by Lynsay Sands
Jake winced, guilt pinching at him as he had his own flash of memory of trying to bite her.
“You tried to bite me,” she recalled with horror.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said at once, almost drowning in guilt now. He’d never bitten anyone in the seven years since he’d been turned, but he’d been out of his head with both blood loss and bloodlust, and she’d smelled so good. The scent and sound of the life-giving fluid pounding through her veins had tempted him beyond reason. “I would never hurt you. I swear.”
“But you tried to,” she pointed out. “You tried to bite me.”
Jake grimaced. There was no getting around that.
“Pitiful,” Tomasso said, shaking his head sorrowfully, and Jake glanced to him with confusion.
“What?” he asked.
“You don’t seem to handle emotional situations well, Pinocchio,” Dante said for his brother. “You’re kind of pitiful.”
Jake scowled with frustration. “Well, if you’re so damned smart, why don’t you tell me how I should be handling this?”
Dante exchanged a glance with Tomasso, and then turned to Nicole. “You trust Marguerite?”
“Yes.” She drew the word out slowly.
“You don’t think she’d put you in a dangerous situation, or put dangerous people in your home?” Tomasso asked.
“No, of course not,” Nicole said more certainly. “Marguerite has always been kind and supportive of me and my family. She’s almost like family herself.”
“So you know you’re safe with the three of us,” Dante said simply and then added, “No matter how crazy Jake sounds, you’re safe with him.”
Nicole let her breath out on a slow sigh and relaxed a little in her seat with a nod. “Yes. I believe I must be.”
Dante nodded, and then warned her, “You’re going to remember and learn some things now that will freak you out.”
“Some of it will sound crazy,” Tomasso added.
“But you need to just listen and stay calm and remember you’re safe.”
Jake stared from one twin to the other. This was the most he’d heard the pair speak in all the time he’d known them, and he’d known them since he was four years old. Roberto Conti Notte had business interests in Italy and after he married Jake’s mother, the family had spent the summers, Christmas, and most every other school holiday in Italy. Dante and Tomasso had often come around with Christian to visit and Jake had looked up to the three of them with a boy’s hero worship. He’d wanted to grow up to be just like them . . . at least until he was eighteen and “the family” had decided he was old enough to know the truth about them . . . that they were different. That he was different from them . . . and could never be like them, not without becoming something he’d always thought was evil and bad.
Jake had grown up on vampire movies, and in those movies the vampires were always the bad guys. Finding out about “the family” had been like waking up to find himself in the middle of a horror movie. It had been even worse to find out that his mother had been turned and that his little brother, who he had adored from birth, had been born one. But the unforgivable bit had been learning that they all, including his little brother, had used their abilities to control him to keep him from realizing what they were before he was old enough to decide if he wished to join them.
Jake had avoided the rest of the family after that, but he couldn’t do the same with his little brother. It wasn’t Neil’s fault that he was born the way he was, so Jake’s interaction with the family had been limited mostly to his brother and mother. He’d avoided the rest of them as much as he could, but it was pretty much impossible to avoid a Notte who didn’t want to be avoided . . . unless you ran away and disappeared, which he hadn’t done until he was turned and became one of the “bad guys.”
“There you go,” Dante said and Jake peered at him blankly.
“What?”
Dante and Tomasso exchanged a glance, shook their heads in unison and then Tomasso said, “Nicole is willing to listen. Tell her.”
“Tell her what?” he asked with alarm. He’d rather hoped the two of them were going to do that for him. It had certainly seemed like they were going to.
“We are here to help, not do it for you,” Dante said dryly.
“Besides, maybe in the explaining, you’ll understand better,” Tomasso said quietly.
Jake peered at the man silently for a moment and then glanced to Nicole. She was eyeing the three of them uncertainly, prepared to listen, but obviously not sure she was going to like what was coming. The problem was, he wasn’t sure either. Breathing out unhappily, he said, “I—you see—it’s—”
He turned to Dante helplessly and the man clucked with exasperation and turned to Nicole to announce, “We’re vampires.”
