Marcy Jacks Redemption 3 The Half Breed Vampire

Redemption 3

The Half-Breed Vampire

Luke is an angelic soldier who has just lost everything. Wanted for

treachery, and his brother dead, his mission is to guard the third
man who might become a powerful demon general, or a holy

knight of Heaven. Derek is not what he expected, and soon even
his grim attitude is put to rest by the surprising kindness that

comes from the half vampire.

Derek Morgan has been ignored his entire life. Thought insane by
his wealthy family, he has all but been shut out of their lives and

forced to live in a guesthouse. He has lost all hope of having a life
and finding love until Luke arrives, rescuing him from the demons.

Lately they have been getting worse, and with Luke in his life,
Derek finds himself looking past the man's grim shields and liking

what he sees, but can they heal each other before the demons
become too desperate and tear them apart forever?

Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Fantasy, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 36,557 words

THE HALF-BREED VAMPIRE

Redemption 3

Marcy Jacks

EVERLASTING CLASSIC

MANLOVE

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED:
Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to
only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on
your own personal computer or device. You do not have
resell or distribution rights without the prior written
permission of both the publisher and the copyright
owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any
format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer
to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer
program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest.
Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright
Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online,
offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently
known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not
want this book anymore, you must delete it from your
computer.

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution
of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright
infringement, including infringement without monetary
gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5
years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book being sold or shared
illegally, please let us know at
legal@sirenbookstrand.com

A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic ManLove

THE HALF-BREED VAMPIRE
Copyright © 2013 by Marcy Jacks
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-386-6

First E-book Publication: February 2013

Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without
express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance
to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

If you have purchased this copy of The Half-Breed Vampire by Marcy
Jacks from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you.
Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy

This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or
group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing
rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this
book.

The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying
readers high-quality reading entertainment.

This is Marcy Jacks’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect
Ms. Jacks’s right to earn a living from her work.

Amanda Hilton, Publisher

www.SirenPublishing.com

www.BookStrand.com

THE HALF-BREED VAMPIRE

Redemption 3

MARCY JACKS

Prologue

Luke cradled his brother’s bleeding head in his lap and clenched

the man’s shoulders. His eyes were wide open, and there was a smile
on his face right before he died. He only looked at Luke. He didn’t so
much as glance at Lana, and that only seemed to fuel the woman’s
grief all the more.

Luke held his brother’s body for as long as was possible, until it

vanished entirely in his arms. Angels did not have bodies. Not really,
not without cutting off their wings, and Daren had his intact when the
demon came out of nowhere.

They had all been so distracted when Kale screamed and ran for

their commander before he could be sucked into that strange black
vortex. Luke hadn’t noticed the shadow demon or the fire knights
sneaking up behind him and would not have ever known of it had
Daren not pushed him out of the way, taking the fire blade into his
stomach and sparing his brother.

Kale had sacrificed himself for their commander, John, and Daren

had done the same. Kale was still holding on. Luke pulled together
the energy to see that Kale’s body had not vanished into
the…wherever it was that dead angels went. They were all still in
Purgatory. He prayed to the Creator that this was not where Daren

8 Marcy

Jacks

would spend his eternity. Even if they were all a band of traitors.

“You were his brother! You were supposed to protect him!” Lana

shrieked as she paced back and forth in front of him. Luke had not
bothered to rise back to his feet. He remained on his knees, staring
down at his hands, as though he expected his brother to suddenly
reappear there.

Of course, he did not, and Lana continued to pace and moan,

pulling at her black hair. It had come out of its ponytail and was now
looking far worse than Luke had ever seen it.

She muttered to herself and threw insults at him for his lack of

ability in protecting his own family, but he ignored her. He was much
too caught up in his own pain to bother with hers.

John was the first to say anything rational. “We will move out.

We have to get back.”

Luke immediately rose to his feet, grateful for the ability to

simply do as he was told without thinking. There was nothing left of
Daren’s body, not even the sword he’d been carrying, so there was no
point in Luke remaining where he was to search for any possessions
that may have been dropped. There was nothing for Luke to keep to
remember his older brother by.

The memories would be enough. No possession would ever be

adequate replacement for Daren anyway.

Lana was not of the same mind. “We can’t just leave! We…They

killed Daren!”

“And the demons that have done so are now dead,” Luke said,

barely sparing her a glance. He kept his eyes mostly on Kale. With his
brother dead, he found himself hopeful that his other comrade would
pull through.

Luke hadn’t seen everything that had happened to the man

because he’d been too caught up with killing the demon that had
thrown a blade through his brother’s stomach. But whatever had
attacked Kale had been dark. Luke could almost see the shadow that
was encasing the angel, sapping his strength, keeping him

The Half-Breed Vampire

unconscious in John’s arms. Though there was no physical wound on
him, he was as pale as Daren had been after he’d lost much of his
blood through the hole pierced in his armor.

Luke had never seen John’s eyes as hard as they were as he held

onto Kale. “We move out, now. We need to get out of Purgatory
before we can see to Kale.”

That was right. They couldn’t bother with healing in a place like

this, a place that made the living, or the nearly living, want to die.
Purgatory had that effect on angels and other immortals who managed
to get here. The demons were strangely immune, but that was likely
because they were already depraved enough.

Being in this place was not only hindering any help they could

give to Kale, but the environment itself was feeding off of both his
and Lana’s grief. If they stayed, he feared he would kill himself, or
perhaps Lana, if only to shut her up.

For the first time, John did not seem to notice the thoughtful look

on the face of one of his men. He was still too caught up with Kale
and already sprinting back from whence they’d came.

They’d destroyed the pool that held the stolen spirits. There was

no need for them to be here anymore.

“Now that we can navigate the mists of this place, it should take

less than a day to exit Purgatory if we are quick.”

Luke ran to catch up with his commander. “And if there are any

guards waiting for us at the portal?”

His face was set in grim determination. “Then the Creator help

them if they try to stop me from healing him.”

Kale did not respond to that. His eyes remained closed as he was

carted away. Luke thought it would be best if his commander put the
man over his shoulders to spare the strength in his arms, but he did
not want to say anything just yet. His commander was intelligent. He
would realize that his arms were becoming sore soon enough.

“What do we do when we leave? Where will we go?” Lana asked.

Luke was impressed that she was still following them. He had almost

10 Marcy

Jacks

begun to think that she had decided to stay in the mist and allow it to
take her.

Now that Daren was dead, she had no one. She had put her faith

into this mission and was now alone. Luke finally managed to call
upon some pity for someone other than himself.

“I saw the third general, just before that void attempted to take

Kale. Perhaps he saw it as well. He was inside of it for a time.”

“Who is the general, sir?” Luke asked.
“I don’t have a name, but it’s a vampire this time, also in the city

of Haven on Earth. He has not broken yet from what I’ve seen, though
the demons have been trying. When we are free from Purgatory,
Luke, you will be the one to go. Take Daren’s place, and keep that
man from transforming.”

Luke would have thought that Lana would have been the better

option. Surely an angelic woman was best to calm the inner beast of
mortal being tested by Hell.

He would not argue with his commander, however. He would do

as he was told. “Yes, sir.”

The three ran faster, and John led the way, despite his added load.

Less than a day. They could make it out of here in less than a day if
they kept to this pace. Kale would be healed, and the Creator willing,
Luke could fly down to Earth and find this vampire with demon blood
in him and prevent him from killing anyone or himself.

He would not allow his brother’s murder to be in vain.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter One

Derek ran through the trees, the branches slapping at his face and

body as he hunted for his prey. The voices inside of his head spurred
him on, made his bloodlust increase tenfold, and drove his logical,
thinking mind away from here until all he could think about was how
sweet her blood would taste when he ripped the throat out of the
woman who had been caught on his property.

“Take her! Kill her!” said the voices inside of his head.
“I will,” he replied out loud, on the woman’s trail, his nose

leading the way.

It really was her own fault, snooping around the property with that

camera like she was. He was just protecting his family, and the last
thing they needed, any vampire needed, was to have pictures of them
drinking from feeders all over the Internet. It didn’t matter that she
hadn’t managed to get anywhere near the house or that he’d taken her
camera and smashed it. He was still going to rip her open.

The only reason why she’d gotten such a head start to begin with

was…

Actually, he couldn’t recall that, but the scent of her blood grew

stronger, and she must have sensed his coming approach, because she
shrieked into the night, further drawing attention to herself, the stupid
creature.

“Feed from her. Tear her heart out and eat it!”
There she was. He could see her, running sloppily ahead, no grace

and no idea where she was going. She clutched at the scratch he’d
made on her neck, the one he’d put there to scare her, but she couldn’t
stop the blood from flowing or from spilling down her shirt, covering

12 Marcy

Jacks

her.

He almost had her. He could hear the panting sounds she made as

she struggled for breath. Just a little closer.

She looked over her shoulder, saw him, and screamed. He lunged.
A force more powerful than anything he’d ever experienced in his

life barreled into him, knocking him off of his path, and his head
smacked against the base of a tree, cracking the bark.

He wasn’t expecting someone to speak to him. Surely a strike like

that could only come from an object, a truck perhaps, though how he
had not heard it coming, he didn’t know.

Not a truck, or any other powerful vehicle. It had been a person,

only not a person. Derek opened his eyes and looked up. The creature
looked like a man, but it had wings on its back.

“You will not touch her,” it said, as calmly as though it were

slapping his wrist for attempting to steal the last glass of blood at
teatime.

Derek blinked, forgetting all about the crying and screaming

wench as he stared up at the angel. It had to be an angel. There was
nothing else in the world that he knew of that had wings as white and
pure as those on its back.

“What?”
The angel, man, he supposed, because it had the face and body of

a man, sneered at him. Large hands reached down and grabbed him
by the neck of his shirt, hauling him up until his feet were no longer
on the ground and his back was being pressed against the tree that his
head had cracked.

“That is an innocent over there, and you will not touch her!”
Derek looked over the man’s shoulder, his armored shoulder. Yes,

there was a woman there, some crumpled and crying little thing that
had her face buried in her hands as she wept for all the world like she
thought―

Like she thought Derek was about to hurt her. Kill her.
He wanted to be sick. He clutched at his stomach and bent over,

The Half-Breed Vampire

thinking he might do just that. “Jesus Christ.”

The angel’s handsome face twisted in anger again. He must have

decided that Derek wasn’t any harm to the girl or to him, because he
released Derek, allowing him to sink to the ground, and he went to
check on the woman.

Derek watched him. He was not hallucinating this, and he wasn’t

dreaming up the memories that were coming to him now either.

There was really an angel in the woods with him. Dressed in some

kind of Roman-looking armor, complete with a cape that went down
to his waist and a metal breastplate and everything. He wore sandals
that were laced all the way up his calves, and there was a real sword
at his hip. The stuff he was wearing was impressive and all, but from
the frayed edges of the cape and the dents and scratches in the armor
itself, along with the man’s scuffed and dirty appearance in general,
Derek would have thought he’d just come from a battle.

Memories of that woman he was comforting, running for her life,

screaming, and trying to escape Derek before he killed her, came back
to him with sickening clarity. He’d put that wound on her neck. He’d
reached out and swiped his hand, raking his nails down her throat for
appearing on his family lawn at night, attempting to poke a camera
through the window to catch either some video footage or photos of
the vampires inside.

The voices had taken over again. Derek had only gone outside to

get some fresh air, but he’d seen her, and the rage had built and built
before he’d attacked.

He’d managed to get some control back. That was the only reason

why she’d been able to run for so long. Derek had managed to hold
back, but she would still be dead had it not been for the man kneeling
before her now.

He wanted to be sick all over again. He’d lost control of the

voices in his head. He’d gone so long without ever having the urge,
without looking at a person and thinking about snapping their neck,
but this time, the voices inside of him had won. He would have killed

14 Marcy

Jacks

that girl had the angel not arrived to stop him.

The angel knelt before her, putting his hands on her small, shaking

shoulders. He whispered comforting words to her. Derek assumed
they were comforting, at any rate. His voice was low and gentle, so
much so that he couldn’t hear the angel’s words, and the sobbing
coming from the woman was now nearly at an end.

Derek took a closer look at her, at the girl’s shape as well as her

clothing and hair.

Her hair was dyed a bright pink. She wore a black T-shirt with a

purple cartoon owl on it with the words Whoooo cares? written
beneath. She wore skintight jeans and sneakers, and Derek knew
without any doubts that this was not a woman. It was a girl. He’d
been hunting and attempting to kill a teenage girl. She couldn’t be
older than fifteen or sixteen. Perhaps she’d only been on the property
as a dare by some friends.

This was not a fully grown human out to make money off of the

secret from his family. Even if she had been, that was no excuse for
giving in as he did.

Suddenly, the thought occurred to Derek that perhaps the angel

was here for him. Perhaps it was here to finally kill him and put him
out of his misery before he hurt another person.

He would welcome it, then. He would not allow himself to harm

anyone now that he’d finally lost all control.

His family would certainly be appreciative of the angel’s help.
He continued to watch and wait for his time, and within minutes,

the ragged angel was back on his feet, helping the girl to hers. She got
up, dusted herself off, and handed him the pink camera she had been
using to take photos without a word or so much as a glint in her eyes.
She walked away without sound or question, leaving Derek to ponder
what had happened.

The angel turned back to Derek, that deep frown back on his face,

and his green eyes somehow seemed to glow in the darkness of the
night.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Derek swallowed. He was a Morgan, and as such he would face

his destiny head on, even if he was about to get his head cut off by the
blade at the angel’s hip.

The angel approached him, and when their feet were so close that

they were nearly touching, he tossed the small camera into Derek’s
lap.

“This is what you were searching for, I assume?”
Derek did not touch the camera. He just looked back up at the

angel. “Did you do something to her mind? To make her walk away
like that?”

Those dark, black brows furrowed even more. The angel crossed

his arms. “We cannot have her running to the authorities to claim that
she was attacked. I doubt anyone would have believed her if she’d
said a creature of the night had been chasing her, but the police would
still be searching for a man who had been terrorizing a young girl.”

That was certainly true. Derek was still suspicious, and he found it

was better to look up at the warrior’s face, rather than down at the
dirty sword. “I can understand your wish to ease her memories of this
event, if only so that she could sleep at night, but you must realize
that by doing so you are still helping vampires. I would have thought
angels would believe us to be demons not worth helping.”

“You are a demon,” the angel agreed with a nod. “But while I am

glad to have spared her from your claws and fangs…”

Derek winced.
“…it was not her I wished to help, or your family nest. I am here

for you.”

Derek nodded. “You mean to kill me then.” He sat a little

straighter, getting up from off his ass and to his knees, his head held
high. “I am ready for it.”

Those lovely eyes widened for a brief moment before the

annoyance returned. “You would throw away what I have just given
you? I’m offering you aid, life, and you would allow yourself to be
killed without a fight?”

16 Marcy

Jacks

“You’re saying it’s a good idea for me to live?” Even Derek

couldn’t believe something like that, not when his own mother didn’t.

The angel glowed. He actually glowed, but there was nothing holy

about the white light that was coming from his body. He was angry.
He shook with rage as he stared down at Derek, and Derek thought
that this might be his time to really die.

The angel lunged down at him, and this time those large hands

grabbed him around the throat instead of just the neck of his shirt. For
the second time within ten minutes, Derek’s feet were off the ground
as the muscular angel easily held him suspended in midair, but Derek
did not choke or gasp for air. The angel’s grip was strong, but Derek
was a vampire. His body could handle being suspended even from his
sensitive neck without cause for pain or strangulation. Unless the
angel decided to apply more pressure. Then he did not know what he
would do.

He was enraged that Derek would attempt to throw his own life

away. Perhaps that was because suicide was a sin, but he wasn’t
offering to kill himself. He was just saying that he would sit there
while the angel did it for him.

The angel’s teeth were clenched as he pulled Derek closer, so

much so that Derek could see how small the man’s pupils had
become.

“I can already see you will be a thorn in my side, but I don’t do

this for you, I do it for someone else. You will live, at least until your
thirtieth birthday, and then you can go to Hell for all I care.”

His birthday? “That’s in three days. Why does it matter if I die

then as opposed to now?”

The angel rolled his eyes at him and snarled. Derek did not know

what he was about to say, because the wind changed and the scent of
blood came to him again.

After nearly killing that girl, he would have thought he would

have no thirst for blood for a good long while, but it was there, and it
shocked the hell out of him that an angel would even have red blood

The Half-Breed Vampire

inside of him. Any blood at all, really.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.
That angry expression left the angel’s face, and when his features

were relaxed, he appeared even more handsome than before.

“What?”
Derek reached his hand out, his thumb brushing against the

prickle of the angel’s black beard. The hairs were short and coarse
along his jaw and lower cheek, but it was around his mouth and chin
where it became only a little longer. When Derek touched the rough
bristles, his fingers came back with some red on them.

He looked at the angel, only just now realizing that he was

injured. “You need help.”

“I am not the one in need of saving,” the angel groused.
Derek didn’t care. He’d nearly killed a girl today, and if the

angel’s condition had anything to do with knocking Derek out of the
way, then he wanted to help. There might be other wounds beneath
that armor for all Derek knew.

“Put me down. I’ll take you home and fix you up.”
Thick black brows furrowed, and for a second Derek feared he

would just get some more complaining and verbal abuse out of the
man, but then he was gently set back on his feet.

“I do not think it wise for your family to see me,” the angel said.
Derek grabbed him by the hand and led him through the trees,

back to his home away from home. “I have my own house. It’s still on
the family property, but it’s entirely mine, and no one else goes
there.”

“No one else goes there? Why not?”
Derek looked over his shoulder at the man as they sprinted. He

wanted to ask the question Isn’t it obvious? but he didn’t want to
insult an angel of all things.

He must have taken the look for what it really meant, because the

angel actually made a grumpy blush, and together they continued on.

18 Marcy

Jacks

Chapter Two

Derek was stupidly happy to bring the arrogant angel into his

house, even if he did make comments about Derek that were less than
polite. He couldn’t help himself. This was an angel, and that could
only mean that the voices inside of his head were real. He wasn’t
crazy, like his entire family and nest thought he was. There really was
something otherworldly going on inside of his head, something that
might even be able to be fixed, if it wasn’t already too late.

The angel did say something about how it wouldn’t matter if he

died after his birthday in three days, but if he could give Derek a
better death, something nice and peaceful, as opposed to being hunted
down by other vampires and murdered for doing something awful,
then he would gladly take it and still consider that to be his escape
from the curse he’d been carrying around his entire life.

That, and the angel was handsome as all hell, and Derek had never

had the pleasure of being in the company of a handsome man without
worrying that his other, darker side might come out and humiliate his
family, scaring the potential date away.

The way the angel looked at him, however, with contempt let

Derek know with absolute certainty that nothing romantic would
happen. That was fine. He was just lonely and grateful for the
company.

“So this is your home?” asked the angel, looking around the

spacious rooms and lush furnishings.

“Nice big bathroom, too. Come on,” Derek said, realizing that he

was still holding the angel’s hand as he led the both of them through
the sitting room, past the entertainment room, and to the full bathroom

The Half-Breed Vampire

that was situated on the first floor.

He wondered why the angel let him hold onto him like this then

decided not to push his luck. He really was much more lonely than
he’d originally thought.

The first-floor bathroom was large, even bigger than the one that

connected to Derek’s bedroom. This house was made for a large
family, but Derek had it all to himself.

No one wanted to share space with the vampire who burst out into

violent fits and occasionally tried to kill his family members in their
sleep.

Maybe they’d left him here hoping he would turn that violence

onto himself and end all of their misery.

“Okay, so, just sit here, and I’ll go and get the first aid kit. How

fast do you heal?” Derek said, working under the assumption that an
angel had to have healing powers.

“Not quickly enough,” the angel grouched, pulling at the clasps of

his breastplate and carefully lifting it over his head, exposing his firm,
muscular chest, which did have some bleeding and skin-tissue
damage.

Again, the thirst for blood came over him, but he was fine now

and was confident that if he were to lose his mind and attack, then an
angel of all things would be able to defend himself.

“I―” Derek cleared his throat and stepped back, though whether

he was retreating from the scent of the blood or the sight of that
beautiful, scarred chest, he wasn’t sure. “I’ll be right back.”

He practically ran out of the bathroom and down to the hallway

closet. The first aid kit was inside, and it was brand new, recently
replaced because Derek had used up the last of the items in the
previous one he’d had. He had to rip the plastic sealing off of it. This
would have to do. He just wished he could pull himself together and
stop thinking about an angel in sexual terms.

They’d just met, and the angel clearly didn’t want to be here, but

Derek needed him if he was going to break his curse and survive, or

20 Marcy

Jacks

die before he could hurt anyone.

He came back to the bathroom to find the angel almost entirely

naked. He’d put his dirty and bloody armor into the bathtub and was
currently sitting on the toilet. He wore some kind of wrap that made
Derek think of underwear, but that clearly wasn’t what they were.

He had burns and cuts all over his body, but mostly along the

places where his armor hadn’t been protecting him.

“Where are your wings?” Derek asked, realizing that they were

gone.

“I still have them. They’re just away for now. I don’t need them,”

the angel said. “Are you going to heal me or not?”

