Vampire Wardens (Vampire Wardens 1)

“It won’t.” He started walking, intending to pass his brother and head to the parking lot.

Aiden captured his arm before he passed. “It will,” he insisted.

“She won’t go crazy,” Evan ground out between his teeth, jerking his arm free and charging forward.

Aiden cursed softly and then quickly fell into pace with Evan, the tension rolling off of his brother telling Evan that Aiden had a good idea why Evan was so sure of his words, and most defiantly wasn’t happy about it.

Barely a minute later, Evan slid into the backseat of Aiden’s escalade with Marissa curled in his arms. Aiden climbed into the front seat and turned to face Evan immediately. “You exchanged blood with her?”

Evan gave a slow nod.

“Fuck!” Aiden cursed, hitting the steering wheel and then turning a black heated stare on Evan. “Damn it to hell Evan, are you trying to get yourself killed? Is that it? You’re tired of this life and you’re looking for a ticket to goodbye? Now you can’t erase her memory. She will know about us. She will be a danger to us no matter what happens to the wolf.”

Evan was all too aware of what the bond had created between them. “I’ll deal with the woman.”

“She’s infected Evan,” Aiden ground out between cuspids now elongated with his anger. “She’s going to turn into a monster. And that monster will share a mental channel with you that will allow her to hunt you down and kill you herself. And whatever it is you think you feel for her, and I assume you must, or you wouldn’t be pulling this crap – well, she won’t feel it for you. She’ll want you dead.”

“Not if I kill the wolf.”

Aiden stared at Evan for several longs seconds before he asked, “And if your blood, and the bond you’ve created with her, isn’t enough to keep her from going crazy?”

They both knew she’d struggle with primal urges that would have to be controlled. “I said I’ll deal the woman.”

Aiden stared at him several long moments, and then turned without another word and started the truck, the silence and dark shadows, filled with implications.

In all their days as Wardens, as Vampires, none of them had ever made the mistake of creating a blood bond with a human, a mistake that could expose their entire race. It could be remedied only two ways – death or conversion to Vampire. He’d vowed he’d never curse another human to his existence. Never steal a human life as a vampire had done his and his brothers, and a good number of those in their village, all in one violent night of blood feasting. But he wouldn’t allow Marissa to be the reason his brothers were hunted down and killed either.

Chapter Four

Marissa sat up in her bed with a gasp, the air in her chest expanding with such force it was as if she’d been dead and found life. The sensation was intense, and her chest heaved with several deep drags of air – in and then out. Her heart thundered as she struggled with a sense of disorientation. Her gaze flickered frantically across her room – her bedroom – her home. That was good. Safe. Though she wasn’t sure why she thought she wasn’t safe. There was a reason – something just out of the reach of her memory.

The room was dimly lit, light filtering through the red-shaded lamp on the nightstand, her gaze locking on the digital clock that read four am.

Her nostrils flared with the sudden awareness of a familiar scent, and she drew it in as readily as she had air moments before, savoring it – darn near tasting it. Her mouth watered, and oddly, her skin warmed. Had she ever smelled anything so delicious in her entire life? Textured, rich and multi-colored, in a way a scent had never been before. It reached inside her and flowered.

She inhaled yet again, hungry for more of the scent, eager to identify its source. Spicy and male, she realized. A flash of images charged through her mind of tall, dark, good-looking – Mr. Hot-One-Night-Stand with long dark hair and smoldering sensuality. She’d been upset about her patient’s death, about telling the patient’s sister about the loss. The bar and drinks had followed.

Evan. She remembered him. She’d lost herself in those dark eyes of his, and found herself doing just what most people did, running her mouth to the bartender, telling him her life story. And somehow, she’d been close enough to him to know his smell. She most certainly remembered the mindless, out-of-character flirting she’d done with the man and the decision to throw caution to the wind and forget everything but the night -- and the man. But then nothing. Everything else was a blank.

She raised her arm to her nose, the scent of him was on her skin, and instinctively she pressed her thighs together against the sudden warm heat there. She could smell the man all over her, all over the bed, the room which must mean they’d had sex. She went utterly still, her hand clutching the sheet.

The silky material caressed her naked ultrasensitive skin and delivered a jolt of realization. She was naked and having some sort of super-sensitized reaction to the sex she’d had, but she didn’t remember one pleasurable moment of it!

Marissa lifted the sheet and confirmed her state of undress, quickly dropping the sheet back in place. How had this happened? The one time in her life that she’d allowed herself a hot fling, and she had no memory to lavish in.

A sudden sound in the other room shuddered through her body, a soft, barely there sound. So why was it radiating through her like a shock wave? Like a blow horn? Why were her teeth grinding together, her ears ringing? Hangover, she reasoned. It was the only explanation. My God, how much had she drank to be in such a state?

The front door opened and shut, softly. So softly, she didn’t think she should have heard it, not with the bedroom door shut as well, but she did. Everything, including her panic, felt magnified. She reached for the phone and knocked it off the nightstand. Trying to recover, she struggled with the blanket, and the material felt oddly rough against her skin, more like sandpaper.

Frantically, her gaze slid around the room, in search of her clothes. She lifted onto her knees, trying to see the floor, the cool air conditioning on her backside reminding her just how exposed she was with an unknown someone in her home.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and she cringed as the sound banged around in her head. Her temples pounded, and her eyes blurred. Suddenly her mind took control and she wasn’t in her bed anymore. Her mind transported her to a dark ally, to a moment of fear when she saw red eyes in the shadows. Her chest tightened. No. No. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She shook her head in refusal of what she was remembering.

“You’re awake.”

The voice jerked her from her mind’s eye, her gaze flying toward the whisky rich, familiar voice. Evan. Evan was standing th

ere. He was real. The red eyes were not real. Her hand curling around the sheet, clutching it to her chest. She drank in the sight of Evan standing there, letting him – needing him – to take her away from some just out of reach horrific image in her mind. He stood in the doorway – the door, she hadn’t heard open despite hearing everything else in magnification, but she didn’t let herself think about that.