Undeniable

by Doreen Orsini

  Tomas turned to look just as a fat drop of blood plopped into an already impressive puddle atop Clay Aiken’s face. Ah, Sebastian, you’re bleeding all over the place. We’re not supposed to leave any evi ―

  Then I suggest you and your horny friend clean it up. Sebastian opened his hands and licked the blood from the deep gashes on his palms, then glared at Tomas and smiled. His smile faded when he saw himself reflected in Tomas’ mind. With his upper lip stretching high above bloody fangs, he looked exactly like one of the monsters Diana’s father believed they all were.

  Turning his back on Diego and Tomas’ horrified expressions, he stared down at Diana’s serene face. He understood their shock. Although he’d always been feared by vampires who broke their laws, none would recognize nor understand the sinister, malevolent creature he’d become since they’d entered Diana’s room. He barely knew himself what he’d say or do next.

  Tomas sucked in a sharp breath. “What the hell is your problem, Sebastian? She’s the daughter of the fucking hunter who killed Marek!”

  Diego rushed over and dropped to his knees. Within seconds the CD was clean and back on the shelf.

  Sebastian stared down at Diana. Tonight he would begin a bonding ritual with her. He would force her to take his blood, turn her into his virgin bride, the bride he would never mate with, the bride he would probably never see after tonight.

  Over the past week, his eyes had feasted on every inch of her body. Each time his hands had fleetingly experienced the wonder of touching her skin, he’d grown hotter and harder than he thought possible. The deafening roar of her blood rushing through her veins immobilized him with hunger. Would it taste as sweet as he imagined? His erection throbbed within the confines of his jeans. Every muscle clenched as he fought the overpowering need to take her now and relieve the pain he’d endured all week.

  “Sebastian,” Diego whispered, “are we—”

  “Shh!” Tomas glanced toward the window.

  “What now?” Diego asked with an angry snarl.

  “Listen, dammit!” Tomas’ voice shook.

  The distant rumble of delivery trucks arriving in the village to restock the restaurants made its way up the mountainside into the silent room, warning the three that dawn approached, that the man they all feared would soon return from another hunt.

  Sebastian continued to gaze down at Diana. Too young to have perfected blocking their thoughts, Tomas and Diego’s anxiety filled him with guilt. Tomas, recalling the time he’d accepted a dare and allowed dawn’s searing rays to glance across his back, clutched the footboard to stop himself from bolting. Diego, his eyes riveted to the muscles bunching across Sebastian’s back, held his breath, convinced that any sound might lead to more pain than he thought he could handle.

  They both were terrified Diana’s father would return and capture them.

  The elders had been wrong in sending the two young vamps along. Under normal conditions, even considering entering a human woman’s bedroom uninvited would lead to a lengthy sentence. The elders’ approval of Diana’s transformation had unleashed Diego’s disregard for the law that forbade using their powers to molest and had Tomas expecting punishment from above. Tomas and Diego didn’t belong here.

  None of them belonged here.

  Sebastian wished Diana had been born to another man, wished he could gather her in his arms and carry her to safety. Wished he knew why such a thought even entered his mind.

  She slept so peacefully, so completely unaware that her life would soon spiral out of her control. She shifted closer to the edge of the mattress, closer to him. Her leg slid out from under the sheet, then slipped over the side of the bed. His gaze meandered along the muscles flexing beneath her thigh and calf, wrapped around her slender ankle, slid over the delicate arch of her foot. The tips of her toes languidly stroked the carpet.

  “She sleeps on her stomach, maintaining contact with the floor…just like our young,” Sebastian murmured in awe to his cousin.

  “Have you forgotten, Sebastian? Our young are taught that trick so they’ll already have one foot on the floor if a hunter catches them asleep.” Tomas’ voice shook with anger. “A hunter like her father.”

  Sebastian raised his eyes. “And I suppose her father taught her the same trick just in case some vampires ever caught her sleeping.”

  Diego stared at her bared leg and licked his lips. “Not that it’s going to do her any good. Nothing could stop you, right, Sebastian?”

