“Quit changing the subject. Dante bit my neck.”
“Let me look,” Lucy said, examining me. “It looks like a bug bite. Certainly not a human bite. He probably just scraped it and made it bleed.”
“But I felt something pierce my skin.”
“You felt him scrape thin skin that was healing. Go to the bathroom and look at it in the mirror. You’ll see. Listen to me. I’m a nurse, you know.” She chuckled.
“Ha-ha. So am I.” I opened my purse and removed a small compact. I had to agree with Lucy. It looked like a bug bite. She was no doubt right. In fact…
I’d seen a similar bug bite on my brother when we had breakfast a few days earlier. Mosquitoes, maybe? I didn’t recall being bitten, but that wasn’t abnormal.
“You want another drink?” Lucy asked.
“No, I’ve had enough.”
“Yeah, I think you have,” Lucy said, “since you’ve been hearing things. But I’m starved, and you cost me my night with Detective Hottie, so you’re buying me a late dinner.”
I laughed. “All right. I’m hungry too. I need to get something in my stomach.”
We walked a few blocks down to a little restaurant and edged in for their last seating.
I ordered some gumbo and then turned to Lucy. “Did you think Dr. Bonneville was acting weird during our last shift?”
“What do you mean?”
“After we lost that heart attack, she asked me to have coffee with her. She’s never done that before.”
“Really? What did you talk about?”
I took a sip of water, thinking. My mind was fuzzy from the martinis, and for some reason, I couldn’t remember much about my time with Dr. Bonneville. “Just about how she hated losing patients. That she died a little inside each time.”
“I think that happens to all of us.”
“It does, of course. But she takes it really hard. I don’t get it. She’s such a bitch most of the time, but when she loses a patient, she becomes… I don’t know. Human?”
“She may be a bitch, but she’s a top-notch physician,” Lucy said.
“I know that. She’s just such a riddle, you know?”
“I wouldn’t waste your time overthinking it. She’ll be back to her old self the next time we share a shift. Just be happy she showed you a little kindness.”
“Oh, I am. And trust me. I don’t expect her to repeat it.”
“Good thinking.”
The waiter delivered our food, and after a few bites, Lucy spoke again.
“So what was up with River’s cousin?”
“I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain he was drunk, though.”
“He seems to have a thing for you.”
“I’m not so sure he does.” I hadn’t told Lucy about my previous run-ins with Dante. I wasn’t real excited about telling my best friend that a guy had run out of my house after seeing my goods.
“Are you kidding? He couldn’t take his eyes off you. I asked River what was going on with him, but all he said was that Dante had had too much to drink.”
“See? That’s what I told you.”
“I know. But he had a look about him, Erin. A look of… The only word that comes to my mind is hunger.”
“Like you said. He was drunk.”
“Alcohol didn’t cause the look I’m talking about.”
“His own cousin attributed it to the drinking.”
“Yeah. But I think River was lying.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Just a tell he has. He looked away from me when he said it.”
That was a classic tell. Lucy was very intuitive, but she didn’t know River well at all. Yet. I had no doubt they’d hook up eventually. When Lucy wanted a guy, she almost always got him.
“You know I’m good at reading people,” Lucy continued. “And I’m telling you. River was lying, and Dante was hungry.”
“Well, he’s had more than one chance to satisfy his hunger with me,” I said, “and he hasn’t stuck around for any of them. So he’s clearly not that hungry. At least not for me.”
“Okay… We’re definitely going to revisit that subject. I see you’ve been keeping things from me. But I’m not talking about a hunger for sex. Or even a hunger for sex with you.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I’m not sure, honestly.” She took a bite of gumbo. “But it’s there. Believe me.”
Something in her voice convinced me. I believed her. I just wasn’t sure what I was believing.
I rubbed the raw spot on my neck.
And tingles shot through me.
Chapter Seven
Dante
“You’ve had too much to drink,” River said when we returned to Bill’s place. “That’s all it was.”
“That’s not true. I couldn’t resist her. You saw me. You’re telling me there was no music in that bar, but damn it, I heard music.”
“It’s the alcohol, Dante. You’re not used to it. I shouldn’t have let you drink so much.”
“For God’s sake, Riv, I’m twenty-eight years old. I don’t need my younger cousin to monitor my drinking.”
“Look, I may be younger by a few months, but I’ve got ten years on you in life experience.”
Defensiveness rose within me. “That’s not my fault.”
“Damn it, Dante, no one said it was your fault. But there are things you’re not used to. Like the urge that comes when you scent a dark-haired female with vampire blood. And the effects of alcohol on your system.”
“Has alcohol ever made you hear things?”
He shook his head. “But it affects everyone differently. Auditory hallucinations can happen.”
“How do you know that?”
“I searched it while you were dancing to no music. You freaked me out, Dante.”
“Right. You searched it. While you were sitting at a bar.” I rolled my eyes.
“Yes. I did. On my phone.”
“Oh.” I kept forgetting that cell phones were now minicomputers.
