Authors: Melody Johnson
I shook my head, and I realized that I could see again. His face was inches from mine. His lips were stained a deep red from my blood.
“Ronnie, not Rene,” I clarified. “She’s Walker’s childhood friend. She lives in his house with the other night bloods and—”
“Yes, I know who Ronnie is,” Dominic snapped briskly. “I’m shocked Walker hasn’t seriously attempted to kill Bex, considering Ronnie’s transformation. I’d think that would be, what’s the expression,” Dominic said thoughtfully, “his last straw.”
“Walker doesn’t know. Ronnie was healthy and human this morning. She—”
Dominic cut his head to the side. “If Ronnie attacked you tonight, she was transformed three to five days ago.”
“Walker saw her this morning. She was still human three to five
hours
ago,” I insisted. “And she’s a very weak vampire. The weakest vampire I’ve ever seen. She still moved nearly human slow, and she was able to enter the house uninvited.” I laughed bitterly. “You couldn’t enter with an invitation, but she used her own key to unlock the door.”
Dominic raised his eyebrows. “She crossed the threshold into Walker’s house?”
“Yes.”
“You realize what this means, don’t you?”
I hesitated. “That Ronnie is a sad excuse for a vampire?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. If—”
“That Walker is going to flip when he finds out?”
Dominic rolled his eyes. “Yes he will, but that’s still not the point.”
“It’s going to be a huge point for whoever attacked Ronnie,” I muttered.
“
That’s
my point!” Dominic interjected. “If Ronnie was transformed three to five hours ago, before I left you earlier this evening…?”
I nodded.
“Then she was transformed during the day,” Dominic finished, his voice grim. “And the only creature who can tolerate daylight and transform a night blood into a vampire is a Day Reaper.”
“A Day Reaper?” I asked, trying to grasp the gravity of the situation. “I thought you said that we had some time before they came.
If
they came.”
“We do! Or we should have. The police are still investigating the murders as human crimes. Day Reapers usually don’t interfere unless our existence is at risk of exposure. Officer Riley Montgomery was a witness, but he’s dead. And Agent Harold Rowens—” Dominic cursed. “Rowens hasn’t even regained consciousness to determine what he remembers.”
And if he remembers?
I thought. Rowens didn’t seem the type to easily or willfully forget.
Would you kill him for his silence?
I wondered.
“If a Day Reaper is here, does that affect our plan for Nathan?” I asked instead.
“It’s something to discuss.” Dominic bit into his own wrist and held the wound to my lips.
I eyed his bleeding wrist warily. “What are you doing?”
“You need it, and we really don’t have time to argue at the moment. Bex is watching Jillian in my absence. Although I don’t doubt Bex’s abilities, Jillian is my responsibility. We need to return to Bex’s coven, take ownership of Jillian, and discuss our plans to contain Nathan.” He moved his wrist fractionally closer to my mouth. “Drink.”
I turned my head away, but I was too weak to fight him if he forced me. “You’ve never needed me to drink your blood to heal me before,” I said. “Licking my wounds usually does the trick.”
“I’ve already healed you. You will live whether or not you drink my blood, but you won’t have the strength to face your brother and wield Jillian against him unless you drink.”
“I don’t want to be a vampire. I don’t choose that life.”
Dominic rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered something foul under his breath. “You have enough blood of your own that you won’t transform, I assure you.”
I bit my lip. Dominic’s intentions, and especially his intentions regarding my status as his night blood, were so complex that I couldn’t see the big picture, but Dominic—five steps, two skips, and a bite ahead of everyone, as always—knew exactly how the pieces fit. Was this just another trick, like swearing on the passage of time, that I didn’t understand or comprehend?
Dominic sighed heavily at my hesitation. I could feel the balance of all our lives in the weight of his sigh. “Do you or do you not trust me, Cassidy? It’s that simple. When I tell you that drinking my blood will not transform you, do you believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you,” I said, surprising myself. I really did believe him. He wanted to transform me, there was no denying that, but I believed without a doubt, more than his desire to transform me, that he desired my consent. “I trust you, but—”
“No. You either trust me or you don’t, and if you don’t, your brother’s only chance at a normal, sane existence is lost.”
