by Jessica Lee
And seeing as Alexandria hadn’t denied Markus’s presence among the Enclave when Enrique had mentioned his name to her, Enrique’s suspicions were confirmed. Marguerite’s former commander had returned into the fold of his prior master.
How very nice that Kenric St. James had welcomed his prodigal warrior back into their sanctimonious little group.
Markus should have slit his own throat instead of leaving with that pathetic excuse for a band of vampires.
“Ah, Christian,” Enrique began, forcing the past back into the recesses of his mind, in favor of the present. He rolled onto his side, facing his current lover. He threaded his fingers into the ginger’s hair and cupped the male’s nape. “It’s been an enlightening night. While I was out, I ran into some old friends, and in the process, I made a very special new acquaintance.”
“Really?” The human’s brows lifted over pale green irises, drawing attention to the inked swirls that wrapped his right eye. The male was definitely striking. An added bonus to keeping the Calyx alive and healthy. It really was a shame most of Marguerite’s Calyxes, trusted humans who took pleasure in serving as vessels for vampires, had scattered after her death.
Enrique rose from the bed and padded over to the large oak desk on the other side of his basement apartment. The chilled, damp air of the room skated over his nude flesh, lifting the hairs on his body. At the desk, he rounded the corner and yanked open the closest drawer. Flipping through the stack of materials on top, papers scattered as he searched for one in particular.
“There,” he breathed. On the bottom of the compartment sat a small manila envelope with the red letter M penned in the corner. Enrique pulled it free, flipped it over, and thumbed open the flap. Tipping it up, he shook the contents into his waiting palm. A lone photograph, weathered on the edges from its battle with time, tumbled into his hand. Enrique stared at the image of the lovely dark-haired female and smiled. “I knew there had to be a very good reason Marguerite kept you hidden.” The woman captured in the image had an uncanny likeness to his former Mistress, and looked amazingly similar to the female warrior he’d seen taking down one of his DEADs this evening. But of course, she would, since she was the daughter Marguerite had somehow managed to procreate with the master of the Enclave, Kenric St. James.
Christian pressed his chest against Enrique’s arm and trailed his fingers down Enrique’s spine. The heat of his lover’s spent cock brushed Enrique’s thigh, the reminder of its presence reawakening his own shaft. “May I ask who that is?” he murmured in Enrique’s ear.
Putting his lust aside for the moment, he looked up at the other male. “She’s the key to obtaining everything I ever desired.”
…
“Well damn,” Kenric said and dislodged his wrist from Markus’s fangs. “Appears I should have sent Alex down weeks ago, if that’s all it took for you to start acting like you wanted to live.”
Markus swallowed the last traces of the master vampire’s blood, stood, and brushed past him. He rolled his shoulders, already sensing the strength returning to his body. It had only been twenty-fours since Alexandria had fed him, but with the addition of tonight’s full meal from Kenric, his vision had already sharpened and his pulse was a roaring waterfall inside his head.
“What makes you think one has a damn thing to do with the other?” Markus scrubbed a palm across his mouth.
“You’re so full of shit.” Kenric huffed. “Your sudden about-face has everything to do with her.”
“For Christ’s sake.” Markus turned, facing Kenric. “Who are you? Dr. Phil?” He crossed his arms. “Since you seem to know so much, why don’t you enlighten me about what you think is going on here?”
Without warning, Kenric lunged, fisting Markus’s shirt, lifting him up by the material, and slamming his back against the wall. “I can tell you what’s not going to happen again.” Kenric’s upper lip curled, his fangs fully extended. “And that’s you putting your hands on Alex.”
Markus closed the distance between them even more, putting them nose to nose. “Or what?” The question blurted out of his mouth before he had a chance to reconsider whether or not he should stab at the coiled viper before him.
