Blood Curse (25 page)

"Crazy how?"

"Just weird. He said he needed the journal back, that it belonged to his brother and he hadn't asked permission to take it. When I asked why his brother needed it, he got hostile. He even demanded I allow him to drive me home so he could retrieve it tonight. Said he had to have it, couldn't wait."

"Seems like he was awfully eager to have it,” Seta commented. “I wonder why the sudden need."

"Yeah, and that's not all.” Aria shivered again as a cold chill snaked its way along her spinal column. “The book I told you about earlier wasn't a library book, but I found it on the shelves. He seemed disturbed by the fact that I was reading it, mad even. He told me to put it back on the shelf so the owner would come back and get it, said it shouldn't fall into the wrong hands. But it would have made more sense if I'd kept it or destroyed it instead of putting it back on the shelf where it very well might land in the wrong hands."

"He just didn't want you to have it.” Seta's eyebrows drew together as she mulled over the new information. “Maybe the book was left there for you. Maybe you're being guided."

"By whom?"

"The Dream Teller?” Rialto suggested. “You dreamed of her earlier. So did I."

"That's possible but not likely,” Seta commented as she paced the floor with her finger to her chin. “She's never stepped outside the dream realm."

"Are you saying she only exists in dreams?"

"No. She must have a physical form, but she's never appeared to anyone in it. She's never stepped outside the bounds of the dream world."

"Who else would be guiding me?” Aria asked, goosebumps rising on her flesh at the thought of someone watching over her, guiding her. It seemed so intrusive.

"Have you ever seen a spirit?"

"Are you seriously trying to say a ghost left that book in the library?"

Seta shrugged. “It was just a thought. Truth is, the Elders may be behind the book. What was in it?"

"A lot of demonic stuff. Spells and rituals. Really dark stuff involving sacrifices and altars. Who are the Elders? Are they the three mentioned in the book?"

"What three?"

"The three vampires who refused to let evil inside them when they were transformed."

Seta nodded slowly, her eyes widening. “That would probably be them. We don't know much about our origins. We've heard of the Elders though. They're like rulers, judging our fates. With you being predestined to become one of us, it's a definite possibility they're guiding you toward us."

"If that was the intention of whomever left the book, they were wrong. According to it, I will be hunted until I give birth, and if I make it that far my child will be hunted. Why in the world would I knowingly give birth to a child who would have to live its life in hiding?"

"The same reason why your mother gave birth to you in that hick town. Love."

Aria drew back as though she had been slapped. The witch looked at her with a smug twist to her lips, knowing she had made her point. And, as much as Aria hated to admit it, Seta was right. Aria's mother had known a biracial child would be unwelcome in Pickahoe and that her paternity would have to be hidden, but she'd had her anyway. Aria couldn't help feeling ashamed that she wasn't as courageous and loving as her mother. “Yeah, well, if I never have the child I'll never love it, will I?"

Seta rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath that Aria suspected was unpleasant. “And here I thought you were smart. You'll get what I was referring to when the time is right. I hope.” She looked pointedly at Aria and snapped her fingers impatiently. “Get me this journal. Maybe it has something to do with the visions I've been having about books with blood coming out of the pages."

Aria shuddered at the image, but dutifully retrieved the journal from the backpack she'd left on the floor next to the sofa. “There's a lot of research in there,” she said as she handed the book over to Seta. “I was hoping maybe there's something about The Blood Revelation in there that I missed. Some way to help Rialto without me having to . . . you know."

Sparks of anger danced around Seta's pupils but soon dissolved, her eyes growing warm and compassionate. “If I find anything in here, I can guarantee it won't be that. Sometimes we have to accept our fate.” She looked at her son. “Before it's too late and we end up living with guilt and regret."

He was going to lose his mind. Rialto clenched his fists together and bit into his lower lip, trying to fight back the urge to kick down the door to Aria's bathroom and drag her out of the shower stall and into his arms. Making it to the bed wouldn't even be an option.

