Last Vamp Standing (11 page)

“Two days.”

“Two days?” Dante’s head went light. Bashing Slimeball’s head in back at Mirage should’ve satiated his hunger for half a day. Twenty-four hours, tops. The voices were going to come back with a vengeance, and Ariana was too close for comfort. “Shit. I gotta get out of here.”

Without thinking, Dante sat upright. He’d planned to move Ariana off him, swing his legs over the bed and get the hell out of there. Wherever here was, exactly. But he’d forgotten he still had no use of his legs.

Ariana scooted back, but only so Dante could sit up fully. Her legs remained around his lap, her breasts tantalizingly close to brushing his chest. He suddenly couldn’t move, though it had nothing to do with the paralyzing state of his body.

When she licked her lips, something inside him snapped.

His arms snaked around her back and his lips crushed hers. She whimpered, her back going stiff before finally melting in his arms. Her lips were softer than he could’ve imagined, velvety and plush. And when those succulent lips parted for him, the kiss burned to his toes.

Her tongue slipped into this mouth, stroking his softly as if asking the most intimate of questions. He answered back, pressing her closer, devouring more and more of her mouth. Heat seared across his skin as his stomach churned with the need to lie her down and take more.

Soft pangs of bloodlust hit his fangs, and as they dropped past his gums, he nipped at her lip. She gasped, pulling back for a moment before diving into his mouth again.

She was hot. On fire. Drowning him in scorching heat.

He had to have her.

But when Dante’s insides went tingly numb, and hunger hollowed out his stomach, he pulled back completely.

He’d been unconscious too long.

All of his well-made plans to follow breadcrumbs to this place and be with Ariana, all the thoughts of protecting her and being by her side . . . they were for nothing. Two days that he might’ve been able to spend with her vanished—poof!—into thin air.

He had to leave before the voices surfaced and tempted him to do something he’d regret.

But she was warm in his arms. A perfect fit. It was like she belonged there, with her legs clenching around his lap, her arms coiled around his neck, and her breath hitching as she drank him in with seductive brown eyes.

How easy it would be to kiss her until he lost himself, until he couldn’t tell up from down or salt from sour. His hands would caress her skin until he memorized every soft line, every gentle curve of her glorious body. How heavenly it would feel to pull tiny vines of sexual energy from her body to his. It’d be pure ecstasy. Like curling up in bed on a Sunday afternoon.

No.

No matter how hungry he was, he couldn’t feed from Ariana. Couldn’t fill up on her sexual energy. Everything he knew about her was good and innocent and pure. He couldn’t take that innocent energy from her. Couldn’t suck it from her soul.

He knew too well what she’d be left with if he did.

“Don’t tell me you’re stopping now . . .” She tunneled her fingers through his hair and went in for another kiss.

“Damn it, no.” Dante gently lifted Ariana off him. “How fast can you finish this shit up with my legs so I can get out of here?”

She slid off the bed and stood a good distance away, glaring through narrowed eyes. “Is that what you want? To leave?”

“Yes,” he growled, though the sound came out harsher than he’d meant it.

He had to leave Black Moon. At least until he got a handle on his hunger. What choice did he have? No matter how he wanted to stay, it wasn’t safe. He couldn’t chance losing control and hurting her.

She paused, chewing on the side of her lip, measuring him with a pissed-off glare in her eye. Tension whipped around the room and coiled around Dante’s neck, strangling his windpipe. He wished she’d just say something.

Why wasn’t she saying anything?

“You’re so weak,” she said finally, shaking her head.

She approached the bed and flipped the sheet over his right leg, exposing his left. The massage continued, but her fingers dug into his flesh, probed and poked deep into his tissue.

She was taking out her anger.

“Of course I’m in a weakened state,” he said, trying, failing to move his leg of his own accord.

“I wasn’t referring to your recovery.” She gouged a sensitive part of his quad with the tip of her finger. “I was talking about your character.”

That one hurt. This time it wasn’t the massage that had somehow shifted from electric to torturous.

Dante wished he could explain himself, but Ariana wouldn’t understand. He was sickened with evil, his soul tainted by the filth he’d absorbed during his life. He couldn’t mesh that evil with her innocence. He couldn’t take advantage of her sexual energy, fully knowing how good it’d taste and how whole he’d feel, if only for a day or two.

