Chapter 15
MARCUS
My instincts demand that I tear Dean’s head from his overly muscular body, but they also compel me to follow Leah out into the night. She weaves on her foolish shoes before she lets out a small noise of frustration and bends to remove them.
I wrap an arm around her waist before she can fall.
“Get off me.” She elbows me in the side, and irritation flares. The bond lashes me. I hate it. It reminds me viscerally of every time I was denied food as a newly turned vampire.
“You are a fool, slayer.”
“So you’ve said.”
I growl. Her head jerks up. She whirls around, one pointy shoe in hand. She presses it to my chest and bares her teeth.
“Growl at me again, bloodsucker.”
“Is that supposed to intimidate me?” I lean in, letting the point of the heel dig into my flesh. She’s tall enough that her mouth is near mine. My gaze dips, then bounces away.
I need to feed. The bond is pulsing between us, and I can deaden its call if I sate myself. The siren was certainly willing.
“Go away,” she says hotly. “Just go back to the bar and do whatever disgusting things you were going to do. But leave me out of it. I’ll be fine on my own.”
I snarl at her. Surely, fate is laughing at me. She is reckless and impetuous, like every other slayer I’ve met. In fact, she’s worse.
“I cannot believe I’m saddled with you,” I growl.
“You’re not.” She throws up her hands and starts to back away. “We’re not friends. We’re not even drinking buddies. You’re my temporary partner in crime.”
“A fine partner you make. You got drunk when my brother is hunting you.”
“And you were too busy thinking with your dick to even notice whether I was in the bar.”
“I noticed plenty,” I growl. “The spell you cast incessantly reminds me of your presence.”
Her eyes flare, with hurt, I think, and something twists in my chest. It’s not a feeling I’m familiar with. Not in this century, at least.
“I’m depositing you at home behind your wards and then I’m going to feed.” I grip her arm, and she tries to wrench away, but I pull her back against my chest. “Do not fight me, slayer.”
“Leah,” she spits.
I tense to flash, reaching for her property with my mind. Only powerful vampires have this ability, but too much flashing tires us quickly and the distance we can cover is limited. My range extends as far as my home, but not much farther.
I disappear into the mist, holding her tightly against my body, then release her on her front porch. She stumbles, then rights herself and slams the door open.
“Go back to the bar,” she shouts over her shoulder. “I’ll be here doing shots so I don’t have to feel you feeding. Have fun. And do try to deaden the bond so I don’t have to feel any unwanted…emotions.”
My teeth gnash together on the last word. “You should be so lucky,” I growl, loudly enough that I know she hears.
There’s silence from inside the house.
When I push open the door, she’s braced against the counter, her head hanging, a bottle of brown liquor already uncorked. Her slim frame shakes before her head swings up and our gazes connect.
“Go away, vampire. Go have your fun.”
“Marcus,” I say tightly.
“Marcus.” She pours herself a shot of liquor and slams it back, then coughs and makes a face that tells me she hates this and wouldn’t do it if she didn’t have to.
The feeling from earlier corkscrews in my chest, spiraling tighter and constricting my organs. If I could breathe, I suspect it would be stealing that function too.
“No snappy retort before I disappear?”
“Nope.” Another shot. “You’re right.”
I take a few steps into the living room, wary, not sure how she’ll react. Her eyes are silvered in moonlight, and I wonder briefly if she’ll try to stake me. She looks feral and drunk enough to try.
“Right about what?” I ask.
“I should be so lucky.”
I reach the kitchen. Her shoulders are tense, even though her face is blank. “You should be so lucky as to feel me feeding?” I tip my head, not sure what she means.
She shrugs. “Probably the closest I’m going to get to connection for a while.”
“You weren’t going to feel a connection with Dean?”
“No.” She barks a laugh. “I was just asking him to drive me. I didn’t want to feel you with her.”
“Why not?”
She shakes her head. “This is dumb. I should eat something and sober up.”
“Tell me.” I fold my arms. It’s a move that has intimidated many a young vampire, but her gaze flicks to my upper arms, then away, but not before her tongue swipes over her bottom lip.
“She hates me.”
My teeth grind. No one gets to hate the slayer except for me.
“I killed her brother.”
I freeze.
“That’s how they all looked at me.” She slumps against the counter.
“Sirens lose control of their powers sometimes when they hit puberty. We were on a class trip to a human waterpark. The older students were supposed to fit in with the humans for the day. Practice, I guess. Dawn’s brother was an asshole, and he’d gotten in trouble for luring students before, but this time he lured a human girl into the pool and held her under the water.
I couldn’t get her free. He was feeding from her, and she was seconds from drowning.
I staked him with a piece of railing I tore off one of the slides. ”
Her lids flutter shut. I picture her, a slight teenager, with those big, sad eyes, her parents gone, going up against an older siren for a human.
No one I know would do that.
“You saved her life.”
She gives me a sad smile. “And ensured that the town would be waiting for me to snap and kill a cousin or an aunt for the rest of my life. Dawn’s family is the richest and most influential in town.
She spread rumors about me that I still hear, even over a decade later.
” She rolls her shoulders. “So there you have it. The whole sad story. I’m alone.
I’ve been alone, and I’ll probably always be alone. Most of the time I’m fine with it.”
“But tonight you weren’t.” I cock my head, watching the play of emotion across her face.
Her throat moves in hard swallows, like she’s warring with herself.
She’s lovely in the moonlight coming in her kitchen windows, even sad.
I feel the unwelcome urge to wrap my arms around her and pull her against my chest.
I scowl at myself. The bond is a heady thing. No one warned me it would make me soft for her.
“I was drunk. That’s all. Like I said, I just didn’t want to feel you feeding from her. But with distance, I’m sure it will be fine.”
It will get worse, until I crave her and only her and I’m compelled to bind her to me or walk away forever. But fine is not how it would feel between us. It would be incendiary.
I should stop myself from moving toward her, from liking the way her head jerks and her pulse rabbits in her throat.
I should go back to the bar, find a willing victim, and lose myself in them. But instead I say, “It’s far better than fine. I’ll show you. If you’d like.”