“Dammit, Markus!” Kenric curled his lips in disgust. “Are you so far gone that every word out of your mouth has to be a lie or an attempt to make me want to kill you?” With one hand, he seized Markus by the throat, holding him in place. “Did you think I wouldn’t smell her blood the second I walked in this cell last night?” The Enclave’s master shoved him even tighter against the wall. “Did you believe I would be so unobservant and not see the mark on her wrist, even though she tried to hide it?”
Of course Kenric had picked up on nearly every detail of what had gone down between him and Alexandria. “All right,” Markus said. There wasn’t any reason to attempt and deny it any longer. “You’re right.”
One dark brow lifted on Kenric’s forehead.
“Taunting you has become a reflex—a nasty habit I can’t seem to break,” Markus said. “Stifling it is like trying not to pick at a scab that you know you’d be better off leaving alone yet, damn, you just can’t resist making it bleed.”
“You associate me with a scab?” A grimace twisted Kenric’s expression as he released the hold on his neck and lowered his arm. “How pleasant.”
Shrugging, Markus added, “Well you have to admit, my time here with you and the Enclave is sort of like a healing wound.”
“I think you have that backward. Your time with Marguerite is the wound you need to concentrate on healing.”
“Point taken.” Markus nodded.
“Now,” Kenric said and reversed his step, putting some much-needed space between them. “As I was saying about you and Alex. It was clear that more than a heated chat had taken place in here before I’d walked in. But I didn’t bring it up in front of Alex because there was more riding the air than the smells of anger and frustration.” Kenric swiped a hand over his face. “And it wasn’t your scent alone filling the room.”
There’d been no need for Kenric to remind him of that fact. Her pheromones were forever imprinted inside his brain. His mouth watered. Even though Kenric’s blood had washed down his throat only moments before, Markus could still taste Alexandria on his tongue. Marguerite’s blood had been a powerful obsession, but nothing had prepared him for the effect of one sip from Alexandria’s vein, and he had no idea how the hell he was supposed to forget. How he was so supposed to pretend every molecule in his body didn’t want more. Need more. And inside what was left of his heart, he knew he wasn’t referring to only her blood. He wanted all of her—in his bed and out.
“I haven’t forgotten how possessive you were over the female,” Kenric said.
“I sired her.” Markus shrugged. “I take care of what’s mine. What can I say; I’m a protective kind of guy. It’s my nature.” He smirked.
“Well then, I suggest you take that need of yours to protect and focus it elsewhere.” Kenric stepped in, his gaze locking with Markus’s. “After what you put that female through… Do her this one small favor and leave her alone. You owe her that much.”
Hot lightning surged through Markus’s veins at Kenric’s words and the master’s implication that Markus didn’t realize the true depth of his sins. The other male had no idea how deep the caverns actually ran. But Markus did, because he’d dug every one of them with his own hands. Yet none of them did he regret more than what he’d done to Alexandria. And he owed her a hell of lot more than his absence from her life could ever make up for.
“She came to me, Kenric,” Markus said, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets and moving away.
“I remember. But if she returns—”
“She wants answers, and she wants me to fill in the gaps.” Markus glanced over his shoulder at the master.
“And you getting to sink your fangs into her one more time was Alex’s payment for doing just that? A little give-and-take arrangement that you came up with?”
“In a way,” Markus said. “But she didn’t like what she got in exchange.”
“You lied to her,” Kenric flatly stated. “And she walked out of here without a damn thing.”
“Did you expect anything different?” Markus eased in closer to his former commander. “Like you said, after what I did to her, do you really think I’d be so willing to spill my guts? Fuck, I was the one who did her the favor of going all Magic Eraser on her memories in the first place. So why would I want to undo all that?”
“Perhaps because you know hurting her wouldn’t end with Alex. It would combust and spread through this house like a wildfire. And after the way you’ve responded to my attempts to save you, after the things you’ve said and done since you’ve been back inside these walls, causing more pain to what’s left of this Enclave is something that would be too tempting for you to resist.”
