I slid onto his lap sidesaddle. He settled his hands around my waist, but avoided my gaze.
Next to us, Jonas and Stella stared at each other. Their power charged the air with a subtle electric pulse along with a stronger, familiar presence. Stella’s brow furrowed. Jonas shook his head. She crossed her arms and scowled.
“Cut the mind chatter. Who are you talking to? I felt another power in here. Felt like Tessa.” Like all vampires, she had a distinctive energy signature, and I’d known hers since my childhood. Sudden butterflies battered my stomach. “Is this about Tony? Is he okay?” Panic painted my tone.
Adrian ran a soothing hand up and down my spine. “Tony is fine. Well, he’s the same. Lorenzo and Dom are good too.”
I rested my palm over his heart, the steady beat calming my jangling nerves. “Then what is it?” I didn’t need another problem, truly I didn’t, but not knowing would drive me insane.
I opened my mind to make a call of my own.
Thomas?
You rang, cara mia?
My uncle’s handsome face, his green eyes shining in welcome, popped up in my mind.
Jonas and Stella are talking to Tessa. Without me. What’s up?
A long pause.
I do not know, little one.
I tasted a lie and truth in that reply.
C’mon, Uncle Tommy, spill it, per favore.
His chuckle teased the inside of my skull.
I do love it when you call me that. And ask so politely. I remember a waif with big brown eyes who used to pull me away from my laptop for cuddle time using that same tone.
Uncle Tommy, focus.
Very well, my little star. Tell me why you have chosen solitude over the comfort of family and friends, then we shall discuss what is happening in the here and now.
“
Porco dio
,” I cursed and attempted to quash my inner paranoia.
He knew, or at least suspected I hid something significant. I fortified the mental barriers around my secret, picturing stone, stone, and more stone.
What do you hide, cara mia?
I don’t want to talk about Dixon.
Truth without substance. That was all I could give him.
He left my head without another word.
“
Porca puttana
,” Stella cursed.
She plucked me out of Adrian’s lap and kicked the chair, sending it careening toward the video wall. Jonas caught it before Adrian met with a painful collision.
My friend burst to his feet, face red. “You little b—” He lunged for her.
Jonas caught him from behind and held him back.
Stella opened the laptop and hit the spacebar to wake it up. Another quick tap and a video played—a party at a dance club I didn’t recognize, certainly not one in San Francisco. I knew all our competition. The camera scanned the crowd, the bar, a quick turn of the dance floor where men and women, mostly in long gowns and tuxedos, swayed to the beatless, meandering, dark, and droning strains of ambient music. Given their attire, I would’ve expected jazz or classical. Before I could ponder the odd musical choice, the camera swiveled and honed in on one dark booth where a man and a woman embraced.
Her back to the camera, the woman draped herself over a man in a dark suit, effectively obscuring most of him from view. Even seated, the woman looked tall and slender like a ballerina or a runway model. She wore a backless shimmering red gown, the train of which trailed over the seat behind her, spilling to the floor like a waterfall of bright red blood. An intricate black and red tattoo, a mixture of vines, flowers, and Celtic knots, wound itself down her spine on milky white skin. She wore her long, black hair braided in one queue.
Whoever she covered so possessively with her body, whoever she kissed with such abandon, held her braid fisted in one hand at her nape while his other curled around her perfect, bony shoulder. A flash of silver gleamed on that hand.
Unease settled in my gut.
The camera zoomed in.
Golden skin. Long, tapered fingers. Piano player fingers.
Familiar
fingers. A silver band graced the index finger and a square onyx triquetra encircled the middle.
He never takes those off. Not even when he showers or plays the piano. Or kisses me. Or slips those fingers inside me.
A rush of air escaped my lungs, sounding very much like a sob. My man’s hand. Holding someone else. My man. Kissing someone else.
Stella clicked the arrow button in the browser. The video disappeared, replaced by a page of thumbnails. All displayed Alexander and the mystery woman with the beautiful tattoo. Nausea threatened to make me expel the blood and water in my stomach. My knees trembled and threatened to cave. I gripped the edge of my beautiful desk for support as Stella clicked
slideshow
and crushed my love life to dust.
