“Yes.”
She opened her mouth and blew out the rush of breath she couldn’t force down into her lungs. “Is there any way—I mean—can we still try to find a way to be together like-like a real couple, like real ones? There has to be another option besides going to live in those caves forever.”
She tightened her fingers around his hand this time, adding, “I’m really scared, Mateo.”
Mateo turned toward her. “I know. I am too,” he said quietly. “I didn’t expect it to be so hard. I thought I could pretend to be a real one with no major consequences. I envisioned we could be like a real couple, for a while, anyway.” His shoulders gave a heavy shrug. “We’d date and have fun. Fall in love in the natural human way, make love, all at night, of course. I wanted us to have a real love story.” He shook his head as a deep sigh echoed out of his mouth.
“I wanted you so desperately though, and in more than just in emotional and sexual ways. There is a hunger so much stronger than I ever imagined driving my vampire instincts when I’m around you. I couldn’t stop myself from biting your neck or your wrist almost every time we’ve been together.” He swallowed hard before adding in a tense voice, “I have never experienced anything as potent as the lure of your blood. It’s a temptation I’m too weak to resist.”
Dawn tried to force back the panic bubbling in her breast. This biting thing was so hard to accept without freaking out again. “If-if you hadn’t bitten me, I never would have known what you really are. At least, not until you were actually ready to take me to your village to live as your mate, right?”
“Well, yes. Maybe? But I’m not sure. I really don’t have any explanation for what happened. All the male vampires from my clan have always drunk blood from the neck, the wrist, then from the thigh of their mates the first time they came to them on the mountain. After that, they are mated forever. No one from my clan has ever tried to do what I’ve done with you.”
Her thoughts returned to the first night when she and Chloe had been camping in the Superstitions. She remembered the strangling fear she felt. But now she didn’t know what to feel. If he followed the customs of his clan, she wouldn’t be sitting here right now. This was a hard and terrifying realization for her to acknowledge with all the other thoughts spinning through her head.
“Is it my fault Chloe is dead?” As the words fell from her mouth she thought it felt as if the temperature in the cab of the truck plummeted to sub-zero.
Mateo stared straight ahead. “She is not dead.”
“Oh, thank God,” she gasped as she turned toward him. “She’s safe then?” He still didn’t turn to look at her. His jaw was set in a firm line. His eyes remained focused on the road. Her relief waned.
“No.”
The inside of her mouth felt as if it had just turned to dust. A razor-edged pain ripped at her breast again. Not dead. Not safe. Did she want to know what that meant? “Do you know where she is? Is she still on the mountain?”
His head nodded barely enough for her to notice.
“Is-is s-she—has she been chosen to ma-mate—”
“No,” Mateo cut in without further explanation.
A train wreck of emotions crashed through her heart and mind. She stifled the cry in the back of her throat. Chloe was still alive. That was the most important thing. “Is there something we can do to help her?”
“She cannot be helped,” he stated in a flat tone. He offered no further explanation.
His silence was as harsh as any words he could have spoken about Chloe’s fate. If Chloe was on the mountain with Mateo’s clan, and it was not for the purpose of mating, what other motive would a clan of vampires have for taking her captive?
The black sense of doom that seeped into Dawn’s consciousness made her wish there was a secluded corner where she could curl up right now. She could not allow herself to think about the other possible reasons Chloe would be in the vampire village. There was already too much insanity for her mind to absorb, and learning what was really happening to Chloe might break the last little grip of reality she was so desperately clinging to at this moment. She would ask Mateo to tell her all there was to know about Chloe, but she would wait until she felt strong enough to handle the entire truth.
“So, what’s going to happen to me now?” she asked in a feeble voice after a long pause.
He glanced at her this time. A poignant smile curved his lips. “I suppose that’s up to you.”
“I-I didn’t think I had a choice, especially after I pulled this stupid trick tonight.”
“Only Billy knows what happened today. He is honor-bound to obey me. He won’t tell anyone else.” He leaned closer. “I love you so much, Dawn. I still want to be here with you, in your world, for as long as possible. But eventually, we will both have to fulfill our destinies, and once I take you to the mountain, to my village, you will never leave.”
His gaze held hers for a moment before he was forced to turn back to watch the road, but his words held her prisoner.
Never leave.
She uncurled her fingers from his and clasped them together in her lap. His hand rested on her thigh for a few minutes longer, but eventually he pulled away and wrapped both hands around the steering wheel.
They drove in silence for the rest of the long way back. Dawn’s mind was making disconnected decisions, yet deciding nothing. She tried to imagine how she would say goodbye to her beloved parents and to her brother and sister-in-law before she went to the mountain with Mateo for eternity. It was too painful to even imagine.
She wondered how far away she could get if she left first thing in the morning, maybe took a plane to another country? Would she ever be able to get far enough away so he couldn’t feel her tears? Probably not.
Did she really want to try to leave him again? No. It was useless to waste energy thinking about anything other than how she would learn to accept her fate, because she knew she was going to be with Mateo forever. It was, after all, her destiny.
