by S. K. Ryder
A strange harmony vibrated through Dominic as though somewhere deep in his heart a secret string of kinship had been plucked. He understood the agony of loss just as Jackson did. And he knew the power of one woman’s love to dull that torment. So natural to take Jackson’s face in his hands and kiss him in a gesture of affection and understanding. At first Jackson made only a small effort to break the intimacy, but he began struggling in earnest when Dominic slashed his own tongue on the tip of a razor-sharp incisor and pressed it into Jackson’s mouth.
“Son of a—” Jackson’s head snapped back, eyes widening as the drop of vampire blood heightened his senses to near supernatural levels. He wiped at his mouth.
“Relax,” Dominic whispered.
It wasn’t a compulsion. Jackson could have stormed away and never looked back. But he didn’t.
Instead, he closed his eyes, collapsed into Dominic’s arms, and muttered a half-hearted “Fuck you.”
Chapter 3
Sweet Dreams
They stayed like this, the three of them, in a quiet embrace of bodies and spirits. Breath by breath, Jackson’s anger loosened its grip on his heart. As it faded, new feelings of relief surfaced, along with gratitude. And surrender.
It was this last that Cassidy sensed captivating Dominic like a flame did moths. Powerful, honest emotion was right up there with freely offered blood on the list of things guaranteed to draw a vampire’s undivided attention.
Jackson’s hands fisted in Dominic’s shirt. Never had he been this vulnerable, this trusting. Dominic’s eyes darkened as his interest sharpened, and he sounded distracted when he spoke. “I am sorry, mon ami.”
Slowly Jackson disengaged himself and stepped back. He glanced between them, spots of awkward color blooming on his cheeks. “Not your fault. I’m sorry for ever blaming you for Justin’s death.” When he saw that only the slimmest band of hazel surrounded the vampire’s hyper-dilated pupils, he retreated two more steps. “I—I should go.”
“No. Stay,” Dominic whispered.
Cassidy arched an inquisitive brow.
His expression softened with a pensive smile. “I need you at sunrise.”
Jackson stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“You brought the suppressant, did you not?”
He gave a wary nod.
“Then I will need you to administer it.”
Relief flooded Jackson’s face. “So you will do it, then? And you trust me not to kill you at the last moment?”
“You trusted me with your life tonight,” Dominic said, his tone solemn. “Now I will trust you with mine.”
“I see.” He looked around, unsure. “Well, I guess I’ll—”
“Get some sleep,” Dominic finished. The compulsion was no more than a suggestive touch against Jackson’s mind, but it slid in between his tattered defenses and found its mark. He shook his head but lost his coordination seconds later. When his eyes closed, he slumped into himself. Dominic swooped in to catch him before he hit the floor.
“Sweet dreams,” Cassidy murmured to the limp body in the vampire’s arms. Then she met Dominic’s eyes. “Are you sure about this?” She knew the answer in his heart, of course, but they had found that saying things—important things—out loud tended to lend them gravity.
“I have never been more sure about anything,” he confirmed and hoisted Jackson over one shoulder as though he didn’t weigh two hundred pounds.
“It’s not a cure. It’s just a tease for something you can’t have.”
A dimpled smile of pure mischief curved his sensual mouth. “What I intend to have, mon petit amour, is you. I want to see you come for me with your eyes sparkling in the sun.”
The visual, together with the husky purr thickening his accent, made her belly quiver in delicious ways. “Oh, you think you can have that, do you?”
He leaned in to press a kiss to the sensitive spot beneath the corner of her jaw, which made other parts of her quiver as well. “I know I can.”
Her mouth went dry with heat. “I don’t know, lover. You may need to practice.”
Avec plaisir, he agreed. Meet me upstairs. Then he blurred away with his armful.
Her senses already reeling, Cassidy kicked the dainty sandals off her feet and into a corner, before jogging after him.
At the top of the stairs, a set of double-doors opened into Dominic’s private sanctuary. Unlike the rest of the house, this bedroom was ponderous and dark. Gone were the airy pastels and desert-southwest accents she favored. Rich woods and deep-blue fabrics predominated here. That and a vaulted ceiling that at first glance, appeared to be open to the sky at dusk or dawn, so delicate was the mural painted there, so exquisitely illuminated by the recessed lighting. Beneath this vista, Dominic and Cassidy had spent countless nights in the ornate king-size bed, making love, laughing, plotting, and dreaming.
There was no mistaking which of these was on the agenda now. Having deposited their houseguest in a spare bedroom, Dominic had already pulled back the brocade spread, shed his clothes, and crawled amidst the pillows. His sinuous body gleamed against the indigo sheets. The dark pools of his eyes were riveted on her.
Cassidy forced herself to slow down. She removed each item of clothing with tantalizing movements until she heard her vampire lover moan with impatience. But he didn’t move. Not until she came to him. And even then he let her take the lead in what followed. He knelt where she pointed on the soft surface and groaned with hearty enthusiasm when she took him inside herself. More than their conscious minds merged now. Physical sensations echoed between them as well. Just as Dominic knew what it was to be claimed as he penetrated her, Cassidy knew the power of taking and being taken at the same time.
