Vampire Wardens (Vampire Wardens 1)

Her face paled. “Oh God, Evan, I don’t know even know what to say.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said, cutting his gaze, and mentally willing away the image of his ten year old sister’s limp body on the porch of the house. “It’s an old wound.”

“How long ago?”she quietly asked.

His gaze lifted to hers. “Are you sure you’re ready for the answer to that question?”

“How long?”

“A hundred years last month.”

She stared at him, no open reaction, but he watched her pale eyes melt, watched the yellow flecks splinter w

ith emotion. “And you still remembered it like it was yesterday.”

Shock slid through him at her exact understanding of what he was feeling, at her ability to use their bond so readily, without even understanding it yet. “Yes,” he confirmed, oddly at ease with her knowing his past, knowing what he’d never shared with anyone before now. “I still remember it like it was yesterday. Just as I remember the moment I hunted down that bitch and staked her in the heart.”

“I’d have staked her too,” she said vehemently.

He smiled at her. “You wouldn’t stake a fly.”

“If I was lucky enough to have someone I loved,” she countered. “And that person was stolen from me -- you bet I would.”

If she was lucky enough to have someone to love, she had no one. He sensed that in her, understood it. Yet she wasn’t bitter and alone. She was a nurse, someone who had chosen to care for others. Someone who chose to help people fight through their darkest moments and that made her brave. He realized now that was the part of her that called to him. He saw the fighter in her, the healer. And now, he was going to need her to fight for herself. He was going to need to be her healer. It was a role he never thought to want himself in, someone who was depended on, someone who might fail someone he cared about, as he’d failed his family. But it was too late. He’d bonded with her, he’d saved her. And now, he’d be damned if he was going to fail her.

He scooted closer to her, and eased the pillow out of her hands and tossed it away. She pulled her knees to her chest and he moved so that his hand was on top of them, his knee pressed to hers. “Marissa, there’s no easy way to explain this to you, so I’m just going to say it, and then we can deal with it together. The Werewolf world is in the midst of a century long civil war which leaves the vampires dealing with many of their rogues. I came to Temple hunting the wolf that attacked you. Wolves can be natural born, or created by a virus much like rabies. If you’re bitten, you’re infected.”

“Oh,” she gasped. “I…you mean—“

“You’re okay,” he said, sliding his hand around her neck. ”You’re going to be fine. But yes, you’re infected by the virus and like a human bitten by a rabid animal there are effects. But because we are sharing blood, I can help you hold off those effects until we get you a permanent cure.”

“What effects and what permanent cure?”

“I have to kill the wolf in the next thirteen days, before the next full moon.”

Her eyes went wide. “How does killing it kill the virus inside me?”

“We don’t know,” he said. “And we have a scientific team that’s worked on it as long as I’ve been around. The full moon triggers the change to a shape-shifter. If the change doesn’t happen, the virus dies in the infected person’s body. And the person doesn’t change if the wolf that infected them dies before it occurs. That’s all we know with certainty.”

“So when the next full moon comes, I turn into that…that thing?!”

He framed her face with his hands. “I won’t let that happen.”

“What if you don’t kill it?”

“I will.” He could hear her heart racing and feel the rise of the wolf in her.

“But--”

He kissed her, a deep passionate, hungry kiss. She dug her nails into his back, and clung to him. He could taste her passion, smell it. She tore her mouth from his. “Why do I feel like I could climb out of my skin right now and into yours? Why do I feel like some animal in heat?”

“Emotions feed the virus,” he said. “The wolf – your wolf – is trying to make itself known. You need an outlet to release the energy.” He bit his wrist and held it to her mouth. “And you need this to dilute the virus. Drink.”

“I don’t want to drink,” she said between her teeth, and then buried her face to his chest, her lips and teeth scraping his nipple, before she tilted her head back and all but roared with anger. “I don’t want this…thing inside me.” She rose to her knees and pushed him to his back. “Why is this happening to me? Why did you let this happen to me?”

That demand tore at his gut and anger rolled inside him. Not at her – but at himself for ever leaving her alone in that bar. He rolled her to her back, ignoring her protests, his blood spraying on the white sheets, on their bodies. Her wolf was no match for his vampire, not now, not ever. He held her hands over her head with one of his and then let his wrist drip over her mouth. The second it touched her lips, her tongue lapped at it. A few seconds later, she was holding his wrist to her mouth on her own, hungrily drinking. Watching her, a deep emotion stirred inside him like nothing he’d ever felt. Evan silently cursed, furious that he’d let her inside his world, that he cared about her more each second he spent with her. But she was his, as no other ever had been, even if she never knew it, never wanted him or his world. And he wasn’t going to let her die -- no matter the cost.

Chapter Seven