BloodMarked (The Fraktioneers Book 1)

by Lu J Whitley

  “Thank you… Uh… So much…” Greta turned to him with a face that said, ‘Oh shit.’

  Jami grinned at her like a cat with a face full of cream. “Not a problem.” He opened his satchel, rooted around for a second, and withdrew two Canadian passports. “This should do.”

  Greta let her curiosity get the better of her, loosening her grip on him to step forward as he slapped the passports down on the worn wooden counter. Two pictures stared back at them: Greta and Jami. Or should he say Gretchen and James Bradley. He’d chosen the names carefully, similarity and believability were key. It was too easy to slip up these days, and airport security was a bitch. Miss Polk studied the passports to a degree that would make any TSA rep with OCD proud, but he knew she’d find no flaw. He’d had almost eight-hundred years practice in forging papers. Though she looked like she could easily be over a century old, even Miss Polk was no match for those numbers.

  “Ah, so you’re Canadian, are you,” the woman said, as if that explained everything. “Very well. Mister Bradley. I’ll just need a signature.” She pointed to a line on a guest ledger. “Here.” Jami signed and exchanged cash for keys. The old-fashioned metal kind, complete with an enormous wooden key chain in the shape of a snowman. “Last one down on the right,” the older woman yelled after them as Jami ushered Greta out the door and toward their cabin - their bed.

  “You want to tell me how the fuck you have a fake passport with my picture on it,” Greta hissed, digging in her heels, and impeding his rush forward.

  “I promised to answer questions,” he huffed, “But first you wanted a shower and a bed. Those were the conditions you set. Right?”

  “Well, yes, but…” He didn’t give her the opportunity to finish. In one fluid motion, he tilted her off her feet and whisked her into his arms, running full speed toward the last cabin on the right. “Wait… What are… Put me down, Jami!” He ignored her protests. It was like their first date all over again, he chuckled to himself. He slung her high against his chest as he inserted the key into the door and took her into the room, shutting and locking the door behind them. Greta pelted him with halfhearted blows to the chest and shoulders, letting out little moans of annoyance that had all his blood migrating south. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I'm carrying you over the threshold, Misses Bradley.”

  “I’m not your fucking wife, you lunatic! Put me down!”

  “Shh. You don’t want Miss Polk to hear you now, do you?”

  He laughed when she actually quieted, whispering, “Fine. But will you please put me down!” He relented, sliding her down his body until her feet touched the floor, though he didn’t want to. He was having too much… fun. Gods, when was the last time he’d had fun? The irrepressible grin stretched across his features made his face ache. Greta looked up at him, staring as if he’d grown an extra eyeball. “You’re in an awfully good mood for someone who was dead an hour ago.”

  “I was not dead.”

  “Whatever.” She turned out of his arms, making her way deeper into the room. The cabin itself was one large room, with a spacious bathroom branching off to one side. A gigantic, king sized bed occupied most of the space, draped in a well-worn but soft looking quilt and a mountain of embroidered pillows. Greta carefully avoided the carved monster as she wandered around gathering blankets, towels, and all the extra pillowcases. He wondered if she’d lost her mind until he realized what she was doing. She tucked the fabric in around the curtains. Covered windows. She searched the whole place – filling and tucking – until she was satisfied it was a sunlight free zone for him.

  A foreign sensation had him rubbing his knuckles against his breastbone, trying to ease the ache. “Thank you.”

  “No prob.” She palmed the last of the towels and headed off in the direction of the bathroom. “I’m… Uh… Gonna go catch that shower.”

  She didn’t bother to look back, though he could tell by the tilt of her shoulders and the speed of her step that she was terrified. Of course she’s scared, asshole! An hour ago, he’d been lunging at her with claws and fangs bared. She’d learned she had powers she didn’t know anything about, and now she was locked in a room with him with more questions than answers. Oh, and he’d basically manhandled her every step of the way. He shook his head with resignation, setting his satchel on the bedside table and kicking off his boots. He flipped the heavy things under the bed with his field knife still attached to the stiff leather.

