Feral Passion

by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

  Clarice stood and reached for her purse. “In any case, I think my work here is finished.”

  ***

  Dante walked Clarice back to get her car. He scoured the street before he opened the garage door and allowed her out into the night.

  Xandra leaned against the garage wall, as though her remaining strength was slipping away. She cast a glance down the street outside, then looked back at him. “How long will we be safe here?”

  “Probably not long.” He shut the garage door and urged her and Alix back into the hallway.

  He stood at a crossroads. From the treatment Xandra had received at Jeremy’s hands, he was pretty certain that her falling into Jeremy’s clutches had been an accident. Yet still a small amount of doubt remained. Now that Xandra had revealed her secrets to him through Clarice’s regression, he had two choices: to throw his lot in with Xandra or go it alone. It would be smart to strike out on his own, but he couldn’t abandon her, not after what they’d experienced together. They’d shared their bodies and their blood. And he suspected that they had a kind of kinship in common as well. But if he stayed with her, he risked his career and possibly even his existence. Indecision gnawed at him.

  He searched his feelings. Logic be damned. Deep down, he wanted to help Xandra regardless of the dangers.

  Well, Xandra it was, he thought, coming suddenly to a decision. For better or worse.

  “It probably won’t take them long to find us,” he repeated softly. “So let’s have that talk before we have to move again.”

  Fervently, he hoped he’d made the right decision.

  ***

  Alix made coffee from a tin of some no-name beans that looked like they’d been in the freezer for some time. Luckily the kitchen included a grinder, so at least the grind would be fresh.

  Coffee dripped into the pot, filling the kitchen with its aromatic smell. It reminded Xandra of lazy Sunday mornings and coffee shops that sold mouthwatering pastries. At another time it would have been comforting. But they had no time for simple comforts. She turned to Dante. “You said you were connected to this. What did you mean?”

  Dante’s eyes focused on Alix, who was busily filling mugs with dark coffee. “Are you sure you want to hear all of this? It could be dangerous.”

  Alix pushed a mug along the counter to Xandra. “It might be dangerous, but the more people who know something makes it harder for them to hide the truth.”

  “Them?” Xandra demanded. “Who are they?”

  “Come back into the living room.” Dante shook his head at the mug of steaming brew Alix offered and took a seat in the chair, leaving the couch to the women.

  “I believe,” he said as they settled, “that your ex-boss is involved in a covert scientific experiment.”

  This revelation came as a surprise. She’d expected him to spout more outrageous claims about Jeremy not having her best interests in mind. But this was a new development. If it was a development at all. “What kind of experiments? Jeremy is ex-military—studious scientific stuff just doesn’t seem like this kind of thing…”

  No sooner had she said the words than two seemingly unrelated thoughts knit together in her mind. “Oh! You mean like a scientific experiment to create a better operative.”

  “No. At least not at first.” He stared off into the distance. “I believe at first he had a more altruistic goal.”

  “Such as?” Alix prompted.

  Dante spread his hands. For a moment he stared at the tips of his fingers. Fingertips she’d seen sprout some pretty dangerous-looking claws, she reminded herself. “I’ve done a lot of research trying to figure this whole thing out,” he said eventually. “Jeremy’s wife died while he was overseas at war. She passed away before he could get home.”

  “What?” Xandra demanded. “Jeremy was married?”

  “He never told you that?”

  “No.” Apparently there was a great deal Jeremy hadn’t told her. And he’d certainly hinted that he knew of Dante Rodriguez and his true nature. “He never talked much about his past.”

  “Apparently, he left the military shortly after his wife’s death. According to my sources he took up with a private firm when going through normal channels wasn’t possible.”

  Xandra shuddered. It shocked her to realize how little she knew about her ex-boss. “What were they researching?”

