BloodMarked (The Fraktioneers Book 1)

by Lu J Whitley

  He cleared his throat. Shrugged. “We know one thing. If they bite you, they die.”

  “Bite…” His eyes never left hers, giving her strength to talk this out. “You mean the one that bit me when I was five. He died?” A phantom pain streaked along the nerve endings between her brain and her ankle. Her scar. She’d killed one?

  “Yeah. And not in a nice way from what I witnessed. The thing just decomposed into a pile of steaming ichor.”

  “Eww, that’s a visual I so didn’t need.” She was queasy, and the world was taking on that spinny feeling again. “Wait… you were there?” She glanced over at him. The shock of blonde hair. Those red, red eyes. Her hand shot up to cover the gasp of breath that escaped between her parted lips. “Shit. You were there.”

  “You remember me?” He bent forward a little, the movement doing unspeakable things to his abs. “You’d lost a lot of blood by that point. I doubt you were even conscious.”

  She leaned back reflexively, putting more space between their bodies. “I’ve had so many nightmares…”

  “You don’t have to say it.” He sat back on a huff.

  “Not really about you. But you were in them. I remember seeing you… right before I passed out.” She reached out, wanting to comfort him for some reason. God knows why. Her fingers trembled as they settled lightly on his calf. She felt the heat of him through the thick fabric of his cargo pants. “I was scared of you, sure. I was little… and to a five-year-old you were like a friggin giant. Hell, you’re a friggin giant to me now.”

  He chuffed a half-laugh and sighed. “You were so small. So brave, for such a little thing.” His hands tangled in his hair, absentmindedly weaving the strands into a rough braid. “You didn’t stop running until your legs gave out on you.”

  “What happened? I asked my mother so many times, but she didn’t tell me anything.” Greta ignored the pang of grief that was like an arrow to her chest every time she mentioned her mother. Later, she told herself, she'd have time for that later.

  “Not much to tell. By the time I got there, the whole situation was pretty much in hand. Takers had made off with your father. Your mother was frantic, looking for you, but she was unharmed. I found you, shimmying through a drainage pipe with a Taker attached to your ankle. He met his maker, and you passed out cold.” A look of panic clouded the big man's eyes for a fraction of a second. “I… I took you back to your mom. You got patched up. We moved you out of the country as fast as possible. End of story.”

  “We?” She knew he was leaving something out, but he'd already told her more in twenty minutes than anyone had told her in the past twenty years, so she didn't push the issue.

  “Fraktion. Special team.” He flung the finished braid over his shoulder, and sat back. The door groaned with his weight. “Let’s leave it there for now. You’ll meet them soon enough.”

  “Alright. We’ll put a pin in that.” She had bigger fish to fry. Christ, fish… Her stomach rumbled. She started to gather her legs under her to get up. “Well, one of us - namely me - is gonna have to go get some food, or I’m gonna start gnawing on the furniture.”

  “Absolutely not!” The look he gave her said he would brook no argument on the subject, but she could tell there wasn’t much strength behind it. Oh, she had no doubt he’d be able to stop her if she tried to leave. He was, at the very least, a lot of dead weight to move. But at this point, she could tell by the hard set of his eyes and the deep lines bracketing the sides of his sensual mouth, he was too busy battling exhaustion to put up too much of a fight.

  “Look,” she began, guessing the only way to win this argument was to appeal to his protective nature, “I know those Takers, or whatever you call them, can move around during the day.” She'd gathered as much even before he’d told his whole sordid history. Looking back, there had to be a reason her mother never let her out of her sight, even during the day. “But I’m assuming we got a pretty good head start last night. They don’t know where we are right now, right?” She paused for his input, but he had none. “I know we’re gonna have to move on at sunset. Keep moving. But we’re gonna be completely useless against them if we’re both keeling over from starvation.”

  He opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. Opened it again. Doing his best impression of a fish out of water. Which was probably exactly how he was feeling at the prospect of sending her out, unprotected, into God only knew what. She couldn’t deny a part of her really liked the way he worried about her. It was always nice knowing someone cared whether you lived or died, even if it was a stranger. A really, really hot stranger.

