Authors: Melody Johnson
“Nathan recognized you tonight when he drank from your carotid instead of your aorta. He hesitated to kill you, just like Jillian hesitated when she faced Desirius. Kaden wasn’t powerful enough to create a version of the Damned that could recognize love, but Jillian might.”
I shook my head and blew the bangs out of my face. “There’s too much at risk for ‘might.’ How do we find out for sure?”
Dominic grinned, and with that one look, I was suddenly very aware that I was lying in bed under the sheets with a powerful, dangerous, compulsive creature whose main source of food ran through my veins.
I eased away from him.
“Your heartbeat just escalated and the pitch of your breath deepened.” Dominic leaned closer. “What are you thinking, Cassidy?”
“I’m thinking that you should keep your distance,” I said in a careful, steady tone. Attempting to hide my fear when he could hear the change in my heartbeat was futile, but I attempted anyway.
“I could close the distance between us faster than you could think you wanted space.”
“I’m already thinking it,” I snapped.
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that you don’t want me?”
That’s exactly what I’m saying,
I thought, but that wouldn’t go over well. “I’m saying that I’m well aware of your strength and speed and physical superiority in every way. There’s no need to show me how easily you could force me.”
“I don’t want to force you, Cassidy. I could if I wanted to, but despite my physical superiority—” His lips quirked at the phrase, and I got the distinct impression that he was laughing at me”—I want you to come to me of your own accord. I want your trust.”
“Why is my trust so important to you?” I whispered.
He stared into my eyes, and I could feel the press of his mind against mine. I could feel the breathless ache inside him, like a kaleidoscope of desire, as it solidified and morphed shape with his thoughts. I didn’t know his thoughts, but I knew by the crest and ebb of his emotions that he was conflicted and that the feeling was deeply rooted. Could I be the source of that conflict?
I shook my head and looked away.
“I can only trust you when I know you trust me,” Dominic said. “Can you place your fears aside, just for a moment, and trust me now to determine Jillian’s strength?”
I glanced up at him. “What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to trust me,” he said patiently.
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve got that. What else do you need me to do?”
Dominic lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit into the vein. Blood welled in the deep puncture from his fangs and dripped down his forearm. He offered his wrist to me.
“I need you to drink.”
* * * *
The heady scent of his blood wafted to me and scorched the back of my throat. Unlike the scent of cinnamon from Bex’s blood, Dominic’s blood had a fresh heat, like the effervescence of peppermint. I turned my head away but couldn’t deny the unquenchable thirst. I burned with it.
Jillian stirred in my mind. His blood was familiar to her, and she stretched and shuddered with anticipation, luxuriating in the memories of his icy heat against her flesh.
Yes,
she breathed on a long, trembling pant.
Drink.
I raised my hand and blocked his wrist from coming any closer to my mouth. “No. This isn’t going to prove anything.”
DRINK!
Jillian shrieked.
I winced from the volume of her voice resonating in my mind.
Dominic cocked his head. “How does my blood make you feel?”
I tried to breathe shallowly to avoid smelling its scent. “It makes me thirsty,” I admitted. “My throat is on fire, as if I’ll burn from the inside out without your blood to dampen the flames.”
“Can you feel Jillian inside your mind?”
I nodded. “She wants me to drink. She’s insisting, actually.”
Dominic moved his wrist closer to me, undaunted by my efforts to stop him. “Comply with her, and let’s see what happens.”
Yes,
Jillian purred.
Let’s see what happens.
I shook my head. “This isn’t good. She’s anticipating your blood.”
“Of course she is. She’s starving.” Dominic stopped moving his arm closer, but he didn’t pull back, either. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You aren’t drained, so drinking from me won’t transform you nor harm you in any way. This is just an experiment.”
“Nothing is ‘just’ an experiment.”
“I need you to trust me.”
I stared at Dominic’s wrist, his blood thick like honey, and at that moment, there was nothing I wanted more than to lick his blood-slicked flesh. Desire and thirst incinerated my throat.
I shook my head.
Dominic sighed in frustration. “Why are you resisting? I know you trust me enough for this. You’ve risked much more for me than a simple lick. You’ve licked Bex’s blood and nothing extraordinary occurred. Why not lick mine?”
