The bed dipped gently behind me. I opened my eyes, realizing I’d dozed off. Dominic’s palm grazed my cheek.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” he whispered over me. “Go back to sleep. I need to rest as well.”
I frowned, easing away from his hand. “You sleep?”
Dominic let his hand drop on a sigh. I could sense his disappointment, but I didn’t bolt upright when he joined me beneath the covers. That was concession enough.
“In a sense,” he replied, and it took me a moment to realize he was referring to sleep. “My brain doesn’t have a REM cycle like yours; I don’t dream, but I find a trancelike state in which I escape from reality. Like your sleep, my day rest is important for both physical and mental health.”
“Oh,” I said on a yawn.
“Sleep well, Cassidy.”
“But what about—”
“Shhh,” Dominic hushed against the back of my neck. The rush of his breath shot goose bumps down my spine. “Enough questions. We’ll talk more at sunset.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Have a good night, er, day, I guess.”
The rumble of his laughter vibrated between my shoulder blades. Considering we were sharing a king size bed, he seemed unnecessarily close behind me, but I refused to turn and give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that I’d noticed.
“A good day rest,” he clarified. I could hear the smile in his voice.
I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t contain myself. “Do you need a full eight hours, like us, to feel completely rested, or do you—”
“Sleep well, Cassidy,” Dominic said, his tone cutting.
I sighed. “Have a good day rest, Dominic.”
Moments later, when I had just slipped between waking and dreaming, I felt the weight of Dominic’s arm drape over my hip and the press of his bare stomach against my back as he gathered me close, but I knew without a shred of uncertainty that I was dreaming when I heard his voice tremble as he whispered.
“Let the hours pass uncounted. I could rest for eternity if it meant resting with you.”
* * * *
My entire backside and the line of my hip were ice cube cold.
Despite having snuggled under the layers of terrycloth robe and comforter, I woke with a disoriented suddenness, shivering and uncomfortable. The steam from the shower had long since dissipated, but without windows, deciphering the time was impossible. Even in a world of cell phones, computer screens, and watches, a world in which time was catalogued by mechanical hands and digital numbers, I never realized how telling the sun and shadows could be until I’d become obsessed with the exact moments of sunrise and sunset. Now my life’s decisions hinged upon knowing the sun’s rise each day and its fall each night, and being separated from that knowledge was like holding my breath underwater without access to breach the surface. I could grasp at guesses or check my phone, but I wouldn’t breathe easy until I felt the warmth of the sun on my face and soaked the physical proof of its safety into my skin.
I wiggled my arm from beneath the covers and pressed the unlock button on my phone. The time glowed brightly through the room, and I blinked at it in denial.
8:17p.m.
The sun had already set.
I turned, about to blast my outrage at Dominic for allowing me to sleep the entire day away, but I stopped dead, realizing why it was so frigid under the covers.
Dominic wasn’t himself. Or rather, he was a version of himself that I hadn’t seen since we’d first met. He was staring at me, his eyes open and unblinking. His icy white irises were ringed by a dark midnight blue, and their pupils reflected a nocturnal green tint in the dim of the room. His face was gaunt, the shape of his features and skull nearly skeleton-skinny. The arm draped over my hip was nothing but skin and angled bones, and his entire body pressed against mine—from the top of his chest, down each protruding rib, and over his concave stomach—was naked and burning cold.
Although his eyes were staring in my direction, they looked through me rather than at me. I eased back, wondering if he was still “resting” with his eyes open. Maybe I could slip out of bed unnoticed. Even if I managed that, where would I go? All the vampires would be waking from their day rest, all hungry and in a similar state as Dominic.
I achieved an inch of distance between our bodies before he sprang from the bed. I bounced up from the absence of his weight and was just as quickly smashed back down into the mattress. He was on top of me, the length of his naked body only separated from mine by the fluff of terrycloth robe between us. I wriggled beneath him, desperate for some distance. My heart was a frightened, trapped thing, pounding for release.
His chest rattled, low and deep.
“Dominic?” I whispered. My entire body was shaking.
He buried his face in my neck, but this time I wasn’t wearing any earrings to impede his progress. I’d removed them for bed. My weapons were still in the pockets of the ruined leather jacket I’d left in a heap on the bathroom floor, but my phone was on the bedside table and within reach.
I tried to squirm my hand loose between us. Dominic’s chest rattled again. His lips peeled back, and I felt the press of his fangs against my skin. The heat of his breath chilled my neck, and I froze.
“Stop. Moving,” Dominic growled. His body was shaking too. “God, your fear is so sweet. You smell delicious.” He breathed in, and this time, the vibration of his growl shook the bed. “You smell like prey.”
“Stop it. You’re hurting me,” I said, forcing the tremble out of my voice. “Don’t make me entrance you.”
His growl expanded. “You can try, but I thought we were past those petty tests. Haven’t we already determined who would win?”
I cocked my head, trying to block his mouth from accessing my throat. “I thought we were past these petty threats,” I threw back at him.
