Dark Heart of the Sun

by SK Ryder

  He found the bed in his sanctuary made up with a new set of navy-blue sheets that somewhat complimented the outdated décor. The old linens with the cartoon figures, had vanished like his childhood innocence. Several fresh shirts and a pair of gym pants—all black—sat neatly folded on the foot of the bed, waiting. His phone was on the dresser along with his laptop, and on the wall, back in their rightful place, hung the Samurai swords.

  Stunned, he caressed the gleaming dragons on the scabbards. From Garrett’s mind, he knew that Jackson claimed these blades as trophies. Why and how they were back here now, he couldn’t imagine.

  And why had Cassidy fought to free him, really? Risked her life for him? He wondered if even she knew.

  Dressed but damp and warmed to the core by fresh blood and hot water, Dominic moved up the stairs. The blood-drinker squirming before the TV ignored him.

  In the upstairs hall, the cat was on patrol. It gave him an agitated look before deciding that the gecko clinging on the wall held more interest. “Good hunting, little brother,” Dominic murmured and slipped into the master bedroom.

  Cassidy lay bathed in the warm glow of the nightlight, her heart quiet and steady. He inhaled her sleepy scent and reached for her mind with his. Nothing. Squatting beside her, he touched the point over her forehead where her life force coalesced. The disturbance rippled around her until she woke, blinking up at him.

  “Salut, Cassidy.”

  “Hi,” she said and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She had cut her hair, and not just a little. It framed her head now in a copper-shot cloud of waves that hardly brushed her shoulders. She turned on the lamp on her nightstand and studied him in its soft light.

  “You have taken in another stray,” he said when she remained quiet.

  “Oh, is he down there watching Jaws again?”

  “Again?”

  “It’s a ritual. I suspect he’s really rooting for the shark.” She gestured. “Take off your shirt.”

  He hesitated, but did pull the shirt over his head and sat where she indicated on the side of the bed with his back to her. “Your hair . . . I like it.”

  “Hmm. I got tired of people pulling it.” Her hands whispered over his sensitive new skin. “Scars,” she murmured. “Your back is one giant scar.”

  “For now. It still heals.”

  She caressed his left arm and shoulder. “Your tattoo is gone. You’ve lost your sun.”

  With her touch, he was aware of her mind again but at a great distance, and only because he sought it out. Vague rays of joy jumbled among shadows of dismay and anger across a mental link diminished to almost nothing.

  “No, mon amour. I cannot lose what is in my heart.”

  She paused her survey. Then her arms came around him, and her face nestled against his neck. Dominic closed his hand over her forearm, caressing her wrist with his thumb. It was a tremendous effort not to pull her around and embrace her the way he truly needed to. Not just her body, but all of her and always.

  “You can’t stay here during the day,” she said. “The Strikers want you more than ever.”

  “I know. But I . . . we . . . will be nearby.” A bubble of sadness swelled in him. He would spend his days cocooned in the dune with Serge, his home no longer safe now that the hunters knew to look for him here. He had no illusions about Jackson’s motives and dared not assume that his truce with the hunter had been anything but temporary and for Cassidy’s sake alone.

  “I even got a huge promotion and a raise at work to encourage me to stick around.” Pause. “Jackson actually said so when he gave me back your swords.”

  Leaning his head against hers, Dominic closed his eyes and faintly registered the rest of Jackson’s sentiments which she could not get herself to utter; the hunter would have back his trophy—when the prey was dead. “He knows I will not leave you.” When she said nothing, he continued, “So Garrett Striker lives?”

  She nodded. “He needed three units of blood and gave the ER doctors hell for wanting to put him through all kinds of tests to figure out how he lost it in the first place. He was on a plane at sunrise the next day, heading out to who-knows-where.”

  Dominic allowed himself a small, smug satisfaction. The threat he had planted in his tormentor’s mind had been taken seriously. “Running from me until my serum has left him.”

  “Looks that way. He told me if he was ever bitten and was at risk of being manipulated by a vampire, he’d put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Guess he changed his mind.” She sighed. “I know how hard that was for you, letting him live. Hell, I wanted to kill the bastard myself. But you proved them wrong. That’s all that matters.”

  Dominic trailed his fingers over her arms draped across his chest. “I don’t know. Did I?”

  “Oh, I think Garrett really will kill himself if you get even close to turning him.” Cassidy pulled away to lie on her side and look up at him. “But you’re not going to do that, are you?” He became distracted by how the hem of her sleep shirt slid up her thigh. His body cried out with the need to touch her, hold her, show her all that lived in his heart.

  “Force him to exist as what he hates most? Poetic justice, non?”

  “Yes. Poetic justice. But . . . that man as a vampire? In your world forever? That sounds like more of a torture for you than him.”

  “Garrett Striker is a man in old pain,” Dominic said. While feeding from him, pushing him to the brink of death, he had torn from his mind memories of soul-destroying losses the human had suffered at blood-drinker hands. Cold brutality was the result. Dominic could almost understand it. Almost.

