by Scarlet Day
His thoughts returned to his waning strength. It would be even more crucial for him to feed—and soon. He needed to be sure he was at his full capacity if, or when, Tiberius showed up. He just wished he could convince Emma to let him visit one of the nearby islands to feed. Maybe he could find a lone, virile male. Their blood was often more potent than the blood of others and would give him an extra boost.
“All right, that’s it!” Emma stood up and stomped one foot. “I have had it with all of your obsessing and procrastinating. We’re getting this over with right now!”
She straddled his legs and sat in his lap, facing him. Diego opened his mouth to protest. “Em—”
“Don’t! I mean it!” She glared at him.
In all his nine hundred plus years, Diego had never met anyone who could wither him with one look the way Emma could. She certainly had a talent for intimidation. The bright-pink streak in her hair should have made her seem less threatening, but Diego thought it had the opposite effect.
Diego shot Cash a pleading look, but Cash held up his hands in surrender. “She’s made up her mind, brother.”
Cash and Chase sat down on the couch on either side of Diego, their bodies turned toward him. Diego felt their heightened alertness and resolve. He knew they would watch for even the slightest indication that anything was going wrong and would intervene, if necessary.
“I would normally put my donor into a slight trance to dim their emotional response while I feed.” As Diego suspected, Emma’s eyes hardened and a rush of rebelliousness shot through his mind. He shook his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d agree to that.”
He brushed Emma’s long black hair away from her neck, smiling as he wound the pink strand around his finger. This strand had captivated him from the moment he saw it. He thought it spoke perfectly to Emma’s rebellious nature, but its pink hue gave a nod to her soft side as well.
“Quit stalling.” Emma’s smirk reflected her emotions. She knew she was about to get her way, and she was ready to get on with it.
Diego took a deep, calming breath and cupped Emma’s face with his hands. “This won’t hurt. Physically, the feeding causes a sexual response, but it may be counterbalanced by the emotional turmoil you will feel from having access to my past memories.” Diego took another deep breath and felt it shudder through him. “Emma, I would rather you not be exposed to what you are likely to see in my mind.”
Emma took his face in her hands, mirroring Diego’s hands on her face, and looked intently into his eyes. “Diego Anton, I have put my life and my future in your hands. Please don’t be afraid to put your memories in mine. I promise I can handle it.”
Compassion and strength surged from Emma. It bolstered him and gave him the strength to do what he knew had to be done. With more gentleness than he had ever summoned, Diego turned Emma’s head slightly and moved his lips over the jugular vein in her slender neck. He licked the pulsing spot before piercing her skin with his teeth. He was careful not to release the toxin that all vampires carried in a small chamber in the roof of their mouths. He had never taken the life of a human by turning them, and he had no intention to start now.
Emma gasped, but instead of pulling back from pain, she pressed her body into him as she reacted to the instant sexual compulsion his bite created. She gripped Diego’s shoulders and pulled him toward her. Diego was accustomed to the sexual response of his donors, but this went beyond anything he had ever experienced. It had always been a one-sided reaction on the part of his donors, Diego never feeling the same in return. This time was different. His cock was already straining against his jeans as both the need to feed and the desire to bury himself inside Emma warred within him.
The basic need to feed won out, at least for the moment. Diego took his first draw from Emma’s vein and groaned as the warm, wet liquid flowed over his tongue. As he swallowed, power surged through him and was accompanied by the same electrical jolt he had felt when he first met Emma. He heard her gasp and knew she felt it, too.
In an instant, Diego knew where that power came from. He could see into Emma’s mind, into a vast reserve of power. It was as though he were looking at a vast sea, its black surface seething and roiling with a great tide. He felt somehow connected to that power, as though it were calling out to him to touch it—to immerse himself in it. But he reluctantly pulled back from it. In spite of the almost overwhelming urge to delve into the tide, he didn’t know what effect that might have on Emma.
