Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) (18 page)

“So,” I started, and he perked up, intrigued
with the idea of a new direction. I looked at him quizzically with my eyes
penetrating deep into his, like some hardnosed detective searching for the
truth. “What is your favorite color?” I asked, not breaking my investigative
toughness.

He tried answering with the same
seriousness, but his smile was breaking the surface. “Green,” he answered with
his eyes looking deep into mine. He gathered himself and once composed, he
looked at me sternly and replied, “So, Lucille, what’s your favorite color?”

“Red,” I said without hesitating. He raised
a brow, and I knew he questioned my sanity. Yes, it was the color of blood, but
that was what reminded me of who I was. I moved on with something a little more
substantial to test the waters. “Where are you from?”

He considered his answer a minute before
saying, “I was born in Germany but moved here a long time ago. I never actually
settled here until recent years, but this town kept drawing me back in.”

“You don’t have an accent,” I blurted,
stating the obvious.

“No, I don’t. I’ve done a lot of traveling
in my days, and over time my accent faded as I got better at adapting to my
current surroundings. I can take on just about any accent, depending on where I
am at the moment.”

“A very nice party trick, and at some point,
I’m going to need to hear some of those accents. What were your parents like?”
I continued.

He refrained from laughing at my demanding
tone, but the smile was still there as he answered the question. “Normal
parents from what I remember. Very strict. My mother saw to it that I learned
manners at a young age, and my father just wanted me to be a hard worker and
make something of my life. If I got out of line, they beat me back into it,” he
said.

“Let me guess, you killed them when you
turned?” I accused.

“They died of a plague before I turned. I
was the only one in our village who survived it,” he said distantly as if he
was brought back in time to that day.

There was a look of regret on his face that
was so familiar it sent pangs of remorse shooting through my stomach. I felt
guilty for even suggesting he killed them.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. This brought
him back to the present, and he gave me a half smile that said not to worry.

“It was a long time ago,” he said.

“I guess so. It was what, two, three
millennia ago?” I said trying to lighten the mood. It probably wasn’t the most
sensitive thing to say, but I was never a people person. I have never had a
sensitive side, and I wasn’t one to dish out comfort of any kind, or advice of
any kind, for that matter.

He didn’t seem to mind, an upside to him
knowing and understanding me so well. The only upside. I never had to explain
why I was the way I was to him, because he already knew. I guess a part of that
was due to having something in common. I looked at him wanting to try again, so
I went with a more honest approach. “Being the only survivor, did you feel
guilty that you didn’t die with them?”

He measured me a moment before responding,
“Yes, and like you, I hated what I had become.”

He cut it off at that, but I knew there was
so much more to the story that he wouldn’t share, but the last part kept me
reeling. I wasn’t sure I could buy that a vampire hated himself. Every one that
I had met was extremely selfish and narcissistic.

He sensed my skepticism and said, “Trixie.”

“Trixie?” I asked, a little offended that
his mind was somewhere else, especially on someone named Trixie.

He laughed under his breath as the bartender
came bouncing back over, overly eager to serve Gavin’s every need. “I think she
could use a refill,” he said, pointing to my now empty mug.

She nodded, with a slightly perturbed look
in her eyes when she cast a glance in my direction. When she returned, she set
three more mugs down in front of me.

“That should hold her over for a while,” she
said directly to Gavin, as if I weren’t sitting right there. I was getting the
impression she wasn’t too fond of any female company he kept, and something
else nagged at me. Did she know about me, who I was? Did everyone? Maybe Gavin
told her about me. He smiled a sign of thanks, and as she made her way back to
the bar full of old lonely patrons, I used the break in conversation to down
yet another mug, and my tongue was already a bit numb.

Realizing how little I knew about Gavin, I
wanted to dig deeper. “So what part of Germany are you from?”

“Southern Germany. I grew up in a small
village outside of Munich,” he said.

“I always wanted to go there,” I blurted
before I could stop myself.

