Marked: a Vampire Romance (12 page)

The sun wasn’t warm on his skin. He’d spent so many years trying to remember what the sun felt like that he’d forgotten that the chill in the morning air could knock out the yellow warmth.

He stood out on the driveway next to Lily and Charlie, who he hadn’t actually been introduced to yet. They all stood in silence as the ambulance carried Gold and her mother away. Once it was out of sight, he tilted his head up, letting the light pour over him.

Adam didn’t understand it. It was at least a half hour past sunrise and he should have been dead. Okano was centuries younger and he’d burnt to a crisp in seconds. Light sensitivity only got worse with age.

But here he was.

“Are you going to catch fire?” Lily asked. Her voice was higher than Gold’s and possessed a strain of youthful curiosity and defiance.

Was he? Adam turned and studied the two children. Lily was the younger one, but the boy, Charlie, couldn’t have been much older. They were both eying him skeptically. “I’m not sure,” he finally answered. “So let’s get inside.”

The kids didn’t seem to like the idea. Charlie’s jaw had a hard set to it. He’d bring the matches if Adam looked at him the wrong way. Lily was more conflicted. After all, he’d just helped to save her life.

The Jones children turned to each other and started to bicker. Adam tuned it out. There were times to eavesdrop and times to let it lie. Rarely was listening to teenagers argue worth his time. It took them a few minutes, but Adam was in no hurry.

As the sun rose higher, it started to warm up, the rays of light falling against his skin. He held up his hand, fingers splayed, and waved it in and out of the light, caught between the shadow of the house and the open daylight.

“You can come in,” Lily finally said to him and led him inside. He didn't tell her that Gold had already issued the invitation. “It’s probably safest for you in the basement. There’s books and stuff down there.” She none too subtly stepped to the side so that he wasn’t completely behind her. He’d seen where Gold had gone earlier to fetch Charlie and figured he would be prodded in the same direction.

He was.

They came to a thick door beside the entrance to the kitchen. Lily opened it and gestured for him to enter. It was dark and he could barely make out the bottom of the stairs, but he saw a string hanging down from the ceiling. A light.

If he’d heard three weeks ago that he’d willingly enter a vampire hunter’s house and let her kid sister lead him to their basement, he would have laughed. And yet, Adam stepped on the first stair and then the second. On the third, he could reach the light.

As he pulled on the string, the door slammed shut behind him and a lock slid into place. A moment later he heard something heavy fall against the door.

The kid had locked him in. Smart.

“Hey, Lily?” he asked, mostly to see if she was willing to talk to him. He could hear her breathing on the other side of the door.

“Yeah?”

“If I’d meant you harm, that would have never worked.”

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “You’re a vampire, like I’m going to let you just hang out around my cousin.”

Her cousin? Was there a connection there? It had been common enough in his day, but Americans seemed to frown on it. But no, he realized. The connection wasn’t romantic.

Lily was Charlie's protector, despite the fact that she was younger. Charlie had hidden himself away in a panic room while Ms. Jones and Lily tried to fight off Okano. It was only the women of the Jones family who were the hunters, not the men.

Interesting.

He left Lily to guard the door, though he was tempted to ram into it a few times to test the strength. But he’d be well behaved. For now. Exhaustion seeped into his bones. The sun may not have burned him, but he normally slept now. Adding the excitement of the fight had wrung him dry.

Adam found the bathroom and spent a few minutes washing off the dirt and mud from the day before. There was also a laundry room with spare clothes, probably from Charlie. It was only fair for him to take a pair of sweats and a shirt after they’d locked him down here.

He found a shabby couch in front of an old TV. He laid down and slept.

Hours later, he woke to the sound of footsteps running around above him.

He didn’t know what time it was, but he didn’t think that he’d slept for more than a few hours. The couch was surprisingly comfortable, though there was a slight crick in his neck once he sat up. He considered seeing if the kids would let him out, but decided against it. Gold would come back by nightfall and he could be patient.

He only had forever.

His first instinct was to worry for her, but he was sure that she was all right. He could feel it. If he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the beeping of hospital equipment and the announcements over the loudspeakers that Gold heard from wherever she sat. He wanted to be there for her, to comfort her as she faced both her mother’s injury and her censure.

But to do so he’d need to threaten her family. No doubt she would not appreciate that. So he’d wait for one day. And if they didn’t let him out then, well, he’d find a way.

There wasn’t a remote for the television, and when he pressed the buttons to turn it on, nothing happened. Apparently it had been moved to the basement because it was broken.

One form of entertainment a bust, he got up and began to look around. Further into the basement there was a small office with impeccably kept shelves. Some of them were glass fronted to guard against damage from the basement’s moisture. There were hundreds of books in the room, maybe thousands. And they ranged from normal histories and novels, books on science and religion, to handwritten journals with covers faded until they were almost impossible to read.

He was about to pick up one of the regular books when a journal on the table in the middle of the room fell to the floor. He picked it up and flipped it open.

Latin.

Really bad Latin, actually.

The page he was reading was nearly unintelligible. Whoever had written the text hadn’t been educated in Latin. They could probably stumble through a text or two, but when it came to writing, it was a disaster. He was about to close it when his eyes fell on the words
nota sanguinem
. Blood note or blood mark. The grammar was off, but he caught the meaning.

Adam pulled out the chair at the table and sat down. He kept reading.