“It’s not about your blood. It’s not about trusting you,” I whispered, terrified.
“I know you want to help your brother. Your devotion to save him in undeniable.”
I nodded.
“Determining Jillian’s strength is our first step toward saving him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” Dominic insisted.
I breathed in sharply from his tone. The icy heat of peppermint flooded my nose. A backdraft blazed down my throat to my stomach, and the truth burst through my lips before I even knew I was speaking. “I don’t trust myself!”
Dominic stared for a moment, surprised by my outburst. “In what way don’t you trust yourself?” he asked calmly, as if this were a normal conversation.
Tears streamed down my face, and it took every molecule of my control not to pounce on his arm and lap at the blood like an animal. Like him.
“I want it too much,” I admitted. “I know better than to give into cravings when I want something this badly, when it feels like I’ll literally die without it. It usually means I’ll die having it.”
Dominic narrowed his gaze on me. “These aren’t
your
cravings, Cassidy. They’re Jillian’s. The few times you’ve tasted my blood, you were revolted. I had to force my blood into your mouth, and even then, instead of swallowing, you spat it back in my face, remember?”
I nodded slowly. “Yes, I remember, but these cravings feel like my cravings.”
“I trust you,” he said, his voice low and serious. “Drink.”
I swallowed, and my saliva scraped like sand down my throat. His arm was suddenly closer. His blood smelled sweeter, and the scent stung my nose hairs in an icy burn. My mouth flooded with his blood before I even realized I’d moved. My hands on his arms, which were supposed to be resisting, had betrayed me and pulled his wrist to my mouth.
YES!
Jillian shouted, her voice a breathy exhale of pleasure.
MORE!
I swallowed and sucked in another mouthful of blood. The more I drank, the more I wanted, and the more I wanted, the more I drank. I was drowning in thirst and burning with need and without an anchor to steady me, I couldn’t stop.
Dominic tried to pry my mouth from his arm gently, but I bit into his flesh and refused to budge.
“Cassidy DiRocco, you will stop drinking my blood, you will release your hold on my wrist, and look into my eyes.”
Dominic’s voice resonated in my head, turning my mind to putty and my will to his own. I stopped drinking his blood, released his wrist, and looked into his eyes instantly.
“No,” I whispered. “You promised. You swore by the sun that you would never entrance me again.”
“So did you, and when necessary, you broke that promise. As am I.” Dominic looked deep into my eyes. “I can feel her in you.” He didn’t look away, but from the strain in his voice, it pained him not to. “I can feel your struggle. Why would you think you were addicted to blood?”
I tried not to think of that time, but not thinking about it was like someone telling you not to think about elephants. You were instantly and uncontrollably thinking about elephants.
I thought about my painful recovery from being shot, of my addition to Percocets and of my subsequent struggle to detox. I thought of my fight with Nathan and of my promise to never slip down that path ever again. I’d promised him that family would always come first.
“Ah,” Dominic said, and that one noise said everything. He understood.
Dominic looked even deeper into my eyes, searching. “Jillian Allister, look into my eyes.”
Impossible,
Jillian thought.
Dominic released his hold on my mind, but the single thread that still linked my mind to Jillian’s sparked to attention. I felt her look up through my eyes and stare into Dominic’s gaze.
He was able to entrance Jillian through me.
“Oh, it’s possible,” Dominic said, his expression smug. “You made Cassidy drink my blood, which means you drank my blood, opening your mind to me. You know the consequences of drinking from another vampire, Jillian. And you know the consequences of hurting Cassidy.”
I didn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do,
Jillian denied.
Release me.
“I intend to, and when I do, you’ll wish I had left you to rot in your imprisonment where you belong,” Dominic hissed.
I felt Jillian’s sudden, chilling fear.
“Did you attempt to turn the night blood, Nathan DiRocco, into a vampire?”
Who?
Jillian asked, but a vision of Nathan flashed through my mind. His lifeless body was bent back over Jillian’s embrace, his neck exposed, and the sweet cinnamon taste of his blood flooded her senses as she drank him dry.
