Marked by the Vampire (6 page)

“We’ll be safe here,” Shane said as he began to pull her toward—what, a shore? Inside the cave?

Her left hand flew out and landed on a rocky outcropping.

“Be careful,” he warned her, then he was lifting her up, sitting her on a hard, flat circle. Water poured down her body as she crouched there, and shivers rocked through her.

He came up beside her, she heard the rush of water falling off him, but even though she strained, Olivia couldn’t see him. The darkness there was too complete.

“We’ll be safe here,” he said, and the words sounded like a promise.

She pushed back her sodden hair. Her teeth were starting to chatter. “Where is…here?”

“An old cave. There was an entrance to this cave on the island once, but it collapsed years ago.” His body brushed against hers, and she jumped because she hadn’t realized that he’d sat right next to her. “Now the only way in is through the water.”

Her breath heaved in and out in too fast pants.

“There are some cracks along the cave’s ceiling, and they let air in.  Maybe even some light that will hit us later.  We’ll be fine here.”

“Until?”  There had to be an
until
.

“Until we can make a run for either the seaplane or the ferry.”

The shivers hit her even harder. “The ferry won’t be back for a few more days.”

“The seaplane will be here in sixteen hours.”

Her panting stopped.
Sixteen hours?

“It’s scheduled for a medical supply run then. We just have to get on that seaplane and fly off this island.”

Oh, was that all? “They’ll be watching.” They…the guards. The werewolves?

“Then we have to make sure they don’t stop us.” Said with grim certainty.  “But first…” Then his hands were on her, pulling her toward him, pulling her shirt
off.

“Wait! Stop!” Olivia shouted at the handsy-vamp. He’d saved her ass, yes, but that didn’t mean—

“You’re about to shake apart. The cold doesn’t do a thing to me, but it can hurt you. It can
kill
you.” His fingers brushed against her bare abdomen. “Now get naked and let me help you.”

Okay, right, so this wasn’t about sex. The kiss under that stairwell had thrown her, and when he’d started to strip her, she’d assumed…Olivia cleared her throat. “You, um, can you turn around or something?”

“No.”  He yanked her shirt up. Tossed it. Reached for the snap of her pants.

Olivia realized she’d lost her shoes some place in the ocean.  She also slapped at his hands because he was not just going to yank her pants off.

“
Olivia…”
Her name was a growl. “I can help you.”

Another shiver rocked through her and she was pretty sure her teeth rattled.

“Vampires don’t feel cold like humans do.” He caught her hand, brought it up to his chest. His skin was warm, so wonderfully warm beneath her hand. “I can make it better for you. Let me help you,” he said once more.

She undid the snap of her pants. That warmth was too tempting, and she was
freezing
.  She pushed the pants down but kept on her panties and her bra. Clothing rustled near her and she heard the slap of his wet garments hitting the rocks.

He came back to her a few seconds later. “Move back a bit. It’s flat behind you.”

She scooted back.

“And, love, you need to lose the sexy bra and scrap of panties.”

Olivia pretty much hated that he could see everything in the dark.  “They stay on.”

His hands wrapped around hers and then—then she was tumbling down on top of him. Because he was lying on the flat, rough space, and she was now sprawled all over the vamp. He wrapped his arms around her even as her legs slid between his powerful thighs. He held her tightly but…carefully…and the heat of his body slowly sank into her.

Her mouth was against the curve of his shoulder, so close to the base of his neck. After their dive, he should have smelled of salt and the ocean, and he
did,
but, more than that, he had a rich, almost heady scent that seemed to seep into her.

He was warm and solid, and he surrounded her in that darkness.  Silence swept over them as they were cocooned there, and slowly, so slowly, the tremors stopped sweeping over her.

But as the tremors subsided, she didn’t scramble off him. Olivia just kept taking in that delicious warmth as some of the terror she felt finally began to ebb. “Why do people think,” she murmured and her lips brushed over his neck as she spoke, “that vampires are cold?”

