The Mortal One (The Mortal One Series) (21 page)

Nico looked as dazed as I felt as he rolled over languidly on the bed. I stared up at Costin, embarrassed by what he had witnessed but unable to move and hide. I lay beside Nico, panting, trying to catch my breath, and wondering if I was still bleeding. I felt paralyzed. I didn’t see any blood, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. My neck was throbbing in small electric pulses mirroring my uneven breathing. I tried to move, yet I felt like iron weights held me to the bed.

Costin peered down at me. “He took a little too much blood – that’s why you’re so weak right now.”

I blinked in understanding and gazed up at him.

“You should be okay in an hour or so.” He turned my head gently to the side, inspecting our activities. “You’re marked, though.”

I relaxed. I was finally untouchable from Olivier. I reached over and touched Nico’s fingertips. He jumped a little and rolled over to face me.

“Ciao,” he cooed as a grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “You’re delicious.”

I smiled, though I wasn’t sure if this was something I should be happy about. It all went back to the conversations with Antonio and sharing blood. I hadn’t made up my mind if offering up my blood—the very thing which kept me alive—was such a good idea.

“You could have drained her,” Costin scolded.

Drained? My heart sped a little at hearing that, not knowing if I wanted to be left alone with Nico. What if he got thirsty again and Costin wasn’t there to save me or pull Nico off of me? I could see it was a struggle for Costin to break him free of me, so there was no way I would be able to. Nico wouldn’t kill me on purpose…yet accidents happen.

Nico glanced up. “I didn’t, though.” He licked his lips once more and looked a little guilty. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me right away and that made me worry, as well.

“Just be careful.” They exchanged several looks I wasn’t able to completely see or interpret. “I’ll leave the two of you to…rest.” Costin slipped out the front door with hardly a sound.

Epilogue

I WAS MUDDLING mint leaves for a mojito when I saw the brunette figure appear at the end of the bar.
Violante
. I glanced in her direction and she locked eyes with me. I heard her words inside my head.

“Find a reason to leave.”

The bar was just starting to get busy. All of the barstools were already full and the dining room was on a fifteen-minute wait. My body tensed and my head swam with reasons why I’d need to leave and how I could get out of my shift.

Giancarlo passed in front of me to get to the flavored vodkas and looked up at me. “Don’t look so serious, you okay?” He gave me a playful jab in the ribcage with his elbow.

I went from one side of the bar to the other to figure out how the hell I was supposed to get out from behind the bar. There was no way I could just ask to leave – not with it this busy. The only way out was to fake being sick. Now to work on the symptoms.

Sweat was beginning to appear on my forehead from my overactive imagination. I wiped my brow and looked up at him. It was time to turn up the theatrics. I steadied my hand on the counter in front of me. “I feel horrible.”

He placed the back of his hand against my head. “You don’t look so well, either.” He pushed past me for a moment to deal with a few customers who had crept up to my side of the bar. Two bottles of beer and a martini later and he was back at my side, pouring me one. “I can get this tonight though you owe me one.” Both of us knew that he would cash in on it.

“You sure?” I asked, glad he bought the act.

He nodded. “Get some sleep.”

Before I was even out of the door, Violante was at my heels. “Go to him. There is trouble.”

“I figured,” I commented. She was never one to sugar coat anything. “Why are you the one bringing me the message, though?”

She rolled her eyes as she looked down at me. Even with my heeled boots, she was a good two or three inches taller than I was. Her brown hair was side swept and her long eyelashes flashed up and down a few times as she spoke. “Don’t worry. Your little Nico is fine. He and Costin are at your apartment discussing a plan.”

Her cryptic speech was getting me to walk faster. “A plan for what?

“I am not allowed to say.” I knew that must have bothered her more than anything. She said allowed but I had a feeling it was more along the lines of she didn’t know all the details to share. I was not her favorite person to begin with and now she had to walk me to my apartment. I guess we wouldn’t be planning on any shopping trips together anytime in the near future.

