by Lynsay Sands
Not responding, Raffaele glanced sharply around until he spotted a taxi disgorging its riders nearby. Spying the driver through the front windshield, he slipped into the man’s mind and took control, making him remain where he was and wait for their arrival.
“Follow that taxi,” he instructed as he slid into the front seat a moment later. Zani and Santo barely managed to jump in the back before the car started to move.
“She never should have come alone,” Zani said fretfully as the taxi moved into traffic behind the one holding Jess and Cristo, and it looked like a third person, although Raffaele couldn’t tell who the third person was. They looked too small to be Vasco, he thought as Zani added, “I hope she didn’t look in the refrigerator before she went.”
Raffaele frowned at the possibility, and glanced back at the other man to ask, “What time did it finally come?”
They’d ordered the blood before leaving the resort. It was supposed to have been delivered at 4 A.M. when they’d been sure Jess would be asleep but Zanipolo and Santo would be awake to accept the delivery.
“What do you mean what time did it come? Didn’t you accept it?” Zani asked now with surprise.
“No,” he said sharply, and then glanced to Santo, who shook his head solemnly. When Raffaele cursed, Zanipolo pulled out his phone.
“I’ll call and see what happened. I’m sure everything’s fine. Even if it was Jess who answered the door, the courier would have taken control of her and put it in her mind not to look in it after he left. The couriers are usually pretty good about that kind of thing.”
“Sì,” Raffaele agreed, and then took a moment to reinforce his control of their taxi driver to be sure he wasn’t catching any of this conversation before adding, “They are in Canada and Italy. But this is the Dominican. Who can say how professional the couriers are here.”
Zanipolo frowned at the comment, but then turned his attention to the phone and began to speak in swift Spanish, asking about their delivery. Who had brought it around? Who had accepted it? What had happened?
Raffaele listened silently to Zanipolo’s side of the conversation as he watched the taxi ahead of them in traffic, so wasn’t surprised when the other man hung up and explained worriedly, “Our courier was in an accident. He was okay, but it put him way behind on his deliveries and he was in a rush. When Jess answered the door and said yes when he asked if she was a Notte, he didn’t bother to read her mind—he just made the delivery and left.”
“Not good,” Santo rumbled.
“Maybe we got lucky and she didn’t look inside the fridge,” Zanipolo said hopefully.
Raffaele snorted at the suggestion. He doubted they’d be that lucky.
“She didn’t look inside,” Santo announced, and Raffaele glanced to his cousin to see that he was sitting forward in the back seat, watching the taxi ahead of them with a concentrated expression. He was reading Jess, Raffaele realized. As long as he could see her, he could read her.
“See, it’s all right. She doesn’t know what we are, then,” Zanipolo said with relief and slapped Raffaele’s shoulder encouragingly.
“Yes, she does,” Santo countered, his words slow and almost lumbering as he struggled to keep a connection with Jess in the car in front of them. “She read that the delivery was blood on the slip and came back in to look and saw us feeding. She then slipped away before we could catch her.”
“Oh, damn,” Zanipolo muttered.
Raffaele felt his shoulders sag briefly, but then shook his head. Okay. So, she knew they fed on blood. That was a problem, but not the main one here, he reminded himself. The real problem now was that she was back in the hands of the pirates. They had to get her away from them. Mouth tightening, he growled, “If he hurts her . . .”
“He will not hurt her,” Zanipolo said soothingly. “She is a possible life mate for him. Every immortal would rather kill themselves than harm their life mate.”
“Maybe normal immortals, but he is rogue,” Raffaele pointed out, and then ground his teeth at the thought that Jess might be a life mate for this particular rogue. The idea infuriated him. She was his, not Vasco’s. The pirate couldn’t have her, he thought, but knew the choice wasn’t his. It was up to Jess. And he was very aware that as a possible life mate for the man, Jess would be as attracted to the pirate as she was to him. That Vasco’s touch would inspire the same mad passion as his own. A passion that was almost impossible to fight, he knew.
“She’s experienced it with you now,” Zanipolo said soothingly. “That will help her fight the attraction.”
