Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) (31 page)

He moved so quickly I didn’t have time to
react until I felt his breath on my lips. His eyes were dark and I knew he
wanted me as much as I wanted him, but there was still caution in his eyes.
Waves of heat assaulted my insides. He was so close I could imagine what would
come next: his lips on mine. I imagined his arms were around me. One of his
hands around my thigh as the other caressed my back. The dream began
resurfacing in my mind.

It was almost like he had seven hands
with the speed of them. They felt every inch of my exposed skin and even crept
under pieces of clothing to the not so exposed skin. I wasn’t holding back much
either as I grabbed handfuls of his t-shirt, forcing it up as far as I could
get it. I ran my palms up and down his stomach countless times. His lips were
demanding but soft against mine, and as I wrapped my arms and legs around him
molding my body into his, he leaned further into me, pushing me back toward
the…

Every nerve ending in my body was on fire from
the thought. I saw all of it as if it was really happening, but the look in his
eyes now was telling me I wasn’t going to get what I wanted so easily.

He held his ground, his hands in fists on
the counter on either side of me, suspicion in his eyes. He wouldn’t touch me
now. I could see the resolution on his face. Although the hard set of his jaw
and burning eyes told me he was having a very difficult time with it, he was
still in control.

His proximity made me falter and one of my
hands slipped out from under me. Before I could catch myself, his arms were
around me to support me as he gently lifted me up to a more upright sitting
position. I felt vulnerable and stupid for thinking I could just seduce him to
get what I wanted. I felt so ashamed. He backed away to study me.

 “What are you doing, Lucy?” he asked again,
his voice barely constraining his desire. “And no bullshit.”

“I need to ask you something.”

“Okay, is this why you were camped out in my
room? Because you needed to ask me something? What is it?”

“I’m not good with things like subtlety or
tact, so I’m just going to go ahead and say it,” I said in the most serious
tone I could manage while I tried to calm my breathing.

He looked at me expectantly, so I just went
for it. “I want you to kill me.”

I used to wish for death, knowing it might
never come. It would be a lie if I said I never contemplated suicide, but I
never actually tried it knowing it wasn’t possible. It may seem like the
cowardly thing to do, but for me it was never about that. It was what I had
coming to me. It was the main reason behind the reckless behavior, because deep
down I think I hoped to meet my match one day, a vampire that could actually
lead to my demise. It would have been an honorable way to go if I went down fighting,
but the natural survival instincts in me were too strong. No matter how great
the desire to join my family, my self-sufficiency was greater. My death wish
might have been what got me into a lot of fights, but my survival instincts
kept me fighting.

Now, I had finally met my match. Gavin could
take me, and I wouldn’t be able to save myself. Plus, he could make sure I
wouldn’t feed and go through the transformation. It would be the only sure way
to keep me from becoming an evil monster.

I knew I could leave my work in good hands.
He can do my job better than I ever could. I know humankind would be safe in
his hands.

I watched his face go through several
emotions as he mulled over what I said. “So that’s what this is all about?” he
asked shocked. His voice was rising, and I never guessed his hot temper could
ever rival my own. I saw the intensity of his anger grow slowly while waiting
for the reaction to follow. Moving back on the counter, I wanted to get out of
range of the explosion when it happened. His hands curled tight around my
thighs to hold me in place. “After everything, you just want to give up!” he
shouted.

“It’s not about giving up. For the longest
time I thought I was the only one that could put a stop to all the killing and
the evil, but I realize now, that you can do that better than I ever could. I
always felt guilty for bringing pain and suffering to others for getting close
to them and bringing my evil into their lives. I felt guilty for not being
enough to save them all, so I deserve the same fate as the victims I couldn’t
save. And you are the only one that can deliver that fate to me,” I said as
levelly as possible. I wanted him to take me seriously, but I felt that
defensiveness that comes naturally when being attacked begin to well up inside
me.

He stared at me a long moment with pursed
lips and a tense jaw before he was calm enough to speak. When he did, it was
with a strained voice. “Dying is not your destiny. I know that you put every vampire-related
fatality on your conscious, but blaming yourself, or dying is no way to atone
for theirs deaths. You’re not honoring or respecting their lives by quitting
your own life. What about all the lives you have saved? Or the lives you could
save in the future? Not every life you touch is ruined or automatically doomed.
They still need you, more than you know.”

And just like that, he answered me without
really answering me. It was really starting to bug me that he would impart some
of that annoying all-knowing wisdom but at the same time, reveal that he knew
something about me that he wasn’t telling. It made sense but also left me with
a big question mark hovering over my head. I didn’t know what it was he wasn’t
telling me, but it made me wonder. Why all the secrecy?

