by CC MacKenzie
"Nope, that was a spur of the moment thing and I wondered if I’d stepped across a line with you."
She shook her head.
"But what about the contracts? The Chinese still haven’t signed."
He smiled, kissed her nose.
"Not yet. But they will. It’s all about saving face. James has it all under control. He'll give little and they’ll give a little, it's all part of the dance."
"You are one hell of a sneaky, manipulative, underhanded..."
His forehead came to rest on hers.
"I know it. Can you forgive me?"
Dark eyes stared into hers with the amazing intensity that always turned her knees to rubber.
"On one condition."
"Name it.’
She gave him a big smile that made him growl deep in his throat.
"Next time, I get to tie you up."
With a deep laugh rumbling in his chest, Anais found herself lifted high in his arms as he strode back into the bedroom and laid her on the bed.
Marcus stripped off her skirt and tossed it.
The next moment she was on her back with him towering over her.
"What are we doing?"
"We’re going to celebrate, darlin’."
"Celebrate what?"
"Your promotion and the beginning of a beautiful relationship."
***
He'd been expecting the call.
The phone rang and the creature sitting at the desk made of plate glass knew hesitating to answer the summons was a dangerous idea.
He lifted the cell, held it to his ear.
"Hello?"
All the while his suspicious eyes stayed on the vampyre sitting in his designer club chair. Even for a ruthless example of the breed, she was a savage predator at the top of her particular food chain. She was stunningly attractive, if you were the type who went for a vicious babe who'd held a grudge for over two hundred years. He preferred his women soft, subservient and easier to terrorise.
When he'd seen the dark haired woman prince Marcus had marked as his own, his groin had gone tight. Now the female looking at him as if he was shit on her shoe made his dick shrink to the size of a walnut.
Bitch.
"What happened?" The silky voice in his ear was too soft, too pleasant. Totally at odds with the skinny worm of sweat running down his spine.
"Earthquake," the creature said, deciding to keep it simple and to the point. He had his talents of course, but making the earth move was not one of them.
"You realise that prince Marcus has more than likely taken her vein by now?"
Since he wasn't sure if it was a rhetorical question, the creature kept quiet.
Plus, keeping silent had the added benefit that the vampyre sitting across the desk and watching him like a hawk was in the dark as far the conversation was concerned.
Now her eyes narrowed into his.
"Put Eleanor on," the voice commanded.
Okay, maybe not in the dark.
Without a word he passed the woman the cell phone.
"My Lord?" she said, her dark eyes going into icy slits as she listened. "It is done."
She gave back the phone.
The creature held it to his ear and heard the dialling tone.
And with a hand that trembled in relief he stroked his still tender neck and decided he'd dodged a bullet.
In a move so fast the human eye would miss it, Eleanor simultaneously unsheathed talons in her right hand and sprang to her feet.
With a single swipe the puppet who sat like a fat cat behind his desk was decapitated. Fluid the color of ink spurted from his veins splattering across walls and floor like a water hose with the pressure too high jumping around a lawn.
Lifeless otherworldly eyes the color of ripe corn stared unseeing into hers.
Since failure in her line of work was not an option and she was a vampyre who liked to tie up loose ends, she bent low over the body as her claws sliced his ribcage open. The stench of putrefaction had her turn her head away, but she thrust her hand into his chest to grip his still beating black heart. Shame she couldn't use all her powers and simply incinerate the rancid flesh. It was too risky to use magic after what had happened in the club last night.
She'd already set in motion a chain of events that if it didn't kill prince Marcus's woman, it would definitely make her transition to newborn vampyre fraught with danger.
Now Eleanor's dark eyes went wild, not quite sane, as she smiled.
She'd waited a long time for this day.
Too long.
Revenge against the Gillespie princes would be all the sweeter once she'd broken every single one of their hearts, their spirit, along with their will to live. Only then would she take back the man who'd been stolen from her. She'd have him on his belly before her.
Old hurts, old stings of rejection and worse made her hand fist around the heart to pulverise it into a bloody mess. Sometimes the old ways of disposing evidence were the best. She opened her mouth obscenely wide and slid corrupt flesh down her throat, taking care not to taste.
Then lifting an unsoiled piece of the creature's silk shirt, she wiped her hand, her lips, rose and left.
She had places to be, things to do, a human to kill.
***
In a time and a place where man may not venture, the being known as The Maker placed his reality's version of a cell phone on a desk carved from granite. On two walls flickered screens. Holographic screens showing different worlds, different creatures, in their own space and time. The sorcery he needed to produce power for those screens depleted him now. He must rest. Even though Eleanor regularly risked her life to provide him with sustenance, he was diminished. His power weakened. Trapped. And all because of a betrayal by a human made vampyre, a man he'd... trusted.
Now humans were pushing the edges of science, again. The species knew no bounds. How dare they attempt to measure alternate realities? They were close, too close, to accessing time-travel, and to move between those realities. At all costs, such a thing must be stopped. Humans could not be trusted as custodians of other worlds. Look at the destruction of Earth? Plus, humans were too easy to... corrupt.
