by AJ Myers
“Ember, there’s one more thing I want to make clear before we go in,” he said, his voice as serious as his eyes were sad. “If you run from me again, I will mark you. I don’t want to do it. Even the thought of doing it makes me sick. But I will if it means I won’t lose you again.”
“Mark me?” Now why didn’t I like the sound of that?
Giving me an intense look, he yanked the neck of his sweater to the side so I could see his throat. Etched into his skin where his shoulder and neck met was a symbol that looked vaguely familiar. I gasped when I realized why and my hand immediately flew up to the cross he had given me that afternoon. The heart and trinity symbol on his neck was the exact same symbol that was engraved on my necklace. Gulping, I looked up to find him staring down at me with a mixture of sadness and determination.
“What is that?” I asked as he pulled his sweater back up.
“It’s the mark of the vampire who turned me,” he said tightly, not meeting my eyes. “When a vampire marks someone, they become theirs. They can find them anytime, anywhere, and over any distance.”
Vampire GPS. Wonderful. Could my day possibly get any better?
“And how does one get one of those nifty little tattoos?” I squeaked, afraid I already knew the answer. Suddenly his threat before he kicked the shit out of Tyler made perfect sense.
“By being bitten,” he said solemnly, gazing down at me with the kind of sadness in his eyes that touched me even though I was still furious with him—and more than a little afraid of him.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said softly. “So what you’re telling me is that you’re going to turn me just so you can keep tabs on me?”
“No!” he said, a look of horror blooming across his beautiful face. “It takes a lot more than a bite to turn a human. But, yes, I will mark you to keep tabs on you. Please don’t force me to do that to you,” he whispered, reaching up like he wanted to touch me. I backed up a step, and his hand fell to his side again and he sighed. “Em, I don’t make idle threats. If you try to run from me again, I won’t even hesitate. Do you understand?”
I looked away from him, feeling kind of sick myself, but nodded. Apparently satisfied, he turned and opened the door for me, indicating I should go first. I followed him to the lobby, taking in the generic burgundy and beige hotel décor, with my mind working overtime to accept what he had just told me.
The lobby was empty, giving me no opportunity to test Nathan’s compulsion skills. We were met at the front desk by a bleary-eyed clerk who looked like he was desperately in need of a nap. Given the way his thinning gray hair was sticking up in the back and the way he kept yawning, I actually had to wonder if we hadn’t just interrupted one.
“Will you be needing a single or a double?” he asked Nathan, pecking at a keyboard that was just out of sight with two fingers.
“A single,” Nathan said, looping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close as I glared at him. “We’re newlyweds, you see.”
I was so shocked by that lie that I started choking. The sleepy clerk arched an eyebrow at me standing there, coughing and sputtering and mumbled, “Uh-huh. You seem very happy.”
“Very,” Nathan agreed with a brilliant smile as his hand slid up to the back of my neck like he was massaging it. The message was clear. Either I was going to go along with this farce or he was going to strangle me.
“Would you like a smoking room or a non-smoking room?” the clerk asked, directing his question at Nathan.
“Non-smoking,” I said at the same time Nathan said, “Smoking.”
I opened my mouth to argue and his hold tightened up another notch. Message received, I shut my mouth. When the clerk just arched his eyebrow a little higher, Nathan smiled again.
“She’s trying to get me to quit. Says she wants to keep me around forever.”
Keep him around forever? Whatever! I didn’t want to keep him around for the next ten minutes. When his hand tightened on the back of my neck again and actually started to sting, I wisely decided to keep that opinion to myself.
I really hoped the hotel lamps were made of silver. The idea of impaling him was starting to look better and better by the second.
“Indeed,” the clerk said, giving me a concerned look. “I’ll need your IDs and the license plate number from your vehicle, Mr…”
“Chevalier,” Nathan supplied, the French lilt I had noticed in his voice becoming more pronounced as the name rolled off his tongue. “Luc Chevalier.”
The clerk held out his hand for the documentation he’d requested, but Nathan just looked at him, hard, before saying, “You don’t need our IDs, do you?”
I heard it loud and clear, the compulsion in his voice. It washed over me, making me feel disoriented and heavy. For a second my mind went all fuzzy and I stared up at him with wide, confused, eyes. I literally had to shake myself so I could make sense of what had happened, and he hadn’t even directed that little vocal parlor trick at me. The poor desk clerk never stood a chance.
“Of course not, Mr. Chevalier,” the clerk said, looking totally brainwashed. There was even a dim little smile on his lips. “Here is your room key, sir. Room 204, second door to your right at the top of the stairs.”
“Good man,” Nathan said, handing him a wad of cash. When the desk clerk just looked more confused, Nathan smiled sympathetically. “That’s for the room. Keep the rest for yourself.”
I looked from the wad of money to the man beside me and back again. He had just tipped that guy like five hundred dollars. I guess he kind of owed him, though, seeing as he had pretty much fried the poor guy’s brain with his voice.
“Let’s go, baby,” he said, winking at me. “You look tired.”