She would wait to talk to Mateo more about the future until tonight. There would not be much time once they got back to town this morning, because it wouldn’t be long before the sun would be coming up.
“Do you want to go to the condo or to your apartment,” he asked as the Apache Junction City Limit sign came into view. His voice sounded tired, strained.
Dawn’s own fatigue was about to engulf her and she could barely function. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep. Her head felt like her brain had exploded from too much thinking. There was still a dull ache in her neck. If only she could snuggle in Mateo’s strong embrace and sleep the day away. She wished, when they woke up, everything would just be normal, and all that happened the past few days would be just one more bad dream. Except, she didn’t have dreams. She had real nightmares.
“My place,” she managed to say with what small amount of energy she had left. It would still feel semi-normal there, or so she hoped.
He didn’t react. He merely turned in the direction that would lead back to her little apartment.
She noticed he glanced in the rear-view mirror again. He had done this several times, and she assumed he was checking to see if Billy was still following them in her truck. She didn’t have the strength to look back herself. But as Mateo pulled up to her apartment, she saw her white pickup pull up beside them.
When she grabbed for the door handle, Mateo jumped out of the truck and came around to her side. The engine was still running. She climbed down from the passenger seat without waiting for his help, but he was standing so close she staggered up against him once she was on the ground. She wasn’t sure if her legs could support her much longer. He didn’t give her a chance to try to make it to her front door on her own. He wrapped his arm around her waist and let her lean against him as they walked to her apartment door. If not for all the craziness in the past twenty-four hours, this would have felt so perfect.
As she reached into her purse to find her keys, he reached down and slid his hand under h
er chin. Tilting her face up so she was forced to look at him, he stared deeply into her eyes. Dawn was too tired to resist, even if she wanted to.
“I’m not going to give up in my quest to find a way for us to live here in your world for as long as possible. But you must also know I have gone completely against the customs of my clan, and I don’t know if I can hold off the inevitable indefinitely.”
His eyes were holding her gaze captive, and his voice sounded so filled with love and torment. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized he was suffering every bit as much as she was about their future.
“My love for you has no boundaries, Udaya. I would give my life to protect you.”
Her head nodded slowly. “I know,” she whispered.
Mateo’s hand lingered a moment longer under her chin. He looked expectant, waiting, hoping she would say something else. Words she wanted to say teetered on her arid tongue. He released his hold on her chin. His eyes had a strange shimmer as if tears were waiting to fall. He turned and walked slowly back down the sidewalk to where his truck was still idling.
She remained rooted to the spot, watching him walk away. Her heart followed, but her feet refused to let her run after him. She opened her mouth to call out to him. Words failed her. Mateo climbed into his truck where Billy Torres waited for him. They pulled away, disappearing around the corner at the end of the street.
“I love you, too, Mateo Two Moons, forever,” she called out, finally finding her lost voice. The faint glow of the rising sun appeared in the sky overhead. A new day was dawning.
Chapter Eighteen
Thursday was pretty much of a wasted day. Dawn had fallen into a deep black sleep the minute her head hit the pillow after Mateo left her. She hadn’t even bothered to remove her clothes. Only the tennis shoes she had taken from the condo were kicked off by the front door. The instant her eyes opened, though, all the madness of the past few days washed over her and any rest that might have dimmed the pain was gone.
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Three-thirty in the afternoon. Approximately four hours until sunset. Four hours until she saw Mateo again. Four hours to make the final decisions about how she would say goodbye to her loved ones and tie up the loose ends of her human life, just in case there was no way to prolong that destiny thing Mateo kept talking about and he ended up taking her up to the Superstitions tonight.
Never leave…she couldn’t get those two menacing words out of her mind.
The time had come for her to do whatever it took to conquer her irrational fear and let it happen. But just how was she going to do that? The idea of walking away from her entire life and everyone else she loved and cared about was too painful to think about, even if she could no longer avoid it.
At least, her neck felt better today. It didn’t hurt or ache when she touched her fingers against the spot where the band aid still covered Mateo’s bite. There were no signs of the nausea she experienced yesterday morning at the condo, either. It was becoming more and more obvious the sickness she randomly felt was definitely induced by Mateo biting her, because it was always after those frightening episodes when she was so queasy and dizzy.
Since she was feeling good right now, she’d better start figuring out what she had to do before she left to be with Mateo forever. But she had no idea how to even begin planning for the end of her life as a real one. Damn, that sounded so crazy.
Once in the shower, letting the water run extra hot over her body, she was finally able to begin to formulate a vague plan for today, at least. The first thing she wanted to do was get on her laptop and look up everything she could find about vampires, dhampyres, and their offspring, even though she realized there would only be legends and myths about these immortal beings because they weren’t supposed to exist in real life. Right?
Then, she would stop by the store and buy a pregnancy test. Not even scolding hot water could warm her frosty body up when she thought about the pregnancy issue. She touched her abdomen tentatively; still as firm and flat as ever, of course. What if there was a teeny dhampyre or whatever already growing in there?
