two.”

  She wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear this one.

  “The djinn dies.”

  Olivia tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. “You’re…going to kill me?”

  “I want you alive forever, Olivia. I don’t want to think of any world without you in it.” His gaze fell to her neck. “I can make you something other than djinn.”

  And she understood. “Vampire.”

  He nodded. “I’ve taken your blood. You know the pleasure to be found there.”

  It was rather hard to forget that particular pleasure.

  “If you drink from me, I can change you. Your human side will die, and your djinn side…it will either die, too, and you’ll become a full vampire…”

  He trailed off. She waited. And waited a bit more. “Shane?”

  “Or something else could happen.” His words were gruff. “When Holly gave her blood to Duncan, he became a blend of vampire and werewolf. You could change like that, too. Then you would—”

  “I’d have the immortality of a vampire and the power of a djinn! Isn’t that rather like unleashing hell on earth?”

  He surged to his feet. “Mayb
e you will be both, but maybe you’ll have control then! Maybe your djinn powers will be muted and the wishes won’t twist!”

  “Or maybe they’ll be even darker.” Vamps weren’t exactly known for being all sweetness and light. More like known for being bloodthirsty and brutal.

  “If that happens, then we keep you locked up.” His voice was soft. “And I stay with you.”

  “Both of these options suck!” She glanced toward the video camera that had been mounted on the right wall. “Are these Pate’s options?” They sure sounded like him.

  “He wants to keep you caged. Or he just wants to kill you. No transformation. Just death.”

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Blood and fire.”

  “That’s not happening.” He grabbed her. Pulled Olivia against him and kissed her. Deep and hard and long. “We are going to have forever. Say yes, Olivia, just say yes to my bite, to the exchange, and give us a chance.”

  She wanted to, but Olivia was terrified.

  “If something goes wrong,” he rasped, “you’re still here, locked up. You won’t hurt anyone.”

  Unless her power strengthened too much for the markings on the floor to hold her in check. Don’t call them markings anymore. You know it’s a spell. Some magic that Pate is working.

  Which meant Pate was way past human.

  So am I.

  “Unless you don’t…want to be with me.” He cleared his throat. “I can still change you, then you can walk away from me. You don’t have to—”

  “I’d like to spend all of my days and nights with you.” The truth. Her deepest wi—

  She cut that thought off.

  “Then you want my bite? My blood?”

  Olivia took a deep breath. There was no going back to a normal life. And there might be no going to a vampire life either. But she wanted to try because she wanted Shane. “I want you,” she said simply.

  Then she tilted her head to the side and offered him her neck. His head bent. His breath brushed over her skin. Olivia closed her eyes. When his teeth pierced her, the pleasure rose within her, hot and strong. So overwhelming. Pushing the fear back. Pushing the memory of death from her mind.

  He lifted her into his arms. Carried her toward the wall, the one just beneath that video camera. Pate won’t see us here.