“We use Antonio’s top interrogator, Ryder,” announced Jared. “He can do a mind swipe. Basically, he has a psychic hand. He uses it to sift and browse through what’s there. If there is anything at all left of those memories, he’ll find it.”
Cool gift, but… “If he’s that good, why doesn’t Antonio send him on assignments? It would be a hell of a lot easier to get answers if we had someone like him with us.”
“Ryder never leaves The Hollow. He’s only five months old, so he’s not in control of his bloodlust yet. Antonio keeps him isolated, just as he would with any newborn.”
“We’ll have the Deliverer, too,” David reminded us. “She might know stuff.”
“Then let’s get these humans to The Hollow.” When Jude stepped forward, her eyes flashing with anger, I gave her a pointed look. “Jude, you will get your vengeance, I promise you. But we need Ryder to sweep through their memories first. We need what info they have so we can find out what they know. Once we have it, they’re all yours. Okay?”
Her nod was reluctant, and I couldn’t blame her for being so impatient.
“There’s something I want to know first.” Jared turned back to the male Medic. “What were you going to do with the baby once you had it? Is there someone waiting for it right now? Bear in mind that I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”
“No one’s waiting. We can’t do it at a moment’s notice, so we were always given a week to get a baby. Once we had one and we were confident it would survive the Caesarean, Erik would send a message on his cell phone and then they’d message him with a location for him to drive to with the baby. He never took me or Sandra with him.”
“Good,” I said. “No one will suspect anything if this lot doesn’t show up with a baby today. When is the latest they’ll expect to be contacted?”
“In four days.”
“Think Ryder will be done within four days?” I asked Jared.
“Let’s hope so.” Jared sighed. “This place needs cleaning up. We don’t want human forensics finding Salem’s blood or any traces of us. It would probably be easier to just teleport it to the ocean or something. First, I want Harvey, Max, and Damien to search the vehicle. Look for any files or paperwork or anything that might even seem important. If I’m tied up, one of Antonio’s guards will teleport in and pick you guys up in a couple of hours.”
I looked at Salem, who was still holding Sandra, and at Reuben, who was still restraining Mark. “When we get back, take them straight to the containment cells. Make sure they’re put in separate ones. Ask Denny to do the same with Weird Wendy.”
Once Jared had teleported everyone, with the exception of Harvey, Damien, and Max, back to The Hollow, he and I made a quick stop at our apartment.
“I need to get this Belly and these clothes off,” I grumbled, not too happy with having splatters of Erik’s blood on my sweater. Catching sight of myself in the large oval mirror, I stopped. A pang of sorrow ran through me as I realised that this was the closest I would ever get to being pregnant. Never would I look like this, never would I know what it was like to carry and raise a child – my child, mine and Jared’s child.
I hadn’t considered whether I’d ever want kids before now. Although I wasn’t the most maternal person, I would rather not have had the choice taken away from me. Now that it was, I realised exactly how much I had wanted a child someday.
Obviously having sensed my change of mood, Jared appeared and slipped his arms around me. “What is it?”
I twirled in his hold. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Don’t you regret that you’ll never get to have kids?” I didn’t like the way his face seemed to shut down.
He backed away, shrugging. “I don’t think I’d have been good at parenting anyway.”
“Why do you say that?”
He sighed, shrugging again. “I just don’t. Some people shouldn’t have kids.” And with that odd little comment he disappeared back into the living area.
Suspecting it was something to do with his mother and making a mental note to ask him to elaborate later, I changed into my white tank top and combat pants. It was then that we sought out Antonio. To my surprise, he wasn’t in one of his parlours. He was sitting on a bench in his indoor botanical gardens with Luther, Wes, and Lena. As usual, his guards and dogs also lingered close.
After hearing Jared’s account of what had happened, Antonio shook his head sadly. “I was hoping to find that Jude was wrong about vampires being involved in such an awful thing. I think it is now safe to say that she was correct. I’ll get Ryder to…”
Antonio’s voice seemed to fade away as my attention was snagged by the pulse beating in Jared’s throat. I couldn’t seem to look away from it, I felt literally mesmerised by it. Watching it throbbing had me licking my lips, had my stomach clenching. Then everything went black.
