by HELEN HARDT
“I was always here. I never left your side. You left me for a little while.”
I couldn’t reply. I couldn’t even nod and take the chance that she might detect a difference in my demeanor.
“It’s okay. Do not move. Do not make any indication that I’m here.”
Did I need to let him know I could hear him? I didn’t dare.
“Listen well, Dante. She doesn’t know I’m here. She’s a woman of science. From what I can surmise, she doesn’t concern herself with anything other than the science of the earthly plane. As far as she is concerned, when my body died, I no longer existed.”
I remained silent.
“As you are developing new powers, it seems I am too. After I knocked my father off his feet, I conferred with a few others in the ghostly realm. Apparently, most ghosts cannot move things on the earthly plane no matter how hard they try.”
I inhaled harshly at his words, but then exhaled slowly so as not to give myself away. She continued speaking, but I concentrated on my father.
“It’s possible something was done to me while I was held captive—something that changed the energy that is me. I don’t know. Something was done to both of us. I have no idea whether my blood was tampered with as yours was, and there’s no way to tell now, as my body has been cremated. But I’m certain experimentation is being done here. Experimentation that I fear you and I were a part of.”
“You will listen to me!”
I jerked. I’d been much more interested in my father’s words.
“Pretend,” my father said. “Show her she still has control over you. Then ask to see your sister. I will not leave your side, but I’ll stay quiet for now.”
I swallowed the nausea creeping up my throat. “I apologize, my queen.”
“Yes, that’s better.”
“Why am I here, my queen? How big is this place?”
“That’s none of your concern for now.”
“Then it will be my concern sometime in the future?”
“Perhaps. If you prove yourself worthy.”
“How do I do that, my queen? I want more than anything to be worthy of you.” I nearly retched at my own words.
“Please, Dante,” she said with an eye roll. “I wasn’t born yesterday. In fact, I was born long ago, and I have you—among others—to thank for my long life.”
Chapter Three
Erin
“Would the two of you please shut the fuck up?”
River and Jay turned to me, their gazes both burning.
At least they’d stopped bickering.
“I’m not leaving.” I set my hands on my hips, hoping I looked stronger and more indignant than I actually felt. “I have the most at stake here. If what Bill told us about the blood bond is true, I will die if I don’t feed Dante. So there. Top that one.”
“Erin—” Jay began.
“Don’t. I need to be here.”
“You’ll be glamoured,” River said.
“I have to believe”—I paused a moment, inhaling deeply—“that I will find Dante, or that he will find me when he needs to feed. Our connection is so strong, and our need for each other too great. We will find each other and keep each other from death. We will.”
“But—”
I stopped River with a hand on his arm. “The bond is strong. It will resist a glamour. I have to believe that. Even if I am glamoured, Dante will be able to find me and take what he needs. But I have to be here for that to happen.”
“You’d let him feed from you while you’re glamoured?” Jay asked. “Isn’t that kind of like…rape?”
Jay was ever the older brother, always trying to protect me. “It’s not like that, Jay. We have a bond. There is always consent between us for a feeding. There always has been.”
River started to speak again, and again I stopped him.
“Please. I know neither of you understand because you don’t share a bond like this with anyone. I can’t describe it, other than to say that we are meant to be in every way. We will have children someday, and our first child will be—”
I stopped abruptly.
The vision I’d had during an orgasm came hurtling back into my mind in vivid color. The beautiful baby boy, our son, who I handed to Dante.
He was vampire.
Dante said he’d had the same vision.
“What is it?” River asked.
I rubbed my forehead, thinking. “Levi Gaston thought he could produce a vampire child with his human wife, but he wasn’t successful.”
“Of course he wasn’t successful,” River said. “It’s impossible.”
“But what if it’s not?” My mind raced. “What if there’s a way to tamper with genetics? To produce a vampire child through mating a human and a vampire? Oh my God. We’ve got to get back in there. We’ve got to find Emilia.”
“Are you saying that my child could be a vampire?” Jay asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But they took Emilia for some reason, and they wanted to make sure she was pregnant. They made her take a pregnancy test before they took her. And they took the others, all with B positive blood…”
I flashed back quickly to my dream. The baby crying. And the blood bank full of nothing but B positive units.
“Something about the blood type and the positive Rh factor must be the key.”
“The key to what?” Jay asked.
“The key to producing a vampire baby from a human and vampire.”
“I think you’re stretching here, Erin,” River said.
“Bonneville wanted me pregnant. Why else would she have replaced my pills with placebos?”
“We still don’t know she’s the one who did it,” Jay reminded me.
“Who else could it have been? She came to my home to tell me she was going on vacation. Why? This isn’t a woman who fraternizes with the hospital staff. So why would she come to my home just to tell me something when she could have called or texted? Why, except to have access to my home and my pills?”