“Ariana,” he began, but she threw up a hand to stop him.

“Save it,” she said. “I need to focus, and your voice is distracting.”

What else was there to say anyway? He’d rejected her and couldn’t explain why. It was easier not to think about her touch if he didn’t meet her eyes, so he scoped out his surroundings instead.

He was in a hotel room of sorts, but it was ritzier than any he’d ever stayed in. It was decorated with richly oiled mahogany armoires, heavy gold curtains, and lace dripping over everything. Not the Motel 6’s he was used to when he teleported somewhere sticky.

As her hands kneaded the flesh of his thighs and calves, harder and harder, Dante’s senses roused even more. Even through the pain, his hunger was increasing, fueled by her natural scent, her beauty, her innocence.

He spoke quickly to distract himself from his thirst. “How’d we get here . . . to Black Moon?”

“Pike said he would grant us safe passage if I brought you back.” She shot the words out in a single breath. She wouldn’t be forgetting his rejection anytime soon.

Ariana dropped the sheet back into place and revealed his other leg. Her fingers poked into his flesh, digging into his hamstring. Through the pain, tiny electric currents accompanied her touch, warming Dante from the inside out.

“Did Ruan make it out?” Dante asked, trying not to take a deep breath. He didn’t want to chance being hit with her lavender aroma. “Is he here, too?”

“No, he went back to Crimson Bay, but he’s made contact with our Primus.” She sighed. “He said the last standing member of the Crimson Council has demanded a private meeting to discuss the state of our race. They’ll all be on our doorstep midnight tonight.”

Last standing Crimson Council member?

Slade.

“Wait,” Dante caught up to speed. “What do you mean
all
? Who’ll be on your doorstep?”

“Ruan is demanding housing for the two hundred vampires who are hiding at ReVamp.”

“Guess Ruan figures if they’re sitting at your Primus’s front door, he won’t be able to turn them away.”

Her fingers slowed as life came back to the rest of Dante’s lower half. He flipped his eyes open and chanced a glance at her face. The soft lines of her nose and chin were shadowed, but Dante could still see the smoothness of her cheek, the creaminess of her lips, and the long curl of her eyelashes. She looked like one of the angel statues that surrounded his parents’ graves, solemn and graceful.

“You have to tell Ruan to stay in the city.” Her hands stilled. “You have to tell him to turn back.”

“I don’t have anything to do with what’s going on at ReVamp,” Dante said. “He won’t listen to me.”

More than that, Dante thought. Ruan
shouldn’t
listen to him. He was trouble. The black smudge on a thousand records.

“You have to try.” Ariana pushed away from the bed as if she couldn’t stand another second being in such close proximity to him. “I can’t expect you to understand the severity of our situation, but it’s imperative Ruan and the vamps at ReVamp remain where they are. Our Primus won’t let those vampires enter our haven. After what happened the other night, there’s no telling what the Watchers will do to them when they’re left in the forest outside our front gate. If you value their safety at all, you’ll tell them not to come.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Not when he’d just lost two days and his voices were bound to rise up any minute. He had to get out of here. He sat up, the area around his wound sore but healed. “Where’d you put my clothes?”

After digging through the armoire on the other side of the room, Ariana came out with a pair of leather pants and a black shirt, then hung them over her arms.

“You can’t leave now; sunset isn’t for another hour.” She pulled out a black robe and draped it over the other clothes. “Thanks to Pike your clothes were tore up pretty bad. I picked these up from the haven cleaners for you. I guessed your size.”

“I can leave anytime I want. I don’t sunburn.” Dante held out his hand, waiting. How much time did he have left? “Give me the clothes.”

Ariana stopped when she reached the edge of the bed. “You can walk in daylight? I thought only elders could do that, but you’re not—”

“Normal,” Dante finished for her. “No. I’m not. Now if you’d stop looking at me with those big doe eyes and hand my clothes back, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She clutched his clothes, shaking her head. It was almost like she enjoyed the prospect of keeping him prisoner where she could torture him in her own way, with questioning eyes and a whipping tongue.

“I’ll walk through Black Moon in my birthday suit,” Dante said, cocking a brow. “It won’t bother me in the least. And if you think I can’t snatch those clothes from your fingers right now, you’re delirious. I’m trying to be respectful because this is your home, but you’re making it difficult.”

