“Glad you enjoyed them. I’m doing Prokofiev tonight.”
“Cool. Including concerto two?”
I whistled when he nodded. Classically trained on the piano as a child, I knew that one was a toughie but so good. “How was your evening, post-concert? Do anything fun?”
Alexander’s sexy grin disappeared, lips forming a harsh line. “It was fine.”
Fine.
An on the fence, noncommittal reply if ever I’d heard one. Suspicion snaked up my spine. “Did something happen last night?”
He clenched his jaw. A muscle ticked near one eye, increasing my concern. He looked at some point beyond his laptop. After weeks of in-depth chats, his reluctance to share meant something had happened.
Something always happened.
Concern tightened my chest, and I snapped my fingers in front of the screen to get his attention. “Hey. Tell me your bad news. Then I’ll tell you mine.”
His gaze slammed back to me. “
You
have bad news? What happened?”
“You first.”
He waved away my order. “I’m fine. Concert was good, well attended, my music well received. The after-party was the usual schmooze-fest. Tell me what happened.”
My bullshit detector buzzed an alarm in my gut. I searched his face. My man hid something, but what? Maybe he’d open up if I shared my news. “Got an interesting present today. Nine vials of blood in a pretty, lavender-filled box.”
“I’ll kill her,” he snarled, baring his fangs.
Right. I mentioned lavender so he assumed Tessa sent it. Though his reaction seemed over-the-top, even if his maker did boss him around and had forced our current separation. “It’s not from Tessa.”
He leaned forward, giving me good eye contact. “I wasn’t talking about her.”
I frowned. “Then what
her
are
you
talking about?”
He ignored me. “Was there a card? Who sent the vials?”
I let the mysterious
her
slide
and gave it to him straight. “Dixon.”
Alexander’s fangs grew longer, and a growl escaped his throat. He gripped the sides of his laptop so hard the casing creaked. “Are you all right?” His words came out clipped, voice pure gravel. Impotent rage glowed in his eyes, the beautiful smoky blue iris swallowed by vampire black.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m coming home.”
“Tessa won’t let you. Remember what happened the last time you defied her.” I sure as hell did.
When he’d disobeyed her orders to stay away from me and I almost died from our unsupervised bonding ritual, my surrogate mother stripped his life force, trapped his consciousness in his head and tortured his virtual body. He felt all of it.
“I don’t care, Carina. You need me.”
My hands fisted. I wouldn’t give Tessa a reason to hurt him again. “No, don’t defy Tessa. I can’t have that happen to you again. I hate to admit this—and I would never admit it to her—but maybe she’s right to keep us apart.”
His gaze darkened at my words.
“I’m better at handling my fire power, but what if I lose control when we finally, you know, have
real
sex? I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.”
“So we’ll skip full-on intercourse,” he shot back.
I waved away his reply. “Given our track record for being completely incapable of keeping our hands off each other, you really believe we can do that?”
I played with the ankh necklace Jonas had given me, my thumb rubbing the jeweled surface as if it were a lucky Buddha belly. “They all say my frying you is a real possibility. That I need more time. More practice.”
Alexander’s unhappy stare tracked the movement of my hand. “They could be wrong.”
My voice came out small. “But what if they’re right?”
“Being close to you is worth the risk.”
The tenderness in his tone almost made me cave. “I’ll be okay. I’m surrounded by mega-powered, old vampires. Dixon doesn’t stand a chance.”
Worry lines marred Alexander’s forehead. “We underestimated him once before, and look what happened.”
“I’m stronger this time. You have to stay in Italy until Tessa green-lights your return.”
He ran a hand through his hair and over his jaw. “I don’t like this.”
“I know.” I forced a smile and reached a hand to my screen as if I could caress his face through the laptop. “Enough Dixon talk. Distract me. Tell me what else is happening in Italy.”
His expression shuttered in a blink, and he glanced away. Odd. “Saw Tony before last night’s show. And Domenico and Lorenzo.”
I suspected that wasn’t his first thought, but I couldn’t resist news of my brothers. Dom and Lo-Lo flew to Italy last week, hoping their presence would snap Tony out of his feral, newbie vampire funk. “Did they help him?”
