“We have to press his wound.”
“Jules, he’s poisoned,” Dani whispered. “You can’t.”
Then, he turned to her. Their eyes met. His were pleading, his voice was strained. “Help me, please.”
Numbly, Erica’s feet moved toward him on instinct.
Dropping the blade on the floor, Julius pulled off his shirt, balled it up, and tucked it between her hands.
“Apply as much pressure as you can.”
Erica nodded. The warmth of Julius’s body was drastically different than Evan’s. He was cold and waning. Erica shrank away, but Julius’s steady hand pulled her forward and pressed the shirt to Evan’s stomach. Shaking, she pressed the shirt down.
“What kind of poison is this?” Julius asked, the question directed toward Asher. Asher looked at the weapon on the floor.
“Shifter blood, but a compound of some sort,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”
Alarm dotted Julius’s emerald eyes as he looked at the wound on his brother’s stomach. The confident businessman had vanished. In his place, lay someone shattered. He glanced worriedly down at his brother.
“Press harder,” Asher’s voice was gruff. “You’re not going to hurt him any more than he already is.”
She tried to press the balled-up shirt into Evan’s abdomen, but it felt like jamming a key into a hole that it didn’t fit into. Gritting her teeth, she pressed down as hard as she could.
“How do we fix him?” She asked.
Several vampires looked at her at the same time.
“If we give him time, he’ll heal on his own,” Julius said.
“Your highness, he needs human blood.” Asher’s words were flat.
Then, she was at an advantage. “I-I can help him.”
Each vampire in the room wore a different expression. While Asher’s strong brow quirked in disbelief and Dani looked relieved, Julius was torn.
“Will it work?” Erica asked when they shared a look between them but didn’t say anything.
“It will, but it is a lot to ask.” Julius shook his head. “He’ll need a lot. It won’t be pleasant.”
“I’m not going to let him die.” Erica looked down at Evan. “If it’ll work, you can take my blood. As much as you need.”
“Thank you!” Dani looked like she wanted to give her a hug.
Evan’s eyes rolled upward and he let out a gurgle.
“He’s losing time,” Asher brought their attention back. She looked down at Evan again. There was no way she could press his wound and feed him blood at the same time. The others sensed this as well.
“Here. I’ll take it.” Dani grabbed a hold of the shirt in Erica’s hand.
“Dani, don’t!” Julius warned.
Dani was already pressing the shirt into Evan’s stomach. She flinched as his poisoned blood met her fingertips. It sounded like the butt of a lit cigarette was being put out against her skin. The skin around her fingertips and knuckles began to blacken. The poison was burning her.
“I have to help.” She gritted her teeth and pressed the ball of blood-soaked fabric further into Evan despite her obvious pain.
Julius nodded, then moved to her. “Blood drinking is a bit different than—”
Asher cleared his throat. “Your highness.”
“Right.” Julius nodded and turned to her. They didn’t have time for the mechanics.
He took her hand and held it to his mouth. His fangs drew down and pressed into her flesh. She felt the pressure before blood pooled in her palm. He pressed it gently to Evan’s lips.
“Drink brother.”
Evan didn’t.
“Come on Evan. Drink.”
Her blood trickled over his lips, and it took a moment for him to respond. He latched on, eagerly suckling the side of her hand. Softly at first, but as he gathered his strength, the sucking grew deeper.
“He’s drinking.” She was relieved. When she looked at Julius, he was watching her intently as Evan sucked at her hand so hard it was painful. She winced, bit down on the inside of her cheek, and made herself calm down. She was going to be fine. Sensing her discomfort, Julius’s warm hand stroked her shoulders. It fueled her forward. He leaned in and murmured softly against her ear. Thanking her for being so brave. So, she had to be, even if it felt like her hand was drying into a raisin. Erica closed her eyes and let the vampire under her take deep gulps of her blood. Blood rushed to her head making her dizzy.
“It’s working.”
Peeking under her eyelashes, she stared at Evan’s stomach. Dani had removed the balled-up shirt. The dark viscous substance retreated back toward the wound. The black veins started to fade, leaving pink streaks across his skin until the wound closed up. The tightness in the room eased when Evan let go and relaxed back onto the floor.
“Is he okay?” she asked, trying to keep the room from spinning. “Does he need more?”
Erica looked at the bites on her hand. Two small round circles puckered under her pinky; the wound closed. She held it back up to Julius for him to bite her again. “Here.”
“He has had his fill. His body heals,” Asher looked at the wound on Evan’s stomach.
“Are you alright?” Julius asked her in concern when she flopped back onto her butt.
“I’m fine.” Exhausted, but she’ll live after a nap. She pointed at Evan, who lay unnaturally still. “Is he? He’s not waking up.”
“He will,” Dani said, folding the soiled shirt in her hands.
“Dani, your hands.” Julius reached for his sister. The tips of her fingers had completely blackened like she’d dredged them in soot.
“I’m fine,” she tucked them away inside of her fists. “It hardly hurts.”
“Good,” Evan’s scratchy voice said from underneath them. “Can you please stop sitting on my arm. It’s hurting.”
