She couldn’t die. There was still so much she had to do with her life.
“It is time to end our suffering . . .” Their moan echoed through Ariana’s ears, over and over again, pounding in time with her heart. She was trapped. A mouse in a snake cage, wondering which hungry predator was going to strike first. Which Watcher would be the one to push her over the edge of the pit?
A Watcher stepped forward, snatched Ariana by the wrist, and dragged her closer to the fire. Ariana tugged against the pasty woman, skidding her feet in the dirt, but her strength was no match. A thunderous roar sounded from behind her as the woman held Ariana’s hand over the pit, palm down.
The fire was scorching hot, flooding Ariana’s forearm with waves of unbearable heat. A crimson flare shot from the heart of the pit and rammed through her fingers, ricocheting up her arm with the speed and intensity of a lightning bolt. Writhing to escape the torturous heat, Ariana thrashed against the woman’s hold, pleading with the other Watchers for help.
Where was Echo? Was he among them? Watching from afar? Why wasn’t he stopping this?
As her hand went numb and an electric current buzzed up her arm, Ariana twisted her hand and caught a glimpse of the mark on her forearm. She gasped, frozen in disbelief. The fire hadn’t burned or charred her skin at all! The mark on her skin was deeply grooved and black—branded—with raised red marks outlining it.
On her forearm, raised and warm, was a large half-moon reaching nearly elbow to wrist. A sword speared through the center, its tip touching the heart of her elbow. It was clearly the symbol of Black Moon; there was no guessing now.
What had they done?
Movement sparked out of the corner of Ariana’s eye, arresting the blood in her veins.
It was Dante. He steamrolled through the crowd of Watchers, shoving them to the ground as he passed. Shredded pieces of rope hung from his wrists and dragged from his ankles. His irises swirled gold like glowing molten lava. His jaw was set hard, his face shadowed by impenetrable rage.
Watchers swarmed Dante as the woman continued to hold Ariana’s palm over the fire. They consumed him in a sea of white until Ariana thought for sure that was the last time she’d ever see him again. Despair rooted in her stomach.
A guttural cry, too demonic to come from Dante’s lips, sliced through the night as a blast of icy air whipped around the courtyard. The Watchers that had circled Dante flew through the air as if he was the center of the sub-zero vortex, and landed on the other side of the pit. Right on their white-robed asses.
Ariana couldn’t describe what happened next as anything but surreal.
The glacial blast of air circled the courtyard faster and faster, taking on a solid, gray form. It was a tornado that grew in breadth instead of height. A cyclone that breathed air instead of water. It thrashed around and around, skimming against the walls of the compound, swiping Watchers off their feet. The woman holding Ariana’s hand lost her footing, slammed into the ground, and was dragged away.
Holding her arm against her chest, Ariana instinctively looked for a place to hide. But as the wind gusted harder, lifting Watchers off their feet and pinning them to the walls, Ariana realized it wasn’t affecting her—it was swirling around her. And it wasn’t affecting Dante either. He was kneeling in the dead center of the vortex, head hung low, breathing hard.
Was he doing this?
The air around Ariana seemed peaceful. Oddly serene.
And just like that, like a light switch flipped, Dante lifted his gaze to hers. The icy wind exhausted its strength and disappeared. Like it was never there at all.
Watchers around the courtyard gasped and lowered their gazes as Dante slowly stood. They bowed as he met each of their eyes. And stumbled out of his way as he finally took a step toward Ariana.
“Halt!” Pike stormed to their position, white leather coat whipping behind him.
Too stunned to do anything stupid, Ariana obeyed and stayed put. Dante, on the other hand, continued his path to Ariana’s side. He seemed rigid and unafraid. Everything Ariana wished she was.
“Come on,” he said, his expression a stony mask. “They can’t even meet my eyes. They won’t touch us now. We’re leaving.”
“But . . .” How did he know they wouldn’t attack them like they did before? She looked back to where Dante had been bound.
