by Tes Hilaire
From farther down the road came another inhuman screech. Almost thankful for the distraction, Karissa allowed the instinctive twist of her head. A cloud of ash billowed in the place where Valin and the vampire had been. A second later, a cloud of dark particles separated out, swirling into form a step beyond until only Valin remained.
Valin stood, feet planted wide, arms spread slightly as if ready to tackle something, but with his head half bent and his chest heaving. He was covered in sweat, blood, and grime. He’d killed two vampires, but his battle had not been without personal cost. There was a deep gash across his upper arm, and a wicked wound from his chest down to his groin where it looked like someone had tried to disembowel him—and thankfully failed.
Karissa squirmed. She was glad he was alive and that both wounds, though vicious, didn’t seem to be life threatening. But she was decidedly uneasy as well. Their momentary camaraderie as they fled was iffy at best.
Valin raised his head, his eyes drifting over her to narrow in on a point to Karissa’s left. Her head swiveled back around. The demon was gone. Only Roland stood, his own chest heaving to match the rise and fall of the naked Paladin staring him down.
“Roland,” Valin spat the name out like it was something vile that needed to be eradicated.
“Valin,” Roland replied more calmly.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Roland nodded, his mouth twisted up into a mocking smile. “Some would say that I am.”
Valin tensed. Roland shifted his weight back to the balls of his feet.
Karissa blinked in disbelief. They were both Paladin. They’d just saved each other’s assess. They weren’t going to fight each other, were they?
In the next second Karissa had her answer. Silent as a hunting cat, Valin rushed forward.
***
Roland sidestepped Valin’s charge. Too easy. Valin, who normally might have been a challenge, was injured and weak with fatigue. Perhaps he should allow his brother Paladin a strike or two for his ego. Something with which to console himself once Roland brought the Paladin down. But one glimpse of the lightening sky, Karissa’s trembling body, and the jiggling limbs of the not-yet-dead, headless merker had him pushing aside such feelings of sympathy.
So, as his foot hit pavement, his body twisting out of the way, he also reached out with his arm, snagging the man who’d once fought by his side. The man who’d once called him brother. Given that Valin wanted to kill him, Roland was pretty sure he could count on the fact that those days were definitely over.
With an arm-wrenching twist, he threw the Paladin up against the wall of a nearby building. Knowing Valin would just shift, Roland did the one thing guaranteed to keep him there, the one thing that would also confirm the totality of his lost soul in the Paladin’s eyes.
Once, a long time ago when he was initiated into the ranks, Roland went through the ceremony that bound him forever to his fellow Paladin. A ceremony Valin went through also. A blood ceremony. Using his vampire powers to draw on that blood tie now, Roland forced himself behind Valin’s natural defenses, worming his way into the Paladin’s mind, and squashing his will to shift.
Valin sucked in a gasp of air, his eyes widening in panic. Fear. It was Roland’s only weapon. He would not use the knife he’d pressed up against his former brother’s throat. He would not raise a hand to truly harm him. But Valin, and the others, had to understand: They could not kill him, and they would not take from him that which was his.
Keeping a firm clamp upon Valin’s mind, Roland scratched the blade against the stubble of Valin’s five a.m. beard. Amazingly, Valin managed to rein in his panic. His eyes went hollow as his mouth thinned into a line of determination.
The man remained obstinately still. Stubbornly stoic. Roland’s grip started to slip.
Well, well. Valin had learned control sometime over the last ninety-four years. Not enough though.
With a deep-throated growl, Roland curled back his upper lips, showing fangs. Valin paled.
A slim hand came down on the elbow of his arm holding the knife. “Roland…don’t. This isn’t who you are.”
Roland wasn’t sure what to make of that. He was somewhat surprised Karissa was even willing to admit there might be more to him than his vampire instincts. But he was also angry that she would believe he would actually feed from his brother.
