Dark Heart of the Sun (Dark Destinies Book 1) (37 page)

“Me, too,” he said, thrilled to hear her speak coherently. He grew apprehensive again, however, when he noticed the vampire staring at him without even a hint of an expression.

Cassidy noticed, too. She put a hand on Dominic’s arm. “Don’t. Plea—”

Jackson found himself grabbed by the shirt collar and freefalling into the abyss of those monstrous eyes. “You live because of what you have done for Cassidy tonight,” the vampire said. The smell of burned blood and snow pricked Jackson’s sinuses, and he felt his own blood leave his face. “You owe her your life. Never forget that.”

Jackson’s mouth refused to work, so he nodded once, stiffly. An instant later, he collapsed to his hands and knees, feeling ill and not quite sure he was still alive—or if he would stay that way until Garrett got the lights back on.

“Dominic . . . no!” Cassidy shouted. He hadn’t even noticed her clambering down the ladder and tripping after the vampire on unsteady legs.

Dominic banged on the door with tremendous blows. Apparently it was blocked, but definitely not locked—which, of course, it wouldn’t be since Jackson had shut down the whole system.

“Fuck.”

By the time Jackson made it off the cage, the door stood open and the vampire was gone.

Cassidy burst through the office door as gunfire erupted. She threw h
erself to the ground, into the splintered remnants of the desk. Pain spiked through her shoulder, and her head pounded as if that damn bullet had made it into her skull and ricocheted around inside. Screams rose—human and supernatural, male and female. Biting her tongue against joining the chorus, she pushed the discomfort to the back of her mind and peered around the toppled mini-fridge. Electrical smoke and the coppery smell of spilled blood drenched the air.

Garrett stood in the hangar, a gun in one hand and a sword in the other. One of Dominic’s swords. Coated in blood.

A pair of legs lay on the ground, angled into the room, keeping the door propped open. They wore stained, slightly ripped trousers. No shoes.

“Oh, God.”

“You want a piece of me? Do you?” Garrett taunted as he backed away. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Dominic stood over Serge’s body. Blood trickled down his bony arm from a fresh injury in his shoulder, the pain she had felt earlier through their link. By now it was little more than a dull ache amidst the savage fury pulsing from him. For a heart-stopping moment Cassidy not only saw no reason to let Garrett Striker live, she wanted to help rip him to pieces. But Dominic didn’t move. He stared at the upper portion of the corpse, which was out of Cassidy’s view.

There was a small whimpering sound. Cassidy sat up. Serge?

Dominic disappeared.

Garrett stopped, gaping through the now empty space into the office. At Cassidy.

No, not her, or at least not only her. Jackson stood behind her, as unexpectedly alive as she was. He glared at his uncle, hands clenching.

A tremendous clatter rolled through the hangar. Explosions of glass and plastic rained down from the ceiling and bounced across the concrete floor. The light cannons Dominic had shown her in his memories. He was taking no chances of them activating.

“You’re on your own, kid,” Garrett shouted before spinning on a heel and running for the nearest exit.

“When am I not?” Jackson shot back and turned to the equipment rack where several trashed machines whined and sparked in pitiful fits.

Fighting dizziness brought on by the blood loss, Cassidy staggered for the door and the body and to find Dominic—and came to a hard stop when she emerged into the hangar. There lay Serge, spread-eagled in a pool of blood. And kneeling by his side  . . .

“Sam?”

Samantha lifted her tear-stained face. Blood spattered her disheveled blonde mane and the giant Ohm emblazoned on her white shirt. “Cassidy. Look what happened. Look what he did to Serge.” She lowered her gaze to the body who stared up at her with slack-jawed surprise.

“He shouldn’t be—” Cassidy broke off when she realized just how much blood there was on the floor and covering Serge’s chest. The injury must be massive. Like a severed limb, or . . . Samantha’s small, crimson-coated hands cradled Serge’s head, holding it in place. Cassidy put the back of her hand to her mouth and fought the punch of nausea roiling her stomach. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to fix him. He thought this might work. Just before . . .” She leveled a look of pure contempt at her brother.

“Oh, God.”

“Fuck.” Jackson slammed both fists onto the keyboard before sending it flying off its shelf with a violent sweep of his hand. The anti-vampire systems wouldn’t be operational again any time soon.

