My dick was still hard. I’d been running on instinct with Erin. For all intents and purposes, I was still a virgin, though not in the technical sense.
Would I even know what to do with a woman? I’d known how to kiss her. I knew I wanted her mouth on my cock, wanted to taste the sweet nectar of her pussy.
No instruction manual necessary, apparently.
Erin.
I yearned for her, needed her, wanted to drown inside her.
But I couldn’t. Not when someone else had fed from her. Someone had violated the woman who was mine. I suppressed the growl that rose in my throat. I’d find out who it was, and I’d make sure he never came near her again.
She sat up in bed. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t begin to explain the horrors running through my head. Yet something overpowered the horrors. Another urge—the urge to protect her. To protect what was mine.
I hadn’t protected her from whomever had violated her. How could I live with that?
The hiss of my own blood in my veins thrummed in my ears, creating white noise.
What’s wrong, Dante? Please, tell me what’s wrong.
Her voice was sluggish and thick, as if she were speaking through a murky cloud of fog.
No. It wasn’t her voice that had the problem. My hearing wasn’t right somehow.
I pulled her up from the bed and into my arms. This wasn’t her fault. I had to believe that she had no idea what had happened to her. I sank my nose into her dark hair and inhaled. Her sweet fragrance invaded my senses.
I’ll never let you go, Erin. I’ll find out who did this to you, who took what belongs to me. And they’ll never touch you again.
“Dante?”
I grabbed two fistfuls of her hair and inhaled again.
“Dante?” Her voice was timid, fearful.
I pulled back and gazed into her green eyes. “I’m sorry, Erin. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I need to protect you, Erin. I need to.”
“I’m a grown woman, Dante. You just looked between my legs and… I can’t even.” She rubbed at her forehead.
I curled my hands into fists, rage surging through me like a black tornado. Violence. Brutality. Bloodshed.
The urge to protect what was mine—to erase whoever had done this to her from existence—throttled me. I ached to mark her, to take her blood and mark what was mine.
Not yet, though. She wouldn’t understand, and I had to protect her. From everything.
“You’re beautiful. Every part of you.” I turned and sped out of her bedroom, down the stairs, and out of her home.
And I grabbed the first person I encountered, my cuspids ready to puncture flesh.
The man screamed and struggled in my grasp.
Don’t do it, Dante. This isn’t who you are.
Erin’s voice.
Why was she in my head?
No, do it. Give in to what you are, what you can become.
Another voice. She who’d abused me, held me captive, taken my blood against my will.
Stolen my life.
She’d said those words to me many times while I was imprisoned, and I’d fought them with everything I had.
I needed to fight them now, fight the animalistic urge that demanded control over me.
I loosened my grip on the man. “I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Whatever, man.” He looked around, his eyes twitching. “I’m outta here.”
I inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to calm myself.
I’d succeeded. I’d controlled the violent compulsion. But not before I’d scared an innocent man into peeing himself.
The thirst for blood consumed me.
I turned, heading toward River’s.
I’d find sustenance there.
But I wouldn’t find what I needed.
I’d never have what I needed, what I desired more than life itself.
I’d never have Erin.
I had to protect her, at all costs, from whoever had been feeding on her.
I also had to protect her from me.
Chapter Two
Erin
What the hell is that?
That was my vagina. That treasure between my legs, as he’d called it. Something down there had triggered him. Afterward, he’d said every part of me was beautiful, but still, the look in Dante’s eyes had been something beyond anger, beyond even rage.
I’d seen that look before in certain patients—schizophrenics who’d gone off their meds.
Madness.
Pure madness.
I needed to face something that I’d been blocking out, for some reason.
Dante Gabriel was dangerous. Mad.
As much as I was drawn to him, I needed to stay away from him. Far away from him. It wouldn’t be easy, considering the magnetic pull that seemed to force me toward him. What was happening? Maybe this was something more, something I’d never experienced.
I’d thought I was in love with Cory. Maybe I hadn’t been. Maybe this was love. This all-consuming, almost frightening craving for someone.
No, couldn’t be love. More like obsession—an obsession I needed to fight with everything in me before I found myself as mad as Dante.
Sleep eluded me for most of the day, and at dusk I rose to shower and get ready for work. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Dr. Crown—well, since he’d unbuttoned my shirt, Logan—at the hospital. Maybe he wouldn’t be in tonight.
But once I got to work, there he was. He didn’t meet my gaze when I said a soft hello.
Not that I blamed him. I’d brought him to my place with the intention of fucking him, and he’d been chased away by a crazy man.
A crazy man I couldn’t get out of my mind.
“Hey, chick.” Lucy walked toward me.
“You feeling better?”
“What?” She arched her brow.
“Your food poisoning.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, much better. Thanks. So I heard you went out with Dr. Hottie Nerd.”
I rolled my eyes. “Good news sure travels fast.”
“It does when Steve’s around.”
I shot Steve a heated look, but he only laughed and continued his work.
“So how’d it go?” Lucy continued.
