Because he was hoping his sons were alive, of course. He had no proof of death.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with my father, Dante,” my father said, “but for the first time, I’m not sure I trust him.”
“Thank God,” I said. “It’s not just me. He’s seemed off since I got back.”
“He’s hiding something,” my father agreed. “Something that has him scared, and trust me, your grandfather doesn’t scare easily. If we’re going to figure out what’s going on between you and Erin, we need that book. We’ll need my money to get the translation from the website. With my death certificate, you can get your hands on it. But there’s one thing you’ll need to do first.”
“What’s that?”
“Recover my body.”
Chapter One
Dante
You’ll need to recover my body.
A brick hit my gut. If I hadn’t realized earlier that my father was truly dead, I did now. His body was out there somewhere, probably decomposing by now, and I had to find it.
“Dante?” he said.
“Yeah. I heard you, Dad. It’s a lot to process. That’s all.”
“I know, son.”
“I mean, you’re here and all. And you look…”
“I look like I did when I died, except my injuries are gone.”
A shudder reeled through me. He’d had injuries? Of course he had. He’d been held captive, same as I was. And he’d somehow escaped, only to take his own life. Images of my father’s battered and partially decomposed body, vultures circling above it, swirled in my mind.
“This won’t be easy for you,” he said.
I drew in a breath, trying to compose myself. “Dad, nothing has been easy for me for the past ten years. I can do this.”
“You’ll need help.”
“I have you.”
“I’m not exactly corporeal. You’ll need someone you trust.”
I trusted only three people, excluding my father. Erin, and I couldn’t drag her into this. Emilia, and she was in a very fragile state. That left River. He’d be the one.
But Emilia… She had to be told. I opened my mouth, but before I spoke—
“Your cousin is the best choice. But there is the issue of your sister.”
I had to trust that my father wasn’t reading my mind. Or if he was, that he had no ulterior motive. I had no other choice right now if I wanted to get through what was coming. “Yeah. We need to tell her about you. But she’s…”
“I know, Dante. My father told me.” He chuckled. “I can’t say I’m thrilled, but I also can’t say I’m surprised. We all just want her to get through the pregnancy safely.”
“She’s stronger than any vampire woman I’ve known,” I said. “Not that I’ve known too many other than Mom and Aunt Simone, and I didn’t know either of them for long.”
“Your mother and Simone were both incredibly strong women whose devotion to their families was unequaled, but your sister has something they did not. Tenacity. That is what will get her through this.”
Tenacious. That was Em all right.
“When should we tell her?”
“You will tell her after you and River have recovered my body.”
“No, Dad, that’s—”
“That’s how it will be, Dante. Recover my body first, and she’ll know I’m gone. Then it won’t be such a shock when I appear to her as a ghost.”
“It’s going to be a shock anyway,” I said.
“It will challenge everything she was brought up to believe, as it did for both of us, but she will accept it as you did. Have faith in that.”
I huffed. “Why does everyone keep telling me to have faith? First Bill, and now you.”
“Sometimes faith is your only choice. It beats the hell out of having doubts, doesn’t it?”
My father always could get a smile out of me. He was charismatic where Bill was stoic. “I suppose you’ve got me there.”
“River is probably just getting off work. You should fill him in on what needs to be done.”
“Will he be able to see you?”
“Yes. I don’t know how long it will take, but he will eventually.”
“What about Bill? The book? Do we tell River everything?”
“We have to, don’t you think?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s just a huge responsibility, upending someone’s world. I’ve already done it to Erin.”
“I know. But Erin had a lot more to accept. Right now, all River has to do is accept that I’m dead and agree to help you recover my body. The fact that I’m here as a ghost can wait if it has to.”
“Can it? How am I supposed to convince him that I know where your body is? And where is it, anyway?”
“First things first. I know you need to feed, Dante. Go to Erin. Take your sustenance and draw strength from it.”
“Wait, you’re not going to—”
He laughed. “No, I’m not going with you. And no, those times I was in Erin’s apartment, I was not in the bedroom with you. Give me some credit. Not only do I respect your and Erin’s privacy, but honestly, a father doesn’t want to see that.”
Thank God. Not that I thought my dad was some kind of perv, but he had been at Erin’s. She had seen him when I hadn’t.
But that meant—
“Oh my God.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“You said you could still glamour people as a ghost. You said…” I shoved my hand through my hair.
“Dante—”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I shook my head, anger boiling beneath my skin. My gums itched as my fangs descended. “All this time I blamed Bill. Thought he was lying to me. You glamoured Erin that first time she saw my teeth. It was you!”
“Son, listen to me.”
“You fucking glamoured her!” I grabbed my leather jacket and forced my arms inside. “I’m out of here.”
A sharp icicle speared into my neck. I grabbed at it. “Leave me alone!”
“Not until you listen to me.”
The freezing jab again. “Damn!” I turned around to face my father’s ghost.
“I gave her a nudge, Dante. I asked her to keep an open mind. I did it for you. You need her.”
