Blood Curse (5 page)

"If I do, I'm taking you with me."

"I've already been."

"I know.” Rialto released Aria's chin and turned toward the sofa, finding a seat among the blue cushions. “I know you've been through hell. I've witnessed it all, and I'm not here to hurt you any further, not unless you make me."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I was given an order to protect you."

Aria stood still, blinking at him, sure she'd heard him wrong. “You were sent to protect me?"

"Yes."

"By whom?"

"The Dream Teller."

"The what?"

"The who,” he said, correcting her. “The Dream Teller is a very old witch, a prophet for my kind. She forewarns us of imminent danger, and to date she has never been wrong."

"And this witch sent you to protect me, an ordinary woman?"

"How do I know you're an ordinary woman? You could be a very clever witch. None of that matters though. I was sent to protect you, so here I am. That's all you need to know."

"I don't believe you,” Aria said, tightening her hold on the knife. “One of you bloodsucking leeches killed my mother, and you've been playing with my head, sending me these dreams."

"That's impossible. I don't have the power to invade dreams."

"And I'm supposed to take your word for that?"

"You're going to have to because I'm here to protect you whether you like it or not, whether
I
like it or not."

"A monster is supposed to protect me,” Aria spat in disgust, as the rage inside her intensified. The man had confirmed her deepest fear. Vampires were real, and her mother had been murdered because the disgusting creatures lived off of human blood. Now he was spinning a story about a witch sending him to protect her. “How stupid do you think I am? You're probably the same sick bastard who drank my mother to death, and you're here now just to toy with me!"

She made a lunge for the cocky vampire sitting on her couch, jumping onto the coffee table with the knife raised over her head, fully intending to plunge it deep into the monster's heart. But in a flash of movement, he pinned her to a wall on the opposite side of the room, his hand squeezing her wrist with brutal force until she dropped the knife to the floor.

"If you ever do something that stupid again,” he growled as two fangs lowered from his gums, “I'll kill you without hesitation, regardless of my orders. Do you understand?"

Too terrified to speak, Aria nodded meekly and was dropped to the floor as Rialto stepped back and took a deep breath as his fangs receded.

"I'd actually thought you might be a witch,” he said as he bent down to retrieve the knife Aria had brandished against him, “but there's no way a witch would be stupid enough to pull a knife on a vampire without disabling him in some way first."

He shook his head as he walked into the kitchen, coming out seconds later with the wood block containing every knife Aria owned. She watched helplessly as he opened a window and threw out the knives before lowering the window pane back in place. “This will go a lot more smoothly if I don't have to worry about you stabbing me while I sleep."

"You're sleeping here?” A tremor of fear snaked its way down Aria's spine as she wondered how she was supposed to sleep with him nearby.

"If it comes to that. I have yet to discover what the threat against you is, although judging by that little display of poor restraint, I can imagine how easy it would be for you to get yourself into a great deal of trouble."

"Don't mock me. There's nothing wrong with wanting to avenge a loved one's death!"

"There is when you get yourself killed trying to do it, which is exactly what's going to happen to you if you don't slow down long enough to think rationally. And you won't be avenging anyone's death if you kill someone who had nothing to do with it. I didn't kill your mother, and the fact that I'm a vampire doesn't make me a blood-crazed, murdering psychopath."

"You kill people, drinking their blood to prolong your existence."

"I don't
have
to kill in order to feed. The fact that I am a vampire doesn't make me a monster. I'm a person just like you, and just like all life forms there are good and there are bad, but don't you dare insinuate I'm some evil devil-spawn because I happen to have lived decades longer than most. You of all people should know what it's like to be prejudged, to be an outcast."

Aria looked away, shame making her want to hide her face. “That's not fair."

"Very little in life is fair,” he muttered as he stepped past her, leaving the room.

After several minutes had passed and he didn't return, she rose from the floor and followed him, instinctively knowing where he'd went. As suspected, she found him standing before the open doors of her balcony, moonlight highlighting the hard planes of his face as he stared at her bed.

