by Karin Harlow
“You’ re staying here. Where it’s safe. No one knows of this place. Once you’ re at one hundred percent, you can give your people a full update. Until then, Jax Cassidy, you, are all mine.”
Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. The worry in his eyes. She caught her breath. The raw burn mark around his neck. Gently she touched it with her fingertips. “I’m so sorry.”
He grasped her fingers and kissed them. “I forgive you.”
She reached up, pressed her lips to his wound and licked his skin. He stiffened. “I thought I was going to die, Marcus, and never see you again.”
“As long as I have breath in my body, Jax, I will always protect you.”
“Tell me everything is going to work out.”
He smiled and gathered her into his arms. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose and finally her lips. “Everything is going to work out.”
She sank back into the smooth sheets, bringing him closer against her heart. “Make love to me, Marcus.”
She gave herself up to him, inviting—no, demanding—
his touch.
Somehow, though she’d never have thought it was possible, she let it all go. Lazarus. The pain. Even her worry over Shane. She reveled in the way his big hands stroked her skin to fire. The way he touched her as if she’d been fine china that, if handled too harshly, would crumble. The way he made her feel like the only woman on the planet.
His tenderness quickly turned to fiery passion. She responded with an appetite for him that she feared would never be sated. Their impatient bodies wanted to connect. To become one. Now, forever.
She arched into him as he entered her, oh so slowly, and oh so deeply. Jax closed her eyes, letting her head fall back and his hands catch her. Everything about him excited her.
His power, his passion, his smooth skin. And his eyes? His soulful eyes, so full of pain and glory. He made her feel things she had never felt in her life and instinctively knew she’d never feel again, no matter how long she lived.
He was her other side. The dark, demanding, passionate side. There were no words to describe what he was to her. Lover was so inadequate. She didn’t love him. No, what she felt, what she knew, was beyond that. They hung suspended, connected, heart, blood and soul. She fought back tears as emotion overcame her.
She didn’t know why it was him, a tortured and immortal soul, who’d given her back what she had lost so long ago—her hope, her willingness to open her heart again and to trust another being with it.
They were doomed, she knew it. He was dead and she was alive.
Still, it was perfect.
He moved slowly and tenderly in and out of her, and Jax gave herself up completely. “Marcus,” she breathed. “Don’t ever stop.”
He pulled her tighter into his arms and kissed her so deeply, so profoundly, that tears leaked from her eyes. Her words and his actions were triggers for them both. The fire that he ignited within her exploded into a maelstrom. Jax cried out as she was overcome with sensation. As she came, she watched his beautiful, dark face. How it tightened in passion, how he fought his overwhelming desire to bite her. God, she wanted him to do it.
She arched, exposing her neck. “Take it, Marcus. Take my blood.”
“No,” he whispered against her sultry skin, “you have lost so much already.”
“Do it,” she breathed.
He moaned and scraped his fangs along her jugular. Her body spasmed with anticipation. The sensation was like an infusion of aphrodisiacs. Her muscles clamped around him, making him groan in pleasure.
“Jax,” he hoarsely said, “I’m sorry.” He sunk his fangs into her. Jax screamed, the erotic pain so profound that she nearly fainted from the overwhelming pleasure of it.
If it was possible, he held her tighter to him. His possession of every part of her was terrifying in its magnificence.
As he drank his fill of her, his body drove into hers. She felt his quickening, then, his release.
Long moments later, feeling as if she could run a marathon, Jax rolled over and propped her hands on Marcus’s chest, her chin on her hands. “Tell me how it happened.”
His hooded eyes closed.
“There is nothing romantic about it.”
“I want to understand you, Marcus. How things are for you. Why it happened.”
