by Lisa Sanchez
“Sí. Endless sleep.” Xan whirled me around so that I faced him once again. “Tell me everything that happened from the moment you left this apartment earlier. No detail is too small. Leave out nothing.”
As much as I wanted to stay irritated with him for manhandling me and acting like an insensitive jerk, I had to remember I was dealing with a vampire, a creature who by nature was anything but sensitive. He was doing his best to help me, and I couldn’t hold petty irritations against him during a time of crisis. With a sober nod, I proceeded to tell him everything that went down, including Edie’s bizarre visit to our apartment and the fact that she witnessed me pop into the room out of thin air, only to make a hasty retreat thereafter.
He paced back and forth, running his hand over his mouth before stopping and focusing on me. “I take it this Edie person doesn’t visit you often?”
I let out a rather un-lady-like snort. “That would be a no. We don’t exactly get along. I have no idea why she’d come looking for me, unless it had something to do with her missing friend, Deanna.”
“I see.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Before this afternoon, when was the last time you saw Edie?”
“Last night at the club. When I came back at closing to see you, she insulted me while getting into a limo.” I shifted in place and looked up at the ceiling as I thought. “Now that I think about it, there was a really weird vibe radiating out from the car. Naturally, I just assumed the vibe came from Edie because she’s so damn nasty all the time. But maybe I was wrong. She wasn’t hanging with her regular band of skanks. She was with someone else. A man, I think.”
Xan’s eyebrow shot up and he leaned forward, clearly interested in this new bit of information. “Did you happen to get a look at the guy?”
I shook my head. “No. All I saw was an arm pulling her back from the window she was hanging out of.”
He let out a long sigh. “I see. And you said she didn’t look herself today? Tired? Unkempt?”
“That would be putting it mildly.” Where was he going with this? What did this have to do with helping Jessica?
“Her ass looked beat,” Taylor piped in. Her voice was shaky and weak, and she still sat trembling in a loveseat across from the couch. “This is a girl who never has a hair out of place, and she looked like she hadn’t showered in days. It was weird.”
A fresh wave of relief coursed through me at hearing Taylor’s voice. Though she was still recovering from the shock of what happened, somehow I knew she’d be okay. Despite her outward appearance, Taylor was a fighter.
“Did she have any marks on her?” Gabriel asked, his attention still focused solely on Taylor.
“Marks?” Confusion marred her face, and she turned her attention from Gabriel to Xan and me.
“Bite marks,” Xan said and spun me sideways. He tugged my head back to expose the set of puncture holes he’d left just over my carotid the night before. “Like these. Did you see any marks on her like these?”
“Hey,” I said in protest, wriggling out of his iron grasp. “Do you mind?” I wasn’t an action figure he could toss around on a whim. I didn’t care how sexy he was; I had personal space, and he’d just invaded it.
“I’m sorry, carino. Forgive me for being aggressive, but I must know. Did either of you see anything that looked like these markings?” He pointed once again to my ravaged neck.
Taylor shook her head. “No. Sorry. I didn’t see anything like…that.”
Xan let out another long sigh. He scrubbed his hands over his face before looking over toward Gabriel.
“You know that doesn’t mean anything, the fact that they didn’t see any visible marks. You know what’s going on, Xan. You know what’s happened just as well as I do.” Gabriel stood up from where he’d been kneeling beside Taylor. “The neck is not the only area with a juicy vein to sink into, my brother. You’ve said so yourself.”
Oh, hell, no. “Excuse me?” I didn’t like where the conversation was headed. The idea that Xan had sunk his fangs into anyone made me heartsick. But the thought of him going vascular in someone’s nether regions made me positively insane. “Just what are you trying to say, Gabriel?”
“What I’m trying to say —” he looked from me to Xan “— and what Xan knows to be true, is that this Edie girl has been enslaved.”
“Enslaved?” Taylor and I both spoke in unison.
