Marked By The Vampire (Purgatory 2)

The past rose around her again. She could see the blood. Hear the screams…

But I can’t get to them. I’m trapped. Trapped!

Shane let go of Pate. Shane’s glittering, too dark eyes were on her. Hungry. Possessive.

“Welcome…” Pate said, his voice stronger, “to your bottle, djinn.”

***

Connor dragged Shane out of the cabin, and a still wheezing Pate followed them. Pate slammed the door shut behind him, then he glared at Shane. “What the f**k was that? I was just going to nick her a little because I needed her blood!”

Shane tried to pull back his control, but it was gone. He kept seeing Olivia. Her fear. Smelling her fear. Hearing her pleading voice.

Shane…Help me! Please!

“Mine now…” He barely recognized his own guttural voice.

“Oh, shit.” Pate shoved him hard. “Just how much blood did you drink from her?”

Not enough.

“Yeah…” Connor drawled as he put his hands—claw-tipped hands—on his hips. “Somebody needs to explain to me just what the hell is going on. One minute, I think I’m rescuing a human, the next thing I know, we’re imprisoning a genie? A genie?”

Shane’s gaze returned to the cabin’s door. He took a step toward that door. Toward Olivia.

Pate shoved him back once more. A shove too strong for a human, but then, Shane knew all too well that Pate wasn’t as mortal as he pretended to be. “Get your control back!” Pate snapped.

Shane bared his fangs at the man. “Never come at her with a knife.”

Pate’s eyes closed. “She’s messing with your mind. I heard that her kind might be able to do that. Blur reality. Get you to see and feel what she wants…” His eyes opened, and Pate pointed to the dock. “Go for a long walk, vamp. Find someone in the next town to drink. Get some space from her, and you’ll get your control back.”

He didn’t want control. He wanted Olivia.

A twig snapped as Connor advanced on them. “I’m still waiting for an explanation.”

“And I’m trying to stop him from tearing us both apart!” Pate threw back.

Shane was definitely in the mood for a fight.

“Walk it off,” Pate advised him, and his eyes flashed then. Not deepening like a vampire’s, but swirling with colors. “Walk. It. Off. Go find someone else to bite.”

And he did want to bite. Fury and bloodlust tangled within him. The fury had risen so suddenly, so strongly when Pate had actually gone toward Olivia—everything had altered in that instant. He took a step toward the cabin, but found Connor blocking his path.

“You heard the boss,” Connor muttered.

“Not my boss…” Shane threw back. Time to stop playing games. As far as he was concerned, he’d paid his blood debt to Pate. More than paid that shit. “Move.” A warning. Either the werewolf moved from his path or Shane would be moving him.

“Don’t you see?” Pate asked him. “This isn’t you! This is what a djinn can do! They are born of darkness, bound to the dark always. She’ll twist your emotions. Make you turn on your friends.”

He hesitated. Shane knew the emotions he was feeling weren’t normal. Back at that cabin, he’d been seconds away from ripping out Pate’s throat.

He tried to hurt Olivia.

A growl broke from Shane.

“That’s why the djinns were killed instead of revered. They were too dangerous. They’re dark, evil at their core.”

Shane shook his head. That wasn’t Olivia. She wasn’t evil.

Sanity tried to push through his rage. He attempted to piece this puzzle together and he spoke slowly, “She…doesn’t know.”

Correction, she hadn’t known.

He sucked in a deep breath. Another. Forced himself to turn away from that cabin. To take a few steps away.

“Are you coming back to us?” Pate asked him softly.

Shane managed a jerky nod.

And he took a few more steps away from the cabin.

“Her desperation must have done it.” Pate sounded as if he were figuring out a puzzle, too. “She’s got you in her web, and her panic hit you.”

No, her panic and fear had enraged him. Shane jerked a hand over his face. He could still feel Olivia’s pull. He wanted to go back in that cabin and be with her. “She…didn’t know.” Of this, he was sure. “Not…before Purgatory.”

Pate’s expression was calculating. “Then someone suspected what she was. What better place to push out her darkness than in the middle of Purgatory?”

Someone had sent Olivia to the wolves. Literally. “The senator…”

“If he knew what she was…or suspected…Purgatory would be the perfect place to break her.”

Shane’s hands were fisted at his sides.

“If the werewolves in Purgatory had control of a djinn,” Pate said softly, “just what do you think they’d do with her?”

Use her to destroy. He swallowed, tasting the ash of fury on his tongue. “Is a djinn really that powerful?” Because he’d never come across one, not in all of his many, many centuries.

“Civilizations are said to have fallen because of them.”

He shook his head.

“Fuck,” Connor’s voice was a rough rasp. “Maybe you should have led with that Intel, boss.”

“They were all supposed to be dead.” Pate started to pace. “I know because I damn well read the files that the FBI had on them. Twenty years ago, they were hunted to extinction. The last djinn went out in a fury of fire and blood.”

Connor whistled. “So what the hell are we supposed to do with her?”

Shane’s head turned toward the cabin. He could hear the faint sound of crying from inside that cabin. Crying and…

His name.

She was whispering his name.

Shane took three fast steps toward her. Both Connor and Pate jumped in his path. “You need distance, buddy,” Pate told him quietly. “Distance and someone else’s blood.” He huffed out a breath. “Look, Holly is already en route, okay? She’ll run some tests on Dr. Maddox and find out exactly what we’re dealing with here.”

Holly. Shane knew the guy was talking about Dr. Holly Young, a physician and vampire who treated the members of Pate’s Para Unit. Holly was also Pate’s step-sister.

“You trust Holly. You know she won’t hurt Dr. Maddox.”

No, Holly wouldn’t. Because Holly had been through her own hell and survived.