He opened his eyes and ran his fingers through her mussed hair, gently untangling the snarls. “I was in Afghanistan. My squad had one purpose there: Eliminate the Taliban chieftains one at a time. We were very good at our job. We’d rotate missions. It was mine and my spotter, Benny Melgoza’ s, turn. It took us three days of looking like rocks on a hillside to get to the caves, but once we got a lock on our target, mission accomplished. Then we hightailed it back. We were about three hundred meters from our DZ, but we had the misfortune to run straight into a camel train of opium smugglers.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “They got Benny. I narrowly escaped. But they came after me. Eventually they got me. I was full of holes. I could hear the chopper coming in for me. They opened fire and it headed back to camp.” He opened his eyes. “I was dying, Jax. And I was pissed off about it. My entire life had been a clusterfuck. I wasn’t ready to go. The colonel showed up out of nowhere. Beside him was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She looked so exotic and smelled like flowers. I knew I had died and gone to heaven. But I was still alive, though barely, and on Earth.”
He ran his fingers along her fingertips. “Lazarus offered me a different life. Aelia, the woman, explained I would walk among mortals. I would be limited in the mortal world but blessed with untold power in the immortal world. I was desperate to live, Jax. Lazarus cut open his chest and I drank from it, but for some reason my body rejected his blood. It was only after Aelia opened her vein that I was able to tolerate Lazarus’ s.”
“Did you die?”
“Yes, and no. They waited until just before my last heartbeat. Only then would my body accept the transfusion of their blood. It took three days for my body to make the complete transition. It was torturous. I wanted to die. But I survived it, and thrived.”
“Do you regret not dying as a mortal?”
“No.”
Jax leaned up and kissed him. “Me either. Had you died that night, I would not be here in your arms.”
“Jax, I’d do it all again to be here with you.”
His words warmed her. She gazed into his eyes and asked the question she was afraid he would answer. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“I can’t promise you a future, Jax. It’s not that I don’t want a future with you. I want that more than anything, but right now there are complications, complications that cannot be ignored.”
“What kind of complications?”
He smiled a slow, tired smile and kissed her nose. “Get some sleep and we’ ll talk later.”
THIRTY-ONE
Jax woke to an empty bed. She jackknifed up, with newly acute senses impossible to miss, and sniffed the air. The rich scent of fresh coffee, scrambled eggs and toast filled the small place. Her belly growled. She was ravenous.
Naked, she slid from the sheets. Rising, she swayed for a moment, then blinked rapidly. Everything around her was brighter. Sharper. Her body fairly vibrated with a feeling of vitality and power.
And because Marcus was near.
She strode noiselessly in the dark, her instincts taking her down a short hall to a small living room.
In the kitchen, she took a moment to take him in. He was dressed in a pair of black boxer briefs. His muscles moved in perfect symmetry across his broad back. She resisted the urge to run her hands up his back and around to his hard belly, then lower. Not because she didn’t want him again. There would never be enough of him for her, but she needed to eat. She was famished and she needed to think. Though they’d made love for hours, and he’d managed to take away her worry and despair over Shane, it had returned now with a vengeance. She had to know what had happened to him.
When Marcus turned to face her,
she saw not the smile she’d expected but a guarded look.
“What?” she asked.
He set a loaded plate on the small kitchen table, then filled her coffee cup. “Shane was never admitted to Highland Hospital. I checked with the surrounding hospitals, and nothing.”
Jax’s appetite vanished. “He didn’t make it.” She sat down on a chair and stared at her plate. “Then he’s . . .” She couldn’t say it. Didn’t want to believe it. “It’s my fault. I should have been with him, Marcus.”
He squatted down in front of her and nudged her chin up with his fingers. “Would it have been his fault if your positions had been reversed?”
She stared at him for a long time, knowing he was right.
“You both knew how dangerous Lazarus was. How dangerous I was. He went in with his eyes wide open, and it’s no surprise he didn’t win. No mortal should have survived. That you did will go down in the coven’s history books.”
He smiled and traced a finger across her nipple. It puckered beneath his touch. Jax hissed in a deep breath, but this time, her spiking desire couldn’t override her despair over losing Shane or her determination to see Lazarus dead. Pulling away, she swore, “I’m going to kill Lazarus.”
