Books by Maggie Shayne (187 page)

"No! I went to his place to try to find out what he knew. That vampire was there, waiting in ambush. The girl was already unconscious. Before I could do anything, he shot her. Then he just gave me this evil smile and took off." He shook his head slowly and went on. "I knew he'd come after Morgan next, that's why I drove all night to get to her. To warn her."

"And why did Dante do all this?" she asked.

"He knows what I've been doing," Stiles said. "Searching for the surviving members of the DPI, patting them back together, re-forming our group as an independent entity. An elite unit of expert vampire hunters." He sighed, lowering his head. "Dante wants to put me away. He figured if he made it look like I killed your friend, you and Lou would find a way to put me behind bars."

Max leaned back in her chair, trying to digest all he had said. "That doesn't explain what Dante was doing in Lou's apartment in the first place."

Shaking his head, he said, "Don't you get it? You and Lou were trying to find out who had killed that woman—Lydia Jordan's friend. It must have been Dante. He must have been afraid you were getting close and gone there to see what you had on him."

"It's a little farfetched," Max said, sighing, turning it over in her mind.

Lou said, "What I don't get is, why do you want to kill all the vampires?" Everyone looked a little surprised, but he shrugged and went on. "Hey, if they're anything like the way Morgan depicts them in the films, they aren't so bad."

"Morgan is under the control of a powerful vampire, Officer Malone," Stiles said. "Trust me, I know what they're capable of. He's got her completely mesmerized. She'll do anything he says, even turn against the people who love her in order to protect him."

"I don't understand that," Max said. "How is that possible?"

"Your sister has a certain blood antigen. It's called Belladonna," Stiles said. "And it's slowly killing her."

"How do you know about that?" Sumner demanded, getting to his feet.

"Whenever the antigen was identified in a mortal's blood, that information was forwarded to the DPI's files. There aren't many who have it. But those who do, attract vampires like honey attracts bees. They feed on them, suck the life out of them. That's why they all die young. It's not the antigen. It's the vampire it attracts. And unless we kill this one, he'll keep coming back, keep on feeding on your precious Morgan until she dies. But if we stop him, she'll live."

Sumner averted his eyes, but Max saw the tears. "The doctor says it's the blood condition that's killing her."

"But he doesn't know how or why. Everyone with the blood type dies young. I'm telling you what the doctors don't know, Sumner. It's because they become victims. Belladonna blood is the vampire's favorite kind."

Max stared at him. "Are you telling me that she can get better? She can live?"

He nodded. "She can live. But we have to protect her from the vampire."

Blinking, Max looked at Lou, silently asking him to tell her that he believed this man, God, she wanted it to be true.

But Lou shook his head almost imperceptibly. Before he could speak, though, Lydia came charging into the room, breathless, wide-eyed. "She's gone!" she shouted. "Morgan is gone!"

Dante's body surged with pleasure but not vigor. It was an odd sensation. He was sated, yet still groggy, weak. Maybe he had only dreamed the pleasures of release, of possession…

He lifted his head, blinked his vision clear. And frowned, more disoriented than before. He was on the floor, his back braced against the cool stone wall. And the lantern was burning. He didn't remember lighting it. He didn't remember waking.

He wasn't wearing his shirt. His jeans were undone and halfway down his hips. He tasted blood on his lips.

And then he saw her, lying naked in a puddle of white satin.

"Morgan!" Dante surged to his feet, only to sink to his knees again at the wave of dizziness that drowned him. One hand pressed to his forehead, he forced himself upright and walked on his knees to her. She lay on her side, curled into a fetal position, hair covering her face. "Jesus, Morgan… " He caught her shoulders, rolled her onto her back. Her hair fell away from her face, and he stared down in horror at her white skin, her closed eyes, her parted, pale lips. He had to force himself to look at her throat, at her body. And when he did, tears welled in his eyes.
Tears
. He didn't remember the last time he had cried for anyone, much less a mortal. Her throat bore the marks of his invasion. And there were more. Tiny pairs of pinpricks on her breasts and shoulders. Her belly and thighs. It hadn't been a dream. He had ravaged her. Taken her in every way. Her body. Her blood.

"God, Morgan, what the hell have I done?" He returned his gaze to her face, cradling her upper body in his arms, bending over her. "Please wake up. Please, Morgan, live. I can't have done this. Not to you." He listened for her breath. He felt for her heartbeat. He scanned for her life force… and sensed it, still there. Weak, but there.

Her eyes opened to the merest slits, and her lips curled somehow into a shadow of a smile. "Oh, my love… "

"Hush. Don't try to speak. God, Morgan, I'm sorry. I'm… "

"I… brought something for you."

He shook his head, not understanding what she meant, but she shifted her eyes and his gaze followed; he saw the books on the wobbly table.

"Your journals."

"My journals… " He searched his memory. "I left instructions with an attorney. They were to be shipped to a storage unit for safe—oh, hell what does it matter now?"

"It matters," she whispered. Her jaw clenched; she swallowed, began again. "The script, too. On a disk, there with the books. The one I've been writing. Destroy it, Dante."

He stared at her, shaking his head.