More gunshots. Cassidy turned in time to see a storage cabinet topple over right in front of Garrett’s intended escape route. There was no trace of Dominic, though she could feel him all around. His wrath filled the vast space like a hurricane.

Garrett sprinted across the hangar, pointing the gun as he went, swinging the sword through empty air. He got as far as the nose of the ruined plane before another cabinet, propelled by a blur of motion, not only fell sideways but also slid several yards to block another door. Incensed, Garrett aimed and fired four times. Or tried to. After the first two shots, the gun clicked, the clip empty. He tossed it aside and took hold of the sword with both hands.

Movements like ghosts flitted around him, growling ravenously. Garrett swung the sword so hard it hummed, but he hit nothing. He screamed red-faced defiance. “Is that all you’ve got, you bloodsucking punk?”

“Fucking vampire games,” Jackson spat. “Filthy demons.”

Cassidy’s heart sank.
Please, Dominic. Don’t do this. Prove them wrong. Just go.

“C’mon Serge,” Samantha implored. “Wake up. We need you.” Cassidy couldn’t bear to look. Her heart was breaking for the surprising little vampire and the woman he had obviously compelled, but these things would have to wait.

Serge groaned.

Cassidy and Jackson turned their heads as one. The formerly headless body moved. His hands and feet twitched with the uncoordinated efforts of a newborn, and the large eyes rolled like those of a crazed animal.

Samantha squealed. “Yes, that’s it. You’ve got it.”

Jackson hissed between clenched teeth. “I don’t believe this.”

Someone was running. Garrett. He sprinted back to the office while keeping his eyes on the rafters and sword at the ready. He made as if to dive through the door, then turned and lunged for Cassidy. She didn’t even have time to think about moving out of his reach. He had her by the arm and swung her around. Vertigo turned her body to rubber. That bloody blade swung in front of her. Jackson shouted something incoherent. Samantha just screamed.

The sword aiming for her throat disappeared. Garrett’s body jerked behind her, and the hands grabbing her tore away. She staggered, arms waving, to keep her feet under her.

Garrett slammed to the concrete floor several feet away, pinned beneath an infuriated vampire.

Dominic roared into his face, fangs gleaming, letting the prey witness how his burned and battered body compacted and morphed into the pure skeletal horror of a vampire at his very worst. By the time he struck at Garrett’s throat, Dominic was gone. Only this terrifying manifestation of absolute rage remained.

Cassidy felt him dive into the void with willful abandon, shedding his humanity as though it had never been. “No . . .”

“Get it off me! Get it off me now!” The first traces of terror cut through Garrett’s voice.

“Dominic, stop.” She lurched forward, but Jackson bolted past her, clutching the dragon sword. By the time she realized what he intended to do, he already swung it up and back, preparing to bring it down on Dominic. Cassidy flung herself on the beast’s iron scaffold body with bone-jarring force.

“Cassidy, no!” Jackson stood over her, the sword held high, ready to separate a head from a body—which right now would be hers right along with Dominic’s, possibly Garrett’s as well.

She clamped her arms and legs around the feeding vampire and buried her face in his ragged, blood-matted hair. The burnt ice stench made her stomach roll. Words like prayers flew from her lips. “Please, please,
please
don’t do this . . .”

He gulped hard and fast, and she felt whispers of the rapture that surged through him with every beat of Garrett’s heart.

Prey.

Terrified prey.

The beast trembled with ecstasy.

Garrett choked out a hoarse, wordless sound soaked in mortal fear. He thrashed like a landed fish, striking at anything he could reach. Cassidy cried out when he pounded her head where the bullet had grazed her. Dominic reached out with lightning speed, captured Garrett’s wrists and confined them without missing a beat.

Jackson screamed for her to get out of the way, but his words only registered as background noise to her whispered pleas. “You do this, you justify everything they have done. You’ll be no better than them. Don’t do this, Dominic, I beg you.”

But he kept drinking. She felt the blood’s strength pound through him ever harder. The prey ceased struggling, its mind now under his complete control.

Death was coming for Garrett Striker.

Cassidy tightened her grip, and reached for Dominic from the bottom of her soul.
You’re breaking my heart!

Her head snapped back. Pain seared across her scalp and down her neck. Jackson had her by her braid again. “Damn it, Cass, don’t make me hurt you.”