“Sí, carino,” Xan said. “A blood slave. A mindless minion, whose only purpose is to do the bidding of her master. More than likely, she was entranced at the club the other night, drawn from the building, and drained within an inch of her life.”
“By Lucian,” I said. An icy shiver shot up my spine. He’d been at the club the other night. Watching me. Lying in wait for the perfect moment to make his move. The fact that he would use an innocent soul as a pawn in his master plan to bring me down should have been no surprise to me. Turning Edie into a modern day Renfield, straight out of the pages of a Dracula novel, seemed exactly like something the sick, twisted bastard would do.
“Can she be saved? I mean, as nasty as she is, we can’t just leave her to Lucian, can we?” Taylor asked, standing up from where she’d been sitting.
“No!” I said. “We can’t.” I brought my hands up to my head, massaging my temples with my fingers, trying to keep the pounding headache that was forming at bay. Lucian’s list of casualties grew larger by the minute, and I’d be damned if I was going to let it continue.
“We’ll just have to put a stop to all the evil Lucian has done. Starting with Jessica.” I moved toward the couch and knelt beside where she lay in silent slumber. “What is it that we need to make the antidote?”
My question was met with silence. “Xan?” I turned to face him, confused as to why he wasn’t answering me. “What do we need?”
He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, a pained expression on his face. He balled his hands into fists as he warred with himself on how to answer me.
“We need the blood of the one who poisoned her. Without it, the curse cannot be unmade.”
All the air rushed out of me at once, and my lungs cried out in pain as though someone had kicked me square in the chest. I felt sick. I felt like crying. But more than that, I felt angry, furious and hungry for revenge. If Lucian’s blood would revive Jessica, then I was damn well going to find him and bleed him dry.
“Fine then,” I said, squaring my shoulders as I stood up. “So we find Lucian tonight, and drain the bastard dry. Let’s go.” Resolute, I strode swiftly toward the door.
Xan’s next words stopped me dead in my tracks. “It’s not that easy, carino. Lucian’s blood will only work if he’s alive. If we kill him, Jessica will remain as she is indefinitely.”
Well, didn’t that just put a damper on things? I spun around. “Alive? What?” I didn’t know why I’d assumed anything involving Lucian would be easy. I should have known better. “So what the hell are we supposed to do? We can’t kill Lucian as long as Jessica is down, and it’s not likely that he’d willingly give up a sample of his blood. There’s got to be something we can do.”
Xan paced back and forth in front of me, head hung low, mumbling heated words in Spanish I couldn’t understand. He finally stopped a few feet from me and looked up, his eyes dark, stormy and full of an emotion that looked a lot like worry, or maybe even regret.
He let out a loud groan and cursed. “Cristo!”
“Xan?” Based on his body language, it was obvious he knew something and didn’t want to tell me. Now was not the time for secrets. If he knew something that would help Jessica, he needed to share, and he needed to share now.
“Xan!”
“Madre de Dios.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “This is not how I wanted things to go down.” Stepping forward, he pulled me in close, so that my chest was flush with his. One of his arms wrapped around
my waist, holding me tight. His other hand slowly traced up the length of my arm, and across my collarbone until it rested at the base of my neck, a trail of goose bumps left in its wake.
“Um, Xan?” Overwhelmed by his nearness, I was barely able to speak, let alone form a coherent thought. While I was all for getting hot and heavy with him, now was not the time, and especially not in front of our friends.
Tilting my head to the side, he leaned down and gently brushed his lips across the bite marks he’d left the night before. He trailed his nose up the length of my neck, breathing in my scent.
“Delicious,” he whispered in my ear before pulling away. His chocolate brown eyes were gone, replaced with a set of feral, pale, yellow eyes that knew only hunger and darkness. Razor sharp fangs descended, making him look deadly, lethal. Like the vampire he was.
Lifting his wrist to his mouth, he tore into his flesh, opening up a vein. Blood flowed down the length of his arm and pooled on the floor.
