Marked by the Vampire (10 page)

“My lineage is ancient. Unending.  We don’t follow the rules that constrain other vampires.”

Sunlight hadn’t weakened him. “Ancient,” she whispered back. “Just how ancient are we talking here?”

“The Vikings thought we were gods.”

Okay, definitely much older than she’d thought.

“I don’t need as much blood to survive as other vampires do. Sunlight can never hurt me, but I do have a weakness. One.”

His stare seemed to pierce straight through to her soul. “What’s that?” Like he was going to tell her.

“You.”

***

“Is it really a good idea to leave them alone together?” Connor asked as he glanced at the cabin’s closed door.

Eric Pate shrugged. “It’s the best idea we’ve got. You saw the way he was with her. There’s no way  Shane will let that woman out of his sight.”

Connor rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, I saw the way he went for my throat and that shit wasn’t normal.”

Holly and Duncan had gone back to her lab, another cabin located within the shelter of the trees.

“She’s doing something to him,” Connor continued, voice rasping. “Twisting him up somehow.”

Yes, Eric was afraid that was happening. But maybe he could use the changes. Maybe he could make them work… “I need you to take perimeter duty. If anyone comes this way, you’ll smell them long before we see them.” Because Connor was an alpha werewolf. Powerful, with senses far better than any human could ever dream.  “We can’t let anyone else get Dr. Maddox.” And he knew that was exactly what would happen. She’d be tracked. Taken. Used.

Shane won’t let that happen.
Or at least, the vamp had better not.

“You really think the werewolves are coming?” Now Connor sounded as if he were looking forward to the fight. Wolves and their bloodlust. They were almost as bad as vamps.

“Yes.” And he thought the mastermind of this twisted plot was coming, too.

Senator Donald Quick.

He’d been suspicious of that smug bastard for too long.  The guy had been so determined to cage the dangerous paranormals, ignoring all of Pate’s arguments.

Quick had been the one to first push the FBI to set up a Para Unit. The senator had seemed so good, on paper.

But when Eric had met the fellow in person…

I didn’t trust him.

Connor turned away, but before he could leave, Eric grabbed his shoulder. “You and Duncan…you going to be okay working so closely with him?”

Connor’s laugh held a bitter edge. “Are you trying to see if I still want to kill my brother?”

Yes, he was. The two men were brothers—brothers with one very vicious past.

“Relax,” Connor told him. “Right now, the only guy scheduled for payback from me…that’s Shane. The vamp is gonna get an ass-kicking when this mess is clear.”

But Connor hadn’t looked at Eric when he gave that little speech.  Eric knew Connor was still tangled up on the inside.

Once upon a time, a time not so long ago, Eric and his agents had hunted Connor. They’d sent him to Purgatory.

And Eric had realized how very easy it was to mistake the good guys for the bad. Especially when there really wasn’t a difference between them.

“Make sure you don’t go after your brother again because Holly would be angry.” And Holly was
his
family. Eric’s only family. A step-sister who meant more to him than anything else.  “Then I’d have to kill you.”

Connor shook his head, as if he were trying to decide if Eric were serious or not. He was dead serious. When it came to Holly, he always was.

When he was sure his message had been received, Eric let go of the werewolf.

Then he stalked after Holly. He needed that blood work, ASAP.

He also had to figure out a permanent solution for the Olivia Maddox problem. Because there was no way he could let a djinn run loose on his watch. No damn way.

***

“Certain individuals are…” Shane’s laugh was rough. Hell, explaining this wasn’t going to be easy. Especially since he pretty much just wanted to growl out
You’re mine
. Only that wouldn’t be civilized.

He’d lived through plenty of uncivilized times.

He’d also already scared Olivia enough.

He could keep himself in check. Mostly.

“Certain individuals,” he tried again, “make better…mates for vampires.”

Her lips were red from his mouth. Moist. He wanted to take those lips again. Wanted to sample the blood that rushed through her veins.

“Did you just say ‘mate’?”

He nodded. “I’m sure Holly could explain it with her biology. Science can explain away nearly all the magic these days.”
Nearly.
Thanks to science, vampirism was some sort of virus that humans caught. Werewolves could be harnessed and controlled with silver collars. Once, though, things had been different. Villagers had run from the monsters that stalked their nights. They’d run from him.

