Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(61)

“It shouldn’t have to be that way.” I lowered my head, knowing that love wasn’t supposed to hurt. Even if I wasn’t hurting him on purpose, he was feeling the pain nonetheless. And he didn’t deserve that. He deserved the sun and the moon and all the brilliant stars in the sky. Not this. Not me.

“Then how should it be, Jemma?” His lip hiked up on one side. “Tell me how you want it to be and we’ll make it that way. We’ll carve out our own castle in the sky.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him and smiled. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

I stepped into him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I honestly don’t know how you put up with all this, when most days, I can’t even stand my own self for it,” I admitted, keeping my voice as steady as I could—as honest I could. “But I promise you, Trace Macarthur. Someday I’m going to make it all worth it. Someday I’m going to be the woman you deserve to have by your side.”

If it was the last thing I ever did on this earth, I was going to honor that promise.

“I know you will, Jemma.” He leaned down and caressed my lips like a paint brush blessing its canvas. “And maybe then you’ll realize you were already her.”

He kissed me full on the mouth, sweeping me out of the here and now and into a place far less tangible, yet filled with the possibilities of a better day—a better life. In that moment, I didn’t need to wait around for that happily-ever-after to finally begin for us. I was already living it.

The door jangled at the front of the store, though neither Trace or I stopped to look up. I vaguely heard the clerk greeting someone as Trace slid his hand down my arms and around my waist.

A strange feeling gripped my insides, centering itself inside of me like a guttural warning that had nothing to do with Trace or the blessings he was bestowing on me with this lips. This had the mark of danger, the Mark of my birthright. My back stiffened and I knew.

Revenant.





26. VAMPIRE STATION


My heart pounded in my chest as the smell of death touched my insides. My eyes followed the Revenant at the front of the store. He was asking the clerk something when his lips suddenly stopped moving mid-sentence as though distracted by something. I watched as his back stiffened into a rail, making him appear a little taller than he actually was, and then he slowly turned his face in my direction.

Dark, rabid eyes pinned me with their bloodlust.

“He can sense you,” said Trace, as if I hadn’t already figured that out.

The Cloak was a thing of the past—a mask I was never meant to wear and it died that night in the clearing right along with the old Jemma. I wasn’t afraid anymore. Not of this. Not of him.

In that moment, this was the only thing that made sense to me. The only thing I was certain of in a world filled with uncertainty, with trickery. My pulse quickened, and I could feel my body hungering for him, for his bloodshed at my hands, and I was powerless to do anything but bend to its will.

I pulled back from Trace, giving him a quick nod so that he understood this one was all mine. Trace hung back, worry etched in his eyes as he folded his arms across his chest and watched me.

Watching me, but not moving.

I crossed the back of the store, every step slow and measured as though they were mapped out for me in some other life, on some other Timeline. And the Revenant followed right along, mimicking my trek as it stalked me like prey. I smiled at the irony of it.

The bell went off again as Gabriel and Dominic stepped inside the store. Gabriel’s eyes instantly narrowed upon spotting the Revenant, though he didn’t come in any further. He barricaded the door and stood back, watching on from the sidelines, eager to see if his lessons had served me well. Dominic smiled as he hopped up on the counter, ready to get a front-row view of the action.

“You can’t sit there,” said the store clerk, though Dominic simply shushed him.

The Rev didn’t seem to notice either one of them as he turned down the center aisle, heading straight for me. He hadn’t broken eye contact with me once since he’d spotted me at the back of the store. It was as though he couldn’t see anyone else in the room. As though I were the only thing in existence, and he had to own me.

And like a lamb to the slaughterhouse, I lured him in with promises of possession.

Of taste.

I knew he would make the first move, and I wanted him to. He was crazed with hunger and he would be careless. His fangs clicked out as a deep growl permeated the air. As soon as he was close enough, his arm sliced out at me like a blade, but it was sloppy and desperate, and I dodged him with ease.

“Hey,” said the clerk at the front of the store. “What do you think you’re doing over there? I don’t know what you people are up to, but I’m calling the cops,” he warned.

“The cops?” Dominic chuckled as though he’d said something funny. “There’s nothing they can do to help you, pet, now kindly sit down and shut up.”

The Rev lunged at me again, both hands this time, but I easily sidestepped him, knocking him in the back of his head with my elbow. I whipped back around and faced him, ready for another round.

“Lovely form, angel.”

My skin tingled with awareness as I kept my focus on the Rev. His eyes were black as a moonless night, swirling with pools of sin and savagery. I could almost feel the carnage he’d caused in his lifetime, hear the calls of the innocent people he slaughtered. There was no hope for him, no repentance or salvation for his soul. It was up to me to reap justice for those who had fallen at his hands. It was up to me to make him pay for what he’d done to them. I felt it…inside—some place deeper than my skin and muscles and bones.