by Melody Raven
The car that she’d jumped out of hadn’t backtracked after her. Not a good sign. It was proof that she wasn’t the one they were after.
Damn it. She’d been so focused on getting the hell out of there that she’d forgotten Cora was the real target. The one the soldiers had shown up at the Seattle house for. The one Joshua had asked about as soon as she’d called him.
Her lungs burned and her legs felt as though they were going to fall off, but she knew that she was close to the house. Just a bit farther....
A series of black SUVs went speeding by her. Three of them with tinted windows that she couldn’t see through. Alyssa twisted around as they passed and stared helplessly. Shit. Whatever happened, she was too late.
She stared in dismay as the vehicles disappeared. She’d managed to memorize the plate of the last car, but she doubted it would help her track them down. She cursed under her breath as she turned and kept running.
“Please be safe. Please be safe.” When it hurt too much to talk, she started to mouth the words to herself. Please be safe. Please be safe.
But as the house came into view, the broken window out front signaled that safety wasn’t probable.
She slowed down as she approached the door. She knew that running into a fresh crime scene was never a good idea, but she was ninety-eight percent sure the guys who had done it had just driven off.
Besides, she needed to go in. She needed to see whether Cora was in trouble. She might have only known the girl for a day, but they’d been through a lot in that day. She’d saved Cora’s life; Cora saved hers. They were bonded.
She pulled the door open and her heart sunk. The peaceful, quaint house now looked like a war zone. The ground was littered with broken glass and wooden shards. The furniture was in shambles. And worst of all, Dante was lying unmoving in the shadowy corner of the living room.
“Dante?” she called. But he didn’t move. “Cora!” she yelled louder, but there was nothing. Alyssa dropped her bag and quickly went through all the rooms of the house, calling Cora’s name. But the girl wasn’t there.
Alyssa cursed under her breath. “No, no, no, no,” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t gone through all this shit just for the military to take Cora now. “Damn it!” she screamed as she got back to the living room and kicked the corner of the couch.
She rubbed at her eyes and tried to get hold of herself. What was she supposed to do? Cora wasn’t dead. If they’d wanted to kill her, she’d be lying dead next to Dante. No, they must’ve taken her somewhere. And if she was alive, that meant there was hope.
What hope? No one would help her. She couldn’t go to the police. Who could she convince to get in the middle of a vampire war? Sure, she could do some damage with her laptop, but her laptop couldn’t fight bullets. And from the looks of this place, there were a lot of bullets involved.
No. Alyssa was not going to let this innocent girl die just because she wasn’t smart enough. There was a way. There was always a way.
Just then Dante let out a moan and Alyssa jumped back. He wasn’t dead? She’d assumed that the only way he’d allow someone to take Cora from him was death. What the hell had the army done?
Alyssa ran to him and ripped the afghan off the back of the couch as she approached. At first glance, he looked dead. His T-shirt was riddled with holes and the material was soaked with blood. Why wasn’t he healing? Were the wounds just too severe? Fuck, she didn’t know anything about his anatomy. It wasn’t as if she could call 911.
The only thing she really knew was that the sun would hurt him, and as the sun set, the room would just fill with more and more light.
She could maybe drag him to a bedroom, but as she looked back toward the hallway, all she could see was glass and debris. She was about to throw the blanket on Dante to protect him when she frowned at the window. There was a much easier way to do this.
Running over to the window, she was able to hang the afghan over the curtain rod. The curtains in place were white lacy things that did nothing to block out light, but the thick wool of the blanket worked perfectly to keep the UV rays out.
There. At least she could keep the sun from killing him. What else could she do? She’d already ruled out calling for help. She didn’t exactly have any vampire contacts. Maybe she could get online and post in a forum and see whether any vampires were paying attention? That Stefan guy had seemed technologically competent.
No, that would take way too long. But just because she couldn’t call anyone didn’t mean Dante couldn’t. If the vampires had set him up with this place, maybe he had their number.
She crossed back to him and knelt down carefully, avoiding any debris. “Hey, buddy. I need to look for your phone.” He didn’t move. How did she know he hadn’t died in the few seconds it took her to hang that blanket? Did vampires disintegrate to dust when they died like she’d seen in TV shows?
But then his chest rose and fell. Breathing! That meant he had to be alive. But he obviously wasn’t going to hand over his phone any time soon. Fine. She’d just have to dig through his pockets. His left pocket seemed to have a sizeable lump in it, so she decided to start there. But as she reached over him, he snapped into motion, one hand closing over her throat, and a second later, she found herself pinned to the ground and staring up into Dante’s black eyes. And not normal black, either. There were no irises or whites. Just darkness staring down at her.
“Whoa there,” she said softly as she tried to make herself as small as possible. “It’s me. Your friend Alyssa. You like me. Friend, not food.”
He blinked as he stared at her, and she couldn’t tell whether she was getting through to him at all. He hadn’t killed her yet, so that had to be a good sign. Right? “I’m here to help you.”
“Blood,” he said with a raspy voice.