“Dani, you’re hurting my arm,” Evan said, his voice scratchy.
“Well no one told you to put your arm right there,” Dani retorted, but there was only relief in her voice.
“You’re okay?” Erica asked, looking at the pale brother.
“Yes.” He nodded a fraction before his blue eyes found Julius. His voice was weak, but its intent stern. “He won’t stop.”
“Evan, you need to rest.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head weakly. “You have to understand. He won’t stop until he has her.”
When Evan glanced at her, she knew exactly what he meant. Splinters was coming for her.
“Why me? Why not—” Erica stopped short of saying Max’s name.
“An eye for an eye.”
She didn’t understand. What did that mean? She didn’t do anything to Splinters. Apparently, Julius knew something she didn’t because he rose to his feet and the exhaustion in his face turned into one of determination.
“Then we’ll take care of him.”
“No, you’re not understanding. They’re coming for her. Now.”
18
JULIUS
ERICA’S DELICATE HAND FOUND HIS at his side. He intertwined his fingers with hers. His vampire crooned. Her skin was velvety soft and the only thing keeping him from scouring the city in search of her ex and killing him.
“I don’t understand.” Her voice was shaky. Scared.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about your ex,” he said with a heavy sigh and avoided her gaze. Her curious stare turned into one of scrutiny.
“Besides the fact that he’s a cheating, lying jerk?” Bitterness coated her tone.
“There’s more to that.” He glanced at Erica but wished he hadn’t. Her wide eyes stole his breath. She was innocent in all of this. She deserved the truth. Instead, what came out was, “You have to trust me.”
From the determined look on her face, he knew she was never going to swallow that whole. If anything, he’d learned Erica was full of surprises.
“Trust is earned with the truth,” she said. “There are people after me. I should know why.”
; An unfamiliar feeling settled inside of him—one he hadn’t felt in a long time. He almost couldn’t identify it at first. It made his vampire want to make more of those paper flowers, although he was no good at making them. He wanted to buy more buildings he couldn’t return, even though he promised Erica he could. But not as a gesture of his affection for her. He wanted to do it because he was sorry. It was guilt. She had always had every right to know about her ex, and he’d withheld it from her. He had no right to do that. There was only one way to ease it. The truth.
He nodded after a while. “Yes, you should.”
He looked over at his siblings. Evan laid on his side and Dani hovered over him. Even though they were doing their best to try to make it seem like Julius and Erica had privacy, they were failing miserably. The pair looked like two statues erected in the middle of their suite. They could have at least made a show of talking to each other. Or moving.
“Maybe we should talk in private.” He motioned to his bedroom. Erica nodded and went first. He followed, closing the door behind him. At least some of Erica’s dignity would be preserved if she wanted it.
“Perhaps you should sit.” He motioned to his bed—a bed he very much wanted Erica in. His fangs elongated when she sat on the edge of it. He was already devising ways to keep her in it. He forced his vampire to behave. Now was not the time.
“So, why is Splinters after me?” Erica asked. Her voice was plain, her eyes inquisitive.
“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this.”
“Just say it. What’s so bad that I now have a maniac after me?”
He should keep it simple. Tell her that her ex cheated on her with a sadistic trader’s mistress, gambled away his boat in the process, and now owed him a debt equal to that which included her. Sure, that was going to go over extremely well.
“Max slept with Splinters’s mistress, and now he wants to avenge it.”
“I’m sorry, I must have misheard you. Max slept with a maniac’s mistress and now said maniac is after me?”
He nodded, knowing it was probably unwise to use too many words right now. With the way her entire body tensed up, he could see the anger start in her toes and travel up to her hair follicles. She turned a bright shade of red, then it darkened the more she thought over what he said.
“I have people after me because he couldn’t keep it in his pants?” Erica clutched her hands into a tight ball in her lap. She stared at the floor. Then she went silent. Much too silent. He started to worry.
“Erica, are you—”
“Just when I begin to think he can’t be any more of an asshole!” Her outburst was furious and sudden. He stood watching the woman in front of him come apart in a fit of anger. She began to pace alongside the bed, looking completely dazed at her feet as she did so. The way her veins bulged in her neck was worrisome. Her face was completely shaded in a blistering hue of red. Then her gaze found him. When her eyes travelled up the length of him, it made him shift his weight from one foot to the other. She was frighteningly angry.
“How do you know? Did Max tell you this himself?”
“I overheard him.”
More silence. Then she said, “When? How long have you known?”
“Erica…”
“When did you know?”
“Before we painted together. I overheard him when we went to survey a property that we might invest in.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“What was I supposed to say?”
“Anything besides nothing,” she shouted.
“It didn’t seem to matter.” His voice began to raise to match.
“It mattered to me,” she cried. Her hands slapped at her own chest. “We had history together. I might have been considering going back to him.”
Just the thought of her even thinking of someone else irked him. No, it infuriated him. By the gods, he wanted to claim her and leave his mark where everyone could see it. Mate her for life. So both she and everyone else she’d ever come into contact with would know she was his. He clenched his teeth and bared his fangs. His vampire growled and took control of their conversation. “You were never going to go back to him.”