"This is it,” he said, almost more to himself than to her. “This is the place I always find you in my dreams."

"Why are we dreaming of each other?” She folded her arms across her chest and watched his back as he turned to stare out past the balcony.

"I have no idea. Two centuries of existence, and I've never experienced anything like it."

She waited a few minutes longer, but sensing he wasn't going to further elaborate on the thought, she changed the subject back to business. “I can't let my mother's death go unavenged. How do I find the vampire who killed her?"

The sigh he emitted was highly audible, even over the sounds wafting up from the street below. She waited as he turned back into the room, locking the balcony doors behind him, checking the locks to make sure they were secure. An odd gesture to be made by someone who had threatened to kill her a few moments earlier, she thought, but didn't comment on it. Hell, the whole situation was odd. A frigging vampire was in her bedroom, and she was carrying on a conversation with him as if it were the most normal thing in the world!

"There is no vampire,” Rialto said carefully, slowly, as if he were speaking to a traumatized child. “No vampire attacked your mother and left her body behind."

"Bullshit!” Aria's body shook with anger. “You just can't admit it, can you? It would kill you to own up to—"

Rialto's finger was pressed against her lips before she even saw him cross the room. Before she had a chance to ask how he had gotten that close so fast, he spoke harshly. “I'm not screwing you over, Aria, and I'm not protecting anyone. A vampire didn't kill your mother. I saw your mother's body through your eyes. I saw those puncture wounds."

"And you know her body was completely drained of blood,” Aria snapped. “How can you deny a vampire did that?"

Rialto's eyebrows furrowed. “Actually, I didn't know her body was drained of blood, but despite that, a vampire didn't leave those marks.” Rialto paced across the room, turning back toward Aria once he reached the opposite wall. “
Completely
drained?"

"Completely drained,” she responded. “Who else could have done that?"

"I don't know.” Rialto shook his head, continuing to pace. “I just know it couldn't be a vampire that drained her."

"You keep saying that. Why? The proof was right there!"

"The proof, as you call it, was a sham. Vampires don't leave puncture wounds. If we did, don't you think the entire world would know about us, not just a few people?"

Aria considered that. If vampires wanted to remain undetected, they couldn't just leave bodies lying around with fang marks, could they? “How do you bite into people and not leave marks?"

"Our saliva has healing properties in it. It's virtually impossible for a vampire to bite a person and leave a mark."

"No matter how deep the wound?"

"No matter how deep."

"That's impossible."

"Some would say it would be impossible for you to be standing in your bedroom talking to a vampire,” he responded with a mocking grin. “The world is not as black and white as you mortals tend to think."

"I don't believe you. You may not have killed my mother, but one of you did."

"Oh, so you believe I'm innocent now?” One dark eyebrow arched as he folded his arms, grinning down at her. “That's noble of you."

"Look, I know you could have killed me in the alley, and you could have drank the blood of those punks who jumped me, but you didn't. You could have just killed me in the living room a little while ago, but again, you didn't. You do have restraint, but I'm betting not all of your kind do."

"The same could be said of your kind."

"Let's not make this a debate. I may be just an angry, foolish little mortal to you, but I'm not stupid. My mother was murdered, her blood completely drained from her body, and the only damage done to her were two small holes, two perfect fang marks. Next thing you know I'm dreaming about some sexy vampire—"

"Sexy, huh?"

She glared at him. “I'm not complimenting you, I'm just stating the facts. I started having erotic dreams about a vampire, the most repulsive creature I can think of by the way, and lo and behold if that same vampire doesn't pop up out of the blue and save my life, claiming he was sent by some old witch to protect me. Obviously my mother's death is connected to whatever is going on between us."

"That may be,” Rialto conceded, “but that doesn't mean a vampire actually killed her. I'm telling you the truth about our saliva. There would be no fang marks left on her body if she'd been bitten by a vampire. The broken flesh would have completely healed."

"Sure it would. I'll believe that when I see it."

