Deep Deception (11 page)

“Yes,” Adin hissed. “
Yes
. Let me feel your touch.”

Donte’s muscles bunched beneath Adin as he used the strength he rarely displayed to push himself up to a sitting position with Adin still riding his cock. As he turned so his legs dangled off the side of the bed Adin locked his ankles behind Donte’s back. Soon, they clasped each other in an intimate full-body embrace.

They kissed passionately, panting, straining together. Adin clung, dizzy with need. He gripped Donte’s strong shoulders. From there, he slid his hands up and wrapped his fingers around the back of Donte’s neck, under the curling, slightly-too-long hair at his nape.

Donte held him tight and surged within him, his hips rising, his thrusts gathering strength and power, each wave pushing Adin higher, stealing his breath. The first tight flutterings of orgasm began behind Adin’s balls. The electrifying
zing
traveled up his spine and down his legs. He wanted to kiss Donte, needed to connect to him before his whole body jerked like a puppet in Donte’s arms, before he flew apart, before he lost his words and the ability to share what he was feeling in his heart.

He pressed his lips to Donte’s, then drew back to meet his eyes.

“Caro.” Donte’s smile warmed him.

Adin swallowed hard and pressed his mouth to Donte’s again and again. He surrendered to light kisses, nips and soulful, thrilling explorations of Donte’s teeth and tongue. The sweetness of those kisses spread warmth to his toes as his body dissolved around him, flying apart, held to earth by Donte’s arms, pinned by his cock.

Adin lost himself completely to his senses.

Donte clutched at Adin’s ass and stiffened with his own release. Adin clung to Donte, who pulsed deep within him, who represented strength and love and
home
. Adin brushed his lips over Donte’s face and murmured endearments.

“Ah, lover. Christ.
Love you
.”

“
Cuore mio
.”
Adin leaned into him, spent and shivering. “Always yours. Sempre, amore mio.”

Donte held him close. Silent and still. Adin gave in to nagging doubt and looked at Donte’s face. His eyes met deeply brown irises. The skin beneath looked almost purple in the dimly lit bedroom.

“Tell me again,” Donte implored.

“Always yours, Donte.” Adin took his lover’s face gently between his hands, even as the evidence of Donte’s passion softened and slid from his body. “Always yours. As long as I have breath.”

In an odd reversal of roles, Donte laid his head on Adin’s shoulder and allowed himself to be cradled in his arms. Adin was touched and humbled by it. “Good vampire.” Adin rubbed his cheek against Donte’s. “Good, good vampire.”

Donte went boneless in Adin’s arms, limp and sated, and for the first time since Adin met him, he slept like a simple human man. Adin closed his eyes and slid into the vivid dreams that had plagued his sleep lately.

Oh, hell no.
Don’t you dare…

Adin lay on the single bed in his Holder Hall dorm room and allowed the answering machine to pick up. His own voice came over the speaker, his outgoing message, and it startled him. His voice was always higher on a recording device, and he seemed younger on tape than he sounded inside his head. When he heard it he wanted to hurl the machine into the wall.

“Adin, pick up if you’re there please.” Charles’s voice broke the silence. “I’ve not seen you for a few days, and I’m concerned. Surely you’re not going to let some vague sense of personal outrage get in the way of the work? That’s not like you. You believe in what we do here, Adin. The work needs you. I need you. I need the translations on those last three Mary letters, and I’m going to need you to test the inks… There isn’t anyone else, and if you don’t step up we’ll be late with the paper.”

Adin held his breath, swirling his roommate’s favorite red wine around in a plastic tumbler. His roommate might be old enough to buy wine, and therefore had an advantage over Adin, who had just turned eighteen and wasn’t even supposed to be contemplating drinking it, but he had a terrible palate, the wine was thick and too sweet for a red. Something about it spoke to Adin of turnips, and it was going to give him a headache.

“Adin, I know you’re young but you’re not naïve and I didn’t take you for a prude. I thought you were far more sophisticated than that. You’re acting like some freshman coed who lost her virginity to a drunken prank. Where’s the intelligent boy I fell in love with?”