But he
was
hurting her and badly. She had no choice but to wobble to her feet or risk having her neck broken. Once upright, she kicked out at him. There was no grace or intention to the maneuver; it was wild and frantic, and had only the element of surprise going for it—which proved quite enough.

The top of her foot made solid contact with Jackson’s groin. He doubled over, the air leaving him in a spasmodic
whoosh
. He let go of her hair in favor of curling around his balls. She leapt for his sword arm, grabbed the wrist, and wrenched. Jackson dropped like a rock, gasping. Cassidy stood over him, breathing hard, head spinning, the Samurai dragon sword firmly in her hand.

“Bravo,
ma trésor
.”

She looked up. Dominic sat beside Garrett, watching her with soft, human eyes. Though still haggard and smeared with blood, his face looked a little fuller. The skin on his burned left arm was a shade less see-through. He wiped at the blood on his chin with a wrist.

The man lying beside him stirred, and Cassidy felt a sense of grudging relief to see the bastard still among the living. Garrett opened his eyes to the vampire peering down at him.

“Garrett Striker,” Dominic said with a slow, hard smile. “Your ass is mine.”

Serge, too, roused. He sat up—drenched in blood but fully restored—and chuckled. The sound was as full of joy as it was madness. And anticipation.

Chapter 38

The Sun and Her Heart

Cloaked in the darkness of a moonless night, Dominic slowly rode his bike up to the cottage. Only starlight edged its roof. Hushed expectation hovered in the drowsing palms crowding around it. The yellow VW Beetle, now sporting Florida plates, squatted in the carport.

A strange sense of anxious anticipation filled him as he locked the bike in its shed. A week of steady feeding, and he only started to feel normal again. But his instincts and reflexes still felt a little dull, or he might have noticed the TV flickering in the living room before he strode up the porch steps. Nor did he register the blood-drinker presence until he stepped through the door. A familiar wet forest scent permeated the air-conditioned atmosphere. The only thing visible of Serge, however, was the very top of his head and a pair of round eyes peering over the edge of the sofa’s back. Though the volume was turned to next to nothing, the low, ominous bass strains thrumming from the speakers were unmistakable.
Jaws.

Dominic picked up the remote and paused the shark attack in progress.

Serge popped upright. “Blood-child.”

“
Bonsoir, mon ami.
”

“You look well,” he said, darting from behind the sofa to look over Dominic more closely. “Much better than last I saw you.” Which had been the night they escaped the Striker Foundation’s ‘facilities’ together on Dominic’s bike. Many hours of peaceful communal hunting later, they parted ways. Serge returned to Cassidy’s side as her guardian while Dominic concentrated on healing himself.

“As do you,” Dominic said, eyeing Serge’s neck. The red line where the sword had severed his head was gone. He still marveled at the old fool’s unaccountable good fortune. Serge had felt the sword strike him and thought only of how to keep his head. Samantha, from whom he had fed in order to cement his influence over her, had picked up on the fantastical urge to reassemble him, and had done exactly that.

“I have seen this trick tried a time or two,” Serge explained once they had fed for a while and hunger no longer ruled their every thought.

“But have you ever seen it work?”

Serge beamed. “I have now.”

“Did I not tell you to stay out of my house?” Dominic said now without rancor. In truth, with the exception of Cassidy, there was no one he’d rather see.

“The sweet one invited me,” Serge announced, puffing out his chest. “She and the golden one have been showing me the wonders of this age.” He indicated the TV with a delicate shiver. “And the horrors.”

Dominic turned away to hide his amusement. A stack of DVD cases teetered on top of the new player plugged into the old TV. He shuffled through them. Action adventure, horror and—oddly enough—romance themes predominated.

“You should go, blood-child. She waits for you. As does your future.” Serge gave him one of those penetrating looks that seemed to peer beyond the ordinary world. Then he snatched the remote, dove back behind the sofa and let the watery slaughter commence.

Recalled to his earlier musings, Dominic sobered and retreated to the bathroom. He stripped off the jeans, T-shirt, jacket, and bike boots he had compelled off one of his feeds, and stepped beneath the steaming spray of the shower. His skin was intact again, his flesh restored, but the nerves stung where the hot water pelted him. Nevertheless, he soaped and scrubbed with vigor, washing away what remained of the filth and wishing he could do the same with his memories of the time spent as Garrett Striker’s captive—when he had learned to pray for death. His prayers had gone unanswered. He lived, free again, and the more time passed, the more he needed to know why. And in terms more concrete than that he had a ‘destiny’.

