Destiny United (7 page)

She was wanted alive by every werewolf pack across the
world. She was to be tried then burned to death for the crimes against
werewolves. Natalia had always been fierce and strong, but a murderer she was
not. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to hold out hope.

“Do you?” Erin asked again, pulling Marcelo from his
memories.

Marcelo decided to tell the truth. “I do not have a mate.
But I do have a wife.”

Her little forehead creased and he found himself wanting
to kiss the spot between her eyebrows. “But I thought –”

“Natalia was my wife when I was human.”

Her eyes widened. “God, wasn’t that, like, a thousand
years ago? You have to be over it by now!”

He smiled without humor. “Eight hundred and forty three
years ago. And if she was human, and dead, then I would be ‘over it’. But she’s
not. She was turned before I was. Then she disappeared and I haven’t seen her
since.”

Erin’s expression changed from shock to understanding to
pity.
Aw, hell
.
He hated being pitied.
Now he wasn’t sure why he’d told her about Natalia in the first place. In eight
centuries he’d never spoken about her with anyone else. Did this insignificant
little wisp of a girl have some sort of mind control trick?

He rose from the bed and peered out the hotel window
before closing the drapes. It was almost dawn. “Sharing time is over,” he told
her. “Do not bring up this subject again.”

***

Erin watched Marcelo strip off his shirt, revealing
smooth, golden skin. Muscles flexed and relaxed with each graceful movement.
She had trouble tearing her eyes away.

Just stop it! Stop staring! But his pants are so low his hip
bones are showing!

She squeezed her eyes shut.
I
have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend
. When she
opened them again, two deep brown eyes stared back with a haughty smile.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped, annoyed more with
her reaction to him than his smug smirk.

He shrugged. “Nothing.” Then he pulled down the bedding
and climbed in.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Going to sleep.”

“But…I thought…supplies?” This whole forgetting simple
sentence structure thing was truly getting embarrassing.

“It’s almost dawn.” He pointed to the window. She glanced
at the closed drapes. When she met his gaze again he pointed to himself.
“Vampire.” Then he gave her a look like she’d lost more brain cells.

She shook her head, jarring her scattered thoughts,
hoping to form a coherent sentence amidst her rising frustration. “And just
what am I supposed to do?”

“Sleep. We’ll have to make our preparations at night
until I can get an elixir to walk in the daylight.”

“You told me to get cleaned up because you wouldn’t travel
with a ‘sorry looking female,’” she said imitating his deep accented voice.

“The same applies for my bed.”

Her eyes widened with disbelief.
Arrogant,
assuming male!
“Your bed?” She was horror-struck. “You expect me to
sleep with you?”

He shrugged. “Unless you prefer the floor.”

“I do!” She stomped to the bed and pulled off
all
the blankets, tossing the bloody bedspread in the corner with a disgusted
expression. Leaving one measly sheet for him she dragged the rest of them to
the floor. “A sorcerer would have given me the bed.”

“Yes, well, we’ve already established I’m not a sorcerer,
haven’t we?”

Jerk!
Sage had better have
a good reason for sending this particular vampire to get her. Otherwise she was
going to question their friendship. Erin fluffed her pillows and tucked the
blankets around her on the carpeted floor. After a long time brooding, she
finally fell asleep.

Her stomach growling was the first thing to wake her. Second
was the realization that she lay on something soft and cozy, not the hard
floor. She opened her eyes with a soft groan, rolled over and smacked right
into a large male body.
What the
–

She bolted upright. How did she get in the bed? The clock
on the side table read four in the afternoon. No wonder she was hungry.
Marcelo was silent and still beside her, sleeping
like the dead. At least he wasn’t in a coffin. She peeked under the sheet. And
at least he’d kept his pants on. She took a moment to study the rest of him. He
was just as she remembered the night before, looking like the bronzed god of
the Nile. The urge to stroke his smooth flawless skin overwhelmed her. Tempted
to reach out and touch him in a way that was
so
not appropriate for
someone with a boyfriend, she clasped her hands together tightly. The warmth
radiating from the vampire was almost enough to make her pull the blankets up,
and go back to a dreamless sleep. But her stomach wouldn’t let her.

