I leveled a cup of flour and upended it into the bowl, feeling myself settle into the comfort of doing something I did well, something I hadn’t enjoyed in weeks.
My eyes slammed open, and I was suddenly back in bed with Dominic, enjoying his seduction, not making pancakes.
Ronnie, I thought, my mind racing. That had been Ronnie.
“Cassidy?” Dominic asked warily, leaning back when he realized I was no longer writhing in abandon from his touch.
“Sorry, I just…I was distracted.” I licked my lips. “Where were we?”
Dominic cocked an eyebrow. “The fact that you must ask is quite telling. I must be losing my touch in my old age.”
I grinned. “Old man” jokes were typically my punch line. “Quite the opposite actually,” I said, attempting to mimic the aristocratic formalness of his usual tone. “I find that hundreds of years of practice has nearly perfected your touch.”
I closed my eyes and slanted my lips over his.
The scent of batter hitting the griddle made my stomach rumble even as my heart ached. My stomach obviously didn’t care who was making banana-nut pancakes, but having that creature serve me like Ronnie used to was obscene.
I tore my lips from his, gasping, and not from pleasure.
Dominic eyed me carefully. “What’s wrong?”
The double sensation of dipping into Walker’s mind was gone. I was in my own body again, cozy under the comforter with Dominic like a sexy icicle under the sheets, but if I closed my eyes, who would I slip into next?
Dominic’s hands on my shoulders startled my attention back to him. “Cassidy,” he said, sternly this time.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I wasn’t this distracted last night.” I shook my head in denial even as a heavy weight constricted my chest. “Is this how it’s like for you all the time?”
“What are you talking about?” Dominic asked sharply.
I could see his frustration, like I always could, by the pinched set of his lips, but now, like never before, I could actually feel his frustration. The dual sensation of my own fear and his frustration, quadrupled by Ronnie’s contentment, Walker’s resentment, and everyone else outside that door—their emotions just a thought away—was like insects squirming under my skin. Their thoughts and emotions, although foreign and unsettling, were inside me, and I couldn’t escape from them any more than I could escape from my own.
The confines of my own body were a cage, and I could feel the walls of my captivity closing in.
“Cassidy!” he snapped.
“Sensing their emotions is challenging enough; I can’t deal with thinking their thoughts, too! I have enough conflicting thoughts and feelings all on my own without having to deal with everyone else’s!” I blurted.
Dominic’s hands on my shoulders tightened. Had I been human it might have hurt. “Explain.”
I sighed. “You once said that you felt crippled without your heightened senses, that you were essentially blind and deaf compared to the visual and auditory acuity you’ve become accustomed to.”
Dominic nodded.
“I can’t imagine becoming accustomed to this.” I glanced at the bedroom door of his underground bunker, at the scratched oak and brass that should have created a barrier between us and the living room, but I didn’t need to open the door and peek into the room to know who was there, what they were doing, and how they were feeling about it. “I nearly lost you last night and—”
Dominic snorted. “You have come infinitely closer to losing me on other nights. I assure you, last night was not one of them.”
I held up my hand. “—and there is nowhere I want to be more than right here, reminding myself, again, that we are both still very much alive.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “In existence.”
Dominic narrowed his eyes on me.
“My point is, I want to be here in this moment with you, only you, making another memory just like we talked about, but there’s Ronnie out there, gleefully making stack upon stack of banana-nut pancakes that only Walker can actually eat. Walker’s out there, hungry and resenting Ronnie for feeding him. And if I close my eyes again, I have no doubt that I’ll slip away into someone else—into Keagan or Bex or Theresa or Logan—getting lost in everyone else’s mind instead of staying grounded here with you.” My hands were suddenly gripping Dominic’s shoulders. I didn’t remember moving them there, but I held onto the solid strength of him, knowing he could take it. “I’m not just hearing the squawking bird of their annoyance or feeling the bee sting of their anger. I’m actually hearing their thoughts in my mind.”
Dominic blinked in surprise, and I realized that no matter his apparent powers of omniscience, he could not actually read minds. I heard the scraping chill of my own dread, like chewing ice, before I could mask the sound.
“Cassidy, I’m not—”
“You don’t hear them,” I said flatly.
“You’re a Day Reaper now. Your abilities far out—”
“How do I block them out?” I snapped.
A weary smile tugged on Dominic’s lips. “You can’t.”
The resignation in his tone spiked my panic and denial. I shook my head adamantly. “Can’t you just, I don’t know…” I flapped my hand between us, “sever my connection to them like you did with Jillian?”
He raised his hand and smoothed a very cold finger across my cheek. “There is no connection to sever. Jillian was parasitic, her connection to you was forced and unnatural. This time, you are the one invading their privacy with your highly sensitive senses. It’s you, Cassidy, not them, and even if I could, I wouldn’t change anything about the person you are becoming.”
“The creature I’m becoming,” I corrected morosely.
His hold on me tightened. “You are a force to be reckoned with, and the only force, I suspect, which will be capable of standing against Jillian and her army. I don’t see a creature when I look at you.”
I snorted. “That’s because you’re a creature, too.”