As she set a lusty rhythm, he continued to struggle for control. Feeling his own teeth nip at her breasts and throat and chin—capturing her mouth only when she permitted it—shoved him ever closer to an edge he refused to cross before her. His hands caressed her back and hips and finally closed over her buttocks. She threw back her head in a throaty cry.
Her body still shuddered with release when he rolled her onto her back with a possessive growl and surrendered to his needs. As he did, a familiar spiral of light began to spin around them. The more urgent his thrusts, the faster it twisted up and outward, disappearing into the sky mural. This was Cassidy’s perception of the beast slipping out of Dominic’s control, his true vampire soul, the insatiable hunger for blood and life.
This was what got the mortal lovers of vampires killed.
Beneath her hands, the flesh in Dominic’s shoulders tightened into something leaner and harder than mere muscle. His lips clung to her throat. His teeth grazed her skin. “J’t’aime, Dominic,” she whispered and backed up the words with thoughts and feelings. I love you. All of you. Always.
Nearing climax, his body curled around her as though trying to absorb her through his skin. For a singular moment, his alter ego’s alien presence rippled through her like a touch from the grave. Then it withdrew, tamed once more by her love and the fact that she was too much a part of him to register as a separate entity.
Together they sprawled in a spent heap. Cassidy stroked the back of his head where it lay against her shoulder. The mingled aromas of sex and winter filled her nose. When her breathing calmed, Dominic propped himself up and playfully bumped his nose against hers before finding her mouth for a tender kiss.
In the next room, Jackson moaned.
Peering over Dominic’s virtual shoulder, Cassidy saw that Jackson was dreaming. Or rather he was taking the experiences flowing out of Dominic’s and Cassidy’s unguarded minds and making them his own in vivid, breathtaking color. “Good God.”
“Intéressant.”
Cassidy screwed her eyes shut as though that could block anything out.
Dominic
throttled down his connection with Jackson’s psyche. “It seems we have set him free. Even if only in his dreams.”
“That is so way more than I wanted to know.”
Dominic rolled his forehead against hers with a wistful sigh. I know.
The small frisson of regret in his mind made her catch her breath. No. You can’t be serious.
He pulled her into his arms in mute apology for thinking what he had, however briefly.
You . . . you would have been okay if . . . if we had . . . and . . . and . . . wow. She couldn’t finish the thought.
I don’t know, he admitted. But the fact remained: he yearned for a human child—with her, or, failing that, from her. If he couldn’t be the biological father, then the oblivious man in the next room was, after this evening at least, the only one worthy of that honor. Nothing but a fanciful dream.
Cassidy released the breath she had been holding. Oh, Dominic. You know if I could give you such a gift, I would. But not like this.
I know. He kissed the top of her head. Forgive me. That would have been one miracle too many tonight.
She wound her arms around her troubled vampire, holding him tight. There was nothing to forgive. For as long as she had known him, he had grieved for his human life. But not until tonight did she grasp the full lengths to which he was willing to go to reclaim any part of it.
She only wished she could veto the sunlight experiment as easily as the baby plan.
Chapter 4
A Shot at Dawn
Cassidy and Dominic sat at the kitchen counter and contemplated the black case when tentative footsteps approached from the foyer. They looked up to see Jackson who had shoved his hands into his pockets and looked anything but at ease.
“Good dreams?” Dominic wondered with a knowing smile which only compounded their guest’s obvious discomfort.
“Coffee is over there,” Cassidy said quickly, pointing at the coffeemaker which sighed in the far corner. Jackson beelined for it.
God help us, he remembers his dreams, she lamented, wishing she didn’t.
And he suspects we are aware of them, Dominic countered with wry amusement.
Well, I’m glad one of us is having fun. Toying with Jackson’s uptight equilibrium had long been a favorite sport for the vampire.
“Ah!” Serge exclaimed as he trundled into the kitchen and spotted Jackson. “He survived the fire.”
Half the coffee Jackson was pouring splattered on the counter. He jammed the carafe back on the hotplate and pinched his mouth against a string of obscenities. Ripping a wad of paper towels off the dispenser, he mopped up the mess.
“Our night was . . . very enjoyable,” Dominic said suggestively before taking pity on Jackson and changing the subject. “But I intend to enjoy my day even more.”
“Ah. Yes. That.” Serge sucked in his lips and touched his fingertips together.
“What does that mean?” Cassidy asked. “Is it safe? What do you see?”
Serge tilted his head to one side, then the other, his full face narrowing as he considered Dominic. He shrugged. “Turmoil. But nothing of consequence.”
It will not work, Dominic thought, shoulders slumping.
Cassidy gripped his forearm as she implored Serge. “It won’t kill him, though. Right?”
“Bah! Nothing will kill him,” Serge sniffed with a dismissive flick of a wrist.
“So, you . . . um . . .” Cassidy glanced at Jackson who now clutched a steaming cup of determination and maintained his distance. Whether he realized it or not, he really had touched fire last night when he offered his vein to Dominic. The searing dreams that resulted were just the smoke. “You weren’t talking about the sun last night with, um, ‘beware the fire’?”