(Jared)
Shock seized and froze my entire body as Sam suddenly dived on me and latched on to my throat. It was nothing like her usual bites. There was nothing teasing or sensual about the way she sunk her teeth down hard, gulping my blood like she’d die on the spot if she didn’t. Antonio tried to pry her away, but she locked her limbs around me and growled.
She fucking growled!
Worse, in spite of the pain, her Sventé saliva was making me horny as shit and I was going to come in my jeans if someone didn’t detach her from me quickly.
It took the combined efforts of Antonio, Wes, Luther, and the guards to wrench her away. She fought their hold – kicking, scratching, and punching them. All the while, she hissed, growled, and snapped her teeth. Her pupils were completely dilated and she was shaking. She looked…crazed. The bottom fell out of my stomach as a heavy weight hit my chest. Shit, no.
I cupped her chin hard, but she managed to escape my grip. Then she curled her upper lip at me; it was a warning and a challenge. I framed her face with my hands, holding it still. “Sam, stop!” She didn’t. “Sam, I said stop!” My words didn’t even seem to register. Her focus was now solely on my throat. If the others weren’t still restraining her, she’d have been latched on to my throat again.
“Maybe you should try slapping her,” suggested Wes.
I shot him a scowl. I had no intention of hurting her. But that did give me an idea. Not knowing what else to do, I released a small harmless electrical discharge – something I hoped might snap her out of it. Her body jerked, but not in pain, in shock. I did it again, and again, and again, breathing a sigh of relief when her struggles stopped.
Reason and rationality soon returned to her eyes, and she glanced at us all oddly. “What the fuck?”
“Let her go.” Dubious, the others slowly released her. I curled my arms around her and kissed her hair. “I don’t know what the hell just happened. It was like you flipped or something.”
“Flipped?”
“You acted much like a newborn vampire,” said Wes. “You were wild.”
She swallowed hard as anxiety and worry flashed on her face, but she quickly blanked her expression. “I’m deteriorating, aren’t I?” It wasn’t really a question.
Antonio patted her back. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Five minutes later, after Reuben had once again amplified Lena’s gift, she and Sam sat on the bench as Lena studied her. I held Sam’s hand, needing to touch her. Nothing had ever shocked me more than when she leaped at me like that. Nothing. Watching her in pain was awful, but looking at the only woman I’d ever loved and seeing nothing of that woman there…That was ten times worse.
Finally, Lena took a long breath and sat back. After taking a few mouthfuls of the NST that the guards had given her, she began to speak. “Your DNA has changed since I last looked. As last time there were certain equations that didn’t add up, I had expected – after what just happened – to find that those equations made absolutely no sense. But it is not that at all. In fact, those equations almost add up perfectly. What has changed is that these equations
have become more complicated.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”
“It means that rather than her body going into ‘override’ and fighting the dramatic changes, it is…entering the next stage of the alterations.”
“I don’t get it. How can she enter the next stage without fully completing the first stage?”
“It is similar to the predicament of a caterpillar. If you were to open the cocoon, it would die. It has to be able to have the strength to free itself or it will not have the strength to fly away.” Lena placed her hand over Sam’s. “However, do not take that to mean that you will die – or fly, for that matter. My point is, you don’t yet have the strength to move on to the next stage, but your body has done it anyway. That is what most likely caused you to experience such an attack of bloodlust. Your body feels the need to compensate, it needs to replenish. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to drink a few more NSTs a day than you would normally do.”
Antonio stopped in his pacing. “Does this mean that she is not deteriorating?”
“My opinion is that, on the contrary, she is strengthening. She is simply not seeing or feeling anything of these changes because the alterations are not yet complete.”
“When will they be complete?” I asked Lena.
