Sweet Last Drop (8 page)

The musk of damp dirt, leaves, and pine thickened the air, and for a moment, I inevitably thought of Dominic. As frightened as I was of his power, influence, strength, and intentions, I realized that his presence in the city had also given me a measure of security. Not one vampire had attacked me in three weeks, and I knew it wasn’t because of my own muscle. Dominic’s loyal protection—albeit motivated by his own selfish desires to control me—ensured that I survived the night. Now that I was facing the creatures that bump in the night alone, I appreciated his ability to bump back. I could feel the void of his protection like a tightrope walker performing without her net.

The glint, which had flashed a few yards to my left, streaked mere feet in front of my face. I stumbled, but before I could fall, my back bumped flush against something tall and bone cold. Arms wrapped around my body, but they were distinctly not human. Its knobby joints protruded under its rough, gray skin, like bat claws. One hand bound around my waist, clamping my back to its front. The other gripped my neck, tipping my head sideways with the unbelievable strength in its fingers. I could feel the cutting pressure of its talons rake against my stomach as it held me, but unfathomably, I also felt its reserve. The talons didn’t slice my skin. Its grip hadn’t torn my muscles or broken my ribs. I was still unharmed and whole.

I was playing the human, a performance that had saved me on previous occasions. I knew I needed to act unaware of anything but the smooth, calming limbo the creature was trying to flood through my mind, but I couldn’t help the deep tremble that shook my chest and vibrated through my body like a swift, deadly undertow.

Lips—if you could call the thin skin stretched over its massive fangs lips—kissed the skin beneath my ear. “Be calm, little one.” He spoke and the growling timbre of his voice belied the meaning behind his words.

The swift boil of my anger at being called “little one” helped douse some of my trembling. I deliberately slowed my breathing, so he would think I was under his influence.

He rubbed his cheek against my cheek. “Hmm,” he murmured on an inhale. I felt a tremble course through his body. His talons tightened just short of breaking the skin as he composed himself. “Lovely.”

The slick slide of his tongue flicked out in a hot swipe over my neck. I almost lost my nerve. I clenched my teeth to stop myself from jerking away when his mouth clamped over my carotid in a punishing, penetrating lock. Fangs pierced through my skin, and my knees gave out as he sucked a long, fiery gulp of blood.

Pleasant, soothing pleasure kneaded my body in pulses. Unlike Dominic’s bite, which could blow my mind in orgasm, and Kaden’s bite, which tore through flesh like a rabid dog gnawing its bone, this bite massaged around my body like a cloud. It wasn’t overwhelming or violent, like the other bites I’d experienced. It soothed my aches and worries. I floated in oblivious bliss, and perhaps this bite was more dangerous for its gentility because despite having kept my will, I didn’t want to pull away.

The vampire released the pressure on my neck, healed the wound with a quick, efficient lick, and stepped back from me after only one swallow. I slumped to the ground. From my prone position, I could finally see the vampire behind me. He hadn’t fed yet besides the one swallow of my own blood, but that one swallow hadn’t been enough to transform him back from his gargoyle-like form. His ears stood at attention. His nose was flat and flared, and although his canine teeth were fanged, every tooth in his mouth came to a sharpened point.

Like all the other vampires I’d seen in this form, his body was slim, nearly skeletal, and his legs, which I had to focus on not seeing, were jointed backwards. Vampires were difficult to differentiate in this form, but I noticed a slight difference in his. This vampire, unlike Dominic and any other vampire I’d known, had webbed fingers.

The vampire stared down at me, incredulous.

“You’re a night blood.”

I blew out a long breath. “What gave me away?” I asked sardonically. The jig was up the moment he’d tasted my blood.

He cocked his head, and after a suspended moment, he shot me a smile. The smile would have been reassuring if not for the rows of needle-sharp teeth.

“Humor,” he said. “It’s been a while.”

I tensed to move from my prone position. The vampire disappeared and was suddenly beside me, scooping me from the ground and carrying me in his arms deeper into the woods. He dodged between trees and flashed over logs and catapulted over what looked like a small river dividing the forest, moving at that nearly invisible speed that they could all move. The few times Dominic had carried me as he moved at that speed, I tried to focus on something central, like the freckle above his collarbone, to keep my bearings, but focusing on this vampire was more sickening than the world warping in a dizzying blur around us. Focusing on him meant staring at the rough grayness of his chest, the five-inch talons curved under my knees, and the glowing amber of his reflective, nocturnal eyes.