"I know what you're thinking,” Seta sang from where she was sitting at the dinette table, poring over Alfred Dunn's journal. “Go on in there. She's already naked so that part's out of the way. I'll just pretend I don't hear all the noise."

"Stay out of my head, Mother."

"Don't call me Mother in that tone. You make me feel as though I gave birth to Norman Bates.” She looked up from the journal and stared him down with a look of utter ruthlessness. “We are bonded as mother and child, and as sire and fledgling. I can't help knowing what goes through your mind when your emotions are this strong. I won't do you any favors by ignoring what's going on.” She dropped her gaze back down to the book before her. “Your body is craving what it needs for survival. I'll be damned if I don't at least try to nudge your foolish ass in the right direction."

Rialto growled, wishing there was some way to turn off his mind link with his mother when she was determined to snoop. His body quivered as he heard another splash of water hit Aria's skin, imagined the tiny droplets of water drizzle over the curves of her naked flesh. Damn his overactive imagination and hypersensitive hearing! The smells of soap and rain scented shampoo wafted out and teased his nose, driving him closer to the breaking point.

He could see himself kneeling before her on the slippery tile, using his tongue to trace the drops of water from her ankle, working his way up slowly, making her tremble with desire, following the wet path, dipping into hollows here and there until he reached one dusky nipple, already pebbled in anticipation of his mouth. “Son of a bitch!"

Seta laughed, refusing to stop when Rialto tried to quell her with a hard glare. “I'm sorry, darling, but from here it's rather amusing. Just give in to it."

"I can't. Just stay out of my head."

"Fine.” She raised her hands in mock surrender. “But I'm not the only woman in this apartment that can feel what's going through your system. You bonded with her."

"What?"

Seta smiled devilishly. “She feels you and everything you're thinking of over there is running through her mind too. Why do you think she's still in the shower? She's trying to cool off."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm a woman, Rialto. I know what I'm talking about. She's in there, hot, wet . . . in more ways than one . . . and waiting.” She nodded in the direction of the bathroom. “You don't have to change her over tonight. Just take a little sip and get your strength back. You'll need it to protect her if we come across the killer. And for goodness sake, don't pass up the opportunity because I'm here. I'll sever our link."

"You would do that?"

Seta grimaced. “What do you take me for? It's one thing to know what you're doing, but to experience it with you from inside your own body . . . That's just sick."

Rialto looked down the hall, focusing on the bathroom door. It was such a thin barrier between him and pure carnal bliss. Yet, he couldn't raise his body from the sofa.

"You know you want to,” Seta said in the same singsong teasing tone she had used earlier. “Go get her, cowboy.” She erupted into chuckles as Rialto speared her with a look of annoyance and forced himself to stand. Just a little sip of blood mingled in with great sex, he reminded himself, as he put one foot in front of the other. He could do this. He could keep things under control.

Aria's breath hitched as she heard the bathroom door open. She was braced with her hands against the shower's tiles, her head bent as the water rained over her, ineffective in its attempt to cool her heated skin. She felt everything running through Rialto's mind, saw the images as clearly as if they were actually doing those things, and it made her hungry to reenact them. Damn the consequences.

The shower curtain swished as it was pushed aside. Rialto's presence sucked the air out of the stall, and his musky male scent enveloped her, filling her head until there was only room for one thought, the thought of him. His smell, his taste, his touch. Everything that was definitively Rialto.

"Can you feel it?” He whispered in her ear, and she knew he wasn't talking about the hard, straining length of him pressed against her backside, but of the electric charge in the air, the pull of their two bodies toward each other.

Breathing too hard to answer, she laid her head back, resting it on his shoulder as he bent over her, licking along her collarbone. “I won't change you,” he whispered huskily against her skin, his warm breath igniting small fires throughout her body. “I will need to take a little sip of your blood to take the edge off this fever.” He turned her around in his arms. “Did you see what I had planned?"

She nodded languidly, drunk with raw desire.

"Do I have your permission?"

She smiled slowly, then placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him to his knees.

