Kathi S Barton - [Aaron's Kiss 04] by Karen Fuller Read Free Book Online

make sure she got home safely. He stood outside the store front for three hours waiting to see if she left again, and if she did, who with.
    Tucker James was a very old vampire, having been turned when he was twenty-six in the year twelve-fourteen, and in over eight hundred years, he had done many things he was not proud of and had seen many things that he wished that he hadn’t. But the woman in the building across from him at this moment was the most terrifying thing he had ever encountered. All because he didn’t have a clue what to do with her or how to live without her now that he had given her his blood.
    He knew that he couldn’t mate with her, with anyone as a matter of fact. Tucker had a mistress, his maker. The woman had ruled his life since she turned him, without mercy or love. She’d been telling him that she owned him, and that he would never escape her unless she allowed it. She was cruel and unforgiving. When she found him again, and he had no doubt that she would, he would pay the price for trying to escape her again. Marta Lipscomb was a horror and a whore. She was what nightmares based their horrific cues off of. And he would die the death of his kind before going back to her again.
    Oh, she was pretty enough, Tucker supposed. She was plump in a way that said she had had money before she became vampire, enough of it to have kept her well fed and pampered. She was not much older than Tucker, maybe fifty years at the most—not all that many to a vampire, who measured their lives in centuries and lifetimes. But she was as different as day and night to him when it came to their personalities.
    While Marta was domineering and cruel, Tucker was quiet and reserved. He would and could sit for hours just watching and listening to the things going on around him.
    Watch the people of the night flow around him, observing them without interfering.
    She was flighty and loud, often relying on others to entertain her rather than trying to amuse herself. If left on her own for too long, she would stir up or start something heinous then sit back and watch the bloody outcome, literally.
    When Marta was in the mood for sex, which was several times a day, the only way she could climax was to torture and maim with beatings and bloodbaths and days without release for her partners. And no matter what the gender or sexual preference, if they found their release before she let them, she would suck them nearly dry of blood and leave them to live or die in a cell until she forgot them, or they finally succumbed to death. How it ended for them, she didn’t care. Any time she wanted sex, it was the same, only the people had changed over time. Her cruelty knew no limits and he’d finally had enough.
    This was his last attempt to get away. Tucker had already decided that if he didn’t succeed this time, he would walk into the sun. He simply couldn’t take it anymore.
    Eight hundred years was truly enough, more than enough. And now this had happened. A woman he would give anything to have yet couldn’t touch.

    Tucker had thought to talk with Aaron, to apply for his release on Aaron’s behalf.
    Everyone had heard about how he had saved Dominic Marshall from the same sort of fate, bringing his friend Colin Larimore in and standing by while he had challenged the old master. His defeating him and becoming the master of that realm hadn’t just saved Dominic, but all of the vampires of that realm from certain death and starvation. Both Colin and Aaron were men to trust, men to be loyal to.
    But Tucker knew that he couldn’t do it now. He needed to get away from Sam and all that she would mean to him. If Marta was to find him, and again, of that there was no doubt, Marta would kill him and his true mate and anyone who dared defy her or get in her way. He couldn’t let that happen to her.
    When Tucker saw a light go on above the little shop, then go off again an hour later, he waited before crossing the street to her shop. He