“Don’t worry about Ruan. He escaped during the fire and ice show.” Dante read her mind and took her by the arm. “I don’t care if I have to plow down every Watcher here.” He led her toward an oval-shaped tower where a large gate was inset into the stone. “We’re not staying another second. How’s your arm?”
“It hurts something fierce, but it’ll heal.” The mark was hot and itchy, burning from the inside out. At least the pain distracted from the irritating scrapes on her leg.
“You mustn’t leave!” Pike shouted, stopping when his feet touched the outermost mark where the eerie tornado had been. “You! Slave! You must stay!”
Feet striking the dirt hard, Dante glanced over his shoulder. “You’re confused. I’m no one’s slave.”
They were almost out. Almost to the gate. Not a single Watcher they passed so much as looked at them. It was like Dante and Ariana had suddenly become lepers. What was the change? And why did Dante seem to know what had happened?
“Oh, but you are! You are slave to your sin!” Pike snapped, slinking along the walls of the building, working his way around to their position. Why wasn’t he charging through the center of the courtyard like they had? “I can help with the sin tainting your soul. But to do so, you must stay. You cannot leave.”
“You cannot stop me,” Dante mocked, guiding Ariana in front of him. “See that lever on the right? In the alcove of the rock?” His feather-soft words carried over her shoulder. She spotted the lever beside the gate. “If something happens to me, you pull that sucker and run back to Black Moon.”
“Dante—”
He leaned close and spoke low, rumbling with power. “Run and don’t look back.”
Ever so gently, he pushed against the small of her back, keeping between her and Pike.
“You must hear the truth before you leave,” Pike said, closing in. “We are not letting you go because you are a freak, though you seem to relish in the idea that you are. We are letting you go because we know exactly what you are.”
At that, Dante slowed.
“Come on,” Ariana said, finally stepping into the opening of the tower. A few more steps and she could reach the lever. Why was Dante stopping? She tugged against him and got nowhere.
Dropping Ariana’s arm, he stopped and faced Pike. “What am I?”
Ariana moved fast, shoving the lever into the lower position. With a groan, the gate unhinged and fell forward, a brown tongue lolling into the dark mouth of the forest.
“Ariana is not the one after all. We were mistaken. You are the one we’ve been waiting for.” Pike’s voice was louder than it had been a second ago. He couldn’t have been more than a few feet away now. Dante stood motionless, a statue in black Under Armour and faded denim, his arms folded across his chest. “You’ve got the mark within you. I can see the truth now as if it was written on our walls. It will reveal itself when you resist the urges pulsing through your mind.”
What was Dante doing? Why was he hesitating, listening to this bullshit?
Pike came into view at Dante’s side, his bulky frame silhouetted by yellow streams of moonlight.
“You’re the one who’ll deliver us to the Ever After,” he said. “If we play our cards right, you will silence the voices of those we must leave behind.”
“Hate to break it to you,” Dante said with a shrug, “but I can’t help you there. I ain’t even on the guest list for the After Life party.”
“Before you can reach your destiny you have to travel to a place none of us have gone before.” P
ike turned his white-hot gaze on Ariana. “You have to be accepted into Black Moon.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening.” Dante coughed out a laugh.
“You don’t understand,” Pike said. “It is your destiny. You must go to Black Moon. You must be granted entrance. It is written so.”
“Save your prophesies for someone who believes in that bullshit. I thought for once someone might’ve shed some light on something for me. Guess I was wrong.”
As Dante strode beneath the arch of the tower and took Ariana’s hand, Pike unsheathed a dagger from the sleeve of his coat. With bullet-strike speed, he stabbed it hilt deep into Dante’s side.
Ariana screamed, lunging for Dante as he fell to the floor.
Chapter Nine
“Southern California havens are now completely blacked out. In Hollywood, celebrity vamps are seeking shelter in rehab facilities as cover.
Elders killed: 126. Mawares Savage controls: well over two hundred.”
