Between the Marshal & the Vampire

by Tricia Owens

  Undercurrents moved through the air between the two males but she couldn't decipher them and knew it was a waste of time trying. Men, she'd learned, even if one was a vampire, didn't often think straight when butting heads. She'd let them flare their feathers at each other all they want, so long as they didn't outright attack each other.

  "Are you finished eating?" Vellum asked them.

  Mariel's heart began to pound. "Do you need to feed now?"

  The curving of his lips sent memories tumbling through her head: his lips against her breast, his hand between her legs, the powerful heat of him, driving into her again and again, filling and alleviating her ache.

  "Yes, Mariel," he said softly, "it's time I drank from you."

  Desire coursed through her so thickly she nearly moaned. She knew her pupils must be blown with her lust.

  "No, you'll drink from me," Clay insisted, rising to his feet.

  "Why not leave the decision to her, Marshal?" Vellum's dark gaze enveloped Mariel, until nothing in the world existed except for him. Was it his thrall? She couldn't tell. All she did know was that she would die if he forsake her. "Will you allow me to drink from you, Mariel? Or should I partake of the Marshal?"

  She told herself she wanted to spare Clay from having Vellum drink from him; the Marshal wouldn't be able to handle it. But the truth was her skin had begun to tingle. A warm heat pooled low in her body. Anticipation of Vellum's mouth at her throat had turned her body into a lightning rod, waiting to be struck by his power. She needed it.

  "You'll drink from me," she said as firmly as she could. Her voice, to her embarrassment, carried with it a tremor of excitement that made Vellum smile.

  "Mariel—"

  She held up her hand to stop Clay's protest. "I'm a grown woman, Clay. You said yourself that I'm strong enough to be an airship captain. You think a captain would quail from this?"

  "I think an airship captain would be smart enough not to be here in the first place," he said in a strange voice, but she couldn't be bothered to check his reaction. Her world had narrowed to Vellum.

  "Open your blouse for me, Mariel."

  The softly spoken command worked on her and Clay both. The Marshal stood frozen, as though shocked. She was the opposite, wanting to swoon backwards. With trembling fingers, she reached up and opened another button on her blouse so she could tuck the collar beneath the fabric, baring not only the side of her throat but her naked collarbones.

  "You will stand quietly and not interfere," Vellum said to Clay, pinning with him a dark look. "Whatever I do to her will not hurt her."

  "I know," Clay said, his voice taut with an unnamable emotion. "You drank from her on the train."

  Vellum rounded the fire to take one knee beside Mariel. "Yes, this will be like that. Or nearly so." He smiled wryly, a shared joked between he and Mariel. She smiled back. Making love while Clay watched was surely out of the question.

  Wasn't it?

  To her surprise, she wasn't so sure she would mind having the handsome Marshal witness her ravishment by Vellum.

  You are not the girl you were in Willowtown.

  When Vellum curled a supporting arm behind her shoulders, her breath quickened. She couldn't look away from his seductive gaze as he leaned over her.

  "Close your eyes," he whispered. "Enjoy this, Mariel."

  Lids falling shut, she couldn't help but whimper when she felt his lips against the side of her throat. They were soft and cool, in need of her blood, and yet Vellum only brushed them along the column of her throat, exciting her nerve-endings, exciting her entire body. His delicate touch was incongruous with what he was. If only Clay could experience this and know the truth. But of course that wouldn't happen.

  Vellum curled around her, as though shielding her while she lay vulnerable to him. Her head fell back naturally as he lingered over her pulse.

  "Mariel," she heard him whisper, and then his fangs pierced her.

  There was pain, and for a second she panicked, thinking this would be a repeat of the first time he had drawn from her. But it was only a second later that the warmth spread through her, carrying with it a drugging pleasure as though Vellum had injected her with morphine.

  She heard herself sigh, felt her hands clutching at his chest and back, pulling him closer as his lips suckled at her neck. This time the rhythmic pull on her blood felt purely sexual, a mirror of his lips between her legs, sucking on her pleasure nub.

