Chapter 6
Six
Marlon
Blake now knew I was not just a decaying corpse.
If I chose to, I could snap his neck and drain him before he even realized he was dead, but first I wanted to see if he was cut from the same cloth as his ancestor.
Driven by the need to find gold or riches to make himself feel complete.
Never realizing there was more to this world than that.
I knew, without looking outside, that the sun was almost down, and I fought the urge to feed. While it was true, I did not need much blood to satisfy my needs. But it had been far too long since I’d drank my fill.
Blake’s eyes narrowed as he watched me. In this instant, he stopped seeing me as a weak adversary and started to believe I was indeed a vampire. Even if he had no clue what that truly meant. “Why are you looking at me like I’m a piece of meat?” he asked.
“Because to me you are,” I answered, not willing to spare his feelings. “I choose not to drink from you except for a small amount each day, but I will need to feed more. It’s been far too long.”
“You said you only needed a little.”
I stepped closer to him until we were nearly toe to toe and met his eyes.
Even though I was now clean, I knew how I looked, and it was not human.
“Would you have allowed me to feed at all if I admitted I could see every drop of blood as it moves through your body and it all calls to me to drink it down? My need for blood will never go away, and it will never lessen, but I do have control over that need.” My lips curled at the words.
He needed to know I chose not to kill him.
He gulped some air before asking, “Are you going to kill me?”
“Not yet. Now, let’s go to the farm.” I was out the door and running before he had time to think about my words.
The smell of water in the air from nearby fields caught my attention as I ran so fast my feet barely touched the ground.
The fact this human and his idiot friend thought they could make me do anything was laughable.
They had no idea what they were dealing with.
I slowed down and came to a stop at the front of the old farmhouse.
I’d been here when there was no more than a small shelter for the few livestock we had when we first arrived.
The house looked much as it had the night of my betrayal.
A low growl registered in my chest at those thoughts, and I forced those emotions down so I didn’t attack and kill whatever human arrived here first.
Blake’s truck rumbled along the dirt road as he made his way to the house. When he pulled to a stop close to where I stood, I could see the fear in his eyes. “Come with me,” I demanded, far past the niceties I’d so far bestowed on him.
He cut the engine and slid out of the cab but stayed far away from where I stood. “What did you want to show me?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked everywhere but at me.
“This way.” I led him to the barn and back to the rear corner.
There I tapped until I found the loose board I’d used so many years ago to conceal the one thing that meant something to me.
I lifted the board out and reached under it.
My fingers brushed against the cloth that held a small part of my human past. “This is the treasure your ancestor lied to you about.” I handed him the small bundle, and he took it as his eyes met mine.
“What is it?” he asked without looking at what I’d placed in his hands.
“Something that means more than gold to me.” In a rare moment of complete honesty, I waited for his reaction to see if he would really try to take from me the only thing I had left of my home. He slowly unwrapped it, careful not to damage anything.
“What is it?” he asked again, unsure of what he was seeing.
“A flint knife my father made for me and seeds from our farm. I planned to plant them here and start a life for us away from the madness of men who were more concerned with power and riches. But then I found out my mate was just as greedy when it came to riches. A stranger came to town with big talk about the goldfields in the north and how rich he’d become overnight.
My mate was a man of simple means. He wanted wealth, and the more the other man spoke to him, the more that greed grew.
The other man convinced him I knew where there was a great treasure, but I was hiding it from him.
” The memory of how much pain it caused me to know my mate would believe someone other than me still hurt.
I was glad he no longer walked this earth, but I couldn’t deny that my heart longed for him.
“Why don’t you call him by his name?” he asked and tipped his head while waiting for me to answer.
“Vampires rarely take a mate, and when they do, it’s until one or the other ceases to exist. I was his mate, but our bond couldn’t withstand his temptation for riches. He was my one great love, and it pains me to speak his name. Calling him my mate is less painful.”
Blake looked at the simple items he held in his hand that meant more to me than any amount of gold before meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said and handed it back to me with care.
“He lied about there being a treasure in the hope someone would eventually dig me up and I’d be dead. But he knew that wasn’t what would happen. He helped trap me and buried me, knowing I’d survive until someone finally freed me.”
“And that someone was me,” Blake whispered.
“I owe you a great debt. You could have destroyed me, but instead you fed and helped me.” I still didn’t trust Blake or his friend, but I truly felt lucky that they’d found me and helped rather than staking me through the heart or exposing me to the sun.
“We wanted the treasure we’ve always heard about, same as Josiah.
” His eyes slid shut, and he looked down at the ground.
I knew he wasn’t a vindictive man, and I also knew he was curious.
That curiosity was what had driven him to dig up the grave.
The treasure was a bonus. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to use his name.
I’ve listened to my grandfather tell that story a million times. ”
“You can call him what you choose. But I will never use his given name ever again.”
“Is it okay if I call you Marlon?”
“Only if it’s okay if I call you Blake.” He smiled then and some of the tension between us eased. “What will you tell your friend about the treasure?”
“The truth. It’s not the first time we’ve gone on a wild-goose chase.”
“There’s something else,” I said and after carefully returning the bundle to where I’d taken it from, I shoved my hands in my pockets. A habit I’d had even as a child.
“What is it?”
“Like I said, the man that led my mate away from me had a small amount of gold.”
“I thought you said they were headed north to find gold.”
“Do you really think a creature such as me would let a human steal what was mine?” I asked. His eyes widened and his breath sped up, sensing the surrounding danger.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed before working up the nerve to ask, “What happened?”
“First, I took the man and made him tell me the truth about everything he’d been saying. It turned out he did have some gold. Not nearly what he’d bragged about, but it was enough. I forced him to tell me where it was, which turned out to be hidden nearby.”
“So, you found it,” he said with a grin.
“I did.”
“Where is it?” he asked.
I grinned, unable to hold it back. “It’s nearby. Now, tell me why you’re so interested in the treasure?” My eyes narrowed as I waited for him to answer.
He shrugged his shoulder before his hand slipped to the back of his neck. “I thought it was a lie.”
“You are far different from your ancestor. He was driven by greed, where you’re driven by curiosity,” I mumbled, more to myself than to him.
“Curiosity has always been my downfall.”
Curiosity, not greed. This human was far different from my mate. Where I thought I saw his ancestor in his features, now I only saw Blake and my long dead heart softened a little.