“Babies spike high fevers sometimes. It’s usually a virus, but we’ll run some tests, okay?”
The mother gulped and nodded.
The child was fussy—feverish children usually were—but I couldn’t help but note how beautiful she was, with big brown eyes, long eyelashes, and lovely dark curls. Normally I didn’t comment on something so superficial, but the mother was in such distress, I thought it might help.
“She’s beautiful. Truly.”
The mother sniffled. “She just won a baby beauty contest.”
I smiled, even while imagining spoiled children a la Toddlers and Tiaras vying for a crown. “I didn’t realize there were pageants for babies this young.”
“Oh, yes. As young as six months old.”
I smiled again.
“I know what you’re thinking. A mother shouldn’t display her child like that. But she won two thousand dollars for her college fund.”
“That’s nice.” I pulled Bianca out of the water and toweled her off. “You feeling better? You want to see your mama?” I checked her temperature quickly. “Already down two degrees. She’s doing great.”
“I know why she spikes those high fevers.”
“Oh?”
“It’s her genetics.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her daddy is a werewolf,” she whispered.
I cradled Bianca, trying to stay calm. The baby would sense even the slightest tension.
Her daddy is a werewolf.
A flashback jolted into my mind. Of a young homeless man I’d come to know as Abe Lincoln.
Did you see him?
See who?
The vampire.
Abe Lincoln was hardly the first patient who’d come to the ER talking about paranormal creatures. This was New Orleans, after all. I’d heard my share of tall tales, and normally, I’d shrug this off. But a child was involved here. If this mother was delusional, I had to think about the baby. Looked like I’d be calling in the social worker.
But my mind shot again to Abe Lincoln. Yes, he was far from the first patient I’d heard spin a fairy tale.
He was the first, however, who’d proven to be truthful.
I nodded to Bianca’s mother. “I see.”
“Weres, they’re always hot, you know? Her daddy’s normal body temp is about a hundred. She’s not a were, but she spikes those fevers.”
High fevers were not uncommon in babies. Bianca’s fever was most likely due to a virus, not due to any paranormal heritage.
If weres truly existed—and according to Dante, they did—I’d probably seen one or two in the ER. If a temp read at a hundred, we rarely treated it without other symptoms. Nothing to worry about.
Just like vampires, they could be existing in plain sight.
My world had gone bonkers.
The beautiful baby in my arms had finally stopped fussing. I handed her back to her mother. “Just wait in here. I’ll be back to check on you in about fifteen minutes. I’d like to see that fever go down another degree.”
“You won’t tell anyone, will you? About her daddy? I heard doctors and nurses have to keep their patients’ secrets. Confidentiality or something, right?”
“Of course.” I smiled, a twinge of guilt niggling at me. I had every intention of bringing in social services. “Please just press that red button if you need me before I come back.”
I checked on another patient and then went to the computer station to log in some information.
Lucy sat down next to me. “How’s it going?”
“Just another night in the ER. I have a half-werewolf baby in exam room three, apparently.”
“Oh?” Lucy laughed. “What next? A mermaid getting a sponge bath? Oops. I have to go.” She grabbed her pager.
Funny. I hadn’t heard it buzz.
I took care of a little paperwork and then headed back to exam room three to check Bianca’s temperature.
I walked in and had to fight to keep my mouth from dropping open.
Lucy was holding Bianca. “I doubt there’s anything to worry about,” she said to the baby’s mother. “Babies sometimes spike fevers. It’s their little bodies’ way of burning out viruses.”
Nothing at all odd about this scene. Bianca’s mother had probably wanted to ask a question, and instead of pushing the button for me, she grabbed the first nurse she saw.
Happened all the time.
So why did this seem so strange?
Selective retrograde amnesia.
Torn clothes.
A big dog at the site of River’s accident.
My legs wobbled a bit, and I caught myself.
I had to hold it together.
My best friend was not a werewolf, and neither was this child’s father.
Chapter Seven
Dante
Technically Erin had refused to let me move in with her, but now that I had a key, I stayed at her place while she was at work. I’d need to feed as soon as she got home anyway, and I had nowhere else to go.
I’d spent most of the night on Erin’s computer searching fruitlessly for any information on the Vampyre Texts or a blood bond.
Nothing.
The only option was to find my father’s body, file a death certificate, claim his estate, and use some of the money to get the contents of the Vampyre Texts from Nocturnal Truth, the obscure website I’d found.
My father had been absent since the parking lot at the body shop. I’d been jealously imagining that he was with River, but that was ridiculous. River was at work, just like Erin was. It still irked me that River had been able to see my father’s ghost right away. What was wrong with me?
Her.
My time with her had fucked me up.
Once bonded, never broken.
I grabbed fistfuls of my hair. “Get out of my head!”