***

I walked up the stairs to my apartment and glanced back at Violante. “Are you coming up?”

“No,” she answered quickly and disappeared.

I entered in the middle of a heated discussion between Nico and Costin, which ended abruptly as soon as they saw me.

Nico walked over and stood beside me before he placed his arm around my shoulder and escorted me to the couch. Costin nodded his head in greeting at me and paced back and forth in front of the couch.

“Is someone going to tell me what’s the matter?”

Costin looked tired and in need of blood. His eyes were deep-set and his hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail. As he reached the end of the imaginary line he was walking along, he turned around and stopped. “Henri is dead.”

I let his words set in. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Henri. Dead. This could mean anything.

“Dylan? Did you hear me?” His pacing continued as he repeated the question.

I tipped my head. “Does that mean…?” I didn’t want to say it out loud partly because I wasn’t sure what kind of impact it would have on me. I also never wanted to say his name out loud ever again. I hoped I never had to.

“We think Olivier killed Henri,” Nico shared.

“If Henri is dead by the hand of Olivier, then that makes him sovereign, right?”

Costin and Nico both nodded.

“We’re not sure if Olivier was completely responsible,” Costin added.

“How did he die?”

“You don’t want to ask that question,” Nico warned.

He was probably right so I didn’t press the issue.

“The only thing that we know is that you are safe right now because of the mark. Olivier has made no additional threats toward you and with Henri dead, he is staying in Paris – presumably to claim the title of sovereign,” Costin started to explain.

“There are some issues behind Henri’s death, however,” Nico commented, “That make things a little unclear.”

Costin moved in closer to me. “We do not know what Oliver’s intentions are and if he has the right to be sovereign.”

“So am I safe?” Just when things started to resume normalcy, or at least as normal as my life could possibly be these days, everything came back to Olivier. It always did.

Nico wrapped his arm around me. “You will be safe as long as I have anything to do with it.” He twirled the ring on my left hand absent mindedly.

“He is stronger than anyone of us expected but we don’t think he was working alone,” Costin stated. The room spun with this new information. I took a seat on the couch to steady myself.

“So,” I asked, “This means other vampires have helped him to kill Henri? Why would they do that?”

Nico clasped his hand over mine. “Vampires are not the only thing that goes bump in the night,
mia mortale
.”

“You are safe because of the mark, so take comfort in that fact,” Costin remarked.

###

Turn the page to read a teaser to
Immortality Stolen
,

Book 2 in The Mortal One series.

Look for it in December 2014!

Chapter 1

THERE WAS NO way I could do this. These vampires were stronger and faster than I was. Yet my adrenaline kept me racing around Florence. Every morning, I got up and ran. Why? Because I knew that it was important to at least try and be able to out run any of the vampires that weren’t on our side.

Since arriving in Florence, I’d found out that vampires existed, fell in love with one, and been marked by one. Oh yeah, and there was another vampire in Paris that either wanted to kill me or fuck me. Not knowing which made things a little more complicated but it was one of the few things that kept me motivated to run every morning. Plus, I had to run in the morning because the evenings were busy with everything from vampire politics to my nights bartending at Yankee Bar.

I did have to say things were a lot more interesting since I left my home in Florida. With my best friend Jen visiting last month, it also helped me sever my ties with everyone back home.

A knock at the door broke my thoughts.

“What’s all this?”

Three large boxes were in front of me and a postal carrier was handing me a clipboard and pointing to where I needed to sign.

“I didn’t order anything.”

“They came from the United States.” He pointed to the return address, collected the clipboard, and hurried down the stairs.

I pushed the boxes in one at a time. They were heavy. And they were from Jen. Once they were all inside, I tore them open, wondering what she sent me. I let out a sigh as the cardboard flaps sprung back from the first box. Everything I owned was carefully packed away – presumably in all three boxes.

As I methodically emptied each box, I thanked Jen for sending me everything. My clothes, my books, my yearbooks, my life. It was all in the boxes. She sent me everything that was in my apartment. She probably tied up all of the loose ends that she could. She probably even sold my car, though I hoped she kept the money to pay for the shipping of these boxes.