“I see the only hope we may have left to restore the balance of power and save New York City,” he persisted.
I sighed. No one person could be all he anticipated me being. “What do I do?”
He raised his eyebrows. “About restoring the balance of power and saving New York City? Can we have breakfast first? I’m famished.”
“About blocking my heightened senses,” I said, punching his shoulder lightly.
He grinned. “I just told you: you can’t block them, no more than your former self could open your eyes and not see a crime scene. Just because it was a sight you didn’t want to see didn’t mean you could somehow will it out of existence. The scene, no matter how unpleasant, was present, and you as a crime reporter, needed to look. Now, you are a Day Reaper—”
“I’m still a crime reporter,” I grumbled.
“—and you must endure the world around you with heightened senses.” He cocked his head at me. “Were you as calm, capable, and grounded during your first crime scene as you are now, as a seasoned professional?”
I let out a surprised bark of laughter. “If you call finding a secluded alley to vomit in between interviews calm and capable, then yes.” I shook my head. “I was eager and willing to learn, but no—of course I wasn’t as capable then as I am now. It took years to become accustomed to my job and grow into a seasoned professional.”
Dominic cocked an eyebrow.
My jaw dropped. “Years, Dominic? Years?” I shook my head, dawning horror breaking over me. “I can’t live like this for years!”
He brushed a wayward lock of hair behind my ear, but it stubbornly slipped back out of place. “What is a meager few years when you have eternity?”
I poked my finger at his face. “Don’t be condescending and flippant. I’m being serious.”
“So am I. You saved us last night
, Cassidy,” he said, his voice suddenly grave.
I opened my mouth, not necessarily to refute that statement—I had certainly surprised even myself with all I was capable of—but I fell a little shy of such a pedestal. “It wasn’t just me. Bex—”
Dominic placed a finger over my lips. “—could not have done what you did last night,” he said, finishing my sentence. “If not for you, Bex would still be imprisoned within the Underneath. Walker and I would both be dead, and Jillian would have a clear runway to rule the city uncontested. As I’ve always known, you are the keystone.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Keystone? Really?”
“You keep all of us unlikely players—humans, vampires, Day Reapers, whatever the hell your brother is—locked together as one team, greater than the sum of our individual efforts and, with a little luck, more successful.”
“More than a little,” I grumbled. I shook my head at his praise. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we need to work together to defeat Jillian.”
“No, but without you, this team doesn’t work. You bridge the gap between our insurmountable differences.” Dominic’s eyes blazed with a ferocity I’d never seen from him before. “You need to say it, Cassidy. You saved us last night. You need to say it and believe it. Believe in yourself.”
I frowned.
“I believe in you.”
I rolled my eyes. “What does it matter who saved who as long as we’re all alive and still fighting?”
“Because you need to realize that although your new senses are distracting and uncomfortable and it may take years for you to truly hone them and become accustomed to them, they enabled you to save us last night. And when we confront Jillian to reclaim my coven, they will enable you to save us all.”
Dominic pressed his lips against mine with an urgency that stole my comeback, thoughts, and will. I melted into his embrace, against the unyielding steel of his arms holding me, against the steady strength of his chest surrounding me, against everything that had stripped me bare and I couldn’t bear to lose. Everything I’d die to save.
My eyes fluttered closed against his assault, and this time, my mind slipped into his. I could feel his unwavering confidence in me along with his own determination and fortitude, but more frightening than my own lack of self-preservation when it came to this man and everything I’d willingly sacrifice for him was the equality in his feelings for me. Dominic was entrusting me to help him reclaim the one thing that shared space in his heart with me: his coven. But I didn’t share his confidence; My heightened vision, like a fortune-teller, could see the inevitable alternative should I fail. I would lose him. Just when we’d finally built a new home over the ashes of the last one I’d lost, I’d lose him. And the most frightening realization of all was knowing that if I lost him, our lives were so interwoven now that I’d undoubtedly lose myself, too, if I hadn’t already.
I tore my lips from his, trembling.
“What is it now?” Dominic asked warily.
“It’s nothing. I…well…” I cleared my throat, attempting to think about the happiest moments of my life: the thrill of publishing an article and seeing my words in print, of winning a verbal volley against Carter, my surly editor, the satisfaction of being part of a team who made New York City just a little bit safer, and being the one person everyone came to when they wanted the world to know the truth—anything so Dominic wouldn’t sense the tsunami of dread drowning me. “If I’m a keystone, our mortar is crumbling out there,” I said, jerking my head toward the kitchen outside his bedroom door. “We need to separate the children before they either kill each other or pancakes smash against the walls. Either way, it’ll be a hell of a mess to clean up.”
Dominic narrowed his eyes. He knew me too well, easily detecting the kaleidoscope of emotions I’d used to mask what I was really feeling—the very trick he’d taught me used against him—but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t contradict or fight me. In fact, he did the opposite: his arms loosened and fell at his sides in defeat. He let me go.
Maybe turning my back on Dominic after I’d felt the intensity of his feelings for me made me a coward. Maybe leaving his arms, his bed, and rejecting the confidence he had in me actually hurt me more than it hurt him—and hurt our cause worst of all—but what I’d said was true. Walker really was about to start flinging pancakes, and if he did that, there was no telling how Ronnie would react. However misplaced, her very life’s purpose and happiness was mixed into that pancake batter.
