BloodStar Read online

  When Marley didn’t respond, Sabian continued: "How did I get in here, right? Not being in control is an uncomfortable feeling for you."

  "Is that another rhetorical question?"

  "I may ask questions out of rhetoric; it just means I already know the answer. You could make it to the door." He must have seen her eyes darting for the exit. "I won’t stop you, not this time at least, but…you’re not going to walk away from me."

  Oh, hell-to-the-no. She was no man’s disciple. "Wow. You stalk me, break into my home, and then in less than a minute reduce me to some little groupie? Seems ass-backward if you ask me." Yeah, take that Mr. Break-And-Enter.

  "You’re wrong."

  Shit, he was so confident. "Yeah? About which part?"

  "You’re no groupie. I’m the stalker, remember?"

  "How did you get in here?" Marley asked the question, but before the words could travel the waves, that part of her, ever the witty conversationalist, was on autopilot. Sabian’s eyes twisted her inside out and hog-tied her senses, leaving her with a kind of creamy apathy toward matters of the moment. She was aware of this indifference, aware of the acute terror it spawned, but could marshal absolutely no will to act on any of it. She felt fight-or-flight iciness in her blood, but somehow…God, she just didn’t care. She couldn’t fight her way back from the bottomless pool behind his eyes if she wanted to because, well…she didn’t want to.

  Finally something changed, and volition was hers again. How long was she under? A moment? An hour? Marley took a step backward because, seriously, now she did care. "What are you doing to me?"

  "Testing the waters," he said.

  "What does that mean?" More of the backward action, one foot, then the other.

  "You don’t have to be afraid. If I’m going to do this, I need you to not be afraid." His voice lost the casual timber. Now, he sounded as though he were talking to a junk-yard-dog who wanted to know just who the fuck had the nerve. It was a no-sudden-movements tone, and it matched her careful retreat.

  "What do you want with me?"

  "I want the strength we’re both going to need."

  Shit. "For what?"

  "For you to open your mind to the truth," he said.

  "Whose truth? I don’t play the truth-game with strangers."

  He closed the modest distance she’d just created and stood before her. Same formula: a look in the eyes followed by creamy apathy, only this time it spread through her body, warming her, making her want to shake off the don’t-cares and crest the summit she felt stirring in her core.

  His hand, soft and warm, swallowed hers. He twined his arm around her waist, pinning her hand to the small of her back. When his lips met hers, it wasn’t a kiss, not yet. On a brush of whispers that stroked her mouth, he spoke his truth.

  "That we are mated, Marley Music, mated at the soul."

  It was the most erotic moment of her life.

  There was a period of time—or maybe it was that time stood still, Marley wasn't sure—when she felt weightless. Her stomach dropped out from under her as she rode the roller coaster of that spoken kiss. The experience was mostly physical—the tickle tummy, the velvet of his lips, the hushed sweetness of his breath against her face.

  With her lips still touching his, she whispered her response. "Soul?" The monosyllabic communication was intended to convey a more sophisticated question, but his touch had somehow separated her from herself, the synergy of her individual parts lost to his eyes, his lips, that part of him she now felt pushing against her belly.

  Sabian still had his arm wrapped around her waist, still held her hand in his behind her back. He pulled her closer, but this was no high-school-bump-and-grind; she felt his arousal, felt the friction, felt him shudder as his lips went to her neck. Again, a kiss that rode bareback on his words: "We always find our way to each other," he said. "We always have. Soul-mates."

  Sabian leaned back to look at her. Marley found his ruby lips with her eyes, and began to chew on hers. Cheese-and-rice, she was about to push him backward until he landed on her bed, and climb all over him, backstage-pass style.

  "Soul-mates? Says who?" she murmured, eyes all but staple-gunned to his mouth.

  He smiled, and his lips were huge before her, movie theater style. "Says me."

  "And you know this because?"