“I would have handled her myself. I didn’t need you to run interference for me.”
“Didn’t you? She raced downstairs in a panic because she saw your teeth before she was ready to. I was there to protect you. To protect what had become necessary to you.”
“That is not your job,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Not my job to protect my son? The hell it’s not.”
“Protecting me is one thing. Interfering in my personal relationships is another.”
“She was panicking. She was ready to walk away from you forever. What was I supposed to do?”
“Maybe let me deal with it myself?”
“How? You’d been gone for ten years, and during those ten years you matured from a postadolescent into a potent vampire male, but without any guidance for controlling your urges. Your immaturity is a danger to yourself and others right now.”
I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“Don’t take that as an insult. You can’t help what happened to you any more than I can. But you know this about yourself. You can’t even control your fangs, Dante.”
“I can,” I growled. But even as the words emerged. I couldn’t will my teeth to retract.
“You see? You get angry, your teeth come out. You get aroused, your teeth come out. You get frightened, your teeth come out.”
“They’re supposed to do that.”
“Yes. Physiologically, that’s what happens, but you can control it. You just haven’t learned how.”
“What if I don’t want to control it?” I said, baring my teeth in a wide grin. Heat flushed through my body, and my pulse seemed to ignite with rapid thrums in my neck.
My father advanced toward me. “Your cuspids are lo
ng and sharp, Dante. Even more so than mine, and mine and Braedon’s are some of the most formidable Jack Hebert had ever seen. Those are lethal, and you must control them.”
Another surge of dark anger wrapped around me. “I can. I controlled them that first night. I let those animals go, Dad. You were there, weren’t you? Don’t you remember that?”
“You did, even in the face of desperation. You did well. You have a powerful mind. You used what had been done to you as a reason not to kill a defenseless animal. But you would have fed off the homeless man if the detective hadn’t stopped you.”
“So what? I wouldn’t have killed him.”
“Maybe not. But with Erin—”
“What I do with Erin is none of your damned business.” I thrust out my chest and held my chin high.
“I never said it was.”
“You made it your business when you glamoured her.”
“I saved your relationship with her. Not once. Twice.”
My ire rose again, this time chafed and sore from his betrayal. “Twice?” I said through clenched teeth.
“Yes. I want total honesty between us. I glamoured her only slightly that day in the kitchen at Bill’s. About the dog bite.”
In my mind, I flew back to Bill’s kitchen that day. Erin had so easily accepted the inane story River fabricated regarding why so much blood was pooled on our kitchen floor. Later that same day, Bill glamoured her into forgetting all about the dog bite anyway.
I opened my mouth to spew more venom at him, but he held up his hand.
I stopped. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe just because he was my father and he had that effect on me.
“I’m sorry.”
I lifted one eyebrow. My father, at least the father I remembered, had rarely apologized. “Sorry for glamouring her? Or sorry for interfering?”
“Both. But I’d do it again. For you. I’d do anything for you, Dante.”
I softened a little—but only a little. “Don’t ever glamour her again. Promise me.”
He sighed. “If only I could make that promise. But as your father, and as your protector, I will do whatever is necessary to protect both you and Erin. You’ll understand one day, when you have children of your own.”
Children of my own. Again the image of Erin handing me a vampire child emerged in my mind. Any child we had would be human, so why did I keep seeing it?
I didn’t know, but the image calmed me a little more.
“Tell me something,” my father continued. “If Erin was in trouble, and the only way you could save her was to glamour her, what would you do?”
I twisted my lips into a semi-smile as I shook my head. “It’s a moot question, Dad. I can’t glamour Erin.”
“You can’t?”
“No.”
“That means you’ve tried.”
I nodded. “The first time I met her. It didn’t work. But I was able to glamour the homeless man that first night.” Then something occurred to me. “Or was that you?”
“No. That was all you.”
“I’ve never actually mastered glamouring. I can only do it when I’m starving for blood.”
“Then you’re in luck,” he said. “I can teach you. I can now teach you all that I’d planned to teach you before we were both taken.”
“Can you still do that? I mean, you’re a…”
“Ghost. Yes. I’m dead. But I’m here for as long as you need me to be here. I remember everything from my mortal life, and I am willing to teach you.”
A cement block lifted from my shoulders. “Bill has been refusing to teach me. I can’t figure out why.”
“Bill is not Bill anymore, at least not the Bill we both knew. Something he read in the Texts has him spooked. That must be why he’s afraid to teach you anything.”
“How does he expect me to survive if I don’t know how to control my urges?”
“I don’t know, son. Together, we’ll figure this out. I will teach you what you need to know. It will take time, and unfortunately, we don’t have time at the moment. First there’s something you need to do.”
I cringed. “I know. Recover your body before it decomposes more than it already has.”
He smiled. “That can wait. You need to feed.”
Chapter Two
Erin
Shivers racked my body. I tried all the calming techniques I knew, but I couldn’t stop them.