I’m part of you now, just as you’re a part of me. You’ll never escape me. Never.
“Get out of my head!” I yelled again.
Never. Never. Never.
I paced around Erin’s living room, my hands clasped over my ears.
Still her voice taunted me. I no longer could discern words, just the wicked tone that made me want to throw things.
I picked up the voluminous tome and hurled it across the room. It landed against the wall with a thud and then fell to the ground, open.
I closed my eyes for a minute. This was not my book to destroy or throw around as if it meant nothing.
It belonged to my grandfather.
I drew in several breaths and let them out, willing myself to calm. It didn’t help much, but it was enough to get me across the room to the book. I knelt down to pick it up, when four words fell into my view.
Demandez a la royne.
Demandez was the imperative form of the verb “to ask” in modern French. What was it in Old French? I had to assume it was the same. This passage was telling me to ask something. No, to ask someone. La was the feminine form of the article “the.” But royne? Obviously an Old French word, and one I didn’t recognize.
Do as it tells you.
Get the fuck out of my head, you bitch!
Then I stared at the sentence again. The word for queen in modern French was reine.
But the word for king…
During my quick search for Old French words weeks ago, I’d come across moi, the word for “me,” spelled as moy.
The modern French word for king was roi. Using the same Old French spelling, perhaps it would be roy in Old French. And if roy meant king…
Ask the queen.
Bitch was talking to me!
She was no queen of mine.
Wrong. You said so yourself.
I said so because you were torturing me!
Perhaps royne meant cunt. That would make more sense, if she was guiding me to this sentence in the book.
No. It meant queen. I knew without knowing, as though the information had always been in my head.
She was no queen, and I h
ad nothing to ask her. She didn’t have any information I wanted.
Except that she did.
As much as I struggled against it, I needed her knowledge. How else would I find my uncle?
As I readied to send her a thought—could I even do that?—another question formed in its place.
Who has been taking Erin’s blood?
Nothing. No words formed in my head.
A chill swept across my neck.
“Dad?”
Not my father. I’d see him if he were here. Besides, it hadn’t felt like him. This was something else. Something…sinister.
I’d had the same feeling the first time I’d been in Erin’s home. I’d sensed something evil. Something I needed to ferret out and eliminate.
I gulped. Was she here?
I shook my head vehemently. Of course not. She was a vampire, and we certainly didn’t have the power to be invisible. No living entity did.
Or did she? I’d told River once that I believed my bindings had been enchanted. Ridiculous, yes, but I should have been able to free myself.
Perhaps she had power that the rest of us did not.
No.
She existed only in my head, and perhaps that was just my imagination warped from so many years in captivity serving her my blood.
She wasn’t here at all, and the book falling open to that particular sentence was nothing but coincidence.
That made sense. Perfect sense. Logic was always the best choice.
But even I wasn’t buying that this time.
Though she was the last person in the world I wanted to converse with, I tried again.
Why did you let me go?
It was time.
Time for what?
Time for you to do what you were meant to do. Born to do.
My pulse raced. What am I meant to do?
You’ll find out…
“For God’s sake!” I picked up the book, closed it, and returned it to Erin’s coffee table.
Then Erin burst through the door.
Chapter Eight
Erin
Dante’s skin was paler than usual. He was standing next to my coffee table when I entered.
He looked frazzled, about as frazzled as I felt. My reality had taken another hit today.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Not even in the slightest,” he said, advancing toward me. His eyes were dark with smoking embers, the amber ring around his iris more pronounced than ever.
He was hungry.
He gripped my shoulders and yanked me toward him.
My heart thumped. Pinpricks covered my entire body, surging through me and culminating between my legs. My nipples hardened, pressing against my bra. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to crush our mouths together in the customary kiss.
“Oh!”
Instead his teeth sank into the flesh of my neck.
The sharp pain subsided quickly, replaced by the sucking and tugging sensations I had learned to love. I was happy to please him, happy to give him what he needed and craved—but this was different.
He hadn’t warned me, hadn’t asked. Not that I would’ve said no. Still, it was oddly unsettling. Yet completely arousing.
He kept sucking, kept taking my blood, and when it had gone on longer than I was comfortable with, I gripped both sides of his head. “Dante.”
He continued sucking.
“Dante,” I said again, more urgently this time.
He released me then, licking the puncture wounds before pulling back and meeting my gaze. “Sorry, baby.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t even kiss me.”
He pressed his lips, still smeared with my blood, against mine softly. “Sorry,” he said again.
“I wasn’t asking you to kiss me. But seriously, something’s bugging you.”
Instead of answering, he bent to his knees, pushed my sweats and underpants over my hips, and inspected my inner thighs. “No new wounds. Good.”
