by S. K. Ryder
“Can you feel him?” Jackson asked. The panic edging his voice only fueled her own. She shook her head. “Even a little?”
“Nothing.” The word strangled in her throat. Nothing. For all intents and purposes, the Dominic she knew and loved was gone, dead, body-snatched. The man struggling to stand on uncooperative legs might as well be an alien.
“What is this shit?” he blustered, the French accent more sibilant than ever. “What have you done to me? What do you want?”
“Easy,” Jackson said and raised both hands, one still holding the ominous needle. When Dominic’s eyes widened at the sight, he dropped the thing on the table together with the open case, backup syringe and empty vial, all of which remained in full view.
“What have you done?” Dominic demanded again.
Yes. What have we done? Cassidy felt her eyes fill.
“You were sick,” Jackson tried. “Asleep. But you’re getting better now.”
“Asleep?” He waved a hand around, indicating the cramped space. “Is this how you keep your guests? In”—his eyes caught on the heavy-duty door with the keypad glowing on the wall beside it—“a prison?”
“No, not a prison,” Cassidy said. She wiped at her face before stiffening her back and facing the alien. She had to get through this day somehow, one interminable minute at a time. “This is protection. For you.”
“Protection?” Dominic snorted. “Do not tell me fantasies.”
She pushed past Jackson on her way to the door and punched in the code.
“You sure about this?” Jackson wondered.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure.” Never mind the vampire who forgot he was one. If she had to spend the whole day locked up in here with these two, she’d be the one making an attempt on Jackson’s life.
He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Too bad rats can’t talk,” she snapped under her breath. The handle clanged in her hand. The door swung open. Turning back to Dominic, she said, “C’mon then. I’m told it’s safe for you now.”
Dominic hesitated. When he finally walked forward, it was with great care, but each step grew more certain. In the kitchen he stopped again, looking around. Unlike his vampire face, his human face hid none of the confusion, nor the simmering panic. She clasped her hands tightly to stop herself from comforting him with an embrace that would surely be rejected.
“How do you feel?” Jackson asked. He sounded a little calmer, like he had a plan.
Dominic glanced at him, looked down at himself, spread his hands out before him, inspected his bare arms. At night, his skin could pass for a natural pale. Now it looked paper white. “How long have I been . . . asleep?”
When Jackson opened his mouth, Cassidy gave a slight shake of her head. He opted for a vague “A while.”
“I look like a corpse. For how many months have you kept me confined?”
“You’re not confined,” Cassidy said.
“Oh? I can leave then?”
The question took her aback. Leave? Dear God, where would he want to go?
Dominic turned and walked toward the living room. She dared not move, not even breathe, as he rounded the corner and stepped directly into the bright sunlight streaming through a whole wall of glass. He raised his hand to shield his eyes, but didn’t flinch. His skin remained a pristine white.
Weak with relief, Cassidy hurried after him, Jackson on her heels.
The sliding doors opened. Dominic walked out and studied the infinity pool and the meticulously tended backyard. Serge’s sailing catamaran lay tethered at the end of the dock, awaiting her pirate captain at nightfall. By the pool’s far side, close to the guesthouse where she lived, Samantha was engrossed in her morning yoga practice. Nearby, Brinkley stood on his haunches, inspecting the contents of a terra-cotta planter.
“Ce n’est pas Saint Barthélemy.”
“No. It’s not,” Cassidy agreed, coming up behind him. “This is South Florida.”
He stabbed the fingers of both hands into his hair and clutched his head. “Comment est-ce que j’ai arrivé ici? Pourquoi est-ce qu je suis ici?”
“Please, Dominic. I know this must feel frightening, but it’s a long story that will take time to tell. And you really are safe here.”
The outburst caused Samantha to glance over her shoulder and promptly stumble out of her balance pose. Mouth gaping in astonishment, she came toward them. Beside Cassidy and out of Dominic’s view, Jackson tried to wave her off. She ignored him. “Dominic?”
“Oui?”
“What are you doing? Why are you . . . what . . . how?” she spluttered as she gestured at the sunlit landscape.
“Do you know me, madame?”
Samantha reared back. “Do I what?”
“He doesn’t remember,” Jackson said. “Anything,” he added with great emphasis.
His half-sister looked dazed. “Yes. Yes, I know you.”
Cassidy put a tentative hand on Dominic’s shoulder. “What is the last thing you remember?”
He shot her a guarded glance. Then he walked away again, rounding the pool, putting distance between them. Wind ruffled his wild hair. The morning sun bathed him in warm brilliance. He was living his most impossible dream. A dream he no longer remembered. Cassidy’s eyes stung with fresh tears.
“Jack, is this the ‘gift’ Serge said you brought for him?” Samantha whispered.
“It is,” he confirmed.
“My God, baby brother. What have you done?”
“What we all do, Sam. What he wants us to. And now I’m going to do what I need to do.”
Cassidy grabbed his arm before he could take more than a single step. “I think you’ve done quite enough.” She swiped at her cheeks and set her jaw, then went after Dominic.