“Because the movies say we’re dead.  The dead are cold. The dead don’t have hearts that beat.”

She could feel his heart racing.

“They say we have no passion.”

She could feel, um, something
else
pressing against her. She’d been aware of his heavy arousal from the moment he’d pulled her on top of him. There was really no missing it, especially since the vampire seemed to be very well endowed.

Though she did try to shift away from him a bit then.

He just pulled her right back against him. “But our hearts beat. We breathe. We live. We need.”

Need.
The word seemed to echo around them.

“There’s something that I need right now,” he continued, his voice growing deeper, rougher, in the darkness. “Something I have to take.”

She pushed up but his hands were tight around her waist. “Shane?”

“Vampires are fast healers, so you can’t see where they cut me, and the blood was all washed away during our swim.”

Oh, no.
No.

“I’m hungry,” those words were a deep, dark growl. “So fucking hungry…and I need
you.”

In that instant, she was glad for the darkness because Olivia didn’t want to see his face—or his fangs. “Shane,
no.”

“I need blood.” Deep, rumbling. “They took too much from me. If I’m going to protect us then
I need you.
”

Her heart was about to fly right out of her chest.  “I’m scared.” Hushed. “I’ve never…never been bitten before.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

She wanted to believe that, but she didn’t.

“There can be pleasure in the bite.”

In her mind, she could only see the pictures from her files at Purgatory. The dead victims. “What if you can’t stop?”

“I’ve been a vampire longer than you can imagine.”

What?

“I can stop.” Certainty thickened his voice even more. “I will stop.”  Then his right hand left her hip.  Those fingers slid up her side, slowly, carefully, up and up…they slid around her bra and had her sucking in a sharp breath, but Shane didn’t touch her breast. That hand of his kept rising until his fingers curved around her throat. Her pulse raced beneath his touch.  “I just need a little, just enough to boost my strength back up.”

He’d saved her, so didn’t she owe this to him?  She’d just feel much better about all of this if she had a stake in her hand. 
Then I could make him stop.

“Maybe you’ll like it…”

She licked her lips.

“Maybe you’ll ask for my bite again.”

Olivia shook her head. There was no way she could imagine that. Wanting him to sink his fangs into her? No, thank you.  “J-just a sip, all right? Then you’ll stop?”

“I need more than a sip.” There was such darkness in his words. “Need
you.”

Her eyes squeezed shut—why, she didn’t know. She already couldn’t see anything. “Do it.”

He pulled her back down toward him, positioned her, held her easily. She felt his breath blow over her neck, and Olivia jerked in reaction.

“Easy,” he whispered. “I told you…you might like my bite.”

No way. That just wouldn’t
happen.

His teeth sank into her neck. Olivia gasped at the white-hot flash of pain, it rocked through her and she was ready to fight him, to yank back because—

Pleasure lashed her.  A wild, hot tide that made her whole body tense and yearn.  Her hips rocked forward against the long, hard ridge of his cock as his mouth sucked along her neck. He was taking her blood, licking her skin, and she should have been repulsed.

But the pleasure wouldn’t stop.  It was electric, consuming, scorching her from the inside out.  Incredibly, she felt her sex quaking—clenching—and a release hit her. An orgasm that had her choking back a scream because the pleasure had just ripped right through her.

From his bite?

“I can feel it…” Shane pressed a hot kiss to her neck. “Your pleasure…I can
taste
it.”

His teeth pierced her once more.

The pleasure built again, coiling inside of her, twisting and stretching and she couldn’t get close enough to him. Her hands grabbed his arms. Her nails sank into his skin.  Her legs slid, parted, and she was over him, rubbing her sex against his cock as a wild hunger, a fierce lust that she’d never felt before, pushed through her.

In that instant, she wanted him. More than life. More than breath. More than anything.

“
Shane.”
His name was a demand. Her fear was gone. The pleasure was—

Another climax hit her and she raked her nails down his arm.

