Page 31 of Marked
Before long, my cheeks are scalding and sore from my grin and the steady stream of laughter.
“Vampires, in particular, seem to be insatiable,” she gushes after taking a long pull from the smoothie she ordered from the kitchen.
I glance at her, face flaming as the novels I used to read spring to mind. “You’ve slept with one before?” I ask, genuinely curious and trying to hide it.
She holds out her hand and the bridal set is dazzling in the lights. “Oh, honey, I married him.”
Something must show in my expression because she stops walking. “You haven’t had good experiences with my kind, have you?”
I blink. “You’re a—”
Her smile is demure, but I catch twin fangs.
My inhale leaves me choking. She hurries to my side, hands waving just above my skin.
“Oh, Lilah, I’m so sorry,” she says, big blue eyes shining. “It’s okay. Look, sit down.” She ushers me to a low bench in front of a long painting of a meadow.
I drop onto the ornate wood and stare at her.
She hovers in her stilettos, face pink. “I thought you knew.” Her voice is so crestfallen that it makes my chest hurt.
If there is an evil bone in her body, it would surprise the hell out of me.
“How do you drink from people being so ...” I wave at her. Sweet seems wrong, but she catches my drift.
Her face colors. “I’m a vegetarian.”
My eyes bug.
Laughter bursts from me, and she turns puce. It only makes me laugh harder.
“I know,” she says, voice cracking. “It makes the whole colony seem weak. A vegetarian vampire queen ...”
“Queen?” I squeak.
Her expression grows even more forlorn. “Yeah.”
I sway a bit. The local vampire queen.
Holy shit.
Iron resolve tightens her slim shoulders. “But I feed from my husband, you know. His is the only blood I can tolerate, but we make it work.”
I wipe my eyes as some of my humor fades in the face of shock. “And they just accept that?”
Her head hangs. “Mostly. Markus is not a normal leader. The colony took it in stride. But the Council isn’t too thrilled.”
The ruling force in Europe is well known, even among the humans. Since most of the ones that sit on the Council are some of the first supernaturals, even the supes in the States seem unwilling to piss them off.
She sits down next to me, hand tightening over her smoothie. “They threatened to send an emissary to take over the area unless Markus sent me away. He Claimed me a day later.”
“Claimed?” I ask, confused.
A tremble of longing rolls down her spine and her pale blue eyes spin to gold. I sit back.
“It’s not a very well-known tradition,” she says, voice husky. “Some vampires have a second part of them, like a mate for the shifters. We call them Consorts. But where a mating is felt on both sides, only male vampires know who their consort is. And when they find them, they kind of go ... postal.”
I stare. “Postal?”