“That, I do not know. But it was not all that long ago that I first looked at her DNA, and already there have been big changes. Give it a few days.” She smiled at Sam. “So how do you like your new pet?”
Sam’s smile took over her face. “He’s gorgeous. I’ve named him Dexter.”
Lena chuckled. “I look forward to meeting him. When you take him into the rainforest, take some tropical vine branches back to your apartment and create a jungle set-up. That’s what Wes and I did for Toto.”
I couldn’t believe they were talking about vines and pets in the middle of a conversation like this. Unreal. But sensing that Sam was spooked by having blacked out, I didn’t try bringing the matter up again. She wasn’t the type who liked to talk about stuff until she had sorted things through in her own head, and I knew she needed a little time to do that.
So I pretended that I bought the relaxed act, pretended I didn’t know how scared she was. Even when she wanted to take the damn snake for a walk…well, a slither…in the rainforest, I continued pretending, and I didn’t try coaxing her to open up. But after watching her stare at her office desk for two hours, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice I’d crouched beside her chair until I rested my hand on her thigh. “Baby?”
Turning to look at me, she double-blinked. “Sorry, what?”
I gently moved her hair away from her face. “I know you’re scared, just like I know you’d prefer to pretend you’re not scared, but you have to have faith in Sebastian. That guy could find God if you asked him to. He’ll come through for you, I promise you. And then I’ll get those brothers to put everything right.”
“I have faith in all of you. It’s just…it freaks me out that I lost control like that. Worse, I don’t even remember it. I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me.”
“Jared, I bit you without permission.” For vampires, that was a sort of rape. Cursing, she got to her feet and started pacing.
Feeling a shadow of her guilt, I pointed hard at her as I stood. “You do not have to feel bad about that. You don’t need my permission. I’m yours.”
“That’s not the point.”
No, it wasn’t the point. “Still, I don’t care. Do you hear me? I don’t care.”
“And what if it hadn’t been you? Not only could I have hurt someone else, but I’d have drank from someone else, and don’t tell me you wouldn’t hate that.”
Of course I’d hate that; I wanted her to feed from me, no one else. “But that wasn’t really you, Sam. That wasn’t my Sam. That was bloodlust taking over.”
“That freaks me out as well. But the worst is the ‘not knowing’. If I knew what they had done to me, I could deal with it. I’d probably be pissed and scared, but I could deal. Not knowing is harder.” Looking defeated, she backed into the wall and sighed.
I went to her and slid my hands into her hair. “I hate seeing you like this.”
“I’m entitled to sulk now and then. You do it all the time.”
I smiled at that, kissing her softly, teasingly, making her mouth chase mine. “You do know that even if you grow five heads, I’m keeping you, right?” Her laugh made me relax a little. I licked along the seam of her mouth, wanting entry again. “Let me make you forget for a while. Let me make you feel good.” The second she opened for me, I slipped my tongue inside, seeking hers. Quickly the kiss went from soft to demanding; it sent fire sizzling through us both as it usually did.
She sucked on my tongue, knowing I liked it, knowing it made me think about how much I loved her sucking something else. Tricky bitch. My hands drifted down to mould and squeeze what were, without a doubt, the most perfect set of breasts. I nibbled and drew on a nipple through the cotton of her tank top, teasing the other nipple by sending sparks of electricity to it through my thumb. Her husky moans made my cock so hard it hurt. But this wasn’t about me, it wasn’t for me.
I dropped to my knees and, in Pagori speed, got her naked from the waist down. Hooking one shapely leg over my shoulder, I shot her a promising smile and started suckling on her clit. I slid my tongue between her folds, groaning at how wet she was, and licked my way back to her clit to suck on it again. Then I was flicking it with the tip of my tongue, loving that I could feel a hint of the pleasure that was coursing through her. She repeatedly moaned, clenching her fingers in my hair to the point of pain, but I didn’t care.