“In-fucking-credible,” Shane growled the words against her. “Never…before…never…” He yanked at her panties. The fabric tore. She couldn’t suck in a deep breath because the aftershocks of pleasure were hitting her.

He was naked. So hot and powerful, and his cock pushed right between her thighs.

“Take me,” he told her, the words a fierce order in the dark. “I want
in.
I want
all of you.
”

And the pleasure wasn’t stopping. She was out of control, all reason lost, and she was the one to push that big cock into her body, to arch her hips down against him and take him inside her.

Then Olivia was truly lost.

Her sex closed greedily around him, even as he stretched her with his length, pushing her to the edge of pain and pleasure. Her body still quivered from her release and her sex seemed hyper sensitive to him.

Her knees pushed into the hard surface beneath them as she tried to balance herself. She wanted the pleasure again, wanted that hot, wild burst—

Shane heaved up, and his cock slammed deep into her.  Olivia gasped out his name. His fingers clamped around her hips, and he started lifting her, up and down, fast and fiercely, again and again.

He was out of control, driving fast, and she loved it.  Her head tipped back and she moaned as her body took in that frantic rhythm.

His hand slid around her hip. His thumb pushed against her clit.

“You came…
from my bite…
”

Her eyes flew open. She wanted to see him. Couldn’t in the dark.

“Come again for me. Always, for me.”

She wanted the release to hit. Her body yearned for that pleasure, addicted now, and she was fighting for the climax because it had been so good. Better than anything before—

His thumb pushed against her once more.

“Bite me,” Olivia heard herself whisper.  And she was the one to bend back toward him. To put her throat to his mouth.

There was a part of her that was horrified by what she was doing. Offering herself to him. Fucking him so wildly. But that part was small…and quiet.

The lust was dominating. She had no control then.

He bit her.

She erupted. The pleasure was even better this time because his cock was in her and her sex contracted around him. The orgasm was so strong that she couldn’t even scream, couldn’t do anything but shudder in that maelstrom of passion.

Then she felt him inside of her, a long, hot tide of release that just sent after-shocks bursting through her.

He pressed a kiss to her neck. Licked her skin.

She collapsed on him.  Her heartbeat was drumming, a thunder that blocked out everything else. Her sex was still contracting around him, and the pleasure had her gasping because it just wouldn’t stop.

Nothing
had ever been like that before.

Olivia knew she should have been terrified of the way she was acting. It was too out of control. Too wild.
What I always feared.

But with the pleasure around her, with her vampire
in
her, there was no room for fear.

That would come later.  When reason returned.

***

“The vampire took Dr. Maddox.”  Case Killian marched in front of the guards he’d assembled. “They are somewhere on this island, and we will find them.”

“Sir…”

He whirled to face the guard and saw one of the newer recruits, a blond with golden eyes, staring at him with worry etched on his face. “What?”

“How do you know Dr. Maddox is even still alive?”

“We don’t know that.”  She’d already been gone for over two hours. Anything could happen in that amount of time. “But until we have her body, we assume that she’s still breathing.”

“Will he turn her?” Another question from another guard.

“I don’t know what the fuck he’ll do.”  His breath heaved out. “I just know we have to find them.” And he knew exactly how to do that. The vampire had fled with the woman, but they hadn’t just vanished. They would have left a trail behind. A scent.

There were no tracking dogs on the island, but he had something far better than just a dog.

He had werewolves.

The alphas are the best at tracking.

He knew one alpha in particular that would love to get his hands on Shane. “Bring me David Vincent.
Now.
” Because it was time to end this hunt.

No one escapes from Purgatory. Not on my watch.

The best orgasm of Shane’s very long life left him nearly gutted on that cave floor. His hands were locked around Olivia, and he was holding her as tightly as he could.

Because I don’t want her to get away.

The woman had come from his bite. His fucking bite. Not just once. Twice.