However misplaced, Dominic’s life purpose and happiness had somehow gotten mixed into mine.
I couldn’t bear the weight of either his gaze or his regard, so I embraced the coward, turned my back on Dominic, and faced the fire I knew I could put out before I could even think of dousing the inferno blazing behind me. For both our sakes, I needed to find the courage to face the flames before they consumed us both, but for now, I let them burn.
Chapter 14
The mortar of our fragile alliance was more than just crumbling; when Dominic and I exited our bedroom and stepped into the living room, the tension and hostility between everyone was about to bulldoze our little family into dust and my senses along with it.
Bex and Walker had somehow managed to pull their shit together enough to escape the Underneath and the Damned, but now that the immediate, life-threatening danger was past, they looked more than willing to resume their personal war: They stood on opposite sides of the living room, scowling darkly. Their anger and resentment was sharp and excruciating, like my fingernails were being ripped from their beds.
Bex had changed since I’d first met her. Gone were her jeans and cowboy boots, flimsy, barely-there tops, and flirtatious, charming Southern twang. She’d obviously fed since last night and recovered most of her former figure and beauty because she wore another bombshell dress similar to the purple-and-black number she’d worn last week when she and the other Day Reapers had come calling on Dominic’s coven. This one was green with black lace, and a matching green eye patch covered her missing eye. The eye patch was more of a fashion accessory than a covering; it, too, was trimmed in black lace. It made me wonder if she had a different patch to match every outfit, and if so, if she’d had them custom-made. I couldn’t imagine her at a sewing machine, decorating dozens of eye patches in various fabrics and designs to match her wardrobe, but here she was in front of me, scowling at Walker with her remaining eye, a designer-esque patch over the other.
Despite the dress and eye patch, however, Bex wasn’t quite at her best self, not even after having fed. Granted, her best self was nothing short of stunning. She wore the human mask of her night form well—rounded ears, yellow-green human iris, and a smooth brow—but after a week of starved, silver-exposed imprisonment, her thick, wavy bronze hair was still thin and although no longer skeletal, her figure hadn’t regained its former strength and sensuality.
Walker, on the other hand, had somehow never looked better. He wore one of his many plain black T-shirts that were a half-size too small over the swell of his biceps and across his broad chest. He’d tucked the ends of his faded jeans into cowboy boots, and his riot of springy, golden curls was a little longer than I remembered. A lock fell across his forehead, and the memory of a time when I might have considered brushing that lock back into place still left a bitter aftertaste on my tongue. He crossed his arms over his chest, stretching the shirt to nearly a full size too small, and transferred his scowl from Bex to Ronnie.
Ronnie, bless her heart, had just dropped another five pancakes on the griddle after flipping seven others to golden-brown perfection. She seemed oblivious to the intensity of Walker’s rage-filled regard. Her cooking filled the apartment with a warm, nutty scent, and although the smell was comforting and pleasant, it didn’t make my stomach rumble like it used to. The smell of pancakes was akin to the smell of something floral—I could appreciate the scent without wanting to eat it.
<
br /> I glanced back at Walker and winced. He did not look particularly hungry at the moment, and with Bex, Dominic, Rafe, Neil, Keagan, Logan, Jeremy, Theresa, and I the only other occupants in the room, who the hell would be eating a dozen of Ronnie’s famous banana-nut pancakes for breakfast when she couldn’t eat them herself anymore?
I stole a swift glance at the rest of the room and instantly wished I hadn’t. Keagan and Jeremy were watching the drama unfold between Ronnie, Walker, and Bex from opposite corners of the couch, and Logan and Theresa were whispering their displeasure and uncertainty from the far corner of the room, as if I couldn’t hear their every word. When I entered the living room, Logan and Theresa fell silent and all four pairs of eyes honed on me. I realized, uncomfortably, that they’d been waiting on me. Walker had been the glue that had bound them together as night bloods, but somehow along the way—probably thanks to Ronnie recruiting me to give entrancing lessons—I’d become the glue binding them together as vampires. And they were looking at me, the vampire Walker resented only slightly less than Bex, to talk sense into him and Ronnie, the vampire who thought she was still human.
I took a fortifying breath, less fortifying now that I didn’t need air to live, and settled my eyes on Bex.
“What time did you get in yesterday?” I asked.
Bex opened her mouth to reply.
“What time did we get in?” Walker repeated, transferring his glare from Ronnie to me. “As if we were out on the town and not trapped in the Underneath and surrounded by the Damned.”
Rafe and Neil shifted slightly, angling their bodies so the couch wasn’t between them and Walker.
“We escaped shortly after you left,” Bex answered as if Walker hadn’t spoken, “but by the time I fed and tracked Walker back here, you were already abed. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. I didn’t want to wake you to ask permission to enter, so I”—Bex smiled, but not pleasantly—“let myself in.”
Walker flushed a bright shade of scarlet. “You need better protection around your fallout shelter,” he muttered.
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