Marked by Blood: Book 2 of The Marked Series by Ford, Rinna (top novels of all time txt) 📕

“I need you, Matias,” I sighed.

His jaw clenched and his body around me became taut. “Xander,” he said as a curse. That one word was like a bucket of water on us both. Matias banged his fist on the wall behind me and turned around, walking all the way to the other side of the room.

Even though he wanted to claim me as much as I wanted to claim him, he respected my choice even more. Once he got to the opposite wall, he leaned against it and slid down to the floor.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” I asked, defeated.

I almost did the one thing I promised my bonded mate I wouldn’t. I asked for it, and would have done it if Matias hadn’t been the voice of reason.

Matias tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “It will work. We just have to control our urges. When things have calmed down between us, we can come back to the idea of feeding from the source, okay? Just not today, or any day in the near future. I’m not leaving your side, Emelia. Not now or ever.”

“Do you think it’ll get easier? To be around each other? Because from where I’m standing, I'm not so sure.” I couldn’t take my eyes off him and even with the distance, I had an incredible urge to run into his arms.

He moved his shoulders up and down once in a tired shrug. “I don’t know, little one. Maybe? But I’m not giving up. I’ve found you and I’m not giving you up, even if I can only be near you.”

Closing my eyes, I worked on calming my emotions because I owed him to try and make it as easy as possible. After all, it was because of me that we were in this predicament. I breathed in and out through my mouth over and over again and when I opened my eyes back up, feeling much better, Matias still hadn’t moved from his spot against the wall.

Deciding we needed to get back on track, I picked up one of the daggers from the wall beside me and turned it in my hand. Then, without another thought, I launched at the far wall, embedding it in the drywall about a foot above his head. Matias jumped and spun around, ready for a fight, but when he saw it was me who threw it, he gave me a puzzled look.

“Was that strong enough?” I asked.

He looked from me to the dagger, then walked even closer to it to get a better look. It had gone all the way into the wall, revealing only the very end of the hilt. I had thrown it almost completely through the wall.

“That’s pretty good, but not exactly what I had in mind.” Matias chuckled and shook his head in exasperation. “Little one, you’re going to be the true death of me, I know it.”

Chapter Nineteen

Matias helped me work on my vampire strength until Camille retrieved me from the gym at lunch time. She declared it was her turn and took me outside where she tried to help me master throwing fireballs or whatever it was that shot from my hands earlier in the morning. It was the first time anything like that had happened to me, and I was completely out of my depth with it.

She told me it was a rare caster talent, but she wasn’t surprised I was able to do it since I was the only true hybrid in existence. She tried to guess what skill would manifest next and that made me even more nervous. I could already call for things and send them away, create a sword or other weapons like all casters could, teleport, and I was fair at making potions and spells. I didn’t think I’d be able to do much else until I destroyed the boulders overlooking the ocean.

We worked well into the afternoon and I couldn’t even make one single fireball shoot from my hands, no matter how hard I tried. Camille even tried slapping me across the face to make me angry, but my vampire side emerged instead of the casting ability that she was trying to summon. If Matias wasn’t able to hold me back I would have mauled her face off. Needless to say, she didn’t hit me twice. In fact, she made a quick exit after that, claiming she needed to meet with Grayson because he wanted to make up with her.

She kept her distance at dinner, which made me feel even worse, but at least she was sitting with Grayson, so I knew she didn’t completely lie to me in order to get away from me.

Xander wasn’t at dinner. In fact, I didn’t see him at all that day after breakfast. He never told me what his plans for the day were, but I assumed that he’d stay close. After all, I was alone with Matias for a good part of the time. But when I sat down to dinner and he wasn’t there, I began to worry. It wasn’t like him to stay away from me for very long, not to mention he never missed out on a meal.

Dinner came and went and he still wasn’t there. After I cleaned up, I decided it wasn’t helpful to worry and excused myself to go up to the room I shared with Xan. I was going to take a bath and read, something that would hopefully help me relax. I said goodnight to Matias and went up to my room.

I held out hope Xan was in our room waiting for me, but the room was as cold and dark as when I left it in the early hours of the morning and there was no sign of my mate. I bypassed the bed and walked straight into the bathroom, turning on the bathtub faucet. I found some bath salts under the sink the week before, but