Eternal Demon: Mark of the Vampire Read Online Free

would kill anything and anyone who got in his way.
    As he stood there, the earth’s easy tremble intensified. Granted, he was still able to hold his ground without issue, but the manic shudder made him not only cautious, but also suspicious.
Is this truly it?
he mused, his fangs descending, his muscles flexing, tensing. Had Raine been truthful with this location? With the arrival of the parcel Erion had come to steal?
    The
bride
he’d come to steal.
    Cruen’s bride.
    Erion’s gaze narrowed on the length of dirt road ahead. For Raine’s sake and the future the
mutore
wished to see, he hoped so.
    Suddenly, the shudder escalated into a severe shake that reverberated up through Erion’s feet and calves to his gut, into his chest, and all the way to his jaw, making his teeth rattle inside his mouth. Around him, the trees creaked as their weight was redistributed and the birds took to the air en masse.
    Erion dropped into a fighting stance and unsheathed his blade.
    This is no wedding party approaching,
he thought blackly, slowly rotating so he could see in every direction. This wasn’t Cruen’s bride. Couldn’t be. This was belowground, nature’s doing, inconvenient though it was, a cry of—
    The thought died inside his mind as a massive shudder nearly sent him to his knees. Before him the earth cracked, one long seam, splitting apart with a jarring lurch.
Christ!
Erion jumped back as the plaintive wail of breaking rock and shifting plates stole the forest’s air. An earthquake—had to be. He was on California land, after all.
    A few feet away, a mega blast of dirt shot into the air, raining down sharp, black pellets onto his face and body. He should flash. Get out of this particular line of fire. Return to France and demand a new location from Raine. Or maybe a strip of flesh from the male’s lying hide.
    He was on his way, his cells nearly transferred, when suddenly from inside the dust geyser came a wail, a shriek so intense Erion felt it deep within his bones. Like a wave crashing against the shore, he heard it again and again. The sound boomed through the forest, pinging against the battered trees, then slamming back into Erion’s ears. He shook his head, attempting to clear the sound. As he did, his gaze caught on the crack in the earth. In the very center, where the sound seemed to emanate from. Though any sane
paven
would’ve gotten the hell out of there at that point, Erion drew closer. He couldn’t help himself. He saw something.
    But what? What the hell was it?
    His blood pounded in his veins, every muscle inside him tense and ready.
    Then he saw it fully, saw
them
fully: two horses, pale as paper, with see-through skin, emerging from the ground. They were snorting and sighing as they pulled something, their hooves scrabbling for purchase on the crumbling rock face.
    Steeled and ready for a fight, Erion stared, unblinking at the scene before him, nearly thinking himself mad as a gleaming, bride-white, pumpkin-shaped carriage crawled out of the hole in the earth, legs moving like a gigantic white spider.
    Erion’s mind squeezed.
    No.
    Impossible. Perhaps even insane. This couldn’t be Cruen’s bride. Inside this Cinderella carriage from hell?
    As the ghostly team cleared the split in the earth and found solid ground, the carriage came to a halt. One of the horses turned its head and eyed Erion. Its nostrils flared in warning as it pawed the ground.
    Erion’s hand tightened around his blade, and in that moment he remembered what he was doing there.
    Whom he came to steal—and why.
    As if they sensed it too, the transparent beasts shifted their gazes and took off, bolting into the now-still woods, dirt kicking up around them.
    Erion exploded forward, his blood fueling his pace. This female, whatever she was, belonged to him. She was his bargaining chip—the ransom he would keep at his side until Ladd was returned. Returned to the ones who knew how to love.
    He ran through the black, cool woods,