“You cannot leave. You are in too much danger out there.”
Amber stared down at the cut on her right palm. It had bled all over her trousers.
She had to lick the blood and taste it.
She raised her hand but the man caught her wrist.
“What happened?” He frowned at the cut.
Amber tried to get her hand back but his grip was vice tight. Interfering Venator. She gritted her teeth and twisted her arm. He didn’t let go. Her stomach turned when she saw the blood on her palm and her vision distorted. She stopped struggling and looked at the man. His expression was soft, silently reassuring, and the longer she stared at him, the calmer she felt, until the sense that she wasn’t in control of herself disappeared again.
Amber tried to remember what had happened to her hand but it slipped through her fingers every time she came close, as though she didn’t really want to recall it.
“He gave you his blood, didn’t he?”
That memory popped to the forefront of her mind and she nodded. The man had made her drink his blood. It had been disgusting and she could feel it inside her.
“Hold on.” He released her hand, put the car into gear and roared off the white line.
Amber did. She grabbed the edge of the seat with her left hand as they raced through the streets of London so fast they were a blur. She couldn’t take her eyes off the road and the cars as they swerved around them, barely missing each one. Her heart lodged in her throat, her right hand trembling where she held it out in front of her. What was happening? It felt as though she had slipped into some dreadful fantasy world and she wanted out.
He turned the car around a corner so sharply that the tyres screeched and she slammed against the door, and then they were going down a slope towards an underground garage. The car spun around in the brightly lit space, coming to a halt facing the exit, and the engine cut out. A grey shutter slowly rolled down, eclipsing the world outside.
Amber stared at it, still trying to catch up.
The man had given her blood, and then he had cut her. She needed to taste her blood before the Venator stopped her. She was about to lick her palm when the door beside her opened and he pulled her out of the car.
“Damned Venator!” She kneed him in the groin and ran for the garage door.
He reached it before her and stood in her path, his eyes darker and colder than ever. He glared at her and drew his gun.
“Let her go,” he whispered, voice strained.
She grinned, satisfied by the pain in his voice.
“No.” Amber tried to pass him.
“You do not want to leave, woman. You do not want to do as he bids.”
Amber stopped. “As who bids?”
The strange feeling inside her grew worse, something telling her to keep going and not listen to him. She had to get past the man and drink her blood. That was all that mattered now.
“Listen to my voice.” He put the gun away and stepped up to her.
The moment his hands touched her shoulders, Amber felt different. She stared into his eyes and her thoughts fell into better order, enough that she could recall things clearly again.
Her heart pounded.
“The man made me drink his blood… I saw him in that place with the gates and the disinfectant and then they were after me. He cut me.” She held her hand out and it trembled between them, fluttering in time with her heart. “I just want to go home. I want this nightmare to end. Please? I can’t take this. Please?”
The man stepped back, his eyes still fixed intently on her face, the frown not leaving his.
“The man will come for you.”
“Fangs,” she whispered and her eyes widened. Her heart missed a beat and then slammed painfully against her ribs. “He had fangs. He was going to drink my blood.”
“I will not hurt you. You must ignore your instincts and listen to me. I will not allow him to harm you. You will be safe here,” he said, so calmly and softly that the deep waves of fear surging through her eased to gentle ripples. “He will find you if you leave. I can protect you. I will not allow the man to harm you.”
Amber looked at the closed garage door and then back at him.
There was honesty in his green eyes and her options were limited. Either she stayed here with him, or she ventured outside where there were monsters. If she did that, and the man found her, she wouldn’t escape him a second time. He had fangs. He had been about to drink her blood.
Something inside her said that she would be fine outside, and that she wanted to find the hooded man again. She wanted him to taste her blood. Desired it more than anything. This man was lying to her.
No. Amber closed her eyes, battling the compulsion to leave, and then looked back into the silver-haired man’s eyes.
The other man had wanted to kill her and drink her blood. This man had saved her. He said he could protect her.
“I will bandage your hand and make you feel better if you come upstairs,” he said in a low voice, one that soothed her ears and quelled her fear. The desire to escape him drifted away, replaced by a need to remain.
“Will you tell me what’s happening to me? I feel strange.”
He held his hand out, pointing to his left. “If you come with me.”
Amber looked at the dark grey metal door far to her right across the empty garage and then back at the man. His gaze held hers, cold but honest, and she ignored the voice inside her that was screaming for her to leave and taste her blood.
She nodded and went with him.
CHAPTER 2
Kearn closed the door to his apartment behind them and locked it. It wouldn’t stop the man from entering if he wanted to reclaim the woman, but it would make her feel safer. He walked past her where she stood in the middle of the large white open plan room holding her black leather handbag and pointed towards the living area to his right beyond the modern fireplace that divided it from the study near the door. She followed him and stopped near the back of the long low black couch that faced the wide bank of windows, setting her bag down on the cushions. She stared out of the windows, her hazel eyes bright with fascination. He had grown bored of the view of London from his apartment a long time ago. He rarely looked out at the rooftops now.
