by SK Ryder
The stranger didn’t even bother with a towel when he returned to the back room. Cassidy tried—and failed—not to stare. Even in the low light, she noticed him move with a fluid grace full of confidence and strength, an impression reinforced when he reappeared wearing only a pair of black exercise pants that rode alarmingly low on his slim hips. He was long-limbed and all muscle, not an ounce of fat anywhere in sight.
Cassidy averted her eyes from the bump at his groin. Judging by the unenthusiastic state of his male assets, rape wasn’t on the agenda. The unbidden thought made her mouth go dry. Suddenly she was far too aware of being alone with him. Only the sound of rolling surf swelled through the open windows, together with the cool, wet smell of the ocean at night. Out here no one would hear her scream.
A soft crack and hiss snapped her back to the present. The stranger in her house now stood in the kitchen drinking the bottle of Perrier he’d just opened. She studied his face for clues. It was as lean and refined as the rest of him, full of angles and shadows, and dusted with a couple of days’ worth of whiskers. Jet-black hair clung to his neck in damp tendrils. A smug smile curved his full mouth, and she realized that he watched her with as much interest as she him.
“Are you enjoying the view, Mademoiselle?” he wondered, sounding mildly amused.
“I wasn’t . . .” she spluttered and his smile stretched a little wider.
“Surely you have seen a naked man before, non?”
Cassidy’s face flamed. There was naked man and then there was him, and he knew it. Men like this graced magazine covers and fashion runways. They did not walk out of locked bedrooms in the middle of nowhere. His dark eyes danced with obvious delight at her embarrassment, and his smile exploded into an eager grin that touched an icy finger to her spine. In spite of the oppressive heat in the cottage, she shivered and hugged herself.
“Who the hell are you? What do you want?” she said, shocking herself with how helpless she sounded. Something was wrong with her lungs. A vise had clamped around them, squeezing the breath out of her. The surf roared in her ears. Her thoughts scattered like startled birds. His grin faded, replaced by something much more ominous. Hunger, she thought for no reason she could name. Written all over that model-perfect face.
“I-if you’re going to rape me, at least be q—quick about it.”
“Merde,” he hissed under his breath.
Great going, Cass, she admonished herself as her eyes frantically cast about for potential weapons. If he hadn’t thought about it before, he was thinking about it now.
“No,” he snapped as her hand went for the discarded fork. He spun away, retreating to the far end of the living room that adjoined the kitchen. There was frantic rustling and a muttered stream of what must have been choice French profanities. Then something new hung in the air, acrid, familiar, and sickening. Cigarette smoke.
Cassidy sank into her chair and held her head in both hands, wheezing, her heart pounding in her throat, tears streaming down her face. Like evil ghosts summoned by the smoke, countless angry, grief-stricken memories slammed into her, taking her panic to a whole new level. Her lungs all but disappeared.
“Écoutez!”
Startled, she looked up and found herself pinned by his gaze. Her breath came in fast, shallow gasps, like the panting of an animal caught in a trap.
“Listen to me,” he said with an obvious attempt at being soothing, though he still sounded terse, his accent clipped. Leaning onto the back of the chair opposite her, he sucked at the cigarette trembling in his fingers without taking his eyes off her. Twin streams of smoke blew from his knife-blade nose. “I will not rape you. Do you understand this?”
She tried to nod because she did understand the words. But she couldn’t get enough air, and her head started to feel like a helium balloon with its string cut. Her hands convulsed around the table edges to keep her tethered. The room spun. The panic had its teeth into her too deep for her to do anything but fight for breath.
“Breathe,” he ordered. “Deep. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Lentement. Slowly. More slowly.”
Something about the timbre of his voice reached straight down her throat and into her chest. Her lungs obeyed and expanded with precious air, for all that it stank of cigarette smoke. She sat back, drained, feeling the drumbeat of her heart ebb.
He stayed where he was, still pulling at the cigarette, but his hand was steady now. Ashes dropped onto the table, the floor, unheeded. He looked almost as relieved as she felt. “I will not do this thing, Cassidy. I will not force myself on you. Nod if you understand.”
This time she nodded.
“Do you believe me?”
Another nod. He would not rape her. She believed it because if that were the plan, she was sure he wouldn’t bother talking her down from a panic attack that would have sent her screaming into the night. But that didn’t rule out a whole lot of other unsavory ideas he might have up his non-existent sleeve. It didn’t matter. As long as it wasn’t that, she could deal. If she kept her wits about her. Gathering them up, she straightened in her seat and placed her hands flat on the surface of the table.
“How did you know my name?”
“I saw your papers last night.” He gestured at the pile in question, which contained her rental agreement. “You were out.”
Out grocery shopping. She almost got clipped by a phantom motorcycle rocketing out of the mule trail when she got back. Remembering the leathers in his room, she put two and two together and added lunatic to her list of observations, along with rude, crude, French, and no respect for privacy. She’d be packing her bags if not for her self-respect and the two free weeks she was due in this dump.
