The Mark (Interracial Paranormal Romance) (Toil and Trouble) (3 page)

I shrugged, tying my coat with a flourish. “I’m 21. I’m in the prime of my life. Hell, when Mom was my age, she’d go weeks without sleeping and she turned out just fine.” As soon as the words came out I knew how ridiculous they sounded. My mother only left her house to go grocery shopping and even then she was a nervous wreck.

“Really?” Jack said, raising an eyebrow. “She’s fine, huh? This the same dysfunctional mom that you avoid like the plague?”

I unwrapped myself from his arms and sunk into a patio chair. “I don’t avoid my mother.”

“Ah,” he breathed. “So your whole ‘Tell her I’m busy’ sign language thing you do every time she calls--you’re secretly communicating that you want to talk to her?”

“Devilish good looks and free therapy,” he winked. “And I’m killer in the sack.” Which was mostly true. Before I could shoot a snarky reply, he held up his hands, his green eyes softening. “Truce?”

I chuckled, cocking my head at the chair beside me. “Pop a squat.”

“So how was work?” he asked, stretching his lean arms above his head.

“Riveting,” I said, stubbing out the last of my cigarette. I could still see the white hot fury on Melissa Brooks’ face. I had a feeling that if it were possible to bring her husband back and kill him herself, she’d be game. “The wife doused the guy with salt. Pretty amusing.”

“Significantly less than 5.5 million dollars,” I laughed. I had no idea how much my boss charged for consultations and I didn’t have the cajones to ask.

As sketchy as my work could be at times, I really couldn’t complain. My abilities as a witch kept me from doing well in school, making any real friends, and maintaining any sort of romantic relationship. For someone without a college degree, it was either the service industry or honing my talents and making pretty good money with NACA. I went with option B.

“Maybe you should consider contracting,” Jack said, staring out into the night.

“Yeah,” I snorted. “And when the Watchers comes knocking, who’s gonna answer?”

The Watchers did just that…watched all supernatural beings and specials (humans that had magical/supernatural abilities). They’re like the supernatural CIA. They ensured that the Dick and Jane didn’t go blabbing to CNN about Fido shifting into a sultry woman and seducing their sixteen year old son. They also enforced the supernatural laws that kept me from setting up shop on my own and vampires like Jack from snacking on whomever they pleased. Accidents happened of course (see: Sherry Jackson), but whoever tripped up was summarily taken care of.

There were ways around the Watchers general closed lip about the supernatural world…NACA advertised on TV for crissakes. Most rational, thinking humans shrugged it off as a scam, and any that dug too deep suddenly had really selective amnesia.

Jack puffed out his chest a bit. “I’ve got connections too, you know.”

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Vampires only reign supreme in Twilight. Besides, you’re what? 310?” Give or take a couple dozen years. Jack was turned when he was 24, and vampires usually don’t count their human years unless they’re feeling nostalgic. “The Watchers would eat you alive, babe.”

“But now you’re just another supernatural being,” I continued with a devilish grin. “You kowtow to the Watchers just like every other thing that goes bump in the night.”

I gasped as he moved quicker than my human eyes could see, pushing me against the railing. I stood on my tiptoes, my back arched as he pressed his body to mine. I felt the curve of his erection raging against me. “You’ll talk to me with some respect, human.”

I leaned in close, my mouth inches from his. “Who’s gonna make me?”

His lips quivered with desire. We knew this game all too well. He’d threaten to kill me, I’d call his bluff. The thought of him feeding on me made my body tremble with longing. I wanted to feel his teeth rip into the tender meat of my neck. I wanted to be that close to him, to become a part of him.

I watched as his canines elongated, shimmering in the moonlight. I could feel how much he wanted me-it burned in his thoughts, in his touch.

As his lips brushed my neck, I let out a small moan of pleasure. I felt the warm throbbing at the heart of me as his thick desire hardened, pressing through my thin nightgown.

“Such beautiful skin,” he murmured, his body muscled and powerful against me. “My little ebony witch.”

Usually his pet name for me would make me roll my eyes, but I found it endearing. Hot. My breath came in stuttering gasps as I looked at our skin crashing into each other, his luminescent, mine dark and glittering. Ebony and ivory. Witch and a vampire.

I pushed aside the consequences. So what if he would be driven mad and drink me until my body was dry? Who cares if I became a succubus, cursed for giving into my forbidden desire? Right now, all I could think about was pushing him to the floor of the patio and screwing his brains out.

I nuzzled him, lost in the waves of passion that threatened to consume us both. "Do it," I whispered. “Bite me.”

He denied me, instead, sweeping me in his arm in a hurricane of passion. We shed our clothes and left nothing but pulsing skin, the roar of it screaming in my ears. Naked beneath the silver light of the moon, there was only the intoxicating tingle of anticipation that made me dig my nails into him and draw him closer.