It was strange, because I always had wanted
to travel and see the world, but that was one of the areas I had always dreamt
about seeing. I remember someone telling me that was where fairy tales were
inspired. When I was younger, I dreamed of leaving this place, where I was a freak,
to go to the place where fairy tales began, where I might have fit in. I hadn’t
realized back then that I would grow up in a horror story.

He smiled at my unfiltered thoughts and
continued, “Maybe I’ll take you there someday.”

Yeah right. And I would have my own happy
ending.

I glanced at the blue eyes staring into
mine. He definitely looked the part, but I knew this guy was no prince, even if
he did insist on rescuing me, given the opportunity. I took another drink of
the third mug and noticed my eyelids were feeling very heavy. “So how old are
you, anyway?” I asked, again without filter.

He laughed lightly before answering,
“According to you, ancient. Do I look that old?”

“Vague. What year were you born?” I pressed.

“1838, although I’m not sure that makes me
ancient. I think you’re giving me premature grays.”

“I thought you said you were an ancient?” I
asked desperately. I was so confused that he would be so young for a vampire.
It didn’t make any sense, and I didn’t need any more curve balls right now.

“No, you assumed I was. I never said I was,”
he corrected.

“So how the hell are you so strong? What are
you?” I begged for an answer that made sense, but I had a feeling that nothing
about him made sense. Oddly enough, he was a freak, which was yet another
similarity. I wondered briefly if it was unfair to judge him in the same way as
typical bloodsucking monsters. He was beginning to veer from the normal class
of vampires, and that could either be really good or really bad.

“I work out and eat right,” he joked.

“Please, I know what you eat,” I replied,
picturing the giant refrigerator of blood in his loft. “Do you prefer A positive
or maybe O negative?”

“I don’t think that alcohol is doing its
job,” he said, getting to his feet. He held out his hand, and when I didn’t
reach for it he grabbed my arm pulling me to my feet. “Come on. We need a
change of atmosphere. You still aren’t loose enough.”

“I’ll never be loose enough for you,” I
said, stumbling away from my chair. He caught my arm before I fell all the way
forward.

“Well, then, maybe you better slow down on
those things. I told you I would take advantage of you,” he flashed a wicked
smile.

“I’ll kill you,” I threatened weakly.

“If you can catch me,” he said. He pulled me
over to the pool tables where there were some older men engaged in a drunken
game for fun and some younger guys that looked intensely focused. They must
have been playing for money. We came to a stop several feet away from a very
old dart board with wooden darts that had real feathers, or what was left of
real feathers.

“Really?” I asked skeptically. “You know
neither of us can lose.”

“Well then, think of it as a sobriety test.
Let’s see if those reflexes and senses are still fully intact,” he challenged.
He went over to the dart board and pulled the old darts free from the cork and
handed me four on his way back.

He let me go first, and I hit the bull’s-eye
with ease. He stepped up close behind me, and I moved out of his way. His dart
sailed flawlessly into the bull’s-eye next to mine. We went back and forth like
that several times before we began counting with the numbers. I would hit the
number one, then he would hit two, and as boring as the game was, I was
actually starting to enjoy it.

The simplicity of it all took my mind off of
everything I had been stressing about lately. It might have had something to do
with the liquid evil clouding my thoughts, too. I began to wonder why I ever
cared so much about hating all things vampire. The one I was with now didn’t
seem all that bad. He continued to get closer and closer each time we switched
off from the shooting position.

I stepped back up to the line, and cocked my
arm back for the throw. I felt his body close behind me, sending that weird
electric current through my body. His scent invaded my nostrils, performing a
full-on assault of my senses. It made my body tingle, and my hand began
shaking. As I threw, my arm felt weak and rubbery. I released the dart and it
landed about three inches from the intended target. Damn, I was drunk, but I
wasn’t sure it was just off the moonshine.

“Hmmm, so no more darts?” he asked. He must
have known how much I hated missing my target.