Patty and her baby. Gone.
Vanished.
Like so many others.
The whole thing was horrifying, but this was the first one that had a profound effect on me personally. I’d helped deliver baby Isabelle. Patty and I had bonded. She was even going to give the baby girl Erin as her middle name.
I drove home on autopilot, and before I knew it, I was pulling into my townhome complex.
Dante was waiting for me outside my front door. Hadn’t I given him a key? I couldn’t remember. No, I hadn’t yet. I threw my own keys in my purse and ambled toward him.
“Erin,” he said, his eyes warm. “You’re pale as a…ghost. What’s wrong?”
How could I begin to describe what was wrong? Since I’d met Dante, my entire life had been turned upside down. In fact… The first patient had disappeared from our hospital the night he’d appeared.
I gulped, trying to swallow the massive lump in my throat.
No. Dante could not have anything to do with the disappearing patients.
Could he?
I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying as hard as I could to clear it of such unwanted thoughts.
“Erin?” he said again.
I pushed him against the closed door. “Don’t want to talk.” I smashed my lips against his.
He responded to my kiss. He was hungry. He fed in the morning, and I was late getting home because I’d stopped to see Patty.
And had my life upended once again.
He broke the kiss and met my gaze, his eyes dark and hungry. “Inside,” he said. “Now.”
I fished in my purse for my keys. Apparently I was taking too long, because he grabbed my handbag and drew them out in a flash.
Seconds later, we were inside, and he scooped me into his arms and walked upstairs to my bedroom.
My mind raced, though no thought formed completely. Patty. The baby. Dante. The disappearing women. My ache. My need. My love for him that didn’t make sense all the time but that I knew with all my heart and soul was real.
Blood.
He needed my blood. I felt his desire all around me. Could almost see it in a pulsing aura encircling his body.
“Erin,” he growled. “Undress.”
I hesitated.
And he noticed.
“I said, ‘undress.’”
This time I peeled off my T-shirt and bra quickly, letting my breasts fall against my chest. I kicked off my sneakers and then hesitated once more.
I was ready. Wet and ready. No matter where my mind was, my body responded to Dante’s voice. Dante’s touch. Dante’s very being.
He inhaled, closing his eyes. “You’re ripe. So ripe, Erin.”
I didn’t doubt it. My nipples had hardened into tight berries, my areolas wrinkled and taut. I squeezed my thighs together in an effort to suppress my ache.
Didn’t work.
So I obeyed him. I slid my sweats and underpants over my hips, down my legs, and then stepped out of them.
“Beautiful,” he breathed.
I closed my eyes with a sigh and stroked the swell of my breast. I felt him advance toward me, his feet shuffling on my carpet.
When I opened my eyes, the amber around his dark irises was pulsing, and his teeth had elongated.
The throb between my legs intensified. Yes. He was gorgeous. Beautiful. I loved him like this. Still I fought it, trying to look away, but my head didn’t budge. I couldn’t take my eyes off him—his dark beauty.
“T-Take off your clothes,” I said.
“You seem to forget who gives the orders here.” He pinched
one of my nipples.
I moaned softly, the jolt plummeting through my body and landing between my legs. The command in his voice got me every time. Still, I resisted.
“You’re fighting me,” he said, fumbling in his jacket pocket. Seconds later, he held the synthetic rope in his hands. “Do I need to use this?”
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Please. Yes.
“You must accept me, Erin. Accept all of me. Say it. Say you accept me as vampire.”
The words formed on my vocal cords but stayed lodged in my throat.
No. Couldn’t say it. Not yet.
“Erin.”
My body didn’t struggle. It wanted him. Was ready to accept all of him. Ditto my heart.
The duel was in my mind. I closed my eyes.
“Open your eyes, Erin.”
My body responded. My eyes opened.
“I need you,” he said.
I fell onto the bed, reached for the rungs of the headboard, and then nodded toward the rope in his hands. “Take me. Take what you need.”
“You want to be tied down, like the first time?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to want it, but God, I ached for it with everything I was. The pure strength of the desire surprised even me.
I squeezed my eyes shut again as he bound me to the rungs.
“Easy,” he said. “You’re so tense. Your blood will flow better if you’re relaxed.”
And just like that, I relaxed. My eyes stayed closed, but I was no longer clenching them shut. My arms slackened into al dente noodles hanging above my head.
“Easy,” he said again. “Spread your legs, love. I need a taste of you.”
My femoral artery. He was going to feed there again, covering the marks of whoever had been violating me.
I readied for the sting of his teeth.
Instead, his tongue swiped up along my slit. I inhaled swiftly, the sensation traveling through my whole body when he nipped at my clit. I bit my lower lip, aching to cry out.
“I know it feels good, Erin. Stop resisting me.”
Was I still resisting? I’d been expecting his bite, and instead, I was treated to his velvet tongue in my most sensitive place. No reason to resist.
Unhinged: Blood Bond: Parts 4, 5 & 6 (Volume 2) Page 18