“Here’s the way I see it.” She chucked the clothes at him. “The Watchers want you alive and kicking. You can’t tell me you don’t want to know why they let you go when they had you good and dead. Your friend is coming with some sort of vamp caravan and will be on our doorstep in a few hours, and our Primus has requested a meeting with you. You might as well stay until your friends get here. You can head back to the city with Ruan later.”

“Well don’t you have it all figured out.”

“Yeah,” she said, her face illuminated by the soft glow of a candle. Even in light, she was radiant. “I do.”

He had to admit Ariana was right. There were things he wanted to figure out before he teleported back to the city. Like why she made his heart beat fast and his chest tighten up. Dante decided then and there; the instant his voices returned, he’d leave.

Looked like his schedule was penned in blood.

Chapter Ten

“T
RY TO REMEMBER
what I told you,” Ariana said, leading Dante through the halls of their haven. “Don’t speak unless our Primus asks you a question, answer briefly and clearly, and whatever you do, don’t insult him.”

“What makes you think I would do that?”

She rolled her eyes as they turned near the giant hearth and passed two vamps who were arguing about the latest winner of
Bloodlust Survivor.
That is, they were loud and argumentative until they spotted Ariana. Once they realized who she was, they smiled politely and lowered their gazes reverently.

When was this going to quit? Her maware was astral-projecting, not influencing the hearts of others, so she really didn’t know how to explain what was happening to her khissmates. Some consulted with her before major decisions, while others followed her around the haven as if they were lost puppy dogs and Ariana could light their way home.

Whatever the reason for her khissmates’ change of behavior, she wished it’d stop.

Dante kept walking, but he craned his neck around as the couple passed. “What was that about?”

“I haven’t the slightest,” she said, speeding her pace. “But it’s getting weirder around here. They’re staring longer, whispering as they walk by. It’s almost like they think I’m some sort of Black Moon celebrity. It’s unnerving as hell.”

Although Ariana was starting to think there was more behind their lingering looks—they were borderline worshipful—she didn’t mention it. Dante probably already thought she was nuts. She didn’t know why she was sharing this with him or why she chose this moment to do it. Maybe he was the only one who’d ever asked. . . .

He patted down the robe she’d given him. Even though he matched the others’ attire when they met with the Primus, the formality of the robe didn’t suit Dante well. The muscles bulging out of his back stretched the collar, and the bulky round of his biceps had tightened the sleeves.

“You sure they weren’t gawking at my good looks?” he asked.

“Hardly.”

Though Ariana wasn’t gawking at the moment, she couldn’t get images of his naked body out of her mind. She’d gotten more than an eyeful while he was out—the defined lines of his chest draping down to a chiseled stomach that led to . . . God, she couldn’t believe the size of him! She should’ve known he’d be packing the largest weapon she’d ever seen. He was her fantasy come to life in every other regard, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Flashes of heat pulsed through her just thinking about it. She clamped down the thoughts before he could sense her rising excitement.

“You should count yourself lucky there aren’t any mirrors littered around,” she said. “That robe doesn’t exactly scream
Vamp GQ.
”

“Wouldn’t know it by the way you’re staring at me.”

“I’m not—” She pushed ahead of him, “staring.”

He laughed, following directly behind her.

They wound through the long wood-paneled corridor leading to the Primus’s quarters. Her Primus would have a ton of questions, and Ariana didn’t have the answers. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened. Why she’d projected into the city only to come back empty handed once more. And why, despite her insisting Watchers could be trusted, they’d lost their mind and attacked her.

She hated to burst her Primus’s bubble, but she didn’t know the answers herself. And why, when she had more on her plate than ever before, was she letting herself be distracted by a vamp like Dante? He was trouble wrapped in a Greek god’s body with lips that knew how to kiss and a gaze that was softer than she could’ve ever imagined.

“You ready?” he asked, jarring her.

“Of course.” She forced her heart to slow. Any louder and he’d hear it. “Are you?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Whatever you do, don’t lie,” she said as they stood in front of the Primus’s closed door. “His maware is truth-setting. He can suck the truth out of you if he feels you’re being deceitful.”

“Great.” Dante checked the hall behind them as she dropped the lion head knocker on the Primus’s door. “How long have you been a member here?”

