Dark Heart of the Sun

by SK Ryder

  “It takes years for them to master those skills,” Garrett said, searching his nephew’s face with increasing interest. “Unless—”

  “Unless the sire is stronger than anything we’ve seen in a hundred years.”

  Garrett became still.

  The young ones, hungry and undisciplined, were easy to track, trap, and destroy. But the old ones were the Foundation’s ultimate targets. They could vanish for centuries, killing at leisure and spawning armies of new monsters to prey on the living. They often passed great strength to their younglings, making them equally difficult to locate and kill within a very short time. Old vampires were like an undetected cancer in the body of humanity. The mere suspicion of one in their sights was monumental.

  It took under half a minute on the grandfather clock before Garrett added it all up. “You’re saying an ancient vampire is traveling the world by boat, and . . . is here? How can you be so sure?”

  Jackson smiled his satisfaction as he glanced at Dominic on the screen, then back to the man who looked at him as though he had never seen his nephew before.

  “You and Dominic should meet. Today.”

  Chapter 18

  Unsolved Mysteries

  Dominic woke, still drifting in the peace of his conviction that he would never wake again, and decided Jackson Striker was useless. Either the man didn’t understand half of what he gave him credit for, or his intentions were not as hostile as they appeared. As the latter seemed unlikely, Jackson must be as clueless as he was useless.

  Dominic allowed himself a groan of sheer misery, but stopped when he smelled the aromas of a kitchen in high gear accompanied by the familiar clattering of pots and utensils. Beneath it all, Cassidy’s heartbeat thumped strong and steady, relaxed as she worked against a backdrop of American country music.

  With a smile, he recalled the passionate kiss in her bed this morning. She may well remember it as a dream, but remember it she would. So did he. He also remembered how close he had come yet again to doing her irreparable harm.

  His good spirits fading, he sat up and looked around. No trace of Serge. He had half-feared the lunatic would carry him away and bury him in the dune, but there hadn’t been time. Dominic was still here, another night alive and faced with a quandary he could no longer escape. He wanted her—needed her—like living things require air. That these feelings were mutual to some degree was obvious from her dreams, her touch . . . her kiss. But what if she acted on those impulses while wide-awake? He could not risk responding to her. He could not be a true lover and mate to her, and it was unforgivably selfish to seduce her away from a man who could, even if that man was an idiot. But he had no idea of what to do about it.

  He shrugged into his sweats and a fresh T-shirt, finger-combed his hair and confirmed the presence of the cigarettes and lighter in his pocket before heading for the kitchen.

  He got as far as the hall.

  The enormous black cat lay flat on its belly, pawing with intent savagery beneath the door to the laundry closet and oblivious to the blood-drinker standing over it. Dominic watched it work and felt a pang of sympathy for the little hunter’s frustration. Prey was so close, yet just out of reach.

  He helpfully pushed open the door and the cat pounced. Then hissed. And growled. A long black ribbon of muscle leapt out and coiled down the hall. The little hunter bounded after the snake, swatting and snapping at the slithering tail.

  “Eddie? What’re you doing?”

  Before Cassidy could round the kitchen counter, Dominic moved with lightning speed and grabbed the intruder’s head. The snake spiraled around his arm, frantic. The cat looked up at him, astonished.

  “You’re welcome,” he told it.

  Cassidy skidded to a halt. “Oh, my God. How did that get in here?”

  Realizing what had happened, the cat thought better of insisting on its prize. It trotted away, moving upstairs with an unhappy grumble. Dominic watched it go with a rush of unexpected pleasure at the little brother’s irritation instead of terror. Something had changed, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t the cat.

  “I don’t even want to know how you can touch that thing,” Cassidy said with a shudder. “Well, don’t just stand there. Get it out of here.” She made shooing motions toward the door as she retreated.

  When Dominic stepped onto the porch, he spotted Serge moving in the shadows. His face popped over the rail, all smiles.

  “Blood-child, you survived the day.”

  Dominic tossed the snake into the bushes behind Serge. “You were wrong, old fool,” he said under his breath. “Jackson is even more useless than you.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply before returning indoors.

  “Thanks for catching that,” Cassidy called over her shoulder as she worked at the stove.

  “Thank your cat. He found it.”

  He moved closer. Two pots boiled vigorously, one steaming vegetables and another heaving with a sack of boil-in-bag rice. The oven, too, was in use. Leaning sideways, he spied four servings of salmon and crabmeat roll-ups, ready-made by the local supermarket judging by the discarded packaging on the counter. An enormous leap forward from macaroni and cheese. He was inclined to be impressed.

  “I know. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t be so good at tracking those things down. If I don’t see it, I’d be happy not knowing about half the stuff that gets in here.”

  Dominic’s smile tasted bitter in his mouth. “I’m sure that some things he finds . . . you do not see.”

