Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr)

WAITING FOR DARKNESS

BY FIONN JAMESON

FIONN JAMESON © 2007 - 2013

Copyright ©
2007 - 2013

by
Fionn Jameson

Cover art © Sexy Book Covers 2012

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS THE BLOOD MARTYR CHAPTER SERIES

BY FREYA'S BOWER

All rights r
eserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the writer, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Warning:

This book
contains graphic sexual material and/or profanity and is not meant to be read by any person under the age of 18.

DEDICATION
S

.:.

For Sandpresso
,

You don't exist anymore, but you had the best sandwiches and coffee.

Quite frankly, your bathroom sucked, but you can't have it all, right?

David,

Well. Here is it.

Just fifty more to go until I can buy you that beach house.

PROLOGUE

“
And when the beginning of the end comes, tell me, my love. Will you still be there with me?”

             
"Don't leave me. I love you. You make me feel things I never knew I could feel.

Please..."

              His hands tugged at mine, and I had to push them, him, away.

             
I hated it when things got like this.

             
Why did humans feel this need to belong to someone, to have someone to call their own? What was the point? All it did was tie them down. Why did they have to feel this way?

             
I was human too. Once.

             
But even I never felt such a way.

             
Or maybe I had.

             
It's hard to remember five hundred years back.

             
Either way, the boy was trying my patience, and I never had much of that to begin with.

             
I didn't even know his name.

             
But he was beautiful with his dyed black hair and a strangely appealing smile I couldn't seem to forget.

             
I met him at Club Dragonne. He flashed plastic fangs at me, the darkness of his hair turning almost blue in the rave lights, and I knew I had to make him mine.

             
Had to possess him.

             
Had to have him.

             
It was almost pathetic, how easy I ensnared him. All I had to do was hold out my hand, smile, let him see my real fangs, and he was lost. He reached out for my hand and I felt the warm throb of his pulse.

             
I have to admit. I fell a bit in love with him.

             
But that's how it is with every man.

             
And in the end, they turn into sniveling worms without even an ounce of dignity or honor.

             
The men of this century have grown terribly soft. Back when I was still a human, men were killed if they showed this sort of softness they so freely flaunt in the twenty-first century.

             
Of course, things were different back then.

             
Back then.

             
When I wasn't...

             
A vampire.

CHAPTER ONE

For even humans know the value of true love and that it cannot be sold, nor bought. Some might even argue it is far more precious than time. After all, everyone once had time...but not everyone had love...

- St. Augustus the Thir
d

"Don't go yet."

His eyes opened languorously, and once again, I found myself falling deeper into the cerulean blue of his eyes. Of all the human men I brought to my home, to my bed, he was easily one of the most enchanting. I was still trying to figur
e out why he was so intriguing. He was a mystery I wanted to solve. "It's still only an hour past sunset. It wouldn't hurt to spend just a little more time with me."

Kieran.

He said it was his name. I had doubts, but then again, it hadn't mattered twelve hours ago. I thought he'd be an easy catch, that by this time he would be completely gone from my mind. The fact he was still here...did not bode well.

He traced the two neat puncture marks on his neck. "I know I can keep you satisfied."

The pale blue silk sheets fell to his hips as he levered himself up to a sitting position in the monstrosity some open-minded people might call a bed. I had to force myself to look away. Rare was it for a human man to hold me under his spell for more than a few hours in the night. I'd just spent the last twelve hours with him. Jesus, it was disconcerting. I couldn't remember the last time such a thing had transpired.

But I couldn't let him know that. After all, I had the power here. Not him. He was just a weak human. I was
a vampire, older than most people could comprehend.

He belonged to me.

"Tanith?" he prompted. "I can, can't I?"

"Perhaps." I clasped the tight-fitting collar around my neck and adjusted the leather jacket that clung in all the right places.

It was time to reinstate the power here. I was dominant, he was submissive. I'd always been the top in any relationship, pseudo-relationship. Things were not about to change just because I found myself growing enthralled by a pair of sky blue eyes with a body any woman would kill to put in their bed.

And between her legs.

Grabbing his neck, I pulled him toward me, almost off the bed, and onto the hardwood floors.

"You're mine. You do what I say. You listen only to me." I saw my reflection in those eyes, those eyes s
teadily driving me insane. "If I tell you to fuck me, then you fuck me. If I tell you to lick my shoes, then you do it. Don't forget it...if you care to see another sunrise."

His pulse beat madly under my palm. I relished it. Fear was the most powerful aph
rodisiac for me.

But stupid bravery made me want to lash out.

His smile cut into me like a serrated, poisoned blade.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I know."

Good god. Did he not understand the situation?

"Shut up. Don't you know I could kill you right now?" I ask
ed, lips on top of his. I wanted to kiss him, kiss his so badly my body shook from the urge.

"I know," he repeated.

Get away.

I had to get away.

Had to leave and clear my head before I did something I'd regret. "How would you like it if I laid you completely bare...if I gorged myself on your blood...and watched you die? Do you think you'll still be smiling?"

I was being deliberately cruel. I didn't think I'd ever acted like this before. Then again, every other man would've started crying.

But not Kieran.

He matched my words, tempo for tempo, breath for breath.

"So? If you're the one who kills me, then I won't mind. I have no other desire but to please you. If my death makes you happy, then do it." His hands closed around mine. "If you want to strangle me, then do it. I'm not going to stop you."

This was a first. By this time, men would be running for the door.

Where did he get his courage from?

"Why aren't you afraid of me?" I asked, genuinely curious.

What a silly question to ask, and certainly not one I asked before.

Eyes closed, he leaned towards me, the scent of snow and evergreens wrapping around me like a mantle. "No. Should I be?"

"I could kill you. But you make it sound like a reward."

He couldn't possibly be serious.

He laid his cheek against mine, breath warm on my ear, bringing forth shivers that rode down my back.

"You won't." He laughed a bit and just that slight sound was enough to make me want to lay my body against his, just this one more time. "You see...I know you, Tanith. I've known
you for a very long time."

Before I could react, he moved his hands away, only to clamp them around my waist, pulling me down to the bed with a strength a human man could not, should not possess.

I struggled. Fought against his hold, but ended up getting more and more tangled in the sheets that had covered him five seconds ago. He threw me onto my back, and I gasped, the breath leaving my body, and when he stared down at me, panic begin to claw up my throat.

He grinned, eyes glowing with a feral light I t
hought I recognized.

"Who are you?" I sounded calm, almost ridiculously so, but on the inside, I was jumping, trying to fly in all directions at once.

"I told you at the club. My name's Kieran. I wasn't lying about that, you know." His voice ran over my skin, almost as though he touched me, and it sped the pulse in my head, reminding me that I needed to feed. Soon.

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it." I stopped fighting. There was no point; clearly, I was the weaker one. I could knock ove
r a thirty-foot tree with a single blow, but I couldn't throw him off.

Whatever he was, he sure as hell wasn't human.

Disgust coiled in the pit of my stomach.

How had I been fooled?

"Ah...wouldn't you like to know?" He ground himself against me, wrenching a cry from my throat. Even though I was wearing leather pants, I still felt the hardness of him as if I was completely bare.