Fell in love.
So Charles could pass him around like a party favor? There wasn’t enough cheap red wine in the world.

“Shit,” Charles hissed. “I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen. I don’t know what you want from me but you can’t seriously expect some 1950s idealized version of happy families. I’m a man, I’m highly intelligent, and I can have anything I want. I do whatever I like. I thought you were mature enough and smart enough to see that the archaic notion of monogamy simply for its own sake is useless to people like us, Adin. I thought you were more like me. I should think you’d want a relationship where your lover feels free to leave or to explore what someone else has to offer. I should think you’d want to be chosen, and not live like an anchor around someone’s neck. There are no fairy tales. Why would you even want one?

“I have some work to finish up this afternoon, and then Shep and I are heading to Vermont. You could come with us; we could ski during the day, and work on Shep’s book at night. I don’t have to tell you how grateful he’d be for your knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. I’d hate to think you’re the kind of person who just quits when he’s not gotten his way.

“The work is here, and it’s important. And if you’re half the student I think you are and half the man I think you are, you’ll suck it up, get with the program, and do it. I don’t have to tell you there would probably be a line of undergrads just waiting for the opportunities you have. Don’t disappoint me over something stupid like love, Adin.”

Charles finally hung up.

Adin closed his eyes. He was at least as intelligent as Charles said. Probably more so, because he saw exactly how they planned to use him for their own gain. He saw how Shep enjoyed watching his lover with a young man, the younger the better, and he saw how it made Charles feel like a god to think he was molding Adin into his acolyte. He imagined they toasted the beginning of each semester by choosing someone on whom to lavish their attentions; a careful seduction with the most perfectly crafted blend of praise for their chosen’s academic achievements and admiration of his physical form. Adin wasn’t clueless. He’d been naïve, but he wasn’t stupid.

At some point Adin had believed he’d fallen in love. But love was for fools and teenagers. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Adin finished the rest of his wine and packed. He liked to ski, and his Greek was very,
very
good.

Adin didn’t know what woke him, but he rose, startled from sleep and the deep dream that brought back a clear and painful moment from his time at university. At first he looked for Bran, wondering if the boy was playing tricks again, digging around for memories and using Adin’s dreams to probe his history. He turned to find Donte on the bed beside him, deeply unconscious.

Adin leaned over. His heart lurched for a single awful second, and then rocketed around his chest erratically, frantic with fear.

“
Boaz
!” Adin ran to the door too afraid to worry about nudity. “Boaz, I need you. It’s Donte!”

Footsteps thundered up the wooden stairs, even as Bran emerged from his own room, rumpled and looking younger than his fourteen years.

“What’s happening?” Bran asked as Boaz raced past him to get into the bedroom.

Adin ignored Bran and followed Boaz, who moved to the bed without hesitation, and peered down at Donte.

Donte was pale, even for a vampire. His eyes were closed and profoundly shadowed. The faint dark smudges Adin had noticed the day before had given way to thick, etched circles, hollowing out the area under Donte’s eyes and creating trenches under his high cheekbones.

There wasn’t the faintest doubt that something was very, very wrong.

Even Donte’s wavy hair, once so lustrous, so dark and rich, was now threaded with silver at the temples. Boaz’s eyes met Adin’s, and what they conveyed was nothing less than terror.

“Boaz,” Adin ground out. “What the fuck is going on?
Help him
!”

Boaz shook his head, his brow furrowed with grief. For the first time since Adin met him there was nothing but honesty in his words. “Adin, I have no idea what to do.”

Chapter Eleven

Adin shivered in the predawn air. Boaz and Bran watched him carefully as he shoved their belongings into the car. “I’m trying to understand, Boaz. I thought you knew about these things. What’s happening?”

“I really can’t say.” Boaz pressed his hands together until the knuckles were white. Adin assumed that was to keep from doing anything as melodramatic as wringing them.

“Can’t or won’t?” Bran asked. He was concerned for Donte, and Adin found it touching. Together, they’d packed in order to move Donte to Paris, where there was at least the chance they could find out what was happening to him.

