It took her a moment to remember having asked him not to leave her.
“For the most part, anyway. I did leave long enough to shower, fetch clean linens, and tell Darnell to bugger off when he came looking for you.”
Darnell had come. Of course, he had come. He would have been worried sick.
Had he told Marcus about her?
“Are Roland and Sarah okay?” she asked, surprised she had succeeded in keeping from her voice the trembling that invaded her limbs.
“Yes.”
She sat up, scooted backward so she could lean against the headboard.
Marcus reached up and flicked on the lamp beside him.
Ami looked down, blinking against the brightness. Her torn, filthy hunting clothes had been replaced by one of Marcus’s clean T-shirts. Should she read anything into that? He could have put her in one of her nightgowns, but had instead chosen something of his.
While she had slept a deep, healing sleep, he had bathed her, washed the blood from her skin and hair. He had even changed her sheets and removed the coverlet, replacing it with the one from his own bed. The bed they had shared for one incredible day.
“Lisette, Étienne, and Richart?” she asked in a last-ditch attempt to put off the confrontation barreling down upon them.
“Lisette and Étienne didn’t awaken until about half an hour ago.”
Ami glanced at the bedside clock. 5:59. “Is it morning or evening?”
“Evening.”
“And they just woke up?”
He nodded.
She had known the sedative was powerful, but to make immortals sleep so long ...
How had Montrose Keegan gotten his hands on it? “What about Richart? Is he awake, too?”
“Richart is missing.”
Ami thought back to everything that had transpired. “It wasn’t the vampires. He teleported away and never came back. Also, the vampire king left me with Keegan, who shot me when I tried to escape—and I managed to stab him.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that along,” he stated, but made no move to do so.
Ami swallowed, almost wishing he had kept the room enshrouded in blackness. Then she wouldn’t be able to see the stiffness in his shoulders, the tight grasp of his hands on the chair arms.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” he asked finally. Then he did know.
Words—all coherent thought, really—eluded her, so she nodded miserably.
“When?”
“I don’t know.” He deserved honesty. She hadn’t given it to him before. She would do so now. “I was ... afraid of how you might react.”
He nodded, grinding his teeth. “An understandable fear, so it would seem.”
Her heart sank.
Rising, he paced across the room. “You don’t think you should have mentioned it earlier? Perhaps ... before we made love?”
The even tones developed sharp edges.
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t,” he snapped. Shaking his head, he strode back across the room, avoiding her gaze as if he couldn’t stand to look at her. “I was an open book to you, Ami. I told you everything.” His voice rose with every breath. “I held nothing back. Laid my past out before you, my present as well. Revealed my every vulnerability. And, in exchange, you chose to keep this from me?”
“Marcus—”
“We were friends, Ami! You—” He shook his head. “It couldn’t have escaped your notice that my feelings for you were deepening. You had to have known. Didn’t you think you should warn me? Knowing everything you do about me, about my past, you didn’t think I deserved to know the truth?”
Ami scrambled up onto her knees. “I did, but—”
“I asked you about your past! I practically begged you to talk about it! To tell me something—anything—about yourself! Gave you the opening you needed! At no point did it occur to you to say even something as simple as Oh, by the way, you may not want to get too attached to me because at some point in the future you’re going to kill me?”
Shocked, Ami dropped back on her heels.
Marcus glanced over, then halted and pointed an index finger at her. “Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you dare look at me like that! I have never given you cause to fear me!”
That awful terror swamped her, spurred on by his shouting. But anger accompanied it. “You just told me you’re going to kill me!”
“Of course I am!” he bellowed. “Did you think I was going to let someone else do it?”
Ami’s fight or flight instincts kicked in, leaning heavily toward flight, but she resisted them. Something was wrong here. Marcus would never hurt her. No matter how she angered him.
He resumed his furious pacing, raked a hand through his long hair. “What was it? You didn’t trust me?”
Ami intended to deny it. She did trust him. But he stopped short suddenly and glared at an empty corner on the opposite side of the bedroom.
“Oh, no. No no no no no. You are not welcome here. I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this as it is. I can’t take you, too.” He pointed to the doorway. “Get out! Now!”
Ami pressed her lips together. Marcus was beginning to seem a bit unhinged. Could this be a side effect of the drug?
A smidgeon of tension left his shoulders. Lowering his arm, he cast her a sheepish look. “Sebastien’s sister. She must have followed me from David’s.”
Oh. “Is she gone?”
“Yes.”
Again he paced, his movements rife with agitation. “I don’t know why I didn’t guess the truth sooner.”
“How could you have? Seth didn’t even guess it.”
A disbelieving huff of a laugh escaped him. “If he told you that, honey, he lied.”
She frowned.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t just tell me himself,” Marcus went on. “All those hints he dropped about the suffering you had endured ...”
“What?”
“And the little slip about rescuing you. I just don’t know why I didn’t put it all together.” He laughed, an awful, despairing sound. “Eight hundred years of fighting vampires. You would’ve thought I would have realized I was falling in love with one.”