Raffaele merely grunted, but he was silently worrying that rather than helping her fight the attraction, it might hinder her ability to do so. The first time she’d experienced life mate passion, it had probably scared her silly. It was rather overwhelming, and thinking herself on a ship full of vampires would have doubled her fear. But now she’d experienced that passion in full with him. That would have made it less scary. And she now knew she’d slept with one vampire without being harmed. Maybe she’d think they were all the same. Maybe she’d even prefer Vasco to him because Vasco had been honest with her from the start, while he’d hidden what he was from her.
“We’re immortals not vampires,” Zani reminded him quietly, apparently reading his thoughts.
Raffaele merely grunted at that. He normally detested the name vampires, and didn’t think of himself as one. But he was quite sure Jess probably saw him as one now and that was what was important. He should have told her what he was and explained to her about immortals after the first time they’d slept together. God, he’d really fucked this up. Glancing around, he noted where they were headed and closed his eyes briefly. They were heading to port. If Vasco’s ship was waiting there and they took her on board and set sail—
“Conference call Julius and Lucian and let them know what’s going on,” he barked furiously. “Tell them that Vasco has kidnapped my life mate and we’re in pursuit . . . And that I will not hesitate to kill the man to get her back,” he growled coldly, and then scowled as he noticed that traffic was getting worse the closer they got to the harbor. Cars were darting out of the side streets and cutting in front of the vehicles in front of them, forcing them to hit the brakes. The distance between their taxi and the one Jess was in was growing.
Concerned they’d lose her, Raffaele looked for a way to make the driver maneuver the taxi closer to hers, but there was nowhere to maneuver to. Traffic was already pretty much bumper to bumper. The cars that were cutting in were nosing into the slowly moving lane and basically forcing drivers to stop and let them in. His only option was to take control of the other drivers and make them pull out of the way. Raffaele was about to do that when Santo spoke.
“There’s the ship,” the big man rumbled behind him, and Raffaele glanced to where he was pointing. He spotted the pirate ship at the far end of the harbor almost at once. It had laid anchor next to a huge cruise ship that completely dwarfed the sloop. It cast the ship in shade and prevented the sun from reaching its occupants.
Handy for an immortal, he thought grimly. But it meant they must have taken rowboats ashore to search the mainland for Jess. He began searching for where they could have put ashore as Zanipolo spoke into the phone.
“Sì, but he will not like it . . . Fine. I will tell him.” Zanipolo’s stressed voice drew Raffaele’s attention as the man covered his phone and said, “Lucian and Julius said we are to wait for the local hunters. They will meet us at the docks and join us to deal with Vasco.”
Raffaele snorted at the very suggestion. “The local hunters had their chance to deal with him when we first reported him. They did nothing. I’m not risking Jess and letting—” He paused and scowled when Zani suddenly held his phone out. He glared at it briefly like it was a snake about to strike, but then straightened his shoulders and took the phone.
The moment Lucian started talking with Julius murmuring agreement in the background, Raffaele knew taking the phone had been the mistake h
e’d feared.
“I’ll stay with her until Vasco arrives and make sure she doesn’t escape again.”
Jess stopped walking in the middle of the captain’s cabin and turned to see Cristo nodding in response to Ildaria’s words as he headed out of the room. She watched him pull the door closed behind him, and then shifted her gaze to Ildaria, watching with disinterest as the woman’s relaxed pose disappeared and she suddenly moved to the desk in the corner. When the vampire retrieved a bottle of whiskey from a drawer and began to pour it into a glass, she turned away and glanced around the room. Jess wasn’t really seeing it. She was just . . .
Well, frankly, she didn’t know what she was doing. It was as if her mind was full of cobwebs just then, sticky, clingy cobwebs that were making it hard to think and obscuring everything around her. Really, it had felt like that since she’d fled the hotel suite. It was why she’d been slow to understand the guard at the embassy. Why she hadn’t reacted more swiftly to finding herself trapped in the taxi with Ildaria and Cristo. Why she didn’t now know what to do.
“Here. Drink this.”