Then she’d come a third time when he’d been sunk balls deep inside of her.

Sure, humans had been known to find pleasure in the bite. It could be an aphrodisiac for many, but he’d never had a woman react like Olivia had.

Her sex was still squeezing him.

And he was getting harder for her.

He should probably try to play the gentleman and pull out of her now.  The heat of the moment had passed.

Had it?

He rocked his hips against her.

And felt the sudden tension that coursed through Olivia’s delicate body, a body that he hadn’t been able to savor, not yet. He wanted to kiss her, to lick every single inch of her.

I shouldn’t have taken her here. Should have been in a big bed with fucking rose petals or some damn thing like that spread around her.

But after one taste…when her pleasure had rocked through him, there had been no going back.

Olivia’s hands pushed against his chest.  She rose up above him, and as she lifted her upper body, her sex pressed down harder against him, around him.

His cock thickened even more within her.  One good thing about vamps, stamina was definitely their strong suit.

He caught her hands. Threaded his fingers with hers.

And in the darkness there, he could have sworn that her eyes started to glow.

A djinn.

He couldn’t think about that, about the deadly ramifications if the werewolf’s claim turned out to be true.

She was pushing her hips down against him again, her sex was a hot, wet dream around him, and Shane let go of his control. He wanted the wild rush of pleasure again. He wanted…her. Everything that she had to give. Every fucking thing.

And even as he drove into her, thrusting as deep and hard as he could go, Shane realized the danger he was in.

Because if the stories he’d heard over the years were true, the whispers, the legends…

He could be losing his soul right then, becoming addicted to the sensual power of a djinn.

***

“There,” David snarled as he stopped and pointed to the old silver grate in the bowels of the prison. “They went in there.”

Case glared at the silver grate.
How the hell did the vampire find this place?

“Looks like someone had an escape plan,” David muttered as his gaze slanted toward Case. “I didn’t realize this little spot was here.”

Case shoved the guy against the silver. David howled when the right side of his face hit that grate and burned. “And you’d better forget it, understand?”  Yet even as he said the words, he knew it wouldn’t happen.  David would tell the others about this discovery.  He’d use it, try to escape himself later.

And that’s why I might have to kill the guy when this little hunt is over.

David was useful, and he was also expandable.

The scent of burnt flesh filled the air. Case let the werewolf go, and David jerked back. The glare the werewolf sent Case was full of fury and the promise of retribution.

Like that was supposed to scare him. “Move the grate,” Case directed his guards.

It took four of them to get that heavy grate down, but, it would have been easy for the vamp to move it. With his enhanced strength, the guy had probably just given a little tug and the grate would have popped free.

“Go in,” Case snapped at the werewolf as soon as the opening was clear. “
Find them.
” Because they had to still be on the island. The ferry wouldn’t arrive for days, and the seaplane hadn’t flown in yet. 
Wherever you’re hiding, I will find you.

No one had ever escaped from a tracking alpha before.

David led the way into that tunnel. Case followed, and he made sure to keep a tight grip on the remote that controlled David’s silver collar. The collar gleamed in the darkness.

As they followed that long, twisting tunnel, the guards used flashlights to illuminate their path.  The sound of water grew stronger and—

“I can’t track them anymore.”  David had stilled near the edge of the dark water.  Murky. Deep. A pool that would lead back to the ocean. David stared down at the water. “The scent ends here.”

No, that wasn’t possible. “They can’t swim back to the mainland!”

David’s laughter was bitter. “Maybe the sexy doctor was a mermaid in disguise. Never seen one of those before. Thought they were just myths—”

Case sent a powerful charge of silver coursing through the werewolf’s collar. “They are myths!”

