Reunion by Felicity Heaton (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

Tynan’s face darkened and he straightened to his full height. The rain bounced off his broad shoulders and she wished he would speak because waiting for him to shout at her was unsettling.

“Then tell him that,” he said with obvious restraint. “If you truly believe it. I won’t sit here like I did that day. If I hadn’t gone to that club that night, you would have never met him and he would’ve had a normal life. Why turn him and then turn your back on him?”

She lowered her eyes away from his, unable to hold his gaze as guilt welled up inside of her. He was right. She was so wrong. She never should have turned Jascha and then left him to another to teach. She should have kept her distance. Her chest ached and she pressed her hand against it.

Tynan growled.

“Forget it!” He almost roared the words. The strength behind them hit her hard, making her shrink back in a way she hadn’t done since the days her sire had been angry with her. “You’re a perfect Law Keeper, Marise—heartless!”

Her head snapped up and she stared at his retreating back, watching him as he disappeared into the gloom. The rain got in her eyes but she didn’t look away. She kept staring into the distance.

“I was scared,” she whispered to the night. “I ran away and then he made moves on me and I couldn’t resist him, and then it went wrong like I’d feared it would... and I ran away again.”

Tears mingled with the rain as they ran down her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to gain a little comfort. The rain grew heavier, sending the smell of damp earth up into the air and clouding her senses. She lowered her head and sighed, thinking about all the years she had spent with Jascha and how blindly she had believed that it would all be fine.

Was Tynan telling the truth when he said that Jascha still loved her? She had seen feelings in Jascha’s eyes during the time she had spent with him, had sensed them, but she didn’t dare believe that she was reading him right. Surely his own brother would be able to see his feelings? Had Jascha told Tynan that he was still in love with her?

Her eyes widened and she spun on the spot the second she sensed someone through the gloom.

She slipped into her vampire guise and growled at the man standing before her.

He raised his hand and she saw the stake. A few steps backwards put a more comfortable distance between them and her senses were fixing on him, trying to see if he was just an ordinary hunter or the one who had hurt Jascha.

Jascha.

She roared and the man didn’t even flinch.

“I never realised that vampires had lover’s spats,” he said, a well-bred English accent making the words roll effortlessly off his tongue. They were laced with amusement.

Marise cocked her head to one side and assessed him. He was taller than she was. Young, probably in his early thirties or late twenties. Fair haired and nothing out of the ordinary in the looks department. He pushed his glasses up his nose, his focus wholly on her.

She got the feeling he was going to be hard to trick. There was a sparkle of intelligence in his eyes, and something else too. She narrowed her gaze on him and tried to discern what it was she had seen.

It was confidence but not at a normal level. The power he possessed had gone to his head, giving him a maniacal edge to this expression. He clearly thought he was invulnerable. Whatever someone had done to him, it had been too much for his weak human mind to handle.

Jascha had been wrong. It wasn’t his intelligence that made him dangerous, it was this madness she could see in his eyes. He believed no one could kill him. It made him reckless and fierce.

Taking a deep breath, she held it in, letting her own confidence grow. She remembered all the battles she had fought and the people she had killed. He wasn’t immortal. He was just strong and maybe a little quicker than a human. He was no more dangerous than a weakling or a werewolf.

He would die by her hand.

Lunging forwards, Marise swiped at him with her claws and satisfaction and hunger flooded her when she smelled his blood in the air. She turned and blocked his attack, keeping alert and not letting the fact she had hurt him go to her head. The smell of blood drove her on and she countered each of his moves, making sure that he couldn’t hit her with the stake. She rolled when he threw a punch and turned as she came to her feet. Back flipping, she put a little distance between them and then came around again.

She watched him closely, studying the way he moved and his tactics. She had to make sure that she remained alert and didn’t let her guard down. So far, he had done nothing to prove his strength or skill. Was he biding his time and waiting for her to slip up?

She kicked him in the stomach, launching him backwards and smiling with grim satisfaction when he slammed into a headstone and slumped to the floor. She didn’t wait for him to stand, instead she stood over him and kicked him in the stomach again.

He grunted in pain and her smile became a grin.

This was for Jascha.