Ami’s mouth dropped open. “Marcus, I’m not a vampire.”
“Don’t! Lie! To me!” he shouted, fangs descending, eyes glowing as brightly as a 150-watt bulb.
Ami thought that, even if the past two years had never happened, in that instant she would have feared him. Heart pounding in her chest, she eased from the bed on the side opposite him. Her katanas, both cleaned and sheathed, leaned up against the wall in the corner closest to her.
“I don’t know why I can’t smell the virus on you, but all the signs are there,” he growled. “Your superior fighting skills, far beyond those of an ordinary human. The way you always know where I am. Your ability to move without making a sound.”
“I’m not a vampire,” she repeated, drifting closer to her weapons just in case.
“I watched your wounds heal! I held you in my arms, dreading your last breath, and watched your wounds heal as swiftly as my own do when I’m at full strength!”
The agony in his eyes brought tears to her own. “Marcus,” she said, injecting as much calm into her voice as she could, “I am not a vampire.”
He shook his head. “Why are you still denying it? Is it ... ?” He looked away, closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “Seth said you had suffered for two years. Two years is around the time the ... deterioration begins. Have you—”
“I’m not losing my mind.”
Shoulders wilting, he nodded.
Understanding now, she seated herself on the edge of the bed. “Come sit down,” she entreated softly. “Please.”
Circling the bed, he stunned her by sitting on the edge beside her instead of returning to the chair.
She held out her hand. He took it, squeezed it tightly in his own, which trembled from the turmoil that raged within him.
“I want you to
listen to me this time,” she said. “I’m not a vampire.”
When he opened his mouth, she held up a hand.
“The sun has no effect on me. Vampires can’t stand even the weakest rays. I have premonitions. Vampires don’t. Vampires need blood transfusions to survive. I don’t.” A discordant thought arose. “You didn’t infuse me while I was sleeping, did you?”
“No.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Seth said you aren’t a gifted one.”
“I’m not. I’m also not an immortal,” she clarified.
“Then what are you?”
She glanced down at their clasped hands. “I don’t know how to say it without its sounding either utterly ridiculous or alarming.”
“Ami, I just spent the past fifteen hours believing you were a vampire and that I was going to have to watch you transform from who you are now—the playful, courageous, intelligent woman I love—to a feral monster I would have to behead in a few short years. Whatever you have to tell me cannot possibly be that bad.”
She nodded and wished she had spent a little time rehearsing what she would say instead of just procrastinating. “I’ve never told anyone this before,” she began.
“Doesn’t Seth know?”
“Seth, David, and Darnell all know, but I didn’t tell them. They uncovered it in some of the files they stole when they rescued me.”
“Then tell me,” he urged softly. “Please.”
“The thing is ... I’m a lot like a gifted one. My DNA is different, more advanced. I heal quickly, age slowly, and have some other abilities. It’s just ... I’m not from around here.”
He frowned. “You mean you’re not from the States?”
She took a deep breath. “No. I mean I’m not from Earth.”
Marcus stared at Ami, his eyes dry from a sudden inability to blink. “I’m sorry. Are you saying you’re—”
“I’m from another planet.”
He wasn’t sure what reaction she was waiting for as she studied him so carefully, but did his best to keep his face blank until this could sink in. “So ... you’re an alien.”
She grimaced. “I hate that term. You humans associate it with monsters, little green men with antennas and asexual, anorexic gray beings with big heads and black eyes.” Her look turned earnest. “I’m not a monster, Marcus. I’m not like those things in Alien vs. Predator or Independence Day. I promise you I’m not.”
He could feel the tension thrumming through her. “So ...” He motioned to her slender body, covered from shoulder to midthigh in one of his T-shirts. “This is how you are? This is how you look?” He wasn’t phrasing this very well. “You aren’t a shape-shifter who took on human form to blend in with our society?”
She shook her head. “This is my true appearance. I have a brother who can make people see something different, but I never acquired that ability. I am as you see me.”
Ami was from outer space.
Amiriska the extraterrestrial.
Ami the alien.
It did sound ridiculous.
She looked down at their clasped hands and began to toy with his fingers. “I know what you humans think of us.”
You humans, she said, but not derisively.
“I’ve experienced the hatred and fear with which you regard us, the disgust you feel for us.” She raised her head, met his gaze squarely. “I never wanted to see that in your eyes, Marcus. That’s the reason I didn’t tell you.”
“And do you?” he asked. “Do you see that in my eyes?”
A long moment of silence passed. “No. But I do see something. Something that wasn’t there before.”
“What?” he asked, because he honestly didn’t know what his gaze might reflect.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, “but it frightens me.”
“Don’t see yourself through the eyes of whoever hurt you, Ami. See yourself through mine.”
“I don’t know anymore what you see when you look at me.”
“The same thing I saw before: the woman I love. If there’s something else in my eyes ...” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what it might be. Surprise? Probably. Relief? Absolutely. Curiosity? There’s most likely a healthy dose of that as well.”
She winced at the last.
