Between the Marshal & the Vampire(14)

"Now, if you'd please, lie side by side here."

Clay nodded to indicate that Mariel should take the position against the rocks so Clay would be a barrier between her and the desert…and Vellum. Once she was down, Clay lay next to her. He shifted over and found some comfort in the soft press of Mariel's limbs against his. He hoped she took some measure of comfort from him, too. He turned his head and smiled encouragingly at her and was rewarded with her answering smile. She didn't appear to be afraid, and he thanked the stars that it was she with him rather than a woman who lacked her backbone.

Vellum kneeled beside Clay and tied his hands together in front of his belly. Clay tested the binding and found it impossible to shift. The knots would likewise be too tight for a mere man to pick loose. Vellum repeated the process with Mariel's hands. Then their feet. Clay expected the vampire to then attach him and Mariel somehow, but Vellum backed away and draped a cloth over them, carefully tucking it up around their shoulders. He also set a canteen of water nearby.

For a mad instant, as Vellum paused where he kneeled above them, Clay thought the vampire was going to kiss them goodnight. Clay's heart began pounding, though he couldn't say why.

Vellum met his gaze and smirked. It was a smile that Clay had never had aimed at him; it was the sort he aimed at women. Before he could dwell on it, Vellum rose to his feet. The rush of air into Clay's lungs physically hurt.

"If there's an emergency, shout for me," Vellum told them. "I'll hear you. Otherwise, I will see you just after the sun sets. Sleep well."

Clay snorted and watched carefully as the vampire climbed into the crate and pulled the lid over it, sealing him inside. Clay thought he should feel revulsion, but all he felt was exhaustion.

He turned his head and kissed Mariel's forehead.

"Goodnight, Mariel."

She sighed and rested her face against his shoulder. "Goodnight, Clay."

After all that they'd been through, sleep came within seconds.





4


"Our clever vampire didn't bother concerning himself with whether we'd need to eat," Clay grumbled as he glared at the crate where Vellum continued to sleep.

"He should be waking up any moment now."

The sun was a spilled egg on the horizon. Clay had been watching it sink for an hour now, his dread mounting as the orb slowly diminished. Waking up with the sun blazing in the sky had lifted his spirits, mostly because it had been the best time for an escape attempt. But to his consternation, the ropes binding them had been tied with a strength his 'ordinary' fingers couldn't unravel. Sure, he could have hopped over to the horses and tried somehow to mount and then ride them, but it would have been a comedy of errors and likely a waste of energy. So now he sat with his back to the butte alongside Mariel, waiting for their captor to awaken and feed from them.

"I'm not going to let him drink from you," Clay stated, even though his skin itched with trepidation at offering himself up instead. "I'm bigger and stronger. I should be able to keep him satisfied until Everton Fort."

"Over a month away?" Mariel's tone was disbelieving. "If you tried, you'd be as weak as though you'd been gut shot. He needs us both. I'm prepared for it."

"Preparing and doing are two different things." He hesitated. Why bother shielding her from the truth? She had a right to know. Besides, she was strong. He had the feeling she would be able to handle it. "A long time ago, when I was still a child, I knew someone who'd been the victim of a vampire. It was a woman. A woman who'd been as kind to me as a mother."

He felt her looking at him, but he continued staring out over the desert. "Not only had the vampire drained every last drop of blood from her body, leaving her skin as dry as paper and as white as milk, he'd torn out half her throat to do it. He'd been a dog, mindlessly savaging a piece of meat. That's how they are, Mariel, even if Vellum seems to be like us. He's not. He needs to kill us in order to live. You can't forget that."

She touched his knee with her bound hands. "I'm sorry for your loss, Clay. I can't imagine what it must have been like to see that."

"It wasn't the best experience I've ever had."

"What if that was an aberration? A vicious vampire, unlike the rest of them, just as a man like Beaufort is unlike the rest of us?"

He had to tamp down his anger. Mariel had struck him from their first meeting as an intelligent woman, smarter than most men he knew, come to think of it. What was the reason for her continual insistence on giving Vellum the benefit of the doubt despite all logic to the contrary?

He shifted sideways so he could face her. "Mariel, tell me the truth. Has something happened between you and him?" When she bit her lip, he added, "You can tell me. I promise I won't be mad at you."

He let her see the truth of it in his eyes. He would never hurt a woman, not even with words if he could help it. She seemed to understand this, for she sighed and nodded reluctantly.

"I was looking for a weapon," she said quietly. "That's why I was in the cargo car. I opened Vellum's crate, thinking it might hold rifles. He was inside. I suppose I woke him. He—He attacked me."

Clay tensed, his blood pressure rising. "Did he hurt you?"

"He—He bit me." She touched her fingers to her neck and looked up at him, wide-eyed. "He drank from me, Clay."