Kyn Series (3 page)

Slayer?

Marak’s lips compressed on a smile. No, he couldn’t see even that bunch of weirdos taking on a woman so unsuited for a life of violence such as this. Buffy may have made great TV. Half the Warriors down at the compound were addicted to the re-runs after Feral had introduced them to the show, but it was a far cry from the brutal reality of vampire slaying. That’s what Marak and the Warrior caste were for.

He moved, big hand caressing her throat where the grievous wounds were healing, little more than red marks across her creamy skin. She’d need to feed again soon, more blood to carry on the healing process and continue the conversion.

He grit his teeth as his body responded instantly, his cock hard at the memory of those soft curves pressed against him and her small fangs in his wrist. He closed his eyes, hiding the reddening tint in them, knowing he looked like the monster he felt.

Don’t wake yet, little one,
he begged silently. Seeing him like this would scare her out of her mind. But those little fangs… God, he wanted to feel them again. In his wrist, in his throat as she moaned under him. Or as she rode him… A low moan escaped his lips as his imagination presented him with image after erotic image, tormenting his already aroused body further.

Determinedly he blanked his mind, exercising the iron control he was known for, and carried on with his task. His hand hovered over her belt buckle, pausing as a war raged within him. Slowly it closed where it was, as he admitted defeat and withdrew without touching her.

He couldn’t do it. If he undressed her, saw her naked in his bed, he was going to lose it and take her. Already his fangs were extended, as full and heavy as his aching body, and ready to feed.

Backing up, he left her lying on the bed, still with her t-shirt and pants on. They were covered in blood, but she’d just have to deal with that. He moved to the other side of the room, putting distance between himself and the feminine temptation on the bed.

Darkness surrounded her, as warm and comfortable as a mother’s womb, supporting and protecting her all at once.

Maria floated peacefully, resisting the pull of consciousness. Something bad had happened in the waking world, and she wasn’t ready to return and face it just yet.

She snuggled down deeper into the softness. Far better to stay here in the darkness, wrapped in his arms. Because she wasn’t alone in the darkness.
He
was here. Who he was she wasn’t quite sure, but it didn’t matter. She trusted him, knew instinctively he was here to protect her, not hurt her.

Strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her into their circle of protection with her back against a hard body. She murmured her pleasure. His breath whispered over her throat. She moaned and turned her head as the sharp edges of a set of fangs trailed over the delicate skin at her jugular. Hot and cold chills raced through her body, making goose-bumps rise on her skin.

Oh God, she needed him to bite her. Needed those fangs to pierce her skin and drive deep. She shifted restlessly. Her skin was too tight, her clothes too restrictive. Arching her neck, she tilted her head to the side, to bare the line off her throat. He had to bite her. Just had to.

Need rose within her to a crescendo, a fine tremble in her limbs as the moment spun out. Then he bit her, white hot pain forcing a cry from her lips. Pleasure followed on its heels, arching through her body like lightning. Even though she’d never been with another Kyn, Maria knew this was right. Deep down it felt right. Familiar. He was feeding from her throat, a place she’d only let a lover touch. So she must know him…must love him.

A frown formed on her face as, even in the dream, reality started to intrude. She’d never been bitten; no male Kyn would bother with a Dhampir girl when there were other, full blooded Kyn females to choose from. Only a few, admittedly, but even a choice of a few was better than settling for something sub-standard like her. A reality Maria had accepted a long time ago. But God, did she wish things were different. Desperately she tried to hold onto the dream, wanting to wrap the fantasy around her for just a little bit longer.

But it faded and she shifted on the bed, her head thrashing a little as she came to. Memory caught up with her and she sat bolt upright, eyes wide with fear as a gasp escaped her.

The Rogue…

Her hand flew to her throat, her last memory that of the Rogue, the foul smell of its breath and the look of glee in its eyes as it lashed out…terrible pain as claws ripped through her skin. Hot blood bubbling out, flowing over her hands as she desperately tried to hold it in…

“Oh god.”

Relief hit her as her hands met unbroken skin. She shuddered, fingertips exploring her throat.
Had it all been a dream?

No, it couldn’t have been. The memory was too clear. Too vibrant in details to be a dream. Then she found them. Hard ridges in her skin, areas that felt different. Long lines across the soft flesh right where the pain of the Rogue’s touch had been.

Some Warrior you turned out to be,
the little voice in her head sneered at her.
First Rogue you come across damn near kills you!

She ignored it, her fingers still exploring the nearly healed wound. Being Half-Kyn her body healed fast, much faster than a normal human’s would. But there was no way she could manage healing like this on her own. Not before she bled out anyway. So someone had helped her, but who? And for that matter, where the hell was she?

She looked around, studying the luxurious room around her as the fog cleared from her brain. Which was when she saw him, the large figure shrouded in shadows by the window…the biggest damn Warrior she’d ever seen in her life.

