by Various
After crawling from bed, she took a bottle of water from the mini bar and drank it dry. She stared at the empty bottle in her hand. Her stomach almost gave it back to her. “Definitely sick.” But it helped ease the dry feeling after a few minutes.
She knotted her hair into a bun on top of her head to start the hot water to heat in the shower. Her gaze caught her reflection, and she winced. “You look like hell, girl.” Her skin was pale, and there were shadows under her eyes. Houston had been right. She had lost weight.
Her vision drifted, discovering a mark on her neck. Her hand rose, nearly cradling it in her palm. “That rat. He gave me a hickey.” Steam started to infiltrate her fogged brain. “Shower. Get moving,” she ordered her reflection.
All she had the energy for was to prop herself against the wall on flat hands and let the water pummel her in waves. Her body was sore in several places, but remembering how she had gotten that way made her smile.
Titania knew it was insane. There wasn’t any way this was going to work between her and Diego. All he had to do was look at her and she went up in flames, and if he kissed her… Her eyes closed as heat surged over nerves.
A light knocking on her door pulled her to the present, and she turned off the water regretfully. She wrapped the robe hanging on the door around her with leaden hands, then realized she had heard the door over the shower plus through the closed bathroom door. And Houston had knocked. Not pounded as he was prone to do.
She shook her head, gradually working her way through the quicksand feeling she’d awakened with. It didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t concentrate to figure it out right then. The knot of her hair came loose after she was bundled in the robe, and she let it tumble free with a flick of her fingers. She rubbed her eyes, actually opening the door herself. “Hey,” she said.
Houston walked in two steps, then halted. He turned to her very slowly. “Christ, Tani.”
The door swung shut. “I know. I’m going to the doctor. You don’t have to say it.”
He shook his head, a worried gaze raking her. “No. Not that, though you should. As soon as possible. You’re still losing weight.” He leaned and sniffed at her neck, snapping straight. She slapped a hand to her neck, scowling at him.
“What was that? I just got out of the shower. I know I don’t stink.”
“That bastard!” Houston snarled. “He marked you!” Houston’s hands clenched while rage made his expression lethal.
“What are you talking about?” she squeaked, leaping a step away. “He gave me a hickey. Big deal.”
His hands shot out and gripped her by the shoulders. “Damn it, Tani! You don’t get it!” He shook her once. “He’s going to use you. He’s a killer.” He gave her a disgusted glare. “And worse, you slept with him.”
Fire burned her cheeks. She tilted her chin in defiance. “And if I did? I am an adult. You going to run home and tell my mother?” she goaded. She must have been feeling better to defy him, her blood running hotter as her energy rose.
“Jeez, Titania.”
She winced. He only used her full name on rare occasions, like now, when he was furious with her.
“No, but I should. Why don’t you want to listen to me on this? Let him be your bodyguard if you have to, but don’t get messed up with him.”
This intensity was unusual, and Houston had been very adamant since the beginning. “What aren’t you telling me?” she prodded him. “You keep warning me off him, swearing I’m going to end up hurt or worse. What do you know about him?”
Houston avoided her gaze. “It’s not my place to tell you,” he replied after several dragged-out seconds.
“Houston, I’ve trusted you with every secret I ever had. When I met you, I didn’t even want to talk to you. I just wanted to sing. You and your guitar changed me in a lot of ways, but it did not give you the right to run my life. Just because you’ve appointed yourself as my guardian, at my age,” she stressed, “I have the right to live.”
His gaze returned to hers. Firm hands remained on her shoulders, though he gentled his grip on her. “I know, Tani. But why him?”
Diego’s disembodied voice suddenly echoed from everywhere in the room. “Release her.” There was no hurry to the request, but any who heard knew it was a demand.
“Diego. He is not going to hurt me.” She was really reaching the point of exasperation with these two.
“I am aware of that, cara. However, I cannot help it, when I awake to find a man in your room, to feel a little jealous.” Houston’s hands fell from her shoulders accompanied by a sufferable sigh. He dragged a hand through his hair.
