The vampire shook himself out of his stupor just as the woman reached him and dodged left, leaving her on a collision course with one of the pillars supporting the overhanging floors above the courtyard. She slammed her left hand into it and pivoted, using the momentum to her advantage as she pushed off, muscles flexing beneath her golden skin.
Marek leaped into the fray with her, partly because she needed his assistance with this vampire because Marek could sense he was stronger than the others she had managed to dispatch, and partly because he wasn’t about to let her steal his quarry.
The vampire spotted him and put on a burst of speed, appearing behind Marek. Closer to the door. He meant to escape. It wasn’t going to happen.
The woman noticed his intent too and turned on a pinhead to track the vampire, almost losing her footing in the process. Marek beat her to the male, using his own preternatural speed to cut him off before he could reach the door. The vampire almost barrelled into him, saving himself at the last second by back-peddling hard, his arms flailing as he fought for balance.
A flash of victory shone in the woman’s eyes as she came up behind the vampire and Marek couldn’t contain the growl that rolled up his throat as he realised he had driven the vampire right into her arms.
She gripped her sword with both hands and brought it up in a fast, brutal arc. The vampire bellowed as he arched forwards, blood spraying from above his shoulder as the blade swept upwards, delivering a vicious blow that was sure to be his end.
She swore again in Catalan, a not very complimentary curse about the vampire’s mother, and spun on her heel as Marek watched, too enthralled by the bewitching beauty to move as she sang a siren’s song to his heart.
It was hard not to find her alluring when she was doing his favourite pastime with so much grace and fire.
It was hard not to find her arousing.
The heat of battle was no place to be feeling pleasure from anything other than breaking bones, severing arteries and claiming heads, but it was hard not to feel it as he watched her decapitate the vampire.
Blood splattered over Marek’s chest but he didn’t notice, was too enchanted by how fire lit her eyes as she came to a halt, breathing hard, that delicious high of victory painted all over her face so vibrantly that he swore he could feel it, knew exactly what she was experiencing as she held her blade out at her side and watched the final vampire fall.
Gods, damn, she was incredible.
But also infuriating.
“That was my vampire,” he said, voice a low growl that hid none of his fury as he looked down at the bubbling, smoking corpse between them. “This whole nest was mine.”
She was swift to ready herself for a fight, bringing her sword down in front of her and bracing her feet apart. His heart beat a little harder, that wicked sort of heat she stirred in his veins burning hotter as she faced him, looking for all the world as if he was next on her dance card.
He wanted to be next on it, but the sort of dancing his body wanted wasn’t the kind she had dealt these vampires.
He wanted to tangle with her.
Ached for it.
He had seen strong women before, Valen’s beloved Eva being one of them, but they were rare and this female was a jewel among them, shining brightly and beckoning him. He wanted to possess her, and that made her infinitely more dangerous than the rest of her kind.
“So what?” she spat in heavily accented English, her chin jerking up as her features set hard, soft pink lips flattening and fine eyebrows drawing down over her bright hazel eyes. “You should have beat me to them then. Don’t cry to me because you weren’t quick enough and I bested you.”
He raised an eyebrow at her as his blood heated another ten degrees. “Bested me?”
He almost growled, but then the irritating voice of reason chimed that she had beaten him to the kills.
He wasn’t going to let it slide that easily though.
“There were a dozen vampires in this nest.” He cast a glance around the bloodbath in the courtyard. Carnage that the woman stood in the middle of, a vision of crimson-splattered beauty. He tried to ignore the fresh bolt of hot lust that rushed through him on looking back at her. “I count only five bodies.”
She swept her blade to her right, sending the remaining blood on it flying to the pavement, and slipped it into the sheath he had noticed strapped to her back. Did she no longer consider him a threat? Her second mistake of the evening.
Just because she was human, didn’t mean she was safe from his wrath.
“I’ll find the rest,” she snarled as her pretty face darkened. “I’ll scour the damned city until every last one of them is like that.”
She nodded her head towards the vampire decaying between them, now little more than a bubbling pile on the paving slabs.
“I don’t think so.” Marek flexed his fingers around the worn leather hilt of his blade and her gaze flickered there. Her right hand inched behind her hip, edging towards the grip of her sword. She didn’t need to worry. He wasn’t going to attack her, but he wasn’t going to let her have her way either. “You already killed enough of my vampires.”
And the hunger he had hoped to sate was still riding him hard, unsatisfied by the single kill he had managed. He needed to find the others and deal with them, needed the high of battle that she was experiencing. The high she had stolen from him.
She huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “I didn’t see your name carved on them. They’re mine and you need to back off.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” he growled and took a single step towards her.
Her right hand shot to the hilt of her sword, but she didn’t draw it.
He stared her down, aware that the darkness was rising in his eyes again, provoked by his need to hunt, by the frustration now mounting inside him as he looked at the aftermath of the fight and could count only one of the kills as his own. The five vampires might have satisfied him.
Maybe.
Probably not.
