by HELEN HARDT
I’d never seen him look more frightening.
I’d never seen him look more magnificent.
Desire pulsed through me, raw and real.
He’s insane. I need to tell him to leave. To get the hell away from me.
But the words didn’t come.
I didn’t want them to come.
Instead—
“You want to tie me up? Take me violently? Show me who’s in charge here? Do it, Dante. Do it now.”
He was on me in an instant, his tongue devouring my mouth like a sea serpent plunging through ocean waves.
Shudders racked my body, my heart hammering and my skin tingling. Yes, this was what he felt. I felt it too.
I wanted it as much as he did.
I pushed him away and drew in a deep breath. “That all you got?”
A low growl vibrated from his throat, giving me chills.
“Tell me you want this,” he said, his voice low and husky. “Tell me, and I’ll give you everything we both ache for.”
I shivered. Partly from fear—a good fear—a fear that traveled through me at light speed, inflaming me all the way to my bones. Partly from my being so turned on I couldn’t see straight.
“I already told you,” I said through clenched teeth. “Do it, Dante. Give me everything. Everything you’ve got.”
In a flash, I was in his arms, being hauled up the stairs to the bedroom.
“You’re mine, Erin.” He ripped the clothes from my body with his teeth, until only shreds of fabric remained.
I stood naked before him, as if I were an offering to a god. A god I wanted to please more than I wanted anything else, including my next breath.
“All mine. That blood boiling in your arteries right now is mine. This beautiful body is mine. That anger, that gorgeous rage pulsing through you—it makes you smell more divine than ever, look more beautiful than ever. It’s all mine, Erin. All of it. Do you understand me?”
I nodded. “I understand.”
He licked his lips. “So pink. So dazzling. Like a rose-colored diamond. Mine. I’ll have you every way. Every way I want to. Gently if I want to. Violently if I want to.”
I squeezed my thighs together, trying, but failing, to ease the ache between them.
Violently if I want to.
Such words shouldn’t make me ache all the more.
But they did. They so did.
Was this what it meant to be part vampire? This strong urge, this incessant longing? The attraction I felt for Dante? Was it more than a blood bond?
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him toward me, our mouths meeting in a clash of lips and teeth.
The kiss was raw and hungry. He took from me with his tongue, and rather than giving him what he sought, I took from him as well. Both of us consuming in a rage of ripe desire.
A kiss of pure urgency and desperate need.
A kiss to take what we were each so willing to give.
Our lips slid against each other’s, our tongues swirling, until I pushed him away once more, struggling to inhale a much-needed breath.
Dante inhaled as well, both of us panting.
“You will not push me away again, Erin. Is that clear?”
Sweat trickled down from my brow, stinging my eyes. Dante’s lips were swollen from the hard kiss, his fangs still elongated and sexy. An ache emerged within me—an ache I didn’t understand at first, but my body did. I nodded timidly and then closed my eyes and turned my head, exposing my neck.
A low growl.
But no puncture.
I opened my eyes.
“That’s not what I’m hungry for right now.” The amber around his irises glowed hot. “Get on the bed and spread your legs.”
He’d said he was going to tie me up. Had he changed his mind? Disappointment vibrated through me. “Aren’t you—”
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Erin.”
His gruff, commanding tone turned my legs to jelly, and I fell onto the bed, letting my legs fall to each side.
He knelt down between them, closed his eyes, and inhaled. “Mine,” he growled once more.
“Yours,” I whispered.
“I’m going to eat you, Erin. All of you. Suck every bit of honey your body has to offer me. Then I’m going to fuck you so hard and so violently and make you come again and again and again. And when you beg me to stop, I’ll fuck you harder.”
I groaned softly. “Yes. Please.”
He clamped his lips onto my labia and sucked.
I gripped two handfuls of my comforter and arched my back. So good, how he made me feel. So fucking good.
My nipples strained, so tight and hard. As if reading my mind, Dante reached one hand forward and took a nipple between his thumb and forefinger and tugged.
“Yes, baby, please,” I breathed.
More. Give me more. Take me to the highest mountaintop, to the most glorious place in the blue sky.
I fingered my other nipple, pinching it, while Dante continued his welcome assault on my pussy. His teeth nicked my sensitive flesh, but the tiny prickles only spurred me further into ecstasy, further toward that peak—the peak that I’d come to know only with this man.
Only with this vampire.
My rage burned a fiery crimson, and with it, my lust.
More.
More.
More.
I writhed beneath his touch, my skin prickling and my nerves—
“Dante! Erin!”
Chapter Two
Dante
No. Not now. Please not now.
“Dante.” Erin pushed at my head.
I reluctantly let her go, already missing the scent and taste of her. I licked my lips, relishing in her juices, and then stood. “River.”
Erin’s tattered clothes lay in pieces all around the room. Damn. I’d shredded them. Shredded them.
“Go see what he needs,” she said. “I’ll put something…else on.”