The day-walking vampire had come to a halt at the far side of the pool, arms crossed, staring into the sunrise. Cassidy didn’t touch him again. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to handle him turning away from her one more time. “Please. Tell me what you remember. We really are trying to help.”
The sneer on his lips was scathing. “You must think me an imbecile. If I were sick, I would be in hospital, not locked up in a house in a foreign country.”
“You’re right. You’re not sick.” And he most certainly didn’t need any damn ‘cure.’ “I’m guessing the last thing you remember is leaving your house, your parents’ house, on Saint Barthélemy. You were very sick then. Am I right?”
The sneer faltered. “Oui.”
“You haven’t been . . . yourself since then.” Her eyes brimmed with more moisture, but she blinked it away. The only ‘self’ she had ever known of Dominic was nowhere in evidence, buried, apparently, together with four years’ worth of his vampire memories in a brain that could only function at night. Temporarily buried, she reminded herself. But she felt her knees quake at the possibility that he would wake up tonight, remembering nothing of who and what he was. Who she was.
Or how to control his deadly instincts.
“You have kept me drugged ever since then?”
“No, of course not,” she said too quickly.
“So that was not a spent shot I saw you holding?” Dominic asked Jackson who had trailed after Cassidy with Samantha.
“It was, but—”
“But something went wrong, did it not?”
Jackson’s throat bobbed. ‘Wrong’ wasn’t even a word for this, his expression said.
Cassidy managed a wobbly smile. “This is not as bad as it seems,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Dominic. Heart aching with every word, she went on to introduce herself to the love of her life like he were a complete stranger. “And this is Jackson and his sister, Samantha,” she added to fill the silence that followed. “We are your . . . friends.”
Jackson cringed.
Samantha gave her a look of raw pity.
“Right,” Dominic said and looked down. Brinkley stood by his bare foot and must have bumped him. The cat blinked up, his tail waving in friendly hello. There was no more trace of the ferocious feline of the night before as there was of the vampire who leaned down to pet it. Brinkley rose on his hind legs to push into the head rub. “I think the only friend I have here is this one.”
When he straightened, Dominic’s face shuttered at the sight of Cassidy, Jackson, and Samantha staring at him. Cassidy no longer fought to contain her emotions. Her tears flowed unchecked, dripping off her chin. After months of trying to cajole Brinkley into tolerating him without success, this alien was welcomed without so much as a hint of feline challenge.
“Oh, you are magnifique, madame,” Dominic scoffed. “You can weep at will? Are you an actress by profession?”
Cassidy sucked in her breath at the vicious sting in his words.
Beside her, Jackson moved.
Samantha yelped. “Jack, no!”
Too late. Jackson’s balled fist landed on Dominic’s jaw with unrestrained power, sending him reeling into a hedge.
Cassidy flinched.
Jackson clutched his hand. “Mother fucker, his bones are hard.” Dominic staggered upright. He touched his face, dabbing at a split lip, and voiced several heartfelt French obscenities.
“Oh, shut up,” Jackson snapped. “You’ve had that coming. For years.”
~ ~ ~
The punch reined Dominic in a little, or at least curbed the acid flowing off his tongue. It also surprised him enough he didn’t stop to consider how badly he was hurt—and how the injury healed in a matter of minutes. At night, the cut would have disappeared in seconds.
He remained quiet as they shepherded him back into the house, but Cassidy saw the way his body moved around Jackson now, constantly on guard. His aikido training had him on full alert. Jackson wouldn’t be able to get away with another stunt like that.
Cassidy busied herself preparing a basic breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. She moved through the motions, opening drawers and cabinets, looking for everything in all the wrong places. Her head felt like a quicksand pit, full of random thoughts, refusing to focus.
“You are clueless, woman,” Dominic muttered as he watched her snatch the blackening bacon from a too-hot pan. He sat at the kitchen counter under Jackson’s watchful eye.
Cassidy shot him an ugly look. She didn’t need him telling her that her culinary skills—never top-of-the-line to begin with—were disintegrating into the realm of abomination. “Everything I know about cooking I learned from you.”
This earned her a scornful snort.
Turning to Jackson who was nursing another mug of coffee, she said, “You’re staying for breakfast?”
“I’m staying the day,” he said, answering the question she really asked. On a mutter, he added, “Least I can do.”
“Thank you.”
With an impatient gesture, Dominic pinned his hair behind his ears. “You are my guard then? Here to prevent me escaping?”
“This is your home, buddy. Trust me, you don’t want to escape it.”
“My home is on Saint Barthélemy. Does my family know I am here? I will need to contact them.”
Jackson glanced at Cassidy. Did she want to handle this one? She did.
“Your family believes you are dead,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “And for their safety, it’s better if they keep believing that.” Not to mention safer for him to believe they were all alive and well in their peaceful island paradise.
Dominic became still, and for a horrifying moment she feared he remembered what he had done the night he was turned. And since. Who he had killed. And how. Then a corner of his mouth turned up. “Is everything coming out of your mouth complete bullshit?”
Oh, the things I could tell you that would spin your head, my love. But none of them found their way to her tongue. This day would pass. Somehow.