It was taking larger and larger nests to keep his need to hunt the vermin quiet these days.
If he could track down the remaining seven, it might at least take the edge off.
He just needed to make sure the woman didn’t get ideas about hunting them, so he had a clear shot at them, without worrying about her.
“You were almost killed tonight.” He risked another step towards her and tried to keep the bite out of his voice as a replay of her held in the arms of that damned wretch flashed across his mind, his fangs poised to pierce her throat. Darkness rose within him again and he didn’t tamp it down this time, let it flood his veins and his eyes so she would see it. So she would know what she was up against. “You’re not strong enough to fight that many vampires alone. It’s tantamount to committing suicide. Do you have a death wish?”
Anger flared in her hazel eyes, fire that stoked the one in his veins as he realised she was going to fight him on this. He wanted to tangle with her, just not in this way. If she wanted a fight though, she had it.
“I’m not afraid of death.” The look in her eyes warned she meant that and told him that he wasn’t the only one who had a reason to kill vampires.
She was driven by something, and from where he was standing it looked personal.
She stooped and grabbed a leather jacket from the ground, tugged it on in a way that screamed of the anger and frustration he could sense in her. Her eyes met his and she cast him a withering glare that let him know exactly what she thought of him, and then stormed past him.
He grabbed her arm, holding her back. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She yanked free of his light grip, tilted her head back and glared up at him. “I’m going to find the vampires.”
“You won’t find them tonight. They will have gone to ground. It’s going to take us a few nights to uncover the location of their new nest.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Us?”
He hiked his shoulders, cleaned hi
s knife on his combat trousers and sheathed it. “I’m not going to let you hunt them alone.”
Partly because she would get herself killed.
Mostly because he needed to kill them himself. Working with her seemed like a good way of getting her out of his way. Once they found the vampires, he could teleport her somewhere safe and return to kill them. She would be furious with him, but he found he liked that idea. He liked it when there was a bite in her tone and fire in her eyes.
“No one lets me do anything.” She looked as if she wanted to hit him. “I’m not yours to control. I can find the vampires without you. I don’t need your help.”
He scoffed. “Is that so? Because from where I’m standing, I have the feeling I have at least two centuries of vampire hunting experience on you and I know every inch of this city in detail, can pin down at least a dozen locations I would check tomorrow night alone. Can you say the same?”
Her mouth flapped open and snapped closed. She was quick to recover and hit him with another glare that let him know exactly what she thought about him. If he was trying to get that spot on her dance card for a midnight tango, he was going about it the wrong way. Something about her made it impossible to play nice though. He had charmed his share of women over the centuries, could normally have them under his spell with only a few well-placed compliments and a little light flirting.
Something about her had him way off his game.
He didn’t mean to be caustic with her, to push her buttons and rile her at every turn, but he couldn’t help himself.
And he had the feeling it wasn’t because he didn’t want to share the vampire kills.
His mind whirled back to when he had first set eyes on her and the black, terrible need that had gone through him in that moment.
A dark urge to protect her.
He felt it even now, even as she levelled a black look at him, her eyes relaying the internal war she waged as she considered his offer despite the fact she clearly preferred working alone. Just the fact she was considering it didn’t sit well with her, he could see that much.
He couldn’t deny that it sat well with him. A little too well. The thought of working with her, seeing her again, had need rolling through him. Not a desire to tangle with her, but a desire to peel back her layers and discover what she hid beneath her beautiful, tough exterior.
Why did she hunt vampires?
He wanted to know the answer to that question.
The corners of her lips turned downwards and she looked away from him. “Fine. But only because it will speed things up.”
Marek held his smile back, keeping his features flat and emotionless, so she couldn’t see how much that pleased him.
He gazed down at her, tracing her profile as she gently brushed her caramel-coloured hair over her shoulder, causing the tumbling waves to catch the light and become threaded with gold. Her eyes slowly slid to meet his, stirring that wicked need in his veins again, quickening his pulse as he drank his fill of his enchanting vampire slayer.
He wasn’t sure this was a wise idea. Duty waged war with desire inside him, the sensible side of him filling his head with everything that had happened over the last few months, how the threat from their enemies was mounting now.
Taking his eye off the ball could prove fatal.
Every battle-hardened instinct he possessed drilled that into him.
But another instinct pushed back against it, one that he had possessed from birth. An instinct she had awoken in him.
Not the vampire slayer.
But the vampire who had betrayed him.
He didn’t miss the irony of that.
A vampire had awoken the dark, possessive side of his blood, had made him wild with a need to protect her and claim her as his forever, and she had killed that side of him too through a single act of betrayal.
Now, a vampire hunter had roused that instinct, breathing new life into it, and the fires of its rebirth felt as if they might consume him.
Completing this hunt without her was the most sensible course of action, but he couldn’t do it. The side of him she had awoken needed her with him, where he could see her, so he knew she was safe. If he didn’t meet her and hunt the vampires with her, there was a chance she would go off alone and do something as crazy as spilling her blood again to attract the vampires.