She went to kick him again but he caught her foot and twisted it, sending her crashing to the ground. She rolled away, avoiding the blur that was a stake and breathing hard as she gathered herself. He had just upped the game.

Baring her fangs, she circled him.

“What are you?” he said, curiosity in his eyes. “You’re not a guard like the others were, but what you’re wearing looks awfully like a uniform.”

“I’m death,” she said, calm and steady, ready for his next move.

He tried to side step her but she punched him hard across the face and followed through with an elbow. He didn’t cry out in pain as she had expected him to. He stumbled backwards, wiped his bloodied nose on the back of his hand, and stared at it, eyebrows raised, and then gave her a stunned look.

Marise flashed him a toothy smile, glad that she could be the one to give him a reminder that he was still human and he could still die.

She was ready for him when he rushed her, throwing his body weight into it. She grabbed his wrists and made it close to biting him but he twisted in her grip and evaded her. She turned with him, pulling him close and wrestling to get the stake out of his hand. He growled with effort, not a vampire growl, but a mere human noise of frustration. He had underestimated her. He was pissed off.

Pushing with all her might, she flipped him over and slammed him into the ground. He pressed his feet into her stomach and propelled her backwards, sending her to the ground a few feet from him. She realised that Jascha was right, he was only as strong as a weakling.

She was almost on her feet when he barrelled into her, knocking her back down, and she felt a sharp pain in her right forearm and then a white hot burning.

She roared and scratched his face, gouging his cheek and kicking him off her at the same time. Shuffling backwards, she bought herself time and got to her feet. When she looked around, he was running, his hand pressed against his cheek. She flicked the blood off her hand and then wrapped it around the wound on her other arm as it stung and burned. Damned holy wood.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Marise began the short walk back to the mansion. She shifted her hand aside and looked at her jacket. The stake had torn through her sleeve, wrecking it. She growled and then grimaced when her wound hurt, and placed her hand back over it to stem the flow of blood.

He was definitely dead now.

The next time she saw him would be his last day on Earth.

The walk to his room seemed longer than before. Marise’s arm was killing her, burning fiercely, and blood covered her hand. No one seemed to notice it as she made her way to Jascha, dripping water in a trail behind her. She had to check on him. She had to look him in the eye and see if she was brave enough to do as Tynan asked of her.

Reaching his door, she hesitated for a mere second before opening it. She locked it behind her, instinct telling her that Alyssa would be along as soon as someone mentioned where she was. In a way, she felt sorry for the girl, loving a man who loved another. It was no way to spend eternity.

Her eyes found Jascha. He was awake, sitting up in bed and reading. She walked to the bed and sat down beside him, not caring that she was making the bed damp. Her gaze skipped from cut to cut on his exposed chest and abdomen, checking him. The sight of them still turned her stomach and brought her concern to the surface.

She reached out and brushed her fingers over them, pausing only when she saw the blood coating her hand.

Jascha had seen it too.

He grabbed her hand and tugged it to him before turning gentle and cradling it as though he would hurt her by holding it. She didn’t stop him as he inspected it and didn’t hide the pain from him when he looked into her eyes. She wanted to fall into his arms and feel them around her, holding her, taking away all her hurt and tiredness. She wanted him to make her feel safe as he used to.

“Take it off,” he said with a nod to her jacket.

She obeyed, silently removing the coat and letting it drop to the floor. It was ruined now. The sight of it torn and wrecked seemed to break the shackles and smash the defences around her heart. Reality sank in swiftly and painfully. She didn’t want to spend eternity without Jascha.

Loving him and not having him would make eternity hell and she didn’t think she could bear it anymore.

“Who did this?” His voice was soft, as gentle as his touch.

Her eyes followed his fingers as he rolled her sleeve up to reveal the wound on her arm. He breathed in sharply and she wondered if the cut was worthy of such a reaction. She looked at it, taking in the deep gash and the charred skin where the stake had rested long enough to burn her. She’d had worse injuries but something about the careful, tender way that Jascha was treating it made her feel as though this little scratch was life threatening. He seemed to see it that way.

His grip on her arm was so light, barely touching her as he cradled it and his thumb brushed along the skin beside the wound. Her focus shifted to