  “Vampires,” Dante said. “Or rather, the properties of vampire blood. The discovery of vampires didn’t originate with that first televised videotape. We were on the radar of many agencies for some time. Having been in the military, Jeremy had inside information on a lot of things the public didn’t know about. Traumatized by the death of his young wife, he was keen to find a restorative drug. He wondered if vampire blood might provide the solution. So, he traded his secret knowledge of vampires and his theories on vampire blood for scientific research.”

  “Did it work?” Alix asked. “Does vampire blood cure diseases?”

  “Yes and no. Suffice to say injecting people with large amounts of vampire blood had unpredictable results. It did give the subjects increased strength and vitality in the short term. In every case but two, the subjects turned feral. They died soon after.”

  “I can see where this is going,” Xandra said. “While the subjects lived they were essentially superhuman. They’d inadvertently created a super-operative.”

  “Wait a minute,” Alix interjected. “What about the other two? The ones who lived?”

  Dante sighed. “Two pregnant women survived and produced viable offspring. But Jeremy was never able to replicate the results. He’s been trying and failing ever since.”

  Xandra sat back in her seat. “Okay…knowing Jeremy, I can understand how he might have been obsessed with finding a cure for whatever killed his wife. I can even see how those somewhat unethical experiments might have produced a super-operative. But what I just don’t get is the link to organized crime.”

  “Money,” Alix piped in.

  “Exactly,” Dante said. “Once he was unable to reproduce his results, the private research firm pulled his funding.”

  “So he turned to organized crime?”

  He nodded. “Let’s just say they weren’t as worried about the subjects dying quickly. Jeremy provided short-term muscle—”

  “In return for cash and a ready supply of test subjects,” Xandra said.

  “They also had the means to launder large amounts of money and smuggle people in and out of the country.”

  “And I suppose they also had the means to dispose of them when the experiments didn’t work,” Alix added.

  An image of the feral vampires gathered around the mouth of the alleyway flitted through Xandra’s mind, followed swiftly by the gruesome memory of Mack Saunders being ripped to shreds. Suddenly she understood. “That’s why those feral vampires were attacking organized crime figures! Their test subjects went feral just like all the others. Only this time, they retained enough humanity to know what was done to them. They turned on their creators.”

  “I believe that’s exactly what happened.” Dante’s expression looked grim.

  Alix twisted the hem of her shirt. “Now Jeremy’s secret experiments have gotten out of control.”

  Xandra bit her lip. “With feral vamps marauding across the city, he can’t keep this under wraps any longer.”

  “And we were getting far too close to discovering the truth,” Dante finished.

  “It’s hard to believe that Jeremy and I worked together every day and I had no idea any of this was happening.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Alix said. “He went to great lengths to keep it from you.”

  Xandra glanced at Alix, grateful for her friend’s reassurances, but she was only really half listening. A disturbing thought had taken root in her mind. “What about the offspring of the women who survived?”

  The look on Dante’s face confirmed her suspicions. She had a horrible feeling she knew what was coming next. Part of her wanted to te
ll him to stop talking, that the truth might just be too terrible to hear. The other part desperately needed to know.

  “You’re one of them,” he said gently. “And I’m the other.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Dante’s words echoed in her ears. A simple sentence, and yet nothing made sense. “What do you mean you’re the other one?”

  But even as she said it she knew it was true. Dante Rodriguez was no ordinary vampire. She’d known it from the start.

  “My parents kept me hidden. They didn’t want me to become a subject for scientific study.”

  This was the first time Dante had mentioned his family. That he might have had parents who cared about him and who cared about each other sent a pang of longing through her.

  “Does Jeremy know?” she asked. “About what you are?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he suspects, but he doesn’t know for sure and he has no legitimate reason to investigate.”

  “Legitimate,” she repeated. “He knows I’ve had your blood or at least he suspected enough to draw a hundred vials of mine.”

  “So now he knows.”

  She faced him sorrowfully, wishing she’d stayed with him in his hidden cottage by the water. But the truth had been too frightening to face. Now she’d endangered Dante as well. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I knew you were different. I—I—” Her voice broke. “I was afraid to trust you.”