Houston didn’t blink an eye when Diego materialized directly in front of Titania. “Why, Diego? Why Tani? She’s hardly twenty-three. She has her whole life ahead of her.”
Diego took his time answering, examining Titania. She trembled when a gentle thumb brushed across her cheek. Power. She shivered more, seeing the full force of that energy in his pale eyes. He hadn’t just woken up jealous. He had woken up enraged. That anger and jealousy made his eyes as hard and unforgiving as glass.
Tani ducked her chin, yanking away from his caress, overwhelmed by it all.
“Do not, cara.” Diego’s touch and voice soothed, and so slowly, the emotions crashing over them abated.
She began to shake and wrapped her arms around her stomach. When would life go back to normal?
“I am sick,” she murmured. “I am really sick.”
“No, cara.” He stroked her one last time, then faced Houston. “Let me put this in a way I believe you will understand,” Diego answered Houston succinctly. “I believe she is my mate.”
Houston choked hard. “You’re joking! You’re of the Brethren.”
Diego’s muscles clenched, rippled beneath the dark leather that always smelled so good. “No, I am not. I do not claim any of them.”
Houston’s censure was loud and clear. “I didn’t think any of you did. Diego, I can’t let this happen. I can’t let her get hurt.” He grimaced, a frown growing. “Have you ever met her mother? I’m dead as it is.”
Diego turned to her and tilted her chin up, robbing her of air, his gaze hot and needy, the anger faded now to reveal his deeper emotions. She began to throb inside from the unveiled want and desire in his gaze. “I hate to tell you this, but you cannot stop what is.”
“But you’re a—” Diego’s head snapped up, his eyes flaming. “All right. I know.” Houston’s sigh was deep and heartfelt. “It’s not like I run into your kind all the time.”
“Likewise,” Diego drawled without humor.
“What is he talking about?” Titania asked, jerking up to stare at him.
“Later.” Diego brushed a tender kiss to her hair. He spoke to Houston. “Truce?” She sensed Diego was offering more with the way his body was too still, energy leashed, but barely.
“Do I have a choice?” Houston growled with a harsh edge. Diego shook his head. Time seemed to drag endlessly until she heard Houston’s reply. “Truce, but it’s killing me to even consider it. Why are you even acting like this? I’ve never heard of this happening.”
“I am different,” Diego replied.
Houston snorted. “No kidding.”
Titania smacked Diego’s shoulder with a fist. “Hey. Would someone explain this to me? What is going on here?”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Houston said, spinning on a heel. He paused at the door, his voice low. “If anything happens to her, Diego, I’m coming after you.”
“I take that responsibility.”
Tani shuddered at the calm acceptance in his voice. Then she was alone with him. She minced a pace away, realizing that she was alone with him, naked beneath her robe, and he had just admitted something huge to Houston.
“Just who are you, Diego? And who are the Brethren? You are part of a gang or something, aren’t you?”
He removed his coat, sliding it deliberately over one of the chairs. “Do not fear me, honey. You already know
more about me than any other person alive. You know there is nothing to fear.” He reached for her hand. She hesitated a heartbeat, then wound her fingers through his. He sat in a chair and eased her onto his lap.
“My name is Diego Viteri. When I was cursed with this life, I was thirty-seven. I am not a part of a gang or an organization,” he told her, his lips quirking when she gasped. “You forget, I can read your mind, honey. If you wanted to, you could read mine as well. With a little practice, it would become almost second nature.”
Strong arms tightened comfortably around her as she tried to assimilate what he was telling her.
She raised a hand to interrupt. “Houston knows what you are about to tell me, doesn’t he?”
“He does. He has known since the beginning.”
Her gaze searched him. “Why didn’t he say something then? Why was he being so mean to me about you?”
“Because the second I claimed you, you became my responsibility. When you let me into your life openly, he could not confront me. I am the one who has to tell you. It is an unwritten code of honor between us, ones like us, anyway.”