“We’re not!” Jake denied at once, smiling reassuringly at Nicole.
“Yes, we are,” Tomasso argued.
Jake scowled at him and then assured Nicole, “We aren’t. We’re immortals. Vampires are cursed, soulless dead people. We are not cursed, soulless, or dead. In fact, I was turned seven years ago to save my life.”
“Yeah, but we’re still bloodsucking neck biters,” Dante told Nicole. “And that’s what everyone thinks of when they think vampire so you might as well just call us vampires.”
“We are not bloodsucking neck biters!” Jake snapped, eyeing Nicole with alarm, afraid they were going to scare her off. Smiling reassuringly, he said, “I have never, ever bitten anyone. And these guys only did it before blood banks, because they had to, to survive. We consume bagged blood from blood banks, like transfusions, like hemophiliacs do. I have never ever bitten anyone,” he repeated.
“You tried to bite her,” Tomasso reminded him.
“Like some Stoker monster,” Dante added.
Jake jerked his head to the man and nearly snarled with frustration. “I was sick and in agony and out of my head with blood loss. I’m not a monster.”
“Neither are we,” Dante said quietly.
Jake sat back as if he’d been slapped. Ever since finding out about what his mother had become and what the Notte family were, Jake had thought of them as monsters. The kind who acted all friendly and lured you in with candy and cookies like you were Hansel or Gretel. Only once they got you back to their little cottage in the woods, instead of revealing themselves to be a witch, they sprouted fangs and swept you up in a dark embrace so they could suck your blood.
He’d been afraid of them, Jake acknowledged. He’d seen all those horror movies as a boy, labeled these people he’d known all his life as vampires, and had been terrified of them. And then, once he was turned, he’d feared that now that he was one of them, he too was a monster. But while he’d tried to bite Nicole the night he was so sick, he had been out of his head, and he’d felt guilty as hell ever since waking up to the recollection. Monsters did not feel guilty.
Being turned had not changed who he was, Jake realized. He was still the same man inside, with the same values and beliefs. He was just healthier, looked younger, was a hell of a lot stronger, and was likely to enjoy a much longer life.
Jake glanced from Dante to Tomasso. These two men had been nothing but kind to him since he’d first met them as a boy. Even when he’d found out what they, and all the others were, they’d remained kind, responding to his attempt to shun them and shut them out of his life with patience and kindness. They’d just been waiting for him to get over his fears and realize that carrying the nanos that made them immortals did not make him, or them, less than human. That he was still a real boy.
“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly and it was all he had to say. Dante and Tomasso had been sitting still and expectant, waiting for the breakthrough they hoped had come, but no doubt fearing disappointment. Now they both relaxed back in their seats and grinned.
“No problem,” Tomasso rumbled.
“Took you long enough to come around though,” Dante said dryly. “But then you always were a stubborn cuss, kiddo.�
��
Jake didn’t miss the fact that the annoying “Pinocchio” he’d been plagued with since being turned had reverted back to the “kiddo” they’d called him before that. And he liked it, which was kind of strange since he’d hated it before this. He’d been in his early fifties when he was turned, and being fifty-one and called “kiddo” by two guys who looked twenty-five had irritated him no end. Now he took the nickname as a sign that he was forgiven for being such an ass . . . and he was grateful for it.
“I—” Jake began, intent on telling them how much he appreciated it, but Tomasso interrupted him.
“Don’t go getting all sappy on us, kiddo. You’re forgiven. You’re family. Enough said.”
“Besides, there are other issues now,” Dante added, nodding his head toward Nicole.
Jake glanced to her quickly, noting that she was eyeballing them all with trepidation. But at least she wasn’t running. Her trust in Marguerite was keeping her there, willing to listen to them. That or Dante or Tomasso, or both, were keeping her there.
Swallowing, Jake smiled at her reassuringly. “Right, I suppose you’d like to know about this vampire deal first?”