He touched her left arm, grazing his palm down the leather over the wound beneath it.
Her eyes leaped to his face and awareness of her narrowed the world down to only her, until she was all he could focus on.
Maybe keeping her safe wasn’t the only reason he wanted to hunt with her.
He lifted his gaze to her face.
A hot bolt of lightning struck him as their eyes met.
He wanted her.
And nothing in this world, the Underworld, and all of Mount Olympus would stand in his way.
Darkness curled through his veins, sank tendrils into his heart and threatened to pull a growl from his lips.
He would have her.
Chapter 4
The fight had shaken her more than usual. Or maybe it was the mysterious warrior who stood before her that had her legs feeling weak.
Caterina tried to tear her eyes away from his rich, earthy ones. Eyes that had been black more than once during the fight and during their confrontation. He moved with the speed and fought with the strength of a vampire, but whatever he was, he wasn’t one of their breed.
And he wasn’t human like her.
According to him, he was older than two hundred years, something that might have sounded ridiculous or even incredible to her a decade ago. Now, she felt nothing. No sense of amazement. No desire to laugh in his face and tell him his joke was poor.
If vampires were real, then it stood to reason that there were other things that went bump in the night.
What was he?
A natural predator for the vampires? He evidently enjoyed hunting them, had been aggravated by the fact he had found her killing a nest he had earmarked for himself. He had seemed annoyed about offering to team up with her, even when it had been his suggestion.
In all her research, she hadn’t heard of vampires having any predators. Everyone painted them as the top of the food chain. The great white shark of the immortal world.
She looked the man over. Where did he stand in that shadowy, secret world?
His fingers grazed her arm, up and down, a maddening caress over her jacket that seemed to reach beyond the leather so she could feel his touch on her bare flesh. Her breaths came shorter and faster even as she steeled herself against the effects of his stroking. She lifted her eyes to his, a demand to stop rising to her lips. It fell away as she fell into his eyes.
They brightened, mesmerising flecks of warm gold emerging against the earthy backdrop as they sparkled at her in the low light.
Heat swept through her, a wildfire that frightened her.
She had been so focused on her brother for the last decade that she hadn’t been with a man in that time, hadn’t even thought about indulging in such a thing. Now she couldn’t think about anything else.
This dark warrior had stolen the whole of her focus, had her breathless and aching for him to do more than lightly caress her arm over her jacket. She wanted to feel his fingers on her bare flesh, ached with a need to have his large hands cupping her, kneading her, teasing her to the edge of insanity.
She swallowed to wet her parched throat and somehow found the strength to step back and break contact with him.
Her voice wobbled as she spoke, betraying how easily he shook her.
“I’ll meet you in the Plaça Reial tomorrow night at dusk.” Meeting in a very public square seemed like the most sensible course of action.
Something about this man unsettled her, and it wasn’t just how easily he had her aching for his touch. She intended to question him before they went anywhere, learning more about him to set her mind at ease, something she couldn’t do right now. She needed time to gather
herself and build a wall, something to protect herself. He had her shaken, made her weak in a way she didn’t like.
She took a step towards the exit and looked back at him. “I’ll give you an hour but no more. If you don’t show, I’m out of there.”
He nodded. “Until then.”
Caterina went to turn away from him, expecting him to follow her out of the building.
He disappeared in a swirl of black smoke and she stumbled backwards, her spine hitting the wall of the arched entrance as her breath left her in a startled rush. She stared wide-eyed at the lingering ribbons of darkness as they dissipated.
Cursed low in Catalan.
What the hell?
Her legs threatened to give out and she leaned more heavily against the sandstone wall for support, struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
Warning bells jangled in her head.
She tried to ignore them as she found the strength to walk out of the heavy wooden door and close it behind her, concealing the carnage on the other side. There was more to the dark warrior than she had expected, and she didn’t like it. For the last nine years, she had known what she was up against, had learned everything about her quarry so they couldn’t surprise her, catching her off guard.
Now she had proposed working with a man she didn’t know, one who had finally managed to stun her by revealing a power that did seem impossible. Laughable. A very poor joke.
He could teleport.
She tried to wrap her head around that as she walked from the scene of the crime, heading towards the nearest Metro station.
Walking felt good, had her legs growing stronger beneath her and her head clearing, although she couldn’t shift the warrior from it, or how easily he had unnerved her. What other powers did he have?
She cursed again. Walking away from all of this was a good idea. Probably the best one she’d had all night. Before she ended up in deep trouble.
So why couldn’t she do it?
Caterina pondered that as she exited the narrow, sloping shopping street into a small square with a busy road running through it and crossed it to the Metro station. Every moment with the warrior played on repeat in her head, every detail pored over, and every instinctive reaction he had triggered studied. Her attraction to him was obvious and she wasn’t foolish enough to deny that it existed. But her instincts also labelled him as dangerous as the vampires.
Marek: Guardians of Hades Series Book 4 Page 3