However, it was the vampyres on Earth who were the real issue. They held too much power, knew too much. Their destruction was, he decided, inevitable.
The Maker turned towards a wall of electronic flat screens. Ah, the joys and wonders of human technology were nothing short of a gift. It only took keying in data to have an analysis of ongoing research scrolling on the screens. All root and branch members of the major vampyre families, the Princes, Precedential Elders, Juristic Rulers, their connections, routines and histories going back to the time of the first human geological epoch, the Anrthropocene, of 1610, a time of the transfer of species between the New World and the Old World. A time when the first vampyres, created by The Maker himself, carried smallpox to the Americas. The disease killed tens of millions, basic agriculture collapsed and tremendous forests grew. Those forests led to a global drop in carbon dioxide, a gas which affected ancient ice cores and led to climate change. Now, another geographic epoch has begun, only this time not by humans, but by magic. The earth will quake, the seas will rise, birds will fall from the sky, sea creatures will perish upon the tainted soil, pestilence and disease will stalk the world and cleanse it of human and vampyre alike. And then The Maker would begin again.
Eyes dyed the color of a ripe blood orange studied the data with great care.
Those eyes were conniving, clever, and crazed.
Chapter Ten
Marcus lay on his back and stared unblinking at the ceiling.
He wasn't a man who enjoyed human contact after sex.
Certainly he'd never enjoyed a cuddle before, so why couldn't he get enough of her?
Anais lay sound asleep burrowing into his side and he found he didn’t mind it.
But lying on his back he had to admit that he was one uneasy vampyre.
He'd managed to back
himself into the worst possible situation.
She trusted him utterly and completely and he'd let her down.
Big time.
He'd risked her safety by taking her out to the Pepper club, exposing her to his kind in the worst possible way when she'd been too vulnerable to defend herself. Anais was still human. Now his bottom teeth dragged over his top lip. Actually, she was a hybrid - half human, half vampyre. He wondered why the thought hadn't occurred to him before. Already his vampyre was instinctually aware of the beginning of the transformation within her. His DNA was busy working and altering her blood cells, modifying the tissues of her body, to prepare them for the next crucial stage. Their telepathic connection was deepening, too. Just by tasting her blood from the wound in her hand, he'd been able to receive the odd flash of her thoughts, her emotions.
They were connected irrevocably by a blood pact.
And Anais didn't even know it.
When he'd been deep inside her body tonight and so far gone with lust, his vampyre had risen, and taken her vein. Without her permission. There was nothing he could have done to stop it, he admitted. Now as the truth hit him hard he made a face.
He'd done a lot of things without her consent.
Once he'd taken the life giving fluid from her vein it had been too easy, effortless really, to use his psychic... gifts (some might call it mind-control. And they'd be right) to soothe her into a false sense of security, to trust him. And he'd betrayed that trust by lulling her into a dreamlike state while encouraging her to drink his blood, a lot of his blood. Maybe too much of his blood?
Fortunately for him it appeared Anais was amazingly responsive to suggestion. She'd taken the whole experience in her stride, like a duck to water, like a lamb led to slaughter.
Now he worried she might not have taken enough of the full-bodied and potent fluid in their first exchange.
On the other hand, perhaps she'd taken too much?
Even though he was somewhat in the dark about what to expect when a newborn emerged, he knew enough to know that the transition in her body had now begun and nothing could stop it. No matter how much he debated with himself, he couldn't stop the jaggy edge of guilt scraping his conscience that Anais was well down the road on a journey not of her choosing.
He couldn't imagine how she was going to react when she learned she was becoming... vampyre.
Why the hell hadn't he thought the whole thing through?
Why had he acted first and thought later?
'She is MINE,' in his mind his vampyre's tone was caught between a hiss and a growl.
'Yeah, yeah, I hear you, pal,' Marcus responded. 'But we're in one hell of a mess. Compelling her was not the way to go.'
He should have been straight with her.
Told her the truth.
Instead, like the worst type of snivelling coward he detested, he hadn’t been able to ease her gently, to invite her into his world, or tell her what he’d done.
The timing hadn't been right, he assured himself.
The unrepentant and growing more irritated voice of his vampyre growled again in his mind. 'Mine.'
'Yeah, yeah. You were a great fucking help. Losing control, rising up and taking her like that without a single thought if it was the right thing to do at the time.'
Marcus knew how his woman ticked.
Anais was not a woman who would take becoming a vampyre in her stride, and why he hadn't thought ahead and realised the truth of the consequences of his action before hand, he'd no fucking idea. Probably because he'd been blinded by need and thinking with his dick. So how was he going to explain to a woman with a sharp mind steeped deeply in logic that vampyres existed, that he was a vampyre prince and that she was well on her way to becoming a vampyre, too?
How was he going to explain why he’d taken her blood and given her his, and what it meant for them going forward.
Where the hell would he start?