  Cassidy gave him a dubious look and he shrugged. “Truly, I have not given him much thought. I have been too busy healing and appreciating my continued existence. Such as that is.”

  “You’re really glad to be alive then?”

  “Very.”

  “Then you’re not going to attempt suicide by vampire-slayer again?”

  “That was unexpected.”

  “But you sure as hell jumped on it when you had the chance.”

  “A fair result of my own incompetence, non?”

  “No. A result of knowing me.”

  Aching to know her thoughts, he brushed his thumb over where the bullet had grazed her skull. The scar was thin and mostly hidden in her hair, but it was there and always would be. The mind that lay beneath it bristled with stubborn determination. He dropped his hand.

  “Is that why you risked your life to free me then? So you would not have my blood on your hands?”

  She shook her head. Her heart accelerated. “They gave us no choice. Either we both lived or—”

  “Non. The choice was yours alone. And you know how hungry I was. What I can do.”

  Her eyes flashed with challenge. “You risked your eternal life for me when I didn’t even know I needed you. How can you even question what I did?”

  “Because by saving my life, you are risking the lives of everyone who crosses my path, perhaps for a very long time to come. How do all those lives outweigh mine?”

  She propped herself up on one arm. “What the hell has gotten into you now?”

  “You know it is the truth.”

  Her cheeks colored as she looked away.

  “Cassidy. Why?”

  She huffed an agitated breath. “Was I wrong to believe in you?” She pinned him with a harsh glare. “Fine. I’ll play. Why don’t you tell me, Dominic, how many have I killed already by setting you free? How many lives did it take for you to recover this far? How many more before you’re fully healed? How many victims of mysterious, violent assaults are going to make the headlines over the next few weeks?”

  The vehemence took him aback. Apparently he had pushed her over a line into uncomfortable emotional territory, but rathe
r than succumb or flee, she went on the attack. Here she would not go without a fight. She would sooner tear out his throat. And his heart.

  “None,” he murmured.

  “I see. Hid the bodies that well, did you?”

  Unable to help himself, he smiled.

  Wary disappointment shuttered her face. “So the Strikers were right about you after all.”

  “No, no, chérie,” he sputtered, his heart squeezing flat in his chest. “They are wrong. No one died. Not the night you set me free, and not since.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Oui. I do. Serge was there in the beginning. He would have stopped me taking lives, but he didn’t need to. I could have devoured dozens, but I only pierced the veins of hundreds. Every time, I became stronger. Every time, I gained more control. Every time, I remembered your cry in my soul. I will not—cannot—betray your faith in me.” His throat burned with restrained emotion. “Don’t you understand what you have done for me? You seduced the monster I am. You and only you are the reason I have not taken a life, not even when the beast tore me apart with hunger and rage.”

  The blue oceans of her eyes glistened.

  “This week I have drunk more blood than ever before, but I have made no bodies and no one remembers me. No one even came close to sustaining the kind of damage I did to that fils de salope, Garrett. No one has died, Cassidy, because you believed in me. Because you reached me when nothing else could.”

  “But why can’t I reach you now, Dominic?” she said on a half-stifled sob. “Why are you shutting me out when you tell me all this? What are you hiding from me?”

  Dominic took her face in both hands. Only echoes of her confusion reached him. “The connection is too weak now. Too little of my . . . serum remains in you. Too little of your blood in me.”

  She took a hold of his shoulders. “Then fix that. Bite me.”

  “Nothing would please me more.”

  “What’s stopping you?” Pain in her eyes. Pain in her touch. Pain of his doing. It was all he could do not to fall on her, soothe her. Drink her.

  “Please. I need to know,” he said, voice hoarse with emotion. “Why did you free me?”

  “I told you why. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Because if you freed me out of guilt or even self-preservation, I have no place in your life. I must leave you in peace, not infect you again and again and keep you by my side.”

  The tears spilled from her eyes now. “Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?”

  “Your future—your life—depends on it,” he whispered, and saw in her face that she understood. He wouldn’t let her bind her life to his for anything but the most sacred of reasons. And guilt wasn’t it. Not even friendship.

  She wiped at her face with quick, angry motions. “Fine. The unvarnished truth is that all my life, everyone I’ve ever loved has broken my heart in one way or another. They’ve either left, died, or lied. Only you have come back to me. You can’t die. You’ve not only been there for me and let me into your life, you’ve let me into your soul. You’ve been honest with me. The way you are right now. Whether I like it or not.” She drew an unsteady breath. “And that’s why I freed you, Dominic. Because I can’t imagine my world without you. I can’t lose you. I won’t lose you. You mean too much to me.”

  He placed a hand on hers and squeezed. “And you to me,” he murmured, shaken by her words—the words he had dared not hope for. “Wherever you go, Cassidy, I will be by your side, and I will share my heart and soul with you. For as long as you will have me.”