  Her body refused to remain still beneath the suggestive sucking. She writhed on the ground. She drew her legs up and clutched them together, trying to ease the throbbing at their apex. Undulating against Vellum, she gasped, "Please."

  Vellum's hand cupped her breast.

  She cried out as though burnt, and in a way that was how hot his palm felt against her nipple. When he squeezed the globe of her flesh he stoked a fire inside her. Unable to lie still, she reached up to his lustrous hair and gripped demandingly. He growled against her throat, the sound enflaming her. His hand at her breast slid boldly down the length of her body to cup her between her legs.

  "Mariel!" Clay gasped from somewhere far away, but Mariel couldn't bring herself to care if the Marshal thought she was being wanton and acting like a prostitute. The need in her body was all-consuming and only Vellum could quench it.

  Her skirt was no barrier to him nor were her knickers, which he tugged out of the way. His fingers moved against her damp folds expertly, driving her desire higher and higher. Beneath his touch her body undulated helplessly, moving as his fingers played her. When he slid a long finger inside her and used his thumb to caress her clit, she bucked and cried out. He pumped her with his finger, teasing and tormenting her, proving to them both that he could do whatever he liked to her and she would take it. Warmed lips kissed down her throat, licking her skin, tasting her from the outside as he'd already tasted her lifeblood. Everywhere he touched her, he branded her. Owned her. As she submitted to his finger-fucking, she couldn't deny any of it.

  "Mariel," he groaned against her skin.

  He thrust in hard, his palm flatting against her, and she was lost as ecstasy exploded between her legs and radiated throughout her body in glorious waves. She clutched him and he murmured soothingly to her, helping her to ride the crest of her passion.

  Eventually he withdrew his hand gently, almost regretfully, and rearranged her skirts to cover her. When he raised his head his eyes shone from more than the firelight. They blazed with passion and possession both.

  "You're beautiful," he said to her. He brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "Thank you for your trust. For your gift."

  She nearly thanked him in return and was glad she gathered her wits in time to stop herself. Clay cleared his throat, and she was suddenly aware that he had seen and heard everything. What did he think of her after that display? Did he look down on her? Was he disgusted by her?

  When Vellum helped her to sit up, the Marshal was no longer by the fire. Clay was at the horses, saddling them. His gruff, "We should get going if we intend to make any forward progress," made her flinch, but Vellum only shook his head at her.

  "He needs time," the vampire told her. "He'll have plenty of it, so don't concern yourself."

  But Mariel was concerned. Clay was her friend. As languid pleasure swam through her veins, she decided that maybe, just maybe, she wanted him to be something more.

  5

  For the first few hours they traveled the dry, starlit desert without speaking, accompanied only by the quiet tromp of their horses and the wooden slither of Vellum's crate. Mariel struggled with confusion over why she didn't feel worse about her behavior. What she'd done twice now would have shocked anyone back home. It shocked her. And yet she looked forward to the next time Vellum needed to feed because she wanted to experience all of it again.

  "Becoming a vampire must have been a dream come true," Clay said.

  With mounting dread over the where the comment would lead, Mariel checked Vellum for reaction.
The vampire no longer rode ahead of them but kept pace between Mariel and the Marshal. He didn't bother looking sideways at Clay as he replied.

  "How so, Marshal?"

  "Now you can deceive and prey on all the women you want, and no one can stop you."

  "I don't prey on anyone, Marshal."

  "Alright. Then we'll call it what it is: rape."

  Mariel cringed, but Vellum shook his head at her, telling her not to interfere.

  "I have never assaulted a woman nor will I ever," he told Clay. "Anyone I choose to feed from, be it a woman—or a man—submits willingly. I'd wager the majority would gladly volunteer again were they given the opportunity to do so."

  "Because you use the thrall on them," Clay shot back. "You take away their will. That's assault."

  "I don't remove will. I provide incentive. There is a difference."

  "That's a load of horse shit."

  "Except that it's true," Mariel spoke up firmly.