“Did you give him your blood?” Dominic urged.
No, I did not,
Jillian denied, but her memory of him sucking and swallowing her blood was all the answer we needed. Jillian had turned Nathan into the Damned.
Dominic looked away. His connection with Jillian severed, and almost instantly, Jillian severed the last remaining thread between us, so all that remained in her absence was a nauseating black void.
I could feel the sticky tack of Dominic’s blood on my lips and chin, in my mouth and coating the back of my throat, and instead of the burning crave and unquenchable thirst I’d been struggling to stifle, I was revolted.
I gagged.
“She’s gone?” Dominic asked.
I nodded. “Oh, God.” I gagged again, fighting not to vomit. “I’m going to be sick.”
Dominic’s arms were around me in an instant, and with a rush of wind and a dizzying displacement in space, I was suddenly sitting on a shaggy rug on the tiled bathroom floor of our guest suite, draped over the toilet.
“Thanks,” I muttered, and a moment later, my stomach convulsed. I closed my eyes, trying not to look at the contents of my stomach coming from my mouth, but I knew from the stench what it was and gagged even harder. I was throwing up blood.
“The blood you drank was nourishing her,” Dominic said, sitting on the ledge of the shower beside me. “She might be strong enough to help with your brother after all.”
“Great,” I said. Although my words were true, sincerity was difficult to convey while hugging a toilet. I needed a shower. God knew I didn’t have the strength to bathe on my own, but more than a shower, I wanted to hug the toilet without an audience. “Can I have some privacy?”
“You’ll need help to clean yourself if you want a bath,” Dominic said, his voice level and reasonable despite the words. “Let me help you.”
My anger erupted in a hot blaze. “Get out of my head! You broke your promise! You swore by the sun that you would never entrance me, and you broke that trust.”
“We swore that we would never entrance each other, but you broke that promise weeks ago.”
“To save your life!”
“Which I accepted as an appropriate circumstance to break such a promise. I, in turn, was faced with a situation in which I felt it necessary to break that promise, and now, you’re free from Jillian’s hold on your mind. Also, we’ve confirmed that Jillian is your brother’s maker. I apologize for the intrusion, for what it’s worth, but it was necessary.”
“Fine,” I conceded between gags. Anything to make him leave. “Will you please go?”
Dominic stared at me in silence for a long moment. I attempted to ignore him and calm my stomach, but with the metallic stickiness of blood coating the back of my throat, I couldn’t stop gagging.
The sink ran for a few seconds and then cut off.
“Here.” Dominic leaned down and offered me a small paper cup filled with water.
I took a sip, gargled, and spat pink, diluted blood into the toilet. After a few more rinses my stomach settled, and I flushed.
“Thank you,” I said, handing him the cup. “I suppose mind reading has its advantages.”
“You know I can’t read your mind unless you’re entranced, and even then, I can only see your thoughts if I try very, very hard. Your defenses against me are better even than Jillian’s,” Dominic said, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he sounded almost proud of me. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t anticipate your needs.”
“And I appreciate that,” I lied. “But at the moment, what I really need is some privacy.” He still didn’t look convinced, so I added, “Please.”
“You will call for me if you need anything,” Dominic said sternly. “I don’t think you have the strength to bathe on your own, but I’ll respect your wishes if you promise to ask for help if necessary.”
“I promise,” I said, thinking
not a chance in hell will I ask for your help bathing.
Dominic’s penetrating look pierced through my eyes and seemed to will my soul for more. I knew what he wanted, but I wasn’t willing to give it to him.
“I’m not expanding on that promise, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”
Dominic crossed his arms. He looked very comfortable leaning back against the side of the shower. Too comfortable. It didn’t look like he was about to give me privacy any time soon. “Why are you refusing me now?” he asked. “You didn’t before.”
“Before, I didn’t realize I was giving more than my word. I wouldn’t have broken my word anyway, but now I’m wondering what else I’m giving you when I swear by the passage of time.”
“Nothing more than what I’m giving you when I swear by the sun.” Dominic grinned. “If you don’t intend to break your word anyway, than what does it matter?”