  She lost herself for a moment, watching the movement of his lips. They looked soft. Strong. They pursed as he weighed his options. Thinned out when a worried look of resignation claimed his features.

  He grunted and hopped to his feet so quickly Greta couldn’t hold back a loud squeak of surprise. She looked up into his eyes. He looked down at her. The tension left his face for a split second, his lips quirking up at the corner in a half-smile. She’d thought he was gorgeous before. But smiling… Christ, there weren’t words. Or at least she couldn’t think of any. All the blood left her brain and pooled down low in her lady parts.

  He put out a hand to stay her, because she’d started to get up off the floor. Go to him without knowing it. “Wait here,” he said, another one of those smiles threatening to break through.

  She muttered something unintelligible that might’ve been “okay,” and plopped back down on her butt as he disappeared into the tiny bathroom. The fuck, Greta? She had to get her hormones in check. If she’d have had a mirror, she knew she would’ve seen some love smitten puppy-dog eyes staring back at her. It wasn’t like her. She didn’t go all gooey over guys, especially not stone cold killers she didn’t know if she could really trust.

  Yes, dude was brutally hot, no denying that. And he’d given her information. She knew he’d left parts out, whether for her benefit or because there were some things he didn’t want her to know, she wasn’t sure. Though she’d been infinitely glad he’d glazed over the part about boning her ancestor. To be honest with herself, the thought of him getting sexed up over any other woman made her see red. A feeling she didn’t really want to examine too closely. But she still didn't know... There was something about him she couldn't quite put her finger on, an elusive red flag.

  She absentmindedly rubbed at the star-shaped birthmark on the inside of her left elbow. It wasn’t really noticeable, unless you knew what you were looking for. Not much more than a slight skin discoloration, really. But she’d always known it was special, her Papa had told her so. As far back as she could remember, he’d called her Sternchen, his “Little Star.” He told her it meant someday she would do great things. Of course, he'd failed to mention what those great things might be. Or she’d have to run for her life from a clan of skin walking pod people in order to do said things. She wasn’t really surprised. August Brandt had never been one to explain the whys or hows. It just had to be done, and Greta had to do it. She wished she could have had more time with him. She had so many questions…

  Jami came out of the bathroom, breaking her train of thought. Or at least the smell of him did. The deliciously male musk radiating from his body was enough to make her thoughts drift away on a wisp of steam.

  He reached out a strong, calloused hand to help her from the floor. She took it. Placing her hand gracefully in his in a way that would’ve made Audrey Hepburn proud. She locked eyes with him as she rose lithely off the floor. Her leg - bent at a sensuous angle - tangled in the crumpled bed sheet, pitching her forward. And she fell flat, face first, against smooth, hot, rippling muscle. Shit.

  He stiffened. Revulsion? Surprise? She didn’t know. But at least it gave her a moment to compose herself. Or it would have, if she hadn’t been using all her willpower not to flick out her tongue and catch his pebbled nipple. It was right there. So close.

  She pushed back. Teetering. Sliding her hands up his abs slowly. For balance. She
groaned, “Maybe you should put on a shirt or something.” Was that out loud?

  He chuckled, the rock hard abdomen under her hands shaking with the sound. He flashed her a dazzling smile. She had to admit, the man had good teeth for his age. “Maybe you should put on some pants or something.” Wait… was he… flirting with her?

  She’d forgotten, at some point, she had on his shirt and pretty much nothing else. “Um. Where are my clothes?”

  “I threw them in the trash.”

  “What,” she grunted, pulling her hands away from where they were still attached to his abs and crossing them over her chest, feeling suddenly exposed. “What am I supposed to wear? It’s not like I can go traipsing around… wherever we are... in my underwear.”

  “Here.” He handed her a soft black piece of fabric that turned out to be a well-worn pair of sweat pants. “These’ll have to do.”