He stared at her, jaw clenching, then stood. “You’ re going to need my help.”
His statement shocked her. “You’ ll help me?”
“Yes. Without my help there is no way you can win.”
“But Marcus, if you do that, you die. You will never have a chance to regain your humanity.”
“I have severed all ties with Lazarus. Any chance I had is gone.”
He’d done that for her. Given up his life. A second time.
“Marcus, get me close to Lazarus. Close enough to kill him. You will live, and somehow we will find a way to give you back your life.” He stared at her as if he did not comprehend her words. “Marcus, I would do anything for you, you must know that. I mean c’ mon, I owe you a couple of lives.”
He cracked a smile. “I suppose you do.”
“So?”
“So, we’ ll do our best.” He pushed the plate at her. “Eat. I’m getting you something to put on or we’ re never going to leave here.”
As he strode down the hall she yelled, “We’ ll do our best? Is that it?”
“Yes,” he called back. It occurred to her at that moment that he didn’t know how to react to her offer and declaration. Knowing his story, she doubted she would either. But she would do more than her best. They would both come through this, and they would both be standing, together, at the end of the day.
In a moment, he was back with a soft blanket, which he wrapped around her. She smiled up at his thoughtfulness and shook her head.
“What?” he grunted.
“I never would have guessed that under those big bad vampire fangs there was such a marshmallow.”
He smiled and traced a finger across her exposed collarbone. “Only for you.”
Jax took the last bite of her meal, then sipped her coffee. “Where are we?”
“Clearlake.”
She couldn’t keep her brows from rising. “Really?” He’d brought her home. It touched her so much; he might as well have taken her home to meet his mother. Given who his mother was, this was better. Speaking of . . .
“Marcus, I think Sophia—”
With a dark look, he shook his head. “No one knows of this place. We’ re safe for now.”
Okay, so obviously he wasn’t feeling sated enough to talk about Sophia Rowland. Jax understood his need to protect himself and appreciated his need to protect her, as well. She couldn’t stay, however. “I can’t stay here, Marcus. I have to find Shane and I have to regroup with my people. We have to eliminate Lazarus.”
“You have to find him first, and I know exactly where he’s going next. He’s going after Senator Bond.”
She sucked in a breath. “The GOP VP running mate?” She remembered Sophia and Senator Rowland talking about the possibility of him replacing Bond. How coincidental was it that Lazarus was now targeting him? Uneasily, she stared at Marcus, who didn’t appear to notice.
“Yes. Tomorrow Calhoun is holding a press conference to announce his pick. We need to get to Lazarus before he eliminates Bond.”
“Why? So that Rowland will step in? I thought he wanted Rowland dead, not—” She closed her eyes as realization hit her. “Oh, shit.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said. “Why kill him when he can be so useful in the White House? Or rather, so useful in getting Lazarus to the White House. Lazarus has gotten power hungry, and that’s not something I signed up for.” He looked away, then back to her. “When the sun sets in a couple of hours, we need to leave.”
“I know.” She studied him and the faintly troubled look in his eyes. And suddenly, before he even spoke, she knew Sophia was involved in Lazarus’s scandalous plan. Still, she certainly wasn’t expecting what he said next.
He looked at her and softly said, “I killed Sophia Rowland.”
Shock made her jaw drop. Horrified, she stood. “What?”
“Lazarus turned her. I had no choice.” He sounded almost defensive. As if trying to make himself less culpable in her eyes.
There was no need. Sophia Rowland had been a monster before Lazarus had gotten hold of her. Still, Jax sat back, stunned. “Why would he do that? Turn her, I mean.”
“They have been an item for some time now. I knew there was a woman. I could sense her. The colonel can be very charming when he chooses. Turning her was probably the only way she’d give up her husband. She wanted the power and immortality the colonel could give her.”
“Even more than she wanted to be the first lady? Because I’m assuming that’s where it would have gone, right? Only, as a vampire, she couldn’ t—?”
