Worth Dying For

by Luxie Ryder

  Chapter Ten

  Bane looked down at Amber’s sleeping form, unable to resist trailing a finger over the very tempting but still intact vein throbbing in her throat.

  He’d resisted. He didn’t know how, but he had.

  Bane flexed his hand, assessing the damage he had done when he bit into it. The skin had almost healed. A flesh wound usually disappeared within a few minutes but nerve damage took a little longer to repair.

  His treacherous mind recalled the exhilaration he used to get from biting his sexual partners. The overpowering scent of their blood, pulsing mere millimetres beneath the skin, would always make him dizzy and he would delay the moment, savouring the anticipation. Bane chased the memory away—such thoughts were not a good idea with Amber prone beside him.

  As if aware he thought of her, she turned into his touch, throwing an arm across his hip and settling her face on his abdomen. The innate trust in her movements had almost as much effect on him as the intimacy of her embrace. He closed his eyes, ignoring the hardening of his groin, determined to let her rest. Bane had never met anyone like her—in either of his lives. He couldn’t decide if her actions were fearless or just plain stupid. Whatever the truth about of her state of mind, he relished the chance to lie with her like this. Like a normal man. He wished he were a better one.

  Making love to her had been a revelation. Her reactions had been typical—Bane knew what he was—but he hadn’t expected the intensity of his own release. He had never lost himself in the moment so completely. Not even with Mary. The acknowledgement caused him an almost physical pain.

  Lifetimes of yearning and lust raged through him in one unnerving moment, and he knew he wanted to truly possess Amber, to have her for his own.

  He wrapped one of her bronze curls around his finger while he watched her sleep and knew a twinge of jealousy towards the man she would meet one day. Venom burned the back of his throat at the thought of someone else touching her the way he had or of Amber giving herself to another as she had given herself to him.

  Regardless of the feelings he had for the woman in his arms, it couldn’t last. Not if Katerina had her way. He pulled Amber closer, letting his fingers trace idle circles on her skin, trailing from one freckle to another, as he struggled to think of a way to make things right for her again.

  No, he would not have Amber for much longer. If the threat passed, then he had to return her to her normal life. The issue of David’s death would be easy to resolve. Bane would confess, await trial and imprisonment and then escape. But he would never be able to go near her again. Katerina’s good will, and therefore Amber’s survival, would depend upon his total acquiescence to the wishes of his maker.

  If the woman who had plagued his life for centuries couldn’t be appeased, then Amber would die and he knew he would willingly die too trying to save her. But what would be the point if all he had achieved would be to ensure that she faced the same horrific death alone? A cold weight settled in the pit of his stomach. Bane looked down at her sleeping form, vowing that, if the end ever came and all seemed lost, he would do the deed himself. Only he would ensure she felt no pain and had no fear. Only he would leave her body intact and unblemished.

  When she had gone, he would find Katerina and make her pay for the curse she had put on his life. She would die for what she had done to Mary and to Amber. Ulrich would not hesitate to punish him and his own miserable existence would end soon after.

  Amber’s breathing became shallow and he looked down to find her watching him, her eyes reflecting the sadness he felt.

  “Is there no hope at all, Malachi?”

  “There’s always hope.” He averted his gaze so she wouldn’t know he had lied. Whatever time they had left he would spend making her happy and protecting her from fear.

  He stroked the glorious auburn hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders and he knew he could spend eternity wrapped in her arms and touching her this way. Would she want the same?

  “There is one solution we have not discussed.”

  “What’s that?” She sat up and the sheet dropped to her waist, forcing Bane to close his eyes again so the sight of her flushed and naked didn’t distract him.

  “I could change you.”

  The words hung between them until Bane could stand to wait no longer and looked to see how she had reacted. He found none of the horror or disgust he had anticipated, but he knew Amber well enough not try and guess how she felt.

  “How would that solve the problem?”

  “Ulrich governs our kind. We have very few laws, and they are rarely enforced. In fact the one regarding exposure, the one Katerina used to elicit your death penalty, is the rarest of them all. Were she not Ulrich’s daughter, he would never have agreed to it.”

  “You told me yourself that vampires interact with humans all the time. Why are they so set on punishing me?”

  “Katerina’s jealousy mostly, but David didn’t help matters by going to the press. Without him, she would never have known. But if you were changed—became one of us—then the risk of exposure would be removed.”

  “Well, now I feel much better. You should have explained before that all I need to do is die to save my own life.” Amber smiled without humour. “Are all female vampires like Katerina? And by that I mean power crazy, evil, blood-sucking bitches.”

  Bane ignored the sarcasm, eager to take advantage of the fact she hadn’t yet said no, but compelled to be honest with her. “Women hold no power in our world.”

  Amber’s mouth had fallen open at that, but she gave him a grudging smile when he pushed it closed with a gentle finger under her jaw. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “You must remember that we don’t have your modern values. We are an ancient society, ruled by men. Ulrich and his sons have absolute power. But the females are valued because they are so rare.”

  “Why aren’t there more of them?”