Nicole nodded silently.
Jake nodded as well and briefly debated how to do it. In the end he decided that— like ripping off a bandage—it was best to just get it done quickly. “Okay, here’s the deal, while we do have some things in common with vampires, we are not vampires,” he assured her quietly. “We are humans who have been infused with bio-engineered nanos that have been programmed to repair wounds and fight illness and infections. The nanos are kind of like supercharged robotic white blood cells.”
“Nanos that heal wounds and fight illness,” Nicole said slowly, relaxing a little. It was only then that he realized while her trust in Marguerite had made her willing to listen, she’d still been pretty anxious about it all.
“Exactly,” Jake said with a nod and then added, “Scientifically designed nanos, and they’re great.” He paused briefly to offer an apologetic smile to Dante and Tomasso, silently acknowledging that he’d changed his tune and this was the first time he’d ever said anything good about the nanos now traveling through his blood. He then glanced back to Nicole and added, “They’ve saved my life twice now. They are good. But while there are a lot of benefits to the nanos, they use more blood to carry out their work than any human body can create, and so we have to get that extra blood from an outside source. Our kind evolved and gained fangs, and at one time did have to bite people to get the blood they needed. But now that there are blood banks we have laws that don’t allow us to bite necks and suck blood, as Dante put it. We use blood from blood banks to get the blood we need.”
“Your kind bit people before blood banks?” Nicole asked with a frown. “How long ago were these nanos developed?”
“Quite a while,” he admitted with a grimace. “They were developed in Atlantis before the fall. Atlantis was quite isolated from the rest of the world by its geography and it advanced both socially and technologically much more swiftly than the rest of the world.”
“It must have been advances if they were creating nanos there while the rest of the world was sitting around fires with spears,” Nicole said dryly.
“Yes,” Jake agreed quietly. “And that world with fire and spears was the world the Atlanteans with nanos found themselves in after their homeland fell. They’d received blood transfusions to get the extra blood in Atlantis, but suddenly had no access to such things. They might have died, but the nanos had been programmed to ensure their hosts’ survival, so the nanos forced an evolution on their carriers: the fangs, increased night vision, even mind reading and mind control,” he listed off. “All of it meant to aid in their getting the blood they needed to survive.”
“I see,” Nicole murmured.
Jake hesitated, she seemed to be handling it okay so far, but this was a lot to accept. Deciding to hope for the best, he skipped on to the present. He could explain the rest of their special skills and such later. “Those nanos are the only reason I survived my dip in the poisoned hot tub the other night.”
“You’re sure it was poisoned?” Nicole asked with a frown.
“Yes. Dani—” He hesitated and then asked, “You do remember Marguerite showing up here with Julius and Dani and those guys?” Jake asked, unsure how much Marguerite had removed of her memory and how much she recalled.
“Yes. Marguerite, Julius, Dante, Tomasso, and Marguerite’s nephew Decker, as well as his wife, Dani, were here,” she said and then her expression turned troubled. “I think I remember them talking about the hot tub . . . and that it might be poisoned.”
“Yes,” Jake said, relieved that she was remembering. He had no doubt Marguerite had veiled those memories to keep Nicole calm until he could talk to her, but they were coming back now that Dante and Tomasso weren’t reinforcing Marguerite’s efforts.
“Dani took a sample for analysis,” he told her now. “And the water in the hot tub has a high concentration of nicotine and DMSO. Enough to kill quickly. If you had got in the hot tub instead of me, you would be dead.”
“And you think someone was deliberately trying to poison me,” she said quietly.
Jake frowned. “Well, it didn’t get in there by accident, Nicole. And it wasn’t put there for my benefit. It had to be put in with the intent of killing you.”
“Right,” she said unhappily.
“I know it’s hard to accept that the man you love would try to kill you,” he said gently. “But Rodolfo—”
“I don’t love Rodolfo,” she protested with amazement. “I’m divorcing him, for heaven’s sake. I’d hardly do that if I loved him.”