Each image portrayed a happy couple, my man and this mystery woman, caught on camera by the Otherworld paparazzi and posted to a celebrity sighting web site on the World Wide UnderWeb for the entire global, preternatural community to see.
For me to see.
The beautiful, man-stealing woman smiled for the camera, flashing long, gleaming white fangs. Luminous eyes of liquid silver framed with thick black lashes seemed to shoot me a haughty stare through the camera lens. Black eyeliner gave her eyes an unnatural tilt, lending an air of the exotic to her already gorgeous, heart-shaped face. Flawless milky skin so like my own, and a perfect bow mouth like Stella’s, the lower lip extra pouty and full. Someone froze her into undead immortality in her early twenties but her eyes told the true story.
She was old and powerful, the proof portrayed in the possessive curve of her arm wrapped around Alexander’s as they walked into the concert hall. There, in the hand she cupped to his handsome face as she kissed his cheek before they stepped into the limo. There, in the chest she pressed to his as she clutched his shoulders and parted her lips, waiting for his kiss on the dance floor. There, in a still shot of the two of them in that damn booth at some vampire dance club.
Yes, her age and power and supremacy screamed at me from this photo gallery my battered brain deemed
Rina’s Personal Hell
. The last image sealed the hell deal—a close-up of the mystery woman’s flawless face, her eyes looking straight into the camera, seeming to look straight at me in challenge. A predator daring me to try and take back what was mine.
An unearthly scream escaped me. My gums crackled and burned as if attached to an electrical current.
For the first time ever, my fangs punched out.
~ * ~
Betrayed by my soul mate
.
I hurled the laptop across the room, its thunk as it collided with the leather couch and bounced to the carpet barely registering over the roar of my raging pulse.
The edge of the desk cracked under my grip. I overturned it, sending it sliding into the kitchenette. Glasses and bottles toppled to the floor, the carafe of blood spilling its contents down the side of the bar, flowing like an open wound.
Like my fucking bleeding heart.
The room spun. My power flared, my inner tigress roaring her displeasure. The floor trembled under my feet. Glasses clattered in the cabinet.
Stella stumbled back a step. Her eyes glowed black with power, and she smiled. She fucking smiled. “Revenge is sweet, little vampire.”
Another agonized shriek ripped itself from my throat. My new fangs throbbed and pain seared my brain. I grabbed my head as if my hands could keep it from its threat to split in two. Anger, vengeance, the need to destroy that gorgeous, man-stealing vampire burned inside me.
Mark and Ren appeared in the doorway, scanning for targets.
I’m thirsty, and they smell good, like leather and salty air and musky man.
I rushed to them in vampire hyper speed, snagged Ren by his neck and forced him to his knees. He stared, wide-eyed, at my new fangs. His gun dropped to the floor.
Mark aimed his down. “Don’t do it, Rina,” he pleaded as Adrian shouted, “Stop.”
Their panicked voices penetrated my haze.
Friends. I’m hurting my friends. I’m not a monster. I’m not.
I released Ren and slammed a lid on my power. The ground ceased its trembling. The humans in the room drew in deep, relieved breaths while I sucked in a shaky one.
Alexander lied to me. He’s involved with another freaking gorgeous woman.
My power roared her displeasure, coiling and uncoiling, begging for a target. But my targets partied on a different continent, safe from my wrath.
From the circle of Jonas’s arms, Adrian watched me, pity swimming in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, babe.”
My lips curled upward in a snarl. I didn’t want pity. I wanted to break things, burn things, bash something, someone, anyone to erase the monumental pain taking a hatchet to my heart.
I can’t believe this is happening.
My bloodlust bowled over my sanity once again as Adrian’s scent drifted to me. My chin tilted upward, nostrils flaring. He smelled good, like the musky soap he used in the shower and the aftershave he wore with its blend of lemongrass, ylang ylang, and cedar. Yum.