She shook her head, barely acknowledging the scoop of his hand as he molded her further against his body. He cradled her protectively, his warmth soothing her as much as his quiet strength. “Curses? Code of honor? Claiming? You are so losing me. Just what is going on?”
He pressed his forehead to hers, everything about him beseeching her understanding. “Can you promise me you will keep an open mind on this? Just hear me out before you run screaming through the door.”
“This has a lot to do with your abilities. Like your bamfing and healing, doesn’t it?”
A chuckle rolled from beneath her shoulder. “Bamfing?”
“Your ability to just pop in and out. Something started in Hollywood, but that’s what they call it now.” An ability she’d truly believed had been nothing more than a Hollywood trick. Until Diego. She raised her chin up, searching his expression. Cool and collected as always. The tension he exuded was encased in the broad shape of his shoulders, the tightness of his body against hers. A light finger traced the shape of his mouth. “No one should be born with a mouth like that. It just isn’t fair.”
He captured the tip of her wandering finger between perfectly formed, white teeth. He swept his tongue over the tip, delivering shocks up and down her spine. He released her with a soulful groan.
“Yes, it has everything to do with what you call my abilities.” Torment filled his gaze. Finally, he slackened with acceptance. “I guess the easiest way is to show you.” He sat up straight and opened his mouth.
Chills swept through her at the same time she felt the blood drain from her face. “Are those…” She sat gaping disbelievingly at the sharp incisors that two minutes ago hadn’t been there.
“And they are very real.”
Her hand slapped her neck, right where it throbbed. “You didn’t.” The tremble in her voice appalled her. She had never thought of herself as a coward. “Just tell me you didn’t.” When he didn’t answer, she edged out of his embrace. She knew it without a doubt. He had. “You’re a…a vampire?” Her voice cracked. She put another step between them. “And Houston knew?” She fisted her hands, fighting to keep from shrieking her head off.
Tani’s legs wobbled when he nodded, yet she didn’t hit the floor. Somehow he had moved so quickly, so effortlessly, that he caught her in his arms. She discovered herself on his lap once more. “I should have thrown you out the first chance I had.” She was shaking, and she couldn’t stop.
“It would have saved us both. Now, it is too late. I will not let you go,” he murmured into her hair. “I need you, Titania. Desperately, completely.”
“Why? For food? Do you even hear me? I’m talking like I believe this nonsense.” She jumped from his lap this time. “Something happened,” she muttered. She gripped at the robe, tugging it tighter, needing to feel something normal. The thick terry cloth holding her together felt normal. “I was attacked. Knocked on the head. Had to be.” Her hands lifted, fisted into her hair, pulling at it absently. “I’m sick. The beginnings of insanity.”
He reached his feet, encircling her wrists to draw them away from her hair. “You are not crazy. And no, I do not consider you food. I never have.” He replaced her fingers with his to feather through her hair with light sweeps, repairing the damage she had done. “But something happens to me when I am with you. The part of me that wants to be bad, that craves to feel the power of life and death, is controllable. Until now, it is a fight I have managed alone, and it has not always been an easy one. Now, all I need is your name, your voice, and I can take what I need and not feel the torment of my bleak existence like I have for centuries.”
Pale eyes watched her closely. The exposed honesty of his fight was right there for her to witness, the glowing red of a coiling, insatiable hunger right out front. All the long nights, the temptation to take what he knew he could, so easily. The ache of bitter loneliness, the torture of knowing what he was. Her bottom lip became trapped between her teeth. It was the only way to hide its quivering as his emotions hid nothing from her.
“Centuries? There’s that word again. Just how old are you?” Her hands flattened on his hard chest, trying to keep perspective. To keep space. It was impossible to think when he was holding her as though she were a most treasured gift.
“I did the math once. I believe this year I would be four hundred and eighty-six. Give or take a few months.”
“Oh boy,” she said in a rush of breath. “You are so robbing the cradle with me.”