“Can’t.”

“Who would know? Who can tell us how to help him?” Adin reined in his temper and his frustration, but his patience was a thin thread, ready to snap.

“I put in a call to Santos. He’s checking into things. He said he’ll help if he can.”

“I’m sure he’ll just jump right on that!” Adin shouted. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve effectively notified Donte’s oldest enemy that he’s in a weakened state.”

He turned and went back into the house. Boaz followed him. “Santos isn’t what you think, Adin. At the very least he’s not as…black and white as you believe. He’s not just going to send someone—”

“But he could. And that’s why we’re not going to sit here waiting for him to do it. Bran, dress quickly so you can help me and Boaz get Donte to the car.”

“Won’t the daylight burn him?” Bran asked.


“The windows in the car are tinted.” Adin took the stairs two at a time. “We can cover him until he’s inside. If we leave early enough the sky will still be overcast.”

“Adin, I promise—” Boaz followed Adin. “You don’t need to move him. We can figure this out. We—”

“Donte!” Adin entered the bedroom and found Donte with his eyes open, struggling to sit up. “
Here
. I’m right here, let me help you. We’re going back to Paris, all right?”

Donte caught Adin’s hand and forced him to sit on the edge of the bed. “Stop, caro.”

“Donte—”

“Sit with me for a moment, will you? You wake the dead with all your shouting. What a fishwife you’ve become.”

“I’m sorry.” Adin took Donte’s hand in both of his and pressed it to his heart. “I’m so scared, lover.”

“I can tell…your heart races.” Donte sighed and reached out to pull Adin into a tender hug. Adin helped him to a sitting position, then together, they stood. “I must look dreadful for you to react like this. Before you become completely unhinged, let me get my bearings.” He walked slowly toward the mirror on the wall, but not without grimacing as though he were in pain.

Donte gazed at his image for a moment without visibly reacting while he inspected his face. He turned his head, peering at one side and then the other. Even though he seemed mildly shocked, he grinned. Adin saw nothing, regretting that for him Donte’s mirror image would only appear in his peripheral vision as a trick of the light.

“What?” Adin asked.

“So this is what I would look like were I to grow old. I still have my hair.”

“Yes,” Adin rolled his eyes. “It’s rather dashing really. I hope I keep mine.”

Donte turned to him ready with the old argument. “You know very well that I can see to it that you do.”

“In your current state, you couldn’t blow out a birthday candle.” Adin impulsively cupped Donte’s face in his hands and kissed him. “Let’s get you sorted before we argue again, please?”

Donte’s eyes softened, all the love, all the exasperation there for Adin to see. “Yes, caro. Let’s. It hardly makes sense to ask for forever if I’m going to shuffle off my mortal—”

“Adin,” Bran called from the stairway. “We have everything packed and ready, but we also have company.”

“What the hell?” Adin strode to the window and saw a second dark sedan parked next to Boaz’s car.
Tinted windows
. The driver’s side door opened and a man emerged. He wore a dark hat and gloves and carried an umbrella. “Friends of yours?” he asked when Donte came to stand at his side.

“Not that I know of.” Donte held his hand up to block the light.

Adin pushed him back gently, away from the window. He was surprised that Donte yielded, and then dismayed because he probably couldn’t resist. He watched as their guest raised an umbrella over his head beneath the overcast sky, even though it wasn’t raining. A momentary glimpse of his face sparked recognition.

“That looks like one of Santos’s men.
Fuck
. Does he clone them? Why do they all look alike?”

“He likes to keep it in the family,” Boaz spoke from the door. “They’re related.”

“You brought them here!” Adin accused. “But how could they get here so fast?”

“I suspect they’ve been watching Donte from a safe but adequate distance. Just as Donte has someone watching them.” Boaz looked to Donte. “Am I right?”

“Yes,” Donte agreed.

“Vampire games,” Adin hissed. “Do you keep weapons here?”

