The Vampyre Legal Chronicles - Marcus (9 page)

"You dare to
lie to me. He has marked you as his, you foolish creature. So
arrogant and now he is too late.
You
belong to me."

Anais had no
idea who or what the hell the thing was talking about and she
didn't want to know. All she wanted to do was to get out there.

Then the
creature went utterly still and those terrifying eyes went too wide
with something like dismay.

The creature
hissed out an incensed breath.

"Bad timing, my
Lord. Bad timing."

Anais wasn't
going to hang around to find out what had alarmed the woman. With
all her might she shoved her out of the way and opened the door to
flee. But a hand caught her wrist in a grip so preternaturally
ruthless it might crumble bone to dust.

Anais turned to
stare down at the back of her hand.

Her eyes went
wide.

Horror rose
like acid into her throat.

Instead of
fingernails, the creature had what looked like lethal claws carving
through the flesh and bone of her hand. The pain was so intense
Anais could hardly take a breath to cry out.

Something
beyond fire burned a relentless path up her arm.

Anais opened
her mouth to shriek and then the world went mad.

The floor was
vibrating and a terrible roaring sound like a jet engine made her
cry out.

Abruptly she
was free.

Anais ran head
first into a wave of humanity running towards her.

Disoriented,
from behind someone pushed her so hard she fell. The polished
marble floor was unforgiving to elbows and knees. Dazed, she looked
up to the ceiling to see a huge chandelier dripping with crystals
snap, hang for a split second, before falling to crash upon a
crowded round table, sending lethal shard of glass everywhere.

She held up her
hands to protect her face and cried out again when a heavy weight
fell on top of her crushing the breath from her lungs.

And the world
went dark.

***

"Anais!" roared
Marcus.

A sharp blade
of fear for her slid horribly down his spine. In his mind his
vampyre howled like a lone timber wolf.

The initial
quake lasted no more than forty seconds, but to Marcus those
seconds were a lifetime. An aftershock made the floor and walls
shake. Whimpers and wails of distress soon turned again into
screams. Frantic, his eyes darted around the area and the entrance
to the rest rooms where humans had gone down like dominoes.

"I can't see
her. Can you see her?" he yelled at his brother. He knew he sounded
frantic, desperate, like a mad man.

James pointed.
"Over there!"

He turned and
spotted a Centuri warrior dressed as a doorman lifting people and
with something like a fist of dread squeezing his heart Marcus
recognised the red dress.

Anais lay
utterly still right at the bottom of a pile of bodies.

Within moments
Marcus held her, limp and floppy, in his arms and carried her to a
low couch. Fighting back sheer panic, he laid her down. He smoothed
his thumb over her carotid where her pulse, thank God, tripped too
fast. His own heart quickened, too, responding to the fluid flowing
through her veins. With a hand that trembled, he removed the gold
chopsticks hanging at a crazy angle and released her hair. He
brushed fingers through the waterfall of slippery black silk.
Quickly he ran his hands over her arms and legs and then her torso.
Once he realised she'd had the wind knocked from her and she
appeared unhurt, except for a few bruises, his heart went from a
gallop to a trot.

She was
pale.

Too pale.

What sort of a
mate was he to place her in danger like this?

He'd
failed.

He'd failed to
protect her.

Around him
people were tending to the walking wounded as the emergency
services arrived. Blind and deaf to his surroundings, his entire
focus was centred on Anais. With gentle fingertips he carefully
checked her skull for lumps, bumps, and found none. The back of her
right hand had three deep cuts, probably from flying glass. Blood
was flowing freely down her fingers leaving dark stains on the silk
of her dress. The heady aroma was nectar to his vampyre. Marcus
brought her hand to his nose. He smelled the wound. And frowned. He
sniffed again, and went absolutely still. He sensed... vampyre.
Every part of him went on alert as he carefully studied the wounds
on her hand and realised they were claw marks. Fury rose fast and
hard. Someone had
dared
touch his woman? Without stopping to
think, he licked to clean the liquid from her hand before sucking
the wound hard to remove bacteria. Vampyre claws and fangs
harboured many diseases, some fatal to humans. Passing his tongue
over the deep cuts he used the healing and cleansing acid on the
tip to seal the injury. The ambrosial flavour of her coated his
tongue, the back of his throat. She tasted like wild honey and
crushed green peppercorns freshly picked from the tree.