Derek stepped closer into the bathroom and opened the first aid

kit. “Don’t know how much healing you’ll need, but this will at least
clean you up and make you feel better. You can have a shower after if
you want. Do angels shower?”

“I do not know what a shower is. This is my first trip to Earth in

some time.” The angel’s lips pursed when he said that, and he
scowled and looked away.

Derek didn’t know what he’d said wrong. “A bath then? You

know what a bath is?”

“I’m not an idiot, of course I know,” he snapped.
“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t trying to…Anyway, hold still for a bit.”

Derek put some antiseptic on a cotton ball and started wiping away at
the blood. He liked the smell of the chemical he used. It overpowered
the scent of blood and made him forget about his thirst for it.

It did nothing to help the fact that he was now aware of the way he

was touching the man’s calf, holding onto it, as he wiped away blood
and grime from a shallow slash on his leg. Many of the wounds, now
that Derek could see them up close, didn’t appear deep or life
threatening. They would only need cleansing and bandages.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches. How old are these wounds?”
“A day,” the angel replied. “Wounds from the blades of demons

take longer to heal. They are infused with a poison that hinders the

The Half-Breed Vampire

process.”

Demons. Derek swallowed hard. “And, am I possessed by

demons? Is that what the voices are?”

He looked up at the angel, but he was staring off to the left at the

bathroom mirror and the lightbulbs that surrounded it. “You are
cursed by them, but not possessed. I do not see any here. I had not
expected that.”

Derek threw away the little cotton ball he’d been using when it

was too soiled and prepared another. This time he cleaned away the
bits of blood and burn marks along the angel’s stomach. The muscle
there was so tight and defined that he thought the angel did nothing
more than work out.

“Why would you expect to see demons in my house? Because I

hear them?”

“I had the chance to speak with two others who had been in a

similar position, before I found you. They have always been able to
see their demons, and their houses have been festering with nests of
the little beasts.”

Those green eyes turned down to finally look at him, and Derek’s

breath was caught in his throat. “You mean to tell me that you cannot
see them?”

Derek had to cough a little before he could speak properly. “I

think I know what you’re talking about. I used to see little creatures,
monsters, really. They were round like balloons but hardly ever
bigger than my fist. Sharp teeth, wide smile, black eyes, and skinny
stick limbs despite the fat bodies.”

The angel nodded. “That would be them. You do not appear to

have any here, yet you were under an influence while attacking that
girl.”

Derek blushed and looked back down at the task at hand, ashamed

and no longer thinking about how beautiful the chest that he cleaned
was.

“I hear voices, they tell me to do things, and sometimes it’s like

22 Marcy

Jacks

they take over, sort of. I’ve been able to fight it, but when I get into a
frenzy, it’s hard to pull me out.”

“How often do the voices harass you?”
Derek groaned a little. He felt strange talking about this. The last

time he’d told anyone about the things he saw as a child, well, a
psychologist was called, and Derek was put in solitary for more than a
year while the man tried to convince him that the things he saw
weren’t really there.

Derek had hated the man, and he’d hated his parents for not

coming to see him. They had always been cold, and they were in the
same house, but they never stopped into the wing where they’d locked
their son. Then the demons had come to him and whispered things,
things that had seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight,
not so much. The psychologist had been fortunate to survive after
Derek had attempted to rip his throat out.

No one else came to visit him after that. He didn’t even see the

servants who dropped off the food and blood vials at his door. The
only good news about it was that the demons had vanished, though he
had no idea why at the time, and by the time someone had finally
come for him, he was able to convince them that the little creatures
were entirely in his own mind.

“Derek, can you hear me?” A pair of fingers snapped in front of

Derek’s face, and he blushed as he came out of his thoughts.

“Sorry, I…Yeah. The voices, they’ve always been around, even

after the little demon things started leaving me alone. I think they
stopped showing up because of when I was put in solitary
confinement. They always wanted me to hurt people, and when there
was no one around to hurt, there was no point to them being there.”

“Solitary confinement?” the angel asked, and it occurred to Derek

that he might not know what that was.

“I was…ah, locked into the east wing of the house. I had lots of

space to move around in, but there was never anyone there. The
windows were always locked up, and I could never get out. Spent

The Half-Breed Vampire

more than a year by myself like that.”

The angel continued to look at him, waiting.
Derek couldn’t stand being looked at like that. The angel was no

longer staring at him with contempt, but now it was pity. He’d rather
see the contempt. “You’re an angel. Wouldn’t you already know this?
Why do I have to tell this story?”

The man frowned at him, his annoyance back. “I am not the

Creator. I do not see all and know all. Continue with your tale. The
more I know about the demons that haunt you, the better I can defend
you until this ends.”

Great. Derek took in a deep breath and finished cleaning up the

angel’s wounds. He would still need a bath after this. If anything, the
streaks of clean, red-and-pink flesh mixed in with the dirty parts only
made him look war torn and slightly ridiculous. And all the more
handsome. “Eventually, someone came to check on me. A relative
who found out just why I was never coming down to the elaborate
parties and holiday celebrations that vampire families take part in. I
was let out and managed to convince my parents, after a couple of
months, that I was mostly better. They still knew I was strange. That’s
why I have this house. I’m their son. They can’t get rid of me, but
they don’t want me around. They built this place for me so I wouldn’t
have to go to the main house.”

“I would think this would upset you. You almost look pleased.”
Derek smiled. “I said they still knew I was strange. The demons

came back the second I was around people again, and their voices in
my head only got worse. When I came to this house, it all almost
completely stopped.”

“How long have you been here?”
“Going on eighteen years. I was twelve when this house was built.

No one other than myself has ever been inside. Except you, now, I
guess. A housekeeper comes sometimes, too, but not enough that it
matters, and part of the condition for her to work in this house is that
I’m not around while she cleans.”

24 Marcy

Jacks

“And the demons do not come inside?”
Derek shook his head, then stopped. “Well, the voices follow me

in here from time to time. You learn to stop being scared of the voice
of that girl from The Exorcist speaking in your ear in the middle of
the night, but I can’t always ignore it. Sometimes I find myself acting
without realizing it.”

“Like when you attacked that girl?”
Derek looked away and stood up. “Yeah. Thanks again, for

stopping me.”

“It was my mission. It had nothing to do with you.”
No one who ever did anything nice for him had ever done it

because of him. It was always something else. He’d thought he was
used to it. Guess not.

“The fact that you continue to hear them and that they are

succeeding in taking control of you proves that they are becoming
desperate,” the angel said, also standing, and stretching out his
shoulders until there was a crack in his bones.

“What do they want with me? Why am I cursed?” Derek asked,

his heart pounding like there was someone beating on it with a pair of
drumsticks.

“You are to be the vessel for a powerful demon general, one of

three that we know of who could lead the battle against Heaven and
win.”

Derek’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting,

maybe a curse on his parents by some jealous relative who didn’t
want Derek to inherit, or just an accident, but that…

“Are you sure?” Derek asked.
“Of course I am,” the angel snapped. “Lives have been sacrificed

to prevent the demons from taking their hold on you and others like
you. I would not be here had it not been for that.”

“Okay, okay, sorry I asked. It just seems really far out there.”
“Far out where?”
Derek was going to have a hard time getting used to this.

The Half-Breed Vampire

“Nothing, never mind. So, when they tried to get me to kill that girl,
that was for what?”

The angel rubbed the bridge of his nose, his perfect nose between

those perfect eyes. “If you commit murder, your soul will belong to
them and they will have won. You may also offer yourself to them,
but I will not allow that to happen. If after your thirtieth birthday you
were to kill a mortal or yourself, it would hardly matter since by then
the cycle will be broken.”

“Why thirty?” Derek asked. Thirty wasn’t a very long time by

vampire years, but since Derek was still currently living out these
thirty years, they’d felt like ten lifetimes just getting through them.

“I’m not entirely certain. It is a magic number, but most numbers

have some sort of magical meaning. Thirty represents a full cycle.
That’s all that I know about it, and it’s the only explanation you will
get.”

Derek fought against the urge to pout. “Fine.”
“Do you hear the voices now?” the angel asked, moving past him

to where his armor was lying in the tub. Derek was really going to
have to get his name.

“No, not now. I feel fine.”
“And I don’t feel the need to cleanse this house. The stink of

demons certainly is not within these walls.” He looked back over his
shoulder at Derek. “That is very interesting.”

The angel stared at his armor inside of the tub, then looked back at

him once more. “I would like to wash these. Will you bring me a
basin of water?”

Polite requests, and he didn’t know how to work the taps. Derek

stepped around him. The bathroom felt entirely too small all of a
sudden. “The water comes through the pipes,” he said, pulling on the
levers.

The hot water was instant, and steam started to rise.
The angel watched the water fill the tub with the kind of

fascination that Derek had never seen on anyone before.

26 Marcy

Jacks

“Where do the pipes get the water?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Derek said. “But it is clean, so you won’t

have to worry about it making your armor worse. I guess so long as
you dry it before it can rust.”

The angel nodded. “It’s made of silver. It won’t rust, and thank

you. The armor can clean itself, but only with my energy, and I am
running low on that at the moment. This way is better.”

“Okay, uh, I’ll set you up with a room. I guess you’ll be sleeping

here for the next few days?”

“I will do no sleeping, but yes, I will be here for you.”
It sounded nice, even if the man wasn’t saying it for personal

reasons. The house was so big that, even living by himself, Derek had
multiple guest bedrooms. He gave the angel the one closest to his and
watched as those green eyes took in the room.

Derek had a housecleaner that arrived once a month, and the last

time she’d been in was about a week ago, so there wasn’t exactly a
big buildup of dust. Still, he watched the angel move around, check
the window, inspect the bed. It occurred to Derek that he would need
some clothes, but Derek didn’t think he had anything that would fit
him. The guy’s chest was definitely too big even for Derek’s most
comfortable shirts, but maybe he could get him a pair of pants.

“The tub is probably almost filled up with water by now, and I can

get you some food ready for after you’re done cleaning your armor,
then maybe you can have a bath of your own. Would that be all
right?”

The angel finally looked at him, and while his expression was

hardly soft, it definitely was not the cold, hard mask it had been
before. “That would be fine. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Not a problem. I don’t get a lot of people here, so this is actually

very nice.” Now or never. He was sick of thinking of the man as
simply the angel. He had to know his name. “Can I ask what your
name is? It’s weird that I don’t have anything to call you.”

The angel shifted on his feet, but he did answer. “My name is

The Half-Breed Vampire

Luke.”

Derek waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “Okay, that’s nice

to know. Do you have a last name?”

“My kind have no surnames. Not unless we were born mortals

first, and I was not.”

Not born? It kind of made Derek wonder what sort of childhood

Luke had ever had for that to be possible, if he’d had one at all.

“Is something the matter?” Luke asked, stepping toward him.

“Are you hearing the voices?”

Derek blinked away the thoughts he’d been having. “No, don’t

worry. That hardly ever happens while I’m here, remember?”

The suspicion in Luke’s eyes did not go away. “So long as you

tell me when they do happen. I will go and check on my armor. Do
not stray far. I need you near.”

Maybe Derek only shivered because those words, combined with

the soft touch of Luke’s shoulder on his as he passed, was just too
much for his senses.

He steeled himself and went back downstairs to the main floor. He

left Luke to attend to his armor whilst he went to the kitchen to make
something to eat. He pulled out a blood bag and decided to quench his
thirst.

He thanked whatever Creator that Luke had been talking about

earlier that his new houseguest was an angel and not a werewolf or
some other creature that would be able to smell his lust. He really had
been too alone his entire life if only two hours of contact with a
handsome man brought this out in him.

28 Marcy

Jacks

Chapter Three

Luke hardly knew what to do with himself as he bathed. He’d

cleansed his armor, dried it, and now it was on the spacious counter
under the mirror with all the lights. He simply allowed himself the
luxury of a five-minute soak and then decided that he understood why
mortals enjoyed this activity so much. When he returned home, he
would have to see about setting up similar accommodations for
himself instead of simply using his own energy for bathing.

If he was not arrested the moment he stepped back into Heaven.
There had been no royal guards waiting to take them in when he,

John, Lana, and Kale finally made it out of Purgatory. John had
commanded him to immediately go down to Earth, lest the guards
simply be on their way or some such thing.

So he had gone. He’d sought out Jeremy and Mathias and was

shocked to see that they’d taken their charges as lovers. Jeremy had
lost his wings, and Mathias, with the aid of his new Heavenly knight,
no longer felt the call to return.

He’d asked them for whatever help they could give in finding his

own charge and then was forced to explain why he was here, and not
Daren.

Thank the Creator that he’d stumbled across Derek when he did.

He did not want his brother’s death to be in vain, even if it meant he
was forced to protect a half-demon vampire, and it was debatable on
how much demon blood existed within vampires to begin with.

He did not want to be here, but his host had been nothing but

polite after Luke had thrown him away from that girl, and then there
was that story about living here, alone, so close to family but

The Half-Breed Vampire

unwanted by them.

Perhaps he’d been too harsh with the man. Perhaps Luke was

being fooled. Vampires were hardly known for their kindnesses. This
mission would likely be a difficult one. It was a damned miracle that
Derek had never killed anyone for their blood before.

He stepped out of his bath and drained the dirty water,

momentarily fascinated by the sound of the water as it swirled in a
downward spiral pattern down the pipes. He had to force himself to
look away from it.

Derek had left him with a strange pair of dark-blue pants with a

metal clasp, and he put them on. They were tight, and he managed to
work the snap and metal teeth without catching anything before he
left the bathroom.

What he found shocked him.
Derek was sitting on the floor, and no fewer than seven cats of

varying shapes and colors surrounded him. Most were kittens, and
only two were adults. They rubbed their bodies against him and made
small mewling sounds, begging for attention even as he fed them milk
and what appeared to be scrap bits of meat.

“What are you doing?” Luke asked.
Derek spun around, apparently having not heard him, and his

sudden movement startled the kittens back to their bowls that the
vampire had set out.

“Ah, they come around for their food, almost every night.”
“They are homeless?” Luke asked, coming to stand near the

vampire and his small army of felines.

“As far as I know. Some of them show up in pretty rough shape,

and they let me bathe them from time to time.”

“Why feed them? Surely they must be a nuisance?”
Derek looked up at him. For the first time there was confusion in

his eyes. “I would’ve thought an angel would be happy to grant a
mercy like this.”

Luke did not know what to say to that. “But why feed them?

30 Marcy

Jacks

What’s in it for you? Do you wish to feed from them?” Could that be
how he’d managed to go his entire life without killing? It must drive
the demons mad to have such an easy target yet be unable to get him
to do what all vampires did from time to time.

One of the kittens, a small black thing with wide, blue eyes,

padded up to Luke’s toe and started to play with it, pouncing and
chewing.

Luke ignored it. The simple beast would never get the best of him

if that was all it had.

That same confused look never left the vampire’s face. “Why

would I kill stray cats for blood? I like them and everything, but I’d
never put my mouth on them.”

“Then why―?” Luke could not help the way his eyes continued to

search around, as though he would find the answers he sought
somewhere in the kitchen. Then he did find them. Blood bags on the
counter, empty. He went over to them and touched them. There was
still some blood left within, but not enough to satisfy the hunger of a
vampire. “Where did you get these from?”

“My family makes deals with the local blood bank. They pay

good money to be well stocked in our house. They think having to
suck the blood from someone’s neck or thigh is too primitive and
disgusting. I’ve only ever known this way.”

“Your family does not kill anyone to obtain their blood?”
Derek’s eyes widened. “No, of course not. Vampires don’t have to

kill the people we drink from just to get fed. Why would you think
that?”

Luke did not enjoy being spoken to like an idiot. “The last time I

came to Earth was to help wipe out a horde of them who were
bleeding the villages dry while the mortals all slept. They called it a
Great Plague.”

Derek’s face paled. “The plague? Really? That was vampires?”
“Are you going to tell me what your intent with these animals is

or not?” Luke asked. It was becoming difficult for him to look down

The Half-Breed Vampire

at the smaller man and not find the image of him feeding stray kittens
to be endearing. Daren had always liked cats. He certainly would have
been better prepared to deal with this.

“I just like the company is all. I’m not allowed to have pets, but

they keep coming back, so I feed them.”

“You are nearly thirty, old enough to be deciding whether or not

you want to have pets without the say of your parents. I thought that
was considered to be more than adulthood on Earth.”

“Not for vampires,” Derek said, hardly seeming to mind when the

same kitten who had been gnawing on Luke’s toe pounced onto his
back, using those tiny claws of his to climb the height of him before
perching on his shoulder. Derek stroked the little feline and smiled
like it was nothing.

Perhaps his pain tolerance as a vampire was higher.
“You said they keep coming back?” Luke asked, kneeling down

next to his charge to inspect the animals. The kittens were curious
about him, but the adults remained suspicious.

“Yeah, I think they like me,” Derek said with a smile, scratching

the top of one of the kittens’ heads.

“Or they are keeping the demons at bay,” Luke replied, stretching

his hand out to scratch behind the ear of one of the felines and then
getting a hiss and swipe of claws against his fingers for the trouble.

“What?” Derek asked, looking sharply at him, hardly noticing the

way Luke sucked off the blood from his fingers.

“Demons, lesser demons, fear cats. There are guards in Hell that

greatly resemble the creatures. Weak demons with not much power or
influence will stay away. Others will avoid them if possible but will
be intelligent enough to know that they cannot be harmed by house
pets.”

“So, the cats have been coming, all these years, to chase away the

voices?”

“Most likely. They would have sensed the presence of the

demons, and like they are drawn to mice, they would have come.

32 Marcy

Jacks

Where are you going?”

Derek had suddenly and without warning risen to his feet, nearly

knocking off the kitten who had been perched so carelessly on his
shoulder. Derek gripped it gently by the back of the neck and put it
down with its family.

“Are you well?” Luke asked. If he was having more trouble

resisting the call of the voices, then Luke needed to know, though
how that was possible with so many cats in front of them, he could
not be sure.

“Fine, yeah. There’s, uh, I didn’t have the chance to make you

anything to eat, but you should find some stuff to make sandwiches in
the fridge.”

Luke wasn’t entirely sure he knew what a sandwich was, but the

name hardly sounded appealing. “Where are you going?” he
demanded again when Derek turned his back and started to quickly
walk out of the kitchen.

Derek did not answer him, and he vanished around the corner,

leaving Luke with the kittens, all of whom went back to their meals
now that Derek was gone. The adults still stared at Luke with shrewd
eyes.

He had to follow the man. Whatever had possessed him to

suddenly get up and go, it could not be good.

* * * *

Derek slammed the door to his bedroom, just for the sake of

listening to something be loud and angry, like he wanted to be.
Everything in this house was so well made that the damned door
didn’t break clean off of its hinges, like he would have preferred. He
grabbed a lamp and threw it against the wall instead. That broke. He
would also have to clean it up.

He sank down onto his wide, empty bed and felt like a complete

idiot for telling Luke something as simple as that he thought the cats

The Half-Breed Vampire

might like him. Apparently, nothing liked him, not even the kittens
he’d fed and purchased toys for.

He was a grown vampire, even if his society didn’t see him as

such, or at all, and he wanted to cry over the fact that cats did not like
him. He felt so pathetic and humiliated. He couldn’t wait for the three
days to be over.

He reached over and grabbed one of his pillows, hugging it to his

chest as the heartbreak ran deeper. A knock on his door stopped him
from dwelling on it. Luke’s voice was on the other side.

“Derek? What is the matter?”
He wiped at his eyes. “Nothing,” he called back, cursing under his

breath at the way his voice cracked.

Of course, an angel wouldn’t have any idea what boundaries were,

and since Derek wasn’t used to having to lock his door to keep others
out, Luke let himself in.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He kept his head down. He was on the other side of his bed and

facing away from the door, so at least Luke wouldn’t be able to see
his face.

It was dark in his bedroom now that the lamp was destroyed, but

Luke’s shadow from the light in the hallway fell over him, and it
crushed him. “Something is clearly the matter. If you are hearing
voices, then you must tell me. I need to keep you safe so that you do
not become a weapon for Hell.”

Because that was the only thing Luke cared about, too. Even the

angels didn’t care about Derek.

“Not hearing voices,” he said with a shake of his head, glad he

was back in control of his voice. “You can go now. Think I might turn
in for the night.”

There was a pause behind him. “You are a vampire, and it’s

barely midnight. Even I know how this works.”

“Please, just go away,” Derek said, and this time he was unable to

keep the sniffle from escaping him or stop the way his shoulder

34 Marcy

Jacks

shook.

Even he could hear the soft footfalls against the carpet as Luke

came closer. “Are you weeping?”

“No!” he shot back behind him.
“Clearly I can see that you are. Was it what I said with the cats?”
Luke’s careful voice only let Derek know how pathetic he was for

crying over this, and he didn’t like it.

“I just hate being alone,” he said before he could stop himself.
He expected Luke to snort at his weakness, tell him to be a man

and stop his miserable crying before walking out on him. He never
thought that Luke would seat himself on the bed beside him.

Derek didn’t want to look at him, in case he saw something in the

man’s face that he knew he would not like.

