The Last True Vampire (11 page)

Again that look of smug superiority crossed his features and Claire braced her knees to keep them from buckling. Seriously, what was
wrong
with her? “His brethren will be along shortly to remove any evidence of his death. Which is why we need to leave. No more trifling, no more excuses. You’re coming with me.
Now.
”

CHAPTER

9

Stubborn female!

Her emotions swung on a pendulum, at once frightened and panicked and a moment later angry and suspicious. In the days since Michael had taken her blood, his heart had begun to slow. It would cease beating altogether in a matter of hours, his internal organs returning to dormancy until he fed again. He refused to drink from any other than this female, which meant he would need to take her blood again. Soon.

“Ronan, get the car. We’re leaving.”

The soft sounds of Ronan’s footsteps faded into the distance as he left to get the car, but Michael kept his gaze locked on his female. As long as his heart still beat and her blood coursed through his veins, he’d be stronger. More capable to protect her. But if he didn’t get her to the safety of his home soon there would be a crowd of slayers they’d have no choice but to fight. Ronan was capable but still only a dhampir. They’d be easily overtaken, and what the Sortiari had failed to do a century ago would be finished once and for all, tonight.

There were so many questions to be answered. She’d called him a liar, though she’d admitted in the midst of her frantic fear that Amy wasn’t her name. What sort of woman was this female whom Michael found himself helplessly drawn to? He’d always assumed that his mate would be strong, intelligent, and honorable. Not to mention a creature of his own ilk. If she was none of these things, how could he possibly love her? To be trapped in a mate bond with a female he found unworthy would be a fate worse than any the Sortiari could conceive of.

He knew her soul, though. And it burned with a bright, pure light. Uncorrupted no matter what she tried to make him believe to the contrary. Perhaps they both had their secrets. So many questions were unanswered, but they’d run out of time.

Her body twitched, the slightest tell that she was preparing to bolt.

“Do not think of running from me, female. It will do you little good. I’d catch you before you took even three steps.”

Her cheeks puffed as she blew out a quick breath. “Do me a favor.
Don’t
call me ‘female.’”

So full of fire, this one. Her outward show of defiance did nothing to hide the sweet, fragrant bloom of her desire, however. She wanted him. Craved him as surely as he craved her. A human would neither sense nor understand the connection forged between them, but Michael did. “What should I call you then, my pretty little liar?”

In the distance, the quiet purr of Ronan’s Aston Martin’s engine approached.
Thank the gods.
Michael felt too exposed on the street, time ticking by much too quickly. The slayers were excellent trackers. He needed to put as much distance between them and their enemies as soon as possible.

“We’re leaving.”

Indecision flashed over the female’s features and Michel let out a sigh. She pushed off from the brick wall and took off at a sprint. True to his word, he overtook her in three quick strides, seized her by the wrist, and hauled her back against his body. “Let me go!” The words were forced from between her teeth as she kicked her legs out and gripped his hand in an effort to pry his fingers away.

Ronan came to a stop a few feet away and Michael lifted her up into his arms, her weight as insubstantial as a feather in his grasp. Ronan came around and opened the rear passenger side door for Michael. Her protests mattered little to him at this point. Whether she realized it or not, she belonged to him now. “Fighting me will do you no good,” he said close to her ear. “You’ll simply exhaust yourself trying.”

“You can’t snatch me off the street and force me to go with you, you jerk!” She clawed at his arm, but her struggles got her nowhere. “If you put me in that car, I swear to god I’ll bail the first chance I get.”

Michael pulled away and flashed her a cold smile. Her golden eyes locked on his mouth and a flicker of fear brushed against his senses. “You are mine to protect.
Mine
. But I won’t hesitate to punish you if need be.” The words rumbled on a low growl in his chest. “If you attempt to do anything to harm yourself, the consequences will be dire.”

“This is kidnapping.” The pleading words left her mouth in a rush. “You’ve already killed someone tonight; do you really want to add a federal charge to your list of crimes? Let me go. I won’t say anything; I promise. The guy was going to kill me. You totally saved my ass and I appreciate it. I won’t talk to the cops; I swear.”