A heavy hand on
his shoulder jolted him back to the present.

"Brother, there
are humans present. What do you think you are doing?" James hissed
in his ear.

Marcus took a
shocked breath when he realised what he'd done to Anais.

He glanced
around relieved to see no one was paying any attention to him,
except for his Centuri, their wide eyes expressing their appalled
amazement.

Fuck
.

He'd crossed a
line.

Anais was
unconscious and in his care, under his protection. And now there
was no turning back. He'd put his mouth on her open wound and
sucked. The saliva from his mouth had merged with her body fluids.
Her blood was blending with his.

Anais had made
a blood pact with a vampyre.

Strong fingers held her
throbbing hand.

Anais became
aware of the sense of the contact of a... tongue... licking and
then the feeling of lips touching her flesh as a mouth sucked, as a
firm tongue burned the cut, the sting too hot and bright on the
back of her hand. The pain of it had her gasp out loud. The
scorchingly hot sensation streaked lightning up her arm into her
shoulder until a stunning impact to her ribcage took her
breath.

She was aware
of a flash of white light behind her eyes.

A low voice
whispered deep in the dark recess of her mind,
'Mine.'

"Hurts," Anais
whispered as her eyes fluttered open. It took a few seconds for her
to focus on Marcus to read the worry and something that looked like
guilt in his dark eyes. Then she lifted her hand and stared at the
wound.

Her eyes flew
to his.

"Did you just
lick
my hand?"

And had she
just asked him that crazy question?

He didn't meet
her eyes as he lifted his hand and brushed back a wisp of hair from
her forehead.

"My saliva is
an antiseptic," Marcus assured her.

Anais found the
concept too much, too insane, to deal with.

"For all you
know I could have a disease."

The tip of his
tongue licked his bottom lip, as if tasting her.

And for some
reason Anais found the move terribly erotic, terribly arousing.

"Nope. Your
blood tastes just fine."

She simply
stared at him in complete shock. "I don't know what on earth has
got into you tonight." Her hand rose to her temple. '"What
happened?"

"A little earth
tremor."

She looked
around at the shattered glass, the men comforting sobbing
women.

"Little?" she
said in a voice of stunned disbelief.

"Can you
sit-up?"

Placing her
feet on the floor, every single bone in her body ached as Anais
realised she was missing a shoe.

"I've lost..."
A huge doorman dressed in black stepped forward, handed her the
missing shoe and the small evening bag she'd left on the restaurant
table. "Thank you."

Her hand shoved
back the heavy weight of her hair.

Marcus took her
purse, opened it and dropped her gold chopsticks inside.

"You're all in
one piece."

Still dazed,
she slid on her shoe and stared up into his face.

"Am I? I feel
as if I've been hit by a truck and flattened by a steamroller."

His wonderful
mouth curved.

He offered his
hand. "Are you able to stand?"

On legs that
felt like melted wax she held his hand for support, attempted to
rise and the room spun.

"Ooops," he
said. "Maybe not."

He scooped her
up in his arms as if she weighed nothing.

And since the
room was still spinning Anais dropped her head on his strong
shoulder and closed her eyes.

"Is she asleep?"

Back at the
hotel, Marcus turned to find James watching him carefully as he
handed him a glass of Scotch.

"Thanks." He
took a sip. The heat of the alcohol hit his gut. "Sound
asleep."

Marcus sank
onto a wide couch, closed his eyes and laid back his head.

God, what a
night.