Luke’s voice held no scorn. It was quiet and almost sounded

apologetic. “I could be wrong. Those kittens did seem fond of you.
The one on your shoulder appeared especially comfortable.”

Yeah right, Derek thought, but he didn’t say that.
Luke cleared his throat. “I must apologize to you for my lack

of…tact. You are a vampire, and while that does make me somewhat
suspicious of you, clearly you would not be a host that could become
a demon general if there was not some good in you as well.”

“Would’ve thought that would make me the perfect candidate for

being a demon bent on the destruction of everything.”

“Not everything, just Heaven.”
“Great.”
“You have the potential to be great as well. Not simply a servant

of Hell. If you resist, win against the demons that plague you, and
decide to live, you will become a warrior for the light, with just as
much power, even more so, than many of our own generals.”

“So, Heaven wants me for the power I may or may not have

someday, right?”

“Correct, so you see, you are wanted.”
It was almost sweet the way the brooding angel was trying to

The Half-Breed Vampire

cheer him up, and entirely sad the way he failed utterly and didn’t
even know it.

“Thanks,” Derek said anyway, but he didn’t release the pillow he

held onto.

“You are quite welcome,” Luke replied.
Derek watched, stunned, as his hand came forward, as though he

was about to lay it on his shoulder, but then he abruptly pulled back
and cleared his throat.

What had that been?
“I should be going back downstairs,” Luke said, getting to his

feet, then he looked down expectantly at Derek. “Since I do not know
how to operate most of the machines in your house, and do not know
what a sandwich is, would you accompany me?”

Derek really wasn’t feeling up for leaving his room, especially

after the spectacle he made of himself, but just the way Luke held out
his hand to him, forcing a smile that made his face look just a little
awkward, well, it was too much for him to resist.

He took Luke’s hand and went back downstairs to make Luke

something to eat and then maybe play with his pets a little more.

“Luke, how is it that angels can eat food?”

36 Marcy

Jacks

Chapter Four

John paced the room of the little cottage he and his men had

acquired. They were on the outskirts of Heaven, inside of the gate but
not anywhere near the palace, and still no guards had come for them.

Someone should have known they had returned from Purgatory

and come to arrest them, but no one had come, not yet, but John
wasn’t willing to risk it. They had to stay hidden, for the moment.

Just because the council was not actively sending out guards to

search every crevice in Heaven did not mean that they were not still
wanted for treason.

If John went out and demanded an audience with the council, they

could still have him, Lana, and Kale arrested, and Kale was still
fighting the effects of the demon poisoning.

Thank the Creator they’d been able to hide here, in this cottage.

They had come across an unexpected friend, it seemed. Samael had
been the only one to seek them out, appearing before them after Luke
had gone down to Earth.

John and Lana had both remained still. Lana still suffered from

the effects of Daren’s death, and John had his arms full with Kale.
Neither of them was in any shape to fight, but Samael had come
alone. Oddly enough.

Then he’d offered them sanctuary in his own personal place in

Heaven. This was his cottage, built to be exactly how Samael
imagined it to be. There was even a crystalline lake outside, which
always reflected the orange light of a setting sun. The grass and trees
were green and smelled crisp, the flowers were always in bloom, and
the sun never set here.

The Half-Breed Vampire

If only Kale would wake up to see it.
“No change?” Samael asked, stepping into the room with a basket

of berries in one hand and a bottle of something else in the other.

John could not move away from his place next to the bed. There

was a change. Kale had gone damn near gray. His light was being
taken from him. He was slowly dying.

“No,” John said, wishing it were true.
“I brought more ambrosia,” Samael said, placing the bottle and

the berries on a small table that appeared from nowhere next to John’s
seat. “The ambrosia wine should be simple to get down his throat.
The berries are hopefully small and ripe enough that he will not
choke.”

They’d been force-feeding Kale the ambrosia-laden food ever

since coming here. John did not know why they continued to bother.
It was doing no good.

“You should eat some as well. You will deplete your energy,” the

black-haired angel said quietly, and he, too, sat with Kale, on the
other side of the bed on another small stool that appeared only
because he wanted it to.

John could take no more of this. It had been several hours, and

every time Samael left the cottage for something, John half expected
him to return with the royal guards, but he never did. All he did was
offer his help.

“Why do this? You will be branded a traitor for helping us. You

know this.”

Samael’s lips pressed together in a firm line, and then he looked

up, and John was caught with the emotion he saw there. “I had a
discussion with Mathias, after the group of angels I was in command
of were stopped from bringing him to the council.”

John stiffened at that, and he looked down at Kale’s helpless form,

the urge to protect growing strong within him. “What stopped you?”

“An angelic knight that you prophesied would come, someone

that the demons would do anything to turn into a general for Hell.”

38 Marcy

Jacks

John could hardly believe his ears. “Then you have seen. Mathias

succeeded.” The relief that washed over him was unlike anything he’d
ever felt in his life. “The council will have to listen to us now. I will
go to them and demand an audience, and proper care can be given to
Kale.”

“John.”
He rose to his feet, preparing to exit this small cottage and put

together everything that needed to be done. “He is now a war hero in
their eyes. They will not put him off to be given to the light.”

“John, my word and the word of a small few other soldiers was

not enough to convince them. They believe we were bewitched, and I
was stripped of my title as commander for allowing Mathias and his
lover to leave.”

It was by sheer force of will that John managed to stay on his feet,

rather than fall back onto his stool. “No, even they cannot be that
blind.”

“Even the council is not above ignoring what they fear. I’m afraid

it is true. They are looking into any possible demon activity and are
no longer putting much thought into finding you since they now
believe you are virtually helpless, but if you do go to the palace, they
will arrest you, and they will allow Kale to die if he looks beyond
saving.”

Which Kale did. John clenched his fists and seethed. “Those

damned fools.”

“I may no longer be a commander, but I became a traitor because

I know of your feelings for this man. And I don’t want to see what
happened to me happen to you.”

John looked sharply at Samael, then back down at Kale. “Here I

thought I’d been so careful.”

“You have been. I only noticed because of the way you held him

when I found you. It was not so different when I held…Well, never
mind. The point is, Mathias wanted his lover unharmed, and you
clearly want the same for yours.”

The Half-Breed Vampire

“We are not lovers,” John said. Though that hadn’t stopped him

and his lieutenant from sharing that kiss. The one they had both
promised to never speak of but John thought of constantly.

“You still care enough for him that, when I found you, you asked

me to spare him. You had no idea that I was there to help. I know
what I saw that day I attempted to arrest Mathias, and I want you to
know that I am with you. I will do whatever it takes to aid you in your
cause.”

Some of John’s hope returned to him as he stared down at his

dying friend. Only some. “Thank you.”

* * * *

The morning eventually came, the cats left, and Luke watched as

Derek sleepily went to his bed. For the first time, Luke was able to
take note of the way every window in the house was tinted, keeping
out the morning light.

He didn’t understand vampires at all. How was it that they didn’t

go mad with the lack of light in their lives? Luke would never be able
to tolerate it.

There was also a time when he thought he would not be able to

tolerate any kind of separation from his brother. He could barely
tolerate it now, but he was still alive and handling it, not well, but
what he had was still surprising enough to him.

He went to the bedroom that Derek had insisted on giving him for

his own use. Luke would not sleep. Angels did not do such things.
They rested their bodies, to be sure, but unconsciousness only came
when an angel was too weak to spare any energy for wakefulness, like
Kale had been when they had escaped Purgatory. Or if the angel was
becoming human.

He had to stop thinking such grim thoughts. What had happened

with Jeremy and Mathias was not his concern, and thinking about
what was happening with the rest of his team, wherever they were,

40 Marcy

Jacks

would only distract him. As would dwelling on his guilt for the way
he’d treated his charge and how saddened his eyes had become when
Luke had cruelly said that the felines were not there out of some
animal friendship, but because they were hunting demons.

Luke sighed and rubbed his eyes, attempting to banish those

thoughts. “I just hate being alone,” he’d said.

Luke needed to stay alert.
This house may not give off the feel of a demon presence, but that

did not mean they were not lurking around.

A loud crash and a yell had Luke leaping from the bed and

rushing out the door. There was another enraged scream, unlike
anything Luke had ever heard whilst on a battlefield. He all but flew
down the stairs, summoning his sword to him, and it burst into
righteous orange flame in his hand, ready to take the head off of any
demons who dared to brave the house that was defended by an angel
and several stray kittens.

There were no physical demons for him to battle. It was only

Derek down there, screaming by himself in front of the open door.
They had taken possession of Derek’s body. His eyes glowed bright
red, and his skin cracked and glowed similarly as the beasts within
him attempted to make him crawl out into the sunlight.

Whether the smoke that wafted from his face, hands, and

anywhere where the flesh was exposed was a result of the demon
within him or the fact that he was inches away from direct sunlight,
Luke couldn’t say.

He rushed forward, grabbing Derek around his middle and

yanking him back.

Derek screeched all the more, his fingernails making claw marks

over the floor as he refused to go quietly.

“It’s―it’s trying to burn me! Don’t let it burn me!” he screamed,

even as he fought and struggled to rush back out into the morning
light.

“I won’t!” Luke finally managed to force Derek onto his back,

The Half-Breed Vampire

and the demon within him started clawing at Luke’s face now,
attempting to break free.

“You will not have him!” Luke screamed and then placed his

palm flat on Derek’s forehead.

A bright light erupted from Derek’s skin as Luke allowed his

energy to flow through him, cleansing him. It was so strong that he
had not thought about whether it would burn him like the light of the
sun until it was too late.

Derek screamed, but he did not catch fire and collapse into a small

pile of ashes. He clutched at Luke’s shoulders, his fingers digging into
the flesh until the light, both demonic and pure, vanished from his
body, and his muscles went limp.

He looked dead.
No.
Luke shook him, praying for something to happen. His chest to

rise and fall, his eyes to open, anything.

“Derek? Derek!”
The vampire coughed and gagged, his body spasming so suddenly

that he nearly arched right out of Luke’s arms.

Without knowing why, Luke held him tighter to his chest, and he

didn’t want to let the other man go.

His heart pounded and his blood raced, as though he’d just come

from battle rather than banished one middle-class demon.

Derek’s hands were warm on his bare skin, and something inside

of him told him that this wasn’t just because he was so close to the
sunlight.

Luke kicked his foot out, and the door slammed shut, bathing

them both in relative darkness once more.

“You…saved me. What was that you put inside of me?” Derek

asked, his eyes cloudy and his lips smiling.

“My energy,” Luke answered, unable to look away.
“Felt nice,” Derek said, and then the hand that had been on his

shoulder went to the back of his neck and pulled him down.

42 Marcy

Jacks

No one had ever kissed him before. He knew what a kiss was and

had seen them a time or two, but never had anyone ever put their
mouth over his. This was soft, gentle, and it made his heart jump like
he’d just thrown himself out of Heaven and was in a free fall toward
Earth.

Somehow, the thing to do that made the most sense seemed to be

to move his lips back against the ones that were gently touching his.
They were soft. That was the only way he could think of to properly
describe them. Soft.

He liked the way Derek’s hands touched him, the way his palms

held a gentle grip on his skin, and he pulled the smaller man closer to
him, enjoying the feel of his body and his heat on top of him. That
skin-to-skin connection of their mouths and hands bound them
together almost as deeply as when Luke had put his healing energy
into the vampire beneath him.

Derek had just bitten down on his bottom lip, nipping really, and

the tip of his tongue had reached out when the word vampire came
back to Luke’s consciousness.

He could not do this.
He pulled away, noting for the first time the thing that he had not

been able to recognize before that was in Derek’s eyes.

Lust.
Of course. Derek had said he was lonely, that no one came to visit

him. It was only natural for him to feel a certain amount of physical
affection for a protector who suddenly arrived at his door.

Because Luke had no experience in these things, that was what he

assumed was happening, at any rate.

Derek did not seem to be aware of Luke’s sudden change in

temper, because his hand slid out from the back of Luke’s neck to cup
his cheek.

Oh, if that did not feel heavenly as well. Who would have thought

that physical touch would be so divine? But he was here on a mission,
and so he pulled Derek’s hand away from his face, but he did not

The Half-Breed Vampire

stand up. They both stayed on the floor.

“What happened?” Luke demanded, falling back into the soldier

persona that he had created for times such as these. He’d been using it
more and more as of late. That was not a good thing.

“I was…I don’t know,” Derek said, after stopping to think about

it. That couldn’t exactly be good either. “I was sleeping. I was
dreaming, and then I woke up and I was opening the door. I think I
was even outside for a second. I felt the heat on my face, and I tried to
get back inside, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t…”

Luke held the man close as he broke down against him. It wasn’t

that difficult to summon pity for him. Vampires were known to fear
the sun, just as any angel was bred to fear the licking heat of the fires
of Hell or the empty void of Purgatory.

“You’re safe now. The demon is gone.” Luke was sure of it, at

any rate. The demons were most definitely becoming desperate if they
were struggling to force Derek to kill himself rather than have him
kill another.

At least now he knew what he would have to protect the man

from. Himself.

Derek lifted the bottom of the white T-shirt he wore and wiped at

his face and then tried to pretend his tears never happened. “I thought
my house was protected from the demons. I thought…”

Luke waited for the accusation that he’d failed to come, but it

didn’t. Derek just looked at him, his lashes still wet and his eyes
pleading.

“Your birthday draws nearer. My guess at this point is that the

demons have given up on attempting to make you kill someone else,
and so they would have you kill yourself instead. That was no little
demon that kittens could chase away. It was something stronger, and
altogether sneakier as well to have made it into the house without my
noticing it.”

“Oh,” Derek said and then looped his arms around Luke’s neck.
He wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about that, other than it was

44 Marcy

Jacks

another nice physical sensation.

It was so nice that he found himself sitting there on the floor with

Derek in his arms for several minutes before one of them shifted, and
they both stood up.

“Thanks for saving me,” Derek said, scratching the back of his

head and looking altogether embarrassed. The red blush on his cheeks
was rather endearing.

“You’re welcome. I can’t have them take you into Hell anyway,

remember?”

“Yeah, I know.”
“And I will not allow another demon to harm you again.”
“Great, thanks.”
He didn’t understand this man. He’d just reaffirmed his mission to

him, and the knowledge that Derek had an angel for a protector who
would do better to be sure that there was no next time to fall back on
should have comforted him. Derek sounded completely miserable.

“Depression is a sign of demon possession or harassment. Perhaps

I should check you again, to be sure all the traces are gone.”

“No, no, I’m good,” Derek said, stepping away and putting his

hands up a little, warding Luke off.

The sting of rejection ran deep, and Luke hated himself for failing

and for making his charge see him as nothing but a failure, incapable
of protecting him.

“I meant what I said, I will not allow another demon to harm

you.”

“Can you really promise that?” Derek asked.
No, he could not, especially if something stronger was sent their

way. The forces of Hell were surely getting impatient by now. Two
losses already, and the third was not looking hopeful for them.

“I will do everything in my power. I would lay my life down to

make sure you get out of this alive.”

“So I can kill myself after the curse of the demons is broken?”
Luke inhaled a sharp breath. He’d entirely forgotten that he’d said

The Half-Breed Vampire

something as cruel as that. “No, I…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Derek said, and Luke could easily see that

his smile was forced. “Actually, the more I think about it, the better
living seems, once I stop getting voices in my head and demons trying
to kill me. I might even get my parents to invite me back into their
house from time to time.”

Luke returned his forced smile with one of his own. “If that makes

you happy.”

Derek nodded, though he still seemed like he was making things

up to be cheerful about. “I think it would. I guess. Be nice to spend
Christmas in the main house instead of, well, here by myself.”

It never occurred to Luke that a nest of vampires would celebrate

Christmas. Things certainly had changed.

Derek shifted on his feet, taking on that look of uncertainty once

more as he turned his head to look back at the staircase. Up above was
his bedroom, which was right next to the one he’d offered to Luke.

Only one more thing to be ashamed of. That they’d been so close

and that Luke had not so much as heard a whisper out of Derek’s
bedroom until he’d started screaming downstairs.

“Would you like me to take you back to your room?” Luke

offered.

“I―” Derek shook his head. “Not—not right now, no. I don’t

really think I can sleep in there after all that.”

“You are still tired then?”
“I’ll be fine. I really don’t want to go to sleep right now.”
But he needed his rest. “You will need your strength if you are to

remain resistant to the demons. Fighting against the one in your body
took some of your strength, and I know how much, because I had to
replenish it with my own. You need to rest.”

“But I can’t go back up there,” Derek said, sounding like he was

pleading with Luke, as though Luke had the power to take his choice
away from him.

Maybe he did, but he was not going to force the man into his

46 Marcy

Jacks

bedroom like a child.

He gently took Derek by the arm, but he did not lead him to the

stairs. He brought him to the sitting room and put him on the couch.
“Sleep here. I will keep watch for the remainder of the day.”

Derek didn’t argue with him as he put his bare feet up and settled

in. Luke wanted to offer a blanket from his room upstairs but thought
it best to not leave him alone.

“You’ll stay until I wake up?” Derek asked after some minutes,

his eyes shut and voice heavy.

“Until you wake.”

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Five

The ambrosia wasn’t working, and nothing that Samael brought in

helped. Lana had vanished some hours ago, seeking some peace and
quiet of her own, and she had yet to return.

John knew she was lost to him at this point. She would not return.

Whether it was because she’d handed herself over to the guards or
allowed herself to fall, he could not say.

She was simply another soldier that he’d failed, and right now,

Kale was slowly dying before his very eyes.

He was alone with the man now, watching as his light faded to

nothing. John clutched his hand as tightly as though he might pull him
away from the evil spell that threatened to take him.

He stroked the clammy skin and kissed the knuckles, wishing with

everything inside of him that he’d taken the time to do these things
while Kale was awake, and when they’d both had the time to admit
what fools they had been.

“Kale, you must wake up. We did it. We are home. We freed the

souls, and you saved my life. Do not die for me. Do not let the light
take you.”

For all they thought they knew about where mortals went after

their own deaths, John had not a clue what would happen to Kale after
he died. Angels on the brink of death spoke of a white light coming to
take them away, supposedly to become raw energy that would later be
reborn into another angel or even added life to the gardens of Heaven,
but no one knew for sure.

The mortals were not permitted to know of their fate, and such

was the same with the angels. It was all very unfair.

48 Marcy

Jacks

John poured as much of his energy into the other man as he could,

but it did not seem to help at all. Kale’s body absorbed what John
gave him and ran through it faster than anything John had ever seen.
John couldn’t even see his wings anymore.

Kale had been on virtually every mission with John ever since the

man had become an angel. He was a mortal born on earth and then
killed brutally by his own father. He’d been one of the few mortal
souls offered the chance to earn his wings, and Kale had taken it.

Then he had taken to John as well. They had been together for

nearly fifteen years, and John could not see himself without the other
man at his side. The thought that he might open his eyes and see Kale
fading from sight, the same way Daren had, killed him a little on the
inside.

“Please, do not leave me.”
A whisper in his ear had him spinning around in his seat, but there

was no one behind him.

He wiped at his face with his free hand. If anyone were to ever see

him like this, he would never be given command of his own team
again.

Assuming he was not locked away or thrown into Hell for treason.
He knew what he’d heard. “Who is there? Samael?”
The whisper, a feminine sound, came to him again, and he knew

immediately who was speaking to him.

Even the voice of demons could still reach into Heaven. Their

leaders had to have some way of communicating with each other from
time to time, after all, though this was hardly ordinary.

It was Annabel, though what she could want from him after she

put Kale in this position, he did not know.

He sent his message back to her and then went back to keeping

vigil at Kale’s bedside.

Rot, you bitch.
It took only a moment before her response came. A tinkling laugh,

followed by the words that made John moan with despair. I can cure

The Half-Breed Vampire

him.

Of course she could, she was a powerful enough demon, and this

was her doing. All bargaining with demons came at a steep price,
however. He knew that.

Looking down into Kale’s ashen but still handsome face, he

would simply have to decide when he would be able to pay it.

How?
He could hear the glee in the message she sent back to him. Come

see me, and I’ll tell you.

* * * *

Luke hadn’t lied, Derek was amused to see when he opened his

eyes later that night. He’d stayed right where he was the entire time
Derek had slept and then stayed with him pretty much entirely
through the night, following him around like a lost puppy.

Derek would have enjoyed that part especially had it not been for

the businesslike tone that Luke kept to whenever they managed to
speak.

“Your birthday is in another two days,” Luke said, though he

seemed to be speaking out loud to himself at this point. “My guess is
that you were born just after midnight?”

“Yeah, Friday at midnight,” Derek said.
“Should I expect family members to arrive with gifts and

whatnot?” Luke asked, watching as Derek set out milk for the stray
kittens, which had returned.

He looked away from the other man, embarrassed for himself.

“No, don’t worry, you won’t have to hide from people.”

He’d already ordered a birthday present for himself online and

was currently waiting for a new Star Wars LEGO set to come in. He
was going to build himself a Death Star, but he wasn’t going to tell
Luke about his nerdy hobbies.

Actually, now that he thought about it, his angel protector’s name

50 Marcy

Jacks

was Luke, and Derek was a Star Wars fan.