Seta peered closer at the handwritten words in Alfred Dunn's journal, something in the change of script bothering her. Alfred Dunn had a neat, precise penmanship through the majority of the journal's beginning. What came later could only be referred to as chicken scratch, some parts written in such haste they were barely legible. The messy writing dominated the last third of the journal, and some scrawls were placed in between lines and within margins of the beginning text as though he had decided to make notes at a later time. A much later time, judging by the difference in inks.

Seta studied the differences in writing on one of the pages where the erratic scrawl first showed up and it all clicked. The writing was so different because the journal was written by two different people. So who was carrying on Alfred Dunn's research, and why?

The great-grandchild? But, no, it couldn't be. Why would he give the book to Aria? Seta closed her eyes and recalled all the images that had flooded her mind in the last few days. Books, blood pouring from the pages. Needle. Eron. Rows of books . . . like a library. Alfred Dunn's great-grandson worked at a library. He gave Aria the book. It had to mean something. What was she overlooking?

Seta closed the book and rested her hands on the cover. She cleared her mind of all thoughts, focusing only on the image of Eron. If she could find out what happened to him, she could find the killer. She was certain of it. She meditated with her hands on the journal and Eron's face in her mind's eye. She felt her energies transfer into the pages of the book before her, and when the vibrations of the energy built to a deafening roar in her ears she finally spoke. “Find Eron."

She opened her eyes and watched as the pages of the journal turned on their own. She waited for them to stop and looked down at the book that lay open before her. The page staring back at her was a list. There were several lists among the entries and she had skimmed over most, not considering them important. She could have slapped herself as she looked at the list her magic had found. “Of course,” she whispered, glancing at the list of Keepers written in the erratic scrawl near the back of the journal, noting the one listed next to Eron's name. “Who better to know what happened, but I already asked her."

She placed her finger over the Keeper's name and was hit with a vision so horrific it left the taste of blood in her mouth. Fresh blood, blood she would take from Eron's Keeper as revenge for what she had done to him.

"No, Aria!” It took all of Rialto's willpower to force her away, but it had to be done. He cursed as he saw his own blood dripping from the corner of her mouth as she lunged for him.

"I said no!” He pushed her down on the floor of the shower stall, holding her hands tightly over her head while he straddled her thighs. He licked his bottom lip, allowing the healing properties in his saliva to repair the damage she'd done. “This has gone too far. You weren't supposed to drink from me.” She continued to writhe beneath him, digging her talon-like fingers into his hands. “Dammit, Aria. You could change."

"I don't care,” she cried, continuing to struggle beneath him, sputtering out water that had made its way into her mouth when she spoke.

Rialto gripped both of her wrists in one hand and reached up with the other to turn off the shower. “That's the bloodlust talking. It's not what you really want.” He waited until he felt the worst of the fight drain out of her, and then pulled her into his arms, her back to his chest, on the shower floor. He held her as she trembled, knowing she wasn't quivering from cold but from hunger, longing.
Need.
“I know it feels awful, Aria. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have allowed it to go this far."

"At least you didn't run away."

Shame sliced into him, deep and hard. He couldn't deny he felt like running right now, but her safety was too important. He could leave her with Seta for a short while, just long enough for him to straighten his head out. Then again, Seta would probably brainwash her, manipulate her just as she had manipulated him. Anger slowly started to burn through him as he recalled her teasing. She knew how on edge he was, how hungry. She knew if he fooled himself into thinking he could control things . . . But he did control the situation. Not as well as he should have, but there was no real harm done.

Damn it, there could have been and Seta knew it. Yet, she had kept on pushing with her taunting and coaxing.

"Get yourself together, dry off, and meet me in the living room.” Rialto said as he quickly exited the shower stall and wrapped a towel around his waist, not bothering to look back as he left Aria in the bathroom. Her naked flesh was too tempting.

He marched into the living area, fully prepared to give Seta an earful, but stopped short when he saw Alfred Dunn's journal abandoned at the dinette table.