clearly without raising the alarm since he didn’t seem in a hurry or at all flustered by how long things were taking.
The way he held himself strengthened her belief that he couldn’t be a guard. Guards of all the pure bloodlines were proud creatures, but this man’s poise went beyond pride. He held his head high, his eyes betraying how sure of himself he was. He wasn’t slouching and there was an air of wisdom about him. She got the feeling that he could handle any situation with ease, no matter how dangerous it was. He was older than her, his eyes told her that, but she couldn’t tell how old.
“Your family had reasons for not letting you out. You disobeyed them, and now you are not safe anywhere.”
The sound of his voice snapped her out of her thoughts. The strange sense of calm her perusal of him had given her vanished and fear crept in again. She looked into his eyes to see if what he was saying was true. How was she supposed to trust him? He’d kidnapped her. For all she knew this could be a ruse to get her to do something for him, to make her lose faith in her family.
She backed against the wall as he advanced on her, his movements slow and steady as he closed the gap between them. Her time was up. She could see in his eyes that he was tired of taking things slowly.
She closed her eyes instinctively when he came to a halt in front of her and drew her hair away from her neck. He leaned towards the place where he’d marked her and a low purr rumbled through his chest.
“Who is your sire? If you do not have a mother,” he whispered the words into her ear.
Her sire?
She struggled again, a frown flickering on her brow. She searched her memories for the slightest clue as to the answer to his question.
“It is Iona,” she answered with all the confidence she could find in her now trembling body.
He pulled back and looked at her, shaking his head as he did so. “You have no marks, but mine.”
Her hand automatically moved to her neck. It was true. She had no other marks on her neck. She’d never realised it until the day that her maid, Serenity, had told her, and since that day, she’d been thankful that she didn’t have a reflection so she couldn’t see it for herself. The questions that had arisen in her mind still plagued her. She’d asked herself countless times how it was possible that she could have a sire and no marks. There was no other way of creating a vampire that she knew of. She’d scoured the library archives over and over again, searching for a book that would give her the answer. There had to be another way. She was a vampire after all.
“I could tell you.”
His silken voice aroused her interest and she almost nodded. Could he really tell her? Was this another trick? How could he tell her how she came about, how she became a vampire?
His hands grasped hold of her upper arms and panic rose up inside her when he neared her neck. She tensed and screwed her eyes shut when his teeth penetrated her throat in the same place he’d bitten her before. She wriggled against him, trying to get her arms free so she could push him away, but he only held her tighter.
Valentine frowned and bit down harder on her neck, drawing her blood into his mouth and bracing himself while he waited for the images to hit him.
Nothing.
His teeth retracted.
It wasn’t possible that she had the strength to block her memories from him. He’d easily seen the visions she held in her blood when he’d bitten her before. She hadn’t put up a fight. How had she blocked him this time?
He moved back a fraction to look at her and didn’t have time to react when her feet came up. They pressed hard into his stomach and propelled him backwards through the air. His breath left him as he slammed into the far wall and dropped to his knees, his teeth gritted.
When his body finally shut down the pain, he raised his eyes to look at her.
She was gone.
He hurried to his feet and swung around to face the now open
C. J. Valles, Alessa James