“It didn’t. We had breakfast. That’s it.”
Lucy stared at me, her blue eyes wide. “Erin, when was the last time you got laid?”
I looked around quickly. “Could you have said that any louder?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I wasn’t loud. You’re just uncomfortable with the words.” She put on a pair of rubber gloves. “I’m serious. When?”
“Not long ago.”
“Bullshit. You haven’t been with anyone since Cory, have you?”
Actually, I had. A couple one-nighters, and a guy I’d dated a few times. Funny that I hadn’t told Lucy. I didn’t usually withhold information from her, but one-nighters weren’t my thing. They were Lucy’s thing.
“Not true. I’ve had a few flings.”
“Yeah? Without telling me?”
“I don’t tell you everything, Luce.”
“Why not? I tell you everything.”
“I know.” Lucy’s exploits were legendary. She was the horniest woman on the planet—“a horny little bitch,” she called herself, though I didn’t care for that epithet.
“So…?”
“So…how can I compete with your sex life?”
“Erin, Erin. It’s not about competition.” She smiled, mischief in her eyes. “And you can’t.”
Lucy was beautiful in a girl-next-door kind of way—honey-blond hair and blue eyes, a slightly curvy figure, and a bubbly personality. Men flocked to her. I’d been truly surprised to find out she hadn’t slept with Logan.
“Trust me, Luce, I’d never try.” I couldn’t help a laugh.
“So go over and talk to the good doct
or,” she said. “Next time make breakfast into a sleepover.”
Ha! She had no idea how I’d tried. I couldn’t relay to her the horrible story of this morning. She’d never believe it anyway. Plus, I was embarrassed. Dante had walked out on me after he’d interrupted my “date” with Logan.
What the hell is that?
Just what every woman wants to hear when a man looks between her legs.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Okay, fine. So he’s not your cup of tea. I get that. He’s not mine, either. Tell you what. You need a night on the town. We’re both off tomorrow night. Let’s go out.”
I so wasn’t the party-all-night type, but I’d be up all night anyway. Why not? “Okay, Luce. You’ve got yourself a date.”
“Great.” She sniffed and twirled around. “Dr. Bitchville is here. Shit. Look busy.”
Looking busy was difficult on a slow night in the ER. However, the EMTs arrived a few minutes later with a heart attack victim. I rushed toward the gurney.
“Male, mid-fifties. About two hundred and fifty pounds,” the EMT said. “Pulse is at 101, BP ninety over forty. We’re losing him.”
“Doctor!” I called.
Dr. Bonneville arrived swiftly. We got him situated, and I hooked him up to the EKG and started an IV.
“We’ve got elevation of the ST segment,” I said.
“Current of injury,” Dr. Bonneville concurred. “Here come the T wave inversions. Let’s save this heart. Five thousand units of Heparin, Erin. Forty milligrams Tenecteplase.”
I administered the medications while Dr. Bonneville monitored the patient. “Come on, now. Fight for me. Fight, damn it!”
Then the telltale buzz.
“He’s flatlining,” I said.
“Damn it!” Dr. Bonneville began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. “Prepare the paddles, Erin.”
I’d been working as an ER nurse for five years, and never had I gotten used to watching a doctor try to shock life back into a patient. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
Tonight it didn’t.
Dr. Bonneville closed her eyes and sighed. “Time of death, twelve thirty-five a.m.”
I made the notation.
We didn’t even know the patient’s name. No one had come in with him. He must have lived alone and called 911 when he began having pains.
We’d establish his identity. We always did. Didn’t make the whole thing any easier though.
Dr. Bonneville didn’t like losing patients. No doctor or nurse did, but she took it harder than most, which always stunned me, given her normal attitude and willingness to treat her coworkers like yesterday’s trash. I’d tried comforting her once.
Once.
I knew better now.
She needed to be left alone…which was why I dropped my mouth open when she asked me to have a cup of coffee with her.
It wasn’t break time, and Bonneville wasn’t one for taking time off that wasn’t scheduled. But she was the boss.
Chapter Three
Dante
“Now I will give you a gift.”
She ripped the skin on her wrist open with her fangs and presented it to me.
“Drink of me, as I have drunk from you.”
Not supposed to feed off each other. Dad and Bill had warned of severe side effects, but they’d never elucidated.
I turned away, squeezing my eyes shut.
Whomp!
A punch landed on my exposed cheek. My eyes were forced open by one of her goons.
“You dare refuse such a precious gift?” Blood dripped from her cut wrist onto my closed lips. “Drink, Dante. Drink from me.”
This time another goon pried my lips apart, and a drop of her blood trickled across my tongue, leaving a trail of flame in its wake.
My mind went fuzzy.
I spent the next night and day lounging at River’s apartment, fighting a duel with myself. How could I protect Erin from everything, including me, when she—and the desire I had for her—never left my mind? After I’d downed a quart of steer’s blood and was able to think clearly, I fell asleep. At dusk I rose and left River’s. I had to see Bill. Only he could give me answers, though I wasn’t looking forward to returning.