Nothing about how turned on I was? Even I could smell it. I knelt down to meet his gaze. “Dante, what’s going on?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
I hastily pulled my pants back up. “Please. If we’re going to be togeth—”
“I said I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry I wasn’t tender with you. It won’t happen again.” He turned away from me.
“You know I don’t care about that. I truly want to help.”
He looked around my living room, inhaling. “Do you sense anything here?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
“The first time I came here, I sensed something evil. It seemed to go away, or at least I stopped feeling it, until today.”
Goosebumps erupted on my flesh. “You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t mean to. But we need to figure it out. Maybe it’s that dark presence that Bea said has targeted me.”
“If it was anything like that, why would it have been here the first time you came here?”
“Maybe it followed me.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I know I sound crazy.”
“Dante, after everything I’ve seen, you don’t sound crazy at all.” I walked to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and drank it all down. Dante must have taken a lot of my blood. I was feeling dehydrated and slightly lightheaded. The water helped.
I walked back to him. “Have you talked to River lately?”
“Not since yesterday. Why?”
“Just wondering. A patient and her baby disappeared from our hospital, but no one is doing anything about it. When the other patients disappeared, the police were all over it. With these two, it’s like they were never there.”
He stared into space.
“Are you listening to me?”
He jerked his attention back to me. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t you care that a patient and her baby disappeared?”
“Of course I do. The hospital surely called the police.”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“They were probably investigating during a time you weren’t there. They’ll get to you. What can either of us do about it, anyway?”
I stared at him, furrowing my brow. “What’s wrong with you, Dante?”
“Nothing. Nothing I can talk about at least.” He jerked his head to the left, gazing at seemingly nothing.
“Are you feeling the strange presence now?”
He didn’t answer.
I tentatively touched his arm. His skin was ice cold, despite the fact that he’d just fed. “You want some breakfast or something?”
“No. I’m good. Sorry, baby, but I need to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Wait. You’re not leaving me here with whatever evil presence is lurking, are you?”
He smiled, sort of. “Of course not. I don’t feel it now.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to see my cousin.” He left without kissing me goodbye.
Strange. I closed the door.
A few seconds later, someone knocked.
I smiled. He hadn’t left after all. I opened the door.
Only to see Dr. Zabrina Bonneville. Her long blond hair flowed over her shoulders in sleek tresses. I couldn’t help staring a bit. I’d never seen her wear it that way. She wore jeans and a peasant blouse, something else I’d never witnessed.
“Doctor, hi. What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you, Erin. May I come in?”
“Uh…sure.” I held the door open for her.
“I suppose you’re wondering about Patty Doyle and her baby.”
Had Dr. Bonneville seen me snooping on the computer? I hadn’t actually been snooping. Patty had been my patient too.
“Yes, I was, actually. I wanted to check on her the next morning, but there was no record of her at the hospital. With all the other disappearances, I was wondering why the police weren’t around
.”
Dr. Bonneville scoffed. “They do get in the way, don’t they? How are we supposed to run an ER with the cops always snooping around?”
“They’re doing their jobs,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too condescending. On the other hand, we weren’t at work right now.
“I get that, but their jobs interfere with our jobs.”
“If women would stop disappearing from the hospital, they wouldn’t need to be there,” I said.
“That’s true, and I don’t mean to sound callous. Those patients are my responsibility. Their disappearance doesn’t make any of us look good.” She sighed. “I’m just glad they seem to be reappearing, though the whole thing is a strange mystery.”
I could agree, but that was futile. “But Patty and her baby didn’t disappear?”
She cleared her throat. “No, they didn’t. Patty’s parents had them transferred. You might not have realized this, but Patty is only seventeen. She’s still under the protection of her parents. They wanted her and the baby transferred to a hospital in Baton Rouge.”
“Why? The baby was nearly premature.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “And it’s not my job to ask. The baby was fine at the time of transfer. She was breathing on her own and her sucking reflex was good.”
“And now?”
“I have no idea. She and Patty are no longer my responsibility.”
“No, but they’re still—” I stopped abruptly. Dr. Bonneville was right, as heartless as she sounded. We couldn’t get attached. It was too emotionally debilitating.
Didn’t stop me from getting attached anyway.
“I’ll be going,” Dr. Bonneville said, turning.
“Doctor?”
“Yes?” She looked over her shoulder.
“Why did you come to my home to tell me this? Why not just tell me at work?”
“I’m taking a few weeks off, Erin. I won’t be at work for a while.”
“Oh?” I was secretly delighted. “Taking a vacation?”
“Yes. Three weeks in Barbados. The other doctors and the residents will hold down the fort without me.”
“You’ll be missed,” I said, and actually meant it, professionally speaking. She was an amazing physician. “Have a wonderful time.”
Unhinged: Blood Bond: Parts 4, 5 & 6 (Volume 2) Page 21