Blood Unleashed (Blood Stone)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Because I fucking well care what happens to you!” he shouted, anger narrowing his eyes. “Christ, Ilaria, don’t you get it? I can’t switch my feelings on and off like a tap to suit the occassion like you can.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered, shocked at his abrupt fury.

  “You can’t what?” he demanded.

  “I can’t switch them off either.”

  He stared at her, baffled. “That makes no sense at all,” he muttered.

  “Gesù e dei suoi santi mi conservano!” she cried, goaded into an anger that came out of nowhere. “I fucking missed you! È grande e grosso uomo bello! I have been trying with what is left of my soul to not think about you!”

  He grew still – almost vampire still. He stared at her. Then he dropped his chin, his gaze piercing her. “I’m beautiful?” he asked, sounding winded.

  “Handsome,” she corrected, her anger leaving her in a rush. “Just how good is your Italian, anyway?”

  “I get by,” he said, moving closer to her. “I thought...I assumed,” he corrected himself, “that you had fucked me to order, just like the rest.”

  “I was supposed to.” She sat back down on the sofa heavily, her breath escaping. “I should have. But I didn’t.” She put her face in her hands. “I’m confused,” she whispered.

  “What?” he asked sharply.

  She lifted her head from her hands. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Marcus. I’ve always just followed orders. Now...with escape so close...now, I must think for myself and I don’t know how anymore. Anger and escape, that was all I thought about when I wasn’t following orders.”

  He sank down onto the sofa next to her. “This is Karelia all over again,” he whispered. His face was pale.

  Karelia. That was a name he had muttered into the dark, while he slept.

  Fear touch her. “What...who...is Karelia?”

  “It’s a Russian Federation province,” he said stiffly. “North of St. Petersburg. There’s a forest there, the Krasny Bor Forest. It’s huge.” His gaze turned inwards for a second, then he focused on her. “Krasny is where...” He swallowed. “It’s where Katya died.”

  Katya. Another name out of the dark. “You loved her,” Ilaria guessed, although it wasns’t really a guess. The torment in his voice as he had uttered her name now gave Ilaria the truth.

  Marcus closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. He pushed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets, grinding them in. He took a deep breath and let his hands drop, opening his eyes again. “Ekaterina Alexandrovna Alkaeva,” he said. “She was Russian intelligence. GRU. Or so I thought. She was posted to Tangier.”

  “Where you were posted?” Ilaria asked. CIA operatives always worked outside their country, she had learned, and sometimes within, when they thought they could get away with it. “But she was not Intelligence?”

  “She was a sniper,” Marcus said, looking at her. “Just like you.”

  Ilaria shivered. She had not heard of another woman shooter, but the Russians were very good at keeping secrets. Then she replayed what he had said, growing uneasy. She could already see where this was going. “You met because of your work?”

  “We all had her tagged as GRU. Russia isn’t officially an enemy of the U.S., but the relationship is strained. We tiptoe around each other most times. Tangier is a hotbed for espionage and political activity by every power and nation you can think of. Agents are as thick as bees around a honey pot. We had nearly everyone tagged, and those nations that were “friendly” sometimes cooperated on joint projects that were mutually beneficial. That’s how I finally met Katya face to face, although I had known about her almost as soon as I was assigned to Morocco.”

  “You worked together?”

  “Just one assignement. It was a bust, the assignment. Everyone was paranoid, withholding vital information from each other, so nothing moved forward. It was whitewashed and disappeared from records because it was such a miserable failure. Three days after the project had been finished, Katya broke into my apartment.”

  Ilaria shivered again and rubbed her arms. She had broken in Rick’s apartment.

  “We started seeing each other secretly,” Marcus said. He licked his lips, swallowing.

  “You don’t have to tell me this,” Ilaria murmured, resting her hand on his knee. “You don’t have to speak of this old pain.”

  He picked up her hand. “Yes, I do,” he said firmly. “You have to know.”

