Free Marked: a Vampire Romance by Kate Rudolph

came to shop.” Every second she spent around Adam threw her into a tailspin of confusion. He was a vampire! A bloodsucker! She needed to either stake him or run the hell away.
    But what kind of vampire tended a huntress’s wounds? What kind of vampire defended humans he wasn’t using?
    He still wasn’t convinced. “This is between us.”
    “What is this ?” There wasn’t anything for there to be a ‘this.’ Nothing except a one-night-stand—one-night-team-up, she corrected—and some weird dreams. Sexual dreams that wouldn’t let up, making her hot and confused.
    “You said the ceasefire is over. I'm only protecting what is mine.” He was full of righteous anger, and it was magnificent. If he had been anyone else, she would have reached up and kissed him right there.
    No. If he’d been human, she would have done it. She didn’t want just anyone. She only wanted the version of him that she didn’t need to kill.
    “I'm not coming for you tonight.” At least, she wasn’t going to kill him. Those dreams, and what those dreams made her do when she woke up, were another matter altogether.
    Adam placed a brown paper bag on the counter. “Here’s what you came for then.” He held up a hand when she reached for her wallet. “I don't want your money.”
    “Then what do you want?” She didn’t mean it as any great statement, but now her heartbeat picked up and adrenaline started to flow. This time it had nothing to do with violence.
    Adam sucked in a deep breath. “I don't know,” he admitted. He stared into her eyes and she could feel herself sinking, focus narrowing until there was nothing but him and her.
    “Oh.” She breathed it out, unsure of how to really respond. Then reality reasserted itself. This wasn’t happening. “I've got to go.” She snatched the bag up from the counter and fled. Again. Running away from Adam Luther was becoming a bad habit.
    Once she got to the car, she spilled the bag over and saw that Adam had given her two books in addition to what she’d asked for. The first one was The Art of War, the second Pride & Prejudice. On the cover of the Austen novel, there was a sticky note with Adam’s handwriting.
    Your choice, huntress.

Chapter Twelve
    Adam was a fool. He’d spent the last week pining after the huntress and hoping she’d return to the store, knowing he was even more an idiot for changing his mind about abandoning it. Each morning as he curled up in his bed just past sunrise, he’d close his eyes and let the increasingly erotic dreams take over. And when he’d woken up today, he’d been certain that if he only stroked himself long enough, he’d find his release.
    But it didn’t work like that for vampires, and he was not fool enough to try.
    He should have never taken her blood. It had been a foolish move after she’d left him, but it had been everywhere and he’d been so thirsty. All told, he’d been able to scrape together enough to get a good taste, but not a satisfying feed.
    Yet it was only now, more than a week later, that the first pangs of hunger were starting to hit him. He’d have to find someone to sate it, but after his taste of Gold, he didn’t know how anyone would live up to it ever again. If vampires could become addicted, then he was well on the road to being hooked on her.
    In an effort to keep at least some level of sanity, Adam had doubled down on his quest to find Okano. There’d been no sign of him since he disappeared at the Great West Hotel. Adam had driven down and walked the area, hiking into the woods and trekking around the abandoned warehouses in that part of town.
    No bodies. No mutilated animals. No vampire.
    But searching for one beast led him on the tail of another, which brought him to the Jasperton Cemetery at midnight on a Thursday. All the signs: two torn up raccoons, busted windows on a family crypt, and a lack of any other wildlife pointed to a fresh ghoul.
    It was late enough that he was the only person in the