WATCHER ARCHIVE, REPORT ON SAVAGE
DANTE REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS somewhere between royally and fucked. Falling into a void of knocked stupid, where wet, slippery blackness sucked him in and rolled him around like a tongue against a cheek was not something he’d ever experienced before.
His instincts flared to life, pounding blood through his veins and hammering the sound of a ticking clock against his skull. He wasn’t home. And he certainly wasn’t lying in his own bed. He didn’t have a mound of down pillows to support his neck, and his sheets didn’t have such a sweet lavender aroma.
Was he in Black Moon? ReVamp?
“I’m fine,” a quiet voice said beside him. It was Ariana. He could pick up the velvety inflections of her voice in a crowded room of screaming vamps. This time he didn’t sense anyone else nearby . . . she must’ve been on the phone. “My arm doesn’t hurt at all, actually. Seems Black Moon’s healing energies are just as powerful as they were before. So far it’s not showing any sign of weakness.” Silence buzzed in Dante’s ears, and then, “No, it looks as if the protective barrier is the only thing that’s failing.” More silence followed by a breathy sigh. “You don’t need to remind me. I understand the gravity of my failure just as much as you do. Probably more. Listen, if we want Dante to wake up anytime soon, I’ve got to get to work.”
She was here. They made it out of the Watcher’s compound. More importantly, whatever those ivory-skinned freaks did to her forearm hadn’t caused permanent damage.
Although his ears seemed to be working fine, Dante couldn’t open his eyes, lift his arms, or move his legs. And he couldn’t speak. Was this what being in a coma was like? Able to hear the outside world but unable to react to it?
His mattress sank as Ariana sat on its edge, rolling Dante slowly onto his side. His abs felt tight where Pike’s dagger had sunk in, and he was a bit sore beneath his obliques, but it was nothing that’d require major surgery. That pale-skinned coward would regret stabbing Dante from behind. If he’d had an honorable bone in his body, he would’ve attacked Dante face to face. At least then Dante could have respected him as a worthy adversary . . . he’d still have met death, but Dante would’ve made it quick. Now it was a different and horribly bloody story.
Damn it, he had to get out of here. Why couldn’t he move?
The brush of a soft hand stroked his shoulder, startling him. His skin rippled at the contact, as if the raw power of a lightning rod was harnessed in the tip of Ariana’s finger and shocked his nerves awake one by one. The feather-light touch continued down the round head of his shoulder, down the bulge of his bicep, and settled into the palm of his upturned hand.
His arm twitched. Shivered awake. Moved . . .
Ariana was healing him. After everything that had happened to her—the therian scratching the hell out of her leg, the Watchers branding some sort of mark on her forearm—she should’ve been focused on her own healing. Not his.
It’s not that he wasn’t grateful, he simply didn’t deserve the kindness.
Damn it, there went that sparking in his gut again . . . admiration. She was a good woman. A kind-hearted woman who had probably healed others before herself a dozen times before.
Dante clenched a fist and stretched out his fingers, happy as hell to be coming out of whatever stupor he was stuck in. He clutched at the sheets, popped his knuckles. Now if he could only move the rest of his body.
Ariana made a noise, so soft at first that Dante wasn’t sure if his ears were playing tricks on him. But as she created a soothing melody of highs and lows strung together, Dante realized she was singing, humming, as if he couldn’t hear her. Her melody was pure and innocent. Heavenly. It filled him with something—a warmth that spread through his body, filling the places that had long gone cold.
Her fingers danced back up Dante’s arm and across his chest. His breath hitched. Electric currents jolted through his rib cage, jerking his muscles and tendons to attention. Defibrillator paddles couldn’t have done more damage. His torso jumped off the bed, radiating with heat.
Then just like that, the heat, the electric current, dissipated into tingly, numbing sensations that blanketed his body.
He relaxed into the pillow-soft bedding, into her touch and her song.
Continuing to hum, Ariana made her path across his chest to his other arm as if nothing had happened. She stroked small circles in the heart of his palm. Tickled his shoulder. Rubbed the stubble shadowing his jaw. Leaning over him, Ariana massaged his neck, releasing knots of tension he’d been stocking up for fight night.