He took another slow draw from her vein. Emma gasped again. This time, though, it was from what he knew she saw in his mind, rather than from the sexual need that still coursed just below the surface of their emotions. In Diego’s mind, a steel door stood before Emma, bolted by a heavy iron bar. Diego wanted to divert her attention away from it, but Emma was undaunted.
With a thought, Emma blew the door off its hinges. Diego jerked as the memories behind that door flooded through him.
A dark and dank cavern, lit by oil lamps placed around the walls. Heavy chains holding him down on a raised marble slab. Tiberius’s face looming above him, leering at him. Searing pain as his flesh was repeatedly torn open, allowed to heal, and ripped open again. It went on and on—for months, then years.
Lost in the memories and the feeding, Diego was unable to stop himself from taking another drink of Emma’s powerful blood. In the blink of an eye, she stood in front of a second door. This door was older, made of wood instead of steel. Diego shook his head, not wanting Emma to see what lay beyond. Emma ignored the warning. With another thought, the second door exploded from it hinges, reduced to a spray of splintered wood.
It was the same cavern, but darker, lit only by open-flame torches. Diego was chained to the same marble altar, but he lay on his stomach. A dozen other vampires stood around him, laughing and mocking as, one by one, they each brutally sodomized him with all manner of cruel and painful implements. Tiberius stood at his head, whispering in his ear as his screams echoed through the chamber.
Diego felt hot liquid run down his cheek. Emma was crying, her tears rolling down her face and falling onto Diego. Her mind was filled with pain, both emotional and physical, as she shared the memory with Diego. He felt her shudder once, and then the chamber in his mind was gone, replaced by yet another door.
Diego stared at the new door in confusion. He didn’t recognize it. It was fashioned from a large block of granite, the edges roughly hewn as though it were carved by hand. There were no hinges or any mechanism to open it. Dread filled him as he stared at the solid block. How could he not know about this? What could possibly lie beyond it?
He felt a surge of power emanate from Emma, and the granite block shattered into shards of rock. Diego held his breath as he waited to see what was inside this chamber. What could have been hidden from his memory so completely?
It was the same awful chamber from his other memories, lit by only one torch that was held in Tiberius’s right hand. The light from the flame danced sinisterly, reflecting off of the stalactites hanging from the cavern ceiling. Diego saw himself lying on the same dreaded marble slab, but he was not bound by the heavy chains that had held him down in his other memories. He appeared to be unconscious. A woman stood next to the raised slab, her arms outstretched over Diego’s prone body. He did not recognize her, but he did recognize the moon and star-shaped medallion she wore on a chain around her neck. She was an ancient sorceress, one from a sect that had been exterminated centuries ago.
She chanted foreign words. Diego couldn’t understand them, but the lilt and rhythm of her voice led him to believe that she was casting a spell. Diego listened carefully. He heard two sets of heartbeats. He stared at his prone body, unmoving except for the rise and fall of his chest as he lay on the slab. One of the heartbeats was his. This happened while he was still human! The woman’s chant ended, and she lowered her arms, her last words still echoing eerily through the cavern. She nodded at Tiberius.
Tiberius leaned over Diego, his lips barely
caressing Diego’s cheek. “You are mine, Diego Anton. You will never escape me. I will be your constant companion. What I command, you will obey. Where you go, I will find you.”
Tiberius put his lips to Diego’s throat and bit. Diego’s body thrashed on the marble slab, and his limbs tightened in tortured spasms. Finally, the agonizing writhing ceased and all was quiet in the chamber, except for one lone heartbeat. The witch retreated from the chamber, and even that small, rhythmic sound faded.
Diego’s mind reeled. He’d had no memory of his turning. He had often wondered about it, but he had never been able to access the memory. Now he knew why. It had been hidden from him, magically blocked from him. And that wasn’t the only thing the witch’s spell had done. She had ensured that Diego could never escape his creator. She had given Tiberius a great power over him. Diego had always assumed it was psychic ability that caused Tiberius to have such pull over him. But it was magic. The bastard had used magic on him.