Boaz shook his head. “Before you arm yourself—”

“Shut up and figure out a way to keep Donte safe or I’m going to research the worst possible way to kill an imp. I should warn you, I’m very good in the library.”

“I can attest to that,” Donte said drily, then caught Adin’s arm. “However, there’s no need for alarm until we see what they want, caro. They can’t come inside unless we invite them.”

“You stay here then,” Adin ordered. “Bran?”

“Here,” Bran called from the stairs.

Adin walked to the bedroom door. “We won’t invite them in. You and Donte stay inside no matter what. Boaz, come with me.”

“All right.” Bran entered the bedroom and went to the window.

Donte spoke as Adin turned to leave. “Adin, I quite like this side of you. Very nouveau-martial. Remind me to tell you sometime why your concern for my safety is so ironic.”

“Shut up.” Adin walked to the stairs. “Do you keep a sword here?”

“Why? So that you might lop my head off with it by accident? Sorry, no.”

“At this point if I lopped off your head it wouldn’t be accidental. Stay inside.”

Boaz stood in front of the door with his arms folded. “We’re going to listen to whatever Santos has to say.”

“All right.” Adin stopped before him. “Do you know why he’s here?”

Boaz opened the door to step out onto the patio. “Unless I’m mistaken there’s more than one person visiting.” Adin followed behind, stepping on the cobblestones in Boaz’s wake as they made their way around to the front of the house. Coming from the side offered ample opportunity to assess their guests. The man they’d seen from the window, the driver, now opened the rear door to assist another passenger from the vehicle. Someone so extraordinary that Boaz—and even Adin—stopped where he stood to watch as she emerged.

No taller than four and a half feet, and unutterably ancient, the newcomer was dressed all in black, from the long, lacy shawl at the top of her sleek silver hair to the tips of her narrow, booted feet. She was skeletally thin but gave an imperious wave. Her driver lifted an umbrella over her head. After her, a man emerged, not a great deal taller but younger than she by half, maybe. He wore a fine vintage suit and a bowler hat. They both had deep-set brown eyes, which seemed to broadcast merriment—and maybe a little cruelty—at Adin’s discomfort.

Their clothes were fine, their features perfect and pale. They had the odd appearance of porcelain dolls made for a funeral vignette. They strolled up the pathway toward Adin and Boaz, trailed after by their driver, who slipped and slid along the damp stones to keep up. Adin stared, dazzled by them.

“Okay,” Adin murmured to Boaz. “Not what I expected.”

Boaz was silent until the odd party made their way to him.

“Boaz.” The woman inclined her head regally. “I understand someone here requires assistance?”

Adin whispered, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The man in the bowler hat stopped to don a pair of rimless glasses that were tinted an inky black. “You must be the
Adin
we’ve heard so very much about.”

Adin rippled with indignation. The man pronounced his name like “odd one”, and it appeared to be entirely on purpose.

“Donte…” The tiny woman raised her voice as though she intended to be heard inside the house. “I know you have better manners than this.”

Adin watched the man who held the umbrella, unmistakably one of Santos’s men.

“You came here on Santos’s orders?” Adin asked.

He shook his head. “At his
request
.”

“To do what, specifically?”

They gave no answer.

Boaz had remained oddly silent and respectful. He neither looked directly at the couple, nor ignored them. He kept his eyes down and held his hands at his side as if he would be expected at a moment’s notice to fetch a bag for them or open a bottle of wine. His demeanor very clearly said,
servant
. It was so unlike his normal behavior with that Adin wondered about it.

With Adin and Donte, he
played
the servant although everyone seemed to understand that he was nothing of the kind. With these people, however, he was determined to remain invisible, and Adin wondered why.

As usual, there was an entire dimension of information involved in the exchange that Adin wasn’t privy to. It made sense that Adin wouldn’t enter Donte’s life and learn everything immediately, but just
once
he’d like a heads-up when he was going to receive a visit from what was obviously vampire
fucking
royalty.

“I came for Donte.”

The way she said it gave Adin chills. She couldn’t possibly know—or maybe she could—how much she sounded like the witch in
Snow White
to Adin.

