“Why’s that?”
She blinked quickly, as if fighting back tears. But they didn’t fall. “It killed my parents.”
Chapter Twelve
“I’M SORRY,” DANTE blurted. Damn it, he wasn’t expecting their conversation to veer into uncomfortable territory. “But I seriously doubt your parents died because you decided you wanted to live outside your haven.”
She swallowed hard. “No, they died because I didn’t do my job. I was supposed to be on watch. It was my shift, my responsibility. They said therians were coming to bring us back. They said they’d come for us eventually to dig the secrets of Black Moon from our flesh. As the nights went on and no one showed, I assumed my parents were being paranoid.”
“They probably were,” Dante said, taking a seat on the edge of the leather chair in the corner. Why were his legs suddenly so heavy? “I can’t imagine therians chasing after a vamp for haven secrets. Especially halfway across the country.”
“That’s what I figured, too.” Ariana flipped through the pages of her notes, though Dante could tell from the glassiness of her eyes that she wasn’t actually reading. What she was about to say was difficult. “But the therians came. Right after my transition. I was selfish and hungry and took off to hunt in the woods. When I came back my parents had been strung up by their necks and hanged from our windmill. The only reason I’m alive is because our Primus had the therians followed. He showed up at the right time, killed them, and took me back to Black Moon, to safety.” Her lips curved into a faint smile. “I’m alive because my Primus brought me back.”
“You’re alive because you’re a fighter.”
Everything he’d seen of Ariana proved it. She hadn’t backed down in the black market. Instead she’d stood strong and refused to give her name when Juan Carlos had demanded it of her. When faced with imminent death in the Watchers’ compound, she hadn’t offered information about Black Moon in return for her freedom, which Dante was sure any other khissmate would’ve done in a snap.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “If I’d done my job my parents would still be alive.” She shook her head, burying further into her notes. “If I’d kept my head in the game and stayed focused like they’d asked me to, they’d still be here.”
Suddenly, it hit him. Ariana had been on duty in the black market each time; she’d been charged with bringing back elders at the Primus’s command. In the Watchers’ compound, in the hole, she was acting as a representative when she asked Pike what he wanted of them.
Everything—her fear, her sense of duty—stemmed from her parents’ deaths. Inner strength wasn’t the only thing Dante had picked up from Ariana. It was fear of failure.
“Ariana, look at me.”
When she met his eyes, something burning in their depths reached across the room and snatched Dante by the throat. Blood chugged awkwardly through his veins, and his stomach rolled.
“There was nothing you could have done to save your parents,” he whispered. “If therians wanted them dead, they were dead. If you’d have been there, they would’ve killed you, too.”
“I realize that.”
“It’s not your burden to bear.” He paused, reflecting for a moment on what his mundane parents had instilled in him from an early age. “If you can’t change it, you should let it go.”
“Easier said than done.” She cleared her throat and flipped through her notes, severing any trace of a connection between them. “So did you find anything?”
“Not yet.”
As Dante returned his attention to the book at his feet, he picked it up and flipped through pages mindlessly. He couldn’t help but analyze the onslaught of foreign emotions surging through his veins.
He hadn’t felt sympathy in years, though he was certain that’s what this feeling was. Ariana had shared a painful moment from her past, and for the first time in as long as Dante could remember, the urge to console another person had nearly taken him over.
But she wasn’t just any person.
Despite what Ariana believed about herself, she was strong—one of the strongest women he’d ever met—and Dante hated seeing strong people crumble. Maybe he’d mistaken sympathy for pity.
Hell, there was more to the inklings inside him than sympathy or pity, and he knew it. There was warmth. Heat radiated through his body at the sight of her. She made him uncomfortable. Made him question his hunger. Made him wonder if maybe there really was someone who could warm the ice sheet in his chest.
Stuck in a room too small to breathe anything but Ariana’s dizzying scent, Dante focused hard on the book in his hands. He tried not to listen to her tiny inhales and exhales. Tried not to notice when she pulled her braid over her shoulder and twirled the end around her finger.
He remembered all too easily how those fingers had ridden the ridges of his abs, how they’d ghosted across his chest and massaged his legs. He remembered their electricity, the chemistry that had sparked in his veins, and the pounding of his heart. He remembered all of it with painstaking clarity.
He was crazy to want Ariana’s hands to cover the rest of his body, but he did. As his heart tugged awkwardly against his rib cage, Dante realized something more.
Ariana was affecting him in ways he couldn’t control. And anytime he lost control, terrible, irreparable things happened. . . .
Screw searching through these books. Screw waiting for Ruan to come knocking at midnight. He could burst through the Watchers’ compound without knowing a lick about them and beat Pike to a bloody pulp. He didn’t need Intel. He needed to be free from the prison Ariana had built around him.
He couldn’t touch her without fearing he’d hurt her, yet he couldn’t stand the torture of being near her without touching her.
Did it get any worse than this?
“I’m not going to find shit in any of these—” Dante began, then stopped when he skimmed over the words “feeds off sexual energy created through intercourse.”