As Diego watched, Tiberius lifted his head, his chin covered in Diego’s blood, and smiled. With a dawning horror and absolute certainty, Diego realized that Tiberius could see what Diego saw and feel what he felt. Tiberius laughed. Searing pain shot through Diego’s mind. He recognized it. It was the same pain Emma felt when she wandered too far from him. And he knew she felt it, too.
Diego felt a boiling tide of anger and disgust, even greater than his own. It was coming from Emma. Diego stood by, helpless, as the sea of power within Emma surged and then overflowed. A great, black tide rose up and flooded the chamber. Tiberius’s face turned to a mask of shock and defiance as the tide washed through the space, its force crashing against the walls and knocking the marble slab to the ground.
Diego felt his consciousness lifted on the crest of the tide as it carried him out of the chamber. But it didn’t stop. Carried on the wave of Emma’s indignant anger, the tide washed through the second chamber where he had lain screaming from the brutal attack of his fellow vampires. Emma’s power blasted through the room and obliterated all within it.
She wasn’t finished. Emma’s energy swept through the first chamber with a mighty vengeance. With a deafening roar, the tide carried away the last vestiges of Diego’s screams, his pain, and his suffering.
The tide of energy ebbed and receded back into the vast sea, slowly calming into a glassy surface. Diego sat in stunned silence. The knowledge that Emma had witnessed the atrocious treatment Diego had endured tormented him. She should not have been exposed to such horrendous memories. But as he sat there recovering from the tide of power he had just experienced, another sensation rose inside him.
For the first time in over nine hundred years, Diego felt clean.
Chapter Twenty
Emma felt Diego’s teeth slide from her neck. She opened her eyes and pulled back so she could see his face.
He looked stricken. “Baby, I’m so sorry—”
Emma put her fingers over his mouth and shook her head. She wiped her tears with her other hand and then used the same hand to gently wipe the tears from Diego’s face. “No, don’t apologize. I don’t know how I did what I just did, but you needed it. And I’m glad I did it.”
She looked at Cash and then at Chase. Both men had one arm wrapped around her and one wrapped around Diego. Tears streamed down both of their faces as well. “Did you see?”
Cash nodded, his breathing ragged. “We did.”
Diego shuddered, his body shaking all of them in their embrace. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d be able—”
“No.” Cash stopped Diego’s agonized apology. “As Emma said, don’t apologize. We’re your brothers now, Diego.”
Diego turned his awestruck gaze back to her. “How did you…? What did you…?”
Emma truly had no good answer to that. “I don’t know. I just got so pissed when I saw what that bastard did to you.”
She felt her anger rise again as she thought about the monster that had turned Diego into a vampire and had then turned his existence into a never-ending hell. As soon as she’d entered the first locked chamber in Diego’s mind, she had recognized Tiberius’s presence. It was the same aura she’d felt in her dream when she’d fallen asleep on the way to Panther Key. She also sensed it was the presence she had felt when she ran for the first time in her panther form. Her cat’s reaction to that presence meant that it must have instinctively known from the beginning what that aura was—pure evil.
“He’s using his psychic link with you to cause the pain in my head.” Emma had known it as soon as she’d made eye contact with Tiberius in the last chamber in Diego’s mind.
Horror crossed Diego’s face as understanding swept through him and in turn, everyone else. “He’s making sure you have to stay near me until he tracks me down.”
Emma nodded. Cash and Chase’s combined alarm blasted through her. Growls and snarls tore from their throats. Emma stayed surprisingly calm. She already knew what they needed to do. The men wouldn’t like her plan. Hell, she was positive they would adamantly refuse to do it. But she also knew she would win in the end. If there was one thing she was learning about these men, it’s that they would not deny her anything.