“You don’t think—”
“She let Dante go,” I said, ignoring my brother. “She let him escape so he could find me. Get me pregnant.”
“Erin,” River said, “you and the others have B positive blood, true. But if a B positive human can mate with a vampire and produce a vampire child, we’d have figured it out by now. There would also be a lot more vampires. We’d still be a minority, but we’d be numbering in the millions.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “B is the second-least common of all the types.”
“That makes it the third-most common,” my smartass brother said.
“Thanks for that,” I snapped. Then I sighed. “You’re right. Just by random selection there would be a lot more vampires in the world if mating a vampire with a B positive human produced one. I’m a nurse. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking you want an answer,” Jay said. “Nothing wrong with that. We know B positive blood has something to do with all of this. We just don’t know what.”
“I hate to interrupt this scientific discussion—”
I glared at River. “Don’t even think about rolling your eyes.”
“Hey”—he held up his hands in mock surrender—“I’d never.”
“Right.”
“Whatever. We’ve got to get back to basics here. We need a plan. If I’m going to be bait—”
“Sorry, partner,” Jay interrupted. “We’ve already determined that Erin and I are staying, so scrap that idea.”
“Why? It’s a good idea.”
“To put yourself in harm’s way?” Jay shook his head. “Do you think your father would want that?”
“He has a point, River,” I agreed.
“You’re right. But we’ve got to do something. Maybe we can go talk to Bea. See if she can help.”
“How would we get to her?” Jay asked. “By the time we did, someone could cut off this entrance.”
“I doubt it,” River said. “Bonneville has a way to get in a
nd out. So do the Claiborne vamps. If this isn’t the only entrance, there has to be another one.”
“Yeah,” Jay said, “but do we want to have to go to the trouble to find that one? We already know where this one is.”
“Another good point, River,” I said.
“I’m beginning to feel ganged up on here.” River rubbed his forehead. “We have only a little food and water with us. It won’t last more than a couple days.”
“Then we’ll just have to find the women, your dad, and Dante, and free them in a few days. Simple as that.” I dug into my backpack and pulled out my mother’s book. Still glued shut. “Damn.”
“We could sure use the wisdom of the book right now,” Jay said. “Maybe it’s not shielded after all. Maybe it’s just glued shut.”
“Bea assured me it was shielded,” I said, though I was feeling pretty skeptical myself at this point.
“Then, apparently, if what Mom says is true, we don’t need the book yet,” Jay said.
“We sure as hell need something.” River shoved his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. “If you two are bound and determined to stay here, I won’t try anymore to talk you out of it. But there won’t be anything I can do for you if you get glamoured.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jay said. “If it happens, you get your sister and the others out of here. That’s what we came here to do, and that’s what we should each, individually, concentrate on, no matter what happens to any of us.”
I swallowed the acidic fear in my throat. My brother was right. We had one goal here—to free those being held captive against their will. Once that was done, we needed to get the hell out of this place. We could study the Texts and figure out what was happening to Dante once we were back home.
If we made it home.
Chapter Four
Dante
Had I gone too far?
“Easy, son,” my father said.
Yes. Clearly, in my father’s eyes, I had gone too far. What had I been thinking? Baring my fangs at her and then suddenly wanting more than anything to be worthy of her?
Might as well go for broke at this point.
“I want to see my sister.”
“I assure you she is safe.”
“Fine. She’s safe. She’s also my sister, and I want to see her.”
“You doubt my word?” Her eyes turned an even icier light blue.
“I heard her scream when I was coming down here,” I said, willing myself not to lose my temper. “I know her voice. If she’s safe, why was she screaming?”
“You must be mistaken, Dante.”
“I’m not mistaken. I heard a baby cry, and I heard two different women scream. The second scream was my sister.”
“Perhaps you were hearing things,” she said.
I paused a moment to see if my father had any advice.
He remained silent.
Damn!
I inhaled. Best to stay focused.
“I want to see my sister,” I said again.
“I assure you she is safe.”
Big déjà vu. Were we going to repeat the entire previous conversation?
“Try a different angle, Dante. Thank her, and then ask again.”
Thank her? For kidnapping my sister? I exhaled, gathering my nerves.
“Thank you for keeping her safe,” I said, forcing the words out. “I’d still like to see her. She’s pregnant, and I want to make sure she’s all right.”
“She’s fine. Her baby is fine.”
“Thank you, my queen. May I please see her anyway? It would mean a lot to me.”
She sighed. “If I let you see her, you must then go straight back to your dungeon. Is that clear?”
“Tell her yes, son.”
Was he crazy? As much as I wanted to see Emilia and assure her I was here to protect her, no way could I go back to that horrible place.
I remained silent.
“Tell her yes. I’ll find a way to get you out of it. I’ve tried moving through this underground compound without you, but most of it is shielded. I have not yet seen your sister.”