Maybe it was something so bad he knew I
would hate myself that much more if I knew. There was no way I could deal with
any more deaths at my hand, and I had a feeling my future involved a great deal
of death if I stayed alive, or rather, became undead. No. I couldn’t risk it.
His refusal only set me off. My temper flared to match his previous outburst.

“Didn’t I just say that you could save them?
Why the hell do you want to keep me alive anyway? The last time I checked, you
are a vampire. So what am I to you?” I shouted, shoving against him, forcing
him back.

I jumped off the island to charge him. He
backed into the opposite counter, bumping the pan of frying bacon, which
splashed hot grease onto his bare arm. He cringed and looked away closing his
eyes. When he looked back, his eyes seemed brighter, and there was a wildness
in them I was beginning to understand very well. I watched the burn marks fade
back to normal skin color.

“You have no idea what you’re asking of me!”
he yelled back.

“I’m asking you to end it, so I can’t hurt anyone
anymore!” I screamed, and before I could stop myself I was nailing him right in
the nose with a right hook. The astonished look on his face told me he didn’t
even see that one coming. There was also fear there, probably for what I was
becoming, but I thought I glimpsed pride. I didn’t stop to contemplate it. I
seized this opportunity to knock some sense into him, or just piss him off
enough so he’d at least consider killing me.

I landed another punch before he stopped my
other fist in its track. As I threw the other, he grabbed it in midair and he
spun me around pinning me against the range with his body. As he loosened his
grip, I ripped my hand free and reached for the nearest pan. When I found one,
I gripped the handle and thrust it at his head. It hit with a loud knock
against his thick skull.

“Come on! Fight me!” I shouted. I kicked his
abdomen sending him into the island.

As I came at him, he grabbed the tops of my
arms and flung me over the countertop toward the living area using my own
momentum against me. Before I could right myself he was there. I punched him,
and he shoved me hard against the back of the sofa. Losing balance, I stumbled
into it causing me to topple over it and into the newly-replenished coffee
table. I tried standing, but he was already there, lifting me off the floor,
only to slam me back down on the heavy wood table, shattering it, once again,
into several splinters.

Ouch. I mean YES, this is it
.

He grabbed a handful of my t-shirt and
fisted it as he lifted me back up so that my face was an inch from his. When he
spoke, his voice was hushed but lethal. “Let me make myself very clear. I am
not, nor will I ever, kill you. You are entirely too important.”

There it was again. “Important? Important to
you? What aren’t you telling me?” I screamed at his face. “It’s bad isn’t it?
Is that why you won’t tell me anything about me, because I’m destined to kill?
Is that why you want to save me, so I can become this evil weapon or
something?”

“You’re completely off base,” he said
levelly. “You’re not ready for the whole story. Trust me.”

“I don’t,” I spat back at him.

“Exactly,” he said.

Whatever that meant. “Well, if you won’t
kill me-”

“You know I won’t,” he said, cutting me off.

“-Then, I’m going hunting.”

“You are definitely not in the right state
of mind to hunt.”

“I’m going!”

“So you can go out and get yourself killed
on purpose? I don’t think so,” he said with finality. He crossed his arms to
show he wasn’t budging on this one.

“What am I, your prisoner? You’re not going
to keep me from killing vampires if you won’t kill me. I might as well make
myself as useful as possible if I’m still alive.”

“I can stop you and I will. You’re not going
hunting, not like this. With your mind frame, you’re likely to get yourself
caught and end up
someone’s
prisoner, and I guarantee they won’t be as
hospitable as me.”

I was beyond furious, but I knew better than
to keep arguing with him when he was in protective mode. It was useless. I
wasn’t about to argue that he was wrong. He was right. Staying in would be
safer for me, but I could care less about what happened to me. That was the
difference. For some reason, he did care. Deep down, like he said, I knew he
wouldn’t kill me. It was a feeble attempt from the start, but I had to try.

So I took the high road and decided to let
him win the argument, and I grasped for the most mature response I could think
of. “I hate you.”

It was the best I could do while I was still
fuming from the argument. I left him with that as I turned to go back to my
guest bedroom to watch TV.

“You didn’t seem to hate me so much when you
were trying to seduce me into killing you,” he called back to me.

I ignored the comment knowing it would just
result into another twenty minute argument if I said anything. If I didn’t know
any better I would say he taunted me like that just so I would argue with him.
He really loves a challenge.