“Hi,” he said quietly. “How are you feeling?”

His voice filled the room and Maria shivered, the deep sound stroking along what felt like every nerve ending she had as her waking brain latched onto the truth in front of her.

He was a Warrior. Even standing in the deep shadows by the curtains, he couldn’t hide the distinctive markings covering one cheek and temple then disappearing under the collar of his shirt, markings that were stark against his skin.

Hell, even his aura screamed ‘Warrior.’ From the way he looked and held himself, he was hard core to boot. One of the dinosaurs her father and his cronies complained about.

“Like I got hit by a bus,” she retorted, nerves bringing out the sassy attitude she used to keep the world at bay.

She winced, rolling her neck and feeling some soreness from the encounter with the Rogue. She didn’t remember much after her throat got slashed; the trauma blanked her mind. Just a deep red haze of pain remained when she probed the memory.

There were voices, deep male voices. Comforting voices that made her feel safe. And arms holding her against a powerful chest… She shivered as the pieces of her dream resurfaced in her memory. So vivid and detailed, even down to the faint musky scent of the guy holding her as he sank his fangs into her neck. It had to be a dream? Didn’t it?

*

Marak moved closer to the bed, his eyes riveted on her. Awake she seemed so much more vital, bigger than the petite curvy form he could see, as though the force of her personality made her larger than life. Big, dark eyes watched him warily. And there was another mystery.

For a human she had a very strong mind. He’d been aware of her fighting the sleep compulsion he’d laid on her for the last hour. A compulsion which should have kept her sleeping for hours, allowing her body to repair itself with his powerful blood. But even as he’d stood watching her he’d felt her fighting it, struggling her way back to consciousness.

“Uhm, you had a bit of an accident,” he started and then kicked himself. What a dumb-ass comment. ‘Accident’ was the understatement of the year. An accident was cutting yourself on the bread-knife, not having a Rogue vampire tear your throat out.

“You bet it was an accident.” Her voice was still husky from the damage and fatigue. “If I’d been on my game tonight that Rogue would have been toast. And what the hell happened after that?”

She checked herself quickly. Wariness entered her eyes again. “How did I get here? And who took off my clothes?”

Marak blinked. He hadn’t been expecting her to come out with that.

“On your game? Lady, are you shittin’ me? He’d gotten conversion shakes and he
still
ripped your throat out.” Did this insane woman have
no
sense? “You’re damn lucky. If he’d been fully turned there wouldn’t have been anything left of you to save. And I was just trying to make you more comfortable,” he added, shifting a little. Removing a woman’s clothes in the heat of passion was one thing. Taking them off when she had no say in the matter… He might be a Warrior, generally credited with no manners and less morals by the rest of the Kyn, but he wasn’t a rapist.

“Right…” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously before going on the attack again. “And you call that a rescue? If you figured I wasn’t up to it, what took you so long? And by the way, the biker gang/pirate/black leather look is so passé,” she commented, ignoring the fact that was pretty much her wardrobe as well. “If you wanted to go retro, spandex and leisure suits were the way to go. In bright pastel I might add.”

Spandex? Pastel? What was she on about?

“Well, you’re breathing, aren’t you?” He stalked towards the edge of the bed, expression drawn tight. He was beginning to think he preferred her asleep. She was definitely less sassy. “Passé, huh? So…what look were you going for? Goth?”

“Big fan of KISS. Was on my way to a fan meet when he jumped me. I would have had him if I hadn’t been so distracted.”

Marak couldn’t help it, watching her with a sort of fascinated horror. It was like a train crash; you just couldn’t look away. She looked so cute sitting there in the middle of his sheets, but she opened her mouth and… It was like talking to a smaller version of Vixen.

Mentally he made a note never to introduce the two women. The world just wouldn’t be able to take it.

He shook his head. “You do realise what he was, don’t you?” he found himself asking, not quite sure now whether she was even aware she’d faced off against a vampire.

“He was a Rogue vampire. Newly turned…a few hours at most, which was fairly obvious from the ‘shakes’. Shouldn’t you warrior types know all this?” She arched a delicate eyebrow at him in query. “Isn’t there like a ‘warrior school’ you boys have to go to? Or are you still in training or something? And I was counting on them…the shakes I mean. Like I said, I would have had him, but you decided to drop in and distract me. The rest you know.” She frowned as she ran her tongue over her teeth, “I don’t heal this fast. I mean I heal fast, faster than a human, but not this fast. So what the hell did you do to me?”

Marak was struggling to follow the twists and turns of her conversation. Did all women talk this much? And this fast? Being an only child and having lost his mother at a young age, Marak wasn’t all that familiar with women’s conversation. He avoided the chattering groups at court functions like the plague. The only other woman he had a lot to do with was Vixen, whose conversation was mainly concerned with the different ways to inflict large amounts of damage on Rogue vampires. That and guns. Big ones. The bigger the better.

