Dark Passion Rising (12 page)

Rolling onto his side, he pulled her against him.  She lay
nestled close to him, her cheek resting against his wide chest.  Whatever the coming
hours brought, Tambra knew only that she loved Marcus and would do everything
in her power to stay at his side, where she knew she belonged.

Chapter Eleven

Marcus drank in the sight of Tambra curled against him.  He reached
out a hand and twirled a silky lock of her pale hair around his fingers.  Her
eyes were closed, her dark lashes feathered lightly against her pale skin.  Her
delicate features were relaxed in sleep.  She looked  young and innocent.  Her
beauty filled Marcus with warmth and something else, a feeling he had never
experienced in his long life.  

For a vampire, finding a perfect counterpart was very rare.  He
had heard many tales from others of his kind since he had turned, but, as he had
never met a vampire gifted with a Consort, he had no one who could advise him. 
What he did know, was that if the link he had just formed with Tambra was
denied, it could very well mean his death.

 But, as her heady blood flowed through his veins, he couldn’t
dredge up one ounce of regret.  He had tried to fight it, tried to stay away,
but bone deep, he knew he had only been buying time against the inevitable.  Now
he was bound to her, unable to take sustenance from any but her.  The idea of
taking blood from anyone else was revolting.  

He vowed to not let her know.  He needed her to come to him, by
her own choice or not at all.  Her Rising would tell what could be between
them.  A hollow ache spread out from Marcus’s chest at the thought of losing
her, his protective instincts surging through him at the thought of another man
holding her warm, pliant body as he did.

 He was so lost in his torment that he didn’t register the light
stroke of fingertips across his furrowed brow.  Not until hands turned his face
and he was left drowning in deep blue eyes, did he realized Tambra was awake
and had been watching him.

 “What has you so upset, Marcus?”

His name on her lips sent a savage thrill through him and he
closed his eyes, breathing through the intensity of his feelings.  He felt her
body shift on the bed.  Her legs straddled his hips, her warm feminine core
settling on his stomach.  His blood pooled between his legs, his cock jerking
to attention.  It didn’t matter that he had found his release only a short
while ago, he was hungry for her again.  He would always be.  

He opened his eyes and his breath caught at the sight she made.  Her
hair spilling over her face, her blue eyes as dark as a storm tossed sea.  Her bare
breasts brushed against his chest as she leaned over him.

 He pushed her hair over her shoulder, his fingers tracing over
the wound on her long, creamy neck.  He had put that there, marked her with his
teeth while losing himself within her tight folds.  He got even harder thinking
about it.  He cupped the back of Tambra’s head, pulling her close enough to
brush his lips against hers.  Her breath hitched for a second before her tongue
found his.  He groaned at the taste of her.

 “You’re going to be the death of me, woman,” Marcus growled as
he threw Tambra onto her back and covered her with his body.  

 “What a way to go,” she giggled, writhing suggestively against
his body, making his already hard cock throb.

 He couldn’t help but smile at her playful mood.  He couldn’t
remember when he had last felt so…content?  Complete?  
Happy
?  He had
nothing to compare this feeling to, everything was so new to him.  Fear
tightened in his gut at the thought of losing her.  Never knowing her smile, or
even the simple touch of her fingers against his skin again.  He took a shaky
breath, willing away the anguish brought on by that thought.  He would not
think of anything until the Rising.  Then the decision would be made for him.

 “Hey, what’s wrong?” Tambra frowned up at him.

 “I’m afraid I have made your life a bit more complicated,”
Marcus said.

 She snorted.  “Yeah, like it wasn’t already complicated?  Get
real.”

 She had a right to know what had just happened between them,
just a little censored.  He could do that much.

“What happened between us was very…special.”

 A blush rose in her cheeks as she smiled up at him shyly.

 He blew out a breath, closing his eyes against the temptation to
sink into her and lose himself within her tight channel.  He needed to explain
things to her before this went any further, but it was so damned hard with her
body stretched invitingly against him.  Reluctantly, he rolled off of her, onto
his side, propped his arm against the pillows, and looked down at her.