  “Changing a woman is hard to do. As in your world, the men are far more aggressive. Often, their victims die from blood loss before the venom can take effect. But there is another, far more common reason there are so few females among us. Many of the males revel in their freedom and sexuality. Very few want to be bound for eternity to a woman they could tire of.”

  “That’s heartwarming to hear, but I guess I can see why an immortal man would be scared of commitment.” She grinned at her own joke.

  “Some do survive, obviously. But they are spoken for from the moment they are made, belonging solely to their creator.”

  “But if every man who wants a female has one, why are they so highly prized?”

  “Ulrich uses others for his own gain. Some women are changed specifically to work for him and serve him. It would surprise you to know how many of the world’s most influential men have mistresses supplied by him. The men cannot resist their charms, nor can they refuse them anything. Someone in Ulrich’s position needs power and influence to ensure that our homeland remains undiscovered and his coffers stay full.”

  An emotion he couldn’t place glittered in Amber’s eyes. “And they chose to do this willingly I suppose?”

  Bane flinched. “Not at first. That’s another reason why the ones who accept their new lives and survive the change are so well protected.”

  “Bound to one man or enslaved by another. It’s not much to offer a girl, Bane.” Her weak smile made it clear how she felt at the prospect.

  Her reaction sobered him—he hadn’t given much thought to what she would think of their way of life. “Those are not the only choices for you.”

  “But you said—”

  “I only need to claim you to prevent Ulrich using you and, if you wished it so, I would leave you in peace after that.”

  Her answer wasn’t the one he had hoped for. “Why doesn’t Ulrich just take the women he wants? He has absolute power after all.”

  “He used to but he lost so many of his strongest men, who died fighting trying to rescue their women, that he
relented. I think finding his daughter made him understand.”

  “He found Katerina?”

  “Many hundreds of years ago, he stumbled across a child abandoned in a forest. He took her home and raised her as his own, out of curiosity more than love. By the time she reached adulthood, he felt like a father to her and changed her on her twenty-first birthday to keep her with him forever.”

  Bane explained why Katerina and her family had so much power. Ulrich was one of the original vampires—born in a time when dragons roamed the earth and the people lived side by side with such mythical creatures and beings.

  “There are only a few ancient species that survive today. Vampires, werewolves and shape shifters, having the advantage of a more developed brain, quickly rose to the top of the food chain.”

  Amber’s nimble mind leapt to another subject. “If he is so powerful, why does he need to court politicians and use soldiers to protect him?”

  “To prevent his homeland being invaded and himself from attack, human or otherwise. There are other clans of vampires in different parts of the world. Ulrich and his family are not the only abomination your God inflicted on the world.”

  The change of subject caught her unawares. She swivelled around to look at him.

  “He’s not just my God. Don’t you believe in him?”

  “You would not believe either if you had seen what I’ve seen.”

  “But I have seen it remember, and I still believe.”

  The conviction in her voice made him sad. Did humans cling to the myth of a deity because reality was too horrific to bear?

  She ran her fingers across his hand, bringing his attention back to her. “That’s the reason I could never give up my soul. I believe in Heaven and the hereafter. When I die, I want to go to a better place.”

  Bane shrugged her off, frustrated by her blind belief. “You would give up eternity in exchange for a fairytale?”

  Amber tried to pull him back to her but he resisted. “If you could guarantee eternity then it would be a different matter, but I have seen your kind die too.”

  “And your loving God would judge you on something you had no choice in?”

  “But I do have a choice Bane. To end my life by agreeing to what you suggest is suicide. It is a mortal sin punishable in only one way. As guilty as I feel about his death, I have no desire to join Tom in Hell.”

  “You choose to believe that. You’re using it as a way to punish yourself.”

  She flinched. “It’s the way I was raised. The thought of him being there horrifies me but I can’t dismiss what I know to be true just because I can’t handle thinking about it.”

  “But if I took away your choice—did it regardless of your wishes?” He smiled to show her he had no intention of acting on his words—not right then at least.

  “Then I suppose my soul would be saved, but I would feel about you as you do Katerina. Is that what you want, Malachi?” He shook his head but she didn’t let him off so easily. “You have to promise me that you won’t do it against my will. Promise me, Bane.”

  He gave her his word, vowing that she could trust him…but unsure that he could trust himself to simply watch her die.

  * * * *

  Amber learnt more about the man who was now her lover, as well as her saviour, over the following days.

  She learnt he had an easy humour and liked to laugh, that he loved her spirit and fire but hated it when she swore. He said it surprised him to hear the ugly words coming out of such a beautiful mouth. Amber had rolled her eyes and told him to kiss her ass. Bane had laughed at that.

  But he refused to believe that she wanted him sexually, insisting she was simply reacting to stimuli designed to trap and kill her. Still, he didn’t object when Amber tried to prove him wrong. He would never allow her to be under him though, worried that the urge to bite her rather than himself would be too much. Nor would he let her kiss him as she wanted to.

