by SK Ryder
But, oh, to be part of this dream . . .
She took his face into both her hands and kissed him on the mouth, tasting him in a slow, bold, soul-deep kiss that left him weak with need for her. For one sweet moment, he let her. For one sweet moment, he allowed himself to believe this was real. For one sweet moment . . . he was human.
Then she pressed her soft warmth closer against his rock-hard body. His recently satisfied cock stirred back to life—and with it the beast. He felt his humanity slip. Became hyper-aware of the delicate rivers of blood pulsing beneath her satin skin.
Out on the porch, Serge growled a warning. Dominic ignored it.
What he couldn’t ignore was the searing pain against his cheek.
Breaking the kiss with a gasp, Dominic pulled both her hands away from his face. One of them bore a ring made of pure silver. In casual contact, silver caused little more than an annoying tingle. Held against his skin like this, the metal caused stinging blisters to erupt. In a distant flicker of lightning, the ring winked at him, haughty as the man who gave it, warning him off.
Dominic clenched his jaw. The ring had saved her. From him.
“I’m sorry, Dominic.” Cassidy sank back into her pillows with a weary sigh. She squeezed his fingers before retrieving her hands from his. “I’m sorry I’m a girl.”
“Non . . .” He stopped himself. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t break this spell. No promises he could make that he would keep. As she drifted back to sleep, he sensed her swirling dreams, colored by longing and edged with regret.
Her spirit embraced his soul. Her torment broke his heart.
He kissed her damp forehead before reluctantly sliding out of bed.
With a mixture of relief and irritation, he spotted Serge hovering in the doorway, ready to yank him from the brink of disaster. Dominic shoved past him and then stopped to make sure Serge followed him downstairs.
“You did well, blood-child.”
“I failed,” Dominic snarled. “She is no longer safe with me. I want her too much.”
“But she is your key. You need her.”
“I need you to leave my lair. I will not go near her again tonight.” Only because mere minutes remained of the night. Though the skies outside were still mottled with clouds, the sun’s weight settled on him with increasing force.
Leaving Serge by the front door to seek his shelter where he would, Dominic turned down the hall—where he came to an abrupt halt. When he was here earlier to change his clothes, he had moved too fast to contemplate the meaning, but his photographic memory made note of the angle at which the back bedroom door stood open.
Which was different from how he had left it.
He drew a deep breath, half-hopeful, half-terrified that she had ventured into his inner sanctum. If so, it would only be a matter of time before she came here during the day and destroyed him, regardless of her feelings for him.
It wasn’t her scent he caught in the stagnating air, though. It was Jackson’s.
With every nerve in his body buzzing in alarm, he moved through the tiny room, smelling for traces of the man. There were few—the door, the light switch, handles on several dresser drawers, a hint on the hilt of one of the swords—but they were strong and deeply offensive. It was reasonable to expect the man to search the house for Cassidy when he came looking for her earlier. But this small, shuttered room had held enough interest for him to distract him from her possible troubles. Why?
Suddenly Dominic regretted having so little control over himself in Jackson’s presence. It never even occurred to him to make an opportunity to ‘speak’ with him in private, to taste his blood and know his mind. The beast only wanted to rip open his throat and be done with him. It still did. Now more than ever.
“The sun comes, blood-child.”
Dominic whirled around, fangs extending, ready to tear into someone, anyone, to vent his frustration. Serge stood just inside the door, looking as inoffensive as it was possible for a soggy derelict blood-drinker to look.
“Tell me, who do you smell in here?”
Serge shrugged but didn’t meet his eyes.
“Did you know about this? Did you know he would invade my lair?”
Another shrug.
“Of course you didn’t. How could you?”
Serge gave him a disappointed look. He had been on the beach, watching over Cassidy the entire time. He wouldn’t have been aware of Jackson’s doings at the cottage any more than Dominic was barring any truth to his claims of clairvoyance, which Dominic refused to play into.
“You want this to ‘play out as it will,’ do you? Then so it will. Tonight I will know Jackson Striker’s mind. The consequences be damned.”
Serge looked troubled. “But why? Why risk killing the man who fights for her . . .”
“She is better off without him.”
“. . . when you already know his mind?”
Dominic froze where he stood. Serge’s words cut through his raging emotions like a sword, revealing a truth he had refused to acknowledge. Oh, yes. Dominic knew. He had seen, heard, and smelled everything about the man, and only one explanation made any kind of sense at all.
“He knows.”
Serge nodded, pleased. “He does.”
Dominic sat on the edge of his bed, stunned. “But he’s human. No human can know about us and live.”
Serge chuckled. “So much more is possible than you know, young one. You have much to learn, and you will. But first—” He held out his hand. “Come spend the day with me in the ground.”
The sun was close. Dominic felt it in the sluggishness sucking at his limbs. The beast was reluctant to leave the sanctuary at this point and didn’t quite understand the threat inherent in remaining here. Serge, with his greater age and strength, would be able to function for a while longer and help him find cover.