He shook his head. “No, not in the traditional sense. But with Lazarus as her maker, she’d have been strong as long as she limited her exposure. She could have claimed she had a sun allergy like solar urticaria. Lazarus often uses that excuse for protecting himself or limiting his exposure to the sun when in public.”
Her mind could barely comprehend what he was telling her. “How did you kill her?”
He hesitated, then thrust his chin out. “The only way I could. I decapitated her.”
Jax grimaced. “Shit, Marcus . . . did you ever love her?” Her voice trailed off as she thought of her own mother. How they’d fought sometimes, but had always been connected by an indestructible bond. . . .
“She gave birth to me, Jax, and deserted me when I was two weeks old. When I was twelve, I ran away to find her. I was so sure she was searching for me. When she saw me and realized who I was, I cannot describe the look of horror on her perfect face. She threatened to kill me if I ever showed my face to her or anyone she was associated with again.” He looked at Jax. “She was a power-hungry, manipulative bitch. She would have eventually destroyed my sister. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Jax let out a long breath and shook her head. But she understood why he’d done what he had. Given Sophia’s plans, Jax would have done the same thing. Slowly, wanting to comfort him but not knowing how such action would be received, she took his hand. “I knew that night at the Green Room. I watched your face as realization dawned on you. It was the first time I felt something other than lust and anger toward you.”
He grinned and released her hand, only to push her back into the chair. “You lusted after me?”
She snorted. As if he could have missed it. She moved into him, knowing somehow that he needed her touch now even more than she needed his. “Yeah, big-time.”
“Good. Because you had me so hard, so fast, I could barely see straight.” He stood up and cleared the table with one quick swipe of his hand, then laid her on top of it. The blanket fell away and he gazed at her body. “You’ re beautiful, Jax.” Her nipples tightened and Jax felt overcome with desire. He traced his finger down her belly and softly said, “Your scar is gone.”
Jax gasped and looked down to her smooth, flat belly. Shocked, she looked up at him. “How?”
He grinned like the cat that ate the canary. “My blood is potent. Not only did it repair the fresh damage to your body, it repaired the old damage as well.”
Jax grabbed his hand and pressed it to her belly. “Marcus, when I was stabbed, my uterus was hacked up. It’s full of scar tissue. The doctors said I would never have a child.”
He splayed his big hand across her belly. “Like I said, my blood is potent. It’s powerful, directly from Lazarus, who was created by Rurik, the father of our kind. Aelia, Rurik’s consort, was a part of my creation as well. Her blood is as strong as Rurik’ s.”
He moved her hands away and lowered his lips to her belly to kiss her there. “Jax, you will be a magnificent mother one day.”
His words were bittersweet. She had always wanted children, but the only man she’d wanted them with was incapable of giving them to her. Or was he? “Marcus?” she moaned as his fingers stroked the inside of her thighs and his lips traveled lower.
“Hmm . . .”
“Can vampires have children?”
His head snapped up and his eyes caught hers. “I don’t know.” He lowered his lips back to her belly and kissed a warm, wet trail south. “Let’s find out.” He took her into his mouth. Jax nearly rose off the table. He slid a thick finger into her, gently moving it in and out of her while his lips trailed just down to the inside of her thigh. She felt his teeth scrape against her artery there. Heat swept her up into a firestorm. She opened wider for him and lay back, giving him all of her.
He took it.
His lips, his tongue, and his fingers whipped her into a fierce frenzy of desire. The orgasm rose high and, just as she was peaking, he sunk his fangs into the inside of her thigh. Jax screamed at the sublime mixture of pain and unadulterated pleasure.
He moaned as he drank from her. His fingers took her higher before she finally crashed back to earth. When he rose above her, his eyes were molten blue and her blood glittered on his lips. “I have wanted to do that to you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.” His body swelled and his cock was rock hard. Jax felt an overwhelming urge to bite him back.
