by HELEN HARDT
I slapped the side of my head.
“Dante!” Erin gasped. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“Drive her out, son,” my father said. “You can do it.”
I could. I knew that. I’d done it earlier and slept like a rock for a few precious hours.
River stiffened in his chair. “What’s going on, cuz?”
“You’re on the right track,” I said.
“Good. Good to know.”
Unless she was lying to me.
Didn’t matter. Everything River said made perfect sense. He separated facts from supposition, truth from perception.
Don’t fuck with me. River is on the right track. We are all on the right track. I see what is true and what is not.
So you do, Dante. Then you must see this, the most important truth of all. I’m here in your mind because you want me here.
Chapter Sixteen
Erin
Something wasn’t right. Dante looked fine, but fine people didn’t slap themselves on the head. “Could you guys excuse us?” I said to River and Julian. “I need to take care of him.”
“I’m okay, baby,” he said. “We need to finish this conversation. Figure out what we’re going to do about Logan. About his supposed great-grandfather. The book. The blood bond. Most importantly, Lucy and the others.”
Guilt again. With everything going on, I hadn’t put Lucy at the front of my mind, where she deserved to be.
“He’s right,” River said. “I compartmentalize when I’m working, but Lucy is never out of my mind. I miss her.”
“We all do,” I said. “We have to find her.”
“We will,” Julian said, and then turned to River. “I think Erin’s right, though. We should leave. Dante needs some rest. And you and I need to talk.”
“About what?” Dante demanded. “Anything you have to say to River you can say to me.”
“I just want some more information about his conversation with Logan. Nothing that can’t wait. You rest. Let Erin take care of you.”
“But—”
Julian vanished, making me shiver. Would I ever get used to that?
“I’m beat,” River said, feigning a yawn.
“Good fake, Riv.” Dante shook his head.
“Whatever. I’m leaving. Jay’s back at my apartment, and he’ll want a full report. Uncle Jules and I can give it to him. I’ll check in with you guys later.” He left.
“Hey, babe.” I stroked Dante’s rough cheek. “What can I do for you?”
He stood and pulled me to my feet. “This.” He crushed his lips to mine.
I opened to the kiss in an instant—not for me, but for him.
I always needed him, and now was no different. But right now, he needed me. I felt it in my muscles, in my bones, in the very core of what made me me.
Our tongues tangled and dueled for timeless moments, until I pulled away to gasp in a breath.
“Baby. Need you.”
“I need you too.”
He lifted me effortlessly into his arms and marched up the stairs to the bedroom.
I wanted to tell him how strong he was, how virile, how he could fight anything tormenting him and win.
But words would make no difference at this point.
Words were only words.
When he laid me on the bed, I quickly found the rungs of the headboard and grasped them.
“Rope?” he asked.
“You don’t need rope. Your strength and determination will keep me bound. Take me, Dante. Take me hard and fast. Demand what you want from me, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll give it all to you.”
With a rapidity I’d never seen, he pulled off my shoes and socks, and then my jeans and thong.
“You’re moving so fast,” I murmured.
“Not fast enough,” he said gruffly. He ripped my blouse down the middle. Right down the middle, and then tore the sleeves right off me. Then he removed my bra, which, thankfully, had a front clasp. Didn’t stop him from ripping the straps, though.
My grip never left the headboard.
I lay naked, he still fully clothed, standing over me, the fiery rim around his dark irises in full force.
“I hear your blood hissing through your vessels, Erin. I hear your capillaries bursting. Your body is glowing a soft pink. Your blood makes you so beautiful, do you know that?”
Mere months ago, I’d never have expected to hear such words from a lover. Now? They made my blood boil, added to the light crimson of my skin, the harsh throbbing between my legs.
He closed his eyes and inhaled, and I knew well the fragrance he smelled. My arousal, but to him it was combined with all the other scents that attracted him to me.
“Erin, baby, I want you safe more than anything, but if that potion had cut off your scent from me… I would have handled it. I love you, and it wouldn’t matter. But I’m so grateful I can still smell your unique aroma. That scent that drives me insane, makes me know without a doubt that we’re meant to be.”
Still he hovered above me. He opened his eyes, and the love in his gaze nearly melted me into soft butter.
“So beautiful. So perfect. So pink and gorgeous and delicious.” He sat on the bed and spread my legs. “Plump and ready. Dazzling. Just dazzling. So full of blood. So ready for me.”
I writhed, still holding on to the rungs of the headboard. My fingers itched to pull his head into my pussy, make him eat me.
My arms stayed put. Indeed, I almost believed I couldn’t move.
His dark eyes were smoking, the amber ring around them moving like soft flames. His hair hung in disarray around his broad shoulders. How I ached to run my fingers through its silkiness.
I stayed put.
Two buttons of his fatigue-green shirt were undone, and tiny chest hairs peeked out. How I longed to tear the shirt down the middle, let the buttons scatter, just so I could feast with my eyes and lips upon his hard chest.