With her mind made up about their needed course of action regarding Tiberius, Emma’s thoughts turned to the sensations she’d felt when Diego first began to feed from her. Her pussy clenched at the powerful recollection. She rocked against Diego’s thighs, needing contact against her yearning clit.
Diego’s pupils dilated, and he inhaled deeply. Low purrs sounded from Cash and Chase. The sound sent a thrill of anticipation coursing through Emma. Telling the men about her plan regarding Tiberius could wait. Right now, she had a much more pressing need to attend to.
She stood up and dragged Diego with her as she walked backward toward the bedroom. Cash and Chase followed, and their heated gazes roamed over her body, practically scorching her skin. God, she would never get tired of these men. And she knew she’d never get enough of them, either.
They reached the bed, and she turned Diego so that his back was to it. With impatient fingers, she unfastened his jeans and pushed them down over his lean hips, freeing his erect cock. She put her hands under his shirt and pulled it up over his tight abdomen, exposing his broad chest. Standing back, she drank in the sight of him.
This man had been through hell and back—numerous times—and had somehow stayed sane for centuries. But the sanity had come at a heavy price. Emma had been able to feel everything during the feeding, including the isolation and loneliness Diego had endured throughout his long life. Emma was going to change all of that. She would spend the rest of her life making sure that Diego never felt alone again.
Hands behind her worked their way under her shirt and around her waist. They travelled up her torso, sending delightful shivers across her skin before cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples. The action reminded her that she was not the only one who would help Diego recover from his years of abuse and torment. The two men behind her had lived with their own deep scars, though she could tell that Diego’s presence had already done much to repair the damage within their souls. How was it possible that two panther shifters and a vampire, their clans being lifelong opponents, could end up needing each other so badly?
Emma silently laughed to herself. How was any of this possible, for that matter? Emma was still having a hard time believing she was capable of the things she had already done. Shifting into a panther had been amazing enough, but the power she had experienced when Diego fed from her was—wow. Mind-blowing.
The really interesting thing about that power, however, was how little of it she had actually used. Its source appeared to be massive and she felt as though she had barely skimmed the surface. She could hardly imagine what it would be like to access the full force of that vast energy.
Cash and Chase had told Emma about the meeting Kate had with the clan elder when she first arrived on Panther Key. The man was over one thousand years old and knew more about the anc
ient black panther legends than any other clan member. He had been the one who informed Kate that she could not possibly be an only child, because black panthers were always born as triplets. He had insisted that their full power would not be accessible until their panthers had been revealed to them and they were all together. Emma had no idea how they were supposed to join their powers, but it would be crucial to the plan she had in mind.
Her cat growled, and she grinned. The big feline was impatient. The plan could wait. There were other needs—much more primal needs—that her black cat wanted to have satisfied. Now.
Emma lifted her arms and allowed her shirt to be pulled over her head. The air felt good on her bare skin. Between the surge of power during the feeding and the lingering mating fever, no longer maddening but still potent, Emma was anxious to shed some clothing.
Diego worked the button loose at her waist and unzipped her shorts. He pushed her shorts and panties down, and she stepped out of them, tossing them across the floor with her foot. She shimmied her hips, and a groan behind her brought a satisfied grin to her lips. Cash was definitely an ass man. She could pull a groan out of him just by walking past him and wiggling. Which she did—frequently.
She turned her attention to Diego, who had settled onto the bed and was watching her with a passion she had not seen in his eyes before. She climbed onto the bed and crawled over him. His hand cupped her cheek, and she pressed her face into his touch.
“Emma, what you did—” His voice cracked in his throat. “I feel so…so—”
“I know. I feel it, too.” He didn’t have to explain. Her power had somehow cleansed him. It hadn’t removed his memories. They were still there. But he could now look upon those memories as though they had happened to someone else, without the recollection of the accompanying physical pain and mental agony he had endured. They no longer had to be hidden and locked away, festering and poisoning his soul.