  She quickly slipped them on, trying her best not to flash him a granny panty-clad money shot. Was he serious? The legs were so long she could’ve pulled them up to her chin and still had room to move comfortably. She had to roll them over at the waist four times to keep them from falling off. She felt tiny. And as much as she fought back a grin, she couldn't help but admit, she liked it. “Thanks.”

  He smiled again, and she had to look away before she lost her mind. He really needed to stop doing that. “Your shoes are by the door. I managed to get most of the muck off, but they might still be a little damp.”

  Soggy would be a more accurate word. Greta tried not to wince as she slipped her feet in and tightened the laces, insoles squishing against her bare toes. She looked down at herself. Maybe she should’ve gone out in her underwear. She looked ridiculous.

  She was about to complain when Jami reached into his back pocket and pulled out the biggest wad of cash she’d ever seen. A thick roll of every denomination from $100 right down to $1. It had to be close to ten grand. “Are you insane,” she squeaked. Just being in proximity to that much money made her hair stand on end. “Do you think I’m getting gold plated lobster for dinner?”

  “What?” Was his dignified response.

  “Why the hell are you carrying around that much cash? That’s like asking to get mugged.”

  “Do I look like I get mugged often?” He shot her a look that said, ‘I could eat you for dinner.’ Yes please.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “But I’ll definitely get mugged. I’ll look like a clown that robbed a bank.”

  ★ ★ ★

  One hour.

  Twenty-eight minutes.

  Thirty-two seconds.

  Jami paced across the mangy shag carpet, the thick treads of his boots beating a path down to the floorboards. He felt useless. Impotent. The sun was beginning its slow descent into the western sky. He could feel it. A pull all the way down in his marrow, like the moon pulling the tides.

  He was a racehorse chomping at the bit. Did she think she could run from him? There was nowhere on Earth she could hide. Not while his blood was inside her. Coursing through her veins.

  It was a selfish thing. He wanted to think she would come back to him of her own accord. He wanted to believe when he'd seen that heat in Greta's eyes, when he'd smelled her delicious arousal, it hadn't been a mirror of his own ridiculous fantasies. But he had to tell himself, over and over again, she was powerless to the connection. Especially since he'd just strengthened that connection the previous night. Stupid. He'd told himself it was for her benefit. She was in shock. She needed to sleep and heal. While all of that was true, he'd known she would've done so without his intervention. But he hadn't been able to resist. His blood could make it so much easier. Heal her so much faster. So while she was unconscious...

  He slapped his hands to his face and slid them down, trying to wipe away that feeling of guilt. He'd taken advantage of an unconscious woman. Not sexually. No. Though Gods, he'd wanted to. But he hadn't asked her opinion before he'd split his wrist and emptied his blood into her. He'd told himself he wouldn't do it again. This time, he wanted her to choose him. He wanted to tell her everything and give her the choice that had been taken away from her all those years ago.

  Yes. He’d intentionally left that part out of his storytelling, not sure how to broach that particular topic. Sure, he could’ve come out and said, ‘Oh, by the way, when you were five, my blood healed you, but once it’s in you, you’re connected to me forever.’ He’d had the same discussion with the late Hannah Brandt on that night eighteen years ago, when little Greta’s life hung in the balance.

  Jami hadn’t been their Watcher then. He hadn’t been much of anything then, really. Growing so tired of seeing generations go by. Mothers, daughters, sisters. But no birthmark. No violet eyes. So, he’d spent the greater part of a century cultivating a kind of drug induced, numb coma.

  Then, he got the call. All agents needed. No exceptions. He was a lot of things, but disloyal wasn’t one of them. An order was an order. The situation was critical. Takers gathering en masse and moving in on a sleepy village, high on a German hillside. The bastards had learned the Brandt family secret, a secret even he hadn’t known at the time. Greta Brandt was the one he’d been waiting nearly eight centuries for.

  He’d rushed to the scene as fast as he could with a hangover that threatened to make his head explode with each pounding step. “Go after the girl,” someone had shouted to him, the voice floating out of the fray.

  No fair, he’d thought petulantly. Crossing out a few Takers might’ve improved his mood. But babysitting? Gods.