  Sebastian began to nod, but Diana’s nose twitched beneath the curtain of hair covering her face and he forgot what Diego had asked. Her hair, the color of the rising sun they all dreaded, amber streaked with gold, and his, blacker than the inside of Mina’s empty tomb, were glaring reminders of their different worlds.

  He wondered how her hair would look kissed by the sun. Reaching out, he gently lifted a long spiral to his lips. Silk, the finest, flowed through his fingertips. He gathered more hair in his hand to see one last time what lay beneath before the hunger, pain and madness marred her beauty.

  Her face would be a study in perfection if not for the tiny crook on the bridge of her nose. He knew she considered it a great fault, had seen her frown at it when brushing her hair, washing her face or merely passing a mirror and catching sight of her own reflection. He longed to brush his lips against it, just once.

  Her lips parted, curved up in the softest smile. Her tongue darted out to moisten them. Sebastian stilled, certain she’d heard his thoughts, would welcome his touch.

  Ah, but would she smile if she knew what he had planned for her? Would she open her arms to him if she knew his embrace would propel her into a never-ending nightmare? Would she be another innocent defiled beneath his hands?

  Would he ever survive the guilt?

  “I can’t do this,” he whispered in shock, more to himself than his companions as her hair slipped through his fingers and floated down, shielding her beauty from his eyes. “I can’t do this.”

  Tomas shoved Diego out of his way and grabbed Sebastian’s arm. “Her father killed your stepbrother. Think of Marek locked in that pen with nothing to shield him from the sun. My God, Sebastian, his screams woke us all from our sleep!”

  “Her father killed him, Tomas. Not Diana. He should pay for his crimes,” Sebastian ground out between clenched teeth as he yanked his arm away, “not Diana!”

  “He will pay. Her destruction is the ultimate punishment,” Tomas said, repeating the words Olympia had used at the town meeting to incite them all. “We will execute him through her!”

  “Then we’ll be no better than what her father thinks we are, Tomas. Monsters.” Sebastian bit off the last word when Diana released a long sigh, bathing his thighs with her warm breath. Every muscle tensed against the immediate wave of desire that washed over him. “This witch hunt is over.”

  “If you don’t do it, Olympia will just find someone else. Don’t you want to be the one to avenge Marek’s death?” Diego asked.

  The tendons in Sebastian’s neck felt as if they’d snap from the battle raging within him. Although he wanted to avenge his stepbrother’s death, his place in their society as a Champion demanded he protect innocent women from out of control vampires.

  Was Diana innocent or was she a huntress like her namesake? Whenever he had probed her mind, he had encountered hundreds of fortress walls. No matter how many he managed to breach, he could never uncover the treasure or secret she deemed worthy of such protection.

  The last wall he had faced brought his digging to a halt. It bore an image of a very young Diana alone in a vast wasteland with her head flung back, her eyes closed tight and her tears flooding the ground at her feet while her trembling lips mouthed the word “Mama” over and over again.

  If Diana was innocent, then was he nothing more than an out of control vampire? He had been. A week ago. Before he met Diana. Before he met that abandoned child still calling for her mother.

  Diego mentally nudged him. I wouldn’t be su
rprised if that bastard, Nostrum, used her to draw our males into his pen. Shit, I’d follow her if I thought I could get a piece of that ass.

  Sebastian didn’t respond, didn’t dare tell them he’d wondered the same thing.

  After tonight, after one taste of his blood, her eyes would forever burn with an undeniable hunger for him. Every day that hunger would become more and more unbearable until the day the sun rose to find her writhing in her bed, begging him to return and take her, fill her, become one with her.

  And when the sun set on that last endless day, only chains would deter her from running into the night in search of the only blood that could soothe the searing pain engulfing her body, from killing any human or vampire in her way as she drank their blood in a never-ending compulsion to appease her hunger for his blood.

  Of course, he would never answer those calls.

  His mother in her infinite ability to find someone’s Achilles heel had chosen this punishment for the vampire hunter. Nothing else could wound Frank Nostrum as much as witnessing his only child’s descent into madness. No torture could match that which he would heap upon himself when he realized she suffered in his place.