David sank to his knees, but his head tilted back and his eyes blazed up at Case. “That’s what…people used to say…about vamps. About…werewolves…”

Case’s mind raced as he considered possibilities.
Mainland, my ass.
“They just swam out and around to the side of the island. That’s the only option they had. They’re still
here.
” He was sure of it.  “We need to get outside of Purgatory’s walls and search the island.” He lifted the remote, but didn’t send another surge of silver out, not yet. “You
will
find them.”

Pain darkened the werewolf’s face. The guards’ lights were trained on the werewolf, so Case could see David easily as the guy rasped, “I’ll find her…”

“If you don’t…” Case leaned toward him. Made sure that his voice was too low for the guards to hear him. “I’ll pump you full of so much silver that you’ll beg for death.”

He waited for the werewolf to show fear.

But, instead, the werewolf smiled. “I don’t beg.” 

***

Olivia’s eyelids flew open and awareness came back to her with a shocking rush.

She’d been asleep, curled up on the hard rocks, and she whirled around now to see—

Faint light, drifting in through the cracks and crevices in the cave.  Her heart was thundering in her chest—her
naked
chest.

Because she was totally nude and her horrified gasp seemed way too loud to her own ears.

Her gaze whipped to the left and to the right. She saw her clothes, spread out, drying?  And she also realized that the vampire was gone.

He’d left her.  No, no, he couldn’t have. Olivia jumped to her feet. “Shane?”  Her voice echoed back to her.  “Shane, where are you?”  The pool of water was near her feet, glistening.  The rocky walls of the cave surrounded her.  Was there a tunnel hidden somewhere in those walls? An opening that she couldn’t see in that dim light?

Olivia snatched up her clothes and dressed as quickly as she could. The clothing was still damp and it rubbed roughly over her too-sensitive skin. Skin that was sensitive because of…him.

What did I do?  Why? 

She’d lost herself with Shane. Her control—the careful control that she’d maintained for years—had vanished the moment he’d taken her blood.

It shouldn’t have happened. It couldn’t happen again.

No worries on that score, especially seeing as how he fucked me and left me.

Vampires.  They weren’t exactly known to be trustworthy.

Her bare feet slid over the rough flooring of the cave. She started inching toward the darkness of the walls. Her hands lifted as she tried to search for an opening, search for
some
kind of way out other than a dive into that water once more.

What did I do? Why? Why? 

She could hardly remember anything about the sex with Shane—except that she’d needed him, desperately. Fire had ignited within her when his teeth sank into her neck, and she’d been overwhelmed by a sensual hunger for him.  So consumed that she would have done
anything
to have him plunge into her.

He did something to me.
That was the only explanation. Vampires could control their prey after they took blood from humans, and he must have been controlling her.

“Bastard,” she whispered. She’d thought he was a hero, that he was saving her, when all along he’d just been manipulating her. “Vampire bastard!”

“Ah, love, now why are you so pissed at me?”

Her breath choked out and she whirled at the sound of his voice. He rose from the water, easily, fluidly, and the water slid over his powerful, bare chest.  He was wearing a pair of pants, nothing more, and looking too damn sexy.

He’s still controlling me.

She put her hands in front of her. “Stay away from me—and get
out
of my mind.”

He shoved his fingers through his wet hair.  Frowned at her.  Advanced. “I haven’t been in your mind. Just your body.”

Asshole. He came closer. Closer—

She punched him.

Or, she tried to, anyway, but the vamp caught her fist in his hand and held her easily.

“Not quite the greeting I was expecting, not after last night.”

Her cheeks burned. “What did you do to me?”

His thumb brushed lightly over her knuckles as he kept holding her hand prisoner. “Fucked you. I thought that was obvious.”

Her other fist flew out.  He caught it too.  Shook his head.  “Olivia, sweet Olivia…” He leaned in close toward her. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon to say we made love? I mean…it was rough and it was hot and it was fucking, so I don’t know why you—”

“You used mind control on me.”

His face hardened. “The hell I did.”  He still held both her hands in his grip.

“I don’t…that wasn’t
me,
” she told him, frantic, her heart galloping too fast. So fast it hurt.