“Not everything is as black and white as you think.”
“Is that so…” Kenric crossed his arms and squared his shoulders as if preparing for battle. “What am I missing here?”
“Enrique is sniffing around.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Kenric snapped.
“Did Alexandria tell you that he threatened her?”
Kenric’s arms fell back to his sides. “No,” he said, his tone dipping low. “She and I haven’t talked since last night. What the hell did he say to her?”
“Nothing specific. Basically that if I wasn’t more careful with her, I’d lose her.”
“As if he’d ever be able to touch her within the protection of the Enclave.” Kenric flashed the fangs hidden beneath his upper lip. “He’s nothing without Marguerite’s minions to back him up, and they scattered once she was defeated.”
“You’d be surprised what Enrique is capable of once he’s set his mind to a goal.” Markus understood that statement all too well, since he’d experienced being the object of the male’s obsessions. For a second, his mind flickered back in time to when Markus had held Alexandria in his possession and Enrique had revealed his hand.
“You know what I want,” Enrique stated. “The game is quite simple, really. And either you decide to start playing, with me, or I go to Marguerite and tell her all about how your priorities have changed. Make the right choice here, and we both win.”
For years, Enrique had been under the tutelage of the master manipulator: Marguerite. The male knew how to get what he wanted, and before Marguerite’s untimely demise, that had been Markus. And for a short period, in order to protect Alexandria, Markus had given in to Enrique’s blackmail.
Bile surged to the back of his throat at the memories of their encounters, but if he had to do it all again to keep Alexandria alive, he would.
“I guess you, better than most, would know, since he’d been under your command during your time with Marguerite,” Kenric said, pulling Markus back into the present.
“Exactly,” Markus said. “I know how Enrique thinks.” He eased onto the seat of a straight-backed chair and crossed his legs. Shit. How had he not seen this coming? He swallowed hard, forcing the coiled fist of apprehension back down into his gut. “With this new possible threat,” he began, “and as you put it earlier, seeing as the Enclave is somewhat depleted, I believe you need me.”
“Excuse me?” Kenric took the chair on the other side of the small table. “In what way do we ‘need’ you?”
“With the Enclave having lost Logan last year, and since I’m no longer here, you’re down two males.”
“I can do the math,” Kenric snapped. “Spit it out already, Markus. What are you getting at?”
A year ago, he would’ve bet his left nut that what he was about to admit would never pass his lips. But if he didn’t do it and something happened to Alexandria… There wasn’t any other way.
“I want back in the Enclave.”
Chapter Five
Four weeks later
Apparently, even an immortal still felt the burn from a strenuous workout. Alex rolled her shoulders once more, trying to loosen the knots in her neck and upper back from the previous day’s training session. She sighed, closed her bedroom door, and strode down the second-floor hallway. Eve had seized her arm, twisted it, and forced her to drop the blade from her fist before taking her down hard. Alex slowed, closed her eyes, and shook her head at the memory. God, two weeks and she still wasn’t much better than when she’d first started training.
With a deep breath, she opened her eyes, repositioned her workout jacket, and continued down the hall. Time for another rematch. No matter how long it took her to develop the necessary skills, she couldn’t give up—would never give up. She was tired of sitting idle. She wanted out in the field with the rest of the Enclave. And with any luck, that would mean coming face-to-face with Enrique. If Markus refused to talk, something told her Enrique was someone who would. She was willing to bet her life on it.
A few steps away from the staircase, a grunting sound caught her attention. Bypassing the stairs, she crept closer, listening, picking up the resonating beat of a bass guitar. Music? Two rooms down, she spotted one of the doors standing ajar. Strange. She didn’t know anyone occupied that particular room.
Humpf.
She cocked her head toward the guttural noise punctuating the rock tune. A couple of seconds later, she heard the sound again. What the hell was going on in there?
