by Peyton Banks
Something was pressed to her shoulder. She cried out at the sensation of a thousand hot pokers stabbing her arm. “Put pressure on it,” a deep voice said. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
“Get him up to his suite and into a bath,” another person said.
“I’ll take her up there too. Considering he damn near gave himself over to the true death for her, I’m guessing he’ll want her there when he wakes.”
She was jostled, lifted into someone’s arms, and that person began to move, carrying her somewhere. “Amare,” she said weakly.
“He’s right behind us,” the deep voice replied. He had an accent she couldn’t place, probably because her brain wasn’t functioning on all cylinders at the moment.
“I’m going to guess he fed from you recently, given how weak you are right now. Although that wolf definitely took a big chunk out of you, and you’ve lost a lot of blood as a result.”
“Huh?” She had no idea what the guy was talking about.
“I’m putting her on the bed so I can wrap this wound. Get him in that bath. Hurry.”
She was gently laid onto a soft surface and her hand was lifted and pressed against what felt like a towel on her shoulder. “Hold this in place for a minute,” the same deep voice instructed, “while I grab a first aid kit.”
She did as she was told, although her hold on the towel was definitely weak. What the hell happened to her? Her shoulder burned, and something hot, like the sensation of rubbing your eyes after cutting up jalapeños, was pushing through her bloodstream.
That wolf definitely took a big chunk out of you. That’s what the guy said.
What did he mean?
Someone was trying to pull the towel out of her grasp, and she forced her eyes open. The room was dim, the curtains still covering the window, the only light coming from the open bathroom door.
“Amare,” she said to the man.
“He’s recovering, although he’s likely in a lot of pain too. It’s too bad you’ve lost so much blood. He could certainly use some right about now.”
She shook her head. “I just gave him some. Early this morning.”
“I figured. But he spent about forty-five seconds in the sun, rescuing you, and I’ve seen vampires meet the true death from far less contact than that.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later, when you’re both more lucid. Look at me.”
She shifted her focus from the light spilling from the bathroom to the face wavering in front of her. She had to blink several times before he came into focus, but finally, she made out a jovial, dark face pinched with worry. Curiously, he bore a slight resemblance to Amare, although without facial hair.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Renaldo. I am Amare’s maker. And I would like your permission to use my saliva to attempt to seal your wound.”
“Amare’s maker?” This was the man who had turned Amare into a vampire? “How…?”
He chuckled. “You are an inquisitive one, aren’t you? I can see why Amare is so taken with you. I promise, there will be plenty of time for questions when you are both recovered. And if you allow me to lick your wound, your recovery will be much quicker.”
“You’re…asking my permission?”
“Of course I am.” He scoffed. “Where do you think your man learned all of his good manners?”
Her lips lifted into a faint smile. Amare did have some ridiculously excellent manners.
“Is that a yes?” Renaldo asked.
Kiara closed her eyes, licked her dry lips, and nodded. She felt the rasp of a tongue against her skin, each lick easing the pain, until she was so relaxed she sighed and drifted off to sleep.
7
Amare spent the entirety of the night soaking in a tub of cool water, being fed blood from a parade of donors someone had rustled up for him. Probably Renaldo.
When his burns were sufficiently healed, Renaldo helped him out of the water, gently patted him dry, half-carried him into the bedroom, and laid him down next to a soundly sleeping Kiara. He had to press his hand to her chest to make sure she was still alive, so still was she lying there. He noted the fresh gauze taped to her shoulder.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I’d say you came closer to the true death than she did tonight,” Renaldo replied. “Sleep. Wanda and I have moved into the other room here in your suite, so just call out if you need anything. Otherwise, we will speak tomorrow evening. Good night, son.”
It had been a long time since Renaldo called him that.
He lay there on his back, ignoring the pain as his skin continued to heal, and replayed the events of earlier in the evening over and over.
He’d never had a death wish other than, he supposed, when he asked Renaldo to turn him. But that hadn’t been a desire to die so much as a desire to spend all of eternity with the only friend he had in the world at the time.
Today—rather, yesterday—he’d damn near met the true death. He could feel it in the tightness of his skin as it continued to mend itself. He had thrown himself outside, into the sunlight, without any consideration for the fact that he was cooking himself like a marshmallow held too close to the campfire flame.
For Kiara.
And he’d do it again, right this moment, if necessary. He’d do anything for her.
Even give up his own eternal life.
He had to tell her how he felt. She needed to know that she had become the center of his world. It was important…
Dawn finally pulled him under.
Kiara woke to the sensation of something pulling at the skin on her arm. She opened her eyes to a man standing over her as he tugged the bandage off her shoulder, inspected the wound underneath, and covered it with a fresh bandage.
“Renaldo? Is that your name?” Her voice was froggy. She cleared her throat several times and then greedily sucked when he offered her a straw. Cool water coated her throat, and she drained the glass. “Thank you,” she whispered after he pulled it away and placed it on the bedside table.