Jess stared blankly at the glass of amber liquid suddenly in front of her face, and simply turned away, muttering, “I’m not thirsty.”
“This isn’t for thirst. It’s for shock,” Ildaria said in a voice that was oddly dry and gentle at the same time. Moving in front of her, Ildaria took her arm to keep her from moving away and raised the glass to her lips. “Drink it, or I’ll make you drink it. You know I can.”
Jess met the woman’s gaze briefly, but then shrugged and opened her mouth as Ildaria tipped the glass. Fire immediately poured into her mouth, searing her tongue and gums so that she swallowed just to get relief from it. The moment the liquid hit the back of her throat, though, it stole her breath. Eyes widening, Jess drew in a wheezing gasp, struggling to breathe, and the next moment found herself bent over, coughing violently while Ildaria patted her back and said with satisfaction, “Good! There we are. That’ll clear out the cobwebs.”
By the time the coughing fit ended and she was able to breathe again, Jess found herself sitting on the foot of the bed. Ildaria sat beside her, eyeing her closely.
“How do you feel now?” she asked once Jess’s breathing returned to normal. “Better?”
Jess nodded and then shook her head. She could breathe again, and the whiskey had indeed helped to clear the cobwebs from her mind, but that left her having to think. Of course, the first thing her mind chose to consider was Raffaele, and the fact that she’d slept with him, and even maybe fallen a little bit in love with him, when he was a horrible, dead vampire just like Vasco and the soulless vampire bitch beside her.
“Okay, enough with the whole soulless vampire bitch thing,” Ildaria snapped suddenly. “I’m neither soulless nor a vampire.” She paused, and tilted her head thoughtfully before admitting, “I can be a bitch, though.”
Jess blinked at the confession, but the woman quickly continued.
“However, that’s got nothing to do with what I am, and I am not a vampire.” Shifting impatiently, she added, “They don’t even exist. Vampires are just so much paranormal nonsense. They aren’t real,” she assured her, and then said firmly, “I’m immortal. As are Vasco, and this Raffaele fellow who keeps floating naked through your thoughts.”
Jess opened her mouth on a denial, but then closed it again. She couldn’t deny it. She kept thinking of Raffaele . . . naked . . . laughing . . . making love to her. It didn’t seem to matter to at least one part of her mind that he was a vampire. That part was just shrugging and spouting platitudes like, Well, no one’s perfect and That explains how he managed to hold you up against the wall in the shower while the two of you were getting busy. The guy is superstrong. Think of all the new positions you can try with him.
Groaning, Jess closed her eyes and lowered her head, muttering, “What am I going to do?”
“Try those new positions with Vasco instead?” Ildaria suggested with amusement, drawing a scowl from Jess.
“This is serious!” she snapped, turning her fear and frustration on the female vampirate. “You may be fine being a soulless vampire bitch, but I—” Jess’s rant died on a shocked gasp when Ildaria slapped her across the face.
“That was my inner bitch coming out,” Ildaria said with a shrug when Jess gaped at her, and then added, “Besides, you seemed to be getting hysterical.”
“I was not getting hyster—” Jess began between her teeth, only to be interrupted again.
“You must have been, because you called me a soulless vampire bitch again, when I know I’ve already explained to you that I’m not a vampire,” she said dryly, and then clucked with exasperation. “Come on! You seem like a smart enough girl. Surely you realize that none of the monsters you read about as a kid are real?”
“You have fangs and drink blood,” Jess pointed out with some exasperation of her own. “That sounds like one of those monsters from my childhood.”
“But we’re not soulless,” Ildaria assured her. “We don’t crawl out of graves and feed off the living. Well, I suppose we do feed a bit, but that’s just—I mean, not all of us do. Some stick to bagged blood like your friends were consuming in your memory, and . . .” She paused and frowned briefly, and then said, “It might help for you to think of us as hemophiliacs with fangs.”
“Hemophiliacs?” Jess asked with surprise.
“Yeah. Only instead of our blood not coagulating and there being the risk of our bleeding out, our bodies simply don’t produce enough blood for us to survive healthily, so we have to get it elsewhere.”