  It looked like she was carrying on a coherent conversation, the effort worthy of a Nobel Prize for lucidity in the face of extreme lust, but the entire exchange was an exercise in endurance. She was in a knock-down-drag-out brawl against four-letter-word kind of passion. She wanted to take his bottom lip and suck on it, nibble it, have it for dinner. His mouth was two inches away from her. Somehow, she had to get those lips fused to her body, and God, did she have some suggestions as to where he could start.

  "How do I know?" Apparently, something about brushing his mouth across her forehead helped him think. "Some say I’m special," he answered, and then pulled back again. "I don’t know if I believe that. I just know. Just like I know you don’t believe me." That mouth she couldn't turn from curled into a sad smile.

  Marley was almost afraid to look him in the eyes, so she kept-on-keeping-on with the lips. "I don’t believe in the things you’re talking about. Soul-mates. Fate."

  "That doesn’t make it any less true."

  Marley stood on her tip-toes and leaned in for the real deal. She couldn’t take it anymore, had to get his bottom lip into her mouth. But he dodged her kiss, leaning his head back only enough to avoid caption. His head bobbed and weaved until he caught her gaze, and he made his point again.

  "Marley, none of this requires your endorsement. Your unwillingness to believe doesn’t make it any less true."

  Her free hand moved to her pendant, and she began playing with it, breath coming just as fast and furious as ever no matter how hard she tried to calm herself. Her breasts, free from their strappings, were pressed against his chest, climbing up and down against him as she panted. Marley could feel how much he wanted her. This was going to happen. She was going to make it happen, damn it.

  He took her pendant from her fingers, and examined it. "You like your gift?"

  That kind of snapped her out of it. "You? How did you get it? It means the world to me."

  "I think you know how I got it." His eyes flashed something wicked, something decadent.

  Marley thought maybe she did know how he got it. The idea was too threatening to explore, but she knew. The mental images began to flash, and she pushed them from her mind. Not now, not while his body was against hers and his need pressed so close to her own.

  "You scare me." It was a simple statement and true as ever. She closed her eyes against the penetration of his gaze. God, she didn't know anything about him.

  She felt his finger against her lips now, tracing their contours. His touch was silken, and Marley felt the warmth of his breath against her face as it hitched a stutter. His lips hovered only an inch from hers. She thought he might be as scared as she was, although, honestly, what did he have to be afraid of? As for Marley, more than anything she was afraid to open her eyes.

  When Marley didn’t protest the closeness, invited it with a heave of her breasts, in fact, he finally brought his lips to hers. They were feather-light at first, only brushing, testing. When she began to respond, tasting with her tongue, his body stiffened for a moment, and then melted.

  His mouth turned desperate, and his tongue searched her lips, looking and loving…and finally taking. He let go of the hand he held behind her back, and grabbed a fistful of her tank top, driving her up against him even closer. Her arms went around his neck, and that was when the sweet, even if a little frenzied kiss turned savage.

  They were desperate, a tangled mess of arms and hair and lips, the scene set to a soundtrack of panting and grunting and moaning. He grabbed her by the mane and pulled her head back to expose the full of her neck and throat. He breathed in her scent.

  "My God, woman."

  His mout
h was a Tasmanian Devil, all over her neck, shoulders, and collarbone. Kisses turned into nibbles, all the while Marley becoming less and less inhibited. She ran her hands under his shirt, up his bare back. She pressed up against him hard enough to push him backward, and she landed on top of him as they hit the bed.

  Before she could settle her weight, he flipped her over onto her back. She looked up into eyes that were blackened by his voracious pupils. Marley found herself drifting on that dark sea into oblivion again. With tactical precision, Sabian spread her legs open, using his knee just the way she hoped until the pressure against her essence was unbearable.

  "Yes," she moaned. He loomed above, and pelvis-to-pelvis now, she knew what he had for her, knew from this angle he was more than the host of pinky-hung, two-pump-chumps she’d wasted her body on. "Sabian, do it."