She was close . . . so close he could smell lingering hints of AB on her breath. She’d fed recently, probably within the hour. Her lips would be sugary rich, warm from the blood that’d just passed them. What he wouldn’t give for just one taste, one swipe of his tongue over the plumpness of her bottom lip.
She’d bathed recently, too. It wasn’t the sheets that smelled like such sweet lavender; it was her. Her skin would be soft tonight, wouldn’t it? God, how he longed to touch her the way she was touching him now. He’d kill for the chance to massage the tension from her shoulders or cup her narrow chin in his hands.
He pressed the kill switch on those thoughts before they traveled any farther.
If he started touching her, he wouldn’t stop until she was naked and writhing beneath him. He’d pleasure her like she’d never been pleasured before, suck the energy from her soul, and live with the guilt that he’d ruined another innocent woman.
Beyond his control, flashes of his former lover invaded his mind.
The longer he was with Sway, the more he noticed minute changes in her behavior. The girl he first met, the one who wouldn’t harm the hair on another’s head, refused to pay her landlord. Stole from their local bloodbank. Cursed at a woman with a stroller when she cut her off as she weaved through sidewalk traffic.
Near the end it got much worse. As Dante absorbed more of Sway’s innocence, she became angry. Belligerent. And then the unthinkable happened. Sway strolled into a nursing home dressed in a white robe, white hat, looking all the part of a nurse. She swiped a badge, let herself into room after room, and drained a handful of incapacitated elderly.
Dante was the one who found her, a waterfall of crimson pouring down her chin, smiling ear to ear as if she found a stash of gold for the taking.
He couldn’t bear to see the end of another woman because of his evil nature.
Especially not one as kind as Ariana. She was healing him. Making him feel things he didn’t think were possible. She was . . . different.
Under any other circumstance, if a dame stroked soft hands over his body, it’d be difficult to separate lust from physical hunger. But the stirrings inside him when Ariana came near were unlike anything he’d ever felt.
He thirsted for more than her sexual energy or her blood. The rumbling in his gut wasn’t from hunger pains.
For the first time, he didn’t feel like he’d pull from her. It surprised the hell out of him. If only for a second, he basked in the feeling of relief and allowed himself to feel something more.
Muscles knotted down Dante’s body, rigid with a new kind of tension—the hot-blooded, fevered and very sexual kind. As Ariana’s hands massaged the wide span of Dante’s torso, awakening every fiber in his chest and belly, his senses flared. He could smell Ariana’s arousal. Sense her desire blooming around him.
And as Ariana’s fingers began to press harder into his chest, Dante let a growl slip.
She paused, her hand going still. . . .
How would she look at this moment? Leaning over his body, her silky fine hair framing her beautifully heart-shaped face. Her lips parted just so. Her skin aglow in candlelight.
Picturing Ariana didn’t help Dante’s predicament. His shaft swelled at the mental image, hardening to stone. Guess she didn’t need to jumpstart every inch of him after all.
The more Dante tried not to picture Ariana, the more fragmented images of her splintered into his mind. Now was not the time to be disrobing her in his hyperactive imagination, but what choice did he have? It wasn’t like he could get off the bed, walk out of the room, and take a frigid shower; he was bound to the bed by an unseen force.
He didn’t know whether to cherish the eroticism of the moment—the fact that he was lying naked and helpless and her hands were skimming all over him was beyond fantasy level—or shut down completely by pretending he was being touched by a crude old woman or some shit.
What Ariana did next answered the question for him.
“Are you awake?” she asked, her hands planted on either side of him. “Dante? Can you hear me?”
He laid bone still, not that he had another option.
She leaned down. To study his face, maybe? A strand of her hair fell against the side of his face, tickling his cheek.
“Dante?” she breathed. “If you can hear me, say something.”
He could’ve opened his eyes or mouthed a response. But he didn’t. He held his breath. It was her move. Her game.
Last Vamp Standing Page 9