 “There is a connection between us now.  With the taking of your
body and blood you have become my Consort.  My other half.”

Her delicate brows pulled together in a frown of confusion.

“What do you mean ‘a connection’?”

“Now we share each other’s emotions, and can find one another no
matter the distance.”

“Is that what you mean by being a Consort?”

 “Not exactly.  I have little information on this.  It is a very
rare occurrence.  In fact, I have never in my life encountered any of our Breed
that had a Consort,” Marcus told her with a small smile.

 “And how old are you exactly?”

 “I was born in Thrace in the year 109 BC.”

 Tambra shot up in bed with a surprised gasp.  “That makes
you…you’re…no way can you be
that
old!”

 Marcus chuckled at her as she calculated in her head, her eyes
widened as she looked up at him with awe.

“You’re two-thousand years old!”

 “I’m afraid so,” he chuckled.

 “And in all that time you have never come across a Consort?”

“Never once,” he affirmed.  “Look, right now the connection between
us is weak.  I do not expect you to take my blood, you still can back out of
this if you so desire.  I will not force this on you in any way.  And, with
your Rising so close, I think it would be a very bad idea.”

 “What happens if I take your blood?  Do we even know for sure?”

He shook his head, sending one silky black lock of hair to fall
across his forehead.

“Stories state that once a bond is made the powers of the vampire
are stronger.  The sun will not tire him or weaken him.”

 Tambra was silent for a moment, taking in the information.  Then
she squared her shoulders.  She looked up at Marcus with determination.

 “Let’s do it.”

Marcus shook his head, ready to argue, but she placed a finger to
his lips.

“Look, I know how close I am to Rising and I don’t give a rat’s
ass what will happen.  The only thing I know for sure is that I want this,
Marcus, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”

“We don’t know if the process with harm you, what it will do to you
with your Rising so close, or even if we can successfully complete the binding.
 I have never heard of such a thing between Breeds.”

“You have never heard that it can’t be done either,” she
challenged.  “I want this, Marcus.
With you. 
Nothing will change that.”

Marcus stared in wonder at the miracle before him and was
humbled.  She was far too good for him and he knew it.  He should walk away.  Leave
her to a better fate than what he could offer, but he couldn’t find the
strength to leave.  

He loved her.

It crashed over him with the force of a freight train, leaving
him breathless as the sudden realization stunned him.  And because he loved her,
he knew he couldn’t finish the binding.  To do so would make him no better than
Fox.  He could not be so selfish to take her choice away from her.  Every cell
in his body screamed that she was his, wanted him to bind her tightly to him
and never let go.  The ache in his chest spread, making his whole body quake
with pain as he pulled away from her.  Already, he grieved the loss of her
warmth, the feel of her skin on his naked flesh.  Something must have shown on
his face because her eyes narrowed with determination, and her delicate jaw
tightened.

 
Oh Gods , no
! was all that he had time to register as she
lunged at him, impossibly quick for a human, but she wasn’t a human, not
anymore.  Her body slammed into his, knocking him back against the bed.  Her
blunt little teeth bit deeply into his shoulder before he could block her.  White
hot pain tore though his right shoulder and down his arm, he jerked away from
her, but not before she managed to take a few drops of his blood into her body.
 He watched her with a mixture of horror and pleasure as her pink tongue darted
out to lick his blood from her lips, a look of predatory satisfaction on her
features.

 “Why
?” he choked out.  “Why would you do this?”

 
“I knew you wouldn’t just let me,” she answered just
before her eyes grew large in her face.  His vision wavered, blackness
swallowing everything but a sliver of light.  Then it expanded to pin point
clarity.

Like a moving picture, he watched as Tambra stood at a gravesite. 
The wind blew her black skirt tight to her legs.  A single red rose was clutched
in her white knuckled hands.  Tears tracked down her cheeks, unchecked, as a
casket was lowered into the ground.  The scene shifted and Tambra was posing
for a photograph, her arms wrapped around her father as they smiled into the
camera. The image changed again to Tambra, an infant still in diapers, held in
the arms of a tall dark haired man of Hispanic decent.  He moved up the front
steps of an old house, where a much younger image of her father waited in the
doorway, a mixture of anxiety and anticipation on his broad, handsome face as
he looked at the man holding Tambra.

