Hot Decadent Rising (Breath of Darkness) (32 page)

“Will we get there before dark?”

“I’m sure we will. It’s less than a
quarter of a mile away.”

~Nineteen~

ELI
PLANNED TO tell Kara about her mother as soon as he got her to his home and
warmed up. Opening the front door for her, he motioned for her to go inside. He
followed her in and shut the door.

“What about the other guys? Aren’t they
coming inside?” she asked.

“They prefer the outdoors.” He hit the
switch for the entryway light and led her to the other side of the house.

“But it’s cold outside.”

“You forget they have fur to keep them
warm.”

“I thought you haven’t been back here
for years. It’s in much better shape than I expected.”

“I have a caretaker to look after it.”
He took her hand and led her into the living room. He hit few more light
switches, and then he knelt down in front of the fireplace and started to load
wood into it. “Sit down and I’ll start a fire to warm you up.”

“Are you kidding? The furniture is
exquisite. Everything in here is downright immaculate. I’m filthy. I stink.
There’s no way I’m going to sit on anything in here.”

He turned his head to laugh at her, but
one look at her told him that not only was she serious she also appeared to be
on the verge of tears. Dirt had never actually bothered him. He certainly
didn’t care if she got the furniture dirty. The only reason the house was kept
up so well was because it wasn’t his main residence and he didn’t have anything
to do with the upkeep or the furnishings. That was what he had a caretaker for.
He’d been on the road for a long time. He remembered dirt and mud bothered his
mom a sufficient amount, enough to get his dad chased by a broom more than few
times.

He picked up the box of matches on the
base of the fireplace and closed his fist over it as he stood up to face her.
“Looks like I’m going to have to hunt for matches. I know you’re cold. It might
take a while to get the fire going. I’ve a better idea than waiting for a fire
to warm you up.”

“What’s that?”

“How about you take a nice hot shower
while I work on getting the fire started?”

Her eyes going wide, her lower lip trembled.
“So you agree? You think I smell bad?”

Shaking his head, he swallowed hard.
What the hell just happened? He’d been so careful to avoid saying anything that
might hurt her feelings. He’d even hidden the damn matches. She busted out
laughing hysterically. Perfect. She’d had a traumatic day and now she was going
to get all hormonal crazy on him. He wasn’t good dealing with hormonal crazy
females. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how to proceed. “What’s so funny?” he
asked. Not that he wanted to know. Because he sure as hell didn’t. He wasn’t
even sure why he’d asked. The question sort of came out of his mouth.

“That was great.”

“What do you mean?” Suddenly the house,
the room they were standing in, was too small. He felt cornered, trapped. He
wasn’t able to identify her vibes, but they felt unstable. He actually
considered making a run for it.

“You should’ve seen the look on your
face. I was just messing around with you. Of course I’m filthy. I was kidnapped
by a vampire, I watched my dad  shoot Tom, I was drugged, I wandered
around in the woods, crawled around in a dirty cave and then I seduce a very
bad vampire into taking our cuffs off so you could kill him. Do you know what’s
odd? I’ve a younger friend named Emily who thinks the world of Demetri. She talks
about him as if he’s some sort of protective big brother. She’s convinced he’s
trying to help her find a man she swears saved her at some point.”

“Who?”

“Zack Savage. It’s crazy. I’ve always
felt there’s something very wrong with Demetri. He’s dating Mary Tate. The
woman is a real nut case. She’s flat out evil. Maybe he isn’t so bad after all.
Emily swears that the first time my father tried to kill me that he is the one
that saved me. She said he healed me. Do you think it’s possible he just has really
bad taste in women?”

“I doubt it’s that simple. He’s a ten
thousand year old demon. He didn’t just wake up one day and decided to be evil
because he fell for a woman who isn’t his true mate. He has an agenda. There’s
no telling what it is, but I feel sorry for anyone foolish or unlucky enough to
get in his way of achieving it. He’s dangerous. You need to avoid him like the
plague.”