He found the bed in his sanctuary made up with a new set of navy-blue sheets that somewhat complimented the outdated décor. The old linens with the cartoon figures, had vanished like his childhood innocence. Several fresh shirts and a pair of gym pants—all black—sat neatly folded on the foot of the bed, waiting. His phone was on the dresser along with his laptop, and on the wall, back in their rightful place, hung the Samurai swords.

Stunned, he caressed the gleaming dragons on the scabbards. From Garrett’s mind, he knew that Jackson claimed these blades as trophies. Why and how they were back here now, he couldn’t imagine.

And why had Cassidy fought to free him, really? Risked her life for him? He wondered if even she knew.

Dressed but damp and warmed to the core by fresh blood and hot water, Dominic moved up the stairs. The blood-drinker squirming before the TV ignored him.

In the upstairs hall, the cat was on patrol. It gave him an agitated look before deciding that the gecko clinging on the wall held more interest. “Good hunting, little brother,” Dominic murmured and slipped into the master bedroom.

Cassidy lay bathed in the warm glow of the nightlight, her heart quiet and steady. He inhaled her sleepy scent and reached for her mind with his. Nothing. Squatting beside her, he touched the point over her forehead where her life force coalesced. The disturbance rippled around her until she woke, blinking up at him.

“
Salut
, Cassidy.”

“Hi,” she said and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She had cut her hair, and not just a little. It framed her head now in a copper-shot cloud of waves that hardly brushed her shoulders. She turned on the lamp on her nightstand and studied him in its soft light.

“You have taken in another stray,” he said when she remained quiet.

“Oh, is he down there watching
Jaws
again?”

“Again?”

“It’s a ritual. I suspect he’s really rooting for the shark.” She gestured. “Take off your shirt.”

He hesitated, but did pull the shirt over his head and sat where she indicated on the side of the bed with his back to her. “Your hair . . . I like it.”

“Hmm. I got tired of people pulling it.” Her hands whispered over his sensitive new skin. “Scars,” she murmured. “Your back is one giant scar.”

“For now. It still heals.”

She caressed his left arm and shoulder. “Your tattoo is gone. You’ve lost your sun.”

With her touch, he was aware of her mind again but at a great distance, and only because he sought it out. Vague rays of joy jumbled among shadows of dismay and anger across a mental link diminished to almost nothing.

“No,
mon amour.
I cannot lose what is in my heart.”

She paused her survey. Then her arms came around him, and her face nestled against his neck. Dominic closed his hand over her forearm, caressing her wrist with his thumb. It was a tremendous effort not to pull her around and embrace her the way he truly needed to. Not just her body, but all of her and always.

“You can’t stay here during the day,” she said. “The Strikers want you more than ever.”

“I know. But I . . . we . . . will be nearby.” A bubble of sadness swelled in him. He would spend his days cocooned in the dune with Serge, his home no longer safe now that the hunters knew to look for him here. He had no illusions about Jackson’s motives and dared not assume that his truce with the hunter had been anything but temporary and for Cassidy’s sake alone.

“I even got a huge promotion and a raise at work to encourage me to stick around.” Pause. “Jackson actually said so when he gave me back your swords.”

Leaning his head against hers, Dominic closed his eyes and faintly registered the rest of Jackson’s sentiments which she could not get herself to utter; the hunter would have back his trophy—when the prey was dead. “He knows I will not leave you.” When she said nothing, he continued, “So Garrett Striker lives?”

She nodded. “He needed three units of blood and gave the ER doctors hell for wanting to put him through all kinds of tests to figure out how he lost it in the first place. He was on a plane at sunrise the next day, heading out to who-knows-where.”

Dominic allowed himself a small, smug satisfaction. The threat he had planted in his tormentor’s mind had been taken seriously. “Running from me until my serum has left him.”

“Looks that way. He told me if he was ever bitten and was at risk of being manipulated by a vampire, he’d put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Guess he changed his mind.” She sighed. “I know how hard that was for you, letting him live. Hell, I wanted to kill the bastard myself. But you proved them wrong. That’s all that matters.”

Dominic trailed his fingers over her arms draped across his chest. “I don’t know. Did I?”