"You have to know you can trust me. I brought them all to you—to prove myself."

"You're worried about whether
I
trust
you
? My God, Morgan, look what I've done to you."

"You did what I asked you to do," she whispered. Weakly, she lifted a hand, touched his face. "Tears? Why are you crying?"

His hands trembled in her hair as he bowed over her, holding her head to his belly, shuddering with barely contained anguish. "How can you ask that? God, Morgan, I'm so sorry." His voice broke, and he shuddered with emotion as he held her.

"Fix it," she breathed. And she spoke now as if each word was an effort. "Feed me. Make me immortal, like you are."

Tipping his head back, Dante closed his eyes, clenched his jaw.

"Dante…please. You won't let me die. I know you won't."

A hot tear rolled off his cheek and fell onto her face as he lowered his head to look at her. "I can't transform you, Morgan. Not now. I'm too weak. You wouldn't survive the ordeal, and if by some miracle you did, you'd be little more than a mindless zombie."

She expelled a long, wavering breath. "I don't understand… I thought—"

"Sharing the gift takes a vampire at his strongest. And even then it drains him, weakens him. Last night I nearly bled to death before the day sleep healed my wound."

"But you drank from me."

He lowered his head.

"It's because I'm so ill, isn't it? My blood has barely any life left in it. That's it, isn't it?"

He nodded without looking her in the eye. "I've seen the effects of the gift gone bad before, Morgan. A vampire brought into this life with weak blood, or too little blood. Mindless shells with no reason, no thought, no personality, who exist only to feed. Monsters, truly monsters. I can't curse you to that kind of existence. I won't." Finally he met her eyes again. "I'm sorry, sweet Morgan. I'm so sorry."

"Well, you've done it again, haven't you, love?"

The voice was Sarafina's, and it came from near the entrance to his lair. Dante looked up at her. She wore red, full sweeping skirts of it, with a sheer black overskirt and enough jewelry to please a queen. "Tina. Thank God."

"Don't thank God for me, Dante. He has nothing to do with my existence." She narrowed her eyes on his face. "Are those
tears
I see? My God, look at you. Reduced to weeping over a mortal." When she tossed her head, her earrings jangled.

"You have to help her," Dante said. He saw Sarafina's anger, felt it like a red hot cloud around her, but he had to try. "She'll die unless you bring her over."

She released a burst of air, waved a dismissive, ring-bedecked hand, and her bracelets rang. "You want her so badly, bring her over yourself."

"I can't. I'm too weak."

"Oh, come now, Dante, you'd love her as an imbecile. She would obey your every whim. Be your slave forever, even better than a mortal one. They're so fragile, you know. She could hunt for you, serve you. Wouldn't you like that?"

He lifted his head. "You're the one with the penchant for mindless drones, not me."

"No, but you
do
seem to be the one more apt to fuck a mortal to death. This makes what, now? Two?"

"She's not dead."

"Give her an hour."

"Why won't you help me?"

Sarafina lifted her brows. "Because you've turned your back on me, Dante. You've decided, quite obviously, that I am no longer enough of a companion for you. That you need to bring in someone new. To replace me."

"That's not how it is."

"No? It's how I see it. I'll tell you what, Dante. If you really want my help, let me finish the little bitch off for you. I would so enjoy devouring whatever small amount of blood you left in that pale, weak little body."

Anger heated his blood, and Dante gently lowered Morgan's head and rose to his feet. Standing straight, he faced Sarafina. "I'll kill you first."

She flinched. He saw it, a short flash in her eyes. A tightening of her lips. "And that proves what I've said, doesn't it? You'd kill me, your life mate, for her?"

"You are not my
mate
. Or my wife or my partner or even my lover, 'fina."

"I
made
you," she whispered.

"And therefore you own me?"

She stood so tense and so rigid that her entire body trembled. And then she said, "Damn you to hell for betraying me, Dante! Damn you with the rest of my kin. I need none of you!" Then she whirled in a swirl of skirts and a clatter of jewels, and fled through the door, a blur of speed and motion.

Morgan's soft but desperate sigh drew his attention from Sarafina's pain—which he felt keenly. Logical or not, Sarafina was hurting. Now, though, he had no care for his dark mother's pain. Only for Morgan's.

"This is… all my fault," she whispered.

"Why did you do this, Morgan? Why?"

She shook her head. "You were so weak. I thought you might die."

"And it didn't even occur to you that you could die far more easily than I?" He knelt beside her, gathering her up into his arms, lifting her as he stood again. Then he shook his head. "No. No, you trusted that I wouldn't let that happen, didn't you?"

"This is my doing, not yours," she told him, leaning her head against his chest.

"I'm not going to let you die, Morgan."

She closed her eyes, but he saw her tears anyway, dampening and darkening her lashes from within. He carried her into the passage and along it, leaving the light far behind.

"The journals," she said suddenly. "You must bring them, Dante. And go to the house for the others."

"We can do that together, when you're well."

"They're in the safe, in the study. The year I found you—that's the combination. Nineteen ninety-seven."

"I'm not going to let you die, Morgan." He was weak, growing weaker by the second. But dammit, he could save her, save them both. He
would
.