Michael deposited his prize in the backseat. The air left her lungs in a
woof
of breath and she let out an enraged shriek. “Can you lock her in?” he said to Ronan. Michael’s eyes met hers. “In case she decides to
bail
.”

Ronan rolled his eyes and flipped a switch on the inside of the door panel and then went around and repeated the process on the other door. “Never thought I’d need to engage the child locks.”

“If she insists on behaving like a child, we’ll have to treat her as one,” Michael replied.

“Be still, my heart,” Ronan replied over the roof of the car before he opened his own door. “All of this romance is choking me up.”

“We might be followed,” Michael said. “A direct route home might not be a good idea.”

“You act like this is my first rodeo.” Ronan buckled his seat belt and pulled out onto the street. “You just worry about protecting our cargo. I’ll worry about getting it where it needs to go.”

That’s what she was, it seemed. Cargo. A rare and valuable treasure entrusted in his safekeeping—

A barrage of images assaulted Michael’s mind and he went to his knees, cracking the sidewalk beneath him from the impact. He’d shouldered the whole of the Collective for far too long and he was breaking under the strain of memories.

The empty void where his soul had once been became full, almost to bursting . The tether spurred him past reason and the female’s scent drove him into a frenzy. Her impact upon him was unfathomable, changing him in an instant. He couldn’t keep himself from her no matter what she was or how fervently he might try to deny their bond. Their souls were tethered. She felt it as surely as he did. A sweetness permeated the air, the female’s arousal hardening his cock and elongating his fangs.

Michael gave his head a violent shake, as though he could dislodge the memory. It was too much for him to bear alone, and the images were nothing more than flashes he could make no sense of. He cradled his head in his palms, gritting his teeth against the pounding in his skull.

“She is strong enough,” he said to the council of vampires seated before him. “I beg you, allow me to turn her.”

“It is forbidden.” That bastard Alexei Aristov looked at him with cruel disdain. As the ruler of the entire Russian territory and its many covens, Aristov spoke for the council and his word was law. “She is not your mate, nor could she be. You cannot be tethered by a human. It’s impossible and you are mistaken. She will not survive the transformation. Keep her as your lover if you must. But that is as far as you are permitted to go. Enjoy the human’s body. Drink of her blood. But do not seek to turn her. If you act against the mandate of this council, the punishment is death.”

Michael gasped as though coming up for air after being too long under the water. He’d seen his father’s face through the vampire’s memories, stern, proud. Another collage of images assaulted Michael, and his breath stalled as he was plunged under the surface again.

The female went limp in his arms, her flesh so pale and cold that for a moment he was afraid he’d killed her. He’d drained her to the precipice of death, but he’d prove those fools wrong. The council didn’t know his mate like he did. She was strong enough. She would survive. He scored his wrist with one sharp fang and pressed the wound to his lover’s mouth. When the crimson drops ceased to flow, he scored his wrist again, forcing her to take his blood. At first she didn’t respond and his heart beat a frantic rhythm as fear took hold. But soon she roused, sealing her lips around the wound as she took deep pulls. Her hands came up to hold his wrist as she drank, and the flat edges of her teeth broke the skin as the frenzy of feeding took hold.

Elation soared in his chest. He knew she’d survive.
Knew
it. She was
his
.

Hope turned to terror as she pulled violently away, thrashing in his embrace. She broke free, tearing at her hair and pulling long tufts from her scalp in a bloodied mass. Silver flashed in her pupils, and dainty fangs protruded from her gums. But the soul of the female he loved was gone and, likewise, the string that tied them together, tethered his soul to his body, was cut. In her wild, empty gaze he sensed nothing but a mindless creature writhing in pain.

A violent scream ripped from her throat. Tears streamed down her once-flushed cheeks. Her back bowed off the ground and with the sound of her spine snapping from the strain he swore that her pain was his own. Bruises appeared on her pale arms, her legs and torso, across her jawline, and over her shoulders as her body rejected the blood he’d given her. Her scream pierced the night air, echoing eerily into silence as her body stilled before him.