“What?” Ariana asked, coming around the desk. “Did you find something?”
“Probably not.” But he had.
Not sure that he wanted to reveal his twisted feeding methods just yet, Dante read fast.
“Incubus— masculine form of a demon that feeds off his human host. Case 101 incubus reported in Crimson Bay 1406.”
There wasn’t time for anything else. Ariana kneeled beside his chair. He slammed the book closed.
“What?” she asked, her thin eyebrows arching high. “What is it?”
She couldn’t know the truth about him. Couldn’t know how he fed, how many women he’d used and men he’d bloodied. Admitting his suspicions about his true character would be admitting he was a monster—a hideous creature unlike anything she’d ever seen.
“Nothing.” Shoving Abnormal to Nymph in the crease of the chair, Dante picked up Minotaur to Wyrm and opened it up. “It was nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” she said and jerked the book from his side.
He tried to snatch it back, but she was lightning quick, jumping to her feet, holding the book out of arm’s reach. “There’s something in here that caught your eye.”
“There’s not.” He remained standing, feigning interest in the different races of Wyrms: mountain to sea to wood dragons of all sizes and abilities.
Ariana lifted herself onto the desk and scooted back, setting the book in her lap. “Now let’s see.” She flipped through the pages and began reading. “Nails elongate to picks when threatened. Check. Jaw ticks incredibly fast when anxious, fangs drop when hungry. Check check.”
“Very funny,” he said, suddenly feeling a little lighter. “Listen, there’s no reason for you to be here while I go through all these. Why don’t you finish your business around the haven and I’ll lock up when I’ve found what I’m looking for.”
Maybe then he could breathe without
feeling like he was going to implode from the pressure. If hunger struck him, he could leave without rejecting her the way he did before.
“You are my business,” she said. Her melting honey eyes shifted when the gravity of what she’d said hit her. “What I mean is, I’m the one responsible for bringing you to Black Moon in the first place, and if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have that wound in your side.”
“The wound’s healed.” Dante wished every wound he experienced could be healed in such an erotic way. He might get pleasure in blood sport if he knew Ariana would mend him when he came home.
“I’m still responsible for you while you’re on haven grounds.”
He shrugged, liking their connection more than he should’ve. “Fine, but if you’re going to bust my balls, can you at least do it quietly?”
She laughed and flipped through a chunk of pages.
“Here’s something on the Watchers.” She made a small humph sound, like she’d never noticed the section before. “Listen to this. Watchers are distant descendants of angels who were cast out of heaven during the Nether War. Forbidden to partake in the pleasures of man or assist in their primal battles, Watchers are punished by Jinn. They are slaves to the torturous voices in their heads.” She looked up. “That’s interesting. I don’t know that I’ve ever read this about them before.”
. . . torturous voices in their heads . . .
Everything happened lightning fast for Dante, who was moving beside Ariana before he could stop himself. He sat beside her and leaned over.
“ ‘Punished by their impure, evil lineage,’ ” he read, “ ‘Watchers will finish the sentence of their fallen angel ancestors. They will never reach the Ever After, nor will they ever find a home among mundanes.’ ”
Dante’s mind raced. He couldn’t be one of those suckers in the compound. He couldn’t be a Watcher. That wasn’t possible—he wasn’t white-washed like the others, and he certainly took part in his fair share of carnal pleasures and mundane battles.
Only Pike had said Dante was the one they were waiting for. . . .
Shit. Dante scrubbed his hand over his head.
Did Pike see something in Dante that he couldn’t recognize in himself?
Dante pieced together what he’d glimpsed from the two books. He showed traits of both a demon and a Watcher, yet he exhibited others that prevented him from being completely either. Was he a moshing of both? A son from the Nether Realm and a reject of the Ever After? Either way he was cursed, so what did it matter really?
“Here’s another mention of Jinn,” he said, pointing to the last line. “They’re invisible creatures responsible for punishing Watchers for their sins . . . that’s all it says. Where’s the section on Jinn?”
Ariana flipped to J and paused. “Nothing here . . . that’s odd.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing here? Your Primus said this was the all-knowing-registrar and shit.”
“I’ll keep looking. There’s got to be information somewhere, in one of these books.” She caught his gaze. It was white hot. Determined. “Dante, are you interested in learning about Jinn because you want a weapon to use against the Watchers? Or are you interested because you think you might be one of them?”
Dante’s gut clenched. “Both.”
ARIANA FISHED HER iPhone from her pocket and checked the time.
10:30 p.m.
“We’ve been at this for hours,” she said, staring at the piles of books littered across the floor. “If Jinn existed, there’d be whole sections on them somewhere in here. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Who else has access to this room?” Dante had relaxed into the leather chair, his leg kicked up over the side, a thick, dusty book lolled open in his lap. Under the overhead lights, his skin had taken on a tanned glow and his spiked, auburn hair had lightened.