“Is it a disease?” she asked with a frown.
“No. Science,” Ildaria answered at once.
“Science?” Jess peered at her with surprise.
Ildaria hesitated, and then shook her head. “Look, we don’t have time for those kinds of explanations. Just keep in mind that we aren’t monsters. We’re just people with a few health issues. Okay?” She didn’t wait for Jess to agree or disagree, but continued. “Right now I’m more interested in helping you figure out your feelings about the captain and your naked-Raff.”
“I don’t have any feelings about—” Jess began, and then paused to stare at her wide-eyed. “You want to help me?” That was the last thing she would have expected from this woman. In fact, it made no sense at all to her. “You put your mind-whammy thing on me to get me into the taxi and drag me here against my will, but now expect me to believe you want to help me?”
“It was my job to find and bring you to my captain,” she said patiently. “I did that. But it won’t bring him any joy as long as you’re so confused about your feelings. You’re a possible life mate for both men, and while you obviously love naked-Raff, I’m thinking if you got to know Vasco—”
“I’m not in love with naked-R—” Jess caught herself halfway through using the woman’s nickname for Raffaele and scowled. “Stop calling him that.”
“It’s better than your nickname for him,” Ildaria assured her, and then arched an eyebrow. “Penisocchio?”
Groaning, Jess closed her eyes. Was that nickname still floating around in her head? Maybe. She thought of the name every time he got an erection, and he seemed to get them a lot.
“Yeah, that’s a life mate thing,” Ildaria informed her. “Life mates are insatiable for each other. It’s also why you fell so hard and fast for naked-Raff. Love comes fast for life mates. The—”
“I don’t love him,” Jess interrupted shortly, and not very honestly. “I hardly know him.”
“Hello?” Ildaria knocked on her forehead. “I can read your mind, remember? And if how you’re feeling and thinking isn’t love, I’m a man in drag.”
“Are you? How interesting,” Jess snapped, refusing to admit her feelings even to herself.
Ildaria just shook her head. “Look, kiddo, there’s no sense fighting your feelings. The nanos know what they’re doing and made the two of you life mates for a reason.”
“Nan
os?” Jess asked, stiffening. “What nanos?”
Ildaria waved her question away. “Worry about that later. My point is, you love him, and not Vasco. But you’re a life mate to Vasco too and could also love him if you gave yourself half the chance, and . . .” Noting her expression, Ildaria let her voice trail away, and then asked, “What?”
Agitated, Jess stood abruptly and paced across the cabin before swinging back to point out, “You’re saying these nanos—whatever they are—know what they’re doing and made me a possible life mate for Raff, who I admit is smart, and funny, and whom I actually do have a lot in common with. But then in the next breath you say I’m a possible life mate for Vasco too, which is . . .” She wanted to say ridiculous, but just shook her head and said, “I have nothing in common with him. In fact, we’re polar opposites. First of all, he lives on the sea, and I get seasick, for heaven’s sake.”
“What?” Ildaria asked with surprise, and then narrowed her eyes and pointed out, “You didn’t seem seasick the last time you were here. And you seem fine now.”
“The boat isn’t moving yet,” she pointed out dryly. “And the last time I was on board I’d taken motion sickness pills because I was going on the Seaquarium trip.”
“Oh.” Ildaria frowned, but then rallied. “Well, he doesn’t actually live on the ship anymore anyway. We just use it for the tours. He has a house on land.”
Jess was shaking her head before she’d finished. “I don’t care if he has a mansion. The man is crude, rude, vulgar, and unwashed. You could fry chips in the grease from his hair,” she said coldly, and then, because she felt she had to be honest, reluctantly admitted, “Although I do like his taste in decorating,” as she glanced around the spacious room in earth tones.
“There!” Ildaria said, brightening. “That’s something. Maybe there are other things. Check out his bookshelf and see if you like the same books.”
Jess scowled, but did turn to look over the books on the shelf behind her. She started out just quickly scanning them, but then slowed, her eyes widening with surprise as she noted several classics, and many titles she had herself. “These are just decoration, aren’t they? Surely he doesn’t read these?”