  Sebastian only now fully understood the extent of that torture. Just imagining the pain Diana would experience, just knowing he would bring her into a horrific nightmare from which she would never escape tore at his heart.

  Diana whimpered and rolled onto her back. Sebastian lurched forward and, snatching the sheet, covered her before she managed to bare herself to Diego and Tomas. Her hand clutched the sheet to her breasts as if she heard his thoughts.

  He shook his head. For one impossible moment, he thought he’d heard her plead for mercy.

  Damn it, Sebastian, snap out of it!

  Sebastian bared his fangs at Tomas and followed him as he took a step back. If I have to do this, Tomas, then I’ll do it alone. Get out. When Tomas did not immediately turn to leave, Sebastian took another step forward. I’m not going to repeat myself.

  Tomas backed toward the window, but Diego, his eyes fixed on the outline of Diana’s nipples imprinted on the sheet, moved to the foot of the bed. “At least let us check her out. She’s naked, man!”

  With a flick of his wrist, he tugged at the bottom of the sheet, baring her breasts, stomach and some of the soft hair covering her mound.

  Bastard! A curtain of blood coated Sebastian’s eyes, casting the room in a scarlet haze. His fangs shot out, longer, deadlier than he’d ever allowed before. The beast dwelling deep within all vampires sprang free of its chains. Detached, he watched his hands grab Diego’s arms, heard Tomas’ shocked gasp and Diego’s scream when his nails tore through skin and muscle as he lifted the vamp over his head.

  Tomas bolted to the side just in time to avoid Diego’s body as it flew past him and out the window. Blood dripped from Sebastian’s fangs and two nasty gashes in his lower lip.

  What the hell is your problem, Sebastian?

  Sebastian turned away from his cousin’s probing gaze as he forced the beast down. She knows nothing, Tomas, nothing about Marek or her father’s hand in his death.

  He wondered if Tomas could sense the doubt that still lurked in his mind. Diana’s ability to block him from her thoughts filled him with suspicion. His own inability to think straight whenever he came within a hundred feet of her, whenever he merely envisioned her body, her eyes, her lips, fed that suspicion.

  After just one week, he could see himself following her anywhere, even into her father’s pen. She could be the weapon they’d all wondered about. The irresistible lure. Drawing in a fortifying breath, he reminded himself that if she was the lure and he failed in his duties tonight, the death of the next vampire would be on his head. Just get the hell out of here, Tomas.

  Tomas moved silently to the window and swung one leg over the ledge. Don’t forget. Olympia said to give her just a drop of your blood. No more. It’ll speed things along. Tomas glanced over his shoulder at Diana. It’s hard to believe that by next week she’ll be a Slasher on Fentmore, isn’t it, Sebastian? That our blood can turn a hot chick like her into one of those creatures?

  Sebastian turned away, hiding the bloody tears he could feel sliding down his cheeks. “It takes no more than the amount of blood in a tear, Tomas.”

  * * * * *

  In Tobias’ den, Damien paced from the door to the leather sectional. Turning around, he glanced at the clock on the mahogany mantle over the roaring fireplace, cursed, then strode back to the door. He leaned out into the hall and looked both ways before returning to the mantle and looking up at the clock. “Do you sense anything?”

  Tobias dropped his head onto the back of the couch and sighed. “For the hundredth time, no. You’re driving me crazy.”

  They had known each other for centuries, stood beside Caesar, stalked the night with Dracula and followed their Dark Prince and Mina to the shores of Lake George when Mina’s love melted the ice holding Dracula’s heart captive. Mina, sweet Mina had made it possible for them all to live in peace with humans that fateful night long ago.

  Transformed by Dracula only months before Damien, Tobias outranked him as the second eldest of their kind, the eldest in Mina’s Cove during Dracula’s absence. Most cowered if Tobias showed the slightest disapproval.

  Damien ignored him, glanced at the clock once again and cursed. All night he had awaited some sign that Sebastian had returned. His head throbbed from scanning his stepson’s home for his presence.

  “Why don’t you just go there and wait for him?” Tobias asked.

  Damien spun around. “And what? Congratulate him for destroying the life of an innocent woman?”