So what if he was considering piercing that stubbled skin. He wouldn’t have actually drunk from the vein, and Valin deserved a good scare. The man was desperate with his desire to claim Karissa, like a moth to a flame. The Black Knight was drawn to the light. And Karissa must look like the sun.
Any thought of furthering Valin’s lesson was obliterated when Karissa swayed beside him, her fingers digging into his arm.
With a growl, Roland released Valin, the knife quickly disappearing into its sheath on his thigh as he reached out to steady Karissa with his other hand. As soon as he touched her, fire licked up his arm and through his body, burning away his anger and leaving him feeling warm with pleasure. Her head tilted back, her eyes widening in surprise, as if she too felt it.
Valin sucked in breath, pushing away from the building. In a show of strength that was both dangerous and necessary, Roland kept his shoulder to him, not even honoring him with a glance. He did, however, have some last words for his former brother.
“Go, Valin. Run home to Haven. And once you get there, you can tell the others something for me.”
There was a distinctive sound of molars grinding, then, “What?”
“Karissa is mine. I will protect her now.”
Karissa’s lips parted, her lids fluttering as if undecided how to take that. When she bit her lip and didn’t say anything, Roland considered it a win.
Air shifted as Valin stepped forward. “You have no right—”
Roland spun around, his red-filled gaze boring into the Paladin. Ruthlessly, he ripped through the man’s boundaries again, stabbing a path through his mind. Valin stumbled back. Just as quickly Roland released his hold over him, leaving the Paladin glaring and rubbing his temples against the nasty headache Roland had given him.
“I have every right. Just as I have the right to kill you for trying to mark her. However, given that we once called each other brother, I will gift you a reprieve. That said, the next man who tries to do so will not be granted such mercy. Brother or not. Clear?”
“Roland, it’s almost dawn. We have to go.” Karissa’s soft words and the tug at his arm broke the glaring face-off. They all looked to the sky, the softening of the oily blackness that said the sun was up and chasing the moon.
Roland glanced over at the merker’s headless body. It had regained enough life that it was trying to struggle across the pavement in search of its head. Beside him Karissa gasped.
“What the heck is that thing?”
“Merker,” he answered, swinging his gaze back around to Valin. “You might want to gather up the heart and head. Dispose of them properly.”
The look Valin threw him said it all: Fuck you. Roland figured that if the Paladin had any energy left he would have tried to emphasize the directive with the appropriate action.
With a sigh Roland turned to Karissa. Despite his words to Valin, it had to be her choice to come with him.
“Ready?” he asked, laying a hand against her abraded cheek. It hurt to see her injured, tired, and still scared. If it would keep her safe, drive away her fears, he’d rip apart a hundred more merkers for her and banish a thousand more demons. Given enough time, he would.
She startled under his touch, dragging her gaze away from the struggling body inching closer and closer to its head. Valin had better get on top of that.
It took a moment for his words to register, but when it did, her eyes flared. Then, with an audible swallow, she nodded her head, stepping closer to him.
He didn’t hesitate but wrapped her up in his arms, lifting her to his chest. God, she felt good. Perfect.
“Hold on.”
Her arms looped around his neck, her face burying in the crook of his throat and shoulder. He threw a last pointed look at Valin, and then Roland crouched and leapt.
Chapter 15
Roland’s heavy boots rung through the empty stairwell. Behind them, the roof door clanged shut and Karissa started in his arms. His fault. The whole way home his anger had built. And as it did she tensed tighter and tighter in his arms. At one point he thought she would demand he put her down, but a quick glimpse to the east had her clinging tighter, urging him on. Yeah, he’d been playing it close. Again. Yet, even though the first pale rays had stained the sky, it didn’t hurt. Not really. At least not compared to the pain of the fury already ripping a hole in his chest.
She was his woman, and he hadn’t protected her. He never should have left her at Haven. He’d been hurt by her assumptions that he would try to enthrall her, and been unwilling to force her, but he should have, could have, found a way to convince her.