“Just me and the Primus.” She closed a book on faeries and set it aside. “Dante, I think we’re following the wrong breadcrumbs. You have fangs and thirst for blood. Although I’m not sure what the other Watchers have going on, I’ve never known Echo to have vampire tendencies.”
“No,” Dante said. “But I bet you’ve never known another vamp who can walk in daylight without having reached elder status.”
“Well no, but—”
He spun around in the chair, dropping his boots to the floor with a thud. “And I don’t know a single other vamp who can teleport.”
“Maybe it’s your maware.”
“I’m not an elder. You’d know if I was.”
He was right. Ariana could pick up an elder vibe a mile away. It’s what made her so good at finding elders to bring to Black Moon. When she sent out those feelers toward Dante, she came up blank. “Was your transition normal?”
“Normal as can be,” he said, though from the abruptness of his tone, Ariana could tell he was shutting down.
She was so close to finding out the truth. He couldn’t clam up now. She wouldn’t let him. They might not get another shot at researching together like this again.
“How were you able to do the wind-cyclone thing in the Watchers’ compound?” She sat on the floor, crossing her legs. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“Neither have I,” he said, leaning his elbows over his knees. “Sometimes I’m not sure how I do anything.”
He was shooting vague. What would he do next, get up and leave? She had to know what he was, what she was dealing with.
She leaned forward, closing the distance between them. He didn’t lean back. He stared, hands clasped in front of him, his face more shadowed than ever. With nothing but a few feet of scattered books between them, Ariana could’ve sworn the gold in his irises swirled yellow. Just like they had in the hole in the Watchers’ compound.
“What’s your drink of choice?” she asked, wondering if he was as famished as she was. Was that the reason the color of his eyes changed their tone? “AB? O?”
“Why is it so important to you that I find out what I am?” Dante snapped.
Not the reaction she was looking for.
His jaw pulsed intensely and his lips strained white. She’d pushed a button . . .
“I was wondering if you were hungry, that’s all.”
“No, there’s more to it. You keep firing questions like you plan to have me figured out before we leave this room, but I can tell you now that’s not going to happen. I’ve lived my entire life not knowing what I really am. A few measly hours spent digging through books isn’t going to shed much light.” He paused, and Ariana felt her face puzzle. “Why is this so important to you?”
“I don’t know, it just is.” Truth be told, Ariana didn’t know why she was so hard pressed for answers. Maybe because if she rationalized his traits, his family, his heritage, she could rationalize her feelings toward him. “I guess I’d feel a whole lot better about what happened between us earlier if I knew you weren’t”—she fingered through the pages of the book beside her—“a Werepanther or something.”
“You can rest assured I’m not a Werepanther or any other kind of shifter.” His lips quirked, but before she could remark how kissable they were, the smile was gone. “With me, what you see is what you get.”
She looked at him then, from the chiseled arch of his cheekbones to the rugged squareness of his jaw, to the warrior-like breadth of his shoulders. The black shirt and matching leather she’d chosen fit him perfectly . . . too perfectly, if Ariana’s raging hormones had anything to say about it. The outline of his washboard abs twitched beneath the light fabric of his shirt, and the leather of his pants bulged over his lap. Not that she’d been staring or anything.
A flare of boldness surged through her veins. “I like what I see.”
Without thinking, without a single rational thought in her head, Ariana pushed herself forward until she was on all fours. She crawled between his legs.
He didn’t move.
“What are you doing?” His eyes flamed with rabid hunger.
She focused on those lips. Remembered how they felt against hers, velvety soft and deliciously sweet. Just like every other time that they were together, Ariana’s mind seemed to seize. “I’m not sure, but if you want me to stop, tell me now.”
Moving slowly, she rose up and caught his mouth. A wave of heat licked through her body, setting her skin aflame. His tongue slipped between her lips and roamed her mouth, soft at first, then needier. Hungrier.
As Ariana’s mouth moved against him, she realized he wasn’t moving at all. His arms didn’t wrap around her. His knees didn’t part to allow her body to fill the gap between them. He was bone still, his arms resting over his knees, his hands clasped in front of him, just like he was when she was on the floor.
He didn’t want this.
But when she pulled back, Dante advanced, catching the back of her head with his hand. He tilted her head to the side, deepening the kiss, fanning the flames of the hunger building inside her.
Like a light switch flipping, something changed. Her side began to ache, a low knotting feeling that spread across her stomach, taking her out of the moment. She pulled back, putting a hand to the cramp.
“You all right?” Dante asked, the gold in his eyes swirling faster than she’d ever seen.
The cramp in her side began to spasm, twitching and pulsing against her hand. “I don’t think so.”
They were about to get company. Ariana couldn’t explain how she knew it. Like every other working of Black Moon, the place seemed to live within her. She could feel its walls weakening. Could almost hear the sound of Seekers’ hooves pounding through the forest.
Seekers.
“Come on.” She stood in a rush, dragging Dante off his feet behind her. “Black Moon’s barrier has been broken by someone who’s been here before. It’s called out the Seekers. Your friends must be here early.”
Last Vamp Standing Page 13