Curiosity rode her hard, and unfortunately Alex had never been known for the strength of her willpower. Before she’d been turned, her hips could have attested to that fact. That was one of the few positive things about losing her humanity. Her new metabolism rocked.
Reaching out, she placed her palm against the wood and eased the door open a few more inches. Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” bounced off the walls, bombarding her eardrums, but it only took a second for her to locate the source of the other sound. A male, wearing a pair of charcoal-colored sweats and nothing else, hung by his hands from a metal bar suspended between the two built-in closets. Black and red tattooed swirls trailed from his wrists up and over his shoulders, covering both of his arms. His hair was bound at the nape and hung down his back in a thick black-as-sin mane. A grunt rushed from his lungs as he yanked on the bar once more and pulled himself up until his chin topped the metal. Muscles along his spine flexed and rippled beneath flesh that shone with sweat from his effort.
Arousal swelled between Alex’s legs and hardened her nipples into stiff points.
“Holy mother of God…” The words exited her lips on a breathy whisper. She’d never been one who prayed very often, but the sight before her was worthy of a few spontaneous words of worship.
The male dropped from the bar, plucked the remote from the nearby shelf, and tapped one of the buttons, silencing the music. “I was wondering how long it would take before you and I ran into each other,” he said. “I’m pleasantly surprised it happened so soon.”
The voice… It couldn’t be?
As if the world had downshifted and everything was suddenly moving at half speed, he turned.
Air punched from her chest.
Markus.
Except this wasn’t the Markus who lived in the small silver cage in the basement. The one who was thin, pale, and almost fragile in appearance. Oh hell no. This was the Markus from her dreams—nightmares—the gorgeous male who’d left her with images and feelings that oscillated among lust, arousal, fear, and rage.
Reflex propelled her back a step. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“This is my room,” he calmly stated, as if the situation were perfectly normal.
“What are you talking about?” Alex scanned the rest of the bedroom. She’d been so distracted by the view, she’d totally missed that the once-empty room now contained all the furnishings of a typical bedroom. Her head spun with the implications of what he’d said.
“How?” She shook her head and waved a finger at his metamorphosis. “You look so…different.”
“Yeah.”
He held his arms wide as if inviting a closer inspection. “It’s pretty amazing the power contained in a master’s blood, if you actually allow yourself to consume it.” He flashed a grin.
Alex backed farther into the hall, yet Markus matched her step for step. “How did you convince Kenric to let you out?”
“Stop running from me, Alex,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Jamming the brakes on her retreat, she lifted her chin. “I’m not running. And it’s a little too late, don’t you think, for your latter proclamation?”
“You have a point.” He crossed his arms and retreated, giving her some space.
“So how did you do it, Markus? How did you get him to believe you actually want to be part of the Enclave again?”
“You did what?” A loud voice that sounded a lot like Guerin rang out from the first floor, distracting her and jabbing a cork in whatever story Markus was about to spout. Alex angled closer toward the stairs.
“I can’t believe you opened that damn cage without coming to me first,” Arran bellowed, his tone less than civil.
“I guess that means they’ve heard the news,” Markus murmured directly behind her, a ripple of heat skating down her spine. Whether the reaction originated from the proximity of his half-naked flesh, or the fact she was scared to death that was exactly case, who the hell knew at this point?
Alex glanced over her shoulder, her gaze catching the fine dark hairs covering his pecs. She followed them as they rode the hollows and ridges of his ripped abs. The thin trail circled his navel, then traveled lower, disappearing beneath the waistband of the sweats sitting low on his narrow hips. Damn him. At the lower section of his abs, he possessed the perfect hard vee of muscles and veins she loved on a man. The kind that arrowed south, straight toward his—
Her mouth went dry, and her breasts tingled, nipples tightening into hardened peaks. She jerked her head up. Markus stood there, staring at her with one slash of a brow lifted.
“Did you get a good look, or is there something more you’d like to see?” He smirked.