Oh God.
Would she even have a chance to know it, love it, and be able to watch it grow up if she were already under his immortal spell as his eternal mate? It? A dhampyre? No. Just a baby. Her baby. And Mateo’s baby.
A whole new barrage of questions filled her over-crowded thoughts as she tried to fathom the idea of bearing his children. Just the entire idea of having any baby was scary enough, but having a half-human, half-vampire one was mind-boggling.
She quickly grabbed a clean pair of faded blue jeans, a loose fitting pink tunic top, and slipped a pair of pink flip-flops on her feet. They matched the petal pink nail polish she painted her toenails last Friday night when she and Chloe went to the pizza place to get a bite to eat and a couple beers for what they thought would just be a typical start to another regular weekend.
The night she met Mateo Two Moons. The night her world changed forever. Nothing would ever be the same again, especially if she was already carrying his baby.
A sense of panic gripped her insides and twisted them into a heavy knot in the pit of her stomach. The research could wait. First, she had to get a pregnancy test before she could concentrate on anything else. As she grabbed her purse and rushed out of her apartment toward her truck, she was struck by the heat of the late Arizona afternoon. It must be one hundred degrees today, but she was shaking as if she was in the Arctic.
Dawn noticed the interior of her truck smelled faintly like Billy Torres. Not an unpleasant odor, just a manly smell of soap and sweat. She guessed it could be expected since he had been in her truck most of the night driving back from the Colorado/Arizona border. Still, he smelled nothing like Mateo, whose musky cologne made her knees feel weak even now as she recalled his sexy scent.
Mateo Two Moons once again invaded her body and soul. He told her last night his love for her had no boundaries, and she knew her love for him had no limitations, either. Still, the idea of already being pregnant with his baby was almost more than she could handle, particularly when she was still trying to come to terms with all the other unbelievable factors involving their future.
As she pulled into the pharmacy parking lot, she was trying her hardest to convince herself there was no use agonizing about this pregnancy thing, yet. She just needed to know for sure she wasn’t so she could concentrate on all the other things she had to worry about. Luckily, she wasn’t worried about seeing anyone she knew because she was certain she would be incapable of acting like a sane person right now.
Fifteen minutes later she was back in her truck with a bright red bag sitting in the passenger seat. A loud relieved sigh escaped from her. She had skulked up and down the aisles of the feminine needs department so guiltily she was surprised a security guard hadn’t followed her out of the store to see if she shoplifted something.
She glanced over at the little unassuming bag that was so important to her right now. There were two pregnancy tests in the bag because the box said taking a second test was advisable for accurate results.
Just as she was rushing up the walkway to her apartment her cell began to ring. She nearly threw the bag and its contents all over the sidewalk. It was her mom. She didn’t answer. There was no way she could talk to her right now. Since she didn’t leave a message, Dawn assumed she wasn’t calling about anything urgent. She would return the call when things got back to normal.
Oh wait. Dawn chuckled in a sarcastic tone as she reminded herself once again of how her life would never be normal again.
There was absolutely nothing glamorous about peeing on a stick. Ugh. She read the directions several times since this was, thankfully, the first time she ever had the need to do one of these nerve-wrecking tests. Of course, she had never been this irresponsible before, either. Oh, and she had never made love to, or been bitten by, a vampire until the past week, either.
So many firsts lately.
As she counte
d down the ten minutes until the test was finished, she stood in front of the mirror above the bathroom sink. She gingerly pulled away the skin-covered band aid covering the bite on her neck and tossed it in the trash.
With a tentative glance, she tilted her head to the side and looked into the mirror to examine the wound that was healing fairly quickly from the looks of it. The slight indentations resembled a half-moon shape as if Mateo had bitten her with all his front teeth—just like the one she had on her wrist.
No fangs? Nothing about Mateo Two Moons was typical, not even his vampire bite, she determined with an aggravated huff.
She drew in a deep sigh and reached out to retrieve the narrow plastic stick from the bathroom counter. Please, no pink line, no pink line.
Her breath clogged her throat and prevented her from taking a breath as she forced herself to focus on the narrow area that contained the results. The breath she was holding escaped in one huge hissing exhale. No pink line! Whew!
Thank you, God. She continued to stare at the little white and blue stick in her shaking hand as she let her extreme relief calm the thrashing in her breast. She had been prepared for the very worst, and now, she was shocked to discover it turned out in her favor, for a change.
There was no need to take the test again. She would have taken a second test if this first one had been positive, but she decided not to push her luck. Okay, maybe that was not so responsible, but she couldn’t go through another torturous ten minutes. She had to research things that weren’t supposed to exist.
In folklore, a dhampyre is the result of a human mating with a vampire. The word originated in the Albanian language where dham means ‘teeth’ and pire means ‘to drink’. The powers dhampyres possess are the same as vampires, but they do not have all the typical weaknesses associated with vampires.
Dawn stared at her laptop screen. To drink with teeth. To drink human blood from necks, wrists, and thighs with teeth? It still didn’t match what Mateo told her.
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