He didn’t give me a chance to say no. Wrapping his arm around my waist, he led me over to the stairs and proceeded to practically carry me up them in his haste to get away from the clerk before his vocal tranquilizer dart wore off.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” I grumbled as he unlocked the door. “It wasn’t like he wasn’t going to rent you the room, Nathan.”
“He was getting suspicious. Besides, I don’t actually have your ID.” He grinned at me like he’d just pulled off the coup of the century. “You know, I think I’m getting the hang of this whole kidnapping thing.”
“Great, a new skill set to add to your other dubious talents.”
I was about to continue with a critique on how much he sucked that would have blown his undead mind when the smell of old cigarette smoke hit me. I immediately started to tense up as that smell poured out the door and enveloped me. Not even the powerful air freshener the hotel used could cover up the reek of char that was suddenly overwhelming my senses as it tried to send me into panic mode. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? And anywhere there might be fire was somewhere I definitely didn’t want to be.
“Why did we have to have a smoking room?” I whined, trying to hide the instinctual fear that just smelling that old cigarette smoke had brought on. “This room stinks, Nathan.” I waved my hand in front of my face for effect.
“Less people around this way,” he explained as he turned on the lamps. I felt a genuine pang of disappointment when I saw they were brass, not silver. “Smoking isn’t as popular as it was fifty years ago.”
Without even looking in my direction, Nathan stalked past me and checked the bathroom, for what I couldn’t even guess unless he thought there was a SWAT team waiting for him in there—yeah, because I was really going to get that lucky. I felt another brick fall out of my wall of hope when he snatched the phone clean out of the wall as he passed it.
“Compelling people is exhausting and I’m already tired,” he continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “I figured better safe than sorry.”
I stood there watching, the last vestiges of hope draining away, as he Ember-proofed the room around me. When he suggested I take a shower, I didn’t even have the will left to argue with him. I practical
ly zombie-walked into the bathroom and closed the door softly behind me. There were no windows in the bathroom—which was probably what he’d been checking for—and no other ways out that I could see unless I wanted to tunnel through the wall to the next room. With a sigh of defeat, I slipped out of my clothes and turned the hot water in the shower on full blast.
Only you could get into a mess like this, I scolded myself as I lathered up my hair with the cheap generic shampoo the hotel had so thoughtfully provided. Other people met a guy, fell in love, got married, had kids, grew old, and died. But I always had to do things the hard way. I had to get the hots for the bloodsucking undead. Then, just for fun, he had kidnapped me. When that didn’t give him the entertainment value he obviously longed for, he had decided to turn me into a raging mass of hormones and then stomp on my ego. And the second I found a potential hero, he stomped on him.
I hoped the Bad Karma Fairy was getting a good laugh—because if I ever got my hands on her, I was going to break her damn neck.
I had just gotten out of the shower and wrapped myself in one of the thick, nicotine-scented towels on the vanity when Nathan knocked on the door. Without waiting for me to answer, he cracked it open enough to slide his arm in, waving a white t-shirt like a flag of truce. I stared at it like it was a snake, wondering what he was up to.
“I thought you might want something to wear,” he said quietly from the other side of the door. He had obviously interpreted the fact that I hadn’t taken the shirt from him as a sign that I doubted his motives.
“Did you soak it in chloroform?” I asked, suspicious.
“Of course not,” he chuckled. When I still didn’t take it, he waved the shirt again enticingly. “I know it’ll be huge on you as tiny as you are, but it’s the best I can do for tonight. We’ll stop and get you some clothes of your own tomorrow, I promise.”
Ignoring the jibe about my size, I decided to be gracious and accept the olive branch—or t-shirt of peace—he was offering me without being bitchy about it. Slowly, I walked over and took the shirt from him, careful not to touch him as I did. He immediately retracted his arm and closed the door.
I lifted the shirt to my face and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to sigh contentedly. It smelled like him, that sweet, sexy smell that had been driving me crazy since he’d walked up to me that afternoon. After smelling nothing but old cigarette smoke for the last hour, though, that scent was like heaven. It calmed me, soothing my frayed nerves, and I felt my muscles start to relax.
I wanted to laugh when I saw how huge his shirt was on me. Seriously, it was like wearing a tent. It came all the way to my knees, and about three of me could have fit into it. The neckline kept slipping off my shoulder, and I finally gave up on keeping it in place. I had to make a point of not sniffing the damned thing every other second, which I found pathetic, but at least I wasn’t wearing a towel.
I stopped to take a deep breath before I opened the door that separated us, and that’s when I heard Nathan’s voice drifting through the wood between us. He was talking quietly, but I could hear the angry edge to his voice. Curious, I cracked the door open just enough to peek out and found him sitting on the bed with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his head back.
A cell phone! a gleeful little voice cried in the back of my mind. I felt like doing the happy dance as my eyes glued themselves to the sleek, shiny smart phone pressed to the side of his head.
So he hadn’t destroyed all lines of communication to the outside world after all. I was going to wait until he was asleep and tear the damn room apart looking for that phone. Then, I was going to call Kim, tell her what had happened and where I was—just as soon as I figured that out myself—and pray she could get to me before he took off with me again. It was my only hope.