They came to the first landing. A curt command and the door opened. They went along a short hall past the lone penthouse elevator bank, then another door and another curt command. Safety. He’d already changed the codes. No one would be getting in without his permission.
He carried her straight to the bathroom where he dropped her on the closed lid of the toilet and then spun about, twisting on the hot water valve in the sink.
“What possessed you to go hopping across the city, alone, at night, when you knew those creatures were searching for you?”
Soaking a washcloth in the lukewarm stream, he spun back around. She was perched on the edge of the toilet, eyes wide, face pale, wounds oozing blood. Blood. Her blood. God.
“Damn it, Karissa. You could have been killed!” That the merker had joined forces with both Christos’s vamps and Lucifer’s demons alarmed him. Those three factions didn’t play well together. Chances of things going wrong, orders being ignored…he could have lost her. Just when he’d found her, she could have died.
He bent down, dabbing at the abrasion on her cheek. What he wanted to do was lick the blood off, seal the wound, and heal her beautiful creamy skin. But even that small amount of blood would be enough to form a tie. And though he ached to be bonded to her, it would not be through blood. That sort of tie was completely one-sided. He would not take away her freedom.
Her lips turned down at the corners, endearingly so. “I don’t think they want me dead. Or rather, I don’t think he wants me dead.”
“He?” Roland asked carefully, careful not to let his unease spill over on her. How much did she know about the man who hunted her? Other than the basic there-are-monsters-out-there, she seemed all but oblivious to the inner workings of the different factions of evil. At least until now. Perhaps Logan had filled her in.
She shook her head, uncertain. “Before they attacked. I thought I—”
“Thought what?”
“I thought I heard someone talking, in my mind. He said that they were to catch me without harming me. That he would not tolerate a hair on my head being out of place.”
Roland stilled. He said. They were. Not someone popping into her mind, then. She’d actually overheard an order. A thought projected from a master to his servant, or in this case, his offspring. Ganelon talking to his merker. “You hear projected thoughts.”
“I guess.” She blinked, then her chin thrust out. “So?”
Yes, so. She had no idea the amount of power she held. None at all. And it was that power their enemies craved. “You hear projected thoughts, you teleport—anything else, darling?”
“No.” She spoke quickly, a blush hitting her cheeks equally as fast. Whether from the endearment or something else, he didn’t know.
“No?” He quirked his eyebrow, working on the scratches on her arms and the flecks of pavement embedded in her skin. It looked like she’d tried to take the road with her.
“I—ouch!” She licked her lips then fell silent.
“You what?”
“Nothing. I just…”
Satisfied he’d cleaned the worst, he tossed the bloody washcloth across the bathroom into the basin, then turned back, taking her hand. It was cool and slim. So fragile. What Ganelon would have done to her if he’d managed to abduct her was unthinkable. And Roland wouldn’t have been able to save her. With no mark, no blood tie between them, he would never find her in time. The only reason he succeeded this time had been because of Gabriella. But there was no guarantee the young vampire would again be able to throw her master’s leash when it was most needed.
Take her now. Mark her. Complete the bond you know is there.
God. He could imagine it now. Full-fledged Technicolor. What would it be like to taste her again? Just a small taste. A kiss drowning in the sweet vanilla honey of her mouth, then a sweet lick at the base of her throat, his hand on her pulsing heart as he took her, possessed her, and forever marked her as his own.
She yanked her hand back. “Stop.”
He blinked, taken aback by her abruptness. “I’m sorry.” His brow furrowed. He could use his vamp tricks to invade someone’s mind, but how was she reading his?
“No, I, it’s um, touch. I can hear—no that’s not right—I sense intent.”
He lifted a brow. “You could sense what I desired just now?”
She raised her head, seeming to look down at him even as she looked up into his eyes. “You wanted to lick my throat while you fucked me.”