As I passed the kitchen, I looked at the
island where the alleged seduction took place. The peppers were still there,
ready to be chopped, and the food on the stove was beginning to hiss as it
burned in the pans. There were scrambled eggs scattered over the hardwood floor
and up and down the counters from the pan I hit Gavin with.

I slammed my door with a little more force
than necessary, but that man just made me so irate, I couldn’t help how I
reacted. After about twenty minutes of lounging around on my bed watching television,
there was a knock on my door.

I flung it open ready to lay into him again
but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the big cart with a tray of breakfast
foods spread across it. I nearly crashed into it in my rampage, but my bad mood
quickly dissipated after smelling the amazing aroma. My stomach was twisting
itself in knots. I was famished, so I took the tray greedily and shut the door
again.

With a full belly and nothing on TV, I was
growing restless. A sedentary kind of lifestyle was not for me, and it drove me
crazy to sit around and do nothing. I had to get out of here. I turned down the
volume on the television and waited for the right moment to make my escape. It
was another half hour before that moment came. I heard the shower turn on in
the other room and gave it a few seconds before I was sure he was completely
indisposed.

I slipped out of my room and down the hall
as quietly as possible then out the door. When I hit the stairwell, I took off
in a full sprint down the stairs. I made it to the first floor without
problems, but as I took off down the corridor that led to the main lobby, I
began to get a little nervous, looking behind me like a fugitive on the run.
Everything behind me seemed quiet and calm, but before I turned my head back
around,
smack
! I slammed right into a solid form that shouldn’t have
been there in the middle of the hall. It sent me hurdling backward, and I
peered up from my now seated position to see a half-naked, wet, and very pissed
off vampire.

“How the hell did you…?” I asked, trailing
off. Was there another staircase in this building, because there was no way the
elevator could have beat me down the stairs. The only way he could have beaten
me down was if there was another set of stairs or if he… jumped.

Vamps couldn’t fly, but they could jump.
Most wouldn’t attempt a jump from a freaking skyscraper due to the risk of
unnecessary injury. They could heal, but the worse the injury was, the harder
it was for them to heal and the more blood they would need to consume to do so.
I guess I could see the connection now between that and myself. I didn’t want
to see it before.

Looking at his perfectly unharmed body, it
didn’t seem like he could have jumped from such a height, unless he had the
strength and the ability to heal in seconds. My head was reeling as I tried
processing this.

“I told you you’re not hunting tonight,” he
said sternly as he reached down and pulled me up and over his shoulder with
ease. He held both my legs to his chest so I couldn’t budge them.

“Are you serious?” I asked incredulously.
“You’re really going to carry me like this all the way back to your loft?”

“No, we’re taking the elevator,” he
responded.

He carried me out to the edge of the hallway
where it opened to the main lobby. There were already people waiting on the
elevator. I couldn’t see their faces, only their shoes, but I was positive they
were giving us strange looks. To make matters more embarrassing, Gavin decided
to make small talk with them.

“Hi, how are you folks this evening?” he
asked them, completely cordial. The composed and gentlemanly manner combined
with the sight of us in a not-so-composed scene threw them off, because they
didn’t say anything back.

When the doors opened with a low ding from
the bell, he paused to let them in first and then stepped in after them.
Although I wasn’t complaining about the view from behind him, or rather, the
view of his behind, I was grateful when he slid me off his shoulder onto my
feet when the doors closed.

Then, I saw the looks on the older couple’s
faces. They were probably in their mid-thirties, and they were looking at us
with barely concealed smiles on their faces. They were looking at us like we
were a young couple, unable to keep our hands off each other. I wanted to tell
them just how wrong they had it, but that would have taken a lot of convincing,
and I didn’t have much arguing left in me.

We were stuck there with them surrounded by
all that awkward tension. Gavin seemed to find it amusing. I didn’t see the
humor in it. He even played it up by putting an arm around me pulling me close
to his side and leaning down to plant several fake sweet kisses on my forehead,
my cheek, my nose. I ignored my traitorous heart doing backflips from the
display of affection. I was dangerously close to causing a scene that would
undoubtedly make these people suspicious. I didn’t want to do anything to
remind them of the girl on the news who was suspected of murder, but Gavin knew
just how to push my buttons. He knew I was hating this. It was like added
punishment for trying to sneak out.

I tried subtly pushing him away every chance
I got, but he wormed his way around to stand behind me and wrap both arms
tightly around my chest. It was a way to keep me close so I couldn’t bolt the
second the doors opened without attracting any unwanted or negative attention
from people. I peered over at the couple who were still smiling but otherwise
oblivious to what was really going on.