A soft growl emanated from low in my throat, the only warning I gave before I lunged at hyper speed, intent on taking down my prey. I needed to sink my new fangs into flesh, to rend it and release that liquid red gold under the surface, to drink it down. To feed.
As fast as I was, Jonas was faster. He tossed Adrian across the room. Stella caught him and placed him on the couch. Enraged, I hurled myself at Jonas, unable to resist that primal vampiric call—
bite, feed, kill
. He caught me as I took him to ground, my mouth a breath away from his pale, enticing neck and the pulsing blue veins summoning me with their steady beat.
I sank my teeth into his giving flesh.
He could have stopped me. He was older, stronger, faster. Instead, he allowed my fangs to sink deep, allowed my lips to form a tight seal.
He let me drink.
The fight left me. He sat up, and I wrapped my legs around his slender torso, held him tighter, my fangs locked in his neck. His blood blazed a hot trail down my throat, simultaneously satisfying yet lacking, missing that life spark that made human blood at once appealing and nourishing.
But biting Jonas accomplished what he intended. Like a teething baby, I needed to bite and chew to ease the ache of new teeth, or, in my case, canines transformed to fangs.
I stopped drinking, but like a puppy with a chew toy I kept my teeth embedded in his neck, holding fast. Jonas stroked my hair, his other hand a comforting weight at the base of my spine.
He spoke to me softly, too low for human hearing. “
Sei a posto, mia piccola guerriera. Vedrai che andra’ tutto bene.
” It’s okay, my little warrior. You’ll see, everything will be okay.
My legs relaxed their death grip and a bit of sanity penetrated my vampire cavewoman brain. But my thirst persisted, along with the pain of betrayal.
I eased my fangs from his neck and made to stand, but he held me tight, his eyes shimmering with power as they, too, locked me in place, and my mentor pulled me into a flashback.
The cold stone of the family mansion’s rooftop deck chilled my back as we lay under a black evening sky alive with stars and a full moon. I rested my head on Jonas’s stomach while he pointed out constellations. Below us, in the ballroom, a clock struck midnight.
“How do you know so much about the stars, Jonas?” asked eleven-year-old me.
“I am old.”
“You’re not that old. You don’t look much older than my brothers.”
“I am old.”
I sat up. “Whatever. Can we fly now? Please?”
He harrumphed in faux grumpiness and stood. I jumped on his back. His hands held my legs firmly while I wrapped my arms around his neck in a stranglehold. He didn’t need to breathe, though he did it often anyway. He knew I liked it. His heartbeat too. In truth, I liked everything about Jonas. Except maybe his lack of smiling. But under that frown, he loved me.
I loved him too.
He strode to the edge of the roof and effortlessly hopped onto the thin railing, balancing with cat-like ease.
“Off we go, my little warrior.” He shot us into the sky…
I jolted back to reality. He whisked us to standing and clasped my nape with a steel hand, pulling my head close until our foreheads touched. “
Vedrai che andra’ tutto bene,
” he murmured.
You’ll be okay
.
I snorted. Glad one of us thought so.
Stella handed me a wine glass of blood. I chugged it down, my gaze on Jonas.
Thank you.
Sorry about the feral freak out.
You are magnificent in your fury, my little warrior.
His pride for me paraded through my mind, attempting to warm my broken heart. Broken by Alexander. Fury streaked through me.
He lied to me.
Pain burned my palm and shot up my arm. I glanced down. Oh, I’d snapped the stem of my wine glass.
“Shit.” Mark rushed to my side, followed by Ren.
“I’m fine,” I assured them as Stella plucked the broken glass from my hand. Blood trickled from the cut and dripped onto the floor at my feet, speckling the carpet.
The wound healed faster than I’d ever healed before my new fangs had made an appearance.
Mark and Ren thought the same thing.
Ren gave an approving nod. “Handy.”
Mark crossed his arms and scowled. “But don’t push it.” Translation—
calm the hell down before you hurt yourself again, Rina.
Stella handed me a bar towel, and I mopped my bloody face until Mark shot me the all-clean signal. Jonas settled next to Adrian on the couch, snuggling the larger man against his side. “Thomas says congratulations,
cara mia
.”