  Clay stabbed a hand through his hair. "Mariel, you don't understand what he's doing to you. He's tricking you—"

  "He's had opportunities to kill me, Clay, and he's only treated me…well." She flushed, but refused to back down. "Without him, we'd both be dead, killed by Beaufort's men."

  "We'll be dead eventually, once he's through using us," he retorted.

  "Wouldn't it be to my benefit to deposit you safely at Everton Fort where you will tell others of my magnanimous treatment and potentially change the opinion that men have of vampires?"

  "Why would you care what we think of you?" Clay smiled mirthlessly. "You have nothing to fear from us. You can slaughter us wholesale."

  "Would you kill your last cow just because you could?" Vellum asked simply. "Or would you recognize the value in keeping it alive? Not that I think of you as cattle. I would never partake of pleasure with cattle."

  The comment deepened Mariel's flush, as did Vellum's meaningful and desire-laced glance at her.

  "Why do you do it?" Clay's tone was resigned. "Why seduce when you only need the blood? Is it to humiliate? To prove you can do anything to us?"

  "No," Vellum said sharply. His anger was the first real emotion that Mariel had sensed from him. "Such pettiness is beneath me."

  Clay leaned toward him, as if sensing blood. "Then why do it?"

  "Because loneliness is not solely the domain of men and women."

  Never in her lifetime would Mariel have expected to hear a vampire admit to being lonely. The confession flew in the face of what little she knew about them, which was that they were creatures with cold, alien hearts. But what was it that Vellum had said when he'd first introduced himself to her?

  I prefer the term vampire. Nightwalker sounds so very lonely, don't you think?

  It could be an act to trick them into feeling sympathy for him. Possibly. But Mariel's gut suggested there was at least a grain of truth in Vellum's confession. Some essence of humanity still lurked within the vampire and it yearned for companionship.

  Mariel tried to imagine what such an existence would be like, forced to sleep through the hours when humans were most active, wandering the night on your own, feeding from the only humans not tucked safely away in their beds, which meant drunks, the downtrodden, and prostitutes.

  Yes, she could see how it would be lonely. For all that Vellum needed their presence alongside him simply to survive, she suspected that a part of him was glad for the company.

  "Don't talk to me of loneliness when it was your kind that slaughtered a decent, kind woman," Clay said in a tone of voice that raised a chill on Mariel's skin.

  "Slaughtered?" Vellum frowned and his consternation appeared genuine, as though he couldn't fathom such a thing. "Vampires don't make a habit of killing, and we're not inclined to drink from a human in a manner that would raise the ire of men. We're very aware of the delicate line we must walk when moving amongst you."

  "What happened to her isn't going to happen to any other woman in Mountain Sky Territory while I can stop it," Clay declared, his voice deep and committed the way men's are when they've decided on a course they would follow come hell or high water. Mariel doubted that the Marshal rarely, if ever, made empty threats or promises.

  "Whoever killed your friend was an ill vampire," Vellum insisted with annoyance in his voice that suggested that had the vampire been within reach, he would have personally throttled it. "There are some who don't take the change well, who become…mentally unstable. They give my kind a reputation that can only hurt us, so you can understand why I'd despise them as much as you do."

  Clay grunted.

  "Marshal…Clay, I apologize on behalf of the vampire who took your friend's life. That shouldn't have happened." Vellum studied the neck of his horse for several moments, his pale fingers combing restlessly through its thick mane. "I know something of your helplessness and frustration. When I was turned into this it was done against my will."

  Mariel's hand flew to her throat, where Vellum had bit her. He shook his head, though he didn't turn to look at her.

  "A turning requires several steps, including the ingestion of the vampire's blood. It takes intent and determination, and when a human is unwilling it is…messy." He grimaced. "It's not supposed to happen. Turning humans against their desires only makes them enemies, so we try to avoid that at all cost. But it was too late for me. My family—my two brothers and my father—hunted down the vampire who had turned me, seeking retribution. The vampire killed them all. My name is now a curse in the town where I was born. It may as well have been my fangs that tore my family apart."