Serge gave her an exasperated look. “We must always beware the sun, sweet one.”
I give up, she thought and dropped her head on Dominic’s shoulder.
He leaned in, his hair damp against her face. I did years ago.
Serge eyed Jackson, but no more vagaries were forthcoming. Instead, he turned to Dominic, pressed a hand to his chest, and bowed at the waist. “My lord, I will find my sanctuary in the earth. I bid you a pleasant day. May it be all you hoped.”
With that, the barefoot vampire vanished. He would have no part of their experiment. Or risk being vulnerable.
This sent a chill creeping across Cassidy’s shoulders. He doesn’t trust Jackson. Should we?
We have more reason to trust him than Serge does, Dominic countered. Also, if there were true danger, Serge would never let me do this. Which means . . . this probably will not work. You will need to seal the door to the sanctuary from the outside.
Cassidy thought she’d consider herself lucky if that’s all she would need to do in the next few minutes.
Jackson cleared his throat. “So, I guess we should get started?”
“We should.” Dominic scooped up the case, got off the bar stool, and headed for the wine cellar–lair. Cassidy followed.
“What? In there?”
“Just in case.” She inclined her head in a gesture meaning come on. With his mug cradled in both hands, Jackson did.
Dominic sealed the door behind them. The silence inside the poured-concrete room enveloped them like shrink wrap.
“I know the exit code,” Cassidy said when Jackson acquired the pallor of someone being shut in a tomb.
Jackson put his cup down on a small table that together with two chairs occupied one side of the shelter. A rack of wine bottles took up the entire far wall, filling the air with the smells of corks and dusty labels. Two cots padded with blankets lined another wall. On one of these Dominic sat now, looking drowsy. Cassidy could hear the sun’s inferno roaring in his ears and felt its weight begin to crush coherent thought out of his body.
Jackson unzipped the little black case Dominic had left on the table. Inside, encased in foam, was a large vial of clear liquid and a pair of syringes. He pulled out the vial and a syringe, uncapped the sharp and substantial-looking needle with his teeth, plunged it into the vial and drew out the contents. Against the weak light, Cassidy could just make out a pink hue to the suppressant.
“How are you feeling?” Jackson asked, watching the filling hypodermic. “How much time do we have?”
“One or two minutes,” Dominic replied, his eyes locked on the liquid.
“I suppose now’s not a good time to talk about last night then, is it?”
Dominic cut him a sly look. “We can talk all you want after sunrise. I will make you breakfast.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Jackson flicked the syringe and squirted out an air bubble.
Dominic lay down and pulled up his shirt, baring his chest.
Jackson hesitated.
“What?” Cassidy said.
“I don’t exactly stick needles in people’s hearts on a regular basis. Or . . . ever.”
“Well, don’t look at me.”
Have him get on with it, Dominic snarled.
Cassidy placed a hand on his chest and located the slow heartbeat. Like the last grains of sand in an hourglass, his consciousness drained out of her as it did every morning, leaving her bereft. “Now, Jackson.”
“Okay. Okay then.” Jaw clenched, he leaned over the prone body. Cassidy braced for the pain about to shimmer across their link. Jackson winced as he pushed the needle in all the way.
Cassidy felt nothing.
The plunger came down. The syringe emptied.
Still nothing.
Jackson pulled the needle out. A small red bead formed where it had been.
Beneath Cassidy’s hand, the vampire’s heart still beat, slow and steady and undeterred.
“Are you sure you hit the heart?”
Jackso
n stepped back. “Pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure? What do you mean—”
Dominic drew breath. Exhaled. Inhaled again.
“Yeah. That’s how it starts,” said Jackson, putting the cap back on the used needle. “I hit it.”
“Dominic?” Cassidy said. She had no sense of him in her mind. The daytime emptiness persisted. But he was breathing, something he never did without a conscious thought at night.
“Dominic, mon amour. Wake up,” she whispered. “Réveillez-vous.” After almost three years of sharing a Frenchman’s mind on a nightly basis, her command of the language even during the day was approaching fluent.
She wanted to weep with joy when she saw his eyes open. “Bonjour,” she said.
He stared at her. Hard. His eyes held no trace of vampire, but there was no warmth in them either. In fact—
“Dominic?”
“Oui. Ç’est ce que je suis.” He sat up. His eyes darted through the shadowy little room and flicked between Cassidy and Jackson and finally the empty syringe in Jackson’s hand. “Mais qui-est-ce que vous? Et où suis-je?”
All the air left Cassidy as though she had been kicked in the gut. “No. Oh, no.”
“What?” Jackson said. “What’s he saying?”
“He—” Oh my God, no. “He wants to know where he is.” She could barely form the words past the shock. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who we are.”
Chapter 5
The Stranger
“Holy shit,” Jackson muttered. “Holy fucking shit.”
Cassidy turned aside, bracing herself against the wine rack, one hand pressed to her mouth. Her whole body slumped.