He looked at her instead. She reached up and removed the band from her messy ponytail, freeing her long brown hair. It fell down in loose waves over her shoulders and blended into her black suit jacket. Its rich shade contrasted against her pale face. The colour was gone from her skin, the only visible sign of her ordeal. She placed the band around her wrist and then stood with her left hand clutching her right, the palm of that hand turned upwards, crimson staining it. She remained still and he frowned after a few minutes. Had she slipped into shock? He couldn’t sense it in her.
She seemed incredibly calm considering everything that had happened to her and her situation. A little too docile for his liking. He studied her. It wasn’t normal for a human to be so unafraid after everything she had experienced. He had expected her to put up more of a fight about remaining with him and coming up to his apartment.
The man had given his blood to her. She was under his influence. It would explain why she was so at ease and why not a trace of fear laced her scent. The man wasn’t afraid, so she wasn’t either.
Kearn kept his guard up and approached her. She wasn’t herself and wouldn’t be until her body had eradicated the man’s blood from her system. She had flitted between afraid and angry during the journey here and in the garage. The man was using his blood to control her.
“Make yourself comfortable.” He stripped off his holster and then his white shirt.
Her gaze moved to him. It roamed unabashed over his body. He headed back to the door and tossed the ruined white shirt onto the floor of the beech wood kitchen. When he turned around, the woman didn’t take her eyes off him. She continued to stare at his torso. He touched his ear and then frowned at the blood on his fingers. Without looking at the woman, he crosse
d the room to the bedroom door and opened it. He dropped the holster and his gun onto the deep brown duvet covering his double bed to his right and then flicked the light on. The dark earthy walls and low lighting in his bedroom soothed his tired eyes.
Kearn touched his ear again and walked straight through the gap between the foot of his bed and the built-in wardrobe, heading for the door across the room. He flinched when he turned the light on in the en-suite bathroom. He needed to put a dimmer one in at some point but it always slipped his mind. The white tiles bounced the light around, making it too bright for him. He looked into the large black-framed rectangular mirror that occupied the wall above the wide black sink cabinet in front of him. The cut had already started to heal but he still needed to help it along, if only to stop it from bleeding down another shirt.
He washed the blood off his neck and chest, watching the red swirl down the drain of the white oval sink. The cut began to bleed again. He took a small dark brown hand towel off the side of the black cabinet, dabbed his ear to dry it, and set it back down. Before his earlobe could bleed, he spat on his index and forefinger, and rubbed the saliva into the nick. It stung. The man hadn’t been aiming at the woman. He had wanted to use her distracting him as a chance to kill him.
He should have realised sooner that the woman was under his control.
Kearn stared in the mirror, through his bedroom to the main room of the large open plan apartment. The knife in his car would yield nothing. Only her blood had been on it and the man had been wearing gloves. The woman was his only clue, and the best one he’d had since he had started hunting this man three years ago.
He looked at his reflection and cursed the sight of it. It was still strange to him. Not himself staring back at him but someone else. He hadn’t seen himself in the mirror for over one hundred years, and he never would again.
He crouched, opened the two doors on the sink cabinet, and took out anything that would help a human heal. There wasn’t much. He could only offer bandages.
Or he could help her heal.
Kearn shoved that thought away.
It wasn’t going to happen. The woman was a lead and that was all. Her wound would heal with time. He didn’t need to interfere. If she were a Source Blood as he suspected, then drinking from her would be dangerous.
He grabbed a fresh black shirt from the built-in oak wardrobe in his bedroom and then walked out into the living room. The woman looked up from the couch facing the window, her hand still held in front of her. It was bleeding badly, filling his apartment with the sweet scent of blood.
Kearn stopped beside the couch that lined the wall between the living area and his bedroom.
He wasn’t sure what to do with the cut or with her. He had never worked with a human before nor had this sort of contact with one. Normally they were dead by the time he met them. The thought of tending to one was disgusting, but she was the lead he had been searching for. He was sure that the man who had attacked her was part of the group he was after, if not the leader. They had been testing her in the side road, and the man had been powerful enough to control her and make her try to drink her own blood even at a great distance. He would have to be a Lesser Noble or a Noble to be able to determine through their connection alone whether she was a Source Blood.
The woman continued to look at him, a dull edge to her hazel eyes. The man’s blood was still affecting her. Kearn scanned the separate areas of the room. There was nothing she would be able to reach before him and use as a weapon, and she was only human so the furniture posed no threat. She wouldn’t hurt him if she used her fists, although she had done a good job with her knee back in the garage. He placed the bandages down on the large square wooden coffee table in front of her.
Her gaze followed him across the room, unmoving from his back as he went into the kitchen. He filled a clear bowl with warm water and placed it down on the black granite work surface while he unravelled a wad of paper towel from the roll. He crossed the room back to her and placed the bowl and paper towels down next to the bandages. She watched intently as he put his black shirt on, leaving it unbuttoned, and then looked at her hand when he came to sit beside her.
This close to her, the smell of blood was overwhelming.
