[Dark Destinies 01.0] Dark Heart of the Sun

by SK Ryder

  “I know you can do this,” she said. Her hot, unexpected touch on his arm drove his fingers into the upholstery beneath him.

  The whole room glowed with brilliant colors and razor-sharp contrasts. In the midst of it all, Cassidy’s golden aura swirled with the pulsing river of her blood. She caught her breath at the darkness spreading in his eyes, but with surprise, not fear.

  “I’m not so sure.” Raw lust rolled in his voice.

  “I am. You would have been out that door by now if you thought you might hurt me.”

  He leaned towards her without making a conscious decision to do so. His nostrils flared, taking in her scent, his monstrous black eyes locked with her unblinking cobalt gaze. “Do you have any idea what you are tempting me with?”

  “I do now,” she whispered, breathless. She held up one finger between them. “There is one thing. I . . . I want to see it this time.” With that, she turned over her arm, exposing her wrist.

  Had she taken off her clothes with an inviting smile, she could not have inflamed him more. Every fiber of his being burned for her blood, and his wits fluttered like startled birds. Dominic closed his eyes. Control. He had to maintain control. Otherwise the beast would ride him into the abyss. She was convinced he could. He was certain only of not wanting to let her down.

  Forcing himself to concentrate on precisely how and where to bite, he traced the vein that ran the brightest from her inside elbow down to the delicate bones of her wrist where the line rose like a small, blue worm. She shivered when he sniffed at it.

  “You smell like the sun,” he murmured, entranced, before closing his mouth over her pulse. A moment later, her blood washed his tongue, tasting of copper spiced with pepper and wine. His poison leached into the wounds, escaping into her body, dragging his awareness with it.

  For a while he drifted in darkness, savoring the taste of her and nothing more. Then a flood of sunlight swept him away.

  Chapter 31

  No Fit Company

  Sometime after midnight, Dominic stood over a body drained of blood. “Merde.”

  So much for trying to feed Serge’s way without Serge. After drinking from Cassidy the night before and managing to stop on his own before the height of euphoria knocked him senseless, he was certain he could manage this. Where Cassidy had welcomed him into her arms and mind, however, this clueless young thug was far more apprehensive about the stranger who embraced him. The beast pounced. The rest was inevitable. Dominic’s body still thrummed with the ecstasy.

  He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. It shook a little. What a fool he was.

  Retrieving the phone from his pocket, he dialed from memory a number he had seen only once before on Cassidy’s phone. When it hit voice mail, he dialed back, and then again.

  “Who the fuck is this?” a man’s sleep-roughened voice demanded at last.

  “Bonjour,” he said and waited. After several seconds of dead air, he ventured, “You missed me, non?”

  “What the fuck do you want?” Jackson Striker sounded wide-awake now.

  Dominic hesitated. The words he really wanted—needed—to say refused to emerge from the crack in his heart. “I need to see you.”

  “You’re joking.”

  He let the silence speak for itself.

  “Why?”

  “I will explain when we meet. Where will you be in two hours?”

  “You think I’m going to agree to meet with you in the middle of the night? How stupid do you think I am?”

  “I think you are curious, non?”

  This gave the human pause. “What guarantee do I have that I’m going to walk away in one piece and with a full blood supply?”

  Dominic stared at the corpse by his feet. “I truly only wish to speak with you.”

  Long pause. “Fine. In four hours I’ll be at the municipal airport, getting on a plane to Buenos Aires. I can spare a few minutes then. Don’t be late.” Jackson didn’t wait for a confirmation before disconnecting.

  Four hours later and an hour and a half before sunrise, Dominic cruised through the heart of Orchard Beach, down roads that stretched like empty raceways under the glow of yellow sodium lights. A strange mixture of reluctance and purpose welled in his heart, fueled by the joy he’d known in Cassidy’s arms the night before. For hours they had lain together in a swoon after he sipped her vein, his starving soul twining with her generous spirit, their surrender to each other complete. Their minds locked together like pieces of a puzzle, conjuring a shared dream of sunlight and memories, both ecstatic and abysmal. Together they laughed and they wept, understanding all and hiding nothing. They were one. And whole.

  “All is as it must be,” Serge had said later when Dominic joined the would-be oracle on the front porch after Cassidy drifted off to sleep. “She is the key that has unlocked your destiny, blood-child.”

  For once, Dominic didn’t argue. Nothing had ever felt so right. As had Serge’s proclamation tonight when he declined to accompany Dominic on the hunt. “Tonight you begin to live your destiny.”

  Stupidly, he believed this was the fool’s dramatic way of saying he deemed Dominic ready to hunt on his own without making bodies.

  It means nothing, he chided himself now, but couldn’t quite shake the sense of something momentous hanging over him. The night oozed portent.

  At the airport entrance, the large, sleepy-looking guard handed him a parking pass and pointed out the hanger with the SCI logo emblazoned on the side. Jackson’s sleek white Audi stood parked nearby in the glare of a floodlight, and Dominic pulled the bike up next to it. He looked around while shedding his helmet and gloves.

