Blood Revealed (2 page)

When he was in the company of the few friends he considered “safe,” Patrick could freely admit he was a drunk, a drug addict and an all-around despicable person. When it came to his work, though, Patrick prided himself on the fact that he hit all his cues, never forgot his lines and only rarely missed a day’s work because of the booze.

Despite all that professional experience, Patrick was staggered by the degree of organization and stopwatch timing that Nial’s people were bringing to tomorrow’s big production. He had never seen such a tightly orchestrated affair.

His house in the Hollywood Hills was usually a calm oasis, an escape from the madness that was Hollywood, but today it was the vortex itself.

There were people everywhere. The security service to whom he paid inordinate amounts of money were doing their job despite the challenges. There wasn’t anyone in the room Patrick didn’t know or feel relatively safe with. Even so, there were five people sitting in his living room, which was extraordinary and made him feel mildly uncomfortable.

It had to be that making him itchy, or else it was the way he was being put through the wringer by Kate and Roman.

Patrick tried to contain his irritation, as Kate picked up a clipboard and a pen and slid the pen down the page.

“Let’s run through this one more time,” she said.

“I’ve got it.”

“Indulge me. Pretend your next Academy Award is on the line over this one.” She gave him a small smile that said she was aware of the pressure she was applying and felt guilty about it.

Patrick shifted on the cushions. “Honestly, Kate, I’ve been memorizing lines for thirty years. Do you want me to quote you on the agenda for tomorrow?”

Her smile grew a little warmer. “I’m sorry. I know how professional you are when it comes to movies. This is different.”

Roman, who was standing behind Kate’s sofa, leaned down on the back of it with his elbows and threaded his fingers together. “She’s right. This is like nothing you’ve ever done before. You’re not going to be acting. It’s going to be just you up there. People are going to see you in a way they never have before.” His Greek features were overlaid with a degree of seriousness that had been driving Patrick slowly mad all morning.

“And therefore I should feed before I go on the stage and feed straight afterward if I can manage it. I should give myself breathing room and make sure that no one makes me angry. I should breathe before I get in front of the cameras, I should contemplate my belly button and if I stuck Mother Teresa in my back pocket that wouldn’t be a bad thing either.” Patrick opened his eyes wide and looked at them blandly.

Roman just grinned. Kate gave a little sigh and put the clipboard aside. “I suppose we’ve been hammering it a bit hard, haven’t we?” Her smile this time was full and lovely. She was a very beautiful woman, in a golden and peach way. Only Patrick had been surrounded by beautiful women his entire adult life. Beauty by itself no longer moved him, even while he could appreciate the flawless nature of it.

So he gave her a warm smile back and rested his arm along the top of the armchair. He glanced over to the far corner of the lounge room, where Garrett was standing facing the wall with a cell phone pressed to his ear. He was having an intense conversation in low tones that didn’t carry across the room, however the tension in his shoulders spoke volumes.

It seemed that Patrick was not the only one under pressure today. Garrett was also stepping out tomorrow and his human life was just as complicated as Patrick’s. Patrick let out a slow breath, as he realized one more time that he was no longer alone in this. Garrett had assured him that once he became a vampire, he would have a family that would never desert him. Patrick was still learning exactly what that meant.

The reminder was enough for him to draw the breath he needed and let it out again, along with all the petty frustrations of the morning. He smiled at Roman and Kate once more. This time it was a genuine expression instead of one that he had pulled out of his box of tricks. “I’ve got it, Kate. I won’t fuck this up.”

Her hand still gripped the clipboard.

“Formal announcement at five-thirty p.m.,” he added. “Then a media free-for-all at the Four Seasons. Stay away from the social media, pick out a CNN representative and let them have the first question because they will ask for hard facts and not ask the slippery questions. Be myself. Don’t lie.”

Kate pressed her lips together. Then she nodded. “That does seem to be the highlights.”