Alexander gazed at a point above his screen. “It’s tough, when you’re new, to remember you’re more than an animal. That there’s more than the hunger and the hunt.”
His expression darkened. I bet he recalled his own turning in his mid-twenties. Not all that long ago. He was only forty-five now in human years. His stare flicked to mine. Thick dark lashes blinked over blue-gray, evening sky eyes. “Seeing your brothers brought him a small step out of that dark place.”
“Good.” Relief flooded my heart along with a trickle of hope. “Did he ask about me?”
His silence shot disappointment through my gut. Would Tony ever forgive me for his death and rebirth as a vampire? He’d flown to San Francisco for my birthday. Wrong place, wrong time. What would I do if he didn’t? Drown my sorrow by destroying the cause—Dixon.
The crash of a door slamming against a wall in Alexander’s room interrupted my dark thoughts and his continued silence. Outrage raced across my man’s face as an unfamiliar, female voice screeched, “How dare you defy me, minion!”
Alexander muted the sound and tossed his shirt over his computer.
“What the hell?” That shrill voice didn’t belong to Tessa. Who would call him minion other than her?
Another female voice sounded from behind me. “You are shirtless.”
I yelped and twisted around on the bed. “Stella. You startled me.”
Stella, my relatively new bodyguard—so ordered by Tessa—leaned against the doorframe of my room, all dominatrix meets biker in her usual black cat suit and combat boots combo.
“Ever heard of knocking? I had the door closed for a reason.”
Sexy private time.
Bad thought since she could hear that one if she felt like delving into my head. I yanked my T-shirt over my head to hide the blush heating my cheeks.
She gave me a hard look and one of her patented, Italian to the core, blasé shrugs.
“Back,” Alexander called. He pulled on his shirt then pushed a hand through his already disheveled hair. His thick locks often looked like he spent much of his time running his hands through them, but this level of disarray went beyond that.
My eyes narrowed. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing. But I have to go. And I won’t—”
Stella plopped down next to me, putting herself in the camera frame. Alexander’s mouth snapped shut. I swear I heard him grinding his molars to dust.
His stare shot over his computer—again. “I have to be offline for a while.” His tone was pure ice.
I frowned. “Define
a while
.”
“A week. Or two. I’m not sure. I’ll text you.”
My jaw practically hit the bed.
Text me?
If we weren’t bound by blood for all eternity I’d think he was dumping me. “Dude. What. The. Hell?”
Another glance over the laptop. “I have to go.” He leaned in close, blue eyes glittering with heat, sending my insides into twitchy, needy overdrive despite my anger at his odd behavior. “I’m yours,” he growled. “Remember that.”
Something was wrong with Alexander.
Stella likely had an answer. “Do you
know what that was all about?”
Her bobbed black hair swished against her pale cheeks as she shook her head.
“Lovely.” First Dixon, now Alexander handing me mysteries I couldn’t solve. I needed to clear my head.
Stella watched me swap out my shirt for a sports bra and long-sleeved running shirt. When I shoved on my running shoes, she surged to her feet with feline grace. “Again?”
Well d’uh, she knew my deal. When in turmoil, move. “My last run was over twelve hours ago.”
Her huff of faux annoyance made me smile. I corralled my hair into a ponytail and pulled on a soft cotton headband while she studied my face.
“You do look exactly like him.”
By him, she meant my father. “So?”
“You share his demeanor as well.”
My feet hit the hardwood harder than necessary as I headed out the bedroom door. Talking about my dad was low on my list of things to do and only served to darken my mood. “Your point?”
“You can be stubborn, willful, and arrogant.”
At the top of the stairs, I ground to a halt. My spine stiffened, and my chin shot up. She had me on the
stubborn and willful, but, “I’m
not
arrogant.”
The hand she flicked in my direction suggested I’d proven her point. Then her expression softened, much to my surprise. “He is also remarkably kind, generous, and loyal. As are you.”
Laughter bubbled up my throat, making me smile. “Stella, did you just compliment me?”