"Fine with me,” he said, clamping his hand around her wrist. “Let's go."

"What? Where are we going?” Aria asked in alarm as she was pulled down the hall behind the angry vampire. He walked with purpose in his step and didn't slow down, not even when she began punching him in the back of his head and back in fear.

"And to think you actually thought you could take out a club full of vampires,” he taunted as he pulled her toward the front door. “You can't even hurt one."

"How'd you know I was going into that club to kill vampires?"

"What else were you planning to do with that bag of stakes?” he asked but she didn't miss his frown and knew there was something more about his knowledge of her intentions.

"What are you doing?” she asked as he tugged her out the front door.

"You don't believe our saliva heals, so I'm going to show you it does."

"How are you going to do that?” she asked, gulping hard as he started down the interior hallway of her apartment building. “Where are we going?"

Rialto chuckled, the mischievous sound bordering on evil as he gazed down into her eyes and smiled.

"To feed."

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I must be out of my mind, Rialto thought, as he pulled Aria down the narrow alley bisecting Fat Kracker's from one of West Baltimore's most notorious apartment complexes. Both the bar-slash-grease pit and residential building were crawling with criminals and addicts. The scents of greed, desperation and various drugs hung heavy in the air. Beneath his fingers, Rialto could feel Aria's pulse beating rapidly in her wrist and wondered whether it was he or the neighborhood she feared. More than that, he wondered why he gave a damn.

"Rialto, do you know how dangerous this neighborhood is?” Aria asked, her voice quivering as her eyes darted side to side. “And at this time of night?"

"Trust me, I'm the most dangerous thing out here tonight,” he replied, grinning as he felt her pulse spike.

They continued down the alley, stepping over discarded bottles and piles of rotting waste, and again Rialto wondered what was wrong with him. He'd confirmed the woman's suspicions that he was indeed a vampire, a dangerous and sometimes fatal mistake to make with a mortal, and now he was bringing her with him to feed. Why? Because she'd pissed him off, he conceded, thinking back to her earlier remarks. He'd been called a monster thousands of times, but repulsive? It shouldn't bother him what the mortal thought about him or his kind, but for some reason it did, and that pissed him off even more.

She thinks I'm a repulsive monster? I'll show her a repulsive monster, Rialto thought, as he ducked under a rickety set of fire escape stairs, positioning Aria with him among the shadows so they could see the alley without being seen themselves.

"What are we doing here?"

"Hunting,” he answered irritably, and again asked himself why. He wasn't in dire need of blood. He could go another night or two if need be, but here he was, hiding among the shadows with the woman he'd dreamed about for over two decades yet was still a stranger. So why hunt at all tonight?

Because you saw the desire in her eyes,
he reminded himself. She'd tried to chase it away, but not before he'd seen the heat of it blazing in those eyes of pure green. It was the same look he saw in her eyes when he dreamed of her, right before she scratched her own throat to offer him her blood.

He would not allow the dream to become real.

She tensed before him, and he realized he was squeezing her wrist too tight. He released his grip and brought his other arm around her waist, holding her so that her back was firmly pressed against his chest. She let out a soft, barely audible whimper, reminding him of a kitten trapped by a pit bull, and her fear spiked another degree. He could sense it rolling off her in fervent waves as blood pumped harder through her veins, calling to him like a siren's song. He dipped his head, smelling the skin of her neck peeking out from the collar of her jacket. Coconut and leather fused together, combining with the fragrant aroma of blood and fear, begging him to taste the droplets of sweat glistening along her collarbone.

"Try it and die,” Aria warned, and he felt the unmistakable point of a sharpened stake pushing against his throat.

Rialto blinked rapidly, drawing himself out of the fog he'd been under, and realized he had nosed her jacket aside and was only seconds away from plunging his fangs into the delicate skin of her neck. He pulled his head away which only gave Aria better access to his jugular. He cursed himself for allowing bloodlust to set in so deeply and for being careless. He'd never thought to check inside the woman's jacket. He'd assumed she carried all of her weapons in her backpack.