Now
he wanted to make small talk? His timing was epic. “I was born here.”

“Really?”

He faced her, and even though she refused to meet his gaze, she could feel the heat from his stare burning into her cheek.

“Yes.” She knocked. “Really. Usually when elders have children they’re required to leave Black Moon, but I guess the Primus took a liking to me soon after I was born. I grew up alongside many of the elders here. I left for a year before my transition, but I came back as soon as the major changes hit.”

“Fascinating,” he whispered as the Primus’s door swung open of its own accord.

“Why is that so fascinating? There are some people who remain in havens for hundreds of years.”

Shaking his head, he stepped into the Primus’s chamber. “It’s just that I’ve never had a place to call home. I can’t imagine staying somewhere more than a decade, yet you’ve spent lifetimes over in Black Moon.”

“You shall enlighten us,” a voice boomed from deep within the chamber. “Where do you seek shelter?”

Ariana’s Primus spun away from the grand fireplace on the back wall and faced them, assuming his position in the largest chair in the chamber.

Even though their timing was horribly off, Ariana wished the Primus would’ve taken a second longer to address Dante. She hated to admit it, but she was intrigued. He could teleport, fight like something out of a martial arts movie, create a massive wind vortex out of nothing—not to mention he could evaporate the air in her lungs with a single kiss—yet he’d never been inducted into a haven?

The more she knew about Dante, the more questions popped up. She hated not knowing who she was dealing with. She hated the way he made her stomach coil and her fangs ache, the way he rejected her after their kiss. She hated all of it yet had the burning desire to know more.

“I haven’t needed to seek shelter anywhere.” Dante’s boots echoed loudly as they pounded across the cherry hardwood floor. “Cheap apartments in Crimson Bay suit my taste just fine.”

“Fascinating,” the Primus parroted, then gestured to the two very formal seats opposite him. “Sit.”

The Primus’s chamber was dark and warm, with mocha-colored walls and robust Italian furnishings. Candles slept on the walls, snuffed out and solemn. Open windows drew in gusts of winter wind, ballooning beige chiffon curtains far into the room. The place was charming, yet simple. Everything the Primus was not.

He looked like an old, stuffy aristocrat with shaggy gray hair and a matching beard that almost touched his chest. He was huge. Intimidating. Sucking all the air from the room. A mountain man in a brown tweed jacket and black tie. He had to be a whopping seven feet tall. If she ever stood face to face with him, she’d probably stare directly into his enormous chest.

They strode across the room and took the two black seats facing his gold-trimmed desk. Ariana perched on the edge of the leather, careful not to get too comfortable. They weren’t here for blood-sipping time. Dante was an intruder, someone who didn’t belong, and Ariana had some explaining to do.

“Care for a smoke?” the Primus asked. He lifted the lid of a small box on the edge of the desk, exposing a neat little row of plasma-laced Cubans.

“No, thank you,” Ariana said quietly. “I don’t smoke.”

“You?” he offered Dante.

“No, I prefer something not injected with truth serum.”

As Ariana stiffened, her Primus laughed.

“You are a bright one with heightened senses, that’s a fact.” He closed the box and leaned back, studying Dante with black pits for eyes. “But if you plan on staying alive until your friends get here at midnight, you’re going to answer a few questions for me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You don’t seem to understand.” The Primus’s fangs dropped, brushing against his lower lip. “When you’re in my presence, I own the very air you breathe. I control the beat of your heart and the gravity pulling at your heels. If you do not respect my will, I will remove those privileges I’ve so kindly granted you, along with everyone else you’ve come to care about during your measly existence on this planet.”

Dante glanced at Ariana, who had gone bone-still. “Someone’s got anger issues.”

Ariana dared not move a muscle. She’d seen her Primus stake khissmates for disrespecting direct orders. She wasn’t about to say something that’d earn her undesired attention.

“Before you step another foot on my property,” her Primus hissed, leaning far over the table, “you will answer my questions. Is your vampire lineage on record at any vampire historical center?”

Thick, soul-deadening silence.

“In which haven did your parents belong?” he asked again, jaw tight.

Ariana knew exactly where her Primus was going with the questions. From their discussion earlier, he realized Dante was unlike any vampire they’d come into contact with before. Her Primus had probably researched him by now and come up blank.