His focus shifted at my perusal, and our eyes met.

I stiffened in his arms. “Shouldn’t you watch where you’re going?”

“Does my gaze make you uncomfortable?” he asked, and he deliberately smiled wide enough to showcase every pointed inch of his teeth.

Of all the vampires to attack and abduct me, I’d found the comedian this time. I shouldn’t complain. Last time, I’d found the serial killer.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” I said, and the vampire snorted. “If we crash into a tree at this speed, you’d survive just fine, but I’d be dead.” I gave him a long look. “The police would have another murder to investigate, and the last thing your coven needs with a serial vampire on the loose is more attention.”

The vampire sobered. “We don’t know who’s responsible for the murders, serial vampire or not. Bex will be busy tonight finding out, but despite the murders, I think she’ll make time for you.”

I blinked. “You’re bringing me to Bex?”

“You know Bex?”

I nodded.

“That’s impossible,” he dismissed. “I know every night blood here.”

“I’m not from here.”

A slow smirk widened his lips. “That I believe.”

The wind whipped my hair around us, smacking him in the face. A deep rattle vibrated through his chest as he breathed in my scent. I watched his fangs elongate and his lips thin like a dog with its hackles raised.

He looked away, ignoring me to focus resolutely on the path in front of us.

I gaped. “You haven’t fed yet, but you’re resisting me.”

He didn’t meet my eyes this time when he spoke. “You’re not intended for me. You could be just what my Master needs to find herself again. I can’t take that from her.”

“How could I possibly do that?”

“She hasn’t found a willing night blood in years, not since Walker refused her.” The vampire spat Walker’s name like it was something vile. “She must accept what can’t be hers and be content with finding someone else, anyone else, before it tears us apart.”

I opened my mouth to correct him, to let him know that I wasn’t what Bex needed. I already had a Master, and I wasn’t willing. But it dawned on me that the only thing preventing him from feeding from me was his intention to bring me to Bex.

“What’s your name?” I asked instead.

“You may call me Rene.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Just Rene?” I needed to know his first and last name to have a hope of entrancing him.

“Knowing a vampire’s full name is earned, not given.”

Damn it.
“Oh. Why is that?”

He smirked. “Asking to know my full name is tantamount to a man asking to see your breasts on a first date. I don’t know you well enough to reveal all of myself, and it’s rude to ask.”

Rene described it like a social nicety, but I suspected the real reason he wouldn’t give me his last name was survival. Knowing and saying a vampire’s full name increased my hold on its mind when I entranced it. Most night bloods couldn’t entrance vampires, but Rene didn’t know that I wasn’t like most night bloods.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Far be it for me to be rude while I’m being abducted.”

Rene laughed. “Valid point. My name is Rene Roland. What’s yours?”

“DiRocco,” I murmured, deliberately only giving him my last name and determined not to feel guilty for my deception. I was food to him, nothing but meat and blood with a sence of dry humor that he apparently appreciated, but this piece of meat was not being eaten. Not tonight. “Most people call me DiRocco.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, DiRocco. My apologies that our paths couldn’t cross under more favorable circumstances.”

I couldn’t imagine a favorable circumstance in which we could have met, but I kept my lips sealed and simply nodded, not trusting my smart mouth to remain polite.

We stopped in front of an overgrown cave imbedded on a hillside. Vines spread over the embankment and grew along the edges of the cave’s mouth, blurring exactly where the ground ended and the cave began. Rene set me on my feet, but between the thick, impenetrable darkness of the deep woods and my fear of the coming confrontation with Bex, I could already feel the confines of the cave’s walls closing in around me. I leaned fractionally over its edge, peeking into the abyss. Even as my eyes adjusted, they couldn’t penetrate through to the cave’s bottom. Assuming the cave had a bottom.

Rene pulled me back. “We’re waiting here. Many of our newest coven members still haven’t fed.”

“Is this the entrance to your coven?” I asked, surprised.