I still couldn’t believe I’d slugged him. What had come over me? He’d been pushing—pushing for me to talk. He’d said not to return until I was ready to accept his help.
I was ready to accept help. I just wasn’t ready to tell him everything. Somehow, I’d have to make him understand that and agree to help me anyway.
I found Bill in his office, his gaze locked on his computer screen. I stood in the open doorway. He looked up at me, his cheek bruised from my punch.
“Dante,” he said calmly.
I should apologize. Beg his forgiveness. But the thought of begging for anything tasted like bile in my mouth. For ten years, I’d forced myself not to beg for mercy. I wasn’t sure I could ever beg for anything again, even for forgiveness from my one-hundred-and-two-year-old grandfather who hadn’t deserved my wrath. I opened my mouth, ready to force out the words, when he spoke.
“Are you ready to accept my help?”
“I’ve always been ready to accept your help. I need your help.” I cleared my throat. “What are you doing?”
“Research,” he said, his gaze back to his computer monitor.
“On what?”
He slid his chair around and looked straight into my eyes. “I can’t talk about it now. Is there something you need?”
“What do you mean you ‘can’t talk about it’?”
“I mean I can’t talk about it.” His voice was steady, firm, and commanding.
I remembered the tone from when I was a teenager. My father had spoken in a similar pitch when he didn’t want to be interrogated. I’d never pushed my father or my grandfather.
But I was no longer a teenager.
“Why are you keeping secrets?”
Bill stood and removed his glasses. “Why are you keeping secrets, Dante?”
“I’m not. I just can’t…” I bit my lower lip. “Try to understand.”
“I do understand.”
“But you don’t. You can’t possibly.”
“I’d lived nearly eighty years before you came into the world. You have no idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve been through.”
I wasn’t buying it. My grandfather hadn’t been held captive and violated for ten years. If he had, I’d know about it.
He continued, “My ability to help you will be limited if I don’t know what you went through. As for what I’m doing, I’m not keeping secrets. I’m saying this is none of your business. I will not talk about it, not until I can. If you can’t respect that, you can leave this house at any time.”
That was the second time he’d told me I could leave his house.
“You told me I’d always have a home here.”
“Having a home here doesn’t mean you get to know everything I’m doing. It also doesn’t give you license to exercise violence toward me.”
I couldn’t argue, but I’d never known Bill to be secretive about anything. Then again, I’d been gone for a long time. Things had clearly changed in the last ten years.
I turned when I heard bustling outside Bill’s office.
“It’s River,” Bill said. “He’s off tonight.”
Perfect. If I couldn’t get any answers from Bill, maybe I could get some from my cousin. I left the office.
“Hey, Riv.” I walked toward him.
“Dante. Hey. I woke up and you were gone. I figured you’d come back here. You and Bill good now?”
Were we? I had no idea. Seemed I didn’t know my grandfather at all anymore. “I guess so.”
River had also been different since I’d returned. He wasn’t distant, as Bill appeared to be, but he seemed obsessed with moving forward on “my case” and getting whomever had taken me behind bars. I wanted that as well, but I wasn’t ready to cooperate yet. Memories tugged at me, a
nd I’d spent so much time out of it that I wasn’t sure which ones were true and which weren’t.
Only one thing was constant.
Her.
She who called herself the queen.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sure. Just let me get a drink.” He went into the kitchen and came back with two goblets full of blood. He handed one to me.
I wasn’t thirsty, but I took it anyway.
“Where’s Bill?” he asked.
“In his office. He’s not in a talkative mood.”
“Yeah. He’s working on some stuff.”
“Do you know what it is?”
River shook his head. “He won’t tell me. Won’t tell anyone. Not even Em, who usually has him wrapped around her little finger.”
“Can we talk in private?” I asked.
River drained his glass. “Sure. You want to go out to a bar or something? We can hit Bourbon Street.”
Bourbon Street. The last time I’d hit Bourbon Street, I’d never returned. I stiffened.
“Hey. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No.” I gripped the stem of my goblet, my knuckles whitening. “I can’t hide forever. I have to figure out what happened to me and why. Maybe Bourbon Street is the key.”
“Lots of shit happens on Bourbon Street, cuz,” River said. “It’s a haven of supernatural activity. You know that.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.” I downed the liquid in my glass.
River ordered a high-end bourbon for both of us. I hadn’t had a drink—that I knew of—in ten years.
“Go slow,” River cautioned. “This stuff is lethal. But damn, it’s good.”
I picked up the heavy lead crystal glass and took a sip. Woodsy and a touch of maple. Delicious. Though it did burn my throat going down.
“What did you need to talk about, Dante?”
I took another sip and then cleared my throat. “It’s a woman, actually.”
“Yeah? Jay’s sister, right?”
“Right. How did you know?”
“How could I not know? She smells amazing.”
Ice chilled my neck as I gripped my glass on the walnut bar, jealousy spearing through me. In an instant, it shattered.
Unchained: Blood Bond Saga: Volume One Page 10