“Doesn’t being a demon automatically
make him evil?”

“Nikolas Drake is a demon,” he revealed,
as he led her to the base of the stairs.

“No way.”

“It’s true.” After she’d mentioned
Demetri, he remembered Demetri taunting him before he flew off in his dragon
form. Eli wanted to get outside to make sure the pack knew to keep an eye out
for Demetri. “Go upstairs. My room is the third door on the right. The bathroom
should be fully stocked. I’ll come up to make sure you have everything you need
and find you something to wear once I get the fire going.”

***

“Sounds
like a great plan.” Kara started up the stairs. She knew he was rushing her.
She wanted to know why, but she wasn’t about to waste any time trying to figure
it out. Taking a shower trumped her curiosity. Every time she lifted her leg to
take a step the movement aggravated the cut on her thigh, but she continued all
the way to the top of the stairs. Nothing would stop her from taking a shower.
By the time she reached his room she felt the warm sensation of fresh blood
soaking her pants and dripping down her leg.

 She turned the bedroom light on.
It was like taking a step back in time. The room, the same as the rest of the
house, was clean and tidy but, rather than the up-to-date furnishings of the
rest of the house, it was furnished in an old-fashioned style. The furniture
was undeniably the most stunning she’d ever seen. The wood books case, dressers
and huge headboard on the bed looked like hand crafted antiques. While making
her way across the room she stopped at the foot of the bed for a few seconds to
take in the detailed patterns of the carvings on the headboard.  

  Once she entered the bathroom and
turned the light on she was startled by her reflection in the mirror. She
didn’t recognize herself. She thought it was another person. She actually
yelped and took a step back and then, in a state of shock when she realized it
was her, she stared at her reflection. “Holy crap.” She looked absolutely
horrendous. Her long black hair was a tangled, wild mess. A layer of dirt
covered her face. And that was no over-dramatic exaggeration caused by seeing a
few splotches here and there. Her face was a mask of dirt.

She opened the frosted glass door to the
oversized shower. It had four showerheads, two on each end of the shower, and a
bench seat along the back wall. On the bench sat a variety of shampoos,
conditioners and body soap. She turned the water on to allow it to warm up, and
then she closed the door. She pulled her sweatshirt and T-shirt over her head
and tossed them onto the floor, and then she sat down on a wooden bench next to
the shower and bent over to take her shoes off. That is when she noticed
several drops of blood on the marble floor.

She looked down at her thigh. Though her
jeans were black the blood pooling on the fabric was obvious. She stood up and
unbuttoned and zipped her pants. Knowing it was going to hurt when she pushed
them down over her thigh, she took a deep breath and held as she slowly lowered
them over her hips. And she was right. Older blood had dried around the wound.
She had to peel her jeans from it. The wound on her leg actually looked worse
than it felt. She had a four to five inch gash across it, and the entire front
side of her thigh was black and blue.

It took a few minutes from the time she
started to undress, but at last she was standing beneath a heavenly hot spray
of water. She took her time washing her hair and body. She took special care
when she cleaned the wound on her leg. It was still bleeding. Once she’d
cleaned it up she realized it was well over an inch deep on one side. She
figured she’d most likely need to get stitches to close it up.

She’d just turned off the water and
reached to open the shower door when it swung open. “You just gave me a heart
attack.” At first he appeared to be panicked. “What’s wrong?”

“I gave you a heart attack? I came up
here to find you something to wear and realized that you left a trail of blood
across the bedroom floor.”

“Oh, shoot. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize
it was bleeding again until I walked up the stairs, and I didn’t know it was
bleeding heavy enough to make a mess until I got into the bathroom. I’ll clean
it up.”

“I know you didn’t just apologize for
being injured and bleeding on the damn floor.” He reached behind him, grabbed a
towel and began to dry her off. “I can’t believe I just forgot about it. I
should’ve looked at it better.” He took another towel, wrapped it around her
body, scooped her up and carried her out of the bathroom. 