"A vampyre, I
smelled it on her wound, attacked her in the ladies rest room. I
cannot believe one of our kind dared touch her." The blood stone
was supposed to protect her. The stone was a clear mark of
ownership. The niggling feeling he was out of his depth was a new
and unwelcome experience for a man who ruled his world with an iron
fist of intellect. A wave of utter weariness washed through him. He
was tired? When had he ever felt tired? Marcus turned his head and
opened his eyes to find his brother's brows lowered over anxious
eyes. "To be honest, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here,
James. I don't what I'm doing with her," he admitted the fact for
the first time.

"Tell me about
it," said James. "We think we're invincible but when we fall in
love..." He shook his head, took another sip of his whisky. "It's
seriously scary shit."

Eyeing his
brother through his lashes Marcus watched James sit on the couch
opposite and stretch out long powerful legs.

"Who said
anything about love? If this is what love does to me I don't want
it."

James sent him
what passed for a grin.

"Falling in
love is not a personal choice, you stupid bastard. So you admit it
then?"

Marcus shook
his head.

"I don't know
what it is. One kiss and it nearly sent me over the edge. All I
know is that when I thought she was hurt I've never felt anything
like that, panicked like that, in my entire life. Then when I
thought I'd lost her I just... I just went to pieces."

His vampyre
growled, a low dull rumble from the deepest recess in his mind.

And Marcus
begged it to please, please, give him a
fucking
break.

"I know the
feeling. I was right there, pal. I know the scene I witnessed was
more than a kiss." Now James sat upright and leaned his elbows on
his knees. Studying the liquid in his glass he spoke slowly and
with care, "Intimacy and negotiating a close relationship with the
woman who is our life mate is new territory for us. And I know
we're in the dark here, but you need to try to understand what is
happening to you. When your yearning is upon you, nothing matters
more than to make that woman yours. While they are human our women
are too vulnerable. We cannot unleash our vampyre, Marcus.
Charlotte holds my happiness, my heart, my soul, in her hands. And
she doesn't even know it. These days I'm terrified to touch her in
case I lose myself in her. Taking her vein will be dangerous and I
don't mind admitting I'm panic-stricken of the thought of something
going badly wrong. I cannot tell you how many times I've wished
those damned scrolls hadn't been lost and we knew what we're
dealing with."

Marcus could
get behind those feelings, especially after tonight.

Now he listened
to the voice of his vampyre.
'Anais is mine.'
He felt and
heard the pain of need in the voice and deep in the heart of the
beast within. Marcus Gillespie wasn't a man who dithered over a
decision. Once he made a choice he acted. And it was too late to
back down now. The taste of Anais still lingered at the back of his
throat and he wanted more. Much more. Knocking back his whisky in
one, he rose and eyed his brother.

"You and the
team can take over the negotiations with the Chinese delegation.
Anais needs plenty of rest because tomorrow she will meet her
destiny," he said in a voice that meant business.

James nodded,
his deep blue eyes serious.

"Saira Pattullo
and the medics arrived this evening, just in case the whole thing
goes pear shaped. Good luck."

Luck?

He didn't need
luck.

If he and Anais
were to get through the next twenty-four hours unscathed, Marcus
needed a miracle.

***

She'd slept too
deeply.

Through the
sheer curtains of her bedroom windows, the wintery sun was low in
the sky over the city of Shanghai. Anais lay warm and snug, safely
cocooned up to her nose under a down feather comforter. She
couldn't remember much about the journey back to their hotel last
night, or the trip in the elevator except that Marcus had held her
on his lap in the car and carried her into her bedroom. And
something about the heady scent of him as he'd held her in strong
arms made her feel utterly safe and secure. She had a vague memory
of him taking off her shoes and her dress before tucking her up
nice and tight. A couple of times during the night she'd been aware
of his hand gently touching her forehead as if to test for a fever.
Even now his scent surrounded her. It was everywhere. Dreams were a
wonderful escape from reality. For months Marcus had had the
starring role in her deepest imaginings. In her dreams he fell
truly, madly and deeply in love with her. In her dreams they
married and had children, three children, no more and no less, with
the prerequisite happy ever after.