She slipped out of bed, threw on her boots, and tiptoed
to the door. Before she reached it, a hulking figure appeared a few feet in
front of her. Her breath hitched in her throat as she prepared to scream.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” a familiar voice
rumbled.

With an irritated sigh she folded her arms over her
chest. “I’m hungry. Humans eat during the day.”

Marcelo looked at the clock, then back at Erin. “I
thought you had panic attacks in public?” His voice was rough with sleep and
she was surprised to find it so sexy.

“I was just going to the vending machine.”

He moved away from the door, grabbed the hotel book off
the desk and skimmed through the pages. “You can order room service.”

“How did I end up in the bed?”

“I put you there.”

“But I –”

“You were whimpering in your sleep. It was keeping me
awake.”

Her eyes met the carpet. “Oh.” Yeah, that happened from
time to time. So he’d seen her having a nightmare. How embarrassing.

“Here.” He handed her the room service menu. “Order what
you like.” He rubbed his hands over his bleary face. “I’m going to take a
shower.” As if he just realized she was there, his eyes sought hers then
swooped down her body with a quick graze before settling back on her face. She
suddenly felt naked beneath his smoldering gaze. “By the way,” he said with a
twinkle of seduction in his eyes, “you slept soundly once you were in bed with
me.” He was holding back a smirk; she could see it playing on his lips.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. As if he needed an excuse
to get her in bed. As if she needed an excuse to oblige him! He walked towards
the bathroom while Erin looked over the menu.

He stopped abruptly and turned around. He studied her
face with narrowed eyes, putting her on edge. “Do I need to worry about you
leaving?”

She shook her head slowly doing her best to look innocent,
although she might visit the vending machine if the room service took too long.

“Do not leave this room,” he told her, his eyes dark with
warning.

“Not even to go to the vending machine?”

“Not even if the building is burning down around you. You
come get me, understand?”

She rolled her eyes. “That seems a little dramatic.”

“I will tie you to the bed if –”

“All right. I get it. I won’t leave the room.” Her hands
were up in a sign of surrender.

He gave a curt nod of approval. “And stop your eye
rolling. You’re going to make yourself dizzy.” A smirk touched his lips before
he closed the bathroom door.

“Dizzy my ass,” she mumbled, then picked up the phone to
order the most expensive meal the hotel served.

After Erin had eaten breakfast,
Marcelo drove her beast of a car twenty minutes to the other side of town where
he’d seen a mystic shop. The owner was a witch, he could sense it, and he was
counting on her to have an elixir in stock so he could walk in daylight. Even
now, at dusk with cloudy skies, his eyes burned and his stomach was tight with
knots. Contrary to human belief, his skin would not burst into flames upon
meeting the sun. Instead it would burn him from the inside out, boiling his
blood, melting his organs. It wouldn’t kill him but it would be excruciating.
And it would make him so weak he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. And
that
was a death sentence.

Before they’d left the hotel room, Erin had grilled him
about witches.

“Are witches immortal?”

“No.”

“Are they powerful?”

“Very.”

“Are they born that way?”

“Mostly.”

“Are they as moody as Spanish vampires?”

“Very funny.”

Out of all of the supernatural races, Marcelo liked
witches the least. They were shady and underhanded. You couldn’t trust them
anymore than you could the devil himself. But there were times when working
with them was a necessary evil. This was one of those times. The daylight
potion required almost constant consumption. And since he’d brought enough cash
to buy the store’s full supply, it shouldn’t be a problem.

No, the problem was the girl sitting next to him in the
car. After a poor day’s sleep –
because of her!
– Marcelo was in a sour mood. He hadn’t slept with a woman in a very long time.
He hadn’t abstained from sex – he wasn’t a saint – but he’d never been with a
woman long enough to share a bed in such an intimate way. That was reserved for
his wife. Until now.