She tossed the towel down and went for plates. The abomination was ready to be served. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” Dominic said. “But not for this shit you have made.”
“Oh? Pray tell, what shit are you hungry for then?”
Jackson shifted a little, his mug back on the counter.
Dominic looked between them, uncertain for the first time since waking.
“Well, I’m starving,” Jackson said. “So how about we eat? Then we can talk.” He didn’t wait for a response before joining Cassidy in the kitchen, collecting utensils and condiments and placing them on the breakfast table nestled in a bay window. He poured himself more coffee and filled two additional mugs. Also three glasses of OJ. As Samantha had retreated to the guesthouse, the third setting was for the vampire who hadn’t eaten solid food in years.
“Did your little white friends eat?” Cassidy asked casually.
“They did.”
Dominic seemed to decide he was hungry. And not just a little. “This is atrocious,” he announced after the first forkful of rubberized eggs. But that didn’t stop him from taking a bite from the toast he had buttered and slathered with jam. “It tastes like nothing. Are you familiar with salt, madame?”
Cassidy swallowed a mouthful of eggs and then stopped to watch, mesmerized. Seeing Dominic eat her cooking wasn’t something she had ever considered possible. Now she wished she had put more thought into her efforts.
Jackson shook his head in wonder. Then he pulled out his phone and pointed it at Dominic.
Dominic paused. “What are you doing?”
“Evidence,” Jackson said, capturing the wary vampire glower over the plate of human food.
Cassidy sobered. “You don’t think he’ll remember this?”
“No, I’m sending this to Garrett.”
“And who is this Garrett? Another supposed friend of mine?”
Cassidy opened her mouth and shut it again. Then she said, “He works for you.”
Dominic made a disgusted noise of sheer disbelief and shoved at his hair again, which appeared to annoy him more than a little. His chair scraped on the tile as he pushed it back, got up, and carried his plate into the kitchen to toss it, half-eaten contents and all, into the sink. He tackled the fridge next, pulling out more eggs along with herbs and mushrooms and a package of smoked salmon.
“I’ll wait for what he’s making,” Jackson said, pushing his own plate away. “Sorry, Cass.”
“No need.” She put her fork down and made use of her napkin. “It truly is awful.”
Jackson leaned on his folded arms. “I also owe you an apology for last night. For whatever you and Dominic may have . . . well . . . seen, I guess.”
“Also no need,” she said, keeping her eyes on Dominic and her voice low.
“I wasn’t . . . I don’t know where all that came from. I’m sorry if anything . . . upset you.”
You were accidentally compelled by a powerful vampire in the throes of passion with an open circuit to your brain, she thought, but saw no point in discussing it further given present circumstances. Turning away from the kitchen to face him directly, she said, “You didn’t upset me, Jackson. Not until you gave him that damn shot.”
His square jaw tensed. “I didn’t know.”
“And you don’t know if he’ll remember who he is tonight, do you?”
Jackson’s gaze slid away. His voice sounded strained enough to fracture. “No. I don’t.”
Cassidy inhaled as deep as her tight chest would allow and forced herself to recall Serge’s relaxed attitude about this insane experiment. If the Dominic they knew was gone for good, he would have seen it and sounded an alarm, wouldn’t he? She clung to that hope like she
did her coffee cup.
Jackson’s phone buzzed with a text message. He scowled as his thumbs tapped a response. Before he could send it, the device rang. He cursed and turned away, shoulders hunched, to accept the call. Cassidy marveled at the awkward excuse he spun for missing his Sunday morning run with Olivia today. The Jackson she knew was a far smoother liar than that.
After the call ended, he dropped the phone on the table and buried his face in both hands. “God, I really want to do right by her, but fuck. After last night? I don’t even know where to start.” He dropped his hands to look at the ceiling, fresh color in his unshaven cheeks. “Maybe we should wait a bit before you talk to her. About anything.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t be mentioning anything that . . . um . . . didn’t really happen.”
Jackson gave her such a frazzled look she almost felt sorry for him. Then he refocused on the kitchen behind her and all the exhaustion vanished. In the blink of an eye, the hunter was back. “Where the fuck is he?”
Cassidy spun in her chair. Breakfast lay abandoned in mid-prep on the counter top. The door to the side yard swayed in the breeze.
The cook was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 6
Side Effects
Dominic woke at dusk to his stomach punching into the back of his throat. His whole body seemed to be turning inside out, convulsing as he hunched on hands and knees, and he had not an ounce of control over any of it. He could only let it happen, could only watch a thick stream of pulp hurtle out of his gullet and splatter explosively on the paving stones.
“Yeah. I thought that might happen,” someone said. A man. Jackson. He reached for the man’s mind, but it was like feeling the shape of a thing through a thick layer of cotton. Only fear and tension greeted him. More of the same came from Cassidy, muted and distant. So much fear.
“Dominic?” she asked, her voice tentative. “Please tell me you know who I am.”
He rolled to sit on his hip and looked up at her. She was borderline frantic. His hand shook as he wiped the back of it across his mouth. “Cassidy, mon amour.”