What were the odds of that?
Luke cleared his throat. “Yes, well…” he trailed off, and

something seemed to click behind his eyes. “Friday after midnight.
That’s tomorrow.”

“No, it’s two days from now.”
Luke slapped a hand over his eyes, as though he were trying to

hide from Derek being purposely obtuse.

“Literally speaking, yes, but tomorrow is Thursday, and at the

moment it’s already past ten o’clock. We have little more than
twenty-four hours until your birthday.”

Derek felt a lick of fear pulling at him. “Is that bad?”
Luke bit his lips together. “I cannot say that it is. It means that this

will end sooner than I thought it would, for one thing. Also that the
demons are coming down to their last hours as well. You must be
prepared for the event when they throw everything they can at you.”

The seriousness in Luke’s eyes made Derek shiver. He was such a

terrible vampire. He nodded anyway, pushing away those feelings of
being unworthy. “Okay.”

Luke sighed when he looked down at him, and for the first time

since Derek woke up, he walked out of the room, leaving Derek alone
to the cats and kittens, who mewed at him for attention.

He stroked his hand one last time over the little black one with the

white spot over its eye and then went after his protector.

He found Luke in the sitting room, just standing there, his back to

the doorway and his arms crossed while he stared out the tinted
window. He was still half-naked, wearing only the tight-fitting pair of
jeans that Derek had given him.

He wished the man wasn’t so damn handsome. Everything on him

was perfect, and it was too easy for Derek to get distracted when he
knew that the only thing Luke wanted was for him to stay focused.

He hadn’t so much as mentioned the kiss since Derek had woken

up, and hadn’t bothered to come within touching distance of him

The Half-Breed Vampire

either.

Derek cleared his throat and stepped up beside him. “Are you

okay?” he asked. He reached out to put his hand on Luke’s shoulder,
but then he pulled back. No, Luke wouldn’t appreciate that.

Luke inhaled a long, deep breath. “I should not be here,” he said.
Ouch. That kind of hurt. A lot. Derek was glad that Luke wasn’t

looking at him, because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to
force a smile on to his face at the moment after hearing something
like that.

“Well, don’t worry about it. After tomorrow night, you’ll get to go

home.”

“My home is gone. There is nothing left.”
“Your―? Jesus, Luke, I’m so sorry. Did…did the demons destroy

it?” he asked, not sure if the question would be appreciated or not, but
he was too damn curious, and he wanted to help.

Luke actually managed a cynical smile and then looked down at

him. If Derek’s misery made Luke only think that it was pity for his
story, well, all the better.

“My home itself is in decent enough shape in Heaven, but my

brother…He was my home, as well. He will not be there when I go
back. It is no longer my home.”

“You have a brother?” Derek asked. He recalled the man

mentioning that he was created, so how he could have a brother was
something that made the wheels in Derek’s head turn.

He quickly decided the how of it didn't matter. Luke was clearly

suffering.

“Had a brother. He is dead.”
There was nothing in the world that Derek could say that would

take the pain out of Luke’s voice, so he didn’t say anything at all. He
did put his hand on Luke’s shoulder without pulling away, however.
Luke didn’t shrug him off either. That had to count for something.

“I’m sorry,” Derek said and then cursed himself for speaking the

instinctual words that came after hearing about something like that.

52 Marcy

Jacks

He couldn’t help it even though he knew those words were
meaningless. It was like his mouth was possessed.

Luke didn’t berate him for it. “Don’t be. He died in battle, fighting

for what he believed in. If I am to properly honor him, then I must
complete this mission.”

“You mean with me?” Derek asked, feeling like he was getting

closer and closer to the answers he wanted and unable to stop himself
from asking the question. Derek didn’t know how much longer Luke
would be willing to speak with him about this, and he wanted to stay
tactful, so he would take what he could get and try not to make Luke’s
pain any worse than what he no doubt already felt.

“Yes,” Luke replied. “This was to be his mission, but with him

suddenly dead, I was forced to take over.”

Luke actually looked down at Derek, and their eyes met. The

sadness Derek saw there was almost too much for him to handle. “For
the terrible things I said to you, or if I came off as being too rough,
then I apologize. I had just lost him, and he was the one who was
supposed to be here…”

Derek squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t

have to explain anything.” He did something then that he never
thought he would’ve had the balls to do.

He hugged the man. It was like his arms developed a

consciousness of their own and wound around Luke’s waist before he
could stop them.

Luke’s body froze and became so stiff that, had they been outside,

Derek would’ve thought the bats would mistake him for a perch or
something.

He was about to pull away, feeling like a complete fool for ever

assuming he could be this close to an angel, when Luke uncurled an
arm from his chest and wound it around Derek’s hip.

No harsh words came, and Luke wasn’t just getting a better hold

to shove him away. Derek relaxed into the embrace then, totally and
completely. He looked at the reflection they made in the window, and

The Half-Breed Vampire

they were both so peaceful, holding each other like that, that they
almost might be mistaken for a real couple.

“I’m sorry your brother is gone,” Derek said again and risked

destroying the moment by asking another, harder question. “There’s
no way to bring him back? You’re angels, right?”

Luke did not pull away or frown at him, or tell him what a fool he

was either. “Even angels die. I don’t know where his spirit went or if
we even have one to begin with. I don’t know if I will ever see him
again.”

The only words that Derek could think of to comfort him now

would just be the regular ones that usually came with talk like that.
Have faith, afterlife, blah, blah, blah.

“I don’t know about where angels go,” Derek started.
“And I will not tell you about mortals, so do not ask,” Luke shot

back, though his tone suggested a certain playfulness that Derek liked.

“Wasn’t going to ask,” Derek said, smiling. One of the kittens had

found its way into the sitting room and was now circling around their
legs, looking up at the both of them, hopeful for attention. “I was
going to say that vampires think a lot like that, though. We don’t
know where we go when we die, and we don’t know if we have souls
either.”

That hand on his hip squeezed just a little, and Luke stared down

at the fat kitten, which was clawing at the calf of his jeans.

“I cannot tell you where you will go when you die. That would be

illegal,” Luke said, then he turned those lovely eyes of his back to
Derek. “From what I have seen of you so far, and from what you
could no doubt have guessed on your own, I can tell you that you
most definitely have a soul.”

The funny thing was that Derek hadn’t been able to guess that. He

wouldn’t have known it either if Luke hadn’t told him, but he
supposed it made sense. “I guess it should be obvious. Demons want
me to corrupt my soul, so therefore I must have one, right?”

“Exactly,” Luke said, that same sad smile on his face. “And I’m

54 Marcy

Jacks

certain that no soulless creature would take pleasure in feeding this
little monster.”

They stared at each other then, and Derek didn’t know who

moved first, but they were kissing again. Gentle, loving, perfect.

The proof that what Luke felt for him was not entirely romantic

lay between his legs, and Derek wanted to be a little brave for once in
his life, especially since Luke would be leaving him in just over
twenty-four hours.

He reached down and palmed Luke’s stiff cock through his jeans

and felt entirely too delighted when Luke’s kiss became rough. And
when both of Luke’s hands went to Derek’s neck and held him in
place, a shiver passed through his body at the delicious touch.

This was going to be fun.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Six

This time, when Derek went back up to his bedroom, he was not

afraid, though that might have had something to do with the way he
clutched at Luke’s hand as he led the way.

Luke seemed eager enough to follow him, though he did still try

to pull him to a stop for another long, languid kiss. At one point,
Derek found himself pushed against the wall, knocking over one of
the bits of artwork that had been hanging there, and moaned at the
feeling of Luke’s knee pressing between his legs.

“This is incredible,” Luke said, panting after pulling away from

their kiss, just to cup Derek’s face with both hands and bring him
forward for another.

If Derek were able to speak, he would have agreed. He’d never

been kissed like this before. He’d never been kissed at all before Luke
came into his life. Maybe that was why he was so desperate for the
man and had fallen in love with him so quickly. Regardless, he loved
the way Luke gently bit down on his lower lip, prompting his mouth
to open, and then when that tongue touched against his, coupled with
the sizzle happening between his legs…

He roughly pushed Luke away from him but then took him by the

hand and continued back up the stairs before the other man could take
that as some sort of rejection. If they kept fondling each other on
Derek’s stairs, he was going to come long before they had the chance
to get to the main event. And there was nothing in the world Derek
wanted more right now than the both of them naked and together.

It took entirely too long to get to his room, especially since they’d

come to a stop two more times before Derek even had the chance to

56 Marcy

Jacks

get through his bedroom door. Luke was kissing him once more, and
his strong hands were in Derek’s hair.

Oh God, he wasn’t going to last.
They tumbled onto Derek’s bed, and Derek took the initiative to

climb on top of his new soon-to-be lover. Derek pulled his T-shirt
over his head, and now they were both shirtless.

Luke stared up at him, and he reached a hand out to gently touch

his stomach and ribs. “You are lovely.”

Derek blushed, then he smiled. “Well, thanks, but you’re the

beautiful one here.”

Not that he wasn’t pleased that Luke found him attractive. If

anything, it was a major confidence boost, considering this was the
first time he’d ever allowed anyone to see him like this.

He leaned down and did something he’d always wanted to do. He

kissed Luke’s chest and then played with one of the man’s nipples
between his lips.

Luke inhaled deeply, his back arching toward the feeling of

Derek’s mouth and tongue, and he knew he had to be doing this right.
The only thing he had to work with was all those porn vids he’d
watched to keep himself company over the years.

It wasn’t exactly easy making friends when everyone believed you

had some kind of mental disorder that made you violent.

Luke’s fingers were rough when he gripped Derek’s hair, but he

didn’t care. The pain was somehow pleasurable, and he liked it when
the angel touched him like that. One hand clenched his hair while the
other moved up and down along the flesh of his back, touching and
feeling, stroking.

Derek couldn’t help himself when his cock swelled even further.

He shifted just enough to be able to kiss and lick at Luke’s neck, and
he found his still-clothed cock pressing into Luke’s as well.

They both released guttural moans at that sensation, and both

began humping against each other just to get at more of that friction.
Luke’s hands abandoned his hair and back and went down to grip at

The Half-Breed Vampire

his ass, pulling Derek more firmly against his prick.

“That’s…that’s…” Luke gasped.
Derek couldn’t even make a reply as he lost complete control and

just started moving. Suddenly, all he wanted was to get off, even if it
meant waiting a little longer before he and Luke could have sex. He
was so close, and the sounds coming from Luke’s mouth were so
gorgeous and…

He came, his body shuddering as he emptied himself inside of his

jeans. Only then did he remember to be a little embarrassed for what
he’d done, but then the sight of Luke squeezing his eyes shut beneath
him, his mouth open as he twitched and spasmed, made Derek feel a
whole lot better.

At least he could do the same to his new lover. It didn’t make him

feel quite so inadequate to know that he wasn’t the only one who
would need a change of clothes.

Luke’s body seemed to turn into jelly as he became boneless on

the bed. Derek had to catch himself on his hands just to keep from
falling on top of the other man, but they were still close. Close enough
that their breaths mingled and their shared body heat was lulling
Derek into a similar state of relaxation.

“That was nice,” Derek said, grinning.
A lazy smile pulled at Luke’s lips, and his hands stroked his hips.

“Indeed.”

The only thing that stopped Derek from falling down on the other

man and snuggling was that he wasn’t sure if it was his place. This
had been the first orgasm he’d shared with another person, but he was
still an adult and knew perfectly well that something like that didn’t
mean he was welcome in the room after everything was said and
done.

Luke wasn’t staying here forever, after all.
Then the other man opened his green eyes, and his smile became

predatory. “I would like to do that again,” he said just as he dipped his
hands down, fingers running beneath the waist of Derek’s jeans so he

58 Marcy

Jacks

could grip his ass.

This was not over then.
“Anyone ever tell you that you have the most wicked smile?”
A slight bit of confusion mingled in with the lust on Luke’s face.

“Do I?”

Those fingers kneaded and massaged, and though it was an

incredibly tight fit, some of them even managed to tease him around
the crack of his ass.

“I think it’s the beard that does it. It looks good though. You

should smile more often.”

Luke was smiling right now, knowing perfectly well what he was

doing to Derek. He had to lean down and kiss him again, enjoying the
way the little hairs that were growing around his jaw prickled him. He
wondered if Luke ever needed to shave it. It certainly didn’t look like
it had grown out any more from yesterday.

His thoughts were cut off when Luke’s hands and fingers left his

ass, and he started to struggle with the button and zipper of Derek’s
jeans.

Derek could feel the way the other man’s cock had begun to swell

again between them, and Derek’s own body was having a similar
reaction. They were doing this. Definitely.

He sat up a little and helped with the new task at hand, getting the

pants and boxers off his hips and kicking them away. Luke reached
for his prick, as though it were hypnotizing him, and Derek was
forced to bite his lips together on contact.

“Are you well?” Luke asked, his voice husky and those green eyes

staying right where they were on Derek’s cock.

“Very,” Derek said with a little moan. “Guess it’s a good thing we

already, uh, did that. I think I can keep from coming for a little while
now.”

Which meant they could actually take the time to enjoy

themselves.

Luke’s green eyes flashed, as though he were getting the same

The Half-Breed Vampire

idea.

Derek’s fingers found the button and fly of his jeans, and he

pulled them apart, getting Luke out of his pants.

That must’ve felt better. Luke certainly didn’t like wearing jeans

he’d just finished coming in.

Then his eyes landed on Luke’s dick, and they went wide.
“Wow.”
“What is it?” Luke asked, though he hardly seemed to be paying

attention to his own question, considering he was more interested in
leaning up and kissing along Derek’s neck and collarbone.

What is it? Why was that even a question? He was hung like those

men Derek had watched in the videos online. Derek was hardly small,
but what Luke had put Derek to shame.

He wondered how good it would feel to have that inside of him.
“Derek?” Luke asked.
Right. They’d been talking. “It’s just. You’re really big.”
“Am I?”
“Is that a trick question?”
Luke looked down at himself, his hand stilling against Derek’s

prick for the first time since they’d started. “I suppose I never thought
about it. Is this a good thing?”

The question totally threw Derek for a loop. Somehow, he

expected Luke to have the most experience between the both of
them—it certainly wasn’t hard for that to be possible—but the way he
was talking right now almost made it sound as if…

“Are you a…Is this your first time?” Derek asked.
He cursed himself for asking the question. He would be pretty

mad if someone had blatantly asked him that. And he would have lied
about it, too.

Not Luke.
“Yes.”
He had no words for that. “Huh.”
“Is this yours as well?”

60 Marcy

Jacks

He definitely couldn’t be defensive or angry about the question

now, considering it was Luke’s first time, too. “Yes. I, shit, I was
hoping you would be able to walk me through this. I mean, I know
what to do and everything, but now…”

Luke’s hand found its way behind Derek’s neck once more, and

the comforting touch was everything he needed to get his heart
pumping back at a normal rhythm.

Normal enough considering the way his cock was still throbbing,

and Luke still looked like he was in the same boat.

“Tell me what to do, and I will follow your lead,” the angel said.
Derek’s heart thudded, knowing that the other man meant it

entirely. His touching smile and trusting eyes were so honest, and
Derek knew that Luke would let him do whatever he wanted to him.
Luke would probably even let Derek inside of him if he asked for it.

He was not afraid of the control he was being given over the other

man. He welcomed it and cherished it. He was going to make sure
that they both had the time of their lives.

“I’ve got some lube in my nightstand. You’ll need to put some of

that on your fingers and then on your dick.”

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Seven

Luke was not only incredibly good at following orders, but also at

reading the signs that were given to him. It didn’t take Derek long at
all to figure this out about the other man.

Well, he was a soldier, after all. The only reason he would have

survived for so long on the battlefield was because he was good at
taking commands and at reading between the lines when it came
down to what his superiors could not say and what his enemies were
about to do.

Derek was just making guesses at this point, and he was going to

have to make sure and ask the other man when there weren’t a pair of
fingers knuckle-deep inside of him, teasing his prostate.

Derek had never been able to find it on his own, despite all the

articles he’d read online, but he’d given Luke some basic directions,
and the man had found it and was making Derek sing like he was his
own personal musician taking the lead in a band.

Luke didn’t need much guidance after that. He seemed to

understand what he was doing just fine on his own, using Derek’s
body language to figure out just what worked best. That didn’t stop
Derek from giving his opinion anyway.

“Harder, right there! Put your other finger inside,” he begged.
Derek had always thought he would look ridiculous in some of the

positions he’d seen the men get into in those vids, but with his knees
up and bent over Luke’s arms, he thought this was working out pretty
well.

“Like this?” Luke asked and then proceeded to do as Derek was

pleading with him to do.

62 Marcy

Jacks

He thrust in the third finger but now was purposely avoiding

Derek’s prostate, for the most part.

He was being teased!
“No, no, you can’t do that! Touch me, you have to touch me!”

Derek cried out.

“I fear that if I touch you any more than I am doing now, you will

come again.”

“That’s the point!” Derek said and then grabbed at one of his

pillows and smothered his face with it, moaning into it.

Luke’s second hand, which had been making use of itself by

stroking Derek’s dick, suddenly pulled away. It was nearly three
seconds before Derek took the pillow away from his face and
bothered to look and see what the other man was doing.

His eyes popped wide when he watched Luke open his mouth and

bend his head down until Derek’s dick was between those dark-pink
lips of his.

Luke took in the head at first, then pulled back and eyed Derek’s

cock once more, as though he was studying it.

Right. This was the first for both of them. Luke was curious, and

he was testing the waters. They were officially tested for Derek, and
he knew now without any doubts that he liked having his cock sucked
by a gorgeous man. “Do that again,” he said with a hard breath.

Luke looked up at him, and that wicked little smile was back on

his face. He was accepting a challenge here, it seemed.

“As you wish,” Luke said and then put his lips around Derek’s

prick once more.

At first he only kept to the head, sucking back and swirling his

tongue. It didn’t matter. It was still good, and if Derek hadn’t had an
orgasm less than fifteen minutes ago, he would have shot himself
straight down Luke’s throat.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t still painfully close, however, and he

moaned and thrust deeper into that awaiting mouth, listening as Luke
choked a little, but he couldn’t stop himself.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Luke recovered anyway, and he used his second hand to grip

Derek at the base of his prick, preventing him from coming and
keeping him just a little more still so that Luke could continue to get
used to the sensation of sucking on a man’s dick.

“That’s nice, that’s so nice. I–I love…I love the way you do that,”

Derek said, catching himself before he could admit to something a
little more incriminating.

He had fingers in his ass and a mouth on his cock. This was the

best night of his life. He was going to miss it when Luke had to leave
him.

No, he couldn’t think about that right now. He would take what he

could get from the other man and then be grateful that he was going to
have something resembling a normal life when all of this was over.

It was easy for him to look on the bright side of this whilst Luke

made a meal out of him. He felt like he was being feasted on. Luke’s
hand eventually vanished, and he sank his lips down farther on
Derek’s cock.

Derek humped wantonly against that mouth, watching Luke the

whole time the other man blew him. He looked at the shape of his lips
around Derek’s swollen dick, the way his brows were knit in
concentration, and how serious his eyes were, as though this were
some kind of monumental task that he just had to get right.

Derek wanted to memorize everything about this man. He never

wanted to forget this time they had together.

“You look so good sucking on my cock. I can’t wait to put yours

in my mouth.” He stopped his dirty talk there, knowing that he
wouldn’t likely be able to make any erotic promises, considering he’d
never had a dick in his mouth and would likely choke and have to pull
back at the first sign of trouble.

Well, he was still going to do his best to make sure that Luke

enjoyed what Derek did to him as much as Derek was enjoying this
now.

When Luke began thrusting his fingers again and then pulled his

64 Marcy

Jacks

face back and started to harden his tongue to play with the slit of
Derek’s dick, he couldn’t help the way his balls went tight. He felt the
familiar rush building inside of him, and as much as he wanted it, he
wanted Luke’s cock inside of him more.

He pushed at the other man’s shoulders and even had to pull at his

soft hair a little. “Stop, Luke. Stop.”

Luke pulled back almost in an instant. “What is the matter?”
“Oh, fuck!” His orgasm was already coming onto him, regardless

of the fact that Luke was no longer touching him. Derek had to reach
down and grip at the base of his balls and cock and held that position
until he was sure that he wasn’t in any danger of coming.

Luke must have realized what he was doing. “Why hold back? I

thought this was the point?” he asked.

“It is,” Derek said with another small whine, falling back against

his mattress and then reluctantly releasing himself when he was sure
he was safe. “But I don’t want to come yet until you’re inside of me.”

Now Luke managed a smile. “Very well. What now?”
Right, he was the one talking the other man through it. At least he

looked eager. “I think I’m ready. Put some more of the lube in your
hand and then put it on your dick.”

Luke reached for the bottle that was still lying in the messy

blankets and sheets. Derek was so glad the other man hadn’t thought
to ask him what he was doing with a bottle of lube if he’d never had
sex before. That was something he was pretty sure he couldn’t live
through.

Those thoughts were soon taken clear out of his head as he

watched as Luke stroked the lube onto himself, and before Derek
could suggest it, he used his fingers to smear a little more around
Derek’s pucker.