My father had never let me down. But what if he couldn’t keep me from being taken back to the dungeon? Back to true hell?
Trust, Dante.
The words came from within me. From the light within me. From Erin.
“Yes, my queen. If you allow me to see and speak to my sister, I will go back to my dungeon.”
I’d almost said “willingly” but thought better of it. This way, if my father couldn’t change anything, I could fight her and not break my word.
“Very well. You’ve been through a lot, and you made your way back to me. I suppose you deserve a small reward.”
She led me to another door, a double door this time, made of stainless steel. She inserted a key into the lock—
One of the disgusting human goons walked in. “It’s your lucky day, shithead. The queen has something to teach you.” He unbound my leather restraints and put a black mask over my head.
I inhaled through my mouth so I didn’t have to smell his unbearable stench. I said nothing. Didn’t matter anyway. If I asked questions, he either wouldn’t respond or he’d lie to me. I’d eventually find out where I was going.
He led me to another room, this one with more light. Harsh fluorescent light. Sitting at a table was a masked vampire. He had no scent.
“Sit down,” the vampire said gruffly.
I stood.
“You hard of hearing? I said sit down. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to teach you something.”
On the table before him sat several different kinds of locks. A padlock. A combination lock. A deadbolt like one used on a front door.
I sat. The vampire could very well be lying, but what the hell else was there to do?
“Ever pick a lock before?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“You will today. It’s a skill that’ll come in handy when you’re out of here.”
I stayed silent. Why would picking a lock come in handy? I was no thief.
“Why do I need to learn to pick a lock?” I asked.
“Don’t have the foggiest. I do what I’m told, and today I was told to teach you how to pick locks.” He leaned forward, and something sparkled on the lapel of his jacket.
A gold pin…with an odd-looking fleur-de-lis engraved on it. I squinted to make it out. The two downward petals were pointed, like fangs. I was intrigued. Should I ask about it? He’d probably lie.
No. I wouldn’t ask about the strange symbol. But I did have another question.
“Why do you do what she tells you?”
His dark-blue eyes burned as he met my gaze. “You think you’re the only one around here who gets tortured? I like to avoid it as much as possible. Now let’s get to work.”
Dark-blue eyes. The symbol. Decker? Had Decker taught me how to pick locks? I’d been able to pick the lock at Em’s apartment. Was that the reason she taught me how to pick locks? So I could get into Em’s apartment?
No. First, it couldn’t have been Decker. He would have recognized me when we fought that day in the alley. I touched my face. No. I’d been masked. The goon had given me a mask. If Decker had been my instructor, he wouldn’t have recognized me when we fought.
Giles had recognized me, or at least recognized something in me. He’d said, “It’s him. The one she talks about.”
Em’s apartment. Had everything so far been preordained? Orchestrated by her? All to bring me to this point? And if so, what about Erin? What about our blood bond? Had she orchestrated that as well?
She was the female boss they worked for. That part I’d figured out a while ago, but now it all made more sense. She was dealing not only in certain drugs but also in B positive blood.
She opened the stainless-steel door, and I followed her into—
“Oh my God,” I said. “This is a hospital.”
“Fully equipped and staffed,” she said. “Took me decades to get i
t built.” She nodded to nurses and orderlies as we walked.
None of them seemed to take any notice of me, even when I met their eyes directly. I inhaled. Again, no unique human scents, but I did smell the iron and oxygen combination that was blood.
There was a blood bank here. My bet was that it was full of B positive.
“What do you do here?” I asked.
“All questions will be answered in good time.”
“Why not now? I’ve been asking question after question since I left, and you’ve answered with riddles and metaphors. Why did you go to all the trouble to build a secret hospital under New Orleans?”
“Easy, son.”
Thank God! My father was still here.
Wait! She’d said it had taken her decades to get it built. She couldn’t be more than forty or so.
“This place is amazing,” I said. “It truly took decades to build?”
“It did. But I was determined.”
“How many decades?”
“Why does that matter?”
Because you’re not very old. Though she’d said earlier that she was older than I knew, and that she had me to thank. “I suppose it doesn’t. What do you do here?”
“Research, mostly.”
“You don’t perform operations on people?”
“Of course I do. In the name of research.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Are you a surgeon, then?”
“I’m a hematologist and an emergency medicine physician. I’m perfectly capable of minor surgeries, but I bring in actual surgeons for the more difficult cases.”
Logan Crown. I didn’t dare mention his name. I didn’t want her to know what I was thinking, but I had the eerie feeling she already knew exactly where I’d been and what had happened to me every minute since I’d been gone.
She’d been in my head, whether by her doing or my own. Now I was convinced she’d been watching my every move as well.
We finally turned down a hallway. “Here’s where the patients stay.”
“Patients?”
“Of course, patients. I’m a doctor. I took an oath to cause no harm.”