I breathed in sharply. “Well, when you put it like that,” I snapped.
“I’m not putting it any other way than how it truly is,” Dominic said patiently. “In this, however, I won’t force you. You must see reality for what it is and seize it with both hands. No one but you can do that for yourself.”
Dominic pressed his wrist to my lips again, but this time, despite the instinctive urge to gag and bolt, I forced myself to stay the course. I sealed my lips around the wound, like I’d witnessed from him on multiple occasions, and sucked.
Any other time his blood made contact with my tongue—our experience with Jillian excluded—I’d spit it out instantly. This time, I allowed myself to taste it. I rolled its flavor over my tongue, feeling its texture, and to my surprise and deepening hate for everything concerning Dominic being right, the taste and texture was tolerable. His blood was cool and thick in my mouth, like chilled honey, but slippery against my tongue instead of sticky. It slid down the back of my throat before I could swallow, so I could either choke or accept it. Against my better judgment—against everything I thought I’d wanted for myself in this life—I swallowed.
Although his blood was chilled, heat spread down my throat, into my stomach, and through each limb. It swirled and crashed through my body like a riptide, unexpected and drowning, his blood in my blood, pumping through my veins in time with my heartbeat, healing and invigorating my body from the inside out. From chest to fingertip, head to toe, I was radiant.
Drinking Dominic’s blood was a different experience now that Jillian wasn’t leeching from my mind. In my wildest dreams, I’d never imaged feeling anything but disgust from drinking blood, yet I basked in it. But even the sun, providing light and life to the entire world, will incinerate whatever dares to venture too close. Dominic’s blood was suddenly scalding. My skin stretched, like it might rip from my own body to keep from burning.
“Dominic? It burns.”
“Your body must accept my blood as your own in order for it to strengthen you,” Dominic’s lips moved against my ear as he whispered, his voice rushed and urgent. “Otherwise, you’ll just throw it up again.”
“Something’s wrong,” I murmured. “I’m on fire, and my skin is tearing in half.”
“No, it’s not. My saliva burns, too, but it’s just healing.” Dominic moved his wrist away from my mouth and held my hand. He squeezed tightly. “Do you feel this?”
I nodded.
“Focus on my hand in your hand. Feel its cold soothing your heat, its strength protecting you. The coldness and strength that you feel in my hand is inside you now, anchoring you. Feel my blood course through you and embrace the gift it’s about to give. You must accept it.”
“Its gift?” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Strength, Cassidy. Visualize my strength coursing through your veins. Let go of your fear and allow the blood access to your muscles and bones. Allow it access to your mind. Can you feel it in your veins?”
“Yes,” I said. The blood was still burning and my skin was still tearing, but I could feel what he was describing, too. I focused on his hand and the anticipation of strength inside me.
“Visualize the blood soaking deep into your muscles, into the aches and soreness. Visualize it revitalizing you from the inside out. Can you feel your body healing, your vision sharpening, your muscles strengthening?”
“Yes,” I whispered in wonder. “I can.” I visualized what he described, seeing past the physical discomfort of my stretched skin to the miracle occurring beneath it. My heart shifted into third gear, and my biceps and triceps, my thighs and calves, my abdomen and all my muscles expanded, filling my stretched skin. My body fit inside itself again, but I was something more than I’d been before. I could feel it like tiny electrical snaps, the living electric pulse of his blood, now my blood.
“How do you feel now?” Dominic asked cautiously.
I glanced up into his face and stared. I could see the midnight energy of his being enveloping me. I could literally see his concern like a physical halo surrounding his body.
“Is this how you see?” I asked. I felt a strange, pointed whirl against my arm and cringed. A moment later, I felt the sensation again and again in concurrence with an owl hooting in the distance. I was feeling the vibrations of its hoot against my skin. I could literally feel his sound waves. “Is this how you feel all the time?”
Dominic stared at me like I was a stranger. “Every time I think I know you, every time I think I’m impressed by the woman you are and the night blood you’re becoming, you do something extraordinarily unexpected, and I’m awed by you. Over and over again, you amaze me.”
“I can feel sound waves and see emotions.” I took a deep breath to calm my heart, and my mouth flooded with a muted, clean freshness, like peeled cucumber. “I can taste the air. Why wasn’t it like this the last time I drank your blood?”