Luke lifted Derek’s thighs and pulled him close.
“And now?” Luke asked.
Derek swallowed. “I, uh, I guess you just put it in,” he said, really,

really wishing he knew what he was doing.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Luke nodded and stroked Derek’s leg for comfort, almost as if he

was one of the cats downstairs, who were probably running amok in
his house by now.

“Tell me if you feel any discomfort,” Luke said, and Derek

shivered when he felt the head of Luke’s massive cock press up
against his asshole.

His anal muscles stretched and burned, but it didn’t exactly hurt.

He’d read up that it was supposed to hurt, but there were no websites
for when a man with vampire strength was giving up his V card.
Maybe it wasn’t supposed to hurt for him.

The burning increased to the point where it nearly was pain, and

he started to doubt that theory, when Luke suddenly stopped what he
was doing and looked down at him.

He was panting, and his shoulders trembled with the effort of

holding back. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Derek wanted to ask him that same question, but he was a little

stunned to realize that, yes, he was all right. More than all right.

“I am, move,” he said.
Luke wasn’t entirely inside of him yet, apparently, because Derek

felt him slide a little farther inside of his body. He arched his hips,
searching, and then Derek really had to grab ahold of that pillow to
bite down on it when Luke’s cock touched his prostate again.

That seemed to be all the signal the other man needed as he

clutched tightly to Derek’s legs and began pumping in and out of him,
grunting and moaning with each little movement he made, as well as
every time Derek tightened his anal muscles.

Derek wished he hadn’t had to wait until he was nearly thirty for

this, but now that he was with Luke, he was glad there had been no
one else before him. This was right. This was supposed to be like this.
Luke was his.

Luke was saying something, but Derek couldn’t exactly hear him

with the pillow over his face and the sounds he was making. Luke
snatched the pillow and tore it away from him.

66 Marcy

Jacks

“Look at me,” he demanded. Derek did as he was told.
Luke had fallen onto his elbows and was now ramming into Derek

with a force he hadn’t been aware even existed. Their faces were so
close that their breaths came together, and Derek had to kiss him.

Luke groaned, and this time he let Derek put his tongue inside of

his mouth. Derek reached down, his hands finding the swells of
Luke’s perfect ass, and with his legs free from Luke’s grip, he hooked
them around Luke’s thighs and completely lost himself to what they
were doing.

He wanted to tell Luke that he loved him. And he wanted to tell

the other man that he was his mate and that they were supposed to be
together and please don’t leave and…and…

Derek came with a shout, his body tightening around Luke’s and

unwilling to let go.

That tightening was probably what threw Luke over the edge as

well. He came with a roar, his body spasming on top of Derek’s, and
the heat of his body was intense.

Derek held him close, stroking his hair, neck, and shoulders and

just enjoying the afterglow and being close to him.

Luke stayed with him for only a minute or so before he lifted

himself up, holding the base of his dick and gently pulling out of
Derek.

“I take it that was to your satisfaction?” Luke asked.
“One for the books,” Derek replied, frowning when Luke shifted

away from him and sat at the edge of the bed instead of lying with
him.

Well, he supposed he had prepared himself for this. Luke did not

want anything more with him, so Derek could not hold him to any
promises he was not making.

That didn’t stop the loneliness he’d felt for his entire life from

coming back full force, however. He had to say something, just to see
if there really was a chance.

“I think I will be needing to borrow another pair of your jeans, as

The Half-Breed Vampire

you called them. We have made a mess of mine, and I definitely have
no energy after that.”

It was said with a mischievous sort of smile and a look over his

shoulder, but Derek couldn’t help the suspicion that crept into his
voice.

“You used your energy? While we were…How did you do that?”

Derek hadn’t noticed anything beyond the blind pleasure that seared
through him, and he’d thought that Luke only used his energy when
he was required to make use of his powers, like cleaning his armor,
staying awake, or banishing demons from Derek’s body.

Luke was in such a fine mood, still in the glow of his orgasm, that

he barely seemed to notice the way Derek was frowning at him. “I
was not quite referring to that energy, but it’s best if I still do not use
that resource as well.”

“Were you using it?” Derek asked, unable to let it go now that

he’d thought about it, though he couldn’t figure out why Luke would
secretly try to pump him full of his angel power.

Luke gave him an odd look, as though he were also having trouble

figuring out why it would matter to Derek. “Yes, but not directly.
Two comrades of mine, Mathias and Jeremy, have already come to
Earth and saved the men they were charged with taking care of. They
told me that there is a certain power that comes through sexual
activities. It strengthened the men they were charged with caring for. I
wanted to give you some of my strength, even though I have already
cleansed you. The act uses my energy, but at the same time does not. I
hadn’t fully believed them about that detail until just now.”

If Derek was one of those cats downstairs, he thought he might

start hissing. He immediately started pulling away from the other
man, and he slid off the other side of the bed and started searching
through his drawers, slamming them open and closed as he looked for
another pair of pants for the asshole behind him to wear.

“Is something the matter?” Luke asked.
“Aside from the fact that you only fucked me to settle a curiosity?

68 Marcy

Jacks

No, nothing at all.”

And he’d been thinking about telling the man that he’d mated with

him. What an idiot he’d been.

Derek heard the shift in the bed, as well as Luke’s bare feet on the

carpet as he walked up behind him. “It was not about curiosity,” his
gentle voice said.

Derek finally found what he was looking for, another pair of his

largest-sized jeans and a sweater. The clothes would be tight, but at
least then Luke wouldn’t have to walk around Derek’s house half-
naked, and he wouldn’t be forced to look at his perfect chest.

“Derek,” Luke said, his voice holding a warning.
He refused to look at him. “Just get out of here. Leave me alone.”
“Derek, you must stop. You’re letting your anger get the best of

you.”

Derek rounded on the other man, letting his fangs out and wanting

nothing better than to tear into him. “You used me! And you have the
gall to tell me that I’m letting my anger get the best of me?”

Luke’s hand was at his waist, and his sword appeared there from

nowhere. Derek was stunned at the sight of it. It wasn’t burning like
the last time, but the way Luke gripped it and how tight his body was,
knees bent and ready to spring, let Derek know that the man was
getting ready to defend himself if need be.

That was when he looked down at his hands, and he saw the way

his skin cracked and glowed bright red in several places, as though
there were hot coals burning under his skin.

Derek laughed, just before the darkness took over, and the demon

that had used his anger took full control. “So much for giving me your
energy.”

His mouth opened without Derek wanting it to, and suddenly he

was trapped inside of his own body, staring through his eyes and
listening with his ears as he released a loud, birdlike war cry and then
lunged at Luke.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Eight

John did not wish to leave Kale’s bedside, but if taking the risk of

capture by the royal guards and coming back to the very edge of
Purgatory would somehow heal his injured love, he would do so.

He had not been caught, but he had still been careful. He knew

how to get by undetected, how to disguise himself, so that even the
angels trained to detect trickery looked past him when John found
himself traveling by a small patrol.

Now he was here, on the very edge of this desolate place, and he

wished his second was with him.

“He can be with you, you know.”
John scowled. He’d been waiting here too long, it seemed, and

he’d allowed his mind to wander for Annabel to so easily read his
thoughts.

He half turned to the sound of her voice. She hovered in midair,

some ten feet away from him. Her knees were up and legs were
crossed, and one hand held her cheek as she studied him, as though
she were reclining on a sofa instead of simply floating there.

“Annabel, you look terrible,” John said, though he hadn’t done so

to cut her with his words, even though that was a nice addition.

Her normally glossy blonde hair was in complete disarray, with

strands poking out all over the place. There were burns there as well,
which made it uneven and black in some places, as well as more
burns on her hands and even on her cheek. Her normally perfectly
red, manicured nails were chipped, and she wore no makeup today.

She wore a skintight, red leotard with no stockings, and her red,

spiked high heels were still in place. Her long, ropelike tail with the

70 Marcy

Jacks

spike at the end whipped around behind her, as though she were an
affronted cat.

“Don’t take it too badly,” he said. “Your clothes are still in decent

shape.” The clothing she wore, despite how odd it always was,
seemed to be the only thing on her that was not damaged. She perhaps
might not have had the energy to spare in healing herself and
producing more color for her lips and eyes, but she would certainly
have put together enough power for clean clothing.

“Yes, well, two losses on my side. My superiors are not happy.”
“I find it interesting that you would ever admit to even having

superiors,” John said, and then he frowned as he recalled why he was
here. “You sent me a message. What did you do to Kale? Can it be
reversed?”

She smiled at him, the ugliness of her aura and general disarray

fading into nothingness as she spotted his eagerness for help.

Good Lord, he should not have let his feelings get the better of

him. It was the very reason why he wished to avoid Kale after they’d
shared that kiss. It gave the demons far too much power when they
learned there was something that he could not bear to lose.

“Let me come just a little closer, and I’ll tell you what I want.”
He had no choice. He let her come. She came far too close for his

liking, however. He hadn’t expected her to simply hover on over to
him, placing her hands on his chest and her dry lips at his ear.

What she whispered to him, her demand for curing Kale of the

infliction she’d placed on him, had him stumbling back.

“You cannot be serious!”
She pouted, actually placing her hands on her hips as she glared at

him. “It would hardly be a chore. I would rather you would enjoy it.”
She smiled at that last part, trying to play him seductively.

“I will not join with you,” John said, clenching his fists as he did.
“I’m not asking you to join with me, I’m asking you to have sex

with me.”

“I will not do that either!” John’s entire body trembled as he

The Half-Breed Vampire

fought against the urge to simply pull his sword free and attack her
where she stood. “Having relations with you would poison me
anyway. I would be joined with you, even if you didn’t intend for that
to happen.”

“Only a little joined,” she said, pinching her fingers together, as if

to show just how little their joining would be.

“To what purpose?”
She grinned at him, and her eyes looked up and down his body.
“I will not have you poison what I am on some vague promise for

a cure.”

“Suit yourself,” Annabel said, waving him away, as though it

hardly mattered that he was turning down her offer.

John began marching away, past her, with every intention of

returning to Kale’s bedside. If he was still alive when he returned, that
is.

John stopped moving. Whether Annabel had put that thought into

his head or it was his own fear, he couldn’t say.

It was enough to have him turning back to face her. “If I am

damned to do this, what guarantee do I have that he will not simply be
killed anyway?”

Annabel scratched at her chin, as though seriously considering his

words. “I cannot see into Heaven, so I cannot show you the absolutely
wretched state he’s in right now, but with the amount of time that has
passed, I would say he’s nearing his last breaths.”

“No.” John took a step back.
“Let me guess, he was a pale, grayish color when you left him?

You could no longer see his wings, and his light was leaving him,
yes?”

“You bitch,” John snarled, and this time his hand was on his

sword, but he did not pull it from its sheath.

“Thank you,” Annabel said, smiling a little. “That portal I created

was for you and you alone. It was to bring you to me and corrupt your
blood and your soul. I would have healed you, in a way, and you

72 Marcy

Jacks

would have been mine, but that little idiot got in the way, and you
pulled him away from the portal before he could be taken to the other
side with me.”

“I imagine that if he had appeared in my place, you would have

killed him anyway,” John snarled.

“That’s beyond the point,” Annabel replied with a wave of her

hand. “The corruption would have kept you in line. I would not have
asked of you anything you would not have wished to give. I know
how honorable you are.”

That was right. He was honorable. If Annabel had attempted to

poison him and then used that to control him or to force him to attack
his home, or his love, he would have killed himself to be free.

There was always the chance that, even as an angel, he would

have remained in Hell with her anyway, as a suicide, but he would
have taken the chance that his sacrifice might mean something, and
his death would free him. Perhaps she knew of that risk, too. Better to
have a servant for eternity than to risk losing him after asking too
much.

“If I…lay with you, you will take the corruption from him?”
“Every drop of it.” Annabel’s smile was predatory.
“And he will be as strong as he was before? His wings will be

returned? His health? I do not want you to save him just to leave him
alive as some shell of a man, unable to move or think or defend
himself.”

Now Annabel scowled. He did not care if she was angered by his

demands. John would rather Kale die than damn him to a life of
nothingness and misery.

“I will return him to the exact state he was in before you brought

him into Purgatory,” she said.

It was a grim reminder that John was equally responsible for

Kale’s condition, and he was not made happy by it.

“And I will belong to you and you alone? I do not want to attack

other angels. I will only stay with you.”

The Half-Breed Vampire

He spoke that part mostly on the hope to play against Annabel’s

vanity. He did not want to go to war against his home, to be sure, but
he also never wanted Kale to see him at the mercy of this demon.

Annabel’s eyes sparkled. “I might have you perform tasks for me

now and again, but if you want to stay by my side, so be it. I will not
have you attacking any of your angelic friends.”

Good. That was very good. “What will happen? After.”
“I will have the corruption enter your body. You will not be

killed, so long as you are with me. You will come with me and
become my servant. Your body will belong entirely to me. That is
all.”

John understood exactly what sort of servant she was after, and he

bristled with a rage that he could not put anywhere. “Why force me to
lay with you now? Why not later, after you have cleansed Kale?”

She shrugged. “It’s the only way to make absolutely sure you will

keep to your word. Also, you will participate. I will not have sex with
a lifeless doll.”

He wanted to kill her. He wanted to draw his sword and separate

her head from her body.

She only laughed at him, like his struggles were something to be

amused with. “My, my, has anyone ever told you how handsome you
are when you’re angry? Has Kale ever whispered those words to
you?”

Kale knew better than to do that, and he would die if John did not

do this.

“I…agree to your terms, on one condition,” he said quickly before

the spell of agreeing to a demon’s bargain could take him.

“You have already made a great deal of conditions,” Annabel said

with another frown and a pout.

“Then one more will hardly hurt anything.”
She eyed him shrewdly, then she relented. “Very well. What is

one more thing to me? What is your other condition?”

“I will return to Heaven, and you will not follow me there, nor put

74 Marcy

Jacks

anything inside of me that can be brought in to cause harm. It will be
me and me alone,” he said.

“And the corruption,” Annabel said.
“Yes, well, aside from that, I will return. I wish to see for myself

that Kale is in good health, and I will stay long enough to ensure that
he does not start to decay again.”

Annabel glared at him. She knew it wasn’t just about that. John

wished to say good-bye. Perhaps he would even kiss Kale one more
time before they were forever lost to each other. No, that was not a
good idea. What if some of the corruption inside of him went back
into Kale? He would never be able to forgive himself if he infected
his love once more, but would he be able to resist the temptation
when seated next to the man for the final time?

“Fine. You have until tomorrow. Then you will return to me.”
John nodded. That was more than enough time to say what he

needed to say. “Agreed.”

He felt the pull of the deal he’d made with her bind him, like

shackles locking together tightly inside of his very soul. It caught his
breath, and he gasped, but it was over with quickly.

When John opened his eyes, Annabel was grinning at him, and her

eyes were gleaming.

It was not over yet. He still had his part of the bargain to keep. He

opened his arms to her, and she flew into them.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Nine

Luke leaped easily out of the way of the coming attack. Derek’s

claws reached out, and he crashed into the door. His fingers dug into
the wood, gripped it, and tore the door clean off of its hinges, and then
he threw it at Luke.

Luke was forced to catch it before it could shatter one of the

windows.

“Derek! Calm yourself!”
“I will kill you, angel!”
That was not Derek’s voice coming out of his mouth. That was

something else entirely. Luke had to get it out. He had to release
Derek.

He could not use his sword. He could not risk injuring the other

man. Instead, he threw himself at his demon-possessed lover, caught
his hands, and forced him back onto the bed.

“Derek! Come back to me!” Luke shouted, looking into those

glowing red eyes and searching for some semblance of the gentle man
he’d come to know.

The demon inside of Derek’s body spat at him, and that angered

Luke.

He had to use every ounce of willpower inside of himself to keep

from lashing out at the demon, because the last thing he wished to do
was harm the body.

He pinned the demon-possessed vampire down, which was

difficult enough without Derek’s vampire strength getting in the way
of that.

Demons always made the mortals they possessed unnaturally

76 Marcy

Jacks

strong, but this demon, inside of a powerful vampire body, only
increased what it already had.

Luke put his legs over Derek’s legs and grabbed both of his wrists

and stuck them beside his head. The demon thrashed within the messy
sheets and pillows that nearly swallowed them both, and when that
did not work to throw Luke off of him, he began snapping his face
forward, attempting to headbutt him and bite him.

Luke avoided those easily, but with his hands now holding Derek

down, he could hardly place his palm over his forehead to call upon
his light and banish the demon.

Fool. Luke was a complete and utter fool.
“You will not have this one, angel!” the demon said, sneering at

him. “He is for us! You have two already! We want the rest!”

The way the demon spoke…The angels had two, and the demons

wanted the rest.

John had said there were likely to be more than they knew about,

but having a demon confirm this was shocking. Luke was nearly
kicked off of the demon as he pondered this new certainty.

“Derek, I know you are in there. I will set you free,” he promised.
“Remove your hand from me and I will bite it off,” the demon

threatened, knowing what Luke would have to do in order to banish
and kill him.

What the demon did not know, however, was that Luke did not

necessarily need to use his hands to banish the demon.

He waited until Derek pulled back those snapping teeth and fangs,

and then Luke leaned down and pressed his lips to his forehead.

He poured all the available energy he had into the cleansing, and

then a little more, banishing and killing the demon, but also building
walls around Derek’s consciousness to keep anything else from
getting inside when they both had their guards lowered.

The force of the energy leaking out of him, pouring into another,

gave him tunnel vision, but he did not stop, not even when the
struggling beneath him intensified, and he heard Derek’s voice

The Half-Breed Vampire

screaming at him to stop, instead of the demon that had taken
possession of him.

* * * *

Derek pushed Luke off of him the second his body had gone limp.

Luke did not catch himself, and he would’ve fallen right off the bed
had Derek not caught him.

He wasn’t moving, and he was barely breathing. Everything in

Derek’s guts dropped to his feet.

“God, no, Luke.” He put his hands on the man’s chest and neck,

searching for a pulse.

He felt it. Barely, but it was there. Was he supposed to be this

pale? It wasn’t like he was suffering from blood loss or anything like
that.

He didn’t think he was, at any rate.
God, he looked like the dead.
Just the thought of that made Derek go pale, and his heart started

to pound just a little harder. There was no one he could call for help,
and he had no idea what to do.

“How much energy did you give me? Why did you do that?”

Derek asked, clutching Luke tighter to his chest. He’d been taken over
by that demon, and it had been his own fault, because he’d been so
caught up in his anger that he’d distracted Luke from the thing that
was lurking in their room, and Derek hadn’t noticed it either until the
thing was already more than halfway inside him.

Derek could still recall the feeling of trying to push it out, but it

was like a worm, a very slimy one that he couldn’t get a proper grasp
on, and it had been more than too late, and he’d been attacking Luke.

He’d watched the whole thing, trapped inside of his own body,

trying to scream, to break free, but it was like his hands and feet had
been bound while a heavy gag had been stuffed down his throat. He
never wanted to feel that again or see the look on Luke’s face as he

78 Marcy

Jacks

tried to defend himself without hurting Derek.

He’d watched the way the man’s hand had gone to his sword and

then pulled away. He knew Luke could have chopped his head off and
been done with it, but he didn’t.

Derek didn’t know if he would still become the demon general

that Luke was so worried about if someone else were to kill him.
Maybe he would, and maybe Luke just wanted him to live.

Right now, Derek was only concerned about Luke’s life.
He continued to hold the other man, the both of them lying in the

middle of his bed, and Derek was still naked. He hadn’t had the
chance to put on any of the clothes he’d pulled from his dresser,
which was now knocked over in the middle of his floor.

That didn’t matter. After several minutes, Luke’s color improved,

as did his heartbeat, and Derek knew that the danger was finally over.

He was just going to have to keep watch over him, waiting to

make sure that no more demons came to hurt the angel now that he
was down. Even if the only thing Derek could do to protect him was
make sure that no other demons tried to possess him again.

He kept on waiting and waiting for Luke’s eyes to open, and all

the while he pressed kisses to the man’s face, his cheeks, and his eyes,
muttering his apologies and begging for him to come back.

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Ten

It was more than two hours after John had met up with Annabel

that he was finally given leave to return to Kale’s bedside. He used as
much of his energy as he could to thoroughly scrub himself clean of
all traces of her body, healing the scratch marks she had left behind
on his back, as well as the bites on his lower lip and neck.

He wanted no part of her on him when he sat next to Kale.
When he returned to Samael’s little piece of Heaven and found

Kale still in bed, he wanted to cry out in despair. He clenched his fists
and teeth, holding back the roar of rage he felt at being deceived, until
he was able to put his training to use and see that Kale was no longer
gray in the skin as he had been before.

John stepped farther into the room and stood over the other man,

watching as his chest gently rose and fell as he breathed. There was
no sweat on his body anymore, and he seemed peaceful, not because
he had no energy and was fighting for his life, but because he was in
good health.

He was in good health.
John dropped back onto his stool. It hadn’t been moved since he’d

left. He took Kale by the hand and brought the knuckles to his lips.

Even if what Kale felt was not the same, John thought it worth it.