The issue whirled relentlessly in his mind.
There was no need to give her the down side right away, or tell her that once they'd made their vows she was his mate for life.
But guilt dug deep in his soul.
How often had he held forth that once he’d identified his mate she’d have no choice but to commit, be bonded, to a life with him for ever? To service his every physical need and ultimately give him young, no matter the risk to herself?
Now he simply couldn’t imagine why he’d done such a thing to the amazing woman sleeping in his bed.
He’d taken away her free will, which was something that hadn’t bothered him until after the event. He was about to subject her to a life, a future, not of her choosing.
Instead of feeling euphoric that he'd finally claimed his mate, he felt like fucking shit.
How could he have done it to her?
The beast that lived within him had never behaved like this before.
His vampyre had simply swept in and taken what it wanted.
Marcus had never had sex like it.
Even as he’d taken her vein, he realised that he’d lost a crucial part of himself.
He’d lost his heart to a wonderful, clever and caring girl.
And he’d treated her appallingly.
To think he’d scoffed at James for not taking Charlotte’s vein and bringing her completely into their clan.
Shame burned Marcus's cheeks.
Taking care not to waken her, he slid from the bed and padded to the window to stare out into the night.
Vampyres might rest, but they didn’t need much sleep.
The night was their time, their environment, even if it brought with it certain risks.
Wherever they travelled in the world, the vampyre lawyers of Gillespie, Pattullo and Hindmarch chose the penthouse suite in hotels or apartments.
Now his enhanced sight spotted the Gillespie clan’s Centuri, on the rooflines of Shanghai for as far as the eye could see, which was a double-edged sword Marcus reflected.
Yes, they protected their princes but they also announced their presence loud and clear to Ezekiel and his Legion.
Abruptly the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
"What exactly did you mean by, 'My kind have heightened olfactory senses?'"
Marcus went absolutely still.
Shit.
Marcus hoped he’d hidden the little jolt of shock that Anais had taken him by surprise.
Considering he'd lived for over two hundred years, he'd never been caught by surprise. It was a unique experience and one he found he didn’t much care for.
Turning to her voice in the dark, he blinked as she switched on a low light and sat up in bed.
She swept back the thick curtain of shiny hair behind her small ear.
Her smooth skin was the color of the clearest honey. Those almond shaped eyes were dazed with slumber and a sleepy arousal as they studied him, going dark when they dropped to the heavy ache pooling between his legs.
He was only human.
Well, sort of, and his body swelled.
She licked her lips and something went too tight in his chest.
He'd lived for over two hundred and thirty years. And during that time, he’d met plenty of beautiful women. But he'd never met a woman so utterly beautiful and guileless as Anais.
Since arriving in China, they’d been cooped up twenty-four hours a day.
Now he wondered if they'd always been linked in a telepathic sense because many times during the past days and weeks he’d been picking up vague impressions of her feelings. Right now he was picking up a cocktail of confusion, arousal and a deep-rooted wariness and anxiety.
His father always said it was better to grasp the nettle and suffer the sting rather than hunt for the long way around to avoid the pain and hard facts of an issue.
He grasped the nettle now.
"I mean my people, my family, my clan. We have a heightened sense of smell and other… qualities."
Anais wrinkled her smooth brow and cocked her head
as she watched him.
A move that made her look absolutely adorable.
"You mean the fact that you and your brothers need transition lenses in your glasses?"
"Aye." Stress made the Scottish lilt in his voice rise to the fore. "That’s one of our… issues. The sun affects our eyes."
That was an understatement.
Thanks to the vivid imagination of Hollywood, humans believed vampyres burst into flames or, gimme a break, sparkled in the sun. As ever, folklore contained a tiny piece of the truth. If the sun directly hit a vampyre’s retina it destroyed the nerve, leaving the creature blind.
Thanks to technology and medical progress, if caught in time the damage could be reversed. But it was a process Marcus was in no hurry to put to the test.
Dark eyes stayed on his, the real affection he read for him made shame and guilt hit him hard.
"So, is it a genetic thing?" she prompted.
And right there Anais gave him the opportunity to open his soul and tell her the truth.
His heart spurted in his chest as his vampyre rose, ready and alert.
Marcus cleared his throat and told himself to remain absolutely calm and not antagonize the beast within.
"I suppose you could call it a genetic thing," he said recognising the terror rising into his throat as his heart beat even faster.
Pitiful.
When had he become a coward?
Big eyes stared deep into his and narrowed fractionally as she studied him.
He read a vicious intelligence in those dark eyes.
"I’ve had very strange dreams of you."
Even though his whole body was tense, he grinned.
"Yeah? Erotic?"
A rosy flush swept her high cheekbones as her thick lashes lowered.
She was embarrassed?
God, he adored her.
Now a new truth floored him.
He knew, right at that moment, he didn't deserve her.
"Yes, along with other, more disturbing, images."
Those eyes met his and he read anxiety and fear and was sorry for it.
She took a shaky breath.