  She gave him a watery smile. “That could be a while.”

  Only the rest of her mortal life. Guilt edged his joy. “You understand that I will never be able to give you all that you deserve?”

  “But you give me all that I need.”

  “I can never give you the day.”

  “We’ll have the nights.”

  “Or children.”

  “Seems to me we already adopted one. He’s three . . . hundred.”

  In spite of himself, Dominic relaxed. “I suspect he has adopted us.”

  Cassidy twined her fingers with his. “Make love to me, Dominic.”

  He stifled the impulse to retreat, wary. “I cannot be a true lover to you without risking your life. You know this.”

  “When are you going to stop arguing with me?” She tugged at his hand, pulling him into her arms. Dominic shook with the effort not to crush the life out of her by holding her too tightly. She sighed and tilted her head aside, exposing her neck. “Make love to me . . . like only you can.”

  With a soft moan, he kissed the pulse in her throat. Kissed it again, more deeply, and went faint with the ecstasy of her sweet, hot blood in his mouth, the warm embrace of her soul. In his dark heart, the scattered pieces of his being tumbled together, making a new whole. He was home.

  My life is yours, he vowed. Always.

  Cassidy thought she knew what to expect when her blood flowed into Dominic and he flowed into her mind. She was wrong.

  A flare of cool light obliterated the dim reality of her bedroom. Thunder followed, rumbling in her bones. From nowhere, a mighty river hurtled toward her, falling without end out of a cobalt-blue sky. She struggled to breathe in the presence of so much free-falling water. Silky moist wind swept over her, laden with the intoxicating aromas of wet earth and lush vegetation—and snow.

  When she stirred in his arms, Dominic eased his embrace enough to be able to meet her eyes. They were both naked. Not that it mattered. She could feel their joined minds humming together in this, their world, their shared dream. There were no secrets here, no inhibitions. His sleek, muscular limbs curled around her soft curves in a comfortable gesture that was as protective as it was possessive.

  Warmth infused his hazel eyes. “Do you like it?”

  “I’m . . . breathless.”

  They were cocooned in a tropical meadow that might have been Eden. The waterfall was at least a hundred feet tall and crashed into a dark, clear pool in a perpetual explosion of sound. In the sunlight slanting through the jungle canopy, mist swirled like diamond dust against the leafy green darkness of impenetrable rainforest.

  Cassidy and Dominic nestled together on a boulder dripping with spongy moss by the pool’s edge. The waterfall’s winds rustled in the foliage all around them, bathed their skin in dew, and seeded their tousled hair with glistening droplets.

  “It’s gorgeous.” A pale word for so much raw natural splendor. “Is it a real place?”

  “Oui. Et non.”

  She followed his gaze up past the edge of the falls and beyond the treetops. Turning slowly in the sky was the silver spiral that was Dominic’s true self. The water, the endless falling river thundering into this protected jungle alcove . . . it flowed from the spiral’s core. And in truth, it was no river. It was pure emotion flowing from his soul. Into hers.

  Cassidy drew a shaky breath when she realized that this had always been there just beneath the surface of his words and smiles. On some level, she had known from the beginning what she was to him, and without realizing it, she had drawn comfort and strength from that deep well of devotion.

  She took his face into both hands, caressing the unusual whiskers shadowing his cheeks, mute testimony to the vast quantities of blood he had consumed in order to heal. He appeared almost rosy and even felt warm beneath her fingertips. No words from her mouth could do her feelings justice, so she let them flow from her heart instead.

  Smiling, Dominic leaned his forehead against hers, then nipped at her lips until they tingled. When she pushed her fingers into his damp hair, the kiss grew bolder, and she surrendered to his carefully leashed strength, drowning in his clean male essence as he savored the warm sweetness of her mouth.

  The slo
w, simmering burn in their blood turned to ferocious desire when he gripped her bare bottom and pulled her close. The ache in his cock bordered on painful. Liquid heat pooled in her groin. She pushed closer, relishing the sensations quivering through her as he stroked her buttocks, her thighs, and reached beneath . . .

  All reason left her, all thought but one. “Dominic . . . I need you.”

  He rubbed his face against her cheek, entranced, his skin as rough as his voice. “How do you need me, mon petit trésor?”

  Inside me, she thought, no longer capable of forming words. Her whole being yearned for him—as his did for her.

  Dominic nudged his nose against her jaw, forcing her face up, exposing her throat to his mouth. I am inside you. Even his thoughts felt husky and dark with craving. And you are inside me.

  His fingers played over her body with breathtaking skill, light and teasing one moment, strong and direct the next. She leaned back, arching her back, giving her hungry body to the wind and the sun, the falling water and his hands and mouth. The thick moss prickled at her back. Her toes dug into the muddy gravel at the edge of the pool. She moaned without shame.

  I know you want me, chèrie. You always have. Dominic’s dimpled smile was soft and knowing, his gaze as impenetrable as the jungle. The ebony hair blew around his face, wet with mist.