What he had done would be forever worth it so long as he could
comfort himself with the knowledge that Kale was alive. He would
not be going into the light. He was to stay right here.

He could not help the small, anguished laugh that escaped his

throat, and he held Kale’s palm to his cheek, hoping to draw some
comfort out of it.

80 Marcy

Jacks

He would forever be grateful that Kale would survive, but he

would still feel misery when it came time to leave his side.

Kale shifted as John pressed his lips to his palm, and his eyes

opened as John wiped the building moisture from his eyes.

There was some mild confusion in his deep-brown eyes as he took

in their positions. He looked at the way John held his hand and was
likely puzzling over the tears, but then he smiled.

“Am I to take it that you will no longer deny me?”
“No,” John said, and though Kale was still recovering, that did not

stop him from leaning in and pressing a kiss to his lips this time.

Kale’s free hand went into John’s short hair, gently holding his

head in place as their mouths joined.

His lips were as warm and as soft as John remembered them to be.

Their mingled breaths were wonderful, and the taste of Kale’s tongue
was glorious.

Worth it. It had been worth it.
Kale was the one to pull back, a gentle smile on his face and

creasing the little wrinkles building alongside his eyes. John had
never noticed them before. Angels did not age. Not really. Kale had
been born a mortal on Earth and had died young, but he never looked
anything less than a grown man to John, perhaps a little more than
thirty years.

Could this be a sign that Kale had almost been taken? Had his

body aged slightly with the effort of holding off the corruption?

Those dark, gentle eyes became worried as Kale surveyed him,

and John did not understand the sudden fear that he saw there.

“John, what did you do?”
John frowned and then looked down at his hands. The skin there

was becoming gray, and he had no doubt that his face looked the
same, and his heavenly light was leaving him.

Of course, there would be only one reason John would suffer from

such an affliction immediately after Kale had recovered from his, and
Kale would know that he’d made a deal with a demon.

The Half-Breed Vampire

John stared at Kale, begging him to understand, to not cast him

out for wanting to save his life. He had only hours more to be here. If
he was to spend an eternity with Annabel, then he needed to be here.

“Kale.”
Kale grabbed hold of him, his hands strong as they gripped his

shoulders. “How long do you have?”

John inhaled deeply, which was harder than it should have been.

“Less than a day.”

Kale’s eyes widened, and before John could get up from his seat

and leave him, Kale pulled him down onto the bed to hold him tightly,
the both of them trembling for what they were about to lose.

* * * *

Derek had to wait almost until the next night before Luke woke

up. The sun was still shining, but even through the tinted windows,
Derek could tell that the light outside was growing long with
shadows, and the sun would soon be down.

That was when Luke stirred in his arms, and Derek wanted to

laugh and cry at the same time. He settled for kissing the man’s face
instead.

“Am I forgiven, then?” Luke asked before he even opened his

eyes, his voice sounding much too weak and sleepy for Derek’s tastes,
considering the man had just woken up from what may have been a
permanent nap.

“Yes, so long as you tell me that I am forgiven as well.”
“Of course you are.” Luke reached up and threaded his long

fingers through Derek’s blond hair. “It meant more to me than what I
said it did. I am sorry for making you think otherwise. I am not very
good with words, you know.”

Luke was hardly stumbling over his words now, but they still

sounded a little too weak for Derek’s tastes.

“You don’t have to say any more. It’s okay if that’s what it was.

82 Marcy

Jacks

It’s stupid for me to think it could be more anyway. I was
just…emotional, I guess.”

Luke stared up at him with a slight frown on his lips and hurt

reflecting in his eyes. “Would I have the power to stay with you, I’d
be at no other man’s side. Do not think me a liar.”

Derek studied the angel’s face, then he nodded and held him just a

little tighter. “All right.”

Luke reached up and cupped his cheek, and he sighed. “I will

break your heart. I do not understand how you came to be so attached
to me in the short time we have spent together. Or I you.”

Derek laughed a little, and he felt the building moisture behind his

eyes and quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand. “Yeah,
only about five more hours now.”

Luke’s eyes flew wide open. “What?”
“It’s almost seven,” Derek said. “You slept all the way through

the night and this morning.”

Luke all but leaped right out of Derek’s arms and ran to the

window, as though he would be able to tell what date it was by
looking at the falling sun.

Maybe there was some angelic way for him to do just that,

because his shoulders sagged a little as he continued to stare out the
window.

Derek got out from the warm bed where he’d spent most of his

time lying with the other man, and he put his arms around his middle,
pressing his cheek to Luke’s back.

“At…at least you will soon be safe,” Luke said.
Yeah, there was always that. Derek knew he was being too

sentimental when he pressed his lips to Luke’s shoulder blades, but he
did it anyway. He was having one of those moments where it was his
last chance to do it, so he wanted to do it.

“Will you have to go back, once it’s all over?” Derek asked.
“I don’t know,” Luke answered.
At least he was being truthful.

The Half-Breed Vampire

“Jeremy and Mathias managed to stay on, but that was only

because Jeremy had his wings torn from his back, and Mathias has the
protection of one of the knights of Heaven.”

“Isn’t that what I will be? If I can hold off on being possessed and

killed, I mean,” Derek asked, a sliver of hope cutting into him.

“Not right away, and your transformation should only occur when

you feel Heaven’s call. How Mathias’s lover managed it is still a
mystery to me, and to him as well. He hasn’t been able to take up the
powerful form since, but the guards and council must not know that,
otherwise they could have come back to Earth to take Mathias away
to be arrested.”

“For being a traitor?” Derek asked, knowing that was how Luke

saw himself, and so he would likely be arrested by more angels when
this all ended as well.

“Not just that. He brought the wrath of Heaven down on himself. I

will not tell you how just now.” Luke turned in his arms and put his
large hands on Derek’s shoulder and jaw. “I want my last hours with
you to be pleasant ones. Regardless of what happens, I want to take
this memory away with me.”

“I love you,” Derek said, hating himself for being so weak as to

fall in love with a man he’d known for less than three days but
eagerly awaiting Luke’s reply, whatever it might be.

Luke brushed away some of Derek’s hair that had fallen from its

place behind his ear. “I have never felt anything more than love for
my brother and friends, but I know I feel much more protective of you
than what should be normal, even if you are my charge. It nearly
killed me to see the demon take you over, and I enjoy watching you
feed the strays that come to your door. You are not what I expected,
and the pain of losing Daren is lessened when I am with you. If that is
love, then I love you as well.”

Derek started grinning about halfway through Luke’s little speech,

and he hadn’t stopped even after Luke did. A declaration like that was
something out of a romance movie, and that was another little

84 Marcy

Jacks

embarrassing thing that Derek hated to admit that he liked.

It didn’t matter. He brought Luke’s face down for a kiss, enjoying

the warmth of the other man as he was pulled close to his strong chest
and felt those large arms wrap around him.

He’d barely left Luke’s bedside the entire time the other man had

slept, but there had been moments when he was required to get up to
take care of the basic necessities, and he’d managed to pull on a pair
of pants before climbing back into bed with his new lover. They were
his favorite jeans, old, comfortable, and a little loose on him, but right
now they were much too tight, and he was willing to shred them into
pieces if it meant getting Luke back inside of him like he’d done the
night before.

Luke had remained naked for the night except for when Derek had

covered him with the blanket, so they were almost where they needed
to be.

Derek was pulling Luke back to their shared bed when the other

man dug his heels a little into the plush carpet at his feet.

“Wait, I don’t think we should.”
Those words damn near broke Derek’s heart.
“Why not?” Didn’t Luke say something about making his last

hours pleasant? He couldn’t have just been talking about nice
conversation.

Luke swallowed and wet his lips. Derek could see how dilated his

pupils had become, and he could smell the lust between his legs as his
heart beat quickly. Luke clearly wanted him. Why stop?

“I–I don’t feel very much of my power at the moment. In fact I

can barely feel it at all. That you have gone the entire night and day
without a protector is shameful, and if something were to happen
while we were distracting each other―”

Derek cut him off before he could continue making an ass of

himself. “I want that distraction, and so do you, clearly.”

Luke blushed when Derek looked down between them. He wanted

to reach out and place his palm over the swelling of his cock and

The Half-Breed Vampire

make Luke moan for him.

If these were going to be their last hours together, then Derek

wanted to make sure they spent them right.

He pressed his lips to the hollow of Luke’s neck, hoping the other

man would like it. His larger body shuddered at the sensation, and he
did not pull away, so Derek thought he had the right idea by doing
this. He pressed his tongue there as well, tasting the other man, and he
delighted in the way he could hear his heart speeding up and smell his
blood pumping straight to his cock.

“Derek,” Luke said, his tone slightly protesting.
“I’m in no danger of being possessed, I promise,” Derek said,

kissing one of Luke’s nipples before taking it into his mouth. He let
his hand touch and play with the other while he did this and then
allowed his other to freely slide down and around Luke’s back,
reaching for the swell of his perfect ass and letting his fingers slide
inside his cheeks.

Luke groaned. “You will be the death of me,” he said and then

pushed Derek back onto the bed.

It was going to be the death of Derek when Luke was forced to

leave him. Well, not really, but a part of him would die. He’d always
heard that first loves hurt the most, and he’d envied the people who
had the experience to know that.

Now, he had no envy at all, and he wished they could just stay

like this forever. Derek reached for the bottle of lube that he’d stuffed
under one of the pillows last night and opened the cap.

When Luke tried to reach for it, he pulled his hands away and

continued to squeeze the stuff into his own palm.

“Do you not want me to do it?” Luke asked, his voice breathless

as his chest rose and fell quickly.

That made Derek’s cock twitch even more. “Yeah, you will, but I

want to get you ready, too.”

By the look on his face, Luke apparently didn’t know what Derek

was planning until Derek put his lubed hand around Luke’s thick

86 Marcy

Jacks

cock.

His eyes dilated, and he released a shaking breath through his

nose as Derek stroked him, pulling back on his foreskin and gently
playing around with the bundle of nerves beneath the head of his
prick.

Luke all but fell back onto the bed and had to catch himself with

his hands. It left him in a nice position, as far as Derek was
concerned, leaning back and watching him like he was.

Suddenly Derek wished that he hadn’t been in such a hurry to lube

Luke’s cock, because now all he wanted to do was take Luke’s dick
between his lips and suck him until he tasted the man’s cum.

Well, maybe it wouldn’t get that far. He doubted he’d developed

the skill to swallow without choking just while reading articles and
watching videos. Luke hadn’t done too badly, and Derek swore that
before this was over, he was going to have the man inside of his
mouth. He just wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go down on a man
after he’d already smeared lube all over him.

Well, there was one thing he could do that he’d always wanted to

try, and it wouldn’t require putting on a second helping of lube.

“What are you doing?” Luke asked when Derek cleared some of it

away from the head and focused more on the shaft. His face was pink
with wanton lust, and Derek never felt possessive before, but he liked
the idea that he was doing this to Luke, to an angel of all creatures.

“Keep watching me,” he said, also noting the strangeness that,

despite how they were both still learning about themselves, Derek had
somehow found himself as the more experienced one, just because he
watched porn and read sex articles on the Internet.

Well, he was about to see if some of those tips and tricks he’d

learned about were as good as they said they were.

He wet his lips, keeping them tight as he pressed them down on

the still-slick tip of Luke’s cock. He kept his mouth firm and had to
hold down Luke’s hips when the man gasped and tried to thrust
farther into his mouth.

The Half-Breed Vampire

He wanted Luke to hold still for this. Derek pulled back until the

head of Luke’s prick nearly popped out of his mouth, but then he
pressed down again, always keeping his mouth tight and always
staying with the head. He circled his thumb and index finger around
the base of Luke’s thick shaft, and the two almost couldn’t touch as
he did that, but it still worked out as he stroked the bottom of Luke’s
lubed dick with his finger and continued to play with the head of his
prick.

The trick must’ve been worth something, because Luke fell onto

his back and was currently pressing the heels of his palms into his
eyes, breathing heavily and spouting out broken words.

“Good Lord…so…do not stop that…Heaven…”
Derek was positive that those were all words of encouragement

for him, and he smiled evilly at the thought that he was doing this. He
was turning this powerful man into a puddle. Now he knew why
people enjoyed giving head so much. There was definitely some
appeal here.

“Derek, so beautiful, I’m going to…I’m going to…” Luke reached

down and gripped Derek’s hair to the point of pain, but he didn’t pull
away. He felt the man’s body going tight beneath him and could hear
the way his heart sped up as he neared his orgasm. His dick stiffened
even more than it already had, and when Derek touched Luke’s balls,
that was when it ended, and he was ready for it.

He planted his lips firmly around the head of Luke’s dick and

swallowed the bitter fluids that shot into his mouth. There was
definitely nothing romantic about the taste of it, but Derek took in
every drop and sucked back on the man some more. He wanted Luke
inside of him in every way, he wanted to be claimed as a mate, and if
this was the only thing Derek would take away from their time
together, then he would gladly do it again and again.

Luke slumped back into the messy sheets and pillows, his

breathing still hard and uneven. “For the love of all things holy, that
was amazing.”

88 Marcy

Jacks

Derek grinned. “I’m glad you approve.”
“I think I was transported back to Heaven for a moment.”
Something like that would have sounded like a cheap line coming

from anyone else, but from a real angel, Derek took it for the
compliment that it was.

He licked the underside of the head of Luke’s cock, cleaning away

the little bit of his cum that had remained. Luke shivered when the
stiff tip of Derek’s tongue touched the little cord of flesh that was
there. Derek was sure he’d felt the still-spent prick twitch in interest.

“How soon do you think you can be ready?” Derek asked, giving

Luke his best seductive smirk.

Considering he had never had the chance to practice it on anyone,

he was happy to see that it seemed to work, if the shiver in Luke’s
body was anything to go by.

“Keep doing that, and it will be sooner than you think.”

The Half-Breed Vampire

Chapter Eleven

Luke could no longer hide his emotions behind the angry mask

he’d created when he first came to Earth, not when his lover touched
and teased him in such a delicious manner. He understood now why
Jeremy and Mathias had given up their holy duty to stay on Earth,
even after their missions had been completed.

Jeremy had his wings brutally ripped from his back, which would

have been excuse enough, but the man did not bother to petition to the
council to return or make any inquiries about whether or not his wings
could be returned to him.

Likely they never would, not even after Jeremy died of old age,

but still, if he felt any need to be away from the man he’d taken as a
life partner, then he should have at least been attempting to return
home.

Instead, when Luke had seen the other man, he had seemed more

than happy with his new lot in life and showed no interest in returning
to his former home.

Mathias had less of an excuse. He still had his wings, but it was

the power of one of the holy knights of Heaven, Taylor, that kept him
on Earth, and he did not seem to be fighting against that power either.

Of course, there were still the royal guards who would like

nothing better than to arrest the lot of them for treason, so there was
always that reason to not return to the golden gates, but Luke knew
better. Had his comrades truly wished to continue on with their proper
duties, then nothing, not even the threat of arrest, would have kept
them away from home.

They loved the men they had come to Earth to protect, and to

90 Marcy

Jacks

them, that was stronger than any duty they felt to the crown.

There was a time, long ago, before Luke even existed, when

turning one’s back on duty for the sake of love with mortals was
considered a Hell-worthy offense, and yet no fires came to consume
the men.

There was a fire that consumed Luke, but it had more to do with

the tongue lapping at the underside of his cock than the flames of
Hell.

Derek’s hair was soft, and the smooth fingers that played with the

flesh between his hole and his balls were wonderful. Luke was hard
again within seconds, and Derek smeared more of the lube he kept
with them onto the head of Luke’s dick.

Perhaps Luke could stay. He would be blind not to see the way

Derek wanted him, and Luke knew himself well enough to know that
he wanted Derek in return. The man made him forget. He made him
feel whole again.

Luke used his fingers and prepared his eager lover quickly. He

positioned Derek onto his back and lifted the man’s knees so that they
curved around his hips, and he positioned himself.

The head of his cock popped past the ring of tight muscle, and

then Luke was able to sink inside with a groan of satisfaction.

“That’s it, move,” Derek said with a sigh, squeezing his eyes shut

and reaching a hand down to touch himself.

Luke did not have to be told. He had never known lust before

meeting this man and had been warned that lust and love were so
closely connected that it was difficult to tell between the two. Angels
were warned against it, knowing that it could make them fall from
grace. Luke didn’t care. He knew what the difference was right now,
and he knew where his place was.

“I will stay with you,” he said, panting as he moved his hips in a

steady rhythm in and out of his lover.

Derek’s lust-fogged eyes went wide, but the red tint on his cheeks

remained right where it was. His other hand, the one that had reached

The Half-Breed Vampire

up to grip at his pillow, moved. Luke felt Derek’s fingers curl around
the back of his neck, pulling him down until they were both kissing as
passionately as they were making love.

“You will stay?” Derek asked, smiling as he suckled Luke’s

bottom lip into his mouth.

Luke had to wait for those sharp teeth to pull away before he

trusted he could speak without receiving a cut. “As long as you will
have me.”

Derek choked out a laugh and kissed him again. Luke groaned as

Derek’s tongue licked across his lips, and then he opened his mouth,
allowing it inside of him.

Then Derek did something completely unexpected as he reached

down and grabbed at the swells of Luke’s ass. At first he thought the
other man was giving him a hint to move against him harder and to
thrust his prick faster, and he complied, but then one of Derek’s
fingers entered the crease and pressed against his hole.

He shivered and groaned. Derek’s fingers were still slippery from

the lube, and the other man had an easy time putting one inside of
Luke, and it hooked and searched until something inside of him was
struck that made him moan out loud and buck faster against the man
beneath him.

He’d been wrong before, when Derek had been playing around

with the head of his prick. That had not been Heaven. This was.

His body developed a mind of its own, but there was no thinking

going on there. It was simply action. He moved faster and harder,
groaning louder when all Luke wanted to do was slow down and take
his time.

That would not be happening this time. Perhaps later, when

Derek’s curse was broken and he was free, Luke would make sure
there would be plenty of times after.

His balls grew tight, and his cock twitched and tingled, signs that

he had begun to recognize as the coming end, and he did not fight it.
He couldn’t.

92 Marcy

Jacks

Derek moaned so prettily beneath him, and as Luke leaned over

him to press his lips along the rough but pleasurable stubble around
his mouth, they stared into each other’s eyes.

Yes. Luke definitely loved this man.
He emptied himself inside of Derek, his hips not stopping until

every drop was inside the man, and somehow felt a swell of pride fill
up within him when he finished. A sense of belonging and
possessiveness took over from the inside out, and it remained there,
even as he collapsed onto Derek’s chest, the both of them breathing
heavily.

Then he noted that Derek’s cock was still unspent between them.

Derek had not reached for it, even though he had pulled his fingers
out of Luke’s asshole sometime during his climax.

Despite the fact that Luke was proving himself to be a poor lover,

Derek stared at him with nothing less than love and adoration.

“I love you,” he said, pressing another chaste kiss to Luke’s

mouth.

He’d never understood the appeal to kisses before now. Before

he’d known Derek, Luke understood that they were meant to
symbolize comfort or affection but never thought he could find
himself addicted to them or even crave them the way that he did.

“And I you, but I must say I am very curious about what you did

to me earlier.”

Derek only looked a little confused through his smile.
Luke took care when he pulled out of the man, and he shimmied

down his body and took Derek’s prick in hand. “You must be aching,
poor man.”

Derek spread his legs to give Luke some room as he shouldered

between them. “Don’t mind so long as you help me out with it.”

He intended to do just that, and he also wanted to try licking along

the bit of flesh that was just at the underside of the head. Luke had
already done this to Derek, but he never thought to pay any attention
to that part. He had always assumed that putting a cock into his mouth

The Half-Breed Vampire

would be enough, not that he thought of such things often.

He tried it now and felt victorious at the way Derek gasped and

fell back onto the mattress.

“That’s good, keep doing that. Put your fingers in me,” Derek

said, and when Luke managed to look up, he could see the other man
staring down at him, his mouth open just a little as he panted.

Luke did as he was told. Derek’s hole was still slick and easily

accepted the intruding digits.

He thought he must have looked ridiculous, but the way Derek

thrust his hips against his mouth and fingers, and the sounds he made,
only served to deepen Luke’s want for him.

He flicked his tongue over that sensitive bit of flesh just at the

underside of his prick and thrust his fingers deeper until he found that
spot that made Derek cry out above him and throw a pillow over his
face. Luke grinned and continued with this new method of torture.

He made a game of keeping the other man on the edge, trying to

determine how long he could prevent Derek from reaching his
pinnacle by using his other hand and squeezing the base of his cock,
preventing his orgasm.

It was not even five minutes later when Derek reached down and

yanked at Luke’s hair. “Oh God, please, stop doing that! I want to
come. Please!”

“Perhaps I will show you some small amount of mercy then,”

Luke said, pressing his lips down one more time against the head of
Derek’s cock. He sank down as far as he could go, which wasn’t all
that far, and he was forced to use his hand to stroke where he could
not get his lips to reach.

Derek was moaning into his pillow again, arching his back and

thrusting against Luke.

