Blood Mate (13 page)

He’d changed so
drastically from the broken man who’d kept her locked in his cellar
for months. The man she’d almost come to pity. If he was truly
free, she would have to remain out of his grasp for a week, two at
the most. Once he broke down and fed from someone else, once he got
the taste for blood without the pain, he wouldn’t need her anymore.
He could be a predator and she could be free. His obsession would
fade.

She tried not to
think about the vast stretch of eternity, how time would march
endlessly without Dominic, how she would lose anyone she got close
to. Some day she might seek August out, when the loneliness became
too great to bear. If that time ever came, she hoped he’d forgive
her for what she must do now. It was her last chance to save
herself—however briefly.

“You’re
awfully quiet, my dear. Are you sure you can handle this?”

Nicole shot the
vampire a disgusted look.

She had to
convince her husband to run with her. It was the only way. The two of
them together, putting as much space between them and the vampire as
possible, the ocean if necessary, half a dozen time zones, whatever
it took.

“Yes,” she
said through gritted teeth, “I can handle being his wife and your
whore. Is that the answer you wanted? Is that the one that excites
you?”

His hand slid up
the inside of her thigh. “Perhaps.”

Nicole closed her
eyes and breathed, trying to will the space between her legs to stop
throbbing. But there was no point. She felt wet and hot and itchy.
She wanted to crawl out of her skin and into his. It would be better
when she was in her husband’s arms. This would fade. It had to.
What she had with Dominic was real; with August it was a sick sort of
magic that had drawn her into its web.

“Would you like
me to go in with you?” he asked as he turned the ignition off.

“I’ll manage.”

August popped the
trunk and took her bags out. “I’ll leave you the rental car.”

Nicole got her
luggage to the door in two trips and rang the bell.

When Dominic
opened the door, Nicole was determined she would run from the vampire
as long as it took for him to give up and let her go.

That dimple. Oh,
God how she’d missed that dimple. All she wanted to do was fling
herself at him and fuck like rabbits for the next three years without
stopping—and find a way to erase August’s imprint from her body
and her mind.

But they could
fuck on the run. This had to end now.

“I didn’t
expect you so soon,” he said.

“Aunt Norah’s
cousin arrived last night to help, so I came back.”

Dominic helped her
bring her bags inside, then his arms were around her, his mouth
nibbling at her throat, fingers sliding underneath pants and panties.

“Wait.” She
gasped for air as she pushed him off her. “We can’t do that right
now.”

“We can’t? Did
the long exposure to Norah’s kids scare you off sex? Too risky?”
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and in spite of everything, she
laughed.

She took his hand.
“No, I need you to come with me. I’ve got something important to
tell you.”

Dominic was game
for anything. He let her drag him to the rental car and shove him
into the passenger seat.

“What happened
to the Lexus?”

“I’ll explain
later.” She checked her mirrors before pulling out and drove
straight to her parents’ house.

“What is all
this about?”

“You’ll find
out. I need to tell my parents, too.”

If she told all
three of them the truth, about August, about what he’d done to
her—maybe an edited version—about what he’d done to them,
surely one of them would be able to break through the thrall to
remember the vampire and see the truth. Then she and Dominic could
run.

“Lois and
Raymond? Oh God,
are
you pregnant?”

“No. Just wait,
so I can talk to everyone at once.”

It took several
knocks at her parents’ house before her dad answered. “Nicole,
honey, what a pleasant surprise.” It wouldn’t be pleasant for
long.

“I need to talk
to you and Mom.”

“Sure, sure.
Come on in. We just finished breakfast. Have you eaten? You want me
to scramble you some eggs? I’ve got some bacon and biscuits still
hot on the stove.”

“No, thanks.”
Who could eat eggs at a time like this?

When everyone was
gathered in the living room, the plan began to feel less solid.

She paced while
her mother sipped tea from a lilac cup with hibiscus hand-painted on
the side. Her brows drew tight together in her forehead.

“Good lord,
Nicole, whatever it is, spill it. Did someone die?”