The yearbooks, the scrapbooks, and the other memories weren’t things that I wanted. It reminded me of the life I chose to give up. But the clothes were welcomed in my closet and the books fit well on the bookshelves.

The rest of the afternoon was spent putting everything away. I was barely cognizant of the sun setting when the door opened.

Nico didn’t even say hi to me before he wore the scowl that I had seen one too many times.

“What is all of this?”

“Hi, honey.”

He lowered his eyes. “Hi. Where did all this come from?”

I smiled. “Jen sent it to me.”

“We have to move.”

“Excuse me?”

He shook his head. “We were going to move you, anyways. Now just proves the point.”

I stood up from the couch and walked over to him. “Come, sit down.”

He sighed. “We have to talk about this.”

“Sure,” I nodded. “Come sit first.”

He sat like requested but didn’t seem too happy about it.

“Do you want anything? Wine? Me?”

His eyes rolled.

Oh, it was one of
these
visits. I sat down next to him. “We have to move?”

“Yes.”

“Because she still knows where I live?”

“Yes.”

“And her sending everything to me proves that she knows where I live and we need to move me in case she tells anyone?”

“Yes.”

I smiled. “See, I’m smarter than I look.”

“Dylan, I don’t know why you have to joke about these things.”

“Because if I didn’t joke, I would probably cry.” That was probably closer to the truth than I would ordinarily admit. Everything has been in fast forward since I met Nico. Fast is good for some things, but it was wearing me out. Before I had a chance to blink, I’d been married and marked – and that was only the half of it.

“Dylan - ,” Nico started to explain.

“I know what you’re going to say. You don’t have to explain anything. I get it.” I curled in next to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Where am I moving?”

“In with me.”

I didn’t see that one coming. “Really?”

He smiled. “I knew that would get your attention. Yes, really. Costin and I talked about it the other day and thought it would be good. Olivier has been behaving himself, so it seems as though we can proceed as normal.”

Olivier was behaving himself. I didn’t really know whether that was true or not. He had just killed his sovereign, or so we were led to believe. There were still a lot of issues that we were dealing with because he had not yet assumed the role of soverign. None of us knew what the hell to think about the situation. The only thing we did know is that he had not shown up in Florence to try and claim me again – and that was a good thing.

Costin and Nico were supposed to take a trip to Paris in the next few days to try and do a little investigative work to see what was going on. We had to figure out how Henri actually died because Olivier had sent word to me a few days ago claiming that he wasn’t responsible. We already knew he was involved, though. We just had no idea how – especially if he wasn’t actually the one who killed him.

“Costin will be here in a little while with Antonio,” Nico said.

“Why?”

“Because we need to talk about a plan.”

“Right.”

Nico kissed my ear and put his hand on my thigh. “It’s going to be this way for a while until we can get everything figured out. It’s the vampire politics, as you like to say.”

I nodded. “Got it. Why is Antonio coming over?” Usually he stayed out of the politics because he wasn’t a vampire yet. Most of the pets stayed out of things unless they were directly affected, like I was.

“Antonio has done a lot of research that may be of help.”

Before I could ask another question, the knock at the door announced that our visitors had arrived. I got up and opened the door for them. Costin gave me a kiss on both cheeks, as did Antonio.

Antonio followed me into the kitchen for wine and Costin took a seat in the chair across from Nico to talk about what was going on in Paris.

“Brunello or Chianti?” I held out the two bottles for Antonio to look over.

“You’ve been expanding your collection,” he smiled.

That was putting it mildly. Over the past week, I had purchased over a dozen bottles. After talking to people at the bar and doing a little research of my own, it had become a personal mission to try what some of the wineries around Tuscany had to offer.

Antonio picked the Brunello, I started to open the bottle, and Costin’s words caught me by surprise. I put the bottle down with the corkscrew still in it.

“Did you just say zombies?”