  “Very well,” she conceded. “You and Katya became lovers.”

  He drew a breath. “For over a year. We were incredibly cautious. I thought no one suspected anything. Katya...she...told me everything about herself. Her life, her real status in the GRU. She even took me on one of her assignments in southern France. She used a barn as her hide, and laid out flat on the floor of the hayloft. She said she wanted me to know everything about her. I was convinced she loved me without qualification. She hid nothing from me.” He pushed his spare hand through his shaggy hair. “It put our situation into sharp perspective. What the hell could we do? I couldn’t simply marry her and set up house. That would leave two countries with way too much power totally pissed at both of us. Then Katya said she wanted to come in. She wanted to defect.”

  His hand was starting to tighten around her fingers, but Ilaria remained silent. The minor pain was nothing. He could break her fingers if he needed to – she would heal, and nothing would make her break silence while he spoke about his dark past.

  “It was too risky. I didn’t want to start the process,” Marcus confessed. “I tried to talk her out of it. As soon as I started anything official, the risk to her would escalate into the stratosphere. Katya cried.” He swallowed hard. “She cried and said she didn’t know what to do if we did not do this. She was lost and scared. She left it up to me.”

  Ilaria pressed her fingertips against her lips as Marcus turned his head to look at her. His expression was bleak. He didn’t need to speak of what he was thinking, for Ilaria was thinking it, too. Katya had said almost exactly what she had said only a few short moments ago.

  Marcus spared her from having to respond. He turned his head away, as if it were easier to speak that way. “So we circled around our helplessness for months, meeting in secret, and desparately trying to be happy. Then Katya told me she was pregnant.”

  His fist squeezed around Ilaria’s fingers, crushing them. She held still, holding her heart and breath just as motionless. Marcus was staring into the air, his eyes focused on memories.

  “The baby made it imperative that Katya come to the west and so I had the first conversation with the CIA about bringing her in. That’s how these things work. It can take months, but I wasn’t going to let it drag out like that. I pushed hard and that was my mistake.”

  “Her people found out?” Ilaria murmured.

  “Someone told them,” Marcus said harshly. “I still don’t know who, and I will never find out because all the records surrounding the affair were destroyed, mostly to cover my ass, but also because no one wanted to admit that someone was playing for the other side. It was a magnificent cover up.” He sounded infinitely bitter.

  “Why was your ass in trouble?” Ilaria asked, puzzled. “You were bringing her in.”

  “They’re not stupid,” Marcus replied. “As soon as I made it official, then what they had been turning a blind eye to for nearly two years became an official fact that they had to act on. I had broken a dozen different laws and codes just by speaking to Katya unofficially. As for sleeping with her, that was an unspeakable offence. Falling in love with her and fathering a child didn’t even enter their computations. I was a disgraced agent. My only redeeming factor was that I could bring Katya in – and she was considered to be a top agent – a real coup for the States.”

  He drew in another deep breath. “Then she didn’t show up at our next meeting.”

  Ilaria gasped. “They took her,” she whispered appalled.

  Marcus nodded. He leaned back
against the sofa, letting his head fall back and his eyes close. “The CIA just shrugged and washed their hands of the matter. It was a non-starter as far as they were concerned. I took a leave of absence and started digging. I used every contact and favour I had and a month later, I got a location. Karelia. She was being held and debriefed in a dachua on the outskirts of the forest.” He fell silent, but his grip on her hand tightened a little bit more. He was remembering.

  “What happened?” Ilaria asked, although she already knew. She knew from his silence and the grip on her hand.

  “I went there,” he said tonelessly. “I hiked through the forest, coming at the dachua from the unexpected angle, and in the middle of the night. It was early winter, and the snow was knee deep – it was brutally cold, but I didn’t care. It took me three days to work my way through the forest. Then I found her.” He blew out his breath.

  Ilaria didn’t prompt him this time.