“That is one of Houston’s concerns.” Evident relief was growing in his voice. “But you have to believe me. I would never hurt you, and I am not going to kill you. You are probably the safest person on the planet right now.”
“Why would he think that?” Confusion pulled her eyebrows together.
“The Brethren are known for it. Killing their prey is commonplace. He is afraid I am toying with you.”
“But you say you’re different, not like them.” Her hands lifted to his face, holding him delicately. “How?”
“I will not kill to live. Self-defense, or to protect those I call my own, but not to live. Never to live. I believe I am the only one who adheres by that code of honor. The only one like me,” he said, tinged with the sorrow of his long life.
“Never?” She was trying hard to adjust her thinking. Vampires didn’t exist. At least, they weren’t supposed to.
“Not once. When I changed, I could not cope. My mind could not keep up with the changes. It was abhorrent to me, the needs that had been thrust upon me. That inability is what I believe has saved me from becoming what Houston fears I am. Even when I accepted the necessity, in order to survive, I could not kill for it. Vampires can be very deceiving, but not me with you. Except for the two times I told you of, I have not tried to warp your memories. I have not misled you.”
She inched out of his embrace. Instead of acknowledging the absence of his warmth, she pulled on the robe’s knot. She needed space, needed a clear head to think and make sense of this. What he was telling her was incredible and totally bizarre.
“So, you’re a vampire.” She looped an end of the robe’s belt around her hand, back and forth. “And you live on blood.”
“Yes.”
She tried to not look at him. She knew she’d scream like a wild woman if she did. Acceptance wasn’t happening quite yet. Why hadn’t she put it together? Able to work only at night? His incredible strength? The cold, deadly part of his soul? She knew he had it, had touched it the night she had stopped Brakka. They were the same, but not. Somehow.
Her brain continued to defy even as she fought to understand.
“You can really fly, too, can’t you?”
“Honey, you are purposely trying to scare yourself again.”
“Just…” She licked her lips. “Can you?”
He sighed, hope morphing into defeat. “Yes.”
“Oh, God.” She buried her face in her palms, trembling in disbelief. “This is insane. You know that, don’t you? I am not having this conversation. Vampires do not exist.”
The flash of pain that burst from Diego was staggering. She avoided his hand when he tried to reach for her. “Don’t. Just…not now.” She rubbed a trembling hand over her eyes. “Oh. My. God. My eyes!” Accusation was rife in her voice. “What did you do to me? Why the hell can I see!”
Diego paused in attempting to reach for her, every facet of his attention intent on her. “See?”
She launched a fist at him, hitting him square in the chest. He didn’t move. Not even a grunt of acknowledgment. “Yes. See! As in high noon. Except I can’t stand the damn sun anymore. My eyes have been killing me for two damn days, and you did it. You did this to me.” His tight jaw was all the answer she needed. “Get out. Leave. You are fired. I never want to see you again.”
“You are not safe, cara,” he reminded her.
“So you keep telling me. Where is Brakka? Why hasn’t he found me again? I can handle this, him. The whole damn army if I have to. Just go.”
“Cara,” he whispered through her mind.
Her hands clamped over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut. “Do not do that anymore either! Do not talk to me. Just leave. I am not asking again.”
“As you wish, cara.” She shrieked loudly, and he was gone. Sobs started, hot tears burning as they spilled down her cheeks. She frantically searched the room, looking for any hint that he was still there. Even his coat was gone.
The robe went flying, and she jumped into clothes. She had to get out of there. She had to get far away from him.
A vampire! Never even saw it coming. Cruel laughter tried to build. Houston was so going to love this, rubbing her face in it. She should have listened from the beginning instead of following her obviously misguided instincts.
She couldn’t even tell anyone she was leaving. Houston would try to stop her and then kill Diego. She couldn’t let either of them be hurt. Not because of her.
Tani pocketed all of her loose cash, grabbed a juice to sip on and called the desk for a cab. She would fly out of there. Go home. She could hide for a few days. Celebrities did it all the time. Tani was about to join the ranks.
