Chapter 43
LEAH
“Can I see your fangs?” This comes from Karina’s other cousin, a tiny blond witch with a fairy costume on. Her question is more of a demand, and it makes me smile, despite my nerves.
I tense, waiting for Marcus to refuse. Instead, he slides me a smile and lets them descend. A shiver runs up my spine.
There are awed sounds from the children, who have probably never met a vampire.
“Can I touch it?”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Sure.” He patiently opens his mouth and little bodies crowd closer.
“Why are they sharp?”
“Do you bite yourself?”
“Do you brush them?”
“Are they always out?”
“Where do they go when you sleep?”
“Do they hurt?”
Karina catches my eye and we start laughing at the absurdity of it all. Marcus can’t answer anything while tiny witch fingers stroke his teeth.
My friend mounts the steps and pulls me to the side. She’s dressed as Glinda the Good Witch in a long pink dress and a sparkly crown.
“Nice,” I tell her dryly. Karina isn’t good. She’s a tornado in inhuman skin.
“I like irony.” She grins. “So the vampire…”
“I know.”
We watch him gently push the children away, then move to the center of the lawn to demonstrate something that Karina’s brother, Andrew, is asking about.
Andrew’s arms are crossed and his gaze is wary, but like all supernaturals, he likes the idea of killing, and I can tell by the interest on his face that he really likes those swords.
Marcus pulls both out in one smooth motion and attacks, blurring with speed, spinning and slicing. He dances across the lawn, lighter on his feet than he has any right to be. My whole body clenches. Karina is utterly still beside me.
There’s a feral gleam to his gaze when he finishes. One flower from each of the perpetual-blooming rosebushes is clipped neatly. He gathers them up and passes them to the children, but his gaze is on me.
“Goddess,” Karina murmurs.
I am riveted. Before, I thought him my predator. But like this? He’s a force of nature. I imagine meeting him on a dark night with that black gaze and all his power focused on me—I swallow and shake myself.
“He’s a good male,” she adds. “Leah, you could keep him. He would do well here. Look at him with the children.” Like all good witches, they are drawn to power and stare up at him in awe.
“I want to,” I say heavily before I shake my head. First things first. “His brother comes. Tonight.”
“Shit.” Her gaze slices to mine. “And your magic?”
“We have a plan.” I roll my shoulders. “But I can’t access my magic until the timing is right.”
Her tongue prods her cheek. “What can I do?”
“I need your power. As much as I can get. Enough to protect the house.”
Magic sparks at her fingertips and rushes up her arms, lifting her hair and silvering her eyes. “Now you’re speaking my language, slayer.”
Marcus and I sit shoulder to shoulder and watch the last of the teenagers disappear into the darkness.
The night is velvet, the sky a deep, inky black with a scattering of stars.
Night birds call softly to each other among the rustling leaves.
The air carries the smoke of Halloween bonfires and the tang of magic.
Marcus shifts, his bare shoulder brushing mine.
“I’ve never had a hunting partner before.”
He slides me an amused look. “Is that what I am?”
I bump him gently, an entirely human gesture. “For tonight.” The words make my stomach clench. His face falls. Tonight is all we get, and something inside me howls at the thought of this ending when it feels so right. When I’ve never had someone to sit on the porch with before.
Especially someone whose shoulders are broad enough that when I put my head on one—I test it, and Marcus makes a pleased sound—it feels like coming home.
Stop, Leah.
I’m making this worse for myself. I give myself a mental shake and look up at the vampire.
“You ready?”
He nods, face impassive. “Are you?”
I can’t keep my face so stoic, not when, inside, I’m a mess of fear and doubt and nerves. I shrug and slide my hands under my thighs to keep from grabbing him or leaping up and pacing the porch.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. I’ve waited a long time for this.”
“Twenty years,” he murmurs.