He’d never heard a woman in so much distress before he’d
put Erin in bed with him. She had writhed around in the blankets so much she’d
entangled herself in them. Little whimpering sounds had torn at his heart – the
heart that had been hardened for more than a few centuries.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Once he’d scooped Erin
up and tucked her in bed with him, she’d nuzzled into his body, and, just like that,
he’d ended an eight hundred year streak. And it had been the first night he
hadn’t dreamed of Natalia.

He found himself becoming more and more attracted to
Erin. Who wouldn’t be attracted to those sweet breasts that looked like they’d
fit perfectly in his hand? As if that weren’t enough, there was something about
her spirit, her very soul, that called to him.
Damn it,
Marcelo, you’ve abstained for too long.
Yes, this was an itch; that was
all. An itch that needed to be scratched.

He pressed his foot on the gas, weaving through the heavy
traffic on Main Street.

“What’s wrong?” The voice next to him invaded his
thoughts. Erin had been slumped down in the seat with a frown set firmly on her
lips for the last fifteen minutes.

“Why do you think something is wrong?”

“You’re driving like an infuriated male.”

A short bark of laughter escaped him. “And how does an
infuriated male drive?”

“Fast and-” She stopped when he slammed on the brakes to
avoid plowing into a truck. “Jerky.”

He looked down at her. Thick lashes framed her amber
eyes, her pale but luscious lips were shaped perfectly for kissing. Her pulse
jumped on her slender neck, catching his attention. His tongue darted out to
wet his lips before he forced his gaze back to the road. Damn her for being so
irresistible. Damn her for making him forget Natalia – even momentarily.

“After I get my potion you will be going back to the
hotel and
staying put
while I get our supplies.”
He gave her a pointed glare that he knew she wouldn’t like. “We will remain
there until the flight leaves tomorrow evening.”

“Marcelo, how long has it been since you had a
girlfriend?”

Girlfriend?
Never. He
hesitated then answered, “Long.”

“Well, here’s a refresher course. Women don’t like to be
told what to do. Especially me. I need my freedom.”

At first he thought she was being ironic, but a glance at
her face revealed she was serious. “Freedom?
Querida,
you are paralyzed by fear. What is this freedom you speak of?”

He expected anger or a defensive glower, but she didn’t
say a word. She stared at her hands in a sad sort of silence. His chest felt
heavy, like something just squeezed his heart. It was unfamiliar and
uncomfortable. He thrust the car into fifth and punched the gas.

Misty’s Magic and Mayhem was a tiny nook in a strip mall
on the corner of Main Street. Situated next to a bakery and across from a bar that
looked like it was trying to be a NYC club, the witch’s enigmatic store stood
out like a vampire at Catholic Mass. Marcelo wondered how many of Misty’s – if
that was her real name – patrons were humans who thought they were witches and
how many were the real thing.

When he looked over at Erin, she had taken on a stubborn
expression. “I suppose you are going to fight me about going inside,” he said.

Placing her hands on either side of the car seat, she
gripped the cushion until her knuckles turned white. The look on her face was
absolute determination. And it was adorable.

He exhaled an exaggerated breath. “All right. You can
stay in the car.”

Her hands loosened on the seat.

“But call your phone if anything seems suspicious.” He held
out his phone.

She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, angry, he
guessed, that he wasn’t giving her back her own phone. Admitting he was amused
by this little show of willfulness would have only irritated her further, so he
bit back the laugh he was choking on and placed the phone on her lap. She still
hadn’t said a word when he stepped out of the car.

“Erin,” he stooped down to see her face, “do I need to
tell you to keep your ass in the car?”

She rolled her eyes but shook her head.

He couldn’t help himself. A patronizing grin crept onto
his lips. “Good girl.”

Her eyes promised retribution right before he shut the
car door.

***

“Bastard,” Erin muttered once Marcelo was out of hearing
distance. First, he thought he could tell her what to do. Then he patronized
her like a child!