“Huh? What? What do you mean, you don’t heal this fast?” he asked, latching onto what she’d said, suspicion forming in his mind.

She speared him with a sharp look, a hint of humour in her eyes. “You really haven’t guessed it, have you? Are you always this dense or did your momma drop you on your head when you were a baby? I’m a Dhampir, handsome. Half vampire.”

Marak looked at her with a sinking feeling settling in his gut. Dhampir. Of course she was a Dhampir, she had to be. There was no other explanation.

With the speed and reactions she’d displayed in the alley, just shy of a fully blooded Kyn, she couldn’t be anything else. Then there was the strength of mind, the way she’d fought his compulsion, eventually overcoming it. And her fangs…oh hell, those little fangs.

He should have realised at the time. A human wouldn’t have developed fangs so early in the conversion process. And she hadn’t; she’d already had them. Tiny, delicate fangs that felt so good in his skin… He scowled and shifted his stance as he fought his body’s instinctive reaction to the memory.

The reaction rapidly became a non-issue as another thought occurred to him. Dhampir’s were rare. The Kyn race as a whole had trouble with procreation. Most couples tried for years without success, only a rare few being blessed with the patter of tiny feet. Even with two Kyn parents, conception was difficult and viable pregnancies few and far between.

Miscarriage and stillborns were common. Kyn scientists had been studying the problem for years, aware they were working against time as, if the current trend continued, the Kyn were on the endangered species list.

Despite that, there were two Dhampir Marak did know about and as he thought about it, the sinking feeling in his stomach worsened. If he was right, he’d just bitten the daughter of a vampire lord.

Shit, can anyone say shotgun wedding?

Biting
any
Kyn woman the way he had, on the soft delicate skin of her throat, was tantamount to going down on one knee and pulling a box out of your pocket containing a rock the size of your fist. Or you’d better have done by the time her male relatives caught up with you.

“Hello? Still with me?” Maria waved to get his attention. “Lights on but no one home over there?”

*

The Warrior’s gaze shifted and locked onto her. The shell-shocked expression in his eyes quickly disappeared, his expression hardening as though he realised he’d given too much away.

“I apologise, Lady Ravensford.” His deep voice filled the room and did things to Maria’s insides she really didn’t want to think about at the moment. It was as though her body knew his voice and was reacting to it instinctively.

“Shit,” she breathed as her eyes widened. “It was you, wasn’t it? You bit me…”

Her hand smoothed over her neck, unerringly finding the spot he’d buried his fangs.

She looked up and caught the quick flash of guilt in his eyes. A bolt of awareness passed between them, electrifying the air, and she knew.

It
was
him.
Him.
The guy who’d pulled her into his arms, and against his broad chest. Holding her. Protecting her. It hadn’t been a dream at all; a fantastic, fabulous dream which called to all the secret yearnings and fantasies she’d kept locked within her. Those never-voiced, rarely consciously-thought about desires, to have a male look at her as though she were worth something. As though she were something more than the freakish, half-human daughter of Ravensford.

Look at her the way he was looking at her now; heat in his eyes and need written on his face. No, not need, something deeper…more primal than need.

Hunger. He hungered for her.

She knew instinctively that it would only take the slightest encouragement and he’d have her in his arms, his fangs buried deep. Probably with her stretched out naked under him as he fed from her. Loved her. Took her body at the same time he took her blood.

And you’d let him, beg him too,
the little voice in her head piped up again.
Look at him. He’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen…and he’ll know how to please a woman, make her purr.

She blinked, shaking her head a little to clear the sudden erotic images. It had been a secretly held fantasy of hers for years, but the reality was
very
different to what she’d imagined. Now she was confronted with it, the look of interest on the face of a Warrior rather than the noble knight she’d imagined, it was as scary as hell.

“I did,” he said simply, still standing by the bed, an immovable wall of leather and muscle. He had that utter stillness which some of the older Kyn had, the ability to cease to move completely, to become a living statue. All apart from those blazing silver eyes that were tracking every movement, every breath she made.

“Hmm, why?” She asked, a frown creasing her brow.

Marak shook his head slightly. “It was my fault. I should have put that Rogue down straight away. I didn’t. I left you in harm’s way too long…and allowed you to get hurt. Nearly killed.”

Her response, when it came, was short and clipped. “Uh-huh,” She ran her hand pointedly over her neck again. “And biting me here?”

Marak cleared his throat and looked down for a second. “Ahh yes, that. I apologise… I will of course be speaking to your father about recompense.”

“Recompense?”

Even to her own ears Maria’s voice sounded slightly strangled, a sure sign that she was getting wound up. But to her intense irritation the Warrior studying her with single-minded concentration seemed not to notice.
This
was why she was glad Kyn-males didn’t look at her as a possible mate. One bite and they thought they owned you.