He ran his tongue over the edge of his fangs. Whenever Olivia was near, his fangs sharpened, as if preparing for a bite.  And he sure could use a bite now.

Would she come for him again?  Shudder and moan with pleasure when his fangs pierced her?

“I told you…” Shane murmured. “I was born this way. That means any children I have…they’d be like me.”

Her eyes were so wide. And deep.

“I aged normally until my thirtieth year, until my body was in peak condition, then time seemed to stop for me.”

“Shane—”

“Only certain women can mate with me.  Women like you. Women of power who are very, very rare.”

She shook her head.

“My kind has fought for mates. We’ve slaughtered, battled, because we know how valuable you are.”

“I’m not your mate.”

She could be.

“I don’t want another.”  A fucking telling sign for him. “The thought of drinking from another woman repels me. Your blood is in me, and it makes me need you. Makes me need more.”  His fingers were still at her throat.  “It makes me want to take everything you have to give.”

Her pulse raced beneath his touch.

“You like the bite, Olivia. You
love
it. You were meant to be with a vampire. A perfect mate.” As he’d thought before…a vampire’s wet dream. “That’s why you always had the fascination with monsters. Because you were drawn in, something inside of you recognized what you wanted—”

“Stop.” Her voice was low, shaking. “I’m some kind of genie, you’re a Viking vampire, and now I’m supposed to mate with you?”

Actually, he’d been around since before the Vikings.  And she was the first female that he’d felt the bond with.

He’d been warned before…

You’ll drink from her and want no other.

His father’s words. Of course, he’d had to kill that ruthless bastard on a battlefield one thunderous night.  The bloodlust had been too strong within his father. He’d gone on another rampage.

So many bodies. Men. Women. Children.

Shane had stopped his father, once and for all. He’d taken his head, right after his father begged for mercy.

You never showed your prey any mercy.
Those had been Shane’s final words to the man who was far more devil than vampire.

Shane tried to shove that memory away. The past didn’t matter. Olivia mattered. She was his present. His future. Everything that he needed.

“You’re wrong.” Her voice was soft, but he heard her perfectly. “You’re so wrong about me. The reason I studied the monsters wasn’t because I was drawn to them. It was because—”

When she stopped, he just waited.

“Because there’s darkness in me.” Whispered. Such a quiet confession. “I can feel it sometimes, pushing to get out.  The darkness is there, in half forgotten dreams that haunt me. In nightmares that seem too real. In—”

A werewolf’s howl split the night.  Shane surged to his feet because he knew that howl belonged to Connor—and the guy was sending up a warning signal.

He headed for the door.

“Wait!”

Shane glanced back. Olivia had jumped from the bed. She had the sheet wrapped around her because after the wreck, they’d needed to cut her clothes away.

“What’s happening?”

There was only one reason Connor would send up an alarm like that. “Company.”

“And you’re
leaving
me here?  No, you can’t do that.” She motioned to the floor. “Get rid of the marks. Let me out! Let me come with you!”

But she’d tried to run from him before.

The howl came again, and…he could hear growls drifting on the wind. More than one beast was hunting in the darkness.

“I’m not leaving you,” Shane told her. As if he would. They were past that now. She had far too much value to him.  “I’m making damn sure no one gets to you.”

Then he yanked open that door and rushed out to face the beasts who mistakenly thought they’d take her from him.

***

Olivia’s jaw dropped. One minute, Shane had been telling her that he was her mate or some other fated nonsense, and in the next instant, he’d left.

While she was basically stuck there, naked.

Hell, no.

Olivia started searching the cabin, or as much of it as she could. Howls and snarls were sounding in the distance, and goosebumps pretty much covered her skin.

Clothing was her priority. She couldn’t face whatever threat was out there while she was bare-assed naked.

There!

A bag was on the floor. She opened it, and found a t-shirt and jeans inside. Her size. Yes!  Maybe the clothes had come from Pate. He struck her as the resourceful type.  Right then, she didn’t care who’d brought them. Olivia was just glad they were there. She jerked on the tennis shoes that were in the bottom of the bag and stood up.

That was when the silence hit her. No more growls. No more howls. Nothing.

Olivia crept toward the door, or rather, as far toward it as her invisible cell would allow.  “Shane?”

No answer.