  “You were afraid to trust that difference in yourself,” Dante said quietly. “Did you never recognize the vampire blood within you?”

  Xandra studied the beige wall with its nondescript painting on the far side of the room. “I was so traumatized over what happened with my mom that I spent my life hating vampires. I didn’t know why I hated them, I just did. Jeremy certainly fostered that hatred.”

  “But surely there were things about you—” he began.

  “I thought I was just well trained. The fact that the inoculations they gave me made me so sick just added to my conviction that vampires were my enemy. I made it my life’s work to eradicate as many as I could.”

  He winced visibly.

  “Sorry again,” she whispered. “But if we’re both hybrids, that would explain why your blood healed me.” A sudden thought occurred to her. Memories of their bodies entwined in the sweaty heat of his cabin and the taste of his blood on her lips rushed into her mind. “We aren’t…related, are we?”

  From the corner of her eye, she caught Alix’s look of surprise.

  Dante laughed. “No, not that I know of. We’re just unfortunate byproducts of Jeremy’s unscrupulous scientific experiments.”

  Anger surged through her at the injustice of it all. “Jeremy left us trapped between two worlds. Two species. You’ve spent your life hiding among the vampires, and he concealed me in the human population. But the truth is, we’re neither.”

  “We’re us,” Dante said. “It’s up to us to decide who we are.”

  “It’s all so awful,” Alix protested. “You’re people. And those feral vampires were once people, as well.”

  “So what now?”

  “Right now,” Dante said, “all we have are a few sparse facts and a lot of speculation.”

  “And the shaky contents of my memory.”

  Dante crossed the floor, perched on the arm of the sofa and took her hand in his. “Now that you know what happened to your mother, you need to trust your instincts.”

  “She died trying to save me. I have to make her sacrifice count for something.”

  “We will, I promise.” Dante sighed. “But before we can act, we have to know the truth. We need to know for sure what Jeremy’s connection is to organized crime. And what exactly he’s done to us.”

  “Which means we need to get our hands on someone who would know.”

  “And someone who might be persuaded to tell us the truth. But we shouldn’t involve Alix in any of that.” His eyes slid to Alix, who was still sitting wide-eyed beside Xandra on the couch. “We need to determine if it’s safe for you to go home. If they haven’t located us, and if they don’t know that you’ve been in touch with us, then it’s probably best if you go on with your life and pretend everything is okay.”

  The way her shoulders tightened at the thought of leaving Alix unprotected told Xandra the likelihood of that was slim. “Jeremy will never leave her alone. He’ll have her under surveillance constantly, just in case I contact her.”

  “Which means he probably knows I’m not at the club,” Alix said.

  “And that it’s only a matter of time before he finds us,” Xandra added.

  Dante cast a regretful glance at Alix. “Looks like you’re along for the ride, whether you want to be or not.”

  “I knew that was probably the case when I contacted you.”

  “Alix, I’m sorry.” There seemed to be no end of things she was sorry for. She’d inadvertently linked Dante to the breeding program, and now she’d endangered her own friend. “Hopefully, this’ll all be over quickly and we can all go back to our lives.” But that wasn’t true, came the next dark thought. Since the day she’d been conceived, she’d been a danger to everyone, especially her mother.

  She slumped forward and rested her head in her hands. Dante’s hand caressed her back, loosening muscles that had been tight with tension seemingly forever. For a moment she was content to revel in the feel of his large warm hands.

  “You need some sleep,” Dante said. Alix discreetly said nothing.

  Xandra raised her head. “Do you think it’s safe to stay here for the night?”

  “As safe as anywhere. There are other safe houses I might be able to get us into. I should call for reinforcements, try to get some more muscle in here. Just in case,” he added with an apologetic look at Alix.

  Jeremy had fired her, but Dante still held a legitimate post with the metro police force. He had access to resources they might need. “What will you tell them?” she asked. “Will they believe you?”