“Oh, I think Garrett really will kill himself if you get even close to turning him.” Cassidy pulled away to lie on her side and look up at him. “But you’re not going to do that, are you?” He became distracted by how the hem of her sleep shirt slid up her thigh. His body cried out with the need to touch her, hold her, show her all that lived in his heart.

“Force him to exist as what he hates most? Poetic justice,
non
?”

“Yes. Poetic justice. But . . . that man as a vampire? In your world forever? That sounds like more of a torture for you than him.”

“Garrett Striker is a man in old pain,” Dominic said. While feeding from him, pushing him to the brink of death, he had torn from his mind memories of soul-destroying losses the human had suffered at blood-drinker hands. Cold brutality was the result. Dominic could almost understand it. Almost.

Cassidy gave him a dubious look and he shrugged. “Truly, I have not given him much thought. I have been too busy healing and appreciating my continued existence. Such as that is.”

“You’re really glad to be alive then?”

“Very.”

“Then you’re not going to attempt suicide by vampire-slayer again?”

“That was unexpected.”

“But you sure as hell jumped on it when you had the chance.”

“A fair result of my own incompetence,
non
?”

“No. A result of knowing me.”

Aching to know her thoughts, he brushed his thumb over where the bullet had grazed her skull. The scar was thin and mostly hidden in her hair, but it was there and always would be. The mind that lay beneath it bristled with stubborn determination. He dropped his hand.

“Is that why you risked your life to free me then? So you would not have my blood on your hands?”

She shook her head. Her heart accelerated. “They gave us no choice. Either we both lived or—”

“
Non
. The choice was yours alone. And you know how hungry I was. What I can do.”

Her eyes flashed with challenge. “You risked your eternal life for me when I didn’t even know I needed you. How can you even question what I did?”

“Because by saving my life, you are risking the lives of everyone who crosses my path, perhaps for a very long time to come. How do all those lives outweigh mine?”

She propped herself up on one arm. “What the hell has gotten into you now?”

“You know it is the truth.”

Her cheeks colored as she looked away.

“Cassidy. Why?”

She huffed an agitated breath. “Was I wrong to believe in you?” She pinned him with a harsh glare. “Fine. I’ll play. Why don’t you tell me, Dominic, how many have I killed already by setting you free? How many lives did it take for you to recover this far? How many more before you’re fully healed? How many victims of mysterious, violent assaults are going to make the headlines over the next few weeks?”

The vehemence took him aback. Apparently he had pushed her over a line into uncomfortable emotional territory, but rather than succumb or flee, she went on the attack. Here she would not go without a fight. She would sooner tear out his throat. And his heart.

“None,” he murmured.

“I see. Hid the bodies that well, did you?”

Unable to help himself, he smiled.

Wary disappointment shuttered her face. “So the Strikers were right about you after all.”

“No, no,
chérie
,” he sputtered, his heart squeezing flat in his chest. “They are wrong. No one died. Not the night you set me free, and not since.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“
Oui
. I do. Serge was there in the beginning. He would have stopped me taking lives, but he didn’t need to. I could have devoured dozens, but I only pierced the veins of hundreds. Every time, I became stronger. Every time, I gained more control. Every time, I remembered your cry in my soul. I will not—cannot—betray your faith in me.” His throat burned with restrained emotion. “Don’t you understand what you have done for me? You seduced the monster I am. You and only you are the reason I have not taken a life, not even when the beast tore me apart with hunger and rage.”

The blue oceans of her eyes glistened.

“This week I have drunk more blood than ever before, but I have made no bodies and no one remembers me. No one even came close to sustaining the kind of damage I did to that
fils de salope,
Garrett. No one has died, Cassidy, because you believed in me. Because you reached me when nothing else could.”

“But why can’t I reach you now, Dominic?” she said on a half-stifled sob. “Why are you shutting me out when you tell me all this? What are you hiding from me?”

Dominic took her face in both hands. Only echoes of her confusion reached him. “The connection is too weak now. Too little of my . . . serum remains in you. Too little of your blood in me.”

She took a hold of his shoulders. “Then fix that. Bite me.”

“Nothing would please me more.”

“What’s stopping you?” Pain in her eyes. Pain in her touch. Pain of his doing. It was all he could do not to fall on her, soothe her. Drink her.

“Please. I need to know,” he said, voice hoarse with emotion. “Why did you free me?”