Lovely. He was absolutely lovely.
Derek came with a shout. Luke thought it was a shout. He could

have been sobbing under that pillow for all he knew, but his seed shot
into Luke’s mouth, and he swallowed it down greedily, still moving

94 Marcy

Jacks

his lips and tongue around Derek’s prick until the man had stopped
trembling.

Luke crawled up the bed and pulled the pillow away from Derek’s

face. He smiled as the other man blinked up at him as though he had
been dazed by a confusion demon. “Are you still with me?”

Some of the light finally came back to Derek’s eyes, and he

returned the smile. “Definitely.”

Luke would have been a little unsure of his place had Derek not

reached for him and pulled him to lie down. They held each other
close, and Luke rested his chin on Derek’s shoulder. Neither of them
seemed to mind that they were lying in their own mess, but the time
for cleaning up would come later. Luke wanted to breathe in the scent
of the man beneath him, take in his warmth, and enjoy the energy
exchange they had just shared.

He was going to have to figure out how it was possible that

sleeping with Derek did such a thing. He felt drained after the fact,
and knew that Derek did as well, but as far as the reserves of energy
that Luke needed to survive were concerned, they hadn’t been
touched.

Perhaps it was a different sort of energy they shared when coming

together like this. He would have to learn more.

“Luke?”
“Hm?” Luke asked, feeling strangely tired. He felt as though he

might actually sleep, which was odd.

“Did you mean it when you said you would stay?”
Luke ran his palms up and down Derek’s slim stomach and waist,

feeling the muscle and warm flesh and also attempting to soothe his
lover by stroking him, as though he were a cat of some sort.

“Yes, I meant it.” Luke lifted himself onto his elbows to look

down into the hopeful hazel eyes that looked at him with such
longing. He brushed some of the strands of blond hair away from
Derek’s cheek. “You must know, that while I will do my best to stay,
I cannot make any promises, especially if I am taken from you.”

The Half-Breed Vampire

Derek wound his arms around Luke’s shoulders, as if he could

protect him from what was to come. “I won’t let anyone take you.
They’ll have to get through me.”

Luke stared down at him. The promise, while endearing in its own

way, could be dangerous if Derek felt his happiness was threatened.
There were mere hours left until Derek’s birthday, but Luke had to
make sure that he couldn’t be used against the other man, like Jeremy
had been used against Dante.

He gripped Derek’s shoulders, trying to get him to see just how

serious the situation was. “You must make me a promise, and for the
sake of your soul, you will keep to it.”

“What kind of promise?” Derek asked, worry creeping into his

voice.

“I will not allow myself to be used against you. Should any

demons or angels come for me, you must promise to not make any
deals to gain my freedom.”

Derek inhaled a sharp breath. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said in a

small voice that Luke did not trust.

“You must promise it,” Luke insisted. “Should a demon attempt to

harm me, you must promise to not bargain with it for my freedom or
safety, and if the royal guards fly down and arrest me, you must not
go to the demons for aid. Promise. Right now.”

“I promise,” Derek said, his hazel eyes filling with tears that he

refused to shed. “Do you think the demons will try that?”

“They have already done it once before, though I am surprised

that we have only seen soldier demons until now. I have not yet
caught any hint of Annabel, but that does not mean she will not
come.”

“Who is she? Can you defend yourself against her?” Derek asked.
The glow that had surrounded them in the wake of their

lovemaking was clearly over. They had to plan, and Luke had to
confess to what he now felt inside of him.

“She is a demon of high standing. She is a knight, able to move up

96 Marcy

Jacks

within the ranks of Hell if she proves herself, but as far as influence
within Hell itself, she does not hold much power.”

“And you’re worried she might still try something?” Derek asked.
“Yes,” Luke replied and then bit his cheek, hating to admit to the

weakness. “I have lost most of my energy banishing that last demon
from your body. I am not quite as helpless as a mortal, but I am hardly
any better. There will be little if anything that I can do to protect you
in the coming hours. I just want you to be prepared.”

Now Derek’s eyes became wide and frightened. “You used all of

your energy? What happens if you run out?”

“Completely?”
“Yes.”
Luke inhaled deeply. “I suppose I will die. It wouldn’t be much

different than should a mortal starve himself to death. A little
different way to go about it, but the idea is the same.”

“Well, Christ, are you okay now?”
Derek’s hands were suddenly on him, as though he was searching

for any wounds that might magically appear now that Luke had
confessed that he was slowly starving to death.

“Calm yourself. I am well for the next several days provided I do

not have to banish any more demons. I will find a way to get some
ambrosia soon.”

“Is it easy? Getting it, I mean?”
It would be difficult, having to sneak back into Heaven undetected

and take some of the fruit and berries that grew inside of the sacred
gardens. Perhaps he could convince a merchant to sell it to him
without raising suspicion.

He did not wish to tell Derek all of these details just yet. He

wanted the man to worry only for himself until just after midnight
tonight.

“It will be easy enough. I suppose I should start thinking of a trade

to take up if I am to live as a mortal and earn coin for us.”

The change in subject was a worthy distraction, and Derek smiled

The Half-Breed Vampire

and snuggled into him. Good, that was good.

“What do you want to do? I’ve basically been saving away the

money my parents have been giving me for most of my life, so there’s
enough to send you to some classes and buy us a house somewhere.”

“You would not wish to stay here?”
“God, no,” Derek said, shuddering. “I’m only here because,

before you, there was nowhere else to go. Now I have you, and I
know there’s a life waiting for me beyond the voices I hear in my
head.”

“What about your family? I thought you would like to spend

Christmas with them?”

“Yeah, well, that was back before I had anyone else to spend it

with. They’ve had eighteen Christmases without me. I think they’ve
given me a strong enough hint that they don’t want me around.
You’re my family now. I can spend holidays with you.”

It certainly made sense that there would be no love lost between

Derek and his family, not after they cast him out. Luke had never met
them, and he was glad he never would. “Just remember that, if I am
forced to leave you, there will be a life after I am gone.”

Derek looked as though he’d just swallowed something sour, but

he nodded anyway.

“Good,” Luke said, pleased.
“What about you? You mentioned a trade. I could probably help

you find one,” Derek said, shifting ever closer and apparently eager to
let himself forget that, despite Luke’s promise to stay, it might be out
of both of their hands.

“My brother and I have always liked creating things,” Luke said,

thinking back on fonder memories. “We would heat the sand we
collected from our missions with the fires from our blades and then
turn it into wonderful statues.”

“A glass blower?” Derek asked.
“Is that what the mortals call it?”
“I guess so, but I don’t think they go about it the same way you

98 Marcy

Jacks

and your brother did. I’m sorry, what did you say his name was?”

“Daren, and he was a fine warrior.”
Derek nodded. “Well, if you both liked it in your spare time, then

you should definitely do that as a profession.”

“There are ways of earning gold by making glass sculptures?”

Luke asked, hardly able to believe it.

“There are ways of earning money by doing anything,” Derek

said. “I don’t know how much they earn. Maybe you’ll be your own
boss and people will want to order your art from across the world!”

Luke had to admit that he enjoyed the way that Derek was getting

excited over this for him. “And if I make nothing at all?”

“Then you can still do your own thing, and we’ll be together.”

Derek took his hand, their fingers lacing together. “Right?”

Luke brought Derek’s knuckles to his lips, and suddenly he was

hopeful for a future beyond duty. “Of course.”

Luke wanted nothing better than to take the man again and to

forget all about the fact that they were both still supposed to be on
guard against angels and demons alike, but then the house shook in
that telltale way it did when a demon came in uninvited and wanted to
make their presence known.

“Luke,” Derek said, his body suddenly stiff with fear.
“Get dressed,” Luke commanded, quickly getting out of the warm

bed and finding the garments that Derek had tossed at him earlier.
“Remember your promise.”

He made sure to keep his face that strong mask he put on

whenever he was in a battle. He could not use enough words to
convey the importance of such a promise but was glad when Derek
nodded as he shifted into some clothing of his own. “I remember.”

“That certainly puts a hitch in my plans.”
Luke spun around, looking into the bored face of Annabel, and

beside her―no.

John stood beside her. His face blank of any emotion, his skin the

gray color of corruption, and a leather leash with spikes sitting around

The Half-Breed Vampire

his neck.

“John, for Heaven’s sake, what have you done?”
Annabel held the other end of the leash. She hardly seemed angry

as she surveyed Luke and his charge. She did, however, seem most
proud after Luke spoke as she yanked the leash, silently ordering John
to step forward.

“You should have better manners when greeting your commander,

isn’t that right, pet?”

100 Marcy

Jacks

Chapter Twelve

Derek thought the name John sounded familiar, and then the

woman in the red devil Halloween costume called him Luke’s
commander, and then he knew.

She had done something to one of Luke’s friends. She had put a

spell on the man, and from the gray pallor of his skin, he almost
looked ready to puke, too. It was almost like looking at a ghost.

“What did you do to him?” Luke roared. His sword appeared in

his hand, but it did not burst into flame like the last time Derek had
seen it.

Did summoning the weapon to him like that use up his energy?

Would conjuring the fire be too much? Derek wanted to reach out to
his lover, but didn’t dare move in case he distracted him.

Neither Luke nor the woman attacked each other, but she did wrap

the leash neatly around her hand, pulling the other man closer until
she was running her chipped, red fingernails through his short, dark-
blond hair.

He looked absolutely miserable.
“I didn’t do anything to him, he offered himself for me,” she said,

practically preening as the words left her lips.

The captive angel shuddered.
Luke’s green eyes widened, and then they narrowed into slits.

“For Kale, I assume. Evil bitch.”

Annabel slung her arm over John’s shoulder as though they were

the best of friends, and then she made tsking noises at Luke. Derek,
however, noticed the way John did not say anything, but he did look
up at him, eyes curious and worried.

The Half-Breed Vampire

101

“Is that…Is that what will happen to me? Or you, if we make

deals with her?” Derek asked, unable to help himself.

It was stupid of him to open his mouth, because then Annabel

seemed to recall that he was there. She glared at him, as though he’d
ruined a special party she’d planned or something. “You will not end
up like him. You won’t have the honor.”

Luke was quick to step in front of Derek, blocking her view of

him.

Derek hadn’t forgotten that Luke was running on fumes as far as

his tank of energy went, and he wished Luke wouldn’t put himself in
danger.

“There is nothing here for you, you wretched cunt. Be off with

you, go back to your master and tell him about your third failure.”

Luke was taunting her, but Annabel didn’t take the bait. She

smiled so wide that the whites of her teeth were exposed, and Derek
was able to see the fangs she had.

Not like vampire fangs. Each and every one of her teeth ended in

sharp points, and they appeared all the more vicious behind her red
lipstick. For all Derek knew, that was blood she’d used to paint her
lips.

He looked at John curiously, suddenly wondering where that

blood would have come from.

“I think my boss will be much pleased with me this time, even if

he won’t be getting his third general, and yes, I did hear that sweet
little promise you made to each other,” she said, sneering at Derek
before turning her eyes back to Luke, and then she looked down at his
sword. “It almost looks plain without any holy fire on it. Did you
nearly run out of energy?”

“I have well enough energy to battle you!” Luke roared.
Derek grabbed him by the wrist and was promptly shoved farther

back for his efforts.

Yeah, Luke hadn’t been kidding when he said that most of his

strength was gone, but he clearly still had enough to keep Derek at

102 Marcy

Jacks

bay.

Derek pulled himself away from the dresser he’d crashed into, and

he rubbed his aching back. “Don’t give in to her,” he said. “She’s
goading you.”

Annabel kept right on talking, as though Derek hadn’t said

anything at all. “Why, I wouldn’t even have to fight you. I could
always make my new lover do it.”

For the first time, something resembling life seemed to enter the

man’s deep-blue eyes. He looked ready to start shouting at Annabel,
but then she placed a finger to her lips, and even as his mouth started
to move, only air came out.

Abruptly, he stopped talking and continued to glare at her,

shaking his head. Had that been another demon spell?

Luke glared at Annabel with equal force. “It seems he does not

wish to go into battle with me.”

“Yes, well, I did make a deal with him on that part,” Annabel said,

putting a hand on her hips as she studied her captive. Then her eyes lit
up. “He never said anything about not attacking the potential general
of Hell.”

“What?” Derek stepped back, staring at the grayish-looking man

with a little more fear in him now.

“Don’t you dare!” Luke roared at the woman, and then he looked

at John with a little more pity on his face. “John, please, do not do
this.”

John looked practically heartbroken as he put his hand on the hilt

of his sword and pulled it from its sheath. Like Luke’s it didn’t burst
into flame, but Derek was too terrified to care about the hows and
whys of that one.

“But―but I thought you had to get me to kill someone else or

myself. You can’t do that!” Derek all but yelled, trying to step back a
little more but only bumping into the same dresser that Luke had
thrown him into.

“Of course I can. John in under my control, your guardian is too

The Half-Breed Vampire

103

weak to stop me, and if I bring an angel into Hell with me while
preventing Heaven from gaining another knight, then I’m more than
certain the details will be overlooked by my superiors. John, take his
heart out.” Annabel released the leash, and it vanished. The leather
spiky collar, however, did not. John took a step forward, and so did
Luke.

“My friend, please do not do this. Do not force me to battle you.”
This time John did manage to speak through his clenching teeth.

“It’s not me. It’s her.”

“No talking!” Annabel snapped, and John’s lips sealed shut as

though some invisible hand had glued them together.

He continued to step forward, though he seemed to be resisting.

Each footstep was like a heavy object dropping onto Derek’s floor as
it pounded all the way through the thick carpet.

“Derek, run!” Luke shouted, and then he charged at John, the

blade of his sword up and pointing at his former friend.

He pulled his weapon back and swiped it down, only to meet air

as John vanished from sight.

Derek blinked. Could angels teleport? Or was he just moving

really fast?

If they could teleport, then John was using the ability to his

advantage, or Annabel was forcing him to, or whatever. He appeared
directly in front of Derek, and it was his vampire speed that saved him
as he ducked out of the way of the reaching hand that tried to grab at
his neck, but the lack of space for him to move and the handles of the
dresser catching on his clothes made him stumble and lose his balance
and he landed on the floor.

Annabel laughed at his clumsiness, and he would have been

annoyed at both her and himself had he not been staring up at six feet
of muscle and one long, raised sword that was getting ready to be
brought down over his heart.

Luke screamed for him, and Derek could see from the corner of

his eye the way the other man lunged as John brought his blade down.

104 Marcy

Jacks

It pierced through the both of them, pinning them to the floor.

Luke hadn’t been able to prevent that, but he had stopped the blade
from entering Derek’s heart, even if they were now both completely
and utterly helpless, and in pain.

Derek screamed with the agony of it, more so when he looked

over Luke’s back and saw the way the thick blade had carved clean
through his spine and realized that Luke wasn’t moving as he lay
above him.

* * * *

John felt it the instant Annabel’s spell lost its hold on him. His

brain was suddenly in control of his body again, and even though he
now had the power to pull the blade out of his friend’s back, he found
himself frozen as he stared down at Luke and the screaming man
beneath him.

Weak. He was weak.
“Luke! Baby, come on, look at me. Open your eyes!” the vampire

shouted.

He was still alive, otherwise the light would have come to take his

body. Luke might have almost no energy left in his body, but he was
still an angel. Because he did not vanish, and the vampire looked well
enough despite the blade through his shoulder, John steeled himself
over his sword.

“Prepare yourself. I will remove the blade.”
The man blinked up at him. “What?”
He screamed when John pulled his weapon free. Now that the

corruption was leaving his body, his sword lit up with holy fire. It was
a small sort of fire that hardly produced any warmth, but it was there,
nonetheless.

The vampire quickly shut his mouth and gently pushed Luke onto

his back, cradling the man in his lap and gently slapping his cheek,
trying to get a response out of him. Then he put his ear to Luke’s

The Half-Breed Vampire

105

chest.

“He is alive,” John said, unable to stop from saying so.
“I know, I can hear his heart,” the smaller man snapped and then

glared up at him. “You’re going to kill us now?”

He was brave. John had wondered about the loyalty that Luke had

shown to the other man and the fire he’d seen in his eyes when
Annabel spoke of forcing John to attack. Luke was not simply doing
his duty or following orders. He cared for this man, and now John
could see why.

“No, my spell is broken.” But his hands were dirty.
“Unbelievable!” Annabel shrieked. John glared at her as she

stomped her foot like a spoiled child. “Unbe-fucking-lievable! You
weren’t supposed to stab him! You were supposed to kill the
general!” She pointed a long finger at John. Her entire arm seemed to
shake with just the effort of doing that. “You will come right back
here, now.”

She pointed to the spot beside her, one hand on her hip, and her

eyes burned a bright red as she continued to glare at him, waiting for
him to obey her command.

He did not move. The compulsion he’d felt before was not there.

His body was his own to control now. He was free.

“You may not have wished me to, but I still stabbed him on your

orders. We agreed that I would not make war with the angels. You
have freed me.”

“No, I didn’t!” Annabel actually began tearing at her hair in her

rage. Tendrils of smoke began dancing out of her skin. “You fucking
tricked me! You did this! You still belong to me! Come back here!”

“No.”
As if to solidify his claim to freedom, he took a single step,

putting himself between Annabel and the men behind him, willing to
fight her should she try to finish what she had started.

Her eyes flew wide as her body went tight with rage. She seemed

to be biting her lips together, but somehow, blood flowed from

106 Marcy

Jacks

between them anyway, almost as though it was fighting to get out.

He wondered if she’d bitten her tongue off in her anger.
When she spoke, there was no flooding of blood that came from

her mouth like a corrupted fountain, and her tongue was certainly still
in there. “Our deal is over? Fine. It doesn’t matter anyway. You
stabbed them with a corrupted sword. They’re dying anyway.”

No. John spun around to stare down at the two men, taking note of

them where he could not before. The vampire with blond hair
shivered above Luke as he protected him. The blood stain in his shirt
grew larger, but there was also a new and unpleasant stink in the air.

Staring down at Luke, he knew where it came from on the both of

them. Luke’s stab wound, which had been clean when John had made
it, was festering puss and green infection. John could only see his
stomach because of the way Derek―he thought he recalled Luke
using that name―had him lying, but that wound had gone through the
both of them and had cut through the bones on his back. Derek was
likely in the exact same state, only in a place so near to his heart that
it likely cut short whatever time he had left to live.

Hell, the wounds on the both of them were so severe, John

doubted they had more than a few minutes left.

“What’s happening to us?” Derek asked, staring up at John with

all the hope and fear in the world.

“I―” John dropped his sword. The blade and flame were holy

now, but it had still caused this. He could no longer hold onto it
without feeling sick.

He felt the presence of angels approaching. Kale was among

them. Kale would see what he had done whilst he was being
controlled by Annabel. That had been the very thing John feared the
most.

“Come back with me, and I will heal them,” Annabel said, her

voice shaking as her body trembled. She was struggling for patience,
and John supposed he should be grateful for this chance. Perhaps he
could even strike another deal, a better one to ensure that John could

The Half-Breed Vampire

107

neither kill nor hurt anyone ever again so long as she owned him.

He turned to move toward her, but a quick hand shot out and

grabbed him around the ankle.

108 Marcy

Jacks

Chapter Thirteen

Derek grabbed hold of the angel before he could return to the

demon who’d held him prisoner, and he gripped with all the strength
he had left in his body.

The angel, John, stopped and looked down at him. “If you wish to

live, you will let me go.”

Derek supposed that it wasn’t too far out there to think that it was

literally killing him to say, “No.”

John’s eyes widened. He looked like he’d been sucker punched.

“No?”

“Oh, for the love of…John, come here now, or your friends will

die. Don’t think I can’t feel those other angels coming for you.”

Derek didn’t know who that woman was talking about. The angels

who wanted to arrest Luke? Would giving him up to them stop him
from dying?

By the look on John’s face, he kind of doubted that. The man

appeared torn, but Derek couldn’t let him go to that demon.

“Let me go,” John said, but he did not move or attempt to kick

Derek’s hand away.

“No,” Derek said again, feeling all the weight of Luke’s body in

his lap as he denied them both the chance to be healed. “Luke made
me promise that no matter what happened, no matter what she did to
us, I wouldn’t make deals with her. You don’t get to do that for us
either. I won’t let another person go to Hell just to save my life.”

John’s jaw clenched, and if Derek wasn’t so suddenly dizzy, he

would have thought the man’s eyes were watering, too. “The other
angels won’t be able to save either of you. Ambrosia can only do so

The Half-Breed Vampire

109

much.”

“I don’t care. Kill her if you want, just don’t go with her.”
Derek hadn’t been with Luke for a very long time, but from the

promises they had made to each other, and the respect with which
Luke spoke about John during their few conversations, he was
positive that if Derek allowed the man to enslave himself again, even
if it was to save Luke’s and Derek’s lives, he might never forgive
himself. Derek wouldn’t put that burden on him.

“Don’t let her take you.”
That seemed to be enough for the other man. He steeled himself

and stepped back, careful not to trip over the hand that still held onto
his leg.

Annabel was on fire now, but Derek didn’t fear her, even though

she looked like she could burn down his entire house with the lot of
them inside of it with a thought.

