Page 167 of Eternal Craving

“Your soul is blacker.”

“I don’t doubt it, but that, too, I’m able to control.”

“You have no power over me.”

I backed away. “If you want to stay in this house, you’ll obey me.”

Sunaria’s expression softened. “Marcus is upstairs.”

I left the room hating what I had to do, but knowing there was no choice.

Rachel turned the corner and stopped, giving me a questioning look. I was, after all, lingering before her brother’s bedroom door.

“What?” I snapped.

“Would you like to join me tonight?” she said softly.

“No.” My hand hesitated on the door handle.

“I’m going to the opera.”

“Why in God’s name would I want to go with you?”

Her face fell.

I hated hurting her, but this agony was impossible to fight. I wanted to say I was sorry, to say that this is the man I am now.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” I turned the handle and then paused, waiting for her to walk away.

“You’re visiting Marcus instead?”

I ignored her.

Marcus stirred when I entered. Red stubble was speckled over his jaw and his English complexion was pale. He’d obviously not fed. His appetite, like mine, had dulled with tonight’s events back on Petherton Road.

I ignored his questioning expression, as well as his resistance, and nuzzled into his neck. He tried to shove me away, but I restrained him, pinning his hands down on either side of his head, his strength no match for mine. Marcus jolted when I bit into his flesh.

There was no turning back.

His life flashed before me.

Marcus as a simple farm boy, the death of his parents at age fourteen, his inability to maintain their farm, the property being taken away, the loss of his livelihood, Marcus and Rachel’s journey to London, them scouring for food, struggling to survive. As though I were there with them, I followed Rachel, Marcus, Lilly, and Ted as they trespassed into Blackfriars.

Beneath me, Marcus relented, letting me in, exposing it all, offering himself as an open book. I rocked against him, exchanging intimacy for knowledge. I continued to swallow his precious blood, wanting to know every part of him, memorizing his wants, his fears, and devouring his lifelong yearnings, his innermost secrets.

Another visage now of Blackfriars, Marcus’ hope when I’d turned up at their cell door. The rush he’d experienced but suppressed when I’d transformed him.

And I wanted to know more.

I tapped into Marcus’ streaming thoughts, and witnessed him scouring London’s streets, no matter the weather. Hispassion in looking for Jacob and exultation at finding him, then taking special care to remember the doctor’s house. Marcus flying across London, wanting to share the news with me, and his troubled ruminations of how we’d keep Jacob safe, and how best to protect him. His fear of the others, as dark eyes stared back at him from the shadows outside Belshazzar’s, wayward vampires new to London. And, finally, his fear of disappointing me, his loyalty and an infatuation with me that verged on obsession.

His fingernails dug into my forearms, holding me against him.

Placing my fingers over the bite, I stemmed the trickle.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked breathlessly.

I wiped my mouth.