Wait, I never missed. Maybe I should slow
down.

I turned to scowl at him for making me miss
when I felt eyes on me. The younger guys at the pool table were talking about
me, and I overheard bits and pieces of their vulgar comments.

“Come on, I’m bored with darts,” Gavin said
more urgently. I knew he heard them too and wanted to avoid the fight that was
inevitable.

“Hey, baby, want to play a real man’s game?”
the taller one called to me.

“I would if there were any real men around
to teach me,” I snapped. I hated sleazy come-ons.

I felt Gavin tense behind me as he wrapped
an arm around my waist as if to pull me into the safety of his chest where
nothing could harm me. My body melted into his easily, and I started turning to
go back to our table.

“Hey babe, we’ll show you a better time than
pretty boy,” said another one.

I tensed for a fight, and the urge to hit
something made me shake with anger. I looked at Gavin, and the hardness in his
expression told me he was even worse off than I was. His eyes darkened a few
shades and his jaw was so tightly clenched, I doubted he could have answered me
if I asked if he was okay.

It was weird to be the reasonable one out of
the two of us, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him as hard as I could in the
direction of our table. Trixie was clearing some of the other tables when she
saw us coming back over to ours.

She noticed my faltered steps and said, “Oh,
I wish I was drunk right now. I might have to do a shot later. Maybe I’ll try
the 40-something divorcee. He looks pretty messed up. I could get a good buzz
off him.”

I looked at her like she was joking. I
really hoped she was joking, but I didn’t see anything in her expression that
convinced me of that. She was completely serious. I looked at Gavin for
confirmation, and he eyed me without speaking.

Turning back to Trixie, I said, “You mean
you drink their blood and you get drunk off of it? Is that even possible?”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s the only way we
can get drunk. If we drank alcohol by itself, our bodies just reject it, but by
having it mixed with blood, our bodies accept it, therefore, drunkenness,” she
said, as if it were a widely known fact. It was something I should have known.
I looked back to Gavin, but his face told me he was somewhere else, considering
something.

The tension in his stance was still obvious,
so to help him relax I grabbed him by the arm and began dragging him toward the
other end of the bar. “Come on,” I commanded.

He gave his famous half smile and followed
my lead. I went to the juke box, selected the first song I could find, and
popped in a quarter. Of course, it had to be a slower song.
Great
.

He was quick to take the lead as his arms
circled my waist, pulling me against his chest so that I could hear the strong
heartbeat under the thin layer of t-shirt. Seriously, he really needed to
bottle that scent. It was making me lightheaded in a very tantalizing way.

His strong arms felt entirely too good
around me, and the way his fingertips brushed against my back made me think
very naughty thoughts that I knew I shouldn’t be thinking, but at the moment, I
really couldn’t bring myself to care enough to pull away. I started thinking of
those things he jokingly promised to make me beg for earlier, and I thought if
my inhibitions dipped any lower below that limbo stick I’d be begging for much
more from the flat of my back.
Hmm
…

“Thank you. For the distraction, I mean,”
his words interrupted my wayward thoughts and forced me to look up.

As soon as I found his eyes, all civility
that had been set in place before seemed to disappear. It was replaced by the
underlying longing that had been hiding behind that civility. For a brief
moment, there were so many different emotions playing out on his face that it
made me dizzy to keep up, but most of them made me feel beautiful and strong and
a little like I could shed a few tears of joy.

Weird
.

Our faces were much closer now than before,
and so were our lips. My eyes trailed down to those lips, and I think my body
temperature rose by about ten degrees. I looked back up to his eyes and they
were bouncing from my lips to my eyes as well, the heat in his gaze
intensifying immensely. He tilted his head further, his lips now so close I
could already feel mine tingling from the anticipation, but they were still
painfully too far away. Before I could close the gap, I heard the crash of
glass breaking behind the bar. It made us both turn our heads to see Trixie
wearing a feigned apologetic look on her face.