  A scent had assaulted his nostrils. Fear mixed with the most delicious, intoxicating fragrance he’d ever come into contact with. He’d followed the scent trail, powerless against the draw. He’d found the Taker first, screaming and melting like the Wicked Witch of the West after meeting a hefty bucketful of water. He’d never seen one do that before and almost wanted to stop and watch, out of sheer curiosity, but he was on a mission. The scent was all over the Taker, but not coming from him. Gods, what was it?

  It had led him to the mouth of a small drainage culvert and an ivy covered wall. He'd cleared the wall in one leap, landing in front of a startled five-year-old. Raven black hair caked with muck and sweat. Violet eyes wide with fear. Blood, the sweet, sweet smelling claret, had been draining from her ankle at an alarming rate.

  He’d been called a number of things in his long life. Demon, Devil, Vampire. But they’d never been truer than in that moment. The little body had toppled sideways, losing consciousness, and he'd paid no heed. All he could think - all he could see - was that river of delicious blood spreading around her motionless form.

  Want, the beast inside him had purred, his fangs slipping free. Red eyes reflected in pools of blackened liquid, and it had taken every ounce of will he had not to lie on the ground like an animal and lap it up. Swirl it on his tongue. He’d never felt more like a monster. Pulling his eyes up to the dying child, he'd hated her. With a pained grunt, he'd picked her up, threw her carelessly over his shoulder, and made his way back toward the house.

  “Greta!” Hannah Brandt had run at him, screaming for her child. He'd handed her off, trying to ignore the blood that now saturated his clothes. “Help her!” Hannah had demanded. “She dies!”

  “No.” He’d done it before, been tied to someone through his blood. It was a devastating thing, and not something he wished to do again. Ever.

  “Sie gezeichnet ist!”

  That had gotten his attention. She was marked? “Wo ist es?” Hannah had laid her dying daughter gently on the gravel street. Pulling back the arm of her ruined pink pajamas, she'd revealed a faint, nearly invisible, star-shaped mark. He should’ve known. The violet eyes. None of the others had had the eyes. “She won’t be the same… after,” he'd tried to explain to the distraught mother. Though whether he was trying to convince her or himself, he didn’t know. “She’ll be mine. Forever… of my blood.”

  He'd wanted her to say no, don’t do this to a defenseless little girl. But she'd
looked him straight in the eyes. Daring him to balk. “Do it!” Without hesitation, he’d used his fangs to rip open his wrist and held it over the girl’s mouth while her mother had tenderly smoothed back her hair. “Thank you,” Hannah whispered through silent tears.

  He’d promised Greta’s mother and himself that night that he would always watch over them, keep Greta safe. And now, for the second time in two days, he found himself pacing across a shitty hotel room wondering where she was and what the hell she was doing.

  Fuck it, he thought, tossing his satchel over his shoulder. The sun was nearly set, and he purposefully picked hotel rooms that faced north when he was in this hemisphere, less direct sunlight that way. As long as he headed east, keeping to the shadows. He should be fine until that retched orb sunk below the horizon.

  After making one last check around the room to be sure he hadn’t left anything, he grabbed the knob of the outer door, turned, and pulled it open. To see Greta standing in the doorway. A bag of groceries in her mouth, hand upraised as if she was about to knock.

  ★ ★ ★

  “Where the fucking hell have you been?”

  “Getting groceries,” Greta mumbled through the plastic between her teeth, cocking her hip out with attitude. The nerve!

  She’d schlepped her happy ass back and forth across this one horse town trying to find something to eat that didn’t involve deep fried pig innards. Not easy when your best option was a liquor store/gas station owned by a man named ‘Buck,’ who thought it was extra nice when her fifteen-sizes-too-big sweat pants had ended up around her ankles halfway through the ‘meat’ aisle.

  So she’d taken a short side trip. Big deal. She’d had to get some pants that didn’t flash her business every time she bent over. Luckily, there was a farm supply store three blocks over that had more than enough pairs of jeans – and a frighteningly large array of women’s lingerie. Not that she was judging. There were probably plenty of occasions where one needed crotchless panties and tractor parts…