Oh, lots of
people died.
“I may as well say it.”

Her dad lit a
pipe—an old nervous habit.

“Ray, you know I
hate when you do that,” her mother said, scooting to the other end
of the couch.

Dominic sat in the
easy chair, looking anything but easy, his muscles rigid and coiled
like a panther waiting to pounce on prey, or like prey ready to run
for its life.

“I was gone for
two months,” Nicole said. Maybe start with something easy.

“Just now?”
Dominic asked, bewildered. “You’ve been gone a few days.”

“No, before.
Mom, Dad… you know when.”

“You mean that
period you didn’t call me?” Lois said a bit snippily.

“Yes! This will
be hard to believe, but I was kidnapped by a man, by a… a vampire.”
Oh God, that sounded insane.

All three of them
burst out laughing.

“I mean it.
Dominic don’t you remember? August made you think you didn’t love
me, drove us apart. He’s erased your memory on a couple of other
occasions, too.” Her husband was finding the joke less funny. “Mom,
Dad, he brought me here to see you and erase your memory of my
absence. But mom shot him with the pistol. Three bullets. Then he got
right up like it was nothing.”

Lois put her
teacup on the coffee table, her hand unsteady, while Raymond took
another long drag from the pipe tobacco.

Dominic appeared
frozen in predator-prey confusion. Attack or run?

“There were
three bullets missing from the pistol the last time I cleaned it. We
keep it loaded,” her dad said.

Nicole smiled in
spite of the tension. Yes. This could work.

“Don’t be
ridiculous. This is all a bad joke,” her mother said. “Listen to
what she’s saying… memories erased and manipulated, shooting a
vampire. It’s nonsense.” She turned to Nicole, putting on her
stern-mom face. “You stop right this instant. The joke isn’t
funny, Nicole.”

“It’s not a
joke. You have to remember. Try to remember. Please. My life, my
freedom, depends on this.”

She was sure a
spark would come to one of them. How could they be reminded of
something so dramatic and not be able to call forth the memory? It
couldn’t be
gone
. It had to be in there someplace. She just
had to unlock it, trigger it somehow. All it would take was for one
of them to start remembering, then the others would fall like
dominoes.

“That’s
enough!” her dad said, his face growing red. “I don’t know what
the hell you think you’re doing, but that’s enough, Goddammit!”

“Dominic?” She
turned to her husband, sure he’d come to her aid. This was the man
who loved her more than life, the man she shared everything with. He
had to remember.

“I’m worried
about you, Nicole. How long have you had these delusions?”

Once Dominic had
made the suggestion of delusion, it was as if a mini hysteria settled
over the room. The idea clamped onto each of their brains, unwilling
to let go.

Lois stood and
edged toward Nicole, her arms outstretched as if she expected her
daughter to bolt at any moment. “Let me make you a nice cup of
tea.”

“Mom, I don’t
want tea. This is serious. You have to remember.”

Her parents
exchanged worried glances, as if they had this all figured out.
Our poor little girl is crazy. They didn’t have to say it
aloud. Insanity was scary, but it was real. There were methods in
place to deal with it. Vampires and mind control? Not so much.

She’d been
worried about how she’d skirt around some of the more X-rated
details of her time with August. That had been a wasted worry.

“Call Dr.
Cronan,” Raymond said. “He helped you a lot when you had that
depression.”

Lois nodded, now
filled with purpose. “Good idea.”

“I’m
not
crazy. Dominic, you live with me. Tell them I’m not crazy.”

Dominic took her
hand and looked at her as if she were new to him. “I just want you
to get better, sweetheart. We’ll help you. You’ll see someone.
Maybe they’ll write you a prescription. I know this is scary, but
we can get through it together.”

Her mother was
already dialing the phone.

Am I crazy?
The idea stole into her mind for one terrifying moment. She’d been
so busy dealing with the enormity of it all, that she hadn’t
considered any other options. What if it was true? What if she had
somehow snapped one day? Uncle Chuck used to see shiny, glowing
butterflies in his toilet. They
had always said nice things about everyone. It had been harmless. It
wasn’t as if the butterflies asked him to murder people. No one
thought there was a need to medicate it. It was just a weird family
quirk.