Fuck her? Hell yeah. But not how she meant. Not so…cold. Roland sat back on his heels, studying her face. A mixture of stubborn determination and unease. She had no idea. Still, after all that had happened, she had no idea she was his mate. And no wonder. It was impossible to think that he, a disgraced Paladin, a vampire, would be granted such a blessing. In a life that already seemed fucked up beyond belief, this was perfectly ironic.
A chuckle rose deep within him, rising until it burst forth in a full-bellied laugh. She bristled, straightening, her chin jutting out regally.
“You deny it?” she asked stiffly.
He broke off the laughter, taking her hand once more. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her, all but crushing it within his grip until he’d caught her gaze.
“Yes. I deny it.” Her mouth opened in protest, but he cut her off. “What I wished for was to taste you, to possess you, as a Paladin lover would his mate. That, my darling, is a great deal more powerful than a simple fuck.”
***
Karissa blinked, trying to escape the intensity of Roland’s gaze. Mate. He thought she was his mate?
Yes, Karissa, and so do you.
Ignoring the crazy voice in her head—didn’t even want to acknowledge the pulsing thrill running through her nerves—she went into full cross-examination mode.
“Mate.” She bit out the word, jerking her hand from his grasp. She couldn’t touch him. Not without losing her mind. Okay, so maybe it was a tempting kind of loss. A forget-the-world take-me-I’m-yours kind of crazy. But it was a loss of control nonetheless. Karissa didn’t like feeling out of control. Too much of her life was out of control.
“As in you, me,” she waved her hand between them, “together forever. As in more of this Neanderthal, beat one’s chest, kind of claiming crap all you Paladin seem to buy into?”
He blinked, his eyes shuttering. “You need not worry. It was a fantasy, nothing more.”
She watched in silence as he stood up, shrugging off his black T-shirt, and became thoroughly distracted by the rippling muscles. God he was gorgeous.
And mine.
Stop that, Karissa. He’s not yours any more than you’re his.
He could be, though.
Karissa gave a quick shake of her head, trying to eradicate the illogical, horny slut that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her psyche. Calm. Logical. That’s who she was. Not a dog.
Dog. Heat. Crap, what was it Logan and his father had said about her being in heat?
“As you know, I am not a f
ull Paladin any longer.”
What? Not a Paladin? Karissa lifted her gaze. Roland was leaning over the sink, carefully dabbing the blood off a cut on his forearm that had already healed. Oh, right. Honestly, she’d momentarily forgotten about the whole vampire thing. Just like she seemed to keep on forgetting how dangerous he could be.
But not to me.
Wow. That voice was really beginning to insert itself in her unconscious. Because even as she tried to argue, insert some of her well-ingrained logic that said “Keep sharp, be wary,” she realized she did trust him. She had all along.
Which, ironically, made her more uneasy.
None of this made sense.
She cleared her throat, shifting on her black porcelain perch. Who bought a black toilet anyway? A vampire, that’s who. “I wasn’t worried.”
In the mirror, his eyebrow lifted mockingly. And she knew, knew, that he could see right through her.
A rush of heat hit her cheeks. “What the heck is this marking crap anyhow?”
Roland dipped the cloth, squeezed it, then went to work on the trio of scratches on his shoulder. Out of all the wounds, this was the only one that still hadn’t closed completely. He repeated the action two more times before he finally answered.
“A mark is an invisible sign that only another Paladin can see. The spell, if you will, not only tells the others that the female is spoken for, but it creates a virtual tether between both the male Paladin who made the mark and the female bearing it.”
“A tether?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “It allows him to find her no matter where she is. And sometimes it actually allows a pathway between their minds. An intimate knowledge of the other’s thoughts and feelings.”
She gnawed on her lower lip, remembering Valin’s comment about looking forward to seeing into her mind—so he could influence her. Roland’s spin seemed a tad more wholesome, but she realized he considered it as such. Guess that went to show that appearances—the vampire vs. Paladin in this case—could be deceiving.