“You’re welcome, and, yes, that is my name. How are you feeling?”
She frowned. “Like I really want to know what’s going on.”
He smiled in return. “I meant your pain level. How is it?”
She rolled her shoulder and winced. It still hurt but definitely less than yesterday. At least, she assumed only a single day had passed. “How long did I sleep?”
“Oh, about twenty-four hours. As you are human, I assume you have a desperate need for the facilities at this point.”
Yes, peeing would be good. “Will you explain everything when I’m done?”
He chuckled. “I promise.”
When she was finished in the bathroom, she opened the door to Amare, hovering on the other side. His skin was shiny and several shades lighter than normal, with a pink undertone. It looked delicate, as if he were a newborn baby. Without saying anything, she touched her fingers to his chest.
He covered her hand with his own, holding it there. “I’m fine,” he said. “Another day or two and you won’t even be able to tell that I nearly charred like an overdone burger.”
She winced.
“Sorry, not yet the time for jokes.”
“No, not yet. So you…almost died.” For her. Was that what happened? Was he the one who had dragged her into the lodge? From the moment the searing pain started in her shoulder until now, everything was pretty fuzzy.
“I’m fine. I’m more concerned for you.”
She looked around the bedroom. They were alone, and the door was closed. “Renaldo said you came closer to dying than I did.”
Amare didn’t respond.
She canted her head. “What is your maker doing here, anyway? Did you know he was here?”
He shook his head. “He meant to surprise me. I had texted him, told him I was spending the week here, so he and Wanda—she’s his mate—decided to take their own vacation. They’ve been coming here a couple of times a year since it
opened.”
“So you and your maker have a good relationship.”
He smiled. “We do. He treats me like a son, while I treat him like a friend. It works for both of us.”
She gingerly touched the bandage on her shoulder. “I don’t understand what happened.”
His smile faded as he strode over to the bed, took a glass of orange juice from the bedside table, and offered it to her.
“Does it contain vodka?”
“No. Freshly squeezed orange juice only. I’ve also ordered you a three-egg spinach omelet.”
“And here I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about my iron consumption for at least a week.” She accepted the juice and drained the glass.
“I’m sorry,” Amare said, his face falling. “I should not have fed from you when we…”
“Okay, first, I asked you to. And, second, that’s not what I’m talking about. The amount of blood I saw out there on those tiles was far more than you’ve ever taken from me.”
The pained look on his face did not go away.
“Did Pete bite me?” she finally asked.
He closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ll never be able to erase the memory of that moment from my mind.”
“Yeah, me neither. Or at least the pain of it. Why the heck did he bite me? What am I missing here?”
There was a knock on the door a scant moment before the smell of eggs and cheese and spinach wafted past her nose. Kiara’s stomach gave a hearty rumble.
“Food’s here,” came a voice she recognized as Renaldo’s.
“I’ll grab it and bring it in here,” Amare said.
“No, it’s okay. Let me get dressed, and we can go out there.”
A few minutes later, after an utterly charming vampire with silky, black hair; pale, creamy skin; and a French accent introduced herself as Wanda, Kiara sat at the dinette table, shoveling steaming egg into her mouth while Amare and Renaldo pieced together what happened.
“It was all a setup,” Amare explained. “Penelope was the one who arranged for the garlic to be dumped in the pool area. And Pete, as it turns out, is a distant cousin to the Mallard brothers.”
“So who beat her?” Kiara asked.
“Pete, at her command. It appears the seemingly innocent Penelope was the mastermind of this entire thing. She knew we were sold out this week. She knew I had booked a double bedroom suite. She banked on me going to rescue her and then letting her stay in our suite to recover. She was trying to figure out a way to get close to punish me.”
“Because you bought this land?”
Amare nodded.
“But why? What did Penelope care? She works here.”
Renaldo replied. “Her love for Pete was true enough, although her claim that her parents wanted her to mate with one of the Mallard brothers was not. She and Pete were having issues, and she was afraid she was going to lose him. She came up with this plan in an effort to save their relationship. She thought if she could get revenge on the Mallard family’s behalf, Pete would realize how much he loved her and mate with her.”
“How do you know all this?” Kiara asked him.
He and Amare exchanged one of those meaningful glances she was probably not meant to understand.
“While you two were recovering, Wanda and I tracked down Pete and Penelope. Wanda here, when she was human, was a member of the Dominican Order during the Inquisition. The passage of time has not diminished her expertise at extracting information from people.”
Kiara inhaled that last bite of egg. After a coughing fit followed by drinking an entire glass of water while her eyes streamed, she finally recovered and pushed Amare away, who was beating on her back in an effort to clear her airway. “I’m fine,” she wheezed. “Next time, wait until I’ve swallowed before telling me something like that.”
Renaldo smiled benignly.
“Okay, so Penelope concocted this entire thing to get close to Amare. Where does Pete biting me come into play? And why did he do it? Just to make me feel pain? Because they definitely succeeded, I can tell you that.”