  When she got out of that shower, things would be different. He would be different. He was going to win this woman, even if it took him the next eight-hundred years.

  ★ ★ ★

  Greta tossed her neon duffel across the room and leaned back against the closed bathroom door, catching her breath. She willed her heart rate back to some semblance of a normal pace before she stroked out and keeled over where she stood. Christ, what the hell was happening?

  Maybe Jami had died out there, lying next to that abandoned highway, and when she’d blasted him with her magic… Electricity… Juju… Whatever the hell it was, she’d brought him back to life as Frankenstein’s love monster. He was like a completely different man, joking and laughing. Pinching her ass – which she knew he’d done just to get a rise out of her – but the hot blush hadn’t left her cheeks. Either set.

  So, what was he playing at? He seemed genuinely interested in getting her into that big carved bed. Though, aside from the one kiss they’d shared, he hadn’t, up to this point, shown any real willingness to be anything more than a protector and ‘ thing to be protected because it’s some sort of badass magical weapon.’ She huffed out a breath. “Right, no interest at all.” She knew it was a lie and had known all along. She wasn’t an idiot. You didn’t kiss a person like that, scorching them soul deep, if you weren’t interested in more. And she’d seen the carnal glances he gave her when he thought she was asleep or just wasn’t paying attention. What she didn’t know, though, was what had changed? He’d made it pretty clear that even if he was interested, nothing would be happening on that front. No way. No how. But the Jami she’d left in the other room looked like he’d be saying anything but ‘no.’

  So, if that big piece of man meat out there was willing to throw caution to the wind and jump into the sack – even if it was only for one night – was she willing to do the same? “Ughhhh.” She pushed away from the door with a grunt and blew a confused breath toward her eyebrows, making her hair dance around her forehead in disarray. Taking a few steps into the room, she turned to face the pedestal sink, glancing in the flaked silver mirror. Jesus, she looked like hell. Her hair stood at haphazard angles, spiking out around her face and stuck straight with dust and sweat. Eww. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles that would have been at home on a sleepy raccoon. She looked sallow and tired and scared out of her ever-loving mind.

  What she needed was three days at an all-inclusive spa and a really long nap. What she had was a severe case of the jitters and a collection of supplies that wouldn’t even keep MacGyver running for long. Trudging up to the chipped porcelain basin, she upended the contents of her small purse into it. She’d managed, a few stops back, to pick up a few bare necessities she'd had to leave behind in their rush to leave the Collum's cottage: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, brush, razor, Chap Stick. Not that Jami seemed to mind the windswept insane asylum escapee look she was currently rocking, God bless him. But she’d never seduced anyone, or been seduced for that matter, without access to a few more artificial feminine wiles. She pinched her cheeks and pouted. What she wouldn’t give for a little bit of blush and mascara. She sighed and made a mental note to look for some at the next stop. Yeah. Right.

  Grabbing the flimsy yellow Bic and the bottle of shampoo/conditioner offered on a wooden tray next to the tub, she stepped into the shower and turned the spray to scalding hot. She didn’t know exactly what she might be getting herself into, but she was going into it with clean hair, smooth legs, and new underwear.
/>   ★ ★ ★

  Jami hooked his thumbs in the neck of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. In the cabinets of the small kitchenette, he found some dish soap and a halfway clean hand towel, and made the most of it. Filling the sink with cold water so he wouldn’t draw any heat from the shower, he dunked the towel and began cleaning the road dust off his face and body, trying his best not to break down the damn bathroom door and join Greta in the hot steam he could feel wafting from beneath it.

  She was in there. Just twenty feet away. Naked. Wet. Gods.

  He tried not to think of her water slicked skin as droplets of frigid liquid snaked down his chest, soaking the waistband of his black cargos. He plunged his head into the sink, hoping to purge the vision. Clear his mind. Not that it did any good. Whipping his sopping wet hair over his shoulder, all he could feel was her fingers against his scalp. Her nails biting into his back. He dunked the towel again and shoved the thing down his pants, before he spontaneously combusted. “Brrrrr,” he let out a shivered trill as icy water dripped over his thick length and down his legs. But the cold did nothing to extinguish the fire.