  She gave him a searching look but said nothing.

  He opened the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of Perrier. Of all the things he had enjoyed before, this was the only thing left to him. More or less. He would have preferred the softer San Benedetto sparkling water from his restaurant days, but this worked well enough. The bubbles soothed him, and he found that water lessened the need for blood to satisfy thirst as well as hunger. His Perrier habit saved lives.

  For a while, he watched her poke at the rice bag and the vegetables as though the constant attention would speed their cooking. Muscles flexed beneath the sun-darkened skin of her arms, and her half-gathered hair brushed bare shoulders and flashed copper highlights. The navy blue tank top hugged her torso, delineating the strong lines of her back. A skirt of tie-died turquoise reached to her ankles. Sand still clung to her heels.

  He took a tentative breath, scenting for her living heat. The baking fish smothered the air, but he did catch the distinctive fragrance of her blood—and immediately wished he hadn’t. Merde, he was hungry.

  It would be better to leave. Now. Let her think he was still put out about the events of last night. Let her believe he was moody, temperamental, and reprehensible. All that was true enough and would only be fair to her. But his need to be near her rooted him to the spot. He needed to hear her speak her mind tonight, to hear what conclusions she had reached during the day.

  But she held her silence, preoccupied with her cooking.

  “No microwave?” he prompted. “No macaroni and cheese?”

  “I know you don’t like either.” She hesitated. “I doubt this is up to your standards, but I’m hoping you’ll cut me some slack.”

  “It is a commendable effort. And one of quantity. Are you expecting company?”

  “Why? So you can pick a fight with them, too?” she wondered without turning from the stove.

  He leaned against the kitchen counter, half-crossing his arms, swirling the bottle as he struggled to think of the apology she deserved and which he was unable to voice. He wasn’t at all sorry for antagonizing the man who claimed her, and he would not stand here and say otherwise.

  “You’re still upset.”

  Her shoulders relaxed a little. “No. I’m not. I should be. But I’m not.”

  He made no effort to hide his su
rprise.

  Glancing at him, she twisted her mouth into a sour line. “Jackson was as big an ass as you were. I have never seen him like that, but I have some idea where he’s coming from. What I can’t figure out, though . . . is you.”

  “Moi?”

  “Oui. You.” She turned to face him now, clutching the wooden spoon in one hand like a weapon. “What were you thinking? After I asked you to stay out of sight, why were you there anyway? And why did you provoke Jackson like that?”

  “Is that truly such a mystery?”

  She shook her head. “I know what it looked like, but . . . no. I don’t know. I thought we were friends. Friends don’t go out of their way to wreck each other’s relationships.”

  “Is that what I have done?”

  “Is that what you wanted to do?”

  He had no answer to that.

  “So what was that?” she asked again, her voice soft with confusion.

  He emptied the bottle while wondering what he could tell her that was at once true and comprehensible. He needed her, and felt as protective of her as he ever had of anyone—even if what he had to protect her from was himself.

  That last was no small feat. Only two weeks ago, this scene here with her so close and emotionally raw and him not having hunted in two days would have been unthinkable. His ability to deny the beast right now was as remarkable in its own way as her attempt at an actual meal.

  And somehow, miraculously, they had done this for each other.

  He chose his words with care. “I wanted to make sure that this man is worthy . . . of my friend. She deserves to be cherished.”

  Her lips flattened, keeping the thoughts whirling behind her eyes from spilling out of her mouth. What finally emerged was, “You don’t think he is worthy of me, do you?”

  “I think he means well for you.” The only positive thing he could get himself to say about the man.

  Cassidy considered him as though weighing facts known only to her. Then she nodded, a shadow of regret passing over the blue oceans of her eyes. “Friends. All right then.” She turned back to her pots and away from what was really on her mind. And his. “Well, I still think you were a jerk, my friend. But so was Jackson, and he’s come to his senses, I think. He came by here earlier to apologize in person.”

  “Did he?”

  “He even brought that creep of an uncle with him and made him apologize, too, for how he treated me that night at the house, if you can believe that.”

  Suddenly Dominic wasn’t sure what to believe about Jackson Striker. “Would it not have been easier to call?”

  “Ya think? That was my question, too.” She fished the plump-to-bursting bag of rice out of the water. “He said they were in the area of my office, and when they didn’t find me there, they came here. God, that was awkward.”

  Pouring out the water, she sliced open the bag and emptied the rice back into the pot. “I managed to get off a little early today so I could get this organized. I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Starving,” he said, envisioning Jackson’s throat.

  “Oh, good. The salmon is almost done.”

  He blinked. “What? What are you doing?”

  “I thought that was obvious?” He stared at her, dumbfounded, and she continued as though speaking to a slow child. “I’m cooking dinner? Jerk or not, I owe you after all you’ve done for me. So tonight, my friend, I’m going to feed you for a change.”