The man’s accent was thick as he spoke to Tambra’s father.

“She knows nothing about her parents, and I want it to remain
that way.  Do we have an agreement?”

“Yes, of course I will tell her nothing,” her father agreed
vehemently.

“Bueno, we have an understanding, and you, amigo, have a
daughter.  Remember, her diet is very precise.  Do not let her eat meat of any
kind.”

“Yes, yes I understand.  No meat,” her father agreed eagerly.

 “She is a very rare, precious child.”

 Marcus had no time to speculate on the man’s words before he was
thrown once again into another of Tambra’s memories.  A disjointed a flash of
claws, the sound of screams, a woman’s voice pleading not to take her baby.  A woman
who looked remarkably like Tambra, clutching her baby to her breast tightly.  It
was then he knew.

 With utter clarity he knew Tambra was Lycan.  A Pure Blood.  And
no matter how much he wished it, he had no place in her world.

****

At first Tambra saw only a blur of colors, hazy and indistinct,
then slowly they coalesced, sharpening on a boy no more than eleven.  His blue
black hair was tousled, a smudge of dirt on his smooth cheek.  His face was set
with grim determination as he faced off with what looked very much like a Roman
soldier.  

She was seeing Marcus as a child.  Her heart thudded in her
chest.  Even as a boy she could see the promise of the man he would become.  He
held a small child tightly in his arms, a girl no more than three.  Two young
boys, twins by the looks of them, stood aggressively on either side of Marcus.  It
was obvious to Tambra that these were his siblings.

The scene blurred.  Colors spun, then solidified, until she found
herself standing in the blood drenched sand of a Roman arena.  The shouts of
the crowd were deafening, flowers were being tossed to the feet of a gladiator,
his bloody sword raised in victory.  This was Marcus as she imagined him, the
warrior, savage but tender.       

Tambra felt herself ripped from the arena, thrown into another
time, crying out in horror as her stomach roiled with nausea at the sight of
Marcus’s battered body.  He swung limply from manacles chained to the stone
ceiling.  His head hung down, face obscured by the blue-black fall of hair, wet
with blood and sweat.  He had been whipped so severely that bone showed sickly
white in some areas of his back and torso.  His chest rose slowly, the rattle
of death clear in the silence of the cell.

The sound of keys turning in the lock drew her attention to the
door as it swung open, allowing the most beautiful woman Tambra had ever seen
to step through.  Gold silk clung to her curves and swirled around her long,
sandaled legs.  Her toffee colored skin shone in the low light of the single
candle she held up in one delicate hand.  Long black hair swept away from a
heart shaped face.  Her almond eyes were black and fathomless as she gazed at
Marcus.

 Slowly he raised his head in her direction and Tambra gasped at
the sight of his blind eyes and distorted face, swollen and discolored from so
many beatings.  The woman glided toward him as if she walked on air.  Stopping
a mere hand span away, she tilted her head up to study him.

“This life has treated you badly, Marcus Valerian of Thrace.  I
can give you release from this life and the beginning of a new one.”

 “And what would you have of me, Nadia?  I am of little use to
you as I am.  Give me death and end this now.”

Tambra’s heart twisted in her chest at the weak sound of Marcus’s
voice.

 “Foolish man!  I give you a place by my side.  You will rule the
night with me.” Nadia’s voice hardened.

 “How can a broken blind man rule?  I have nothing to offer.  I
trusted you and you betrayed me with your honeyed words,” he spat, breathing
labored with the effort.

 “I needed you unfettered by this life of yours.  The greatest
Hero of Rome?  Ha.  The puppet of Rome.  Did you really believe they would have
let you go free?  A Spartan?”

“My brothers, my sister, they must be freed.  Everything I have
done, everything I have endured is for them.”  His voice swelled with the
strength of his conviction.