Chasing Shadows(13)

She took another bite of her sandwich as she pondered that, and I took the opportunity to ask her another question of my own.

“How are you and your mother planning to explain to Mark about his being an immortal human—you are planning to tell him, right?”

She swallowed and took a drink of tea before she answered. “I’ve actually been wondering that myself. Considering this turn of events—meaning you and him—I’m gonna have to arrange a meeting with her to discuss telling Mark the truth. We need to prepare him for the future.”

“As hard as she’s worked to keep his dhunphyr status a secret all these years, I bet she won’t be too happy that his predestined mate happens to be part vampire,” I mused.

“No, probably not,” Juliette admitted. “I know my mother—she’ll be afraid of you killing him yourself, or leading him to his death by turning him over to other vampires.”

“I won’t do that,” I said sharply.

Juliette looked at me for a long moment. “I believe you mean that, Saphrona,” she said slowly. “At least, I don’t doubt that you won’t hurt him yourself, and I don’t think you’d willingly let someone else harm him. But you have to admit that just the fact that you’re a part of his life is putting him at risk.”

I looked down at the cooling cup of blood in my hands. “I know,” I said softly. “I hardly got any sleep last night because of it.” Then I looked up at her. “But you agreed with me that his finding out the truth was inevitable. And if we’re going to admit to believing in things like imprinting and pair-bonding, then we have to look at the fact that our lives intersecting was also inevitable, which means that the vampire world finding out about him is, too. It’s just a matter of when and how.”

I recalled that Lochlan was coming over tomorrow to take me to see Zombieland. He would, at the very least, smell Mark’s scent. I wondered if he would be able to tell just from his scent that he was an immortal human.

“Look, Juliette,” I said, “I have to tell you… After dreaming about Mark for more than two hundred years, I already love him. I know I will love him more when I finally get to know the real man. And I assure you that come what may, I will do whatever it takes in order to keep him safe—even if it means risking my own life.”

Again she studied me for a long moment, and then nodded. “I believe that you will,” she said at last. “If I didn’t believe that, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here in your kitchen having this pleasant conversation.”

No, I thought. I daresay we would not.





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Five





Juliette finished her sandwich and returned to her animal form shortly before Mark returned from the store. Once again I offered to help him carry his things up to his apartment. As we did so, he asked me what other work needed to be done around the farm. I said that since the animals were all outside for the day and the stalls were all cleared and filled with fresh hay, there wasn’t much that needed done for the next few hours, except for a perimeter check of the fences. Mark offered to do that by himself, and since I did need to get to work on the outline for my next novel, I told him what to look for after retrieving Herugrim and saddling the stallion up for him to ride.

“You do still know how to ride, I presume?” I asked as I tightened the cinch under the Herugrum’s middle.

Mark laughed as he put his left foot in the stirrup and effortlessly lifted himself into the saddle. “I think I remember, Boss.”

I smacked his leg playfully. “Alright, smarty. Now, like I said, just look for damage to the rails and posts, make note of where you find any so we can replace or repair. And stay clear of Angus, of course, until he gets to know you better.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mark said, saluting me and then turning Herugrim around and riding off along the fence. As I was heading back into the house, Angel followed, nudging my leg. Curious, I allowed her back into the house, where she phased back into her human form and asked to use my phone, so she could call her mother and arrange a meeting (“Like I should have done earlier, before I went dog again”). After the usual greetings were exchanged, I heard her tell Monica Singleton “Mother, we really need to talk about Mark. It’s important,” as she cast a glance at me, and they arranged a rendezvous point a mile down the road from my house.

After Juliette departed my house for the second time that day, I went into my office and turned on my computer. While I waited for it to boot up, I called my agent and let him know that I was indeed going to write another book, that I had just the night before been hit with sudden inspiration for the plot. When he asked me to describe it to him, I gave him much the same information that Juliette had given me last night, wording it so that my protagonist—also a half-vampire like myself—was discovering these things herself for the very first time. George loved it, saying that her learning there were things about her vampire heritage she hadn’t even known would add depth to my character that would make her more relatable to my readers.

“Except for the being half-vampire part, of course,” he said.

I grinned in spite of myself. “Of course.”

I hung up the phone then and got to work, typing furiously as the structure for the story came to me. And as often happened when I got into my writing I lost all track of time, and had made it through the outline and the first two chapters before it suddenly dawned on me that Moe and Cissy were barking furiously. I stood and walked to the window, which faced the back yard, and looked outside. They were at the end of the kennel that was close to the barn, standing on their hind legs with their forelegs on the chain-link, still yapping madly. I also noted that Herugrim was standing outside the barn, nibbling at the grass along the far side of the driveway.

Fear pierced my heart as I flew from the office and into the kitchen, wrenching the back door open so forcefully that I tore it off the hinges. I didn’t care—didn’t even pay attention to the damage. I only knew that something had happened to Mark.

When I got outside, I immediately caught the scent of blood, and my eyes zeroed in on droplets of it on the ground just inside the barn entrance. Following it with my eyes, I saw that it led to the inside door of the tack room, and I just knew it would lead up the stairs to Mark’s apartment. Paying no heed to the fact that Herugrim was still unrestrained outside, I jerked open the door and raced up the stairs to the apartment, not even bothering to knock before I entered.

There was, as I had thought, blood on the stairway leading up, and there was yet more here on the carpet, in a trail that led to the half-open door of the bathroom. I heard water running as I ran across the living space, my heart still pounding with fear at what I would find.

Pushing the door open further, my eyes widened at the sight of Mark standing at the sink shirtless, blood running in rivulets down his face and chest, both of which were covered in bruises that already seemed to be healing. The blood, in fact, was mostly water now, the cuts also in the process of healing. He stopped wiping at his injuries and turned to look at me slowly.

“Mark…what happened?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for a moment. Unable to help myself, I reached out and traced my fingers along a small gash on his right shoulder, which closed together even as I touched it, cutting off the flow of blood.

“I can explain,” he said at last, his voice thick.

Wordlessly, I took the washcloth from his hand and held it under the still-running faucet, feeling my heart squeeze at the pink color of the water even though I knew his injuries were healing. After wringing out the excess, I carefully wiped his face and neck, then moved down to his torso and cleaned that as well. By the time I was finished, all his cuts had closed and the bruises were a sickly greenish yellow.

Mark swallowed. “I can explain,” he said again.

I tossed the washcloth in the sink and turned the water off, then looked at him, holding his gaze. I knew what he was going to say, at least I thought I did, and right at that moment, it didn’t matter. The electricity that always seemed to spark whenever my skin touched his had heated my blood and the air in the tiny bathroom until it was thick with tension. From the way he breathed, the way he looked at me, I knew that Mark was feeling it as well.

I stood up on my toes and tentatively pressed my lips to his. Mark responded, kissing me back as one of his hands came up to hold my head at the nape and the other snaked around my waist to firmly grip my bottom. I wrapped my arms around his waist, drawing us even closer together. My hands roamed up and down his back, feeling each taut, sinuous muscle as the kiss deepened and our tongues danced together. Mark turned and backed me up against the sink, pressing himself into me so that I felt his readiness against my belly.

Suddenly he broke the kiss off and touched his forehead to mine. We stood there for a moment in silence, our breathing in a matched, shallow rhythm.