  He choked down the impulse to laugh. Or cry. He wasn’t sure which. He settled on a tight, “I cannot.”

  “You just said you’re starving.”

  “I have to be somewhere.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that, too.”

  “About . . . that?”

  “Remember I said I wanted to help you?”

  “You cannot. No one can.”

  “Well, what if I can?”

  His lips twitched. She looked so grim and sure of herself, as though made invincible by the might of her cooking spoon. “You do not know what you are talking about, ma amie.”

  She turned off the stove and oven and came close enough for him to feel her living heat push at him. “What if I do?”

  “Then you are a fool for still being here.” All his nerves stood on end. Did she know? No, she couldn’t know. She wouldn’t offer him regular food if she did. In fact he’d be a pile of ash by the front door if she knew.

  “No argument there,” she said, further confounding him. She put down the spoon and pressed her hands together in front of her. “Hear me out, please. I think I can help you. But I’ll need your help to do it, and I’m guessing that won’t be easy for you.”

  Her heartbeat reverberated in his skull. Hunger sharpened to a fine point in his gut. His voice strangled in his throat. “Outside.”

  From the porch, he scanned the shadows for Serge, Cassidy’s guardian angel, but the pest was nowhere to be seen. Merde.

  He lit a cigarette, feeling her watch him, praying there wasn’t enough light for human eyes to see his shaking hands. As she couldn’t abide smoke, she kept her distance, though she obviously wasn’t pleased about this.

  “What is it you think you know?” he said when he felt somewhat sure of himself again.

  “I . . . did some research today. For a story. I found some things from St. Barth.”

  Alarm zinged through him. “What story?”

  “The local gang war.” She fell into an expectant silence.

  His mind reeled with the implications, refusing to consider the much more unsettling fact of her mentioning his island home. “Why are you writing about that?”

  “I have a suspicion that it isn’t a gang war at all. I think there is something else going on.” She hesitated, glancing at the cigarette. “Will you . . . can we talk about this?”

  He flicked a blob of ash to the ground. She knew nothing. He was hungry. He should be gone. “What do you believe this has to do with me?”

  “Because of what happened to your family.”

  He gripped the porch railing so tight the wood creaked in protest. Venomous mists of memory rose to engulf him. The beast churned, cold and hungry. Deliberately keeping his movements to a minimum, he drew hard at the cigarette.

  He should have told her to be still, to forget whatever she thought she knew or wanted to do. He should have bent her to his will on this. His sanity depended on it. Instead it was her voice weaving a spell around him.

  “I found the articles about your father and sister in Le Journal. Had to use the online translator again, but I got most of it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  Still he said nothing.

  “I have a theory, Dominic, that what happened there and what’s happening here are related. The . . . well, there are similarities. And there were a few more deaths like it on other islands around that time as well.”

  He should leave, but his morbid fascination belonged only to her earnest, innocent voice.

  Organized crime, she believed, a violent cartel making a play for international markets by removing all opposition. His father must have stumbled on a smuggling operation run by one of his suppliers and paid with his life. Since he, Dominic, had been reported abducted, she reasoned that they wanted to use him for their own ends—as a hacker perhaps or for his martial arts skills. Likely they used his sister Anastasie to coerce him, perhaps Jeovana, too, for Cassidy had found the paparazzi pictures of them together. She believed these women were killed to force his hand, but he got free and now hid from these mysterious perpetrators, probably to keep what remained of his family safe.

  He listened, entranced, as charmed as he was stunned by her absolute belief in his innocence in all of it.

  “So,” she concluded. “How close am I to the truth?” />
  He couldn’t help a facetious smile as he finished the last of the cigarette and stubbed out the butt on the porch rail. She had found the bloody trail to his past, yet the truth still escaped her. “What do you propose to do with this theory of yours?”

  “I want to propose writing an article about it, throw some light on these connections. The gang wars are already national news, so what I write should get broad attention, too, and stir up some more investigations. These bastards need to be stopped or at least slowed down. But . . . I need you to tell me what you know.”

  He shot her an incredulous look. “You believe I’m being coerced by a criminal organization which thinks nothing of cold-blooded murder, yet you think I will simply tell you what I know?”

  “I wouldn’t use your name.”

  “Ah. I would be an ‘anonymous source’?” He gestured vaguely with one hand. “That will not help your credibility, ma chère, or keep me safe if what you suspect is true. If such an organization exists, they will notice your reports, consider your inside information, and start watching your every move. They will find you and then me.”

  “Oh.” Her brows drew together at this wrinkle in her logic.

  It was a genuine wrinkle. Though not an organization as such, ‘they’ existed, and if they had an agenda, it had nothing to do with dominating the world of organized crime. But one of them could well notice her evidence, her so-called anonymous sources, and draw the correct conclusions.