My heart kicked up a notch, pistoning adrenaline through my body at a breakneck pace. “Oh, my God! What the hell are you doing?”
Wild, unearthly eyes met my own. “I’m giving your friend what she needs.”
“What she needs is Lucian’s blood. How is yours going to help?”
“Soy el hijo del diablo. I am the devil’s son. Lucian’s blood runs through my veins. He’s my father.”
Chapter 12
The room fell silent. Xan’s words lingered in the air, echoing through my brain over and over again.
I am the devil’s son. Lucian’s blood runs through my veins. He’s my father.
Floundering under the weight of his admission, Taylor’s quick intake of breath, and shocked “Oh…my…God” sounded distant, muffled, and deep, as though I were trapped under water, unable to hear her clearly.
And then, just as quickly as I’d let myself begin to fall into the dark abyss, an all consuming anger rushed through my veins like a meteor shooting across the night sky. The heat of my anger burned everything in its wake. I’m sure if spontaneous combustion were at all possible, I would have burst into flames on the spot.
The man, the creature that I was just now, hesitantly beginning to put my trust in, had lied to me. Xan was the son of the undead bastard that haunted my dreams nightly and tormented my every waking thought. I felt like someone had slapped me across the face with a sledgehammer, the reality of the truth dealing me a staggering, painful blow.
I could literally feel my blood beginning to boil as my thoughts festered on Xan’s horrible revelation. Filled with an all-consuming rage and a fierce protectiveness for my friend, my body trembled as I watched Xan hold his bloody wrist to Jessica’s mouth, feeding her the one thing that would bring her back from her silent slumber. His blood. All reasonable thought escaped me as the overpowering urge to shield my friend from further harm barreled over me like a steam roller. It didn’t matter that Xan had never done anything to hurt me or my friends. It didn’t matter that he’d saved my life just the night before. The moment he revealed Lucian was his father, all I saw was the enemy. I had to protect my friend. I had to stop him. I had to move.
“No!” A strange feeling of weightlessness rushed over me, accompanied by an odd electrical buzz. The next thing I knew, I stood between Xan and Jessica, my arms outstretched and pressing against his chest. My feet hadn’t moved. I’d teleported. “Stop! I won’t let you hurt her!”
A fleeting look of surprise crossed his face and was replaced by one of determination. “Carino, I’m not hurting her. I — ”
I blasted him with a magical pulse that sent him flying backward across the room, before he was able to finish his sentence. “Liar! Stay back!”
Jumping to his feet, Xan turned to face Gabriel, stone-faced and determined. “Get her out of here,” he said, pointing to Taylor.
“No! Taylor,” I screamed and shot forward, but it was too late. Gabriel pulled Taylor to him, wrapping his arms around her protectively. His face clearly portrayed his concern for the possibility of her getting caught in the messy crossfire between Xan and me. Before I could blink, they were gone.
I wheeled back around with a growl to face Xan. I raised my arms to blast him again when I was struck immobile, my arms pinned to my sides, my feet magically glued to the floor. Pissed off, I wiggled and thrashed in vain. “What the hell is this? Stop it. Let me go!”
Xan shook his head. “Lo siento, carino. I’m sorry. I don’t like having to control you, but you’ve left me no choice.”
I balked at his words. Where the hell did he get off schooling me about choices? He had the choice to man up and tell me who his father was, and he didn’t. I wasn’t about to listen to this crap.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. You don’t get to talk to me about choices.” My throat burned from the force of my screaming. The overwhelming urge to punch him in the face barreled through me, and I struggled against the magical bonds that held me in place, cursing. “Goddammit! You chose not to fill me in on a particularly important piece of information. Why? Why would you not tell me Lucian was your father?”
Xan lost his composure and blew up. “Because I knew you would react like this!” He pointed to me with an exasperated expression, then threw his arms up in the air. “Shit, carino. I can’t help the fact that Lucian is my father. It’s not like I had any choice in the matter. Cristo! He raped and murdered my mother! Chinga! Fuck!” he shouted with a harsh growl. The temperature of the room dropped several degrees. A steady blast of cool, icy air rushed off Xan as he stood with his hands balled into fists at his side, his chest moving up and down with each angry breath.