“So who are you? And what are you doing in my house?”
He hesitated before shrugging one bare shoulder. It was adorned with a tribal style tattoo of the sun. “I am Dominic Marchant.” Leaning forward, he made the cigarette butt disappear in her bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese. “And this is, in fact, my house.”
She stared at her ruined food, the dish her mother used to make for her from scratch when Cassidy needed cheering up. Like today. “And that was my dinner.”
“That is shit.”
So it was true what they said about the French being rude. His striking good looks paled beside his arrogance and disappeared altogether in light of that filthy cigarette habit. She looked up, her jaw clenching. That glimmer of amusement was in his eyes again. Deep, warm hazel eyes. Alive with an unspoken challenge.
She raised a brow. “So what you’re saying is you live in this pig sty?”
He turned a chair around and straddled it, folding his arms over the back and propping his chin on his forearms. A shock of his dark, overgrown hair fell across his forehead, lending him a playful, mischievous air. “Oui. I do.”
“With no AC?”
“I do not need it.”
“No food?”
“I eat out, chèrie. Every night.”
“How nice for you.” This brought no comment beyond a wry curl of his lip. “At the rental agency, they don’t seem to know you’re here.”
“They don’t. I did not expect anyone to rent this . . . pig sty, during the summer.”
“Pig sty is all I can afford,” she said drily. If he decided to send her packing, she’d be out of options. Again. Not that she relished having a rude, crude, snooping, lunatic Frenchman for a roommate, but only yesterday she was willing to put up with anyone who would give her a room and tolerate a cat. Besides, he did promise not to rape her. She heaved a small sigh. Could the bar get any lower?
Dominic glanced at where her fingers fretted with the Striker engagement ring. “The man who gave you this can afford to keep you much better than this, non?”
Cassidy stopped fidgeting. “Well, maybe I don’t want to be kept. No?”
He searched her face. Flecks of gold glinted in the clear depths of his eyes where gears tumbled into place. “So he is the reason you are here.”
“I don’t see how . . .”
“Is he also the one who bit you?”
Her hand flew to the mysterious bruise on her neck, visible now with her hair up and all the makeup sweated off. Oh, my God, he’s right. It does look like a bite, she thought, aghast. But out loud she blustered, “That’s none of your business.”
“Au contraire,” Dominic murmured. “This is my house. The reason you are here disturbing my peace is my business.”
“Does that mean you’re okay with me staying?” Encouraged by his silence, she continued, “It wouldn’t have to be long. Just until I get some funds saved up.” Or get a raise or better offer, neither of which appeared on the horizon.
“That depends. Are you here because of that bite?”
“You don’t know when to quit, do you? What’s your kinky fascination with a bruise on my neck?”
“What do you remember of how you got it?”
Her hesitation was slight. “It’s a bite. Want me to draw you a freaking picture?”
“No. Tell me.”
Exasperated, she pushed her chair back and got up. “You’re unbelievable. No, I’m not going to tell you or anyone else. It’s private. Got it?”
“Cassidy,” he said, his tone softening. “Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”
That voice. It had a tangible presence, a vibration that resonated somewhere deep inside her, caressing her with warmth and understanding. Yes, she did want to tell him. The need to talk to someone bordered on the desperate. About how she had no idea what happened to her, that she could no longer trust a man she loved and wondered if she was losing her mind, and about so much more bottled up in her heart and soul—grief and disappointment, anger and frustration. Pour it all out in a giant heap to someone who genuinely wanted to know, to him . . . to this gorgeous and haughty bastard who ruined her food, stomped on the memories she nursed in it, showed way more interest in her personal life than he had any business having, and was bound to throw her and Eddie out without a second thought.
“I don’t think so.”
Dominic sat up as if she had slapped him. His face shuttered into a blank nothingness worthy of any pouty runway model. He got up and stalked around her, his presence encroaching on her like a force of nature. Cassidy watched in disbelief as he leaned in and sniffed at her shoulder. She fought the impulse to step away, determined to stand her ground unless he touched her. Then he’d have to contend with her nails on that pretty face of his and her knee where it would hurt the most.
Tension rolled off him in waves, but he didn’t touch her. Not physically anyway. The blow he delivered came in the form of a snarling command. “By this time tomorrow, you will have found another place to stay. You will be gone from here.”
Then he left the house and slammed the door behind him.
Dominic cursed all the way to the beach. The situation with Cassidy Chandler could now be classified as a full-blown fiasco. It missed being a complete failure—resulting in her death—by only the slimmest of margins. When she seethed with fear from one instant to the next, the beast had torn his guts to bloody ribbons in its frantic need to live up to every one of her worst expectations of him—and more. If not for the cigarette smoke grinding through his lungs, distracting the hunger, he would have lost even his last shred of control.
So much for his clumsy attempts at a casual approach. Clearly even his most dazzling charm could instill terror.
“C’est un désastre putain.” He tore away the flimsy pants and threw himself into the sea. Since his transformation, he no longer floated, making swimming impossible. So he crabbed along the sandy bottom to a small reef just offshore. There he spread himself face-down across the coral and algae-encrusted limestone shelves and let the passing waves rock his body into stillness.