  The hangars and office buildings were lit and a line of blue lights indicated the single runway, but there was no activity anywhere in the area. The main doors to the SCI hangar stood partially open. Silhouetted against the bright interior, a figure paused at the edge of night, his hands tucked into the pockets of his Dockers, his white polo shirt crisp. Dominic detected only one heartbeat, a slightly accelerated thumping against a backdrop of subtle machine noises. Jackson was alone.

  Whether to put the human at ease or delay the unavoidable, he couldn’t say, but Dominic took his time shrugging off the jacket and draping it over the seat by the helmet. Also, the fresh blood scent of tonight’s hunt still clung to the leather, presenting a distraction he could do without. Soft night air caressed his bare arms and ruffled his hair.

  “Do I even want to know why there is a machete strapped to your ride?” Jackson called.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  Jackson didn’t. Retreating into the hangar, he said, “I need to get this damn door unjammed before the crew gets here. You can do your talking while I do that.”

  Dominic followed, his reluctance deepening, but seeing no way around having this conversation.

  Inside, a Gulfstream jet sat with its door open and interior lights on, only in want of a pilot and an open hangar door. Jackson walked toward the far wall and a control panel.

  “I need to know your true sentiments for Cassidy,” Dominic said.

  Without stopping, Jackson shot him a dubious scowl over one shoulder. “Well, let’s see. I saved her from certain rape. She saved me from committing suicide. In the two years we lived together, she became the only woman for me. I proposed and brought her home, and not even six weeks later she dumps me for someone who can’t stay awake during the day and maintains a questionable diet. At knifepoint, I might add. I don’t know how I feel, Nicky. You figure it out.”

  “She does have a knack for attracting troubled souls,” Dominic murmured. In her mind he’d seen all this and more, witnessed Jackson’s varied personas and actions, felt all her emotions every step of the way. Remembering the bliss of lying in her arms almost made him turn on a heel and rush back to her, to to
uch her again and feel their minds brush against each other for as long as the night still lived, and every night thereafter for as long as his poison contaminated her blood.

  “I’m not fit company for her,” he said instead.

  Jackson turned away from the control panel, his hand hovering over it. Standing with his fingers pushed into the pockets of his leather pants, Dominic held his stare, ignoring the pulse ticking in the human’s neck. If only he could trust himself to drink without killing the man, this would be so much easier.

  “Did you have a point?” Jackson said.

  “I think you need to make more of an effort to be the man she deserves. Show her that you are the only man for her.”

  Jackson’s face colored. “And how do you suggest I do that? At gunpoint maybe? Is that considered a good foundation for a relationship in France?”

  Dominic raised a brow. “No.”

  “If you really feel that way, how about you stop drinking her blood and compelling her? That would be enormously helpful right there. Better yet, why don’t you just go the fuck away?”

  “If it were so simple, I would compel her tonight to forget I even exist.”

  “It is that simple.”

  “She knows far too much. She has seen more than she can ever forget, even if she allowed me to compel her.” Dominic came closer, his voice lowering. “You are the only one who can help her make a life in the human world now. She can speak openly to you about the things she has experienced just as she has about countless other things before, and you can speak to her.” He paused, riveted by the thunder of the human’s racing heart. “There is no need for secrets between you,” he whispered. “And that, mon ami, is a good foundation for any relationship anywhere. Even in America, non?”

  Teeth grinding, Jackson eyed him down his nose. “Get. Away. From me.”

  An artery throbbed mere inches from Dominic’s mouth, and his canines ached to pierce it. He took two careful steps back. He remembered to stop breathing too, both amazed and grateful that the outrage pulsing through Jackson had not morphed into terror. It was close though. The man teetered on a razor’s edge.

  “You’ve made your point. You are not fit for human company.” Jackson wiped at the sweat pouring off his forehead. “I’ll make my case to Cassidy again. But you’re going to stay out of her life. Is that clear?”

  Dominic closed his eyes. Despair cleaved through him, but he nodded. Cassidy had a chance now to live a full and happy life in the sun. Without him. “Merci.”

  “You’re the damn weirdest vampire I’ve ever met.”

  “You have met many?”

  “None like you.”

  Dominic shrugged and felt himself relax now that he had accomplished his purpose here and Jackson’s anxiety subsided. “Perhaps this is because I did not have the benefit of a proper blood-drinker education.”

  “And why’s that, if I may ask?”

  “My sire had no interest in providing it.”

  “Huh. That sucks,” Jackson said and turned back to the screen. He touched several controls, succeeding only in creating another blinking red light. “Fuck.”

  “I wonder if maybe you might have some more information for me?” Dominic ventured, daring to hope. “About my kind?”

  “I might. Damn. I don’t suppose you know anything about computers?”

  He allowed himself the smallest of smiles. “I might.”

  “Have at it. Fuck knows it can’t get any more broken than it is.” Jackson massaged the back of his neck, and Dominic’s eye caught on the two partially amputated fingers. “Everything’s been acting up since yesterday.”