Fuck. Blood. Of course he needed blood. “Okay, okay, okay.” He wanted blood. She had blood. She squeezed her eyes shut and tilted her head to the left. “Can you just take a little? I—”
His fangs sunk in. Alyssa winced and gripped Dante’s shoulders. She took deep breaths as she tried to process the pain. It wasn’t comfortable but it wasn’t as bad as she expected. More like a pinprick than getting stabbed in the throat.
How much was too much blood? Would she be able to get him off her? He hardly seemed as though he was in the right state of mind. And the more he drank, the more it started to burn.
No, burn wasn’t the right word. It seemed to hurt less and less as heat spread through her, starting from the puncture point. She bit her bottom lip because she wasn’t sure she could keep back a moan. “Dante,” she said softly, hoping to get his attention. The sensations inside her picked up and she knew this had to stop.
“Dante, get off.” His grip on her tightened and he seemed to start drinking even more. The pleasurable feelings were rapidly taken over by claustrophobia. If he didn’t stop, she wasn’t going to make it. “Dante!” she screamed as she started to pound on his back. “Come on, man! I need you to—”
He withdrew from her neck and pushed himself up just enough to look down at her. Alyssa let out a sigh of relief as she brought a hand up to her neck to stop the bleeding. Shit, that was probably a bad idea. She didn’t want it to get infected.
What a silly thought. Sure. A killer vampire was pinning her down, but infection was her biggest worry.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Dante in a husky voice.
She glared up at him. “I shouldn’t have done that? I shouldn’t have done that? No, you shouldn’t have done that! It wasn’t like I offered you a buffet!”
He was still staring down at her. His expression was a mixture of shock and awe. Was he so surprised that he bit her? Was he surprised he didn’t kill her? Or was he still in a daze after what had happened?
“The humans shot me.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“They weren’t normal bullets. I’ve been shot before. This time they hit me with poison.”
Yep
, that sounded like the military. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything that doesn’t involve my bodily fluids?”
“There was blood in the refrigerator,” he said abruptly. “I shouldn’t have drank yours.”
For the love of— “It happened. You stopped. We’re all good. Now, can you get off me, please?”
Dante pushed himself up and looked around the house. “They took Cora,” he said matter-of-factly.
She stayed where she was for a moment. What the hell had just happened? A vampire had fed off her. Weird. And she’d enjoyed it. Even weirder. “I, um, I saw the cars drive off. I got the license plate of one. I’m so sorry, Dante. We’ll get her back.”
“Why didn’t you stop them?” he snapped.
She blinked a few times. Well, that blame game started fast. “What was I supposed to do? Jump in front of the car and hope my dead body worked as a good speed bump?”
He shook his head and started to mutter in another language. She was kind of happy she couldn’t understand the words. She was sure nothing he was saying was good.
But she had to think of how he was feeling. His daughter was gone, and he couldn’t even go after her because the sun was holding him hostage. “We’ll get her back. Call your vampire contacts. They have to have people to help you. Plans for this kind of thing. I’m sure that if they’ve been around for centuries like you claim, then they’ve had to go into damage control mode before.”
She gingerly pushed herself up. She didn’t feel as if she’d been cut or nicked by any of the glass, but she also didn’t trust her judgment right now.
“If they don’t just let the humans kill her. I’m not one of them, Alyssa. They don’t owe me any loyalty.”
“Then we’ll find a way to make them help you. They aren’t gods. We can just give them some good old-fashioned blackmail. We’ll figure this out.”
Dante just shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Hey, I get it. This seems like an impossible situation, but I don’t believe in impossible. We’ll figure this out together.”
“That’s not it. You don’t understand what just happened. You shouldn’t have let me feed from you.”
She frowned. “You keep saying that. Why? What’s the big deal?”
He looked over at her and she realized his eyes were still black. “Because we’ve started the bonding process. As your people would say, we’re married.”
Dante’s body and mind raged. He was caged here in this stupid place and he had no idea where Cora was. Who knew what they wanted with her. If they were going to study her. Dissect her.
And while the sun rendered him completely incapable of leaving this prison, he was trapped here in these tiny quarters with Alyssa.
He’d enjoyed her presence before. She’d tempted him before. But now that he’d fed from her, everything was amplified. He could hear her breaths and feel her heartbeat. He had to fight the urge to carry her into the bedroom and finish the bond.
Cora was gone. That was the only thing he should be thinking about. He couldn’t afford any distractions, especially not a short, curvy one with unnaturally pink hair. Unnaturally pink hair he wanted to wrap around his—
“Hold up. We’re not married. I don’t know what the rules are where you come from, but you can’t just come in here and start laying your culture on me. You need a license here. You don’t even have a Social Security number! So hold off on booking the honeymoon.”
He scowled at her. She really didn’t understand. Then a terrifying thought hit him. Fuck, she didn’t understand because she wasn’t Vopura. What if she didn’t feel it too? What if the bond wouldn’t mean anything to her?
It wouldn’t matter. He’d make her see. He’d have to. “How are you feeling?” he asked, trying to not let his voice show how truly disturbed he was. Was disturbed even the right word? He was in a panic because he was never supposed to go through another bonding again. The first one had nearly killed him.