His mind raced.
She could not be compelled. At least not when she didn’t want to be. She wanted to breathe, so she did his bidding. She didn’t want to tell him about her injury, so she didn’t. It made no sense. If another vampire had compelled her to resist him, she would have done so every time, not only when it suited her. What’s more, her sudden panic was like a lethal tripwire. Any blood-drinker that went through the trouble of sending her into his path would have a better plan for her than immediate self-destruction. Like dragging him out into the sun, for instance. But not only had she not done that, she even seemed oblivious to his true nature.
Unless she was compelled to be oblivious.
Something slithered across the back of his thigh. Dominic didn’t move, thrilling to the gentle caresses. Encouraged, the octopus continued to investigate, slipping its tentacles over and beneath him, testing the peculiar, smooth feel of him while he imagined its curious explorations to be the embrace of the sea itself. His heart ached with a powerful, almost forgotten need to be touched like this, with affection and trust.
Closing his eyes, he shivered as the octopus nestled its soft body between his legs, seeking and not quite finding a place to lurk in comfort. This, too, was an intimacy he would never know again. Some blood-drinkers, he knew, didn’t care that their human lovers would not survive even one sexual encounter. Dominic wasn’t one of them.
His thoughts swerved back to Cassidy, the girl in his lair with the scent of an unknown blood-drinker in her blood. Her blood wasn’t all he desired of her, and that interest was mutual. Her involuntary arousal was more than obvious to his heightened senses. But that was insanity. He had taken one life in a fit of passion when he didn’t know any better, a tragedy that would haunt him forever along with several others. But doing it again with a full understanding of the consequences would kill what little humanity remained in him.
Deep in his heart, the beast growled its discontent. It would not have her, not tonight and not tomorrow, not any night or in any way.
The octopus emerged across his buttocks and sidled up his back. It probed at the cloud of hair floating around his head. Then it vanished in a hurry, the water jet of its departure washing down his spine. Dominic opened his eyes and shifted his vision. A thousand tiny lives melted from the gloom surrounding him—and one large one. His body tensed, compacting, readying for the hunt.
The shark nudged him once. Circling around, it returned, aiming for a taste. But it underestimated its prey. When it would have torn his flesh, Dominic caught it in his arms. Seconds later, its thin, salty blood flowed from its heart and into a predator without equal. Soon the carcass drifted on the reef, attracting the first scavengers.
Dominic settled a distance away, the beast appeased, if not satisfied. Shark’s blood was the blood-drinker equivalent of junk food—convenient but little else. Sometimes convenience trumped enjoyment, especially tonight when a human slept in his lair. He would stay submerged out here until dawn to avoid that particular temptation. By tomorrow night, if she had any sense left at all, she would be gone and safe from him—but not safe from the other blood-drinker.
That thought sent an inexplicable frisson through him. That other wasn’t his sire. That much he knew from her scent. There would be no hope for him if it were otherwise. It was possible that she was nothing more than a casual and already forgotten feed who moved into his lair by sheer coincidence. Possible, but not probable. What would the other do with her when she left? As long as none of it involved him, Dominic had no cause to care. Yet, the thought gave him pause. At best she would be killed, at worst enslaved if she wasn’t already. Dominic found no pleasure in indiscriminate murder or the cruel games blood-drinkers often played. But if he condemned her to such a fate, was he any better than those who would execute it?
He struggled with this question for the rest of the night. He was no closer to an answer
by the time the sky grew light and he locked himself behind the door of his refuge.
Chapter 6
Refugees
Cassidy didn’t even try to find another place to stay. Breaking the rental agreement would cost her money she couldn’t afford to lose and couldn’t spend on a new place, not that she thought she’d have any better luck finding one on Tuesday than she did on Sunday. There was her job to consider, too. She wasn’t about to give anyone any cause to let her go by making a string of personal phone calls, to say nothing of leaving early to pack up and relocate her life yet again.
At home, she dumped her bag and blazer on the kitchen table and kicked off her shoes. The heat wrapped around her like a sauna, soaking into tense muscles and making her relax almost against her will. All day she acted the model employee, which meant pretty much biting off her tongue to keep from handing Jim a piece of her mind.
On the plus side, one of her turtle pictures ran today under the heading ‘Local Color’ and Dave had been halfway encouraging when she explained about wanting to contribute more. Not that he’d rushed to hand her a choice assignment, though. “It’s only your second week,” he told her. “Give it time.”
Retrieving a diet soda from the fridge, she popped it open. While she drank, she admired her handiwork. She had poured her time and sweat into making this place livable, and other than being far too warm, it felt almost welcoming now. The late afternoon sun streamed through the windows, throwing dappled yellow shadows across the kitchen and living room. A strange sense of refuge emanated from the wood-paneled walls and hovered around the worn furnishings. Even the once bright rugs scattered across the tiles like casual smiles seemed to greet her.