Jake glanced away with a sigh. He didn’t really want to tell her that she was divorcing her husband because of Marguerite’s controlling her mind and nudging her in that direction. Marguerite had Nicole’s best interests at heart when she’d done it, so instead of telling her that, he pointed out gently, “You still have pictures of him all over the house, Nicole. That suggests you still have feelings—”
“I still have pictures of him all over the house because the egotistical idiot went and superglued them to the fricking wall,” Nicole interrupted grimly.
“What?” Jake gasped even as Tomasso and Dante spat the word.
Nicole sighed and shook her head. “Rodolfo is a spiteful, nasty, selfish creep. I don’t know what he was thinking. If he thought it was a good way to make me have to think of him even after he was gone, or if he just doesn’t know how to wield a damned hammer, but every single picture is superglued or spackled to the wall. Pierina and I tried to take them down while she was here. We managed to pry one off the wall, but it left a great gaping hole. I’m going to have to have professionals in to remove them, but I don’t know who to call about something like that and I’ve been too busy with all these commissioned portraits to call around, so I’ve just done my best to ignore them.”
She scowled and glanced to one of the half dozen pictures affixed to the kitchen wall and added, “I considered buying a glass cutter and removing the glass from each frame so I could at least remove the pictures, but then I’d be left with empty frames everywhere. Besides, it seemed like I was giving it too much energy that way. Like he’d somehow have succeeded at whatever he was trying to do, so I decided to just ignore them until I could get people in to fix it. And mostly I have managed to ignore them.”
“Until someone points them out,” Jake said quietly. It was pretty obvious she was pissed right now just thinking about it.
“Yeah. Then I get annoyed all over again,” Nicole admitted with a grimace, and added, “But that isn’t because I love him. It’s because he’s taken control from me again. He’s decided what will be on my walls and made sure I had to live with it for at least a while. And it’s because it reminds of all the damned, stupid annoying and petty little things he did when I bought him out of the house.”
“Like what?” Dante asked with interest.
/> “The agreement was he take half of the furniture and whatnot as marital assets . . . Forget that I paid for every damned thing.” Nicole grimaced with disgust, and then continued, “Fine. So he took half of everything, but he also did his damnedest to mess with anything left behind.”
“Mess with them?” Jake asked curiously. “How.”
“Well, the stereo, for instance,” she said. “It was here and in working condition, but he took the power plugs as well as the connecting wires to the speakers. He did that with the PlayStation, the mosquito catcher, and anything else that had a removable cord. So I had them all here, but couldn’t use them until I replaced the wires . . . and then there was the dishwasher, it was missing its silverware holder. There were shelves missing from the refrigerator, and the dining-room set? It was a twelve-chair set, but he took the end chairs. You know, the chairs with the arms?” Nicole said, and when they nodded, continued, “I called him on it, of course, through our lawyers, and he had an answer for everything. He didn’t know what I was talking about. He hadn’t taken any cords or shelves. And the chairs? Those had suffered an unfortunate accident during the year he lived here. Hadn’t he mentioned it to me when we were agreeing on what would go and what would stay? He was sure he had.”
“As for loving him,” Nicole continued quietly. “Not only do I not still love him, in truth, I don’t think I ever did. It turns out I didn’t even know the real him. I suspect I was in love with love, with the whole romance of the relationship, the exotic foreigner, sexy accent, seeing the world thing . . . I was a fool.”
“That’s kind of harsh,” Jake said quietly.
“Yeah,” Tomasso agreed. “Besides, we’re all fools for love.”
“She didn’t love him,” Dante reminded him.
“Oh, right,” Tomasso muttered, then peered at her hard. Jake knew at once that he was reading Nicole’s mind, and wondered what he was finding. His eyebrows rose when Tomasso added, “Well, we’re often fools for sex too.”
Nicole flushed and demanded, “You’re doing that mind reading thing Jake mentioned, aren’t you?”