  Amber watched him often, unsure if he knew she was doing it. She saw inside his seemingly fearless exterior and found nothing but loneliness and painful desolation. His absolute conviction in the belief that her life had more value than his scared her. She imagined she represented salvation to him or a kind of absolution for his sins he hoped to find through sacrificing his life for hers.

  Amber thought more about the solution he had offered, to become a vampire like him. She didn’t envy Bane his personal hatred and lonely life, albeit self inflicted. And she couldn’t handle the thought of never seeing her family and friends again. But more than anything else, she couldn’t ignore her fear of eternal damnation. Bane argued that God and the Devil were nothing more than myths, created in medieval times to control the peasants. But if she had ever doubted the existence of true evil before, she believed in it now. What she seen and heard since the day Bane came into her life had convinced her.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d had time to calmly assess her feelings for Bane. Amber knew that terrifying circumstances like these could throw even the most stoic of people into another’s arms. She didn’t trust her growing affection for him, despite the fact it made her time on the island easier.

  Amber awoke one morning, less than a week since she’d left her home and everything she knew, to find him staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. His rigid posture made her think something was wrong at first but he simply said he’d been waiting for her to wake up. He dragged her from the bed, insisting they had much to do.

  “Can it wait a minute? I need to pee.” She smiled, hoping to ease the tension between them but he simply nodded and turned away, telling her to be quick about it.

  “What’s going on?” she asked five minutes later, when she came back to find him pacing the floor.

  “Nothing, I remembered I need to show you something.” He didn’t look at her and walked away, obviously expecting her to follow.

  Bane took her back to the underground stream she had only just visited, pulling her onto his back and stepping into the shallow frigid water. The cave walls closed around them as they moved deeper inside the mountain and Amber felt the air getting thin as she struggled for breath inside the dark, moist corridors of rock.

  Just as a sense of panic started to crawl up her spine and she was about to beg Bane to take her back, he turned a corner and she saw light flooding in through a small gap at the end of an even narrower tunnel. He let her slip down to stand on her own feet and led her closer to the hole.

  “You’ll never fit through there,” she said, not understanding why he had shown it to her.

  “That’s the point. This is your escape route. It leads directly to the beach.”

  “Escape?”

  Bane stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “If anything happens to me, this is your only hope. If I can’t fit in here, none of the others can either. It will keep you out of their reach until its safe for you to leave.”

  “How will it ever be safe for me to leave with vampires on the island?”

  “Stay in the middle of the tunnel until the sun comes up, and then crawl out into the open. They won’t be able to wait for you in the sunlight and even we can’t break through bedrock.” He pointed towards the gap to something outside. “I stole a jet ski a couple of days ago when I went to hunt and left it tethered at the water’s edge. Use it to get as far away as you can.”

  “You didn’t tell me about the jet ski,” she teased, unsure what he was really trying to tell her. “You thought I would escape if I knew?”

  “This is serious, Amber. I need to know that you have understood.”

  She struggled from his arms, hurt by his impatience. “I know, hide in the hole until daybreak and then use a jet ski to run away.” He nodded, ignoring her sarcasm, apparently satisfied she had listened to what he had said.

  “I know I am only an annoying and unworthy female but please explain what in the fuck the point of running away is.”

  Bane didn’t take the bait. “If I am alre
ady dead, there may be no reason for Katerina to kill you.”

  Amber braced her weight on the wall as a wave of the fear and dread she hadn’t felt in days washed over her—both at the thought of Bane dying and at the terrible retribution she had no doubt Katerina would unleash on her. She tried to take a deep breath to calm her reaction but the pitifully thin air did nothing except heighten her sense of panic.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Bane said, picking her up when she hadn’t moved or spoken for a few minutes. Amber said nothing more until they reached his living quarters.

  “How likely is it either of us will survive this?”

  “We’re not done for quite yet, my love.” Bane tried to hide the truth from her by turning away, but she saw the look of resignation in his eyes, despite his words. The unexpected endearment, along with the defeat in his voice brought a lump to her throat. She went to him, forcing him to turn around so she could bury her face against his chest as the tears came. He held her more fiercely than he ever had before.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he whispered into her hair.

  “I don’t want you to die for me, Bane…but I can’t do what you want me to.” Another sob tore from her. “Please, don’t sacrifice yourself for me. If it seems you will lose, let them take me.”

  Bane held her away from him, shaking her by the shoulders until she turned her face up to his. “I will never let that happen. If this ends badly for me, my only regret will be that I put your life in jeopardy by my actions and then failed to save you.”

  “You didn’t know it would lead to this. I don’t blame you for anything.”

  “Then don’t blame yourself either. This is about me. I am fighting for you but I’m fighting for myself too. Katerina has taken everyone I ever cared about. It ends now.”

  Bane placed his lips on hers, kissing Amber in a tender way she hadn’t known him to be capable of. His touch left her breathless, but with emotion rather than passion. He groaned deep in his throat and Amber heard the centuries of pain and longing in the sound. She knew it would be echoing in the recesses of her mind for as long as she lived, no matter how much longer that proved to be.