And none of this shit really mattered right now. Not when Cora was gone. He was terrified he’d never seen Cora again. He’d just gotten her back. How could he lose her so quickly?
“I’m fine. I don’t think you took too much.”
He wasn’t so sure about that. She had adrenaline shooting through her veins making up for the blood loss. He’d have to keep an eye on her to make sure she wasn’t suffering any ill effects.
But he knew she’d been through too much today for him to explain what the bonding really meant to him. What it would mean for her.
“You’re right. We’ll need to call in assistance.” He didn’t know these local vampires well, but they’d been willing enough to help so far. And they seemed to have morals. They wouldn’t want an innocent girl to be turned into a lab rat.
Right now they might be his only hope. He pulled out the phone they’d provided him. He thought about calling John but decided against it. For one, John was just as new here as he was. Besides that, he didn’t like being around the man. There was a sort of implied friendship there. Implied because as far as he knew, he and John were the only sanctioned Vopura on Earth. But Dante knew he and John weren’t anywhere close to being friends in any sense of the word.
Instead, he called Talon. He tried to remain as calm as possible as he listed out what had happened in a calm and factual manner.
Talon didn’t sound shocked, surprised, or worried, and Dante didn’t know whether that was good or bad. He wanted Talon to be able to get his daughter back easily, but he also wanted Talon to understand exactly how important this was to him. This wasn’t some random kid gone missing. This was Cora. Failing to get her back wasn’t an option.
On Vora, there were so few habitable living areas. If Cora had been taken, he could track her down easily enough. Earth was different. There were so many different cultures, climates, and continents she could be in. Not to mention so many people she’d blend in with. So many other girls. She’d gone from being a precious jewel that would stand out wherever she went to a needle in a haystack.
“Is there anything else you have for me?” asked Talon.
“Tell him about the license plate!” shouted Alyssa.
“We got a license plate,” he said into the phone. “It’s....”
Alyssa ran over to him and quickly said a mixture of letters and numbers into the phone. As soon as she was close, Dante was overwhelmed. Her scent enveloped him; her heat surrounded him. She was right there and all he had to do was....
All of a sudden, she started to sway and Dante’s arm went around her right before she fell over. Her big blue eyes glanced up and connected with his.
“Okay. Keep calm. Stay inside for the day,” said Talon through the phone. “I know you’re itching to get out there and do something about this, but give me at least a few hours to see if there’s a peaceful way to get this taken care of. If it needs to be bloody, you’ll have our full support.”
Dante took a deep breath in and out, still staring at Alyssa. “I understand.”
Talon hung up and Dante set his phone on the counter before bending down and swooping up Alyssa in his arms.
She let out a squeak of surprise that really shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I took too much. You need to rest.”
“I can walk to the bedroom myself,” she insisted.
He was sure that was true, but he hadn’t imagined her recent loss of balance. He didn’t want her to fall and get hurt on the way to the bedroom. And yes, obviously he wanted to be closer to her. He had a feeling there was no other way she’d allow him to take her to bed right now. He would take whatever he could get.
He walked past the room Cora had been using when she was taken, but refused to look. He didn’t want to think about what she’d gone through while he was lying useless on the floor. He went directly to the master bedroom. The one other bedroom in the house. The one Alyssa had been in as she recovered. He’d given her his blood so she would get bett
er. Now she was right back to being vulnerable. Except now he was vulnerable too. If anything happened to her, he would—
“Okay,” she said as he passed the threshold to the room. “We’re at the bed. Put me down and I’ll rest. Promise.”
He could do that. Or.... He climbed on the bed while still holding her in his arms. He set her on one side and then leaned against the other side, resting his head on the pillow.
“What the hell are you doing now?”
“I was shot. Repeatedly. With poison. If I’m stuck in this house until sundown, I’m going to at least try to recover as much as possible.”
“No. We can’t be in a bed together.”
The idea of sleeping just inches from her seemed like a mixture of temptation and torture. He had to defuse this somehow. “I guarantee you that I’m of little threat to your modesty.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it, appearing to seriously consider his argument. “This isn’t some Vopura trick?”
Oh, it was a trick. But a necessary one. He needed this right now. He couldn’t handle the stress of being away from Alyssa.
He knew she would never understand. With Cora being gone, he was on edge. The bonding process wasn’t supposed to take this long. It was usually all done together. The blood exchange and consummation weren’t supposed to be drawn out. But if he could be next to her, maybe the distraction wouldn’t be as bad.
He knew that if there was anything separating them, he’d tear it straight down just to get close to her. “No trick,” he assured. “Just close your eyes and get some rest. Pretend I’m not here.”
And he was going to close his eyes and think of nothing but Alyssa.
Rest? Was Dante out of his mind? How was she supposed to get any rest? Her mind raced a mile a minute. She couldn’t stop thinking about Cora. Where was she now? Was she safe? Damn it, she never should’ve left.
She had no idea what she could’ve done to stop it. If Dante hadn’t been able to prevent her kidnapping, what was she supposed to do?