  “It was so cold,” he whispered. “Silent, except for the wind in the trees. Something made my gut unhappy, so I crept up to the edge of the clearing I’d found, a mile from the dachua. Moonlight was making the snow glow, but then the spotlights were thrown on, showing Katya standing in the middle of the clearing, her arms tied behind her back. I could see through my rifle scope that she was crying.” He swallowed.

  “They had known all along I was coming. Vasalich – head of the GRU– called out on a bullhorn that if I gave myself up, Katya would be preserved. So I threw my rifle out onto the snow, and stepped out myself. Six of them pinned me down in the snow.”

  He fell silent again.

  Ilaria lifted herself up onto her knees and cupped his cheek. Marcus turned his head to look at her. His eyes were very blue. Glittering with tears that had not yet formed. “They killed her,” he whispered. “Right there, while I watched. They gunned her down.”

  Ilaria threw her arms around his neck. She was trembling with the horror of the scene he had painted for her. “Oh, Marcus,” she whispered, unable to find any words of comfort. “What did they do to you?”

  “Interrogation,” he said flatly. “Three weeks in that dachua while they tried to milk me of everything I had. When it was clear I wasn’t going to give up anything, they let me limp across the border into Norway, while the CIA pushed one of the GRU’s back into Russia. I was home safe, but the CIA will never trust me with real field work again. So I was brought back to the States and I’ve been coordinating local assets ever since.”

  The silence this time was total. It seemed even the waves had died. It was simply her and Marcus, pressed together.

  His hands tugged at her shoulders, drawing her around until she was sitting in his lap. He seemed calm. Mellow, as if telling her the story had drained him of all emotion, including the anger he had been holding onto since she had returned. He picked up her hand and spread her fingers across her own thigh, just above the knee. His fingers stroked hers, sliding between them. “Ilaria....”

  She waited.

  “This other man...are you sure you can trust him? You’re putting your life in his hands. If he has any connection at all with your boss, even an indirect one, the risk that what you’re trying to do leaking back to him is incredibly high.”

  Ilaria sat up and pushed her left sleeve up her arm, uncovering the bronzed band. Moving slowly, for she rarely removed the band, she forced it down her arm to her elbow and turned her shoulders so that Marcus could see it. “This mark tells the vampire world that I am owned by another. I have been inscribed by another.”

  Marcus raised his hand to her arm, but didn’t quite touch the brand. “He owns you?” The outrage in his voice was like the call of trumpets.

  “This man who helps me,” Ilaria told him. “He has one of these, too, but his is no longer active. He was once like me.”

  Marcus was breathing heavily, clearly struggling with his fury over her enslaved state. After a moment he pushed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know enough about this,” he muttered. “My ignorance won’t help you. Tell me what to do, Ilaria. Tell me how I can help.”

  She touched his face. “Nothing. I want you to do nothing.”

  He took a breath to speak and she pressed her finger against his partly open lips. “No,” she insisted. “I won’t have you relive your past again. Not because of me. I will find my own way out. I will figure it out.”

  He tore her fingers away from his mouth. “Hells bells, Ilaria. Why did you think I told you all that? To unburden my soul?” His eyes were glittering this time, but not with tears. It was his will giving them life.

  She stared at him, flummoxed. There was only one answer she could think of that would give him a good reason to insist like this, but it was incredible. Far too lofty to be considered seriously.

  “Yes, Ilaria,” he said softly. “I love you.”

  Her heart struggled and she let it free to beat frantically in her chest. “You cannot possibly—”

  “It took me a day without you, a full bottle of scotch and the worst hangover of my life. It took some advice from another vampire and his mate, but I finally saw what I had been trying to hide from since you left. I love you.”

  She closed her eyes as her heart shifted and lurched. Happiness was rising like a tide inside her. She couldn’t think around the stark fact that he loved her. She pressed her hand against his chest, feeling the fullness of the muscles there. “I don’t think anyone as ever loved me. Not since I became a vampire.”

  “I know,” he said gently. “You told me that, the last time you were here.”

  “I did?”