Dominic didn’t move. It was a good day to die, and a good way, too. Perhaps Jackson would spare Cassidy the truth about his fate, leaving her to remember him only at his best—remember the kiss that would be the last glimmer of joy he would ever know.
“No,” he said, the decision settling over him with an otherworldly peace. “I will stay here.”
A panicked little sound escaped Serge.
“This will play out as it will, mon ami.” Dominic settled on the mattress, his energy draining away from him as fast as water from a sieve. “Watch over her for me,” he whispered.
Then the memory of her kiss enveloped him and carried him into oblivion.
Chapter 17
Island Tales
Jackson paced the Foundation’s library. Waiting for Uncle Garrett had been a mistake. He should have been back at Cassidy’s place at sunrise. While Garrett was busy dealing with a storm-damaged building in his official capacity as Striker Capital’s Director of Security, Jackson should have taken the initiative and killed that bloodsucking bastard holed up with Cassidy.
Too bad he needed him alive.
And keeping a not-so-oblivious vampire under control, required the Foundation’s more specialized facilities—to which only Garrett could grant him access.
Jackson balled his fists with impotent frustration. Last night’s harrowing encounter still twanged on his nerves. The shuttered and draped little bedroom should have been a clue. Yet the idea of a vampire sharing its lair with Cassidy was so outlandish he didn’t even entertain it until he stood face-to-face with the creature and got a good look at that too-flawless skin and those too-penetrating eyes. To say nothing of the attitude.
Obviously Cassidy was compelled into staying there. Yet even Jackson, who knew her so well, hadn’t recognized the effect. She didn’t come across as distracted or confused as would be expected of someone coerced to act against their better interest. The compulsion wa
s deep, evidence of unusual skill. And that Jackson had walked away from a confrontation for which he was so completely unprepared proved his own self-control and ability to function under pressure.
His father and Uncle Garrett were wrong about him. Jackson Striker was ready to hunt. He was more than ready. He only needed to nail down his uncle long enough to make that clear.
The opportunity presented itself moments later when the electronic lock unlatched and Garrett swept into the room like a remnant of the storm itself. “Is this where you’ve been hiding all day?”
“Waiting for you, yes. You said three hours five hours ago.”
“That damn tree took out a corner of the roof and four windows. Niagara Falls ran through the building half the night. Freaking controlled chaos this morning, because there’s too damn much money on the line to be closed on a Monday. Everybody was there.”
Garrett dropped into the leather executive chair behind the main desk, every line of his compact, athletic body radiating impatience. “Everybody was there except, of course, the future president of the company. Don’t think that wasn’t noticed, kid. Your father’s going to tear a chunk out of you the size of Texas when he gets his hands on you, I can promise you that.”
“There’s work to be done for the Foundation. There are lives at stake.”
“Sorry to tell you this, but sometimes the hunt has to take a backseat. When our resources are threatened here at home, a vampire halfway around the world gets a break.”
“How about one in fucking driving distance?”
This gave Garrett pause. His sharp gaze narrowed. “Did I miss an alert from the Grid?”
“This is way off the Grid, trust me. If the Grid knew about this, it would stroke out.”
“Skip the drama. If you’re sitting on something critical, why didn’t you say so?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Uncle. Maybe because you cut me off in mid-sentence when I called? And could it be you haven’t checked your voice mail yet today because you saw I called, and what could I possibly have to say that’s in any way important?”
Garrett sighed. “Very well then. Let’s hear what you’ve got and make it good.”
Jackson sat on the edge of the desk, turned the keyboard around, and typed the codes that brought up his research. He had put the final pieces together early this morning to complete a picture that would take the Foundation to maximum alert.
“We don’t have much time, but you’re going to have to hear this to fully appreciate it.”
He explained his new search methodology, the algorithms that scanned historical data for markers of vampire activity and connected them by proximity as well as similarities. As the trail of red dots began to plot out on the screen, Garrett retrieved a pair of reading glasses from a drawer and leaned forward as he put them on.
“About two decades is as far back as we can go before the data becomes too fragmented, but there’s no reason to think this activity pattern didn’t start much earlier. Centuries for all we know.” While Jackson called up various supporting documents and images on one screen, the dots kept popping up like drops of blood on the other, annotated with dates and numbers dead and missing, all along the worlds’ coastlines. Eventually, they crept up the eastern shores of South America, into the Caribbean and stopped at Grand Cayman, south of Cuba.
“While some of these were blips on the Grid, the lag time to get data from these remote places always kept the probability low. But over time, the pattern becomes obvious. Everything points to one or more vampires traveling, siring younglings as they go. Given the locations and time frames, I’d say by boat.”
Garrett dropped his readers on the desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All right. Nice detective work. But the last bit of information you have here is six months old. What does any of this have to do with . . . driving distance?”
“Possibly a great deal.”