Over in the corner, Garrett gave a heavy sigh and put his cell phone away. He came over to where they were sitting around the marble coffee table and flopped onto the other side of the sofa, next to Kate. “They just don’t get it.”

Roman moved around the sofa and stood with his arms folded at the end of the coffee table, where he could look at all of them at once. “You can’t tell them anything now,” he said, “so of course they’re not going to understand why you can’t drop everything and rush back to Boston.”

“I own the bloody business,” Garrett complained, “except that doesn’t seem to make any difference. You would think that me telling them they really don’t want me back until this fuss is over and probably not at all after that, would be enough to get them to shut up and leave me alone. They’re like Pavlov’s dogs. All they can react to is the rise and fall of the index.” He grimaced.

Kate squeezed his knee sympathetically.

Patrick’s cell phone chirped, the back of it squeaking across the marble as it vibrated. He scooped it up off the coffee table and felt his own grimace form. It was the front gate security post. He sighed. “Now what?” He answered the phone.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Sauvage.” Billy’s calm tone filtered through the cell phone, sounding in control and collected as he usually did. “There’s a guy here who is insisting on entry, only I don’t have him on any of my lists. His ID says he is Dominic Castellano and it’s the most fake driver’s license I’ve ever seen. My snot-nosed baby cousin could put together a better ID than this. He insisted I push his request up higher.”

“Dominic is legitimate,” Patrick told him, although he filed away the information about the fake ID to consider later. Dominic was human and had no need for fake IDs like the vampires did. Although he did come from somewhere in South America and it was entirely possible that his presence in the United States was not legally sanctioned. That put another small question mark against Dominic’s name, together with all the other small questions that Dominic had generated in the few times that Patrick had ever met him. However, Nial employed Dominic and Patrick trusted Nial completely. Therefore, he had to give Dominic a degree of trust by extension.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

Patrick squeezed the cell phone with his fingers. “Put Dominic on the main list, please, Billy.”

“Sure thing Mr. Sauvage,” Billy said. One of the things that Patrick liked about him was that Billy, once given an order, always followed that order to the letter.

Patrick put the cell phone back on the coffee table. Everyone was watching him expectantly. He shrugged. “I believe Nial is sending more information.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “More changes?”

Kate, who had a tablet as well as the clipboard in her hands, hefted the tablet. “I don’t understand why he couldn’t just email the information to us. Then he’d know that we had it. Sending messages seems a little bit old-fashioned. Or is that just Nial?”

“I believe that’s just Sebastian,” Garrett said. “Emails can be hacked far too easily and none of this must get out before we want it to.”

Patrick had seen more than his fair share of secret launches, special promotions held in reserve until sprung up from the public and all the security arrangements that went with them, but the planning around this particular occasion had been excessive. “I think everyone is being paranoid,” he said. “Maybe it’s justified on this occasion.”

Kimball and Efraim, the two vampires that had come with Garrett, Roman and Kate, were standing near the door to the big lounge area. How these two were standing was not quite guard-like. However, when footsteps sounded on the tiles outside the door, they both straightened, their attention caught. While nothing had been said openly, Patrick knew that they were guarding the door all the same.

It was more of the same overly paranoid security arrangements. Because it was his room and because he was trying to control the people in it, he was grateful for the vampire guards, who were much more efficient than any human security he could possibly hire.

The man whose real name may or may not be Dominic stepped into the room. Patrick glanced at him and felt once again the small shock he always received whenever he saw Dominic. Since the man had regained his hearing—or rather, since Winter had given him the ability to hear despite his permanently damaged eardrums—Dominic seem to change daily. Patrick wasn’t entirely certain what the change was. Dominic seemed to have simply
grown
. He seemed taller. He looked people in the eye far more easily than he ever had before and, of course, he spoke.

Dominic moved over to the group of sofas and armchairs where the four of them sat. He dug inside his leather coat as he walked and withdrew a sheet of paper and held it out to Garrett.

Garrett unfolded the sheet and began to read.