“You are not making it easy for me to resist,” he said on a growl. He pushed my face aside, and despite my attempts to block him, he licked a long, slow path from my collarbone to my ear with his tongue. “I told you to stop moving!”
Goose bumps puckered my nipples. “I told you to stop hurting me!” I said, but my voice sounded less than convincing.
“I’m trying,” he snapped back. His voice rasped like his throat was shredded by razors. “I’ve always had to hunt for my first feeding, but after rousing from my rest tonight by your smell—that delicious, spicy-sweet, cinnamon smell—I can’t think beyond craving you.” He was pressed so close to my skin that I felt his throat convulse as he swallowed. “Bex, Rene, and the others will expect me to feed from you. They will question my strength and your loyalty if I don’t.”
I bucked at him, anger finally incinerating the fear in a hot blast. “You knew that, and you shared your bed with me. You conveniently omitted that protecting me throughout the day meant killing me tonight!”
“You’re being dramatic,” Dominic growled. “Drinking from you won’t kill you. You don’t need the entire cow to make a hamburger, remember? And neither do I, concerning you.”
“Number one, I don’t like being compared to a cow. It’s insulting. And number two, you may not need the entire cow for one hamburger, but the cow ends up dead anyway.”
“We’ve argued over dietary preference in the past, and it’s a conversation I grow weary of discussing,” Dominic said. “Either you trust me, or you don’t. Either you’re my night blood, or you’re not.”
“I’m playing your night blood to uphold my end of our deal, but it’s an act. I’m not really your night blood.”
“Fine, but we’re still within Bex’s coven. You will continue the act until the deal is off, and as my night blood, it’s your responsibility to sustain me until I can obtain a full meal,” he said, and his tone brooked no argument.
“My blood will weaken you,” I reminded him. “Losing more blood will weaken me, and we need to be our strongest to face Nathan tonight.” I narrowed my eyes. “We are s
till facing Nathan tonight, aren’t we?”
Dominic froze this time, his face still buried in my neck for a moment before he eased back. “Yes, of course. I haven’t forgotten our goals for tonight.” He pressed his thumb to the pulse at my throat and closed his eyes on another growl. “My own thirst, I’m afraid, prevented me from remembering your condition. You lost a lot of blood yesterday, too much for me to expect you to feed me now. Your health takes priority over appearances, and if questioned, even Bex would understand that. Forgive me.”
I tried to ease back, but his hold was still impenetrable. “There’s nothing to forgive,” I lied. “Just get off.”
He growled low in his throat, and I realized how my tone sounded.
More politely, I added, “Please.”
The low, rattling growl in his chest persisted while he spoke. “There are ways to replenish your blood supply after I’ve fed, so your health won’t be jeopardized.”
“Dominic, let me up,” I said reasonably. He moved his fingers down my neck, grazing my shoulder and over my bicep to the sensitive bend in my elbow. I shivered, no longer feeling cold while pressed against his iciness. “Please, don’t do this.”
“You smell differently now. The cinnamon’s still there, but the spice is different. Chai, perhaps.” He breathed in and groaned. “I don’t know which is better.”
Faced with my fear and desire, he didn’t know which he preferred. Who was more sick, the monster or the woman who desired the monster?
Maybe if I changed the topic we could claw our way back from this madness. “You’re naked,” I accused, blurting the first thought that came to mind. Despite our situation, despite the real, physical danger vibrating from him, I blushed.
“Yes,” he growled, and the rattling increased.
Not exactly the effect or topic change I’d hoped for, but I’d started it. May as well follow through. “There was another robe in the bathroom you could have worn.”
“I’m not ashamed of my body. Why should I hide it from you?”
“I’m not ashamed—” I started, but I caught the smirk twisting his lips and cut myself off. I took a deep breath and tried again. “I would have appreciated you wearing the robe.”
Dominic raised his eyebrows. “I would have appreciated you not wearing the robe, but you didn’t hear me complaining.”
I opened my mouth and closed it, not sure how the topic had so quickly flown off course. Again.
“Do you wear a robe for Ian Walker when you share a bed?”
He posed the question so abruptly and so devoid of inflection that I answered truthfully and without thinking. “Walker? I’ve never shared a bed with Walker.” I frowned. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Dominic smiled instantly and unabashedly, like a reflex and unlike any smile I’d ever seen from him before. He was normally so deliberate and calculating, but this smile erupted like a caterpillar from its chrysalis, finally free and unencumbered. Finally in its true form.
He threw his head back and laughed. His bellows shook the entire bed.
I narrowed my eyes. “I must have missed the punch line.”
“That’s all right, my dear, dear Cassidy. I thought it was funny enough for the both of us.” He eased his body off mine and stood. “I’ve always known that Ian Walker was a fool where Bex was concerned, but I never thought him a fool in regards to his relationship with you. This once, it’s very, very nice to be wrong.” He held out a hand to me.
I hesitated.
“Come, now. It’s just a hand.”
“You promise not to bite?” I asked, my tone dripping in sarcasm.
“You’ll need to touch more of me than just my hand to leave this coven, and I dare say you’d prefer to leave sooner rather than later to avoid contact with any of Bex’s vampires before they’ve fed.”