I nodded but couldn’t look away from her. She was still so pink and beautiful. Her carotid artery pulsed visibly in her neck. So enticing. Had I truly refused what she’d offered in favor of a hard fuck? A turbulent fuck? My dick was still granite in my jeans, and my teeth were still long and sharp.
Time to put that newfound self-control to work. After one more growl.
Her eyes widened at the snarl, but then she closed them halfway, showing her heavy-lidded arousal.
Now for the control.
“Erin, I hope you—”
“I’m fine, Dante. You know I’d never do anything I didn’t want to do.”
“I love you.” I stroked her cheek gently, the blood beneath her warm pink skin nearly doing me in. “We’ll definitely finish this later.”
She smiled. “I love you too.”
My erection hadn’t gone down much, but at least it was a little more bearable. Seeing my cousin standing in the living room should do the trick. I turned, left the bedroom, and walked downstairs.
Yup. River was the antidote. But he didn’t look like himself.
“What is it, Riv? And how did you get in here?”
“The door was unlocked.”
Shit. Not too smart, especially with rogue vamps on the loose. I hadn’t been thinking clearly when I took Erin upstairs. Hell, I hadn’t been thinking at all.
“Dante,” he continued, his voice tight and shaky, “it’s Lucy. She’s gone.”
Ice chilled my veins. “What?”
“She’s gone. Somehow she got out of the hospital.”
“Did she get released?”
“No. She’s disappeared.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Like the others. Man. I… Shit.” He paced around the small living area.
“Oh my God. Erin…” This would devastate her. Lucy was her best friend.
A second later, she walked swiftly down the stairs in a pair of shorts and a tank top, her hair freshly brushed and hanging sleekly over her shoulders.
I inhaled. Her scent, still so arousi
ng and musky.
River inhaled as well. Yeah, my fangs were definitely here to stay.
“Hi, River,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Baby…” I began.
“It’s Lucy,” River said. “I hate to have to tell you this, but I need you guys.”
“What?” Erin’s voice shook. “Is she okay? Did she need more surgery?”
“She’s…gone,” he said. “Disappeared from the hospital. Like the others.”
She clasped her hand to her mouth. “No! Oh my God. Have you called the cops?”
“He is the cops, baby,” I said.
“Yeah. Right. But what about…”
“I went to see her at the hospital, and some blues were there, taking the report,” River said, rubbing his temples. “The department is on it. I tried to call you, Dante, but you didn’t pick up.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear my phone.”
Had my phone died? I should have heard it. Enhanced vampire hearing and all. On the other hand, I was all ensconced in a tryst with Erin unlike anything I’d ever experienced. He was lucky I’d heard his voice when he walked in the door.
“It’s okay, man. I just don’t—” He rubbed at his brow, beads of sweat emerging from his pores. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll figure it out, Riv.”
Perhaps, then, you’ve read the most important work of all.
Bea’s words. She’d uttered them right before my father told Erin and me to run. What did they mean? And why did they pop into my mind now? I gave them no further thought, though, because Erin looked absolutely petrified.
“What if…” Erin’s eyes were wide.
“What, baby?”
“What if she shifts? She’s fresh out of surgery. What if her control…”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Riv?”
“I only know shifters exist, and that they can control their shifting. The moon doesn’t dictate it, as legend would have you believe. But in Lucy’s condition, I don’t know. She obviously shifted back after she got stabbed in the cemetery.” He sank his head into his hands. “We have to find her.”
“We will.” My libido and teeth had finally leveled off. All it took was my cousin telling me another woman had disappeared—this one who meant so much to both Erin and River.
“You okay?” I said.
“I feel so helpless. It’s crazy. We had one date. It’s not like we’re…” He shook his head.
“How about you, baby?” I said to Erin.
“Not even slightly. I was angry with her for keeping such a big thing from me. And now I feel shitty about that. But this isn’t about me. This is about Lucy. This just got personal for all of us. We need to figure out what’s going on. Why these women have been disappearing.” She grasped my forearm. “Dante, we have to find her. We have to.”
“Baby, we will. Somehow. Riv and your brother are cops. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Jay.” Erin rubbed her forehead. “I have to tell him. About everything. About you two. About Lucy. About all of it.”
All of it.
Guilt lashed out at me. Erin didn’t know all of it. She still didn’t know my sister was pregnant with her brother’s child. Still, I felt it was Emilia’s story to tell, not mine. I wasn’t sure Erin would see it the same way, though, when she ultimately found out.
I looked to River, but he was distraught, obviously thinking about Lucy.
Lucy had to be the focus right now, not Emilia and the fact that she hadn’t told Jay he was going to be a father.
“I should take a few days off,” Erin was saying. “But how can I? We’re shorthanded as it is, and now with Lucy gone…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do. Renee, one of the other nurses on the night shift, has already said she’s looking for another job.”
“You need to do what you think is right,” I told her. “We’ll both support you, right, Riv?”