“We were going to get married once upon a time, you don’t just throw that away.”
“You. Were. Never. Going. Back.” He enunciated each word and moved into her space and looked her directly in the eye.
“How do you know?” For all her determination, he saw her succumb to his intensity. By the way she faltered, he knew she’d never once looked back. He softened, only a hair.
“Because you’re mine, Erica. You belong to me now.” When she opened her mouth, he didn’t allow her to speak. “He was never going to have you again. I’m here now and there will be no one after me. Understood?”
“That’s the thing. You’re here now. We haven’t even hit the three-week limit yet. My life will be in shambles, and you’ll be free back in your vampire world with your princely duties, living your best life.”
“There’s no life for me without you.”
“How can you say that so definitively?”
“I won’t mince my words because I need you to understand me. You are my mate Erica. For a vampire, that means you are everything to me. There is no best life without you in it.”
“Don’t you have to go back to the vampire world?” It was a last-ditch effort to convince herself out of falling for him. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one in denial.
“Only long enough that I can leave it permanently.”
“You can’t do that. You’re a prince.”
“Elder has many princes. It can live without me. I, on the other hand, cannot live without you.”
“I-I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me you’ll continue to allow me to woo you relentlessly until you can’t live without me either… since you’re dangerously close already.”
That earned a laugh from her, along with a playful shake of her head. He couldn’t help but smile because he’d made her smile.
“There you go again, always knowing exactly what to say to make me feel better.”
“It’s a gift. Some of us have natural charm,” he joked with a nonchalant shrug, although his insides cheered. His jubilation was short-lived. The phone inside his suite rang. He looked at the phone for a moment. It was the front desk. What the hell did they want at this time of night? He picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“I-I’m sorry to disturb you, um, Mr. Craul. You have a visitor. I’m putting her through to your monitor.”
He looked up at Erica with a dead weight in his chest. He should have been focused on getting her out to a safe place.
In a flash, he was at the front door checking the monitor near the elevator. When he saw a shocking shade of purple hair, his brows nearly met his hairline.
“Verna?”
“Who is it?” Dani asked from the sofa.
“She’s a friend of ours.”
“What is she doing here?”
His thoughts exactly. She’d already told him she wouldn’t refund him the money for the studio he’d purchased. But there she was, standing in the lobby of his hotel. He reached for the phone beside the monitor and greeted the front desk attendant.
“Let me speak to her. Keep the monitor on.”
After a moment of shuffling, Verna answered. “Your highness, I know it’s late, but I knew you’d be up.”
“What do you want?”
She cleared her throat. “I came to talk to you about our contract.”
“I think you’ve made your terms quite clear.” He watched the monitor, soaking up the image. Nothing in the mage’s movements were out of the ordinary. She tucked one arm under the other for support as she stretched the wire over the front desk to talk. Otherwise, nothing suspicious alerted him of something amiss. By the gods, he was on edge.
“I’ve reconsidered.” Her voice was level and calm. Nothing in her seemed suspicious.
; “At this time of night?”
“Yes… I’ve been losing sleep over this…”
Of all the nights, she chose this one to have a conscience.
“Jules, is everything okay?”
He looked around the room. It was devoid of the necessary people. Only Dani sat on the sofa, but now her back was completely straight as she sat turned toward him in concern. It was misplaced.
“Where’s Evan?”
“He’s washing his wound. Asher’s helping. Or trying.” Her golden eyes flickered to Evan’s closed door. Julius could only imagine the shenanigans his brother was up to.
“At least he’s healing.”
“Who’s coming up here?”
“A business associate of mine. It should be quick.”
He looked up when Erica eclipsed his doorway. He smiled when he saw her. By the gods, he was smitten.
“Hey.” He walked over to her. “I just have to handle something, and we can settle in for the night. We can deal with everything else once morning comes.”
Erica gave him a grateful nod. Small folds creased under her eyes. Her tiredness was showing.
“You can get started without me.”
“No, I’ll wait.” She yawned.
He gave her a half-grin. Whether she realized it or not, she was acting like his mate already. Dani made room for them on the sofa as they waited for Verna to come up. Erica leaned her head against his arm but he moved it so she could settle into his chest. He and his vampire were on a cloud. Her sweet honeysuckle and lilac scent smelled like home to him.
Evan’s bedroom door swung opened with a swift, sudden motion. “Who did you let up here?” Evan asked, his voice more alert than it had been since he regained consciousness.
Even though his brother hadn’t returned to his normal color, he was beginning to walk around thanks to the aid of Erica’s blood. He clutched at his side and leaned against the door frame and stared at the gold-coated elevators in their suite.
“Verna.” His voice hiked, matching the agitation in his brother’s. “Why?”
“Don’t let her in.”
“What?” Julius sprang to his feet, jostling Erica in the process. Several alarmed expressions followed. “What is it?”
Love Bitten (Vampire Blood Royals Book 1) Page 16