His erection bulged outward, still snug in his jeans. I wanted to touch it, rub it through the fabric, make him slowly crazy. Then pull it out and deepthroat him until I gagged.
I stayed put.
I stayed put while he melted me with his gaze, while the blood in my veins turned to boiling honey as I got hot, hotter, and then hotter still.
I opened my mouth to beg, but he placed his finger over his lips.
I didn’t speak.
I stayed put.
“I’ll give you what you want, love. What we both want. But at this very moment, I want to take in your gorgeous body, your beautiful face, your shapely legs, your luscious pussy. You are a delicacy, Erin. A fucking feast.” He inhaled. “God, I love you.”
I opened my mouth again to return his sentiment, but he shushed me once more.
He slowly began to unbutton his shirt.
I grasped the rungs harder, my knuckles tightening. Please, Dante, please. Inside me. Please.
With one swipe, his shirt was on the floor, the buttons flying.
Yes! He’d heard me. Or felt me. Or something.
He kicked off his boots, toed off his socks, and then—
I gulped.
He was huge.
He was always huge. But tonight…
Oh. My. God.
“You’re mine, Erin. Mine. All fucking mine.”
In an instant he was on top of me, shoving himself into me, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.
The orgasm hit me from nowhere. In a flash I was floating, truly floating above my bed, flowing like my blood flowed through my veins.
My whole body vibrated with intense prickles and tingles, and my pussy—God, my pussy—it clamped around that huge dick, and I relished the intrusive burn.
My eyes were closed and still we floated.
He plunged into me, deeper and deeper each time, and his cock grew larger, ever larger, giving me the ultimate pleasure.
Floating.
God. Fucking floating.
Until—
My eyes popped open. “Aaahhh!” I fell onto the bed, bouncing lightly.
Dante was hovering above me. Fucking hovering above me. In. Thin. Air.
“Dante!” I shrieked.
He tumbled down onto the bed. I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid him.
“What was that?” I sat up.
“I…don’t know.”
“You just…levitated us, for God’s sake. You’ve got to know.”
“Erin, I don’t. I don’t.”
His cock was still hard.
He hadn’t finished.
I reached toward him, but as soon as I touched him, he flinched.
I gasped.
He widened his eyes. “It’s not you. It’s… It’s that darkness. It’s here. With us.” He stood, scrambling into his jeans and shirt. “Get dressed, Erin. We’re leaving.”
“This is our home. We’re not going anywhere. It can leave.”
“Baby, I get where you’re coming from, but this isn’t something to fuck around with. My father doesn’t know what it is. Bea doesn’t know what it is. All we know is that it is. Come on.”
The urgency in his voice made me obey. I dressed quickly in the first clothes I could find and let him drag me out of the bedroom as soon as I was decent.
We nearly tumbled down the stairs.
“Is it here now?” Panic bubbled up around me.
He stopped, cocked his head. “No. It didn’t follow us down here.”
I shivered, rubbing my arms. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would it stay in the bedroom?”
“I don’t know. Damn it, Erin, none of this makes sense.”
“Dante”—I reached for him—“we were floating up there. You realize that, right?”
He nodded.
“What was it?”
“Do I look like I fucking know?” He shoved his fingers through his hair, his hand shaking slightly.
“Easy,” I said. “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”
“Hell, no.”
“Is it something vampires can—”
“Jesus, Erin. You know what vampires can do. Our senses are slightly better than yours. And almost all of us can learn to glamour. That’s it. We don’t have any other special powers. We don’t burst into flames in sunlight. Garlic doesn’t keep us away.” He paced around the living room.
He was understandably upset. But— “Don’t take this out on me, Dante.”
“I’m not. I’m just fucking frustrated.”
I tried soothing him once again with my touch, but he paced away from me. “What can I do to help you?” I asked.
“Baby, baby. I wish you could help. I so wish you could.”
I gasped when Julian appeared before me.
“Do you know what’s going on, Dad? Why I was able to levitate?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julian said. “But right now, we’ve got a bigger problem.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dante
“Your sister is missing.”
The words echoed in my head, as if they had come from somewhere other than my father. Indeed they had. My father wasn’t actually here. He wasn’t actually saying words. I was interpreting his energy in the way it made sense to me.
For the first time, I truly understood what my father was now.
Your sister is missing.
“Dante?” Erin hedged.
“I heard him.”
“Aren’t you going—”
I closed my eyes. I was numb. I should be concerned for Em. She was my sister. My pregnant sister.
But with everything else…
I opened my eyes. “When was she last seen?”
“She had an appointment yesterday at Jack Hebert’s,” my father said. “He says she left and she was fine, but she didn’t show up for work last night. Instead, she came here.”
Erin lifted her brow. “She did?”
I nodded. “Dad intervened.”
“Oh. Why, Julian? Why didn’t you want her to come here?”
“I just needed to talk to her,” my father said. “Then she went home. At least that’s where she said she was going. No one has seen her since.”