I let my hands snake up the back of her thighs to cup that luscious ass that seemed to fit perfectly in my hands. All I wanted right then was to pull her to her knees and impale her hard on my cock. But I didn’t. Even though her scent was driving me insane and I was hard as a fucking rock, I didn’t. Even though her addictive taste was feeding that need to be inside her, I didn’t. This was all about her.
I flicked and fluttered my tongue along the tips of her opening, knowing she loved it. She shifted her hips, trying to take my tongue inside her. Any other time, I’d have teased her for a while, but not today. I gave her what she wanted, spearing my tongue inside her, alternating between swirling it around, and thrusting it in and out of her.
I could sense the friction building in her, knew she was about to come. I started at the feel of something else – a wicked sense of self-satisfaction. Confused, I asked, What’s with the smugness?
Even her mental voice sounded breathy. Magda just walked in, stared open-mouthed, scowled at me, and then stormed back out.
That made me smile. No doubt Fletcher knew what he was doing when he sent her in. As an Empath, he probably had a real good idea of what was going on.
Of course he did. Now get back to work.
Chuckling, I moved my mouth back to her clit and sank two fingers deep inside her. She jerked and groaned as her muscles gripped them tight.
“Jared, no teasing this time,” she insisted, her voice huskier than usual.
I plunged my fingers in and out of her as I circled her clit with the tip of my tongue. “Tell me what you want, Sam. Tell me how much you want it.”
“You. In me. Now. I need it.”
I withdrew my fingers and lazily sucked the moisture from them, smiling at the way her glazed eyes flared. Standing, I lifted her and perched her on the edge of her desk. She practically attacked my jeans, tearing at the buttons. My chuckle turned into a groan at the feel of her soft fingers curling around my cock.
But when she started running her hand up and down my length, I stilled her hand with mine. “You do that and I’ll come before I’m inside you.” I would have undressed, but I was aware of how much she liked it when I fucked her with my clothes on. Gripping her thighs, I angled her hips just right and slam
med home, forcing myself deep. Her muscles clamped tight around me. “Oh fuck.” Nothing in the world beat being inside her. Nothing.
She locked her legs around my waist and bucked hard, telling me what she wanted. I gave it to her, clenching my jaw as I took her hard and fast; never easing, never slowing, yet always remembering how much stronger I was than her, always careful not to hurt her. Not once did I move my gaze from hers. I loved to watch the way her aquamarine eyes went out of focus, like she was drunk. Drunk on pleasure.
“God, baby, you feel so fucking good around me.” I fused my lips with hers, tangling my tongue with hers. When her eyes drifted shut, I tore my mouth away. “Uh-uh, Sam. I want those eyes open. Look at me.”
Her lids flickered open. “I need to come.”
“I know you do. And I’m going to make you come.” The awkward bitch closed her eyes again. “I said I want those eyes open.”
She actually slapped my arm. “I can’t help it.”
Punishingly, I bit her lip, lapping up the drop of blood that surfaced. I watched her gaze dance to my throat, felt what she wanted. “Do it, baby.” She shook her head, and I knew why. She was still pissed at herself for what she’d done earlier, so she was denying herself that pleasure now. “Do it. Bite me.”
“No,” she snarled. “Just make me come.”
“Not until you drink from me.”
“Oh, you bloody bastard!”
“If you want to come, do what I said.”
She didn’t. Of course she didn’t, she was too damn stubborn. So I stopped.
Her mouth dropped open. “What are you doing?”
“I won’t let you punish yourself, Sam. You want to drink from me, and I want you to drink from me, so do it.”
“Piss off, you twat!”
“You know I don’t care how much you insult me.” If anything, it was amusing. “You know I won’t let this drop. Come on, baby.” I punched my cock into her once. “Give us what we both want.”
“I hurt you!”
“You took what was yours. Do it again now. I’m sure as hell going to.” I bit into her neck at about the same time that I began pumping my cock in and out of her. But I didn’t take more than four gulps. “Your turn.” Seeing that she was close to caving, I – sneaky though it was – parted her wet folds and tipped her so that my pelvis was hitting her clit with each thrust. “Bite me. Take what’s yours.”
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