She bit her lip. She wanted to scream for him, but a scream would just give away her location. 
Right, like the werewolves can’t smell you!

Her nose twitched then, because she’d just smelled something. Something that smelled a whole lot like…
fire.

She whirled around. Saw the flash of flames right outside of the cabin’s window.  That flash grew, grew…and suddenly, fire was eating up the side of the cabin and rushing toward the ceiling.

She opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could. “
Shane! Shane, I—”

A werewolf leapt through the fire and came straight at her.

Shane shoved back the werewolf who’d just gone for his throat.  He heard bones crunch when the wolf hit the ground, but he didn’t care.

Ambush.

They weren’t just facing off against one or two wolves. Not just that bastard David or the warden…a whole pack had attacked them. A pack that had closed in quickly—a pack that wasn’t stopping.

Connor was in werewolf form. Fighting fiercely. Biting. Clawing.

Duncan was near his brother. Slashing with his own claws and protecting Connor’s back.

Holly was outside. Firing silver bullets at the beasts and Pate—

“Fire!” Pate roared.

Hell, yeah, Shane knew about the fire. He could smell it, too.  The pack had come in from the east, and they’d torched the med cabin first. Duncan had gotten Holly out of that place with a bellow of fury.

The wolves who’d been foolish enough to try and hurt Holly were dead on the ground.

“
Shane!”

Olivia’s scream reached him over the fury of the flames.  He whirled and saw the fire shooting up from
her
cabin.
No!

Two wolves tried to take him down.

They were the ones to fall, and they didn’t get back up.

He kicked in the door of the cabin. “Olivia!”

She was on the floor, backing away from two wolves who stalked toward her. One was a big, hulking white wolf. A wolf with bright eyes that were fixed solely on Olivia.  The other beast was a heavy, muscled gray wolf with bright, blue eyes.

The white wolf was familiar to Shane. He’d seen that beast on Purgatory. That beast had been
hunting
them both there.

David.
The bastard had tracked Olivia to the mainland.

And the fire was spreading around the cabin. Too fast.

“Get away from her!”  Shane lunged for them.

The white wolf sprang away from Olivia and came at Shane with his fangs snapping. Shane caught the beast’s mouth, slammed its jaws shut and then threw the wolf right toward the flames.

The white wolf—David—howled in agony, and rolled, trying to put out the flames that spread on his fur.

“Stop!” Olivia’s cry. “Stay back!”

Shane whirled. She had a broken chair leg in her hand and she was shoving it against the gray wolf.  But the beast wasn’t stopping.

Above Shane, the ceiling gave a low, long groan. He looked up and saw the flames rolling overhead.  Shane knew the ceiling was going to collapse.  Shit, Pate had said something about djinn and fire.
Blood and fire?

He used his strength and raced toward Olivia. He caught her, shoved her back, but a force field seemed to rip her right out of his hands.

The markings on the floor… the fucking bottle cage that Pate had set!
It was still trapping her. “Olivia!”

She was on her hands and knees.

He shoved away the markings, smearing them in a frantic fury.

The gray wolf locked its mouth around her leg and hauled her back toward him, just as the ceiling gave way and fire rushed down on them.

“
Olivia!”

***

Eric Pate heard the guttural cry and he leapt into the flames.  He
hated
fire. Such a pain in his ass.

Shane was burning. Flames were on the vamp’s clothes. Rippling along his skin, and the fool was trying to go
deeper
into the fire.

Eric grabbed him and tried to drag the guy out of the cabin.

Fire could kill a vamp. Damn easy.  Too—

Shane tossed him aside.  When Eric crashed onto the floor, he was pretty sure that he broke his left wrist and dislocated his shoulder. He coughed as the smoke thickened around him. He was near the cabin’s door. Shane had almost thrown him through that door.

But then
he
was being jerked to his feet. Duncan McGuire was in front of him, and the flames were everywhere.

“Pate, are you all right?” Duncan demanded.

Eric fumbled for his weapon. He hated to do this, but there wasn’t a choice for him. “We have to…get Shane out.”  There were only a few people he considered to be his friends in this world. Shane was one of those precious few.

He and Duncan headed into the thick of the fire. Shane was clawing at part of the ceiling—the ceiling that had fallen down on the bed and now covered half of the floor.