"It's not your fault, Dante," she whispered.

He emerged from the cave and managed to hold her while climbing up the side of the cliff. Ordinarily he would have simply pushed off with his feet and jumped the distance. A small leap for one as powerful as he. But not tonight. Tonight he barely managed to clamber up the steep, stony path without dropping her, and when he reached the level ground, he was breathless, his muscles trembling with strain.

He started toward the house.

"Dante?" she whispered. "No! Don't take me back to them—I want to stay with you."

"You'll die without help, Morgan."

"Then I'll die in your arms. I'll breathe my last against your lips. Dante, don't make me go… "

He stopped walking and stared down at the woman who had risked her own life to preserve his. Who had trusted him completely and given selflessly. He had never believed anyone could love him the way this wraith-like creature must. His own family had turned against him. He'd lived his life trusting in no one. But he trusted her. And he realized, too late, damn him, that he'd known he could trust her before she had surrendered the journals or her work. Before she'd bled herself to the brink trying to save his worthless life. He loved her.

Leaning closer, cradling her head in his palm and lifting her face to his, he kissed her. Slowly, tenderly, he kissed her.

"Stay alive for me, Morgan. One night, so I can feed and grow strong again. One day, so the sleep can regenerate my power. Then I'll come for you. I swear I will. No army of mortals
will
keep me from you again."

He kissed her again, but this time her lips went slack against his, and when he lifted his head, hers hung limply and her eyes had fallen closed. He heard voices, saw her family and friends walking around the back lawn with flashlights, calling Morgan's name.

Lifting his chin, he called out to them. "Here. She is here."

"There he is!" someone shouted. "He's got Morgan!"

The gang of mortals came running toward him. Gently he laid Morgan down in the cool grass, bent to kiss her forehead and then, straightening, turned to flee. He had to live, to get strong again, so he could save her.

In three strides, the bolt penetrated his thigh. Pain beyond endurance shrieked through him as he tried to keep going. Weight on the leg intensified it even more, and he felt the blood pumping out of him. Three more steps. He went down hard, then tried to crawl, and finally, on his belly, he dragged himself toward the cliffs. Toward the edge. If he could pull himself over, maybe there was still a chance…

"Finally. You son of a bitch, I've finally got you." A hand clasped his shoulder and rolled him harshly onto his back.

The scarred man stared down at Dante. And then he smiled.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God… " Max knelt beside her sister. Morgan lay still on the ground, a white silk robe around her body, fresh puncture marks in her neck. No question now. "You see them, don't you? You see them, too, this time, don't you?"

Beside her, one arm around her shoulders, Lydia nodded. "I s-see them. I don't believe it, but I—I see them."

David said nothing; he was speechless, frightened to death.

Lou had his fingers on Morgan's wrist. He looked up, nodded once. "She's alive."

Max bent almost double, face contorting, sobs choking her, relief too powerful to contain. "Let's get her to the house."

Lou looked further along the lawn and frowned, getting to his feet. "Take her, David. I'll just be a sec."

Max followed his gaze to where Frank Stiles was leaning over the fallen form of the dark man who had done this to Morgan. Lou was striding over there, and Max got up, too. "Stay with her," she told Lydia, even as David gathered Morgan into his arms and started for the house. Then she ran to catch up to Lou.

Stiles said, "I've got you at last. You're not going to get away from me this time."

As Max looked beyond Stiles' vicious scowl to the man who lay on the ground, she caught her breath. He was exactly like the images Morgan had drawn—the ones that lined the walls of her study. "Dante, I take it?"

He nodded, but it was obvious he was in considerable pain. She looked him over, saw the blood gushing from around the metal bolt that pierced his thigh, and acted instinctively, dropping to her knees, tearing the denim fabric. "It must have hit an artery or something. My God, the bleeding… "

"His kind always bleed like that," Stiles spat. "Let him bleed out. He'll be dead in a few minutes."

"If I am," the fallen, dark man muttered through clenched teeth, "Morgan will be, as well."

"Don't you dare threaten my sister," Max whispered.

"I don't think it was a threat, Maxie," Lou said.

He dropped to one knee, clasped the bolt, glanced at Dante. Dante nodded once, and Lou pulled the arrow-like rod out in one smooth motion. As he did, Dante tipped his head back and howled in pain. Then Lou yanked his belt free of its loops, wrapped it around the thigh, above the wound, pulled it tight and watched as the bleeding slowed. He searched his pockets and emerged with a jackknife, then poked a hole in the leather so he could fasten the belt in place. He fastened the belt so tightly that Dante's thigh looked practically like an hourglass.

"I don't understand why you're helping him," Max finally said. "Why are we helping him, after what he did to Morgan?"

"No, no, Lou is right," Stiles said softly. "He's of far more use to my people alive."

Dante's gaze snapped to Lou's. And it surprised the hell out of Max to see what looked like the barest hint of fear in the vampire's eyes.

Lou drew her attention away from that, though, with his next words. "He brought Morgan to us. He called out to get our attention and got himself shot with that freaking crossbow of yours for his trouble. Where the hell did you have that thing, anyway, Stiles? I searched you before I let you in the house."