The untruths were getting to me. Correction. They’d already gotten to me. I needed to have a talk with Em. She couldn’t hide the paternity of her baby forever.
But she was gone. Em was gone. Reality hit me in the gut.
“Have you been to her place?” I asked my father.
He nodded. “As soon as I heard, I searched her apartment. No clues. Her bed was unmade, but that doesn’t mean anything. Em never made her bed.”
I smiled slightly. Em had been a slob as a kid. Apparently she still was.
“What’s Emilia’s blood type?” Erin asked.
“According to Jack, it’s B negative.”
“Right. You told me that, how you couldn’t possibly have B positive. All the other missing women have B positive blood, including Lucy. So why…” She rubbed her forehead. “There has to be some connection. But what?”
“That’s not the most puzzling part of this,” my father said.
“He’s right,” I said. “Em has the ability to glamour. A vampire can’t be glamoured by another vampire. She must have been taken forcefully…or drugged. And if she was drugged…” My mind whirled. I couldn’t let myself think of it. Couldn’t…
“That wouldn’t be good for the baby,” Erin finished for me. “Oh, Dante. I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll just have to find her,” I said. “That’s all there is to it.”
“We’ll find her, son.”
“I need to talk to Jack,” I said.
“Your grandfather has already spoken to him.”
“Bill knows?” I rubbed at my brow.
“She’s his granddaughter. I had to tell him. Anyway, according to Bill, she left Jack’s office after her appointment. She’s feeling a lot better. Jack apparently gave her a tincture made of those herbs from your dream, Erin. They worked a miracle.”
Erin’s eyes widened. “Or…they did something else to her.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. My training is in western medicine. But…”
“What?”
“Bea gave me the remedy in my dream, but at first… At first she wasn’t Bea. She was a doctor from the ER. Dr. Zabrina Bonneville.”
“The one you were helping with research?” I asked.
“The same. She’s a brilliant physician, but there’s something about her. I had a patient who thought she looked exactly like another doctor who’d be in her sixties or seventies by now. Dr. Zarah Le Sang. Remember, Dante? Dr. Blood?”
I nodded.
“Plus, there’s almost nothing about either of them online. Isn’t that odd?”
“You think this doctor might have something to do with the disappearances?” my father asked.
“It’s a long shot. She wasn’t on duty the night the first two disappeared, and Cynthia North was returned unharmed. The one from the free clinic, Bella Lundy, was as well.”
“But the others weren’t,” I said.
“No.” She bit her lip. “Someone…someone at the hospital was feeding on me. We know now that it wasn’t Logan. He’s not a vampire. And it hasn’t happened since—” She paced into the kitchen and back. “I’m going crazy. Just fucking crazy.”
“Do you think this doctor might be a vampire, Erin?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t. Mrs. Moore, my patient who died, thought she could be the twin of Dr. Le Sang, except they had different colors of hair. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but now, I’m wondering.”
“Vampires live slightly longer than humans, but we’re not immortal,” I said. “And we age.”
“Hair can be dyed, Dante,” Erin said. “A brunette could now be blond. If she’s old, she could dye her gray hair.”
“Her face would still show signs of age. H
ow old does Dr. Bonneville look?”
“I don’t know. Forties maybe. I know it doesn’t make any sense. But here’s more. Dr. Le Sang was a hematologist, a blood doctor, and her name was Dr. Blood. Cynthia North told me that when Dr. Bonneville visited her after she was returned, she’d said she was a hematologist. Blood doctors. Blood equals vampires.”
“You might be stretching, Erin,” my father said.
I shook my head vehemently. “No. She’s right. Something doesn’t add up here. You said a dream can be a premonition. What was she having you research, Erin?”
“Blood types with certain physical characteristics. I couldn’t find anything.”
“Where is this doctor now?”
“On vacation in Barbados with her husband.”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
She shook her head. “It’s what she told me. At the time, I had no reason to believe she was lying.”
“She hasn’t been at the hospital.” My mind raced. “And no one else has fed from you since she left.”
Erin nodded.
“It’s worth checking out,” I said. “But first we need to find Em. I wish Bill weren’t involved in this.”
“He loves Emilia,” my father said. “He wants to find her as much as we do.”
“What if finding her means translating the Texts? Then what? Will he still be as anxious to find her?”
My father looked grim, even for a ghost. “I don’t know, Dante. I just don’t know.”
I paced around the room, my heart pounding. “The website we needed is gone. We have no one to translate the Texts. My sister is now missing, along with Lucy and the others. And something is going on with me. How do we know where to start?”
“Dante, we start with Emilia, Lucy, and the others,” Erin said. “They are the most important.”
“Yes, yes.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “You’re right, of course. People trump the blood bond. Trump whatever’s going on with me.”
“It’s all important, son, but I agree with Erin as well. River will file a police report about your sister, but we’re not leaving this to the police.”
“We sure aren’t.” I stomped my foot. “We have to find them.” Nausea swept through me. My sister. Lucy. The others. All, save Em, with B positive blood.