  He nodded. “Not in so many words, but every story you told about your travels painted it for me in Technicolour. I’m good at analysing people, Ilaria. You told me nothing with your lips, but everything about yourself from what you didn’t say.”

  She pressed her lips together to stop herself from smiling. Giddy joy was all she could feel. “You didn’t analyse that I was a vampire,” she pointed out.

  “I might have if I hadn’t been so bent on not acknowledging vampires in the first place. But that’s done with now.” He resettled her on his lap, and his fingers stroked over her thigh. “I like what you’re wearing, by the way. Are these stockings real silk?”

  Before she could draw breath to answer him, he kissed her.

  Ilaria gave herself over to the kiss. It was so very different from Rick’s kisses. It was warm and rich and deep.

  He loved her.

  The thought warmed her as much as his kiss did. Ilaria felt her body respond and knew what she wanted. She pressed herself against him. “Make love to me, Marcus.”

  In answer, he lifted her up in his arms, and carried her into the bedroom. This time, Ilaria let Marcus drive their actions. She let him stroke and taste her flesh, until her climax quivered on the brink of becoming, then coaxed him over her body, and accepted him into her.

  It only took a bare minimum of thrusts for her climax to shatter her thoughts and steal her senses. It was the animal in her that reared up and sank her fangs into his neck, injecting straight into his carotid. Marcus groaned, his body growing rigid with the power of the aphrodisiac, his climax slamming through him with a force he would never have experienced before.

  Finally spent, he rested limply beside her and Ilaria basked in the contented glow filling her. “That is the first time I have made love to a human who knows what I am,” she whispered.

  “Knows and loves you,” he added, kissing her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hunger drove Marcus out into the kitchen in search of food. He pulled Ilaria off the bed and made her come with him, unwilling to let her leave his sight even for a little while. He made a corned beef sandwich and wolfed it down while standing at the counter. Ilaria sat cross-legged on the island, watching him. She was wearing his Harley Davidson tee-shirt, and it was so big it was a sack on her. The sleeves came down almost to her elbows, hiding the bronze band she had pushed back into place over the brand on her arm.
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br />   “What I don’t understand,” she said, frowning, “Is why he would tell me to tell you I am to kill Nial Aquila, if I really am to kill him.”

  “I don’t suppose you want to tell me who he is, do you?” Marcus asked, after swallowing.

  She appeared to weigh his question seriously, her gaze steady on his face. Then she shook her head. “There is so much yet for you to learn about us. He is part of that learning.”

  He didn’t feel a huge disappointment. The vampire culture was as old, if not older, than human culture – there would be layers a mile deep that he would need to educate himself on before much of what she said would make sense.

  For a moment, her slavery – her inscription, she had called it, came to mind. He pushed the thought away deliberately. He didn’t want to be angry right now and that had roused such a fury in him, he had yearned for violence.

  “What is his agenda, then?” he asked, and took another bite of the sandwich.

  “I don’t know.”

  He raised his brows in disbelief as his mouth was full of beef and bread.

  “I don’t,” she insisted. “He tells me what to do. I do it. He does not explain himself to me.”

  He swallowed. “Okay,” he said evenly and took the last bite while he considered the problem from other angles. When he could speak again, he cleared his throat as he brushed bread crumbs from his chest and his jeans. “Why would he tell me, of all people, about his intended target?”

  “How do you know you are the only one he has told?” she asked.

  That was a poser. He didn’t know. “Have you conned anyone else into believing he’s going after the leader of the vampire revolution?”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “No,” she calmly. Then, “I do not believe he really means to kill Nial Aquila, though.”

  “A distraction?” he asked. “While he goes after what he really wants?” He scowled. “It would be useful to know what he really wanted....” Then a thought struck him with such blinding obviousness he almost groaned with the irony of it. “Wait, wait. Your boss...he’s a leader of one of the vampire groups, isn’t he?” He grimaced. “I can’t remember the names exactly. Pro Liberty...”