  “Now, Damien, have some faith in Sebastian. If Diana is innocent, he’ll know and leave her untouched.” Tobias rose and, patting Damien’s shoulder as he passed, strode to the sideboard.

  “I know. I know,” Damien muttered.

  “And if she’s not, he’ll do what needs to be done,” Tobias added, holding up a decanter of brandy. “Taste this. It’s exquisite.”

  Damien shook his head. “How can you even wonder if she has anything to do with her father’s crimes? My God, Tobias, she’s Angelina’s granddaughter.”

  “And Frank is your precious Angelina’s son. We all know her blood did not stop him from coming after us.”

  “That’s different and you know it.”

  Tobias poured some brandy into two snifters and held one out to Damien. “Drink this and relax. You’re accomplishing nothing with your infernal pacing except maybe wearing a hole in my carpet.”

  Damien took the snifter and emptied it in one gulp. He sank down onto the brown leather couch and hung his head.

  “Listen, Damien. I know you believe Diana is nothing like her father, but think, for a moment. How do we know what that man said to her as she grew up? He’s had twenty-five years to mold her into a hunter.”

  “This is my fault. All of it. I should be the one punished. I broke our most sacred law by bonding with the mother of a human child and using my powers to alleviate her concerns about leaving him.”

  “You broke two laws, Damien. We do not take someone else’s spouse. She had a husband, one she had been quite content with until you entered her life. And the fact that her son has been exacting vengeance upon us all since that day is no one’s fault but his.” Tobias threw his glass into the fireplace. “We have to find that weapon.”

  “Why haven’t we been able to find it or the pen?” Damien placed his glass on the low mahogany table and raked his hands through his hair. “It doesn’t make sense. We can read minds, even those a mile away, but we have yet to breach his or his daughter’s enough to uncover how he manages to capture our vamps.”

  Tobias’ lips thinned. “That, my dear son-in-law, is why I fear Diana might have a hand in our losses.”

  Damien’s head jerked up. His body tensed.

  Tobias added, “Both Frank and Diana are quite adept at blocking their thoughts, building impenetrable walls arou
nd feelings and knowledge they deem private. How? Why? We are the only ones capable of truly hearing someone’s thoughts and uncovering their memories. So what led them to perfect blocking us?”

  Damien opened his mouth to reply, to once again find a way to convince Tobias that Diana was innocent, but closed it when Sebastian’s voice entered his mind.

  “No!” From across the room, Tobias swept his arm out. Although his fist never came close to touching Damien, his head flung back as if Tobias had struck him squarely on the jaw. “Do not answer him, Damien.”

  “You heard him. How can I ignore him when he’s begging for guidance?”

  “He must do this on his own. Trust me.”

  Damien couldn’t believe his ears. “Why? He’s your grandson, for Christ’s sake. Why would you turn your…you know how this night will turn out, don’t you? You’ve had one of your dreams.”

  “Damien, I’m asking you to trust me. I did dream. While I did not discover exactly how this will end, I awoke convinced that it must run its course without any interference.”

  Damien glared into his friend and leader’s eyes. “And what about Olympia? Hasn’t she already interfered? Coming up with this insane punishment? I can’t believe you agreed to it.”

  Tobias stared back for a moment, then lowered his gaze to his hands. “She’s my daughter, Damien. I know I give in too easily to her demands, but my guilt gets the best of me.”

  He understood his friend’s guilt. Transformed by Dracula when Olympia was just a child, Tobias had been forced to watch from the shadows as his daughter grew into a young woman. When Olympia fell ill shortly before her wedding to a young lord, rather than chance losing her completely, he’d transformed her against her will. Damien placed a hand on Tobias’ shoulder. “Must we all pay for your guilt?”

  Tobias shoved his hand away. “I gave you a woman who loved you, a son who grew to love and admire you.”

  “You forced me to bond with a woman I felt nothing for! And Sebastian was already an adult. He didn’t need a father.”

  “I knew how you grieved when Angelina chose her son over you. I feared that if you had nothing to live for, you would go over the edge and face the dawn.” Tobias let out a weary sigh. “It made sense at the time. I gave you my most precious possessions. My daughter and grandson.”