“He’s inside.” He moved in front of them. “You can’t go in.”

Boaz leaned over to hiss in his ear, but he held his hand up.

The tiny woman in black eyed him critically. “I could have Peter tear you apart like fresh bread.”

“Right.” Adin didn’t move. “Like you’re the first person who’s ever said that to me.”

“Isn’t he marvelous?” Donte stood in the doorway silhouetted by the light from inside. “Look what I found, Mother. May I keep him?”

“
Dios mio
, Donte, you look as old as I feel.” She shoved Adin aside none too gently, and left him behind her.

Adin turned to Boaz. “His
mother
?”

Boaz shook his head. “
Not so loud.
”

They watched as the odd little couple walked forward toward Donte, who came out of the house to welcome them. He kissed the woman’s hand and warmly embraced the man, all the while standing in the shade of Peter, the driver’s, umbrella. Donte made
small talk
, for all the world like he was greeting long-lost relatives.

“What the hell is going on here?” Adin asked Boaz.

“You’ve never had a talent for wait-and-see, have you?” Boaz’s lips lifted in a tense smile as Donte casually ushered the trio into the house.

“No, Boaz, I would say I have no talent for that whatsoever.”

Boaz turned to face him. “That woman is an elder. She’s a shaman, of sorts.”

“He called her
Mother
.”

Boaz shrugged. “He probably did that just to pique your curiosity. She isn’t his biological mother. Everyone calls her that.”

“I see.”

“She’s a highly skilled healer. Old as time. You should consider yourself lucky that Santos asked her to come here. I imagine you’re responsible for that. Since you forced Santos to read his father’s memoirs he’s softened toward Donte considerably. He’s damned unhappy about it, actually. I think he preferred to hate his father’s lover and blame him for the catastrophe that befell his family.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Adin couldn’t help the shiver that came over him.

“If anyone can discover what is causing Donte’s weakness, she can.”

Adin glanced up and to his complete shock, Bran flew out of the doorway, literally and figuratively, to land on his ass on the hard cobblestone path. He still wore his sleep pants and clutched a ball of what looked like wrinkled clothing to his chest. It was clear even from a distance that he’d been roughed up. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth and nose and there were deep scratches on his arms and bare torso.

“What the…” Boaz rushed forward and knelt beside him, slipping his arms around the boy. “What happened?”

“You bastard.” Adin ran for the door, where Peter stood, implacably blocking the way back into Donte’s home. “Get out of my way.”

Peter gripped Adin’s shoulders, holding him fast.

“Let me go,” Adin yelled. “
Donte!
”

Peter poked a finger in the general direction of Boaz and Bran as they stood by the car. “
That’s
your problem, human.”

“What?” Adin couldn’t comprehend.

“That boy. He’s what’s killing your lover.” Peter shoved Adin so hard that he sprawled next to Bran.

Aiden still didn’t understand. He reached over to where Bran leaned on Boaz’s arm and gripped his shoulder.

“Bran?
You
caused this?”

“No!” Bran shrank from him. “No. I never… Donte’s…
No.
I didn’t. I couldn’t have.”

“Tell him what you are,
boy
,” Peter demanded.

“I don’t know what I am,” Bran shouted. “Adin, you know I don’t know…”

Adin got up and ran at Peter again. He
needed
to get to Donte. Why was Donte allowing them to be treated like this? Was Donte too ill to intervene? Adin couldn’t bear the thought. Powerful anger and fear gave him more strength than Peter expected, and he almost,
almost
, got by him. At the last minute, Peter wrenched his wrist so hard bones cracked. Searing, astonishing pain stopped him and he stood motionless with shock.

“Donte!” he screamed, appalled by the sound of his own voice. Donte wouldn’t allow this. He’d never—

If Donte didn’t answer him…then it meant Donte
couldn’t
answer him. Fear twisted Adin’s gut, even as the pain in his wrist made him nauseous.

“
Adin
,” Boaz commanded, his voice suddenly inches from Adin’s ear. “We need to leave.”