  With zero warning, zero tenderness, she felt herself uprighted with force more violent than necessary to create distance. Marley stumbled backward, not quite ready for the shift in equilibrium, and said, "What the hell?"

  "No. I need to go," he growled.

  "What?"

  "You need to know me first. This is happening too fast." He looked panicked as he retreated to the bedroom door.

  "Are you kidding me?" asked Marley. She couldn’t even process this, not with the burning ache between her thighs.

  "Marley," he said, shaking his head back and forth. "You’re mine." He inched through the bedroom door so he was standing on the other side of the threshold as though it were an invisible, protective barrier, but protective against what? "You’ve always been mine, but I can’t let anything happen this time. I…can’t do this right now."

  She experienced a moment’s panic, fixing to recite all the reasons he should stay, that she didn’t understand anything he said to her, but then everything just sort of melted away in the electric blue of his eyes.

  Creamy.

  Before she had a chance to say another word, she was pulled under.

  Chapter Seven

  Sabian needed to feed. His simmer-setting jumped to deep-fry with one touch; it happened so fast—too fast. God help him, he could have done it again. A hundred years later and twice that many promises he’d never go there, never even find her, and yet here he was again. She'd seared him raw where her flesh met his, scored his back with her nails, and given up the taste of her blood to his tongue without consent.

  There was no way he could walk out without a taste—literally no way. Sabian had done what he had to, for both their sakes.

  Marley was entranced. One bite, that was all. When he left she was sleeping like an angel, unaware…unharmed…violated?

  No. If he’d given in while she was under, tasted more than her Type-O-negative, that would have been a violation, right? But he hadn’t. And she was okay.

  It occurred to Sabian that this thought was turning desperate. Who was he trying to convince she was safe?

  He would make no apologies for his weaknesses. He had to start thinking about it the way it really was—a mine-is-mine situation.

  Full disclosure was the only way to make it work this time. He would spare no details regardless of the fear, no matter the disgust. Her repulsion might be the only thing that held the passion at bay while he…no, not now. He could go through with it—would go through with it, but not until after he fed. A full belly and full disclosure, and she might stand a chance.

  What would she say about Anya? Perhaps there was no need to tell her. Full disclosure had its loopholes. He had to tell her about Anya; Sabian knew that. But that little chapter could be penned after the Change.

  Lord in heaven, he couldn’t lose her again. He was gifted (but not special, he’d heard enough of that melody over the last three hundred years), and for whatever reason, Sabian knew he and Marley had been together since time eternal. He could see that about people, about souls, who belonged with whom and how strong their bonding was. The more lifetimes souls traveled together, the tighter the weave, the stronger the love.

  Then there was the repeating Nemesis thing. Some souls were meant to clash for all time, giving each other their comeuppance over and over. These souls were bonded just as permanently. Light and dark, love and hate. At least that was the way Sabian saw it.

  He could hardly believe she was back. When Marley was lost to him, Sabian walked in darkness until her soul returned to him, encased in a new vessel with golden energy. Each time, the veil lifted and everything was vivid, sharp, alive.

  And her taste was always the same. How could he describe something like this to her? How could he explain his absence for the last twenty-three years? This vessel, this Marley, was a feisty one—same soul, much more spice. It might be his undoing. Sabian had always liked his meals seasoned, and this Marley made his mouth water.

  Christ, he needed blood—anyone’s but Marley’s, and right now.

  Sabian donned a jacket, more for anonymity than warmth, and set out for distance between Marley and himself. Denver was always a fruitful hunting ground and he needed to burn some restless energy. He would run the sixty-mile span by way of the Rocky Mountain foothills to clear his head and work out a plan.

  The first storm of the season was imminent, although snow and wind had no impact other than to require more layering to maintain the Masquerade. Sabian let his feet guide him along the wet, dark streets of Denver. Eventually momentum carried him to a less than desirable part of town where John Denver loving tourists would not find the imagery of those idealistic folk-songs.