“Think what you will.” She offered me a cell phone.
My
phone. “You should call him.”
My smile faded. “No.”
“Your little psychic deems it urgent.”
I snagged the phone from her unresisting hand. “You checking my phone messages now? That’s not body guarding. That’s snooping.”
Her combat boots thudded on the hardwood stairs as she stomped to the ground floor. “Your phone buzzed and displayed the message. I could not help but look.”
Fair enough. Gaze on my cell, I followed her down to the foyer. A text from Faith.
Dixon is back. Talk to your dad. Please.
“Already got the blood memo, Faith.” I tossed my phone onto the table by the door. My answer? No. Not talking to my dad. He needed to apologize—profusely—for lying to me for twenty-five years, stealing my memory, locking away my power, and failing to show up
when all hell broke loose two months ago. Until then…no.
Jonas and Adrian cuddled together on the couch watching a cooking show of all things. I waved at them then sailed out the front door with Stella.
We hit Castro Street heading north to the Panhandle, a nice, flat stretch of green grass and huge trees where I hoped to burn off my tension. Stella jogged at my side, quite the sight in her unconventional running attire with a clove cigarette dangling from her blood-red lips. Good thing she didn’t need her lungs.
As we dodged pedestrians and the random homeless man or two sprawled across the sidewalk, city scents assaulted my nose. Acrid unwashed bodies juxtaposed with freshly showered skin doused in cologne. Stale beer and bleach from a bar. Garlic and basil and baking bread from the pizzeria. Lemongrass and curry from the Thai place. Coffee from the corner café. It all mingled with the spicy clove from Stella’s cigarette.
City sounds delivered another sensory layer. A taxi honked and almost took out a fiercely cursing bicyclist. A gaggle of schoolgirls giggled at the bus stop. The trolley car clanged as it rounded off Seventeenth and onto Market. Laughter, curses, a soft sigh.
None of the hubbub derailed my dark thoughts. My father continued his radio silence, expecting me to make the first move. Dixon had returned to haunt me, and Alexander remained too far away, keeping secrets.
Déjà vu gnawed at me. Months had passed, summer had turned to fall, and yet again I found myself with a bad guy pursuing me, dysfunctional family drama to sort out, and obstacles to overcome with Alexander.
What’s that French saying?
Plus
ç
a change, plus c’est la m
ê
me chose.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Wasn’t that the truth?
Thick fog blanketed the evening sky as we hit the Panhandle. I forged a path straight down the grassy, tree-filled middle, relaxing my shoulders and swinging my arms, ignoring my morose mood and focusing on my rhythmic breathing, on the movement of my feet as they made contact with the ground. Heel, toe, heel, toe. Stella followed, my silent shadow.
Halfway into the three-quarter mile stretch, I ran through an invisible wall of power. Thick and cold, it roiled like an electrified waterfall shocking me from head to toe. I stumbled to a halt. Shit. A magical trap.
Stella snarled, baring her fangs, her black-painted nails shifting to small but sharp points.
I made a quick three-sixty, skin crawling with unease.
The temperature dropped. I flexed my fingers, calling my fire power to my palms.
Stella pushed power at the wall. “Run, Carina.”
Too late. Cotton-thick fog encircled us. A dozen vampires swarmed Stella, separating us.
I let my eyes slide to vampire black, the cold-water sensation sending chills down my cheeks, tightening my jaw and cooling the slow burn in my gums. But now would be a good time for my first ever fangs to erupt. Without them, I’d have to use my finicky fire power, and turn these bad vampires into crispy critters, then ash piles then
poof
, soot in the wind.
I darted into the melee.
And crashed into a cement wall.
Steel hands grabbed my arm, their owner yanking me up into the trees. We landed on the limb of an enormous Eucalyptus, the branch hefty enough to support us with ease.
My attacker pinned me face-first to the trunk, grinding an erection into my backside. Panic and pain pierced my gut. Oh, hell no. I struggled to free myself, my power eager to fry the bastard. But a familiar wintery power slid under my skin and doused my fire as if it were a weak matchstick.