“Possibly? Jack, I’ve been up all night and all day. I don’t have the patience to play games.”
“And I’ve never been more serious. About anything. There’s more. Lots more. Do I have your attention or am I doing this on my own?”
Garrett let out a long breath then slid his glasses back on his nose. “Continue.”
Jackson forced himself to calm down. This was too important. “Going north, Cuba would have been the next logical place for them to strike, but that’s a digital blind spot for us. And here in Florida . . .” He trailed off meaningfully.
His uncle gave him an exasperated look. “There’s no way you can spin the gang war killings to fit this.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. A moot point, in any case.” Jackson still believed those fatalities to be vampire victims, but he had no concrete evidence to pin them on his primary suspect. Which didn’t matter since said suspect was practically in custody already.
He pressed a key, and the blood-spattered map zoomed in on one particular dot marking a tiny Caribbean island. “St. Barts is where things get interesting. What happened there and when it happened nail it down as a place where our traveling ghouls dropped anchor.”
“Over a year ago.”
Jackson ignored the dismissive snort and spoke with all the conviction of certain knowledge. This was so much more than a youngling vampire playing at being human, and he would make damn sure Garrett understood the full magnitude of what he had uncovered. To that end, he laid out his evidence as though in a court of law.
Exhibit A was Jean-Paul Marchant, successful restaurateur and father of three, a handsome, olive-skinned man of middle years who was found by his wife one fine evening without his head. Three weeks later, Jean-Paul’s youngest daughter, Anastasie, met the same fate.
Garrett’s face went hard with disgust as he studied the gruesome crime scene photos. He would recognize them, as Jackson had, as classic vampire victims. “What a waste.”
“It gets better.” Jackson called up Exhibit B, an image of a woman whose voluptuous beauty and seductive smile was instantly recognizable even to a pop culture caveman like Garrett Striker.
“That’s that actress who got killed there, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Jeovana Sebastini, Italy’s rising star.” Her naked body washing up on a posh Caribbean beach and the investigation that followed had been international front-page news for a month. Several people had been arrested. No one was ever charged.
“Don’t tell me she—”
“Was found dead only a day before Anastasie Marchant. Not a drop of blood left in her. She did get to keep her head though, even if her throat was a mess.”
He schooled his face into neutrality before paging to Exhibit C. The Dominic he had met was nothing like the tanned and grinning man on the screen now, an equally delighted Jeovana hanging off his arm.
“This is Dominic Marchant, age twenty-seven, Jean-Paul’s only son. He was reported missing, presumably kidnapped, the same night his father died.” Jackson cycled through a few more images of the couple, mostly long-lens paparazzi shots, each racier than the last. His jaw clenched at the thought of Cassidy in the same house as this cocky Caribbean gigolo. Even if the guy weren’t a bloodsucker, Jackson wouldn’t want him anywhere near her.
Garrett rubbed his jaw, considering. “So she had a connection to that family when they became victims and became one herself. But why would anyone think her boy toy was kidnapped?”
“Retribution. The week before Dominic disappeared, he came to his sister’s defense and ended up killing a guy with ties to the Columbian cartels. With his bare hands.” Jackson paused, relishing the rare flash of surprise on his uncle’s face. “Officially Dominic died about six months after that while trying to escape his captors. Supposedly there was a gunfight at sea, his body never recovered of course.”
Garrett looked dubious. “What are you implying? That he was turned? You do rea
lize that makes no sense, right, kid?”
“Compared to a Columbian cartel keeping a prisoner on a yacht for six months before blowing his brains out?” To say nothing of a vampire cooking up such an elaborate ruse in the first place.
“That family lost two people to vampires, and the actress clearly got caught in the middle. That can’t be a youngling’s doing. The sire would never allow it.”
“I’m thinking the sire didn’t have a choice.” He flipped to yet another image of the human Dominic, this time looking fierce in a wide stance and draped in the full black and white garb of the Aikido martial arts discipline. His opponent hung suspended in mid-air before him, tumbling, on his way to a hard impact with the mat. “Our suspect here’s an Aikido black belt. Highly trained and disciplined. Though I’m guessing he lost it when he killed one of the guys he caught raping his sister, Anastasie.”
Jackson said it without emotion, but somewhere in the pit of his stomach bloomed the reluctant recognition that he could well do the same for his sister, Samantha. He nearly had for Cassidy. He shoved the wellspring of sympathetic rage back down beneath the icy calm of the hunt. “If you add that skill set to the strength and speed of a vampire and what you get is—”
“A youngling on steroids.”
“Operating independently of a sire, yes. Or at least trying to, and good enough at it to not get himself killed by either the sire or anyone else who might object.” Like that crank that had attacked Cassidy on the beach. That one seemed too unhinged to be the mastermind of such a sophisticated pattern, much less sire someone like Dominic. But chances were good his presence was no accident. He had to be part of whatever game was afoot between the youngling and his sire. He had to be part of their nest.
“Interesting theory.”