The vampire was so frantic. Eric knew there was only one reason he’d react that way.

Olivia was under that collapsed, burning ceiling.

The fire was blazing in hot, angry bursts, and the flames were eating everything in their path. If they didn’t get the vamp out, in the next five seconds, Shane would be dead.

Duncan grabbed Shane. The vamp whirled, snarling, “I have to get her, I have to get—”

Eric shot Shane. A wooden bullet straight to the heart.  A guaranteed way to stop a vamp in his tracks. Shane’s body shuddered as he collapsed, and Duncan dragged the vamp out of there.

They all barely made it outside before the cabin seemed to implode.  Fire shot toward the sky in big, wild streaks of orange and gold.

Duncan dropped Shane to the ground. The vamp wasn’t moving. Stiff, hard—dead. For the moment. He’d stay that way until Eric dug the wooden bullet out of the guy’s heart.

Eric turned his head and saw that a big, white wolf was pacing a few feet away. The other wolves had assembled behind the beast. They weren’t attacking, not yet.

What are they waiting for?

Then Connor jumped in front of Eric. Connor was bloody, battered, and in human form, but claws sprouted from his fingertips. “Who wants to try and go through me?”

The white wolf snarled.

Then the wolf whirled and ran into the woods. All of the other shifted werewolves followed him. They left their dead behind.

The cabin kept burning.

Connor rushed forward, as if he’d go after them.

“No!” Eric shouted. “That’s what they want.”  He shook his head. “It’s a set-up. Hell, it always has been.”  No one should have been able to access this safe house. No one.

I thought the traitor was in the FBI.
Because that had been the Intel he’d received. Intel that hadn’t revealed the full truth about the traitor.
I didn’t realize he was the one running the whole damn show.
He’d made the connection with Senator Quick too late.  With his resources, the senator would be able to discover all of the secrets that the Para Unit possessed.

“We need to get out of here.”  Eric ignored his throbbing wrist and shoulder. “Now.”

Because those wolves weren’t done.

Neither am I.

Holly’s soft gasp reached him and he turned to see her falling to her knees beside Shane. Burns covered Shane’s arms and chest. The side of his face was lined with blisters. The burns wouldn’t heal until the bullet was out of him.

Holly cast a glare at Eric. “Do you always have to shoot us?”

Because he’d once put a wooden bullet in his sister, too.
I didn’t have a choice.
Jaw locking, he glanced away from her. “I saved his life.”

Connor paced back to him. “Where’s Dr. Maddox?”

Black smoke drifted in the air above the flames.

“Aw, fuck,” Connor muttered. “He’ll go insane.”

“That’s why you didn’t need to hunt the werewolves.” He looked back down at his old friend. Holly was digging the bullet out of Shane’s chest. “He’ll destroy them all.” Because Eric had realized what was happening between Shane and Olivia Maddox. 

Something that
could
have been great.

Something that had been dangerous.

Something that was…gone.

“Almost got it,” Holly whispered. “Almost…”

The wind seemed to moan around them. A sound of pain. Suffering.

The black smoke thickened above the fire.

“Got it!”

He looked at her hands. Saw the blood-stained fingers, the small, wooden bullet and—

Shane sucked in a deep gulp of breath. His eyes flew open. The burns on his face began to heal as he yelled, “Olivia!”  Shane tried to leap to his feet, but Duncan and Eric held him down. The last thing they needed was for him to burn again, especially since they’d just saved his life.

But there was no holding Shane, not for long. With a strength that Eric hadn’t seen before, Shane broke free of their grip. He staggered to his feet. Stared at the fire.  Eric knew exactly what the vamp was planning.

“I will shoot you again,” Eric swore. “You’re not going back into those flames. You know the fire will kill you.”

“Olivia!” Her name was a tormented cry.

And the fool started to run to the fire.  Hell,
another
bullet to the heart? Was that what it would take? Was he going to have to shoot his friend again?

But then the flames just…died away.  In an instant, the crackling of the fire stopped. Smoke drifted lightly in the air.

“I can…smell her,” Duncan said, sounding stunned.

Connor faced the charred remains of the cabin. “So can I.” He sounded just as stunned as Duncan. “She should be dead, just ash, but I can smell her.”

Oh, hell.