Pissed off, frustrated and ready to pop, he paced back and forth in front of me, cursing in Spanish and angrily running his hands through his hair. He looked torn, a mixture of anger and pain marring the beautiful lines of his face. And curse my freaking, wretched, female hormones — I never wanted him more than I did at that moment. I was a sick, sick, twisted soul.
I felt like a royal bitch for being so angry with him, knowing how both he and his mother suffered. But I couldn’t make the feelings go away. It was all too new, too raw.
“I’m sorry.” My head hung low as I spoke. I wasn’t ready to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry about your mother.” I looked at him then. “But — God, Xan. You should have told me.”
His eyes softened, along with his expression, and I knew his anger had abated. “I know, okay? Shit. I — I was…ashamed. You barely tolerate me as it is, and I knew if you ever found out the vampire who fathered me was the same evil creature that slaughtered your family members, I knew you would never see me as anything other than the spawn of Satan. I know — ” He took a deep breath and sighed, as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I know I’m the devil’s son, but — Cristo! I’m not him. I’m not Lucian. You’ve got to know that.”
I did know it. With every fiber of my being, I knew he was nothing like his father. Suddenly Xan wasn’t the only one in the room living with shame. I felt like a complete and total ass. It took me all of two seconds to throw away the trust I’d begun to build in him. I lashed out, purposely trying to hurt him, all because I was angry and out of control.
A low, breathy moan came from the couch, and my head whipped around to see Jessica still lying on her back, but with her eyes now open and her arms struggling to move.
“Jess!” I wanted to run to her, but my legs and arms remained still, bound and rendered useless by Xan’s powerful spell. I turned to him, pleading with my eyes, with every fiber of my being for him to release me. “Xan, please.”
With a nod of his head, the magical bonds that held me gave way, and I raced to Jessica’s side.
“Jess. Can you hear me? Jess.”
“Stop…shouting,” she managed to say, her voice barely audible. “Head…hurts. I feel…funny.”
Xan moved to stand at the end o
f the sofa. “It’ll pass.”
“Please, help me up,” Jess said weakly.
We carefully lifted her into a sitting position, and I took a seat next to her to ensure she wouldn’t fall face first into Xan’s coffee table.
“What happened?” Jessica asked. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “The last thing I remember is walking to the apartment and seeing a note and some flowers. Then everything went black. There’s just…nothing.”
I swallowed hard. Here came the defining make or break moment in our friendship. Jessica suffered a curse that was meant for me. I’d failed to protect her from the heinous monster that obviously now knew not only who I was, but also where I lived. She had two choices. She could forgive me, which honestly, at that moment, I didn’t feel I deserved, or she could walk away, saving herself from a serious crap-load of grief and possible torment.
My head screamed at her to save herself and just walk away, write me off, have nothing to do with me. She’d be safer for sure. My heart? Well, it had grown used to having friends and couldn’t bear the thought of not having Jessica around. My great-grandmother always told me I’d be able to count my true friends on one hand, and there was a part of me, a part that grew larger every day, that wanted Jess and Taylor to be those friends. I wanted to trust them, to believe in them and know they’d always be there for me, no matter what.
There was no point in dragging the moment out any longer. The whole thing was like removing a Band-Aid. It was better to just rip the damn thing off quickly and get it over with.
“The flowers, the note, were from Lucian. He cursed them with dark magic hoping to take me down — ” I paused for a minute, not wanting to meet her eyes, but knowing I had to “ — and, well, you got hit with it instead.”
I sat patiently, waiting for her to go off. Half of me expected her to wail on me and the other half hoped she knew I’d have gladly put myself in her place had I known what would happen. “I’m so sorry, Jess. When I found out Lucian was in town, I should have separated myself from you and Taylor. I never should have — ”