“Jillian was drinking from you, taking the nourishment that should have been yours, but she’s not a part of you anymore. It’s just me inside you. Knowing the night blood you are now, it humbles me to think of the vampire you’ll become.”
I narrowed my eyes, not so enthralled by my newfound senses to miss that last remark. “The vampire I won’t become,” I clarified.
“Don’t,” Dominic hushed, placing a finger over my lips. “Please, don’t ruin this for me. You trusted me and took my blood into your body willfully and without the bloodlust of Jillian’s cravings. Don’t deny what you feel with pithy words. Don’t cheapen this moment between us.”
I wanted to deny it. I wanted to sneer and snort derisively
What moment? You can’t cheapen what isn’t there,
but after a lifetime of seeking and divulging the truth, I couldn’t refute the undeniable, and the truth of the matter was that Dominic was, once again, right. Damn it.
I lifted my hand and touched Dominic’s face. With his blood coursing through my hand, it somehow felt as if I was touching myself. Dominic shuddered, and by the bright, burnt orange burst through his aura, I knew he felt the same.
“How long will this last?” I asked.
I watched his throat work as he struggled to speak. “For most, mere hours. For you—” He shook his head. “Any guess would be speculation. Several hours to a day? I simply can’t predict anything concerning you.”
Dominic was inches away from my face, his lips breaths from mine, and inching closer.
“Long enough to save Nathan,” I whispered.
He blinked, trying to focus. “Long enough for what?”
“Several hours to a day with these senses and added strength,” I said. “It should be long enough to save my brother.”
“Hmm,” Dominic murmured noncommittally. I heard the snapping spark, like the spit of cracking logs in fire, of his hand sliding along the small of my back.
“Dominic,” I warned. “Bex is keeping Jillian in your absence. You said yourself that we were short on time.”
“They’ve waited this long,” he growled. “They can wait a few moments longer.”
His mouth sealed over mine in a blaze of exploding fireworks. My eyes widened, shocked by the explosion of light and heat between us, more shocked at first from the sensory collide than from the kiss itself, but as his mouth rocked over mine, my eyes shut of their own accord. His kiss was magnetic. His lips opened and fused against mine. I responded in kind, attuned to his movements like a choreographed dance. Where he led, I followed. I grasped at the collar of his shirt as the friction and pace escalated. His rhythm pounded though my blood, our blood, and its beat lit my lips and cheeks and neck. Everywhere his lips and tongue and teeth touched, I burned, and everywhere he hadn’t yet touched burned even brighter.
Although his burnt orange aura and my own flaring burst of sparkling light collided, they resisted the merge. He pulled my hair back, exposing my neck. I angled my mouth on his and stroked my tongue over his lower lip. He growled and bit my lip. I bit him back, and I could feel him smile against my lips as we battled for control.
His hand against my lower back skimmed higher. I could smell the crack and smoke of the hearth from his movement. My breath caught, equally enthralled by his physical touch and the dynamic of my newfound senses. The callused pressure of his palm scraped from my lower back to my hip. His tongue slipped between my lips and curled against my tongue, and I forgot the movement of his hand in a blaze of light and rhythm until his calluses scraped against the tender underside of my left breast.
I tore my mouth away from his, panting, and stared into his eyes with wonder. Dominic, despite the fact that he wasn’t panting—one of the perks, I suppose, of not having a circulatory system—met my gaze, and he looked just as devastated.
“Is this how it is for you every time?” I asked, gaining a newfound respect for his restraint.
“Everyone is unique—different auras colliding is always a unique experience—but yes, kissing you is like this every time.”
“And everything else?” I asked. I broke our locked gazes to stare out into the vivid kaleidoscope that had become my world. “Is this how you see and hear and feel and smell and taste every day? Like magic?”
“My senses seem fantastic to you because they’re new, but after hundreds of years, they become the norm. If I were to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell as a human again, I suspect I would feel bereft of my senses, essentially blind and deaf compared to the sensory input I’ve become accustomed to receiving.”
I shook my head in wonderment at the prospect of living in such vivid Technicolor. “I can’t imagine ever becoming accustomed to this.”