According to the FBI files that he’d accessed, the way to kill a djinn was supposed to be a deadly combination of fire and blood. But the way to wake up a djinn’s powers…the way to summon the darkness within…

Black smoke snaked toward them as they all stood there, frozen.

The smoke slowly dissipated.

And when the smoke vanished, Olivia was there. Her clothing had burned away, but her flesh appeared unmarred. She walked straight toward them with slow, certain steps.

“Olivia?” Shane ran toward her. His hand locked around her arm, and as soon as he touched her, a rush of black smoke swirled in the air again.

The djinn are creatures of smoke and magic.
He’d read that notation in the files he’d accessed.

Olivia collapsed in Shane’s arms.  He lifted her up, held her closely against his chest. His eyes were wild, his expression maddened as he whirled toward Eric. “A werewolf bit her,” Shane said, voice ragged. “Right before the fire…I saw him bite her! She needs help!
Help!”

Holly scrambled to his side, but Eric didn’t move.

He knew Olivia Maddox was beyond help. 

***

She hurt…a damn lot.

Olivia groaned and opened her eyes. She was in a strange bed. An unfamiliar room. And she was handcuffed.

Was this becoming the story of her life?

She tugged on the cuff. It was linked to the side of what looked like a hospital bed.

A door creaked open.  Footsteps padded toward her.  Olivia glanced over and saw Holly pause near the bed. “You tried to attack me the last time I was here,” Holly said softly. “The handcuffs were for my protection.” A brief pause. “If you’re back in control, I can take them off.”

“I’m in control.” Her voice sounded funny to her own ears. Too husky and raspy.  Olivia cleared her throat.

Holly unhooked the cuffs.

Olivia thought about springing toward the woman, but she had promised not to hurt her.  For the moment, anyway.

“Where am I?” Olivia asked and her voice still sounded funny.  Like someone else was talking.

“We brought you in to one of the Para Unit’s containment areas. Pate thinks you will be safer here because it’s a place that isn’t…on the books. The only people who know about it are those of us here now.”

Olivia licked her lips and swore she tasted ash. “The fire—is Shane all right?” She remembered seeing him, right before that burning ceiling had come crashing down onto her.

“He’s fine.  Relax.”  Holly backed up a few steps. “You’re the one who was…injured.”

Olivia glanced down at her body. She didn’t see any wounds.

“A werewolf bit you.”

Olivia flinched.  She didn’t remember that part. At all.

“So, according to all the information I know, a werewolf bite means that you should be dead or transforming.”  Holly shook her head. “But that’s not happening. Not with you.”

Olivia’s breath whooshed out.  Holly was wrong. Or she was lying. “I-I wasn’t bitten.”

“You may just be the cure for the werewolf infection. A person who isn’t susceptible, who has a natural immunity against the bite.”

No.
There is no cure for a werewolf bite.
Olivia swung her legs to the side of the bed. Stood up. Her knees didn’t even wobble, awesome.
Where is Shane?
She felt a hard urgency within her, a need to find him. Right then.

“I finished your blood work.”

There was a note of hesitation, almost fear, in Holly’s voice.  Olivia crept toward her.

“I finished right before the werewolves attacked.” Holly tilted her head to the side. “You aren’t human, not fully.”

Olivia stiffened her spine.

“But I think you knew that, right?  I think you have been holding out on us all, Dr. Maddox.”

Olivia glanced toward the door. “Is Shane outside?”

“Shane was willing to burn to protect you.”

That news rocked through Olivia.

“But you walked away from the fire without a scratch. You stand there right now, no expression on your face, when I’ve just told you that you aren’t human.”

She might not be showing her emotions but it sure felt as if Olivia were shattering on the inside.

“Which side are you on?” Holly asked her.

Olivia shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Anger tightened Holly’s delicate features. “Yes, you do.”

She marched toward the door, but Holly leapt in her path and bared her fangs at Olivia.

The woman was a vampire?

“It’s not as simple as a choice between good and evil,” Holly said. “Because maybe we’ve all got evil in us.  All got some good too.  It’s a choice about survival.  Are you going to join the supernaturals out there when they attack the humans? When they stop hiding and come out full force? Or will you try to protect the innocents before they get slaughtered?”

She’d always wanted to help people. Always wanted to stop the monsters.  “I wish I could stop them all,” Olivia said softly. If only. “But I can’t.”