Free The Heart's Ashes by A. M. Hudson

civil of you.” I rolled my eyes. “And...what the hell is
Marking anyway?”
    “ I guess it looks like what humans call a tattoo. It’s a tiny
black dot just at the side of the neck.” He ran his fingertip down
the curve of my shoulder. “It appears there, so when a vampire goes
in for the kill—he sees it.”
    “ How—” I breathed, steadying my embarrassingly loud heart,
thumping for the feel of my body being touched again. “How does he
know just by seeing a dot?”
    “ For you, the Mark will be pale, almost green-black, but for
us, when your blood runs warm and your body’s calling for the kill,
it glows blue.”
    “ Wow.”
    “ Yes, it’s magical.”
    “ Yeah,” I said distractedly.
    “ Hey, Amara?”
    “ Mm.” The tickly sensation of his finger twirling a strand of
my hair made it impossible to concentrate.
    “ If they pass this law, I’ll Mark you, okay? That way you’ll
always be safe.”
    “ Okay... But, how do you place a Mark on someone?”
    Eric smiled,
his eyes becoming smaller. “You bone them.”
    My breath came
only on my lips—silky and short, not reaching my lungs. “Just by
bon...I mean, making love?”
    He leaned in
and pressed his lips close to my ear. “Just by making love.”
    I cleared my
throat. “So, does every person who’s made love to a vampire have a
Mark?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Why? How?”
    “ We carry a life force in our veins—” he leaned down slightly
until my averted gaze met his, “—all of our veins.”
    My eyelids
fluttered with the thought of Eric being that close to me; his lips
on my neck, his hands around my waist, not one bare shred of skin
unaffected, our bodies completely touching, his life force...inside
of me. “So, your...seed leaves a Mark?”
    “ No, not that, but—” He laughed, covering his smile with the
back of his hand. “Well, we don’t really know. Some have theorised
that when we orgasm—males and females—we share our life force with
our partner. I guess it’s like, well, when a human has intercourse,
they exchange fluids; you can get diseases, get pregnant, but if
you mate with a vampire, you get Marked.”
    “ Gross.”
    “ No, it’s not. It’s beautiful. You absorb that force, that
energy, and for some reason, it shows—like a birthmark on your
neck—right over your carotid artery.”
    I shook my
head and took a deep breath. I need to bring the conversation down
a notch. “So, no one knows where David is?”
    “ Nope.” Eric sighed and leaned back, squinting against the hot
sun that before now, I hadn’t noticed. “But now they know where you
are, they’ll just watch you. After all, it’s bound to be only a
matter of time before he comes by to check if you’re still
breathing.”
    “ They didn’t know where I was? You told them?”
    “ Of course—it’s intriguing news. We all thought you’d moved to
Perth. We’ve had scouts out there hunting for David.”
    “ Hunting? Why hunting?”
    “ Like I said—” Eric’s eyes narrowed and he looked away.
“Arthur wants him back.”
    “ Well, it’s silly of them to think he’ll come back here . You said it
yourself, David won’t come back to see me.”
    “ What’s this, then?” He lifted my face and looked at my pout,
half leaning away. “I thought you were so sure he
would.”
    “ I never said that. But I just didn’t need you diminishing my
already shattered hopes.”
    Eric blinked a
few times, as if it helped him to think. “So, you actually still
love him?”
    “ I always will,” I said tugging away from him.
    “ Even after he nearly got you killed?”
    “ That wasn’t his fault.”
    “ Yes, it was. He riled Jason up.” Eric’s voice became an
octave higher.
    “ No. Jason got himself riled up. Jason attacked me. It was not
David’s fault.”
    “ But...he left you, told you he’d never come back, left you to
die at the hands of a brother he knew was out to hurt
him.”
    “ He didn’t know Jason would do that.”
    “ Didn’t