Bill shuffled in wearing lounge pants and no shirt. For one hundred and two, he looked great. Still had the musculature of a forty-year-old. “How was your night out?”
“Great. Dante drank a little too much.”
“For Christ’s sake, Riv.” I didn’t need a lecture from Bill.
“What? You did. You were hearing things.”
“Hearing things?” Bill asked.
Thanks a lot, Riv. “I’m fine, Bill.”
“What did you hear, Dante?”
“I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“Music,” River said. “He was dancing with a woman to music that wasn’t playing.”
“Really?” Bill inhaled, his forehead creasing. “Interesting.”
“It was the alcohol,” River said.
“Yes, probably,” Bill agreed.
But I wasn’t fooled. Bill didn’t think it was the alcohol. Something else was going on. Something he’d no doubt refuse to tell me. After all, I wasn’t ready.
When would I be ready? When I told Bill what I had been through? I wasn’t even sure how much of it was real. Much of it was, unfortunately, but I’d had so many nightmares as well.
I turned to Bill. “Do we have a queen?”
“What? You mean like the Queen of England? Of course not,” he said.
“That’s not what I mean. Do we—vampires—have a queen?”
“No,” Bill said. “We are citizens of whatever country we live in. We recognize the government of our country. We have a council of elders who make decisions regarding the Texts, but it’s not a governing body. You know all of this, Dante.”
“I’m asking historically, Bill. Was there ever a time when our ancestors recognized any kind of royalty?”
Bill narrowed his eyes. “I suppose there is history from long ago that was never recorded. Maybe there was some kind of royal hierarchy at one time. But certainly not now.”
She was no queen.
But what was she then? She had power from some source, money to hire goons, a hidden dungeon to keep me in. She was something.
“Why would you ask that?” Bill’s eyes were still narrowed, his forehead still creased.
My grandfather’s question was valid, but I couldn’t answer. Not yet.
There had been times when she’d made me say it, had tortured me so badly that not only would I say she was my queen…I actually believed it.
I almost believed that black was white after I’d been beaten, shocked, tortured into submission.
And then she drank from me. Made me drink from her.
I hated it.
And Bill wanted me to tell him what had happened.
How could I tell him—or anyone—what I’d let her do to me?
“Dante?” Bill’s voice.
I jerked out of my thoughts. “What?”
“Why are you asking, if you know we have no queen?” Bill said again.
“No reason.”
“I think there is a reason. I think it has something to do with where you were for the last ten years. You need to come clean.”
“Come clean? You make it sound like I was gone because I wanted to be gone. Trust me. That’s not the case.”
“I chose the wrong words. I’m sorry.” Bill put his hand on my shoulder. “I can help you if you let me.”
“Help me? I’ve asked for your help, and you’ve refused me every time. I have things going on inside me that I can’t explain. River says it’s because I’m not used to all the scents around me. Or he blames it on alcohol. That I’m not used to it. I don’t discount either of those explanations. They are probably partially to blame. But I’m telling you. There’s something more.”
“He’s drawn to the scent of a certain female,” River volunteered. “One that’s descended from vamps at some point in her ancestry. I’m familiar with the scent, because her brother is my partner. It’s a difficult scent to resist, and he’s not used to using self-control.”
“Thanks for that,” I said with an eye roll.
“Hey, you wanted his help. Have you told him any of this?”
“Let me ask you this, Dante,” Bill said. “Have you met River’s partner? The brother?”
“Briefly.”
“And how does he smell to you?”
“Good the first time I met him.” That night, with the homeless man. “But now…I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean exactly what I said. I don’t know. That’s my point. When Erin is around, I can’t smell anything else. It’s like she’s the only blood on the planet. In fact…” My thoughts churned. Had I even scented another being since I’d met Erin?
No. I hadn’t. I’d smelled the testosterone and adrenaline in the man from her bedroom, but I hadn’t smelled him. His own unique scent.
“I already told him that vamps don’t have fated mates,” River said.
“No, we don’t,” Bill agreed.
“Then what’s going on with me?”
“Truthfully?” Bill rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. But if you want to figure this out, you need to tell me what happened to you, Dante. You need to tell me everything.”
Crazy. I’d escaped. The smells had overwhelmed me—every human and animal that had crossed my path, the homeless man from whom I’d stolen money and clothes.
Erin’s brother—the detective who’d stopped me that night. I’d smelled him then. He smelled similar to Erin…yet different. So much different.
Then I’d picked up the various scents at the hospital, and I’d run.
And then…Erin.
Her scent.
She was inside me. So much a part of me that my olfactory sense hadn’t picked up another since I’d found her.
“I don’t think I’ve smelled anyone since I met Erin.”
“Really?” Bill arched his eyebrows, looking pensive. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I didn’t realize it until just now. And before, when I was trying to make you understand, you kicked me out of your office. And when I tried to talk to you”—I turned to River—“you couldn’t hear what I was saying. When you, your partner, and Erin were all in the same room, all I could smell was Erin.”