“Don’t do that. Don’t twist simple curiosity into something malevolent. Weren’t you curious about Seth and David and immortals when you first met them?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Weren’t you curious about gifted ones and vampires? Even humans and their differences?”
“Yes.” Her pretty features tightened. “But, unlike the first humans I encountered, I didn’t satisfy my curiosity by capturing them and dissecting them while they were still alive.”
Everything within him went cold. “What?”
He could tell by her expression that she hadn’t meant to reveal that and had no wish to explore it further.
“Wait,” he said slowly, reining in the rage and desire to do violence that surged through him. “Before we delve into that—and we will delve into that,” he vowed, “come here and let me hold you.”
She moved almost as fast as an immortal, launching herself into his arms with a force that nearly knocked him over. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she squeezed him tight.
Marcus arranged her thighs on either side of his lap and buried his face in her fragrant hair. A shuddering sigh escaped him. “Don’t think this means I’m not still angry with you,” he murmured, the affection he couldn’t withhold making the words a lie. “You scared the hell out of me last night.”
“I’m sorry. You scared me, too.”
“When I thought I was losing you ...” Drawing away fractionally, he cupped the back of her head in one hand and blended her lips with his own.
Ami kissed him back eagerly, her tongue slipping forward to stroke and tease his.
Fire exploded through his body, turning his blood to molten lava. Her hands sank into his hair, fingernails glancing against his scalp, tugging strands and producing exquisite pleasure-pain.
Groaning, he slid his hands down her back, slipped them beneath her T-shirt to cup her firm, bare ass, and urged her against his erection.
“Take your clothes off,” she ordered, dragging kisses across his jaw, nipping his neck just beneath his ear. “I want to feel your skin against mine.”
Marcus couldn’t comply fast enough, tearing the shirt from his torso with preternatural speed.
Ami rose onto her knees, still straddling him, tempting him with kisses and running her hands all over his naked chest and back as he scrambled to remove his pants, socks, and boots.
As soon as all were strewn across the room, Ami whipped the T-shirt over her head.
Marcus immediately leaned forward, lips fastening on the pink tip of one full breast and sucking hard as he filled his palm with the other.
Skin so soft. A scent that warmed his blood like the most potent aphrodisiac.
He closed his teeth on one taut bud, rolled the other between thumb and forefinger.
Ami groaned, melting against him.
Marcus eased her back down on his lap, teased her moist center with his cock.
“Wait,” she gasped. Her small hands slid down and pushed against his chest.
He drew back, wanting nothing more than to plunge inside her, feel her squeeze him tight.
“Marcus, wait,” she repeated. “I want to taste you.”
The desire within him ratcheted up several notches. “What?”
“Last time I didn’t have a chance to taste you,” she said breathlessly.
“Ami, honey, I don’t think I can wait that long to be inside you. Maybe next time—”
But she was already backing off the bed, kneeling in front of him, and taking his shaft in her hands. A long, slow lick followed.
Marcus groaned. Okay, maybe he could wait.
Every muscle tightened as her lips closed over his cock, then drew him deeper into her warm, wet mouth,
tongue stroking and making him jerk with pleasure.
“Ami.” Bracing one hand on the bed behind him, he brushed the other over her tousled hair as she drew on him, every stroke and pull eroding his control until he hovered too close to the edge.
“Stop,” he urged her.
Sitting back on her heels, she stared up at him with passion-glazed eyes and flushed cheeks. “Did I do it right?”
“Hell, yes. But I don’t want to come until I’m buried deep inside you.”
Ami’s breath caught. Even his words made her burn inside.
In one smooth motion, Marcus lifted her, turned, and laid her in the center of the bed. His eyes glowed a bright amber, pure desire now, as he stood there for a moment, drinking her in.
Considering the restrictions with which she had been raised, she should feel embarrassed, but couldn’t, not when he took such pleasure in it. Ami drank him in as well. His muscled chest rose and fell as quickly as her own. His eight-pack abs rippled and flexed, drawing her gaze down to his erection, which boldly strained toward her.
He called it his cock. She rolled the word around in her head, liking it, wishing she weren’t too shy still to tell Marcus to plunge his cock inside her. Now.
Marcus’s large hands shook as they grasped her ankles, drew her legs apart.
Ami’s already fast heartbeat tripled.
His movements agonizingly slow, he pushed her feet back until they were planted on the bed not far from her bottom, knees splayed.
“Marcus,” she murmured, pulse racing.
He gave her a wicked grin. “What goes around comes around.” Then he leaned down, lowered his head, and delivered a long, delicious lick to the heart of her arousal.
Moaning, Ami threw her head back and clutched the covers in fists as his mouth caressed her, rubbing, sucking, and nipping until she cried out, convulsing in climax.
Before she could catch her breath, Marcus flipped her over onto her stomach and knelt between her legs. His hands seized her hips, drew her up onto her knees. Then his cock was probing and plunging inside.
A low growl rumbled from him. “Ami ... you feel so good.”
She would have told him the same if she had the breath to do so. But the pleasure was already building again, growing with every plunge and retreat, the friction driving her mad.
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