  He tried not to imagine her fevered little hands as he palmed his erection through the damp towel. “Mmmm,” he moaned, his breath hitching out of his chest on rapid pants. He felt the phantom slide of her palms against his chest, and he squeezed harder, bucking his hips against the moist friction of the cloth. He popped the button on his cargos and unzipped his fly to get a better angle. His toes curled against the battered linoleum as he leaned into the counter, one hand braced for balance and his forehead resting against the upper cabinets.

  He gave in to the sensation, dropping the towel with a wet slap to the vinyl and sliding his damp palm over his cock from base to head, catching a drop of moisture with his fingertips on the way back down. He imagined Greta’s lips. Pictured them closed over him and creating a sucking friction. And he pumped against his fist. Harder. Faster. He remembered the way she’d grazed her teeth across his lips and imagined those teeth scraping over the sensitive head of his shaft.

  He came on a violent strangled gasp, the sensation whipping through him like an electric shock. Seizing in his balls and jetting his hot release into his closed fist. Pressing his fevered forehead into the cool wood of the cabinet door, he waited for his breath to calm before retrieving the towel and cleaning himself up.

  Over the noise of his own breathing, he caught the wisp of a sound – a fluttering gasp. A scent invaded his nostrils. Thick and heady. Sweet and rich. He turned, as the world focused into a single slow-motion sensation. Greta was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, one hand pressed to her chest, as if she was trying to keep her heart from flying out. And she was wearing nothing but a sheer purple lace bra and matching panties.

  Want, said the voice deep inside his subconscious, and he couldn’t help but agree.

  ★ ★ ★

  Greta felt on the verge of combustion. The sight of Jami touching himself was incendiary, burned in her memory forever. Strange heat flamed up her left arm. Heart attack. Had to be it. No one could see something like that and not drop dead from sheer sexual overload.

  “Greta,” the word was strangled, pained, “you’re glowing.”

  Glowing? The reddish glare caught her attention, and she raised her arm, bringing the flaming star to eye level. It pulsed with warmth and light, like the bolt she’d thrown at Jami when he was lying on the ground dying. It was both familiar and foreign. Frightening and freeing. Filling her with a strange sense of power. She felt like a woman in a way she never had before, beautiful and deadly. The rush of heat flaming through her body had just one point of focus, and it was directly in front of her. Male and dangerous and hungry. His thick length was hard and glossy, standing out from his abdomen as if offering a challenge.

  She licked her lips and looked into his eyes. The irises were lit from within by some unholy fire, and she expected to feel fear or disgust. But what she didn’t expect was desire. “So are you,” she smirked and used a flirtatious voice she didn’t know she possessed.

  “Shit.” He turned, facing the opposite wall. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” she whispered, taking a step toward him, entranced by the way his black cargoes had slid down his hips revealing a tantalizing strip of pale muscle.

  She had the alien urge to bite the swell of his ass. Draw blood. “I’m not scared.” Not true. She was terrified, but not of him.

  He looked at her over his shoulder, the muscles in his back bunching and coiling like snakes beneath his skin. His crimson eyes grew brighter. Nostrils flaring. She knew he was taking her in and running her scent through his senses. She’d thought it was strange before, but this time, it thrilled her, flooding her with a wave of sensual awareness and soaking her from the inside out. A growl emanated from somewhere deep in his chest, like the rumbling purr of a lion before he went in for the kill. She opened her arms, welcoming him, she was too tired of denying it.

  She didn’t see him move. He was too fast as he gathered her against him and locked his mouth with hers. His thick erection, still hot and wet, pressed into her stomach. She gasped against his lips, and he took advantage, sliding his tongue into her mouth. He withdrew and changed angles to get deeper into her, his fangs pricking against her upper lip. She whipped her tongue out and lapped at one of those dagger-like points, sending him into a frenzy of tongue and hands.