“Yes, to your father for sullying his daughter,” he explained, “You will—”

Maria cut him off mid-sentence, before he could suggest what she
knew
he was going to suggest. Sullying indeed. It was like something out of the last century, and if he uttered the word ‘recompense’ again she was going to do some serious damage with…

She looked around quickly for a suitable weapon and came up blank.

She shook her head, knowing her irritation was written across her expressive face and not caring a jot about it.

“Look. I’m sure you did what you thought was necessary at the time, and I’m very grateful that you saved my life and all. But I’m fine now. You’re fine. No harm done. Let’s just forget this happened, call it quits and move on. OK?”

She started to climb off the bed, intent on just getting out of there and away from his disturbing presence. She was beginning to remember more about that dream and just how good it had felt when he’d bitten her…and now she was aching to do the same to him. Wrap herself around him, mould herself over that hard body and bury her lips on his neck, trailing kisses along the skin before she found the right spot…

“I was going to say: we’ll get married,” he ground out, breaking her out of her reverie. The sentence little more than an order, uttered with an arrogance and conviction that left Maria in no doubt that he was used to giving commands and having them obeyed instantly.

She shot him a look that hopefully concealed the shock coursing through her system and ignored the sudden, instinctive desire to say yes to his proposal.

“Look,” she tried again, grabbing her boots from the floor and jamming her feet in them. She had no clue where her socks had gone, but at this moment she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was get away from this madness. And him.

Zipping up her boots she stood, the few inches they added to her height giving her extra courage. She still didn’t come past mid-chest on the big male who stood at the end of the bed but hey, a girl had to work with what she had.

“There’s no need to go that far. You’re a Warrior, I’m sure you don’t need a wife hanging around your neck like a millstone.”

And I don’t need an arrogant, sexy as all hell, hottest-thing-on-the-planet husband dictating my every move.

“I mean, no one really knows that much about Dhampir anyway,” she pointed out in a reasonable tone of voice. Especially considering the agitation that was running rampant through her body at the moment. She tore her gaze away from his strong throat, looking somewhere, anywhere else.

She needed to get out of there and fast, before she did something stupid. Like plaster herself all over that gorgeous body and beg him to bite her again. Or let her bite him. Her body hummed with need, and she didn’t care much which it was.

She studied the floor and did her best to conceal her reaction to him. Unfortunately, being able to conceal her feelings and reactions weren’t Kyn abilities that were strong in her. That or the ability to lie well. It had taken her a
long
time to practise either well enough to get out of her father’s court and start her crusade against the Rogue. A crusade which she knew was in danger again right now, if he decided to push this marriage thing. As soon as her father found out she’d been bitten, her fate, and Marak’s, was sealed.

“Hey, what is your name anyway?” she asked suddenly.

He had to be an older Warrior. His eyes were too grave, too knowledgeable to belong to a youngster. Absently she cursed herself for not studying the Warrior caste more. After all, she had tried to emulate them in her own training, using similar methods to hunt and kill Rogue. Well, ok, to
try
and kill Rogue. Up to now her track record wasn’t looking so hot.

*

Marak shrugged at the question, hiding his wariness behind a stoic mask.

“What does it matter?” he countered, a little stung by her rejection. A rejection that had come before he’d even gotten the question out properly. She was from a noble house. She obviously didn’t find the
mere
Warrior he appeared to be good enough, and Marak didn’t want to find out if her answer changed when she found out who he really was.

And everything she said made sense. She was half-Kyn, not some new human convert. She’d been brought up in their world, knew the rules that governed them all. Didn’t have to be watched and taught…

”I’m just some Warrior doing my job,” he said dismissively, turning his back on her. “Go if you want to.”

There was silence behind him, then rapid footsteps across the room and the sound of the door opening and closing quietly.

“Shit,” he breathed, leaning one arm and his forehead against each other on the heavy bedpost, eyes closed as his hands clenched into fists.

“Marak, you’re an idiot.”

His voice was little more than a whisper in the darkness of the room. All his instincts raged at him to follow her, not to let her get away.

She was his. His female.

He’d bitten her, brought her over into the night-world. Admittedly she’d only needed that last little step, but it still made her his. His instincts screamed at him to go after her, but grimly he ignored them.

She didn’t want him. She would go home to her family and find some nice Kyn guy to settle down with…a safe, pleasant guy a world away from the Warrior who had saved her life. Another guy who would provide for her, give her the blood she needed. Maybe even children.

That did it. The image of her luminous with happiness, her belly swollen with child, someone else’s child, snapped the last of Marak’s control.

He opened eyes burning with rage and roared, the primal beast within breaking its bonds as he moved, crashing through the door and going after her.

“Mine!”