  “Has it?” Dominic recognized the damage caused by his hacking efforts. He could fix it with three simple commands. Not that he was about to do that in Jackson’s presence. The hangar doors, however, were innocuous enough.

  He touched the screen. It went blank.

  A rumble rolled through the cavernous space. When they turned to look, it was to see the massive door slide shut at the far end.

  “Nice, Nicky,” Jackson drawled. “Now you’ve got me curious. Does everything you touch die?”

  Dominic tried to reconcile the snide words with the strange excitement gleaming in the venomous bright eyes.

  A new sound filled the air, a mechanical humming that issued from the ceiling corners, all four of them. Basketball-sized spheres rotated there. An instant later they ignited blindingly brilliant beams of light that swerved through the enormous space.

  “Well, now you’ve done it,” Jackson said.

  Dominic shaded his eyes against the stinging glare with one hand. “What is this?”

  “My uncle’s idea of a security system. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it kick in. But of course”—he paused to watch the beams converge on Dominic—“I’ve never seen a bloodsucker in here either.”

  Dominic gasped. The exposed skin on his face and arms crawled with heat. Red-hot needles pierced his eyes, rendering him blind as he staggered backwards, throwing his arms across his face.

  The beams followed.

  He scrambled faster, crashed into a wall. He could feel blisters pop on his forearms and the back of his neck. Blood ran down his sides and back. “Do something!”

  “Working on it,” Jackson called from the vicinity of the control panel. He didn’t sound all that concerned though. “Did I mention our systems have been a mess?”

  Dominic tasted blood in his throat and felt the beast grip his body with every panic-fueled survival instinct it possessed. With a tremendous burst of speed, he streaked away only to crash into another wall. The impact shattered his shoulder, adding a dull new pain to his torment. The beams found him, and again he bolted. Again another wall stopped him. The thick aluminum sheeting dented under the explosive force of impact. This time, it was his back that took the brunt of the collision.

  Somewhere a door slammed, and he raced along every wall in an attempt to locate it. There were two—both of them steel and electronically locked—and no sign of Jackson.

  Finally he hurtled toward the only possible cover, the jet. Inside, the lights shafted through the large windows, luminous fingers seeking their prey. Dominic shot between them, past posh leather seats and into the darkened sanctuary of the galley. He slumped over the sink, gasping. His limbs spasmed with agony and exertion and sinister wisps of smoke hovered around him.

  In his heart, human terror warred with the beast’s rage. Every fiber of his being screamed TRAP!

  “Please tell me you’re not dripping blood all over the rug,” Jackson’s tiny voice said from the overhead speakers. “You have no idea how expensive those things are to clean.”

  Through the red haze of his clearing vision, it took Dominic a few seconds to spot the small camera mounted near the front of the cabin. “Please tell me you are actually trying to turn off your ‘security system’.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll get it turned off.” Pause. “As soon as the sun’s up.”

  “Brûle en enfer,” Dominic growled.

  “I did say you needed to go the fuck away, didn’t I?”

  Dominic straightened and assessed his surroundings—his very expensive, very mobile cage. With the beast all but off its leash, he darted down the length of the cabin and snarled directly into the camera. “You foul, useless coward. I agreed to your terms.”

  “What can I say? I guess I don’t trust you all that much.”

  Dominic stood just beyond the reach of two of the beams, but he felt them lying in wait for his smallest move like a thousand burning suns. Their brilliance reflecting off the high-gloss wood walls singed his face.

  No way out.

  Tonight you meet your destiny, blood-child.

  The wrath in his chest became still and cold and focused. He was at
the mercy of yet another madman. They were becoming a perpetual plague in his miserable existence. He held no illusions about one helping him against the other even if he were to call on his new blood-bond with Serge. The old pirate wouldn’t stand a chance against these high-tech systems, if he even bothered to show up at all since he considered Dominic’s dealings with Jackson ‘destined’. No. Dominic’s only plausible ally could not be counted on to so much as bare a fang.

  His body tightened as the beast rose to the surface.

  “You do not trust any of us, do you, Jackson?” he wondered, eyeing the camera lens.

  The calm tone together with the transformation of his face, made Jackson hesitate. When he did speak, animosity poured from the speakers like a waterfall of acid. “The first vampire I ever met tore my twin brother to pieces right in front of me. What do you think, you fucking, bloodsucking bastard?”

  “I think you underestimate me,” Dominic said and bared his fully extended fangs in a lethal grin.

  Then he released the beast.

  With a pang of disappointment, Cassidy noticed the open door to Dominic’s room when she descended the stairs the next morning. Unease settled over her when she checked for messages on her phone over coffee and found none. He was spending the day elsewhere without explanation.

  He’d been in good spirits last night before embarking on a ‘quick outing’, the precise nature of which he tried—and failed—to conceal from her. The mental bond forged by his feeding from her was too strong to hide anything when they were anywhere near each other. He would siphon a pint or two from a body he intended to let walk away. Even Serge gave his blessing. What could have possibly gone wrong?