  He moaned as his palms slid under her arms, circling around her ribs and easily lifting her feet off the floor. He pulled her up to meet his insistent kisses, and her arms snaked around his neck, threading her fingers into his hair. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, dying to get closer. “Jami,” she sighed.

  Her bra unclasped with a snap of his nimble fingers. “Say it again.” He met her eyes, his lit with a fire that mimicked her burning ache for him. “Say my name.”

  “Jami.”

  “Greta,” he whispered her name like a prayer before he retook her mouth, nudging her lips open so he could slide inside.

  He held her effortlessly, one hand supporting her bare back while the other wandered the path of her spine. He smoothed over her hip and down her leg, purposefully missing all the places she wanted his touch. She ground herself against him – thrusting and rubbing – trying to get the pressure where she needed it, desperate for him. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears, blood rushing to the surface. He abandoned her mouth and left a blazing trail of kisses over her chin. Down the column of her throat before licking the tender hollow of her collarbone. While his hand slid to the inside of her thigh.

  “Yessss,” She moaned.

  “Like that,” he chuckled, his breath fanning out over her shoulder and raising goose bumps on her arms.

  “Mmmm,” was all she could manage in reply as his lips reached her shoulder, taking the lacy strap of her bra between his teeth and slipping it slowly down her arm. Her breasts fell free, pebbled nipples grazing over his hot skin. His hard pale muscles heaved against her with each breath.

  “Gods, you’re beautiful,” he whispered between fractured inhales, the catch in his tone lending more sincerity to his words. And in that moment, she felt beautiful, like some goddess sent to earth to be worshiped by his mouth. His lips dropped to take one of her hardened nipples in, the sensitive bud being suckled between his elongated fangs almost too much to bear. The growl of appreciation that escaped from his throat had her so close to the edge, vibrating her skin as he switched his attention to the opposite breast.

  If he’d only move his hand a little higher. “Jami,” she breathed his name again, hoping to spur him into action. He seemed to read her mind, sliding his hand slowly, so slowly, up the swell of her inner thigh. She hissed in a breath as his deft fingers connected with a narrow cut - a stuttered series of nicks she’d made with the useless plastic razor in her haste to get out of the shower and back to him.

  He pulled away from her and stared at her with startling intensity. The look
made her heartbeat race for an entirely different reason, those red eyes flaring to life. “You’re bleeding.”

  The haze of lust coloring her vision began playing tricks on her. She imagined swirling shapes, like blackened runes, sliding just beneath the surface of his skin, a looming darkness contorted his features, and she watched dazedly as his expression changed from lust to rage to a pained grimace and back again. He gripped her tighter, sharp claws digging into her bared back. Her ribs constricted and robbed her of her breath. “Jami,” she grunted, “You’re hurting me.” The words came out as little more than a whisper. He didn’t respond. Red eyes blank and staring, boring into her. She tried to drop her legs and free herself, but he was just too strong. With every struggling movement, he tightened his grip, crushing her to his chest in a steely embrace.

  “Want,” he growled.

  “Jami,” she tried again with the last of her oxygen, “Please.” Black stars winked across her vision. She tried to pull in a breath, but she didn’t have the strength. She went limp, on the verge of losing consciousness.

  “Greta,” he ground out between elongated fangs. The long line of his nose crumpled with the effort of forming the word, and his jaw muscles went taut with anguish.

  Fight it, she thought, trying to project the words at him, Fight it for me.

  His grip loosened a fraction, enough that she could suck in a much needed breath. Coughing as the air entered her lungs. With a grunt, his muscles shaking with strain, he gritted, “Blast. Me.”

  “What?” She coughed, her airways burning.

  “Magic,” he wheezed, “Do it.”

  Her mind was reeling. “I can… can’t.”

  “Tttrrrryyyy.” He let go all together, dropping her gracelessly to the floor. She landed in a jumble of arms and legs and desperately tried to right herself. She inhaled on a sob, a pained hiccuping breath. And she closed her eyes, as much to will herself to concentrate as it was to block out Jami’s handsome face twisted in agony.