River didn’t respond.
“Riv?”
“What? Yeah, sure.”
I wasn’t sure he knew what he was saying yes to.
“I’m not comfortable at University anymore. Not with all the disappearances. But I can’t quit. I need the money.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “I’m going to be a rich man when my father’s estate is probated, and that will be soon. River has seen to that. Everything I have is yours.”
She smiled weakly. “You’re wonderful, Dante, but I can’t take your money. I can’t live off someone else. It’s not who I am. Besides, I love nursing. I get a lot out of it, even on the days when I’m ready to throw in the towel.”
“Who says it’s forever?” I said. “I’d love it if you quit University, at least until we find the women who’ve disappeared. You can find work somewhere else. A good nurse will always be in demand.”
“But I can’t. I can’t leave the hospital shorthanded. They’re desperate right now.”
“I understand, baby. I do. But your safety is so important to me. I haven’t been comfortable with you there for a while now. You know that. Someone there fed on you. Sure, it seems to have stopped now—” I gasped when a thought speared into my mind.
“What?”
“That resident. The one you almost—” Couldn’t even think the word. “You said he just came back, right?”
“Logan? A couple days ago, yeah.”
I’d just seen her naked. There hadn’t been any new marks on her thigh, or anywhere on her, for that matter. None but my own. “Never mind.”
“Come on, Dante. Spill it. Why are you asking me about Logan Crown?”
Crown.
I’d seen that name. Logan Crown. No, not exactly, but similar. Shit.
“Where’s your laptop, Erin?” I asked.
“Over on the sofa table.”
I grabbed it, brought it into the kitchen, and fired it up.
Damn. There it was. “Check this out. Both of you.”
Erin and River stood behind me, looking over my shoulders.
“Nocturnal Truth,” River said. “That’s the site Bill used to get information on your blood bond.”
“Yeah. And they claim to have a translation of the entire Vampyre Texts. But that’s not what concerns me at the moment. Check this out right here. The email address to contact for more information.”
Chapter Three
Erin
“Lucien Crown.” My heart sped up a little, but over what? “Same last name as Logan.”
“Right,” Dante said.
“There are a lot of Crowns out there,” River said.
“Are there? Maybe. But it’s not like Smith or Jones.”
“You think Logan is a vampire?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How would he have gotten tied up and left in a supply closet, then? Couldn’t he have glamoured…” I stopped.
“What is it?” River asked.
“There have been instances at the hospital. Instances where things have happened and no one recalls anything. Like the disappearing patients, for example. How did they get out with not a single person seeing them? It’s a hospital. There’s always somebody around.” I shook my head. “But it still doesn’t compute. He couldn’t have been kidnapped and then returned tied up if he was a vampire. He would have glamoured whoever had him and gotten away.”
“Not necessarily,” Dante said. “Not if the person who had him was another vampire.”
“There’s an easy way to find out. We sniff him,” River said. “If he’s a vampire, he won’t have a scent.”
“I sure smelled his testosterone and adrenaline when he almost—” Dante cleared his throat. “You sniff him. I can’t smell anyone but Erin, remember?”
“Can you smell those kinds of hormones on a vampire?” I asked.
“Yeah,” River said. “But vampires don’t have a unique scent like humans and other creatures do. At least not to us.”
Logan is not a vampire. Logan is not a vampire
. I repeated the mantra in my mind.
What if he was? And what if he’d been feeding on me? He hadn’t since he’d returned. Dante would have known.
This was all too much to deal with. I’d wondered why they let Logan start working in the ER again so soon after he returned. Perhaps he’d glamoured the other physicians…
Perhaps he’d glamoured me…
No. Couldn’t go there.
Logan is not a vampire.
“There’s one way to find out. Let’s find this Logan guy, and I’ll give him a good sniff.” River stood. “But before we do that, we need to find Lucy.”
“Yes.” Lucy, of course. I’d gotten so caught up in the Logan hypothesis that I hadn’t given Lucy a thought for the last several minutes. Guilt hit me like a brick. “Lucy’s way more important right now.”
“I questioned everyone at the hospital as soon as I found out,” River said. “I wasn’t on duty, but they all know me anyway. No one knew anything. No one had seen anything.”
“Why didn’t any of us think of this before?” Dante said. “Someone is glamouring people at the hospital. If it’s not Logan, it’s someone else. There’s a vampire there, somewhere. Or a human who knows how to glamour.”
“That’s not possible,” River said. “Glamouring requires vampire blood. Humans can hypnotize, but it’s not exactly the same thing.”
I cleared my throat. “You said glamouring requires vampire blood. Does that mean anyone with vampire blood can glamour?”
“I don’t know,” River said. “Why?”
“Apparently I have vampire blood.”
“Most people with vamp blood don’t even know they have it,” Dante said. “For all intents and purposes, they’re human.”
“He’s right. I didn’t mean to be literal. Only full-blooded vamps can glamour. At least as far as I know.”