Ariana hated to admit it, but she was on pins and needles waiting to get her own answers about Dante.

“I never knew my vampire parents,” Dante said nonchalantly. “I was abandoned in an orphanage until a family of mundanes adopted me at age six. My vampire traits didn’t show until puberty. They got the shock of their lives when they realized what I was.” He spoke of his past coolly, calmly, as if it was separate from him somehow.

“What were you doing at the elder black market?” the Primus asked.

“Trying to get my paws on an elder.” Dante shrugged. Relaxed into the seat
.
Like he couldn’t feel the tension in the room mounting to uncontrollable heights.

“And now that you’ve found a haven full of elders, what is your course of action?”

Two beats.

“It’s not the haven full of elders that stabbed me when I wasn’t looking,” Dante said finally. “I’m going to figure out what the Watchers want with me. And then I’m going to rip their world apart.” He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “Pike isn’t going to know what hit him. For your sake, I hope you two aren’t chummy.”

Her Primus smiled, nodding slowly. Silence stretched between them, as if they’d come to some kind of stalemate.

Ariana wondered if her Primus had determined Dante to be telling the truth. If he’d been lying about his intentions with the elders in the haven, if he really was trying to buy an elder for some twisted means, her Primus would have dug it out of him by now.

“You,” he said, setting his sights on Ariana. “You put us at risk. Again. If you failed the first time because of this . . .
distraction,
I can understand, especially after meeting him. But this time when you went back you said it’d be foolproof.”

She didn’t expect to run into Dante. He was a big-ass wrench thrown in her gears.

“I know,” Ariana said, feeling Dante’s eyes bore into her. “I won’t let it happen again. When I go back next time I’ll make sure to—”

“There’s not going to be a next time.”

“What?” Her gaze snapped up as her lungs flattened out. “What about our protective barrier? If it gets much weaker, won’t our location become transparent?”

“There’s no reason for you to go back. Not now, when things are growing more dangerous on the streets. We can’t afford to have something happen to you out there. If our barrier continues to weaken, Black Moon will be unprotected in a few days’ time, that’s true. But if we wait until midnight, an elder will fall on our doorstep. We can use that elder’s maware to strengthen the barrier again.”

Ruan.
Dante’s friend. He’d mentioned in the compound that he’d newly transitioned.

“So you’re just going to grant them access into our haven?” She couldn’t believe it. “After all these years of solidifying this as an elder-only facility?”

Black Moon had always been elder-only. Ariana had worked hard to keep newborn elders rotating through, priding herself on providing a safe environment where elders could master the use of their mawares. If the vamps from ReVamp flooded their halls, the elders’ every move would be watched and analyzed. . . .

“I don’t need all of them. I—we,” he corrected, “only need one.” The Primus evaluated her for a long moment, his hands pressed together, his fingertips tapping. “I’m granting that newborn elder access, along with the last standing Crimson Council member, who’s tagging along, at least for the time being. The elder can work for us, fleshing out his maware within our walls to keep us safe. After I hear what the council member has to say once in the privacy of my chamber, I will determine his fate.”

“And if they don’t want to leave the others behind?” Dante asked. It was as if he already knew what their response would be.

“Oh, they’ll leave the others.” Her Primus flicked the tip of his fang with his tongue mindlessly, like the conversation had bored him to the point of picking food out of his teeth. “From what I understand, havens are disappearing off the map. That is the reason a hoard of vamps will be breathing down my neck come midnight, no? They’d be fools not to save their own necks. I can offer them protection while the rest of the world is falling away.”

“Sounds to me like you’re jumping the gun,” Dante said. “If the only vampires left are the ones behind these walls, there’ll be no vampires beyond them to transition to elders. By refusing those vamps entrance, you’re sealing your own fate. No vampires means no elders. No elders means no mawares to keep this place off the grid. Once this place finally bleeps on the radar, Savage will set his sights right here and you’ll be the havenless one.”

“What do you know about Savage?” Her Primus leaned forward as he spoke, the pulse on his neck beating hard. “Do you know for certain his course of action? How he’s moving as fast as he is?”

Ariana had wondered the same thing. Although they were protected by Black Moon’s barrier and had perhaps the greatest army of maware-wielding elders living within their walls, they were secluded from the outside world. It was the only way they could keep Black Moon hidden. The price, however, was limited information flow.