“You won’t come to me? Fine. Stay here and go back on your

word, you lying angel bastard. I’ll come back for you or that other
angel one way or another. I’ll get you.”

“Your words bore me, Annabel. You might wish to leave before

the reinforcements arrive. I doubt you will be able to take us all on.
Let alone me by myself.”

She clenched her fists, and her broken fingernails must have cut

through her skin the same way she’d cut the inside of her mouth,
because then drops of blood trickled through her closed fingers.

There was an explosion of light and heat that threw Derek back

and burned his face and body. He threw his upper body over Luke to
protect him, but there was no way his body alone was able to keep the
fires from licking at Luke’s skin.

He had to save him! He couldn’t lose him like this!
Abruptly, the heat vanished, somewhat. It still felt like he was

sitting next to a furnace on high, but it wasn’t unbearable like it had
been seconds before.

Derek pulled his face away from Luke’s chest and looked up. That

110 Marcy

Jacks

angel was standing above him, pure, white wings outstretched and
shimmering like fresh snow in the morning light.

He stared down at the both of them with sad eyes. Derek looked

down at Luke. He looked rough, with black burn spots over his
clothes and face. Some of his hair burned away, and the smell went
straight to Derek’s nose.

He figured he looked like complete shit, too, if the burned hairs on

his arms were anything to go by. He wondered if any of the hair on
top of his head survived the blast. His bedroom looked like a war
zone. Briefly he wondered if his parents or any of the servants had
heard that from the main house then decided that, if they did, they
wouldn’t care enough to check on him.

“What was that?” Derek asked. His voice came out rough and

weak, like he hadn’t had a glass of water or a drink of blood in days.

“She left. She was angry,” John said.
No kidding.
Derek stared down at Luke. His chest was still rising and falling,

which was a good thing, but the wheeze in his breath was definitely
not. “Are we dying?” he asked.

John knelt before him and put a large hand over his shoulder. He

kept his face stoic, but his eyes spoke of the worst sort of pain and
guilt. “Forgive me. I did not mean for this to happen.”

That was a yes. They were both dying, and there was nothing

anyone, not even an angel, could do to save them. John had said
something about ambrosia, but then he’d said it wouldn’t help.

The fact that Derek knew there was an afterlife of some kind

didn’t ease his worries. He wanted to live. He wanted life, and Luke
had told him before that he didn’t know where angels went when they
died.

For all Derek knew, he could end up in Limbo or wherever,

considering he was a vampire, and even if he did make it into
whatever Heaven was, that still left him alone and without Luke by
his side.

The Half-Breed Vampire

111

He was tired of being alone. He’d been alone in life. He didn’t

want to be alone in death.

“There has to be a way to save him,” Derek said, clinging to some

stubborn hope that there was still something that could be done.
“You’re all angels, for God’s sake. You can’t let him die!”

John inhaled deeply, and then he put his hands over Derek’s chest.

“I will give you my energy. It will buy you some time, perhaps
then―”

Derek slapped his hand away. “I don’t want you to buy me any

time! Heal him!”

John looked at him, and then down at Luke, who was still

unconscious and growing grayer by the second.

“He knew the risks. You are the one we are to save. If I can give

you enough energy to last until after your birthday, perhaps your own
natural power will allow you to heal.”

“I don’t care,” Derek said, angry at the angel in front of him, at

Luke for trying to save him from a demon-poisoned blade, and at
himself for not being able to hold back his tears. “Give him your
energy. You feel so guilty about what that bitch made you do? Then
do this for me.”

John looked at him and then nodded. He put his hands over the

festering wound on Luke’s stomach. Some of the boils had popped
and were leaking poison back into Luke’s body, and they smelled
something awful. His own wound itched like crazy and smelled so
bad he thought he might be sick, but he didn’t dare scratch at it, or
look at it, in case he made it worse and actually did vomit all over the
place.

“I will give him everything I can. When is your birthday?”
That was a good question. “Couple of hours. I’ll hold out until

then,” he said, being stubborn over another wave of dizziness. The
poison inside of him felt like it was traveling through his bloodstream.
He felt a burning pain in the back of his neck, and then a pulsing
headache came on.

112 Marcy

Jacks

Great. It was in his brain now. That hadn’t taken very long at all.
If John knew that he was lying about his condition, he didn’t say

anything. Derek felt like a bastard for using the man’s guilt against
him, but if it meant Luke might survive long enough for the other
angels to get here and maybe help him, he would take it.

The white light that came out of John’s cupped hands was

beautiful. It was odd because, if he looked at it objectively, it was just
a plain white light, but it was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen in his
life.

“I will give it all to him if it will save him. I promise you,” John

said.

Derek felt foggy. He leaned back against the dresser and let his

eyes fall shut as the warmth of the light lulled him. He kept right on
seeing it, however, even through his shut eyelids.

Then he realized what he was looking at. The white light everyone

claimed to see when they had a near-death experience. It was calling
to him. He was looking right at it and walking to it.

He stopped abruptly. No, he wasn’t ready. He had to stay for just

a little longer, to make sure that Luke would be okay. His bones felt
heavy as all hell, but he turned around and dragged himself back to
the conscious world.

When he opened his eyes, the warmth of Luke’s body was still

there, and so was John’s healing ball of energy. There was a look of
supreme concentration on the man’s face.

It wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t be able to heal Luke with just what

he had. It was strange, the way that knowledge suddenly came to him,
as well as the fact that he was no longer fighting against it. Luke
would die if he wasn’t healed by something bigger and better than the
angel in front of him. John would die, too, if he kept on pumping all
of his energy into the man. Derek hadn’t forgotten about when Luke
explained that to him.

If he was some supreme holy being just waiting to come out, then

he would do it. He would heal Luke and stop the other angel from

The Half-Breed Vampire

113

killing himself just to right a wrong he felt he’d created.

The light called to him again. It pulsed like a heartbeat, promising

him the things he wanted most in the world. Freedom from this
damned house, the power to heal the man he loved, and to be with
him for the rest of their lives.

He wasn’t so sure about that last part, considering he could no

longer feel the aching burn where he’d been stabbed, but as for the
rest, he trusted the light would help him. Perhaps stupidly, but when
he found himself alone in that tunnel, he began walking, and this time
he didn’t stop.

114 Marcy

Jacks

Chapter Fourteen

Luke awoke to the soft sound of sobbing and saw the bright flash

of light that penetrated his closed eyelids before he had the chance to
open them.

Samael stood above him. His eyes were pitying and sad. Luke was

lying on the bed he and Derek had shared and made promises to each
other in. The sound of sobbing was not from Derek, it was from Kale.

He groaned and tried to lift himself, just to feel the heavy gauntlet

of Samael’s hand on his chest. “Easy, friend. You are
still…recovering.”

He said it as though he was unsure about the word he used. As he

should be. Luke should be dead, but maybe he was still dying. John’s
blade was corrupted when he stabbed Luke with it, though that didn’t
explain why Kale was trying to contain his sobs on the floor by the
dresser.

Luke had been stabbed over by that dresser.
He tried to sit up again, and he caught sight of the tip of Kale’s

wings. They trembled as he knelt down, still crying.

Samael pushed him back again. “Lie still, friend.”
He couldn’t. He had too much energy in him to be dying. He felt

strong and healthy. He quickly lifted his hand to the place where there
should have been a long and thin hole.

There was nothing but the muscle on his chest. There was no

scabbing, no infection, not so much as a pink scar to show that he’d
been stabbed.

He couldn’t believe it. “What happened?”
Samael bit his lips together and briefly turned to look at Kale.

The Half-Breed Vampire

115

“John is dead. He vanished into the light. From what I can understand,
he tried to heal you both.”

“Both? Stop pushing me down!” Luke snapped when Samael

attempted to force him to lie back again. “I am well enough to be up.
Where is Derek?”

“Your charge?”
“Yes! My charge. Where is he?” Luke demanded, searching about

the room. He would have thought that, if he was healthy and well,
Derek would be at his side, but Samael had said something about
both.

“From what we could make of your position and the wound on his

chest, John’s sword went through you. It struck your charge as well.”

Luke scrambled out of the bed, pushing Samael aside as he got to

his feet. Kale barely spared him a glance as he continued to mourn on
the floor, clutching his fists together and pressing his forehead against
them. There was a slight burn mark, about the size of a grown man, in
the carpet just in front of the spot where he knelt.

Derek was not in the room.
Luke’s mind went to the second bedroom where he’d briefly

stayed before he and Derek became close. It was the room nearest to
this one, and the one that made the most sense to put a mortal body in
before the stink of death became overpowering.

He ran out of the bedroom and into the hallway, ignoring

Samael’s shout behind him.

The door was shut, and when he opened it, he wished he hadn’t.
There was a body wrapped in the white sheets of the bed. It lay

unmoving on top of the mattress. It was precisely Derek’s shape and
height, but Luke shook his head in denial.

He was the one who was supposed to die. He jumped on top of

Derek to take the strike from the sword. How…?

“My friend, I am sorry.” Luke didn’t so much as wince when he

felt the heavy hand on his shoulder. “It seems that we face many
losses today. I didn’t sense any darkness lingering about his corpse

116 Marcy

Jacks

when we arrived, so I believe the Creator will accept him, vampire or
not. You succeeded there, at least.”

Luke felt like he’d failed entirely. He stepped farther into the

bedroom. His limbs felt stiff, and his throat began to swell in the
worst sort of pain, even more powerful than the corrupted blade of
John’s sword.

“Leave me,” he said, hardly recognizing his own voice.
He listened to the gentle slide of the door over the carpet as

Samael closed the door behind him, and then Luke truly felt alone.

He moved carefully to the bed until he stood over the body. He

reached down, his fingers trembling so much with the force of what
he was about to do that they ached.

He took hold of the folds of the sheet at the top of the head and

then gently peeled them back. He tried to breathe normally, to control
himself the way he would on a battlefield, but what came out of him
was a choked exhale at the sight of Derek’s pale, gray, unmoving
face.

Not gray from the corruption in the sword, but from death. Luke

put his fist to his mouth and closed his eyes, but he could not look
away forever. The image was the same, no matter how many times he
blinked, and he could not command his heart to beat at a normal pace
anymore.

He choked back a sob and forced a calming breath into him. He

rubbed away the tears in his eyes, and though he was not sure why he
did it, he briefly combed his fingers though his hair, as though making
sure it was presentable for the dead man in front of him.

Luke gently sat down on the bed beside him, careful, again

without knowing why, since it wasn’t as though Derek was simply
sleeping. He couldn’t disturb him.

Luke cupped Derek’s cheeks and leaned down. He kissed his

bottom lip and then the side of his mouth and then his mouth before
pulling away. His lips were stiff and cold, not at all soft like they had
been when he was alive.

The Half-Breed Vampire

117

He had to wipe at his eyes again just to keep his vision from

blurring too much.

“I’m so sorry that I―”
He couldn’t finish. The sobbing took hold of him like an eight-

armed demon, and it would not let him go. Luke pressed his face
down onto Derek’s chest and wept for him like Kale did for John. He
didn’t know how John had managed to cure him from the poison in
the sword, but Luke wished with all of his heart that he had not. He
wished John had healed Derek instead. Luke wanted nothing better
than to be with him and to see him.

He slowly brought himself under control, lifting himself from

Derek’s chest.

This was not Derek. This body may have belonged to him, but it

was him no longer.

Luke got to his feet and prepared himself to leave. Samael and

Kale could follow if they liked, or they could continue to hide from
the royal guards. Luke hardly cared.

Angels were forbidden to associate with spirits from the mortal

world. Samael said that the darkness that had surrounded Derek was
gone, so he was in Heaven somewhere. Luke was going to go and see
him, and damn everyone who tried to stop him.

He spread his wings and focused his energy. It was there. All of it,

as though he had just feasted on a table that held a mountain of
ambrosia-laced foods. Luke used that energy to conjure himself a
small portal, and he stepped inside, and then he began to fly.

He flew up and high as quickly as his wings could take him. The

portal had taken its toll on his energy, but he still had plenty to spare,
and in a record time, he was where he needed to be.

When Luke exited the portal, he was high above Heaven’s golden

gates. He immediately summoned his sword to him, letting the fire
burst out brighter than it had even been in the centuries that he’d held
it.

He glided over the gate, waiting for attack and arrest, but neither

118 Marcy

Jacks

came to him. He did not allow himself to relax. It certainly wasn’t as
if there were no guards who could see him. He could see them as
plain as day, going about their business, protecting the gate. Some
even looked up at him, but no one brought out their sword and flew
into battle, and no holy arrows came to strike him out of the sky.

Strange, but there was still one place he meant to go. Access to the

places of Heaven where the mortals went could only be gained
through the palace. He meant to go there and get that access, by force
if necessary.

A hard force tackled him from above, pushing him down to the

cloudy ground where the guards patrolled. It knocked the wind out of
him, but it did not startle him, and he was quick to react.

Here it was, then. An attempted surprise attack to bring him in. It

would not work. If he went to the palace, it would be on his own,
without chains on him.

Luke attempted to swing his sword at the offender who had

wrapped his arms around his wings, but his hand was quickly
grabbed. That was fine. It forced his attacker to release him.

Luke spun around, his fist ready to strike, and then―
Derek’s face stared back at him. There was color in his cheeks.

His eyes were open. He was healthy and appeared almost alive and
was staring right at Luke.

“Derek.”
Luke stopped attacking, but they were both still falling. He

managed to get his balance and land on his feet on the cloudy surface
that made up most of the ground in this part of Heaven, though there
was still a resounding boom when they landed.

From his peripheral vision, Luke could make out the many guards

coming closer, inspecting them. To see if they needed to be arrested?
To offer assistance? He was not sure, nor did he care.

“Luke,” Derek said, and Luke wondered if he was wearing a

similar expression of hope and disbelief on his face.

He reached for the other man, his fingers touching his jaw first

The Half-Breed Vampire

119

before his hands moved up to cup his face. He was solid. Not some
spirit who would not know who Luke was when he saw him. He was
real.

His lips were soft this time, not like when Luke had offered what

he thought was to be his last kiss to a corpse. Derek’s hands were in
his hair and around his neck, and his tongue reached out, and Luke
began to weep all over again.

They did not break their kiss, even when it began to taste of salt.
Luke could not stop touching him. His jaw, his neck, his hair, his

shoulders. He was real. This was real.

“How is this happening?” Luke asked, pulling away before taking

Derek’s bottom lip into his mouth.

“I don’t know,” Derek said when he was released. “But I think

these have something to do with it.”

Something spread out behind him, and for the first time Luke

noticed the wings.

They were larger than Luke’s, and wider. They were the color of

his sword when not surrounded in flames, and the tip of each feather
appeared as though it had been dipped in gold. Derek was wearing
some kind of skintight armor that Luke had never seen before. It
gleamed in the light, the same way his wings did, and though he was
sure it was some sort of metal, when Luke had been holding him, he
had felt no cold against his skin.

Power radiated from him, so much that Luke had no question in

his mind that Derek had more strength in him than Luke did. There
was also a sword at his hip, sheathed, and with a stunning clarity,
Luke knew what Derek had become.

“But you died. Your birthday had not passed yet. This is

impossible.”

“A good kind of impossible, I hope?”
“Very,” Luke said, wrapping his arms around Derek’s shoulders.

He had been smaller than him whilst a mortal vampire, and while he
still was, he’d clearly grown. They were nearly the same size now.

120 Marcy

Jacks

“Your friend, John, he tried to heal me, but I told him to heal only

you,” Derek confessed.

Luke managed to scowl at his lover as his relief made way for the

anger and worry he’d felt before arriving here. “That was a foolish
thing to do. I was ready to make that sacrifice for you. You should
have let it remain at that.”

“You were ready, I wasn’t,” Derek shot back, then he wet his lips

as his fingers tightened their hold on him. “The light, it came to me,
and I thought it was like the light at the end of the tunnel kind of
thing. I thought I was dying, but it offered me the chance to save you,
and I took it.”

“You did die, you fool,” Luke said, his voice breaking as those

words left his mouth. “I failed you, and you had to die for me when I
was supposed to die for you.”

He brought Derek’s face closer for another kiss. He had to breathe

him in, touch him, and taste him. This could very well be their last
kiss, and he never wanted it to end.

Derek was the one to separate them, pulling back when Luke tried

to move forward. “Stop it, Luke. I need to say this.”

“What is more important than this?”
Derek ran his fingers through Luke’s hair, his fingernails creating

a pleasant sensation over his scalp. “I don’t know how it happened
that I’m like this, but I’m free now. No demon voices haunt me, I’m
not stuck in my parents’ guest house, and now you’re here with me.”

“You will be taken to the place where spirits go after they are

killed on Earth, and I won’t be able to follow you,” Luke said,
clutching Derek even tighter, as if to prevent that from happening.

“No, I won’t. I spoke with the council. They believe us now.

They’ve seen enough.”

Luke could hardly believe it. “You―you spoke with them? How

did you manage to get an audience?”

“They called me to them, after I got here when I finished healing

you. No one’s going to arrest you or your friends now. They want to

The Half-Breed Vampire

121

speak with all of you and find out how they can use their new knights
against Hell.” Derek blushed and looked away quickly before turning
his hopeful eyes back to him. “I said I wouldn’t help them unless they
would let me be with you.”

It was complete and utter madness. Luke wanted to laugh and cry

at the same time. “And they agreed?”

“I’m here, right?”
They came together again. Luke would have taken him right there

had they not been in public for everyone to see them, but this was just
as good. Let them gaze upon him and his love. Let them see that what
he and Derek had was worth breaking the rules for. Let them see that
Derek was his and his alone.

He wondered if Derek would be able to go back to Earth now that

he was only a spirit. Granted, he looked nothing like a spirit and
appeared to be more of an angel than Luke was. They would find out
later. Luke had the large desire to return to his personal space in
Heaven and take his lover there with him.

The happiness of that thought was overshadowed by something

else.

Derek was a knight of Heaven now, one of the powerful creatures

that John had worked so hard to prove existed. It was a shame that the
council chose to believe only after he had died.

“I want to take you to see my home, but after, I must speak with

the council,” Luke said. “I want them…I need them to acknowledge
John’s sacrifice.”

“He’s on Earth,” Derek said quickly, a small smile touching his

face.

“What?” Luke asked and then shook his head. “No, you did not

see. Kale was weeping over the place where the light took him. He is
dead.”

“I know, but I did something else when I healed you,” Derek said.

“John was putting all of his energy into you. He kept you alive long
enough for me to get down there and save you. He didn’t see me,

122 Marcy

Jacks

though. I think I was a ghost, but by the time I pulled whatever was
inside of you out―”

“The corruption,” Luke said.
“Yeah, that, when I pulled it out of you, those other angels came,

but John was already fading. He was gone. I couldn’t save his life, but
when he vanished something was leaving really quickly. It’s hard to
describe exactly what it was, but I know it was him. I think it was his
soul.”

“His soul? Are you sure?”
“Maybe it was his body, too. It felt pretty solid to me when I

grabbed it, but it was so bright. I took it, and I don’t know what I did
exactly, it was like I was working on instinct, but I put some of my
energy into it and sent it away. It didn’t come here, and when I tried
checking on it, I saw him, alive and on Earth. He’s in the city.”

Haven. John was alive and in Haven. That was so close to where

the others were right now. Kale was going to rejoice when he heard
that news. Happiness was already swelling on the inside of Luke’s
heart. He gripped Derek by his arms and pulled him into a tight
embrace. “You are a miracle. We must tell Kale immediately.”

“Definitely. John’s going to need some help,” Derek said before

Luke could pull him away.

“What for? Is he well?”
“I guess so. He’s human.”

THE END

WWW.MARCYJACKS.COM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marcy Jacks lives and works in Ontario, Canada, where she is

fervently pursuing the writer’s life while writing about lots of
gorgeous guys. She loves hearing from readers, and you can reach her
at authormarcyjacks@gmail.com.

For all titles by Marcy Jacks, please visit

www.bookstrand.com/marcy-jacks

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

Wyszukiwarka

Podobne podstrony:
Marcy Jacks Redemption 4 The Half Breed Angel (MM)
Jacks Marcy Redemption 02 The Half Breed Werewolf
Jacks Marcy The Half Breed Demon121219 0145
Hyacinth Scarlet The Half Breed Who Found His Other Half120427 0834
Marcy Jacks Held Hostage by the Vampire Lord (The Vampire District #6)
Marcy Jacks The Vampire District 5 James s Risk(1)
Marcy Jacks The Vampire District 7 Julian s Reluctant Love
Marcy Jacks The Little Dragons Alpha Savior
Marcy Jacks The One True Sacrifice
Marcy Jacks DeWitt s Pack 10 Mated To The Wild Omega
Marcy Jacks The Omega in Control
Marcy Jacks Falling for the Captive
Farmer, Philip Jose as Trout, Kilgore Venus on the Half Shell
Marcy Jacks Indecision
Schmitz, James The Demon Breed
Schmitz, James The Demon Breed
Gabrielle Evans The Moonlight Breed 05 Endless Midnight
Marcy Jacks His Enemy Lover
Kenneth Grant Gamaliel The Diary Of A Vampire

więcej podobnych podstron