Kate looked at Patrick and smiled. “New information I guess.”

Dominic stayed on his feet. He crossed his arms in an easy pose and gave a small shrug. “Nial didn’t want to risk the information being sent electronically. So he sent me instead.”

When Patrick had first met Dominic, the man’s speech had been thick with the odd inflections and uneven modulation that marked a deaf man’s speech. In just a few short weeks, Dominic’s speech had grown smooth and even. Tenor seemed richer and deeper. His pronunciation was perfect. There was barely any hint of accent.

The quality of his speech and voice tended to make Patrick blink. It was the most astounding change of all the changes that had happened to Dominic lately.

Sebastian had explained that because Dominic listened to the
intention
behind words, the meaning that was in people’s heads as they spoke the words, it was much easier for Dominic to understand intuitively what words meant. For that reason improvements in his English and his pronunciation had been rapid.

“There’s a change to the schedule,” Garrett said.

“A major change?” Kate asked, sounding concerned.

“Minor,” Dominic said. “The press conference has to be moved by fifteen minutes to reach all the major networks.”

Patrick reflected on the irony of having to court media networks just like any other public relations team would. They were about to make an announcement that would change every human’s worldview, but had to schedule it in between network advertising. He drew in a deep breath, controlling his irritation.

It was the breath that did it.

The inhalation pulled air toward him and allowed him to sample Dominic’s scent. Smelling a human and reacting to it was something that Patrick was still getting used to. A vampires senses—
his
senses—were so much more sensitive than a human’s. A human’s scent, even their pheromones, could rouse unexpected sensations.

He had grown used to feeling a disjointed sense of yearning when he sampled someone. Roman had explained that the sensation was an undeveloped touch of blood fever, that the human he had scented had roused his hunger for their blood, except that because he was not ready to feed, the sensation was muted.

Muted was good. Patrick wasn’t sure he was ready to cope with a full attack of blood fever. He had been hearing stories from all of them about what it was like, about how it overrode free will and made a vampire blind to anything but the need to feed. Because Nial and Garrett were controlling his feedings with a stopwatch and a whip, the worst he had felt up until now had been a mild craving that passed within seconds.

This was different. Strong, almost overwhelming sensations rippled through him. Patrick could barely distinguish the different emotions. It was a hot, silvered cocktail that caught at the back of his throat, squeezed his heart and made the pit of his belly clench.

He dug his fingers into the upholstery on the arm of the chair, clenching desperately, trying hard not to let anyone else in the room see what he was doing. He controlled his breathing, keeping it as even and as slow as he could. There were four vampires in this room and all of them had extraordinary hearing. All of them would recognize what was happening to him if they took notice.

Garrett passed the sheet of paper over to Kate, who began to read while Roman moved behind her and read over her shoulder. Garrett looked up and his glance fell upon Patrick. His eyes narrowed.

In the back of his mind, Patrick knew that Garrett had spotted his distress. That was a secondary consideration. Right now, it was all he could do to control his reaction and stay sitting in the chair.

His heart leapt as he recognized that what he was experiencing wasn’t just hunger, but a ravening sexual need. It exploded through his body, making muscles clench and the cool blood in his veins race. He could even feel the blood grow warmer as his heart worked despite his best efforts to bring it back under control.

He was helpless to do anything other than watch Dominic as the man stood there, completely unaware of the scrutiny.

Patrick had been aware, before, that Dominic was a good-looking man. The knowledge had been subconscious, a measurement that he had made just as he did with everyone that he met. Appearance was generally considered superficial yet it drove business decisions in Hollywood. Measuring a man’s appearance was an automatic defense mechanism here.

So he was aware that Dominic had subdued Latino good looks, and that was as far as Patrick’s assessment had gone. Now that knowledge seemed to sit in the front of his mind like a glowing neon sign. This time he saw not just the man’s dark hair and pale olive skin, but the thick locks of hair that waved forward to brush his forehead.