This was about as
far as one could get from imaginary butterflies. Had his illness
passed through the family? Did her father carry a gene that had
expressed itself with excited fervor in her?

Nicole reviewed
the facts as her dad poured her a cup of tea. Dominic sat next to her
holding her hand while her mother spoke in hushed tones over the
phone to Dr. Cronan.

An ancient vampire
with a curse that somehow and for some inexplicable reason only
she
could cure. Delusions of grandeur? His bite hurt like hell then
somehow… didn’t hurt anymore. Oh, there was the initial pinch,
but somehow the experience gave way instead to arousal and pleasure.
He’d kept her in a cellar for two months, had killed people in
front of her, and yet her body wanted him now and none of it
mattered. Vampire bond or average ballpark insanity? He’d
manipulated the minds of those she loved… and suddenly her family’s
version of events sounded more likely.

There was no scar
on her throat that would indicate being bitten by something.
Conveniently he could heal her of the scars his bite would otherwise
leave. There was no physical evidence to suggest anything she’d
experienced had happened. All the gifts August had bought her were…
conveniently at his house. They’d… conveniently… driven a
rental car that had been paid for in her name. Then he’d
what? Turned into a bat and flown away? He’d just… gone like a
scene change in a movie. She hadn’t seen him leave. She’d assumed
he’d used some super-fast vampire travel. Didn’t this all feel
more like a dream than the real world? Or delusion—the waking
dream?

In a dream, one
doesn’t know they’re dreaming. It’s awake and live reality
until morning. Delusions are the same, except sometimes morning never
comes.

Nicole drank the
tea and tried to hold onto reality. Whatever it was. It had happened.
It had to have happened. Didn’t it? But what about Uncle Chuck?
He’d always sworn up and down his talking, glowing butterflies were
real. It didn’t matter how bizarre the story was, he’d believed
it with every ounce of his being.

Like she believed
in August.

But what about
when they’d all been together? She couldn’t have hallucinated
going to her parents’ house, and the gunshots, and…

“What about the
missing bullets?” she blurted, sounding more like a lunatic with
each passing second. “The bullets are missing. How could they be
missing? Dad, you aren’t careless with your guns. You know how many
bullets they have in them.”

It was a sort of
physical evidence—the one thing that lined up with her story.

“I don’t know,
honey. Dr. Cronan will be able to help us understand more how this
works,” her dad said as if he was trying to calm a mad woman. And
clearly he thought he was.

***

Nicole was kept in
Dr. Cronan’s office for hours. Her parents and Dominic had been
allowed to join the session.

Slate-gray
eyes—shiny like polished glass—watched her from behind bifocals.
There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes and smile lines in his
face that suggested he liked a good joke. But he didn’t seem to
find vampires funny.

“Just relax,
Nicole, and try to remember. What did you do with the bullets from
the gun?” The doctor spoke to her in that way you do with crazy
people, like they’re small children just learning to grasp the
cadence of speech—when one can drift on a sea of the sound itself
and lose track of the fact that words have meaning, and you have to
listen for that, too.

“I’ve told
you. I didn’t do anything with the bullets. August and I came over.
My parents panicked. Mom shot him. He fed from me and then erased
their memories.”

She was so tired,
she was long past caring how all this sounded. All she had to hold
onto was: this horror show had to be true… or else she was insane.
Being insane wasn’t an option. Before she’d wanted to escape
August, now she tried to drag him ever closer in her consciousness to
make him more real, more solid. Because she couldn’t be mad. She
couldn’t.

Dr. Cronan was
like an Etch-a-Sketch, trying to shake out evidence of skepticism, to
be a blank tablet, to gain her trust, to make her say more things
that would incriminate her, make her appear more unstable so he could
gleefully make a diagnosis.

If I was crazy,
I wouldn’t know that, would I?
Could the delusional have sparks
of insight? Could they be so aware of those around them?