  “I’ll tell them as little as I can.” He studied Alix for a moment. “I can tell them I have a possible informant who has information on the Mack Saunders assassination.” He shrugged, and Xandra marveled at the way his muscles moved under the material of his shirt. “Technically, most of that is true.”

  Pulling his phone from his pocket, he moved into the kitchen to make the necessary calls. Alix’s eyes followed him as he left. She turned to Xandra.

  “I know you have a no-vamps policy, but if I were you, I wouldn’t let that one go.”

  Xandra bit back a laugh. “I’m going to have to rethink that policy now that I know the truth about myself.”

  Alix’s eyes darted to the kitchen where Dante was speaking softly into the phone. While they couldn’t hear his exact words, he seemed to be a bit exasperated with whomever he was talking to. “There’s a bigger connection between you than anything Jeremy’s experiments might have done. You can’t keep your eyes, or your hands, off the guy.”

  The truth of her friend’s words resonated. She hungered for more of Dante. And not just for his intoxicating kisses, or the calming strength of his arms around her, but for his blood. Desire, hot and insistent, sizzled through her. “Horny is not an emotion.”

  Alix grinned, the first unguarded expression since they’d been reunited. “Now that’s where you’re wrong.”

  “You’re a terrible influence,” she said, laughing. Abruptly, she sobered. “And there’s far more at stake here than my feelings. Or my hormones.”

  “True. But hopefully we’ll all get out of this in one piece. You might give some thought to what you’re going to do then.”

  Alix was right. She needed to rethink her entire life in view of what she’d learned in the past few days.

  But before she could say anything further, Dante came back into the room. He brandished the phone like it had somehow displeased him. “Well, they didn’t much like the flimsy pieces of information I gave them, but they’re sending a couple more undercover officers over.”

&nb
sp; “At least that’ll be another pair of eyes,” Xandra said.

  “It’ll give us a chance to get some sleep. And they’ve agreed to move us to another house, if necessary.”

  “Can we trust them?” she asked. “Jeremy might have infiltrated even the metro police force.”

  Dante drew in a deep breath. “We’ll have to for the moment. We need to get some rest.” He nodded to her and Alix. “Go ahead and get some sleep. I’ll keep watch here until the reinforcements arrive.”

  The very last of her strength was rapidly fading away. Xandra got up stiffly from the couch and headed down the hall to the bedrooms at the back. Alix followed her and gratefully took one of the nondescript bedrooms decorated in beige like the rest of the house. Xandra took its matching twin across the hall.

  A beige comforter decorated with peach flowers covered the queen-sized bed. A door on the far side of the large room opened into an en suite bathroom. Xandra peered inside doubtfully, but the bathroom had no windows, no access to the outside at all.

  Stripping off her soiled clothes, she stepped into the shower stall and turned on the water as hot as she could stand. After a few minutes of standing under the spray, she reached for the shampoo bottle on the shelf and poured a liberal amount on her hair. She barely had the energy to rinse it clean. Feeling more like herself than she had in days, she stumbled to the bed and crawled in naked.

  She had spiraled down into the black depths of sleep, oblivious to anything except the dark well of exhaustion that held her, when a voice from the gloom said, “Want some company?”

  She swam towards the glimmer of consciousness, torn between the promise of sleep and the promise of him. “Mmm,” she said. And heard him chuckle.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Yes,” she managed to say somewhat coherently.

  “I didn’t want to leave you alone in here. Our backup has arrived, so I know the house is guarded and we’re safe, but still, I feel better being your own personal guard.”

  The bed moved as he crawled beneath the covers beside her. He’d showered too. She could tell by the smell of fresh shampoo. And she hadn’t even heard the water running. That made her nervous. She definitely needed her own guard. In her mind she could hear Alix laughing at that assertion. She wanted Dante Rodriguez, as a man and as a vampire.