The Tylenol wasn’t doing anything for her wrist, but Gold had refused anything stronger. She hadn't explained where the other cuts came from, but nothing was as serious as the broken wrist and luckily for her, the hospital was too busy for the doctors to spend too much time on a patient who didn't want more treatment. She'd refused to let them admit her to the hospital, so her wrist was splinted and she was given Tylenol and orders to follow up with her regular doctor if the pain worsened.

It had. But Gold could ignore it. If this was the cost of a miracle, she’d gladly take it.

Her mom was going to live. Not only that, the injuries had not been nearly as bad as they’d seemed. After a blood transfusion and stitches, she was ready to go home, though under strict orders to remain in bed for the next week.

Charlie had come to pick them up from the hospital. He hadn’t said anything about Adam and she was afraid to ask. Not with her mom sitting right beside her.

Her mom looked over at her and reached for her hand. Gold clasped it. “I want you to be happy, baby,” said her mom.

Gold smiled, but there was something bittersweet in it. “I know.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

Gold had told her earlier that they’d all survived, including Adam. And she’d tried not to read into it when her mom looked disappointed at that. But she wasn’t going to kill him. She refused.

They made it the rest of the way home in silence. Once there, Charlie and Gold helped her mom into her bedroom and Gold got her ready for bed. She placed a bottle of painkillers on the bedside table. “You can have one now,” she said, “And one in eight hours. They’re going to make you sleepy.”

Her mother took the pill and laid down. Gold stayed by her until she fell asleep.

The second her mom’s breathing evened out, she was out of the room like a shot, looking for Adam. She wasn’t surprised that he’d stayed out of her mother’s path, but she had expected him to be around
somewhere
.

And then she saw the bar on the basement door.

“Lily!” she yelled. Her sister remained wisely absent.

With her broken wrist, it took a little work to lift the heavy bar from the basement door. Then she unflicked the lock and opened it. The light was on downstairs, and everything looked in the same condition she’d left it in.

She walked down the stairs.

Adam had ensconced himself in the study. Surrounded by the tomes of her ancestors, he looked like a professor entranced with his work. Seeing him sitting there, healthy, alive, and beautiful as ever, the knot in her chest eased and her shoulders sagged as the tension released.

Just looking at him, she couldn’t help but smile. “Hey.”

He looked up and his grin was identical to her own. “Hey. How is everything?” He reached out a hand for her and she took it, coming around the table and sitting in his lap.

Gold hooked an arm around his shoulders and let her fingers play with his hair. At some point he’d found the bathroom in the basement and washed himself off. He smelled like soap and Adam. A perfect combination.

She held up her wrist. “I’m broken.”

He kissed the fingers which were sticking out from the splint. “I’ll keep you anyway.” He swirled his tongue around the tips of her index finger and Gold’s insides curled. But then he pulled back. “And your mom?”

“She’s good. Better than good.” She’d been thinking about it all day. There was no natural way that her mother could have made it. She’d been on death’s doorstep. “Did you do something to help her?” It was the only thing she could think of.

Adam let out a breath. “I did.” He was completely neutral, as if he wasn't sure what her reaction would be.

Gold kissed him. “Thank you,” she said against his lips. “I love you.” Now that she’d told him, she couldn’t stop saying it.

His lips followed her and he kissed her back. “I’ve been thinking of you all day,” he whispered. His hand traced against her side, light enough to make her shiver.

“I’m sorry Lily locked you down here. I’ll talk to her.” She was stuck between being proud of her sister’s decision and annoyed.

“It’s okay. I got to catch up on some reading. I found some very interesting stuff.” He reached over and grabbed for one of the journals.

Gold looked down and her eyes widened, “That one? No one can read it.” Every huntress tried, but gave it up when the task of mastering the wretched Latin proved too much. Life was way too short. Many years before there'd been a translation, but it had been lost in a fire more than a century before.

Adam, it seemed, already had the required language skills to read it. “The Latin's crap, and my translation is probably not perfect, but I got the gist of it.” He brushed his hand gently against the mark on her arm which was mostly covered by the brace. “The marks, they're not a death sentence. Or rather, they don't have to be.”

“What?” She and her mother had scoured through half of the huntress diaries in this room. And the answer had been in a text they hadn’t even thought to tackle?

Adam pulled a notebook forward. It was covered in his neat handwriting. He read his translation. “
When the blood of the huntress runs within the veins of the demon, and the huntress owns the demon's heart, then he shall be purified. So long as they remain…
” He took a breath and set the notebook down. “Okay it goes on and on here. Point is—”

“It's binding us together.”

“Yes.” He placed her hand on his heart. “Souls entwined.”

“And purified? What does that mean? Is that just the sun? Or… I'm still confused.” She wanted to snatch this little offering of hope and cling to it forever. At the same time, she wanted an exhaustive dissertation on what
exactly
this binding meant.

He brushed his fingers against her cheek, eyes bright with excitement. “I’m still translating. But we have time. So long as we’re together, there’s time.” He kissed her quickly. “You own my heart, Gold. And my body and soul. It's yours. Until my dying day and beyond.”

“I'm still a huntress,” she whispered, toying with his shirt.

“I know.” He placed his hand over hers.

“So we'll figure out the rest, right?”

“Yes.” He sounded so confident that hope blossomed.

“I love you. I choose you, even if it means…” Anything. It could mean anything and she’d still choose him.

“It doesn't. We have our lives, whole, long lives. And we're going to find out what that means. Together.” He kissed her again, and when he pulled back, Gold leaned over him and kissed him back.

“I love you,” she said again.

“I love you, too.” He couldn’t get enough of saying it either. Gold wrapped her arms tight around him and laid her head down on his shoulder.

They were together. They were safe. They were bound.