“I want you, Jack,” I moaned. “Take me.”

"Oh gods," he sighed, tracing his fangs over my dark skin. I cried out as they pinched my skin. Closer. Deeper.

I inhaled sharply as I felt a weird sensation ripple across my skin. It was a white hot heat that made my skin vibrate with delight. Something echoed in the pit of my stomach…a bottomless ocean of hunger. But it wasn’t for the bulge, to feel him pound in and out of me. I was hungry for energy. All Jack’s energy.

I swung him around with a supernatural ease, slamming him hard against the rail. It was my turn to squeeze my body against his, moving in rhythm to the opera of sounds, of raw energy that reverberated around me. First I’d drink him dry…then everyone in the building. Then everyone on this street.

He pulled back, his handsome face contorted in pain. I could see every vein in his body now. The thick, gelatinous lifeblood of others that made his carcass of a heart beat drove me wild as I shoved him back inside my apartment.

He started coughing and clutching his throat like he couldn’t get air. “Y-you’re, y-you’re…” he stuttered. He stopped trying to form words and staggered to the kitchen where I kept a jug of chilled blood for him.

The distance between us sobered me up, and I clutched a chair in the living room, steadying myself. “W-what’s…what’s happen-” I clutched at my throat then pulled back, glancing at my hand. There was barely a smudge of red there. It truly was magic…what a droplet of blood could do.

After a moment the room righted itself. The hunger was quieted. I was back to normal.

"Damn it." Jack gasped after a moment, gathering control of himself. His body still shook as he ran a hand over his mouth. “That was-”

“Amazing!” I finished for him. I held out my hand, the blood drying in the tiny cracks of my palm. “That was a little more than last time! Maybe if we could regulate it-“

“No,” he said loudly, shaking his head. “I could feel the change, Jade. If I would have had one more sip…” He let his voice trail off.

I tried to not look as devastated as I felt. Maybe I really was losing it. What kind of normal person wants to poison their boyfriend and turn into a succubus just for the high of being drunk by a vampire?

“What kind of person indeed,” he said playfully. His features returned to normal, but his eyes still burned with worry.

I gestured at the bedroom. “We could still…”

He took a few steps back. “We should keep some distance for a little while.” He turned towards the bathroom, exhaling loudly. “I’m gonna to take a shower. A cold one.”

Chapter Three

Ink, and Blood, and Fairies…oh my!

The bubbly co-ed glanced at her friends for moral support, her baby blue eyes going round with fear. “It’s going to hurt?”

Sia Lancaster had the face of an angel. Her eyes were large and swirled with a rainbow of colors, changing dependent on her mood. Her hair was softly weaved gold that fell in tumultuous waves down her back. Her body was seductive, plump in all the right places. She didn’t look a day over eighteen, but I knew that she was much, much older.

I still thanked my lucky stars that as a human, I couldn’t see her true form unless she wanted me to. Fairies have the faces of children and the bodies of demons, ancient writings carved into their serpent-like skin. And while Sia’s lips appeared lush, aching to be kissed, you’d be an idiot to try. One kiss from a fairy and your soul was forfeit.

I glanced away, shuddering as the girl’s screams echoed in my ears. I was intimately familiar with the needle--metal was plugged in numerous parts of my ear, my nose, and I even used to have my tongue pierced in my wilder days--but my piercer had been a friend who took care to ensure I felt as little discomfort as possible. I knew Sia was delighting in every shriek of pain she wrenched from the girl’s lips.

I smirked when a couple at the register that were flipping through Sia’s portfolio slowly inched away, reconsidering their decision.

"Wise choice," I murmured as I pretended I was looking at the tattoo catalog that hung on the wall. It was filled with the standard fare found in parlors--intricately drawn "Mom" hearts, dragons, pin-up girls, etc.

A cold chill ran across my bare back as the girl and her posse breezed from the piercing room.

“Stupid cunt!” the girl cursed through a mouthful of gauze. "I'm reporting this!" Her friends were at her heels, dead silent. I had a feeling none of them would be coming back to InK Tattoo and Espresso.

“Jade!” Sia cooed, sipping on a steamer as she saddled up beside me. She still wore her latex gloves and they were smudged with thick goblets of blood. “What’s up?”

“Look,” she began, her voice like cool water. “Whether that chick wanted to admit it or not, she came here for the pain. Everyone who walks through that door wants to feel the sting of living.”

I gestured at her dirty gloves. “And those that bleed death?”

“They die happy,” she grinned. Sia pulled off the gloves, finger by finger. I could see her true face rippling below her skin as her fingertips brushed against the blood.

She tucked the gloves into her back pocket—a midday snack probably. Fairies don’t flit about pining over pre-pubescent boys after all…they were bloodthirsty, maniacal beings with a penchant for cream.