“Climaxed so long and hard you nearly drove me out of my head?”

How was this happening? “Let me go.” Her voice was hoarse.

He hesitated.

“Let me go,” she said again.

“Only if you promise not to punch me.”

She nodded.  Mentally crossed her fingers.

Slowly, he dropped her hands. “I didn’t use mind control on you. You had sex with me because you wanted me.” Anger roughened his words. “So maybe you’re just having some morning after regret because you screwed a vamp, and you always thought you were better than that.”

Better? No, that—

“We’re good enough to be your lab rats, the experiments that you study so carefully, but you never thought you’d be begging one of us to take you.”

Had she begged? She didn’t remember that part, but a lot of the specific details about last night were kind of blurry.

This nightmare would never end.

Olivia retreated a bit, and her back bumped into the rocks. “You did something with your bite. You…”

“Made you climax?” He stalked closer, but didn’t touch her again. “Because you did. You came—twice—just from my bite.”

“You made me.” The only explanation that made sense. “You compelled me—”

“If I could control you, I’d be doing it right now.” Flat, brutal. Scary.  “I’m not. I don’t force women to do anything they don’t want to do,” he said with a barely banked fury. “Now I realize you’ve had some bad fucking hours at Purgatory, but watch your step, love. You don’t want to push me too far.”

She was trapped in a cave with a big, too-powerful vampire.  Her fear was a living, breathing thing inside of her, but Olivia wasn’t backing down. “Then what happened?  If you didn’t control me,
why
did I want you so much?”

He growled. “Because I’m dead fucking sexy?”

Her lips parted in surprise. But wait, yes, he was.

His hand lifted and skimmed down her cheek. Her racing heartbeat actually stopped in that moment. “Do you know what you are?” Shane asked her, his voice a rumble that sank beneath her skin.

Lost. Terrified. Mildly turned on.
Olivia shook her head.

His finger slid down her throat. His thumb rubbed lightly over the spot he’d bitten the night before. Pleasure pulsed through her at that caress.

Maybe more than mildly turned on.

“You’re a vampire’s wet dream. A woman who craves the bite so much that it brings her to release.”  His hand tightened a bit around her throat. “No wonder you like to study the monsters so much.  Deep down, you want us.”

No, that wasn’t true. Deep down, she was terrified of the monsters, but she did her job because there was no choice for Olivia. She
had
to do it.

I won’t be like them.

His head began to lower toward hers.

“D-don’t bite me again.”

His eyes held hers. “Afraid you’ll like it too much?”

Yes.
“Just…don’t.”  She also wanted his hand off her. Wanted his body away from her.  The man’s scent seemed to surround her, and her hands had clenched into fists because she was
not
going to touch him, even though part of her wanted to so very desperately.

It was the part that Olivia always kept chained up, locked deep inside of herself. The part that thrived on danger, that longed for the rush of wild, hot sex. The part that enjoyed the darkness…too much.

It was Olivia’s secret side, a side that had terrified her for as long as she could remember.

It was a part that could be dangerous. Lethal.

Just like my father.

“Fine…” He smiled at her, and Olivia caught the glint of his fangs. “I’ll keep my teeth away from your lovely throat, until you ask for my bite.”  He pulled away. Turned from her. Took two steps. Then glanced back. “And you
will
ask.”

“Don’t count on that.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach.

“You liked the bite too much not to want it…me…again.”

Her stomach clenched. “I just want to get out of here.”

His gaze turned shuttered. “Is that what you truly wish? That you could leave Purgatory now?”

Coming there had been one serious mistake.  “What I wish is that you’d tell me what’s going on.  Who you really are. What the hell is happening at this place. And yeah, after all that, I
wish
that we could get out of here. That we could just prance out of this cave and find a seaplane waiting to jet us to safety.” She sucked in a ragged breath when she realized that her words were rapping out at a frantic pace. “That’s what I wish, okay?”