  He passed corner bars with neon signs in the shapes of cocktail glasses and liquor stores with bars on the windows. This was a different demographic than most of Fort Collins. This was exactly where he needed to be.

  Sabian had made ruthless meals of drunks over his lifetime. The satisfaction was sub par because the alcohol dulled the senses and slowed the reactions of his victims. The most mouthwatering blood was infused with fear, excitement, and exquisite surprise. Terror-seasoned blood made him an invincible lover. Drunken blood fulfilled the need, but didn’t satisfy.

  But tonight, Sabian was not looking the Dump, that potion of hormones that flooded human blood in their most desperate moments. A cocktail of such potency was more dangerous to Marley than the pleasure in his tissue was worth. The Dump made Kindred unpredictable, and he needed control. So a dulled, drunk human was exactly what he had to find.

  Sabian passed very few people on the frozen streets of Denver’s underbelly, but the Kindred couple moving toward him was unmistakable. Their attempt at the Masquerade was shoddy. Sabian wondered if it was laziness, ignorance, or plain hubris. The male wore only a Nuggets sweatshirt instead of a heavier, puffy coat with a fur-lined hood like everyone else, but that was forgivable. The female, however, went there, mistaking the sidewalk for a catwalk. Sabian couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched them approach, her fangs as exposed as her backside. Her fangs, for God’s sake. Only the most juvenile vampires had no control over their fangs. The closer she came, though, the more certain Sabian was that she had her canines unfurled on purpose.

  He put his head down, and thought about crossing the street, but it was too late.

  "No fucking way!" said the male in a thick Irish accent from a block north. He didn’t have to yell. Sabian could hear the vampire as though he had a stadium PA system hooked up and a microphone to his mouth. He prepared himself for fanaticism.

  "You hear that?" the female asked her mate. The man was practically dragging her, rushing as fast as he could toward Sabian without actually running.

  "You’re Sabian BloodStar!" The vamp with the body of a forty-five year old spoke in dense brogue.

  Sabian slowed, nodded, but didn’t stop. The male wasn’t deterred. He swung his woman in a circle to fall in step beside Sabian.

  Sabian didn’t have the heart to tell the guy his woman would be moving on soon. They weren’t fated, not like he and Marley, and she had the attention span of a puppy with half the devotion.

  "Damn, I hea
rd you were somewhere around Denver, but if I didn’t see it with me own eyes."

  That stopped Sabian. "Where did you hear that?" This was disturbing. He’d managed to avoid almost all Kindred since his arrival in Colorado, and those he ran into were by choice, not the kind to talk.

  "They said so." If he was excited a moment before, the Irishman was guarded now.

  "They?"

  "Aye, they, if you follow."

  "Mmm." Sabian followed, and there was something else; he liked the male. There was something about a vampire who protected his sources, even from supposed BloodStar. If those cohorts who knew about Sabian’s Colorado digs felt confident enough to share that with this spunky Irishman, it was a good bet he was good people.

  But Sabian was a cynic, and he trusted no one, especially those who led with the whole BloodStar thing.

  "This here’s me mate, Shanna. I told her about the BloodStar, but she’s too young, this one here. Doesn’t understand about your kind, yet." He was proud of her youth. Sabian could understand. The woman was striking, probably changed before she hit twenty. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark heart. Sabian didn’t believe her smile for a second.

  "So what’s so special about you?" Her accent was just as thick and there was blatant flirtation in her tone. Her mate edged closer to her, but possessiveness wouldn’t stop this female from infidelity, especially not with a celebrity. Jesus, his race was just as pathetic as any batch of humans slavering over a bustier on a red carpet.

  Sabian looked at her with the kind of disgust reserved for kissing cousins. "I’m special because I know better than to walk the streets of the state capital with my…accessories on display." He gestured at his own teeth, appropriately humanoid at the moment.

  She smiled wider in defiance.