Rene nodded. “I don’t want the first human they lay eyes on after waking from their day rest to be a night blood. They wouldn’t be able to resist drinking from you, and once they started, they might not stop. Your blood is like—”

“Like cinnamon and spice and everything nice,” I said, drolly. “Or so I’m told.”

He smirked. “Yes, it is.”

“I appreciate your concern, but if you didn’t want me in harm’s way, why bring me to a coven full of unfed vampires?”

“It’s not you I’m worried about. You would survive, but they wouldn’t.”

I frowned. “
I
would survive, and
they
wouldn’t?”

“Bex would never tolerate another vampire in her coven draining a night blood.”

I stared at Rene, incredulous. “Bex would kill a vampire for attacking me?”

“Of course. Night bloods are potential vampires, and the only vampire who can transform a night blood is Bex. An attack against a night blood is considered an attack against Bex herself.”

I nodded. His logic made a strange sort of sense, more sense than how Dominic ruled his coven, and I wondered at the difference. Maybe Bex was more powerful and therefore better able to control her vampires. Maybe Dominic only seemed less powerful because his Leveling was approaching in two weeks. Or maybe Dominic was not as effective a Master—all possibilities worth considering, but I knew better than to utter them aloud, especially the last. Even 300 miles away, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dominic overheard me. I’d regret it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

“What have you brought home, Rene? I thought I taught you better than to play with your food?”

Bex materialized in front of us. It must have been a trick of the darkness and her own speed and stealth because actually materializing from nothing was impossible, even for a vampire. Then again, so much lately that should be impossible was real; I couldn’t really question what may or may not be possible. I only questioned what occurred: I was alone with Rene one moment, and the next, Bex was in front of us, her reflective, yellow-green irises refracting the moonlight.

I tried to breathe normally, knowing their senses could detect every minute internal change in my body, but I couldn’t help it. My body started to tremble.

“Master.” Rene bowed his head. “I present a new night blood in our territory. She calls herself DiRocco.”

I took a calming breath, but the tremble in my chest worsened. The vial of Dominic’s blood was a hot weight around my neck. I caught myself reaching to touch it and forced my hand to remain at my side.

“DiRocco, I present—”

I waved my hand at Rene dismissively, annoyed at his formality while Bex was frying a laser through my chest with her unwavering, alien eyes. “Yes, I know, you present Bex, the Master Vampire of Erin, New York, from Chemung to Wayne County and everywhere in between.”

Bex grinned. “Walker taught you well.”

“Walker doesn’t speak of you in that way.”

Rene looked between the two of us, weary regret heavy in his expression. “You’ve already met?”

Bex lost the grin. “Why would Lysander concern himself with my expanding territory?”

“Dominic makes everything his concern.”

“That I most certainly believe. What I’m not quite certain I believe is why you were brought here.” Bex shifted her gaze from me to Rene with a flick of her golden-green eyes, and I almost felt bad for Rene. Almost.

Rene cocked his head, not looking particularly worried about being on the business end of that look. “She’s a new night blood in our territory. I wasn’t aware of her presence, and I definitely didn’t know that you were previously acquainted. Upon discovery, why wouldn’t I bring her to you?” Rene narrowed his eyes, and despite his obvious loyalty, returned Bex’s laser look with heat of his own.

Bex lifted her chin defensively. “She might be new to us, but she’s not new to our territory. She’s Lysander’s night blood, and by bringing her to me you risk—”

“When has territory ever stopped you from claiming what’s yours?” Rene interrupted. His chest vibrated in a low, rattling growl, and his lips thinned across his sharpened teeth. “DiRocco is in your territory, and anything in your territory is rightfully yours to take. Lysander knew that when he allowed her to leave his territory. You shouldn’t need me to explain this to you.”

I pursed my lips and wondered if what Rene was saying was accurate. He seemed to be a font of vampire etiquette, and if Bex’s expression was any indication, Dominic had thrown me to the wolves, almost literally. Except wolves might have been preferable.

“She doesn’t want me as her night blood,” I interjected, hoping to turn the heat under someone else. Walker was certainly a subject of contention between them, so I’d play on that. “Or at least, she doesn’t want me enough to risk war with Dominic. The only night blood she’d risk anything for is Walker.”