She winced as she touched the bandage. Her shoulder didn’t hurt all that much anymore, but her entire body felt like it was on fire. Like she’d gotten a really bad sunburn, except it was on the inside. Had she developed an infection? She knew nothing about werewolf bites, so she had no clue if what she was experiencing was normal.
Amare moved to stand directly in front of her. Renaldo stepped up to his left side, Wanda to his right. They looked like a united front, preparing to…what? Do battle?
“Uh, what’s going on?” she asked, eyeing them warily.
Amare glanced at Renaldo. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Just rip off the bandage.” He gave Kiara a tight smile. “So to speak.”
Amare blew out a deep breath and looked at the ceiling for long moments, then dropped his gaze to Kiara.
“I have bad news,” he said.
Great. Because being bitten by a werewolf wasn’t bad enough?
“You’re going to turn into a werewolf.”
8
Wanda poked Amare’s arm. “Or?” she prodded.
He blew out another breath. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to take Kiara’s choice from her. It wasn’t fair.
“There’s an or?” Kiara demanded.
She was still seated, her fork in her hand, suspended above her plate, while her gaze bounced from one vampire to the next to the next.
“Or?” she said again when no one answered.
“Do you want to know about the werewolf part?” Renaldo asked.
“Not really,” she retorted and pushed back her chair, storming over to the balcony doors. She stood with her back to them for a long time and finally said, “Can I have a drink? Maybe add that vodka to the orange juice after all.”
Renaldo hurried to see to her request while Amare tentatively took a step toward her. “I’m so sorry, Kiara. All I wanted was for you to take some time off, enjoy yourself. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she drawled, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Renaldo handed her a drink and she chugged half of it, which was impressive if Renaldo made it like he normally mixed drinks.
“So when are you going to tell me about the or?”
“It’s fascinating that you don’t want to hear about the werewolf aspect,” Renaldo commented.
“I want to know why you said or,” she snapped, her voice rising and practically crackling.
“Or one of us can turn you,” Amare finally admitted.
She whipped around to stare at him. “That’s it? Those are my only two options?”
He nodded.
She thrust her empty glass at Renaldo, who hurried to make her another drink.
“Any one of you? I can choose?”
“Of course you can choose,” Wanda said. “This isn’t the twelfth century.”
“Wanda was turned against her will,” Renaldo explained when he handed Kiara a fresh drink.
Wanda lifted one shoulder, let it drop. “I’m okay with it now. But I was pretty angry in the beginning. For at least two centuries.”
“Not helping,” Amare muttered.
“Why? Because I really don’t have a choice either?” Kiara’s voice was far too sweet.
“You have several choices,” Renaldo said. “You can choose to do nothing, which means at the next full moon you will turn into a werewolf. Or you can choose to become vampire, which means you get yet another choice. You get to choose your maker. It doesn’t have to be one of us. There are plenty of vampires around at the moment. The resort is sold out right now, remember?”
Amare lifted his hand. “Okay, you know what? I changed my mind. I’d rather Kiara and I have this conversation in private.”
Renaldo plucked the glass out of Kiara’s hand. “Let me make her a fresh drink, and then we’ll get out of your hair.”
The clicking of the door as it closed behind them echoed in the
otherwise quiet space. Amare reached out, wanting to touch Kiara—even better, pull her into his arms—but he pulled his hand back.
If they had already proclaimed their love, if she had already told him she wanted to be with him forever, this would be so much easier.
But she hadn’t. They hadn’t even talked since they made love, two days prior.
All he had wanted was to give her a chance to relax, to enjoy herself. They weren’t even supposed to make love. He shouldn’t have taken her blood.
“What are you thinking right now?” Kiara said, breaking into his thoughts.
He barked out a laugh. “That everything is fucked.”
The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Me too.” She blew out a breath, took another drink, and continued staring out the glass doors at the darkness beyond.
“So I get to either become a wolf or a vampire, huh? Can’t stay human?”
He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, no, you can’t stay human.”
She glanced over her shoulder and arched her brows. “Is that unfortunate because you are about to lose your source of sustenance? Or can werewolves still be vampire blood donors?”
He quickly shook his head. “That’s not why I said unfortunately. It’s because you are losing your choice in the matter, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
“So can werewolves feed vampires?”
He shrugged. “It depends. Their blood is different than a human’s. It has magic in it, of course. That means it’s volatile. Some vampires can handle it, some can’t. And you really don’t know until you try it.”
“If I become a werewolf, we won’t know if we can continue our relationship until the transformation is complete, then. I won’t know if I can keep any of my clients either, right?”
He grasped her arms. “Please tell me this before you decide: do you want to continue with your current career?”
She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I don’t want…I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
She lifted her face to arch her brows and pucker her lips, and he nodded. “Sorry, I suppose you don’t,” he conceded. “What I meant to say was, I don’t want you to continue with that career.”