Blood trickled from her nose, her delicate ears, and her beautiful eyes like crimson tears. Her mouth was frozen in a silent cry that at once destroyed him. “No!” he shouted as he threw his body over hers as though to protect her from what had already taken her from him. “Collette!” He cradled her in his arms, rocking her. “Collette, don’t leave me.”

But it was past the time for beseeching words. Impossible to reverse the damage he’d done. He should have heeded the council’s words and now it was too late.

His love was dead at his own hand.

An agonized roar burst from Michael’s chest, the pain of the vampire’s memory so real he might as well have killed the woman himself. The sound echoed off the walls of the alley beside them and rattled the windows of a nearby retail space. Was this the fate that awaited him? To live without truly claiming his mate or run the risk of killing her in the process of turning her?

“Mikhail?” Ronan jumped out of the car and raced to Michael, his gaze fearful.

Michael looked up to find Claire stretched across the seat. A deep crease marred her smooth brow and her golden eyes shone with concern. Gods, the emotion etched on her face was enough to lay him low.

As well it should. “I’m fine.” He held up a staying hand and pushed himself to stand. A despair unlike anything he’d ever felt before ripped through him, shredding his composure.

“Are you sure? Mikhail”—Ronan’s voice dropped for his ears alone—“you should feed.”

“No. We need to leave. Now.” He slid into the seat beside Claire, who continued to study him quietly. Not even the annihilation of his race had affected him so deeply. This had become a suicide mission. How could he deny his own instinct, his own mating drive? The taking and giving of blood was essential to solidifying the mate bond, and yet, if the memories he’d witnessed were correct, she could never drink of him. Being with her while restraining himself from claiming her would kill him as surely as doing so would kill her.

Ronan gave Michael a last searching look before he settled in behind the wheel. “All right, we’re out of here,” he said as he pulled out onto the street.

Michael couldn’t allow himself to form an attachment to this female. Not after what he’d just witnessed in the dead vampire’s memory. Perhaps it was for the best that she’d resisted him. He could take her blood, let her life essence feed his power and nothing more if she despised him. Her hatred would keep him from doing something he would surely regret.

Wind rushed through an open window beside him, and by the time Michael could react the female was already hanging over the door, the top half of her body dangling over the street rushing by beneath her. Ronan chanced a glance back and the car swerved. “Shit!” He jerked the wheel and they lurched back into their lane.

Michael hooked his finger through her belt loop before she toppled headfirst out of the car. He jerked her back inside, none too gently pulling her against his body, and she shot him a glare that should have melted the flesh from his bones. “You didn’t think to lock the windows, Ronan?”

He gave Michael an apologetic shrug. “I didn’t think she’d actually try to jump.”

Obviously this female didn’t want for courage. An admirable trait but no less annoying considering their situation. “I told you the consequences would be dire if you tried to harm yourself. Would you test me, female?”

“I told you not to call me that.” In the dark interior of the car, her eyes sparked with golden fire, her cheeks flushed with anger. Michael’s body responded, and he cursed his weakness. How could he possibly keep her at arm’s length when he craved her body as much as he craved her blood?

“What should I call you, then?”

She bucked her chin. “Don’t call me anything,
Mikhail
.”

From the driver’s seat Ronan gave an amused snort.

Her use of Michael’s given name rang with accusation, and yet he yearned to hear it spoken from her lips again. “Until you give me a name by which to address you, I will call you female.”

“Then call me Amy.”

Michael turned and faced forward once again. “No. Since you’ve already admitted that’s not your true name, I will not call you Amy.”

“Sort of hypocritical for a guy who told me his name was
Michael
.”

Ronan turned and cut him a look as if to say, “Well, she has a point.” “Michael is the Americanized version of my name. Hardly a lie.”

She gave a humorless laugh. “Hardly the truth, either.”