I shook my head. “We can’t leave. We need to share our plan to transform Nathan with Bex and Rene.”
“Before we share anything with them, I have business with Jillian to attend.”
Dominic’s tone on the word ‘business’ shot a thrill of goosebumps down my spine. I couldn’t imagine what further punishment he could inflict that hadn’t already been inflicted by her confinement—besides death—but I was more than happy, just this once, to remain in the dark.
“I’ll return before midnight,” Dominic continued, “but until then, you should stay out of sight. I don’t care how your relationship with Ian Walker is or isn’t progressing, I need you to lie low in the one place safe from all vampires.” He sighed heavily. “Although if the Day Reapers come, no place is safe.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Where exactly is the one safe place against all vampires? And what does my relationship with Walker have to do with it?”
“The safest place from vampires is within Ian Walker’s basement.”
Chapter 15
Dominic dropped me off at Walker’s house with strict orders to stay inside and out of sight until he returned. Initially, I’d emphatically agreed. I didn’t want Nathan to catch my scent and track me here—my very presence put the other night bloods in danger—but as the hours passed in seclusion and silence, not one night blood answered my calls, returned my voicemails, or arrived at the house.
For the first time since arriving in Erin, New York, absolutely no one, not even Ronnie, was home in the Walker-Carmichael household.
Three voicemails and five texts in two hours may have been overkill on a normal night, but nothing about tonight was normal. Despite our disagreement, considering everything at stake—lives were at stake—I’d expected Walker to pick up his damn phone. We assumed Nathan was hunting me, but after last night, he might be hunting all of us.
The hall clock chimed eleven when I finally heard footsteps on the front porch. The door’s deadbolt snapped open. I leapt away from the breakfast bar and positioned myself next to the basement steps, tensed to dive into the safe room if need be, but my initial jolt of adrenaline quickly faded to relief before I even saw the person entering the house. Nathan wouldn’t use a key, and vampires couldn’t enter without permission. Whoever it was, the person coming through that door was human and a resident of this house.
I relaxed my guard and stepped toward the door. Maybe they’d have an update on the search for Colin. Maybe they’d know where Walker had disappeared—hell where everyone had disappeared. At the very least, they must know if anyone else had been murdered.
If Nathan had killed more people last night, did I really want to know?
The door swung open, and I froze mid-step.
Ronnie entered the house, but she didn’t look like Ronnie. She had always been too skinny, but now she was gaunt. Her arms and legs were nothing but skin stretched over bones. Her clothes sagged on her emaciated body, several sizes too big on her skeleton-like frame. A low, weak rattle growled from her chest. She was scanning the house in jerky, bird-like twitches of her head, and when her luminous, reflective, nocturnal eyes spotted me, she hissed. Long, pointed fangs gleamed from her snarl.
Ronnie was a vampire.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
She charged me, moving with inhuman speed but not nearly as lightning-fast as Dominic or Bex or even Rene. I cut to the side, dodging her attack. She shrieked, baring her fangs at me as she whipped back around and charged again. I cut to the other side, but the kitchen counter blocked my momentum. She crashed into my back, knocked me into the counter, and we slammed to the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and boney joints.
She lunged for my throat.
I raised my hands instinctively, turning my face away from her snapping jaws. The moment my hands touched her shoulders, she jerked away and cowered on the kitchen floor.
I stared, first at her and then my hands. I was wearing silver rings on each finger. Dominic and Bex would laugh at the threat of my rings, but not Ronnie. Her shoulders were blistered and blackened from that one brief touch.
I shook my head at her, stunned. Ronnie never left the house. Ever. So how did a vampire enter and transform her? Why hadn’t the safe room, supposedly the best protection against all vampires, protected her?
“What the hell happened, Ronnie?” I asked.
A low growl rattled from Ronnie’s chest. Her wounds weren’t blackened anymore, but they were still blistered and oozing. She was healing—slowly, but healing all the same.
I stood, trying to think of my next move, and Ronnie was suddenly on her feet, too. She knocked me back and cracked my head on one of the breakfast barstools. I hit the ground face first, and this time, I stayed down.
It took a moment for the room to stop spinning, but a moment was all Ronnie needed. Her fangs sank deep into my flesh, like two stabbing knives. I felt the hickey-like pull of her suction at my neck as she drank. Unlike Dominic, whose bite was pure pleasure, or Rene, whose bite was like a dream, Ronnie’s bite was exactly that: fangs ripping into my skin and her greedy, urgent mouth sucking my blood.
I yanked out the silver nitrate from my pocket, aimed it behind me, and hit her with the spray.
She flew back, screaming.
I flipped onto my back, still aiming the spray and ready to hit her with another blast if she so much as twitched in my direction.
She eyed me warily. The skin over her right cheek, neck, and shoulder was pockmarked with boiling blisters. Despite being sprayed, she’d still managed to swallow a few gulps of blood, so her face had plumped, her arms and legs were defined with muscle, and her complexion had pinkened. She still didn’t look like herself, but at least she looked less dead.
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