“Yes, damn it, I’m sure he’s a demon, maybe even the demon,” Nathan was saying, sounding testy. “He didn’t seem all that happy to see me. He’s going to up his game now; you can pretty much guarantee that. I think we’re going to have to go to Plan B.”
Silence.
“I already let that cat out of the bag. She doesn’t believe me.” Silence for a split second, then Nathan laughed softly. There was a bitter edge to that laugh that had me flinching. “Yeah, right. I could tell her a hundred times, but she still won’t listen to me. You really don’t know this girl, do you? I have never met anyone so stubborn in my life. ”
Silence, this time Nathan was scowling.
“Of course I didn’t leave her there with him,” he growled, shoving his hand through his hair. “Did you know he was there? Because you’re a real master at hiding shit. You knew I was trying to avoid this, but you sent me there anyway because you think you know everything. You wanted me to find her, didn’t you?” He was silent for a less than a second, and I could hear him grinding his teeth together all the way across the room. “Yeah, well, the consequences are on your head. I’m not staying anywhere near her. Not this time. As soon as I get her to you and I know she’s safe, I’m taking off. And the sooner, the better. ”
Wow. Didn’t I feel special all of a sudden? If being there was such a problem for him, I’d be happy to have him drop me off at the nearest airport. I hadn’t asked for his ‘help’ and I really didn’t want it.
He glanced toward the bathroom door and went so still I thought he had turned to stone. Knowing I was busted, I threw the door open and leaned my hip against the doorframe, trying to keep my eyes off the cell phone pressed to his ear.
“That won’t be necessary,” Nathan finally said, his voice so low and cold that it was almost like being blasted by a winter wind in the heat of June. I swear, I think I saw my breath come out in a cloud of vapor there for a second. “I have it under control, Oh Great One. Then we’re even and I’m gone.”
I saw a pained look cross his features and immediately felt a tightness fill my chest in response to it. Whatever was hurting him, I wanted to make it stop. But, no, wait! I didn’t want to make him feel better! I wanted to stake his ass and run for the nearest police station...
Didn’t I?
“I will never forgive you for this,” Nathan whispered, trapping my gaze. As I watched, the faint angry glow faded from his eyes, and the haunted look that replaced it touched me to my very core. “Never.”
He hung up and we looked at each other, both of us fighting battles of our own, and both of us losing the fight. The longer the silence went on, the more I felt him. It was like he was touching me, like he was crawling under my skin and making himself a permanent home. And there was part of me that was reaching out to him, too, a part I knew I would never get back if I was ever stupid enough to let him have it.
“That was kind of rude,” I said finally, referring to the fact that he had just hung up on whoever he’d been complaining about me to. “Care to let me in on the finer points of that little chat?” I gestured toward the phone still clenched in his hand.
The phone that I would be using as soon as he was asleep to call 911. Sweet freedom! I could almost taste it.
I realized about two heartbeats too late that I had messed up—again. Nathan’s eyes narrowed on mine, and I knew he’d just seen the visions of him in a nice jail cell in my head. He held up the phone between us, almost like he was going to offer it to me. Then, as I watched in horrified silence, he literally crushed the phone in his hand, obliterating my last chance at freedom to the tune of the sickening tinkle of broken electronics.
“You should learn to protect your thoughts,” he said, grinning at my livid expression.
“You suck—literally and figuratively, in your case!” I hissed as he brushed the remains of my last hope off his lap. Blinking back frustrated tears and more than a little peeved that he was messing up all my plans, I marched out of the bathroom and directly over to the bed.
The one king-sized bed.
The bed Nathan was already sitting on, his back propped against the headboard.
His eyes swept from my damp curls all t
he way down to my purple-painted toenails and back up again. The more of me he took in, the warmer his gaze got until I felt like I could actually feel the heat of it radiating across the space between us.
“I’d like to go to bed now,” I said stiffly, determined to ignore the way that look made me feel. He wasn’t worth it.
“By all means.” He waved grandly at the empty space on the bed next to him with a charming smile.
“And where will you be sleeping?”
“I’m pretty comfy right here,” he said, fluffing up the pillow behind him.
Was he crazy? I wasn’t going to sleep in the same bed with him. He must have read the thoughts crossing my mind, because he grinned at me and winked.
“I am not sleeping with you,” I bit out through clenched teeth.
“There’s always the floor,” he suggested. I grimaced at the centimeter thick industrial carpet and felt my skin start to itch just thinking about sleeping on it.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t…
“Good idea,” I told him, smiling sweetly. “I’m sure you’ll sleep like the dead there—a fitting description in your case.”
“Ember, get in the bed,” he said, laughing.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to say this one more time for the hearing impaired,” I huffed, irritated. “I’m not sleeping…”
I never got to finish my sentence. One second I was standing there, glaring at him, and the next I found myself on the bed, my head resting on the pillow and Nathan hovering over me, still smiling.
I immediately shoved at his shoulders to get him off of me, my heart thundering in my chest as I realized how weak my position had just become. God! Why couldn’t I meet a guy who knew what the word ‘no’ meant? Seriously, what part of it weren’t they understanding? The ‘N’? Or the ‘O’?