Kearn clamped his teeth shut and held the change at bay. It had been too long since he had smelt anything like her and it pushed at his control. He had been able to subdue the effect of her scent when he had been at a distance from her, but he couldn’t contain it now. His gut clenched and twisted, saliva pooling in his mouth and his fangs itching to extend as hunger to taste the blood that went with the divine scent tore through him.
“Keep still,” he said from between his teeth and soaked some of the paper towel.
Kearn took her hand in his and forced himself to focus. Her skin was warm and soft, and he used his senses to see how much vampire blood was in her system. Enough to keep her under control and stop her from answering his questions. He had promised that he would make her feel better. He only had one way of doing that and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go through with it or not.
He wiped the blood from her hand. It mixed with the water and covered his, ran down his arms in beautiful rivulets, soaking into his shirtsleeves. He slowed without thinking, fascinated by how her blood blossomed on the surface of the cut and savouring the warm alluring smell. He swallowed the burning ache in his throat and focused. She inhaled sharply when he wiped the blood away again and he grabbed the bandage. He wound it around her hand as quickly as possible and pinned it on her palm. The smell of blood lessened but it was all over his hands. He licked his lips. The fiery thirst in his veins begged him to quench it. Did he really want to do this?
“Why did he make me do that?” she whispered and Kearn looked at her. There were tears in her eyes as she stared at her hand. They trembled on the brink of falling. Her feelings travelled through their joined hands, filling him with a sense of fear and confusion. He released her fingers and sat back.
“There is a reason he made you drink his blood. It will help him find you, which is why I need to keep you with me.”
She didn’t seem shocked by what he had said. He had expected her to react with disbelief or horror. Perhaps the blood in her veins and what she had witnessed was enough to make her believe him.
“Why did he cut me?” She raised her hand and toyed with the bandage. The blood was already soaking into the edges of it.
Kearn looked down at the scarlet ambrosia coating his hands. “Your blood may be of a type which is valuable to his kind.”
He curled his fingers into fists. They shook.
“I must wash my hands.” He stood and headed straight through his bedroom and into the white and black bathroom. He stared at his hands. The blood looked even redder against the white sink beneath them. They trembled uncontrollably.
Did he really want to do this?
He needed answers and to get them he needed to eradicate any control the vampire might have over her.
Kearn lifted his hand to his nose and sniffed the blood. It smelt strong and enticing. His mouth watered. He took a deep breath followed by another two, trying to prepare himself. This could be a grave mistake.
Closing his eyes, he tentatively reached out towards his fingers with his tongue. The moment the blood touched it, a jolt rocked his body. She was definitely a Source Blood. He hadn’t tasted forbidden blood since becoming a Venator but he hadn’t forgotten the effects.
He licked his finger and swallowed. The jolt became an intense buzz and his fangs extended. His eyes shot open and familiar red ones looked back at him from his reflection, a fragment of the real him that he didn’t often see. He grasped the edge of the cabinet with his other hand to steady himself and then licked the blood off his other fingers, gaining pace. He needed more. Just a little more, so he would be sure of his ability to command her and clear her blood of interference. That was the only reason he had to suck each of his fingers clean. It had nothing to do with the deli
ghtful way her blood made him tremble, made his breath stutter and his heart beat faster, at an almost human speed.
He went to lick the blood from his palm and stopped himself. Unpeeling his fingers from the edge of the cabinet, he forced himself to turn on the tap. The water ran fast and hard down the drain but he couldn’t bring himself to put his hands under it and wash the blood away. He only wanted a little more. A warm pulsing feeling relaxed every muscle in his body and his head felt light. His eyelids fell to half-mast and the warm buzz became a hot inferno in his blood, an ache to feed and give in to his animal instincts. His breath shuddered. Just a little more.
No.
Stop it.
Kearn forced his head under the water instead of his hands but it did nothing to stop the hunger gnawing his stomach and the hard ache in his trousers. He groaned under his breath and kept his head under the freezing water, begging it to clear. He didn’t want to remember.
High laughter. The scent of sex. The mindless lust. The painful betrayal. The blood on his hands.
He didn’t want to remember any of it.
He didn’t want to feel that way again.
Kearn squeezed his eyes shut and shoved his hands under the water the moment he pulled his head out of it. The scent of blood instantly diminished and his control came creeping back. He focused on it, trying to expel the effects of her blood on him. It was difficult. Her blood was more potent than what he had experienced before. He had never had blood direct from a Source, only diluted from another’s veins. He closed his eyes and kept his hands under the water, gradually clawing back a sense of calm and shutting his rampaging feelings down.
The cold water numbed his hands. He kept them there, not trusting himself. If any trace of her blood remained on his skin, he would be tempted to lick it off, and it would undo all the work he had done to regain some control over himself. He grabbed the bar of soap from the side of the basin and washed his hands with it, erasing every drop of crimson on his pale skin. When he had been washing them for nearly ten minutes, he turned off the tap.
Forbidden Blood (Vampire Venators Romance Series) Page 2