  "Oh, Vellum," Mariel whispered. "It wasn't your fault."

  "Indirectly, it was. I should have killed the vampire who turned me, but I was young as a vampire and I hadn't realized what he intended when my family came for him. I sat by, thinking he would warn them off, and let it happen. But afterwards, I should have done something."

  "Is there any kind of justice system in place for vampires?" Clay asked, sounding reluctant to know more, as though he didn't want to care about their kind. But he was a man of the law. He would have a deep sense of righteousness and Mariel guessed that even vampire injustice bothered him.

  "Only the most basic and barbaric: if you feel wronged, you take care of the matter yourself."

  "Frontier justice for vampires. Lovely."

  "We're little more than animals, hmm?" Vellum's question was dark with bitterness.

  "I haven't been impressed so far," Clay said steadily.

  Vellum shook his head, his dark hair curling above his duster. "Vampires are intelligent beings who want to co-exist. We need to feed, and we are aware that the prospect of it frightens you, so we do what we can to make it…bearable. But we can't change our natures. To live, we must feed. Just as you must shoot the deer."

  Bearable. Hardly the word Mariel would use to describe the experience of feeding Vellum. However, she wasn't so sure she wanted Clay to know that she had reached orgasm both times that the vampire drank from her.

  "Men will never accept you among us," Clay muttered as he stared out at the darkness. "We have nothing in common."

  "That may be so. Which is why we endeavor to remain in Shadow Valley Territory. My excursion into your land is unusual. But I have business in Scar Tooth and because of the river monsters in Wickedly, I have to travel through Mountain Sky to reach the mountain. Had the attack on the train not happened, you would never have known of my existence. I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable. But we agreed to this deal."

  They hadn't had much of a choice in the matter, but Clay didn't point that out. He seemed tired of the fight, as though thinking of his dead friend had drained him. Mariel hoped that seeing Vellum feed from her didn't distress Clay and bring up bad memories for him. Perhaps it would be wise to feed Vellum out of view of the Marshal, to spare him any reminders of the past.

  However, Clay had a different idea.

  "Next time you feed, you drink from me," he said flatly. "No arguments. I want to know w
hat you're subjecting Mariel to. I want to see for myself that you're not hurting her."

  Though Mariel inwardly protested—she'd wanted to delay having Vellum feed from Clay for as long as possible in the interests of peace—Vellum inclined his head. "Very well. I'll gladly do everything to you that I do to her."

  Mariel's eyes widened, but neither male looked over at her. Should she warn Clay? Or did Vellum not mean what he'd said in the literal sense?

  Traveling through the dead of night was disorienting. Mariel was trapped in her head throughout most of the "morning", afraid to engage in conversation while coyotes and saberwolves paralleled their movement. When they finally stopped to stretch their legs and give the horses a break, Mariel wandered over to where Vellum stood motionless, admiring the star-illuminated desert. Clay had gone for a walk, his head down, hands stuffed into the pockets of his trousers, spurs jangling quietly. He was troubled, and Mariel was sorry for it.

  "He's a good man," she felt compelled to tell Vellum, in case the vampire considered the Marshal a potential enemy. "He lives to protect people."

  "I don't doubt that, Mariel. He could easily present trouble to my kind, but I can tell he's trying to come to grips with our situation. For your sake."

  "For all our sake's," she argued.

  "He's attracted to you. You resist that attraction. Why?"

  Mariel opened her mouth to protest the claim that she was resisting anything, but forgot what she was going to say as she studied the vampire closer. Vellum wasn't admiring only the desert.

  "You want him, too," she said bluntly. "Not as food. As a lover."

  "Does it surprise you?" the vampire asked mildly, turning to face her.

  She thought it over. "Yes and no. Clay is…handsome. I understand the appeal. But vampires don't need to take on lovers. You don't procreate."

  He looked amused, which made him appear younger. She guessed that he was at most mid-thirties. Did vampires age, or had he remained at this age since he was forcibly turned?