I nod jerkily. Twenty years, and it all comes down to this. And still, I wonder if my parents would be proud of me. I barely knew them. Eight years is nothing in the span of a life. All I have are stories of their prowess and flashes of memory.
“I won’t let you die, Leah.” My head jerks up. Marcus’s gaze is silver smoke in the darkness.
“They did,” I whisper. “They were stronger than I was, and still, they died.” My voice cracks on the last.
Marcus tugs me into his lap and cradles me against his chest. “Tell me about them.” His hand smooths my hair.
“I have so few memories of them. Just impressions, really. My mom baking. The toy daggers my dad bought me when I turned six. The elaborate games they made up to teach me to be a slayer. The training they made me do every night before dinner. I always remember being irritated by it but being promised baked goods as a reward.”
“And now I see where you get it from,” he teases. “They must have been so proud of you.”
I stiffen. “I’m not as powerful. I don’t have magic like them, like every other slayer.”
“They would have been.”
I rest my head on his chest, where his heart beats, so slowly but so strong. One steady beat every twenty seconds or so. It’s far more comforting than the rushed thud-thump of a human heart.
“You’re strong but soft, Leah. Tender-hearted.”
I growl, and he chuckles.
“It’s rare among long-lived creatures like us. Time hardens supernaturals, but not you. You retain the best parts of mortality for someone so long-lived.”
“I am mortal,” I remind him. It’s the wrong thing to say. He tenses under me.
“I am achingly aware of that,” he finally says before he sighs. “Come on, slayer. We have a plan to execute.”
I sit up and straddle him, my knees on the hard wood of the stairs, my hands on his firm chest.
He grins at me, a small, lopsided thing, more eyes than mouth. They’re black now. The darkness loves him. His face is starkly shadowed. He looks devilishly attractive like this, with a hint of fang peeking over that pouty lip.
“So handsome, vampire.”
His smile grows before he tips his head to the side. “Have at it, little mate.”
I trace the tendons at the edge of his shoulder, where it meets his powerful neck. He shudders under me, gaze flashing from silver to black and back again.
“I don’t want this to be the end.” The words spill out of me and I wince. I didn’t mean to make things sad, or weird, or worse than they already are.
“It will not end, Leah.” Marcus cups my face. His gaze is fastened on mine. “I promise you. The bond will always be there.”
My chest feels heavy. “Can we still see each other after? From far away, maybe?” It’s foolish to even ask, but I have to. I can’t bear to let him go.
His head tips, his gaze crawling over my face. When did he become so dear to me? Somewhere between punishing my high school bully and having coffee with me, I suspect.
His thumb feathers gently over my cheekbone. “A broken bond means we could not see each other.” There’s something in his phrasing that makes me narrow my eyes. Something he’s trying to protect me from, knowing him.
“How badly will it hurt when it breaks? I know you broke the bond with Julian—”
“It will not hurt, little mate.” There’s a faint smile on his face. “Now bite me. Do not let me die tonight without doing this for you.”
A pit yawns inside me. “I don’t have teeth, vampire.”
He plucks a dagger from the belt at my waist. I’m armed beyond my wildest fantasies tonight, thanks to the box.
“Let me,” he says roughly before he sets the dagger to his carotid and slices.
Blood trickles, sluggish and slow. He presses my face to his neck, and I lick, then suck at the iron-rich liquid.
It’s cool and salty. Power punches me in the chest, making me lightheaded.
It’s working. My magic roils under my skin, stretching me until my skin feels too tight. Marcus trembles under me.
“I can feel you,” he rasps. “And the bond. More.” Fear spikes inside me that he’s going to seal it, but he simply cups my nape and presses his cheek to my hair.
“Leah,” he says hoarsely. “You are a gift. Fate may have given me to you, but know that if we had eighty years together, I would spend every night attempting to earn your happiness.”
My heart tries to wrench free of my chest. This is goodbye.
“How touching,” a cool voice says. “Looks like I’m just in time for the festivities.”
Julian.