The wrinkles in Bill’s forehead became more pronounced. He was concerned. “Are you sure?”
“Only since I met her, I mean. When I first escaped, I could smell everyone and anything around me. But since meeting her—” I raked my fingers through my hair. “It hadn’t occurred to me that I can’t smell anyone else’s scent. But I can’t.” I inhaled. “Nothing. Has anyone been here recently?”
“The kid down the street came by selling something for school,” Bill said. “His scent is still in the air. It’s young blood, tinny and full of testosterone.”
I inhaled again. Nothing. I shook my head.
“Maybe your sense of smell just hasn’t evolved,” River said. “Because you’ve been gone and all.”
“I just told you I smelled everything when I escaped. You’re not listening again, River.”
“If you’re correct, Dante, and you can’t smell anything—”
“Of course I’m correct!” I interrupted my grandfather. “I know if my nose is working or not!”
“All right,” Bill said. “Then this is serious. In the past, a vampire needed his sense of smell to protect himself and others. While it’s not as necessary today, we still depend on it.”
“She did something to me…” I murmured.
“Who did? Erin?” Bill began pacing across the floor.
“No. No. Not Erin.”
“The person who took you,” Bill said. “She was a female, wasn’t she?”
I pulled at my hair. “I can’t. Can’t go there.”
“Dante,” Bill said seriously. “You have to.”
River nodded, touching my forearm. “Please, Dante. You were taken against your will. If you can’t talk to Bill, please talk to me. I’m a detective. I will find whoever did this to you. I promise you. But trails grow cold quickly. Please. Tell us all you know, and I will put whoever did this to you behind bars.”
Chapter Eight
Erin
Whatever this “hunger” was that Lucy thought she saw in Dante, I couldn’t get her to elaborate on it. Instead, she changed the subject, and we spent the remainder of dinner sobering me up. Good plan.
The next night in the ER, Steve ran up to me as soon as I arrived. “You’ll never guess what happened. Remember that patient, Cynthia North, who went missing from the ER last week?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“She’s back. She appeared on the ninth floor an hour ago, around ten.”
My heart thumped. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah. She’s stable, in a drug-induced coma. No one knows where she’s been or how she got back.”
“Stable? She was a bleeder…” My thoughts raced back to the night she came in. Dr. Thomas had been on duty. She’s a bleeder. Had we gotten her stabilized before she’d disappeared? Why was my memory so fuzzy?
“Yeah, I know. It’s all pretty freaky. Dr. Thomas and your nerd, Dr. Crown, are with her now, running some tests.”
“Who’s running things down here then?”
“They called in the hag. So watch your step.”
Just what I didn’t need. Though Dr. Bonneville had been nice to me the last time we’d worked together, after we lost the heart attack.
The heart attack. I’d grown used to identifying patients by their condition in the ER. But that man wasn’t a heart attack. Even though we hadn’t known his name, he was a person.
I needed to remember that.
I didn’t yet know if his family had been found, or even if they existed. Poor man.
“Is Lucy in yet?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen her.” Steve checked his pager. “Gotta run. The hag needs me.”
I wanted to run up to nine to see the patient who had reappeared, but she
was in good hands. She was stable. And alive.
More than I could say for the heart attack from two nights ago.
I went into the office, clicked on my computer, and did a quick search. Howard Dern. That was his name. Now he was no longer the heart attack in my mind.
Unfortunately, I didn’t feel any better knowing his name. He was still dead.
My side trip to the computer was the only relaxation I got that night. I did a lot of boo-boo mending. No real emergencies, which was always good.
But I did see an old friend—Mr. Lincoln, the homeless man whose drug panel had come back clean. He came in with a superficial stab wound. I cleaned him up and got him comfortable.
“You look familiar,” he said.
“I took care of you a week or so ago,” I said. “When you came in unconscious. Remember? My name is Erin.”
“That’s a pretty name.” He smiled. “Yes, I do remember. You thought I was on drugs.”
I said nothing. I still hadn’t ruled out the possibility. Labs weren’t foolproof.
“I don’t do drugs,” he said.
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“You don’t believe me. Just like you didn’t believe me about the vampire.”
“The vampire?”
“Yeah. I told you about the vampire I saw that night. Asked you if you’d seen him.”
It sounded vaguely familiar. “Uh-huh,” I said absently.
“I saw a ghost that night too.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “I’m sure you did. Are you feeling any pain relief yet?”
“Not yet.” He winced. “Don’t you want to hear about the ghost?”
“Sure,” I said, listening with one ear. Since I’d moved to New Orleans, I’d heard every ghost story in the book, but I hadn’t yet seen any evidence of phantom activity. Though I did get goose bumps walking around certain parts of the city.
Come to think of it, I’d had goose bumps while I was at Dante’s grandfather’s house, a known haunted location. I’d just chalked it up to being close to Dante.
Unchained: Blood Bond Saga: Volume One Page 12