“You were stabbed in the belly and
chest. I think that surpasses the urgency of a cut on the leg. It looks worse
than it feels. I don’t even remember how it happened.”

“My wounds are already healed. I
should’ve been mindful of your injury. And you don’t remember because you were
drugged.” He lowered her onto the bed.

She immediately started to get up, but
he easily held her down. “What are you doing? Let me get up. I’ll get blood all
over the bed. I’ll ruin the comforter.”

“Stay put.” He sat down on the edge of
the bed to examine the wound. When he touched it a sharp pain shot through her
thigh. She yelped and tried to pull her leg away, but he caught her ankle and held
it in a firm but gentle grip. “We need to take care of it now. It’s deeper than
I thought. It’s already infected and there’s a large sliver of wood in it.” He
reached over her and pulled the edge of the comforter over her. “It’s still
cold up here. Keep it around you.” He stood up. “And don’t you dare move an
inch. I’ll be right back.”

“Shouldn’t I get dressed?” she asked,
figuring that he was headed out to make arrangements to take her to the
hospital. 

“Not yet.” He walked out of the room.

***

Eli
knew she wouldn’t like what he planned to do, but he wasn’t giving her a choice
in the matter. The wound needed to be treated… now. He didn’t want to leave the
house with her until he knew Demetri was no longer around. He knew it would
upset her if he tore his wrist open while she was in her right mind. He didn’t
want to take control of her mind again. It felt wrong when he’d done it to get
her to take his blood to dilute the heroin. Eli headed into the kitchen and
took a knife from the knife block on the counter, and then went back up to the
bedroom.

“Holy crap!” She swung her legs over the
side of the bed as if attempting to make a run for it. “You are not going to
try to cut the sliver out are you?”

“No.” He sliced his palm open, dropped
the knife and gripped her thigh as she sat on the edge of the bed.

“Ouch!” She tried to push him away from
her. “Stop!” She kicked him in the chest with her other foot to force him to
let go, but he didn’t budge. “You have to stop! You said if I got your blood
into my system I’d be change!” 

   “Relax. You would have to
ingest my blood to undergo a transformation.” He looked up at her. “And being
like me isn’t so bad.”

She stopped fighting right away. “I
didn’t say it was bad. It’s just that I like being me. What are you doing?”

“My blood will force the sliver out,
remove the infection and completely heal the wound. Within a few hours there’ll
be no hint of a scar left. It wouldn’t change who you are, it would only make
you faster, stronger and live longer.”

“You could’ve warned me before you
marched in here wielding a butcher knife like you were going play surgeon on
me.”

Yes. He could’ve warned her, but if she
begged him not to do it he feared he might’ve done something stupid. Like
attempt to take her to the hospital. “I knew you would object.”

“And that didn’t matter to you?”

“Of course. But it was infected. It
needed immediate care. You’re being hunted. Taking you to the hospital would’ve
been a terrible risk. I just wanted to get it done before you had a chance to
get upset.”

“It didn’t work. I’m upset.”

“I did it for your own good.”

“I’m not unreasonable. And I’m not
stupid. I know I’m being hunted. If you would’ve explained your concerns to me
I would’ve agreed with you. I’m certain, though it would’ve seemed extremely
peculiar, I would’ve let you do whatever it is you are doing with your blood to
heal the wound.”

“Oh, damn. I’m sorry. I don’t think
you’re stupid at all. I was only trying to take care of you.” He led a powerful
pack. Taking charge had been what he’d done for so long. When he realized she
might resist, he just did what he thought was right as he would with any member
of his pack. He certainly wasn’t used to discussing his decisions. He trusted
his instincts and followed them so there was no reason to talk about his
conclusions before he acted upon them. But she wasn’t just a member of his
pack. She was his mate. She was the one and only destined to walk by his side,
not follow in his shadow. “I’ve no excuse for my behavior. I really am sorry,
Kara.”