Undeniable (38 page)

“When I pass out, you must keep us together. And don’t touch
the bindings. Do you hear me? No matter what happens, we must stay together,”
he said, never taking his eyes from those lips.

He slid beneath the sheets and drew Diana into his arms.
They had to be united. Completely. But his fear that he still might fail left
him impotent. Closing his eyes, he envisioned her naked, teasing him as he
undressed in the cottage, moaning as she watched him wash her in the shower and
drawing his hips down to hers as she accepted him for what he was. Nothing
worked.

And then he saw her as he did that first night, dancing
naked in the moonlight, running into his arms. Recalling the feel of her body
slamming into him, then melting against his chest when he captured her lips,
desire stirred.

With a relieved sigh, he nudged the head of his cock between
her nether lips. His breath hitched when instead of being engulfed in her heat,
he felt as if he’d just dipped himself into a cool pool of stagnant water. He
thrust deeper. A wave of dizziness from his blood loss hit him. Lowering his
lips to Diana’s, he struggled to remain conscious.

They were together again. Nothing else mattered. If this
failed, they would at least die together. Bound as they were always meant to
be.

“You want me to what?” Frank sputtered, spraying the ancient
map and Damien’s face with coffee.

Damien scowled and grabbed the lace doily on the arm of the
chair. He gently blotted the drops off the already bleeding ink. “Do you have
any idea how old this map is?”

“No, but I do know that my mother will have your head for
ruining her great-grandmother’s doily.” Frank leaned back in the chair and
crossed his arms over his chest. “Ink and coffee. Ruined.”

“Your mother and daughter need this map more than some wisp
of lace.” Damien tossed the doily across the table.

“I won’t do it.”

Damien ran his hands through his hair. “It’s the only way,
Frank.”

“It’s suicide. From what you’ve told me, if I drop you into
the center of the city, they’ll have you bled dry before you hit the ground.”
He swiped his hand across the table, sending the map and doily to the floor.

“Frank!” Damien leapt up, tossed the map back onto the
table, then bent to retrieve the doily. He turned the delicate strip of lace
over and over in his hand, then tenderly folded it and stuck it in the pocket
over his heart. He turned to Frank. “I know it’s risky, but if we do this
right, if you dangle me out of reach until every damn one of them is there,
then by the time I hit the ground, you’ll have Angelina and Diana out of
there.”

Frank hung his head and dropped back down into the chair. “I
never believed until today that you loved my mother, you know? All these years,
all those executions, simply because I refused to believe a vampire could have
any reason to want my mother except as a blood bank. My God, I even killed my
own brother.”

Damien shook his head. “You didn’t know.”

“What have I done? How many children are orphans because of
my own jealousy?” Frank rubbed the back of his neck, then stilled. “Did my
brother have children?”

Damien hung his head. “He had a little girl.”

Frank pounded the table with his fist. “I should be the one
dropped. I deserve to die, not you.”

Grasping Frank’s shoulder, Damien squeezed. “Thanks for
offering, but they don’t want human blood, Frank. They want vampire blood.”

“Then transform me.” He raised his head, his eyes wide.
“Give me your blood.”

“It wouldn’t work. Your scent wouldn’t be strong enough to
draw them all, if any. Even if it could work, I could never do that to
Angelina. How could I look her in the eyes knowing that I’d sacrificed her only
living son rather than myself?” He went back to his seat and smoothed out the
map. “No, Frank, this is the only way.”

Frank leaned across the table and grabbed Damien’s arm. “A
bag. We could fill a bag with some of your blood.”

“No, Frank.”

“We’ll poke a hole, let some drip down.”

“Frank!”

“What? It could work. They’d definitely smell it.” He dug
his fingers into Damien’s arm. “Goddamnit, at least consider it!”

Damien scowled. “They’d know, Frank. They may be mad, but
they’re not stupid. Some wouldn’t even bother to show up for a small bag of
blood. The first bite and the ground would get more than them.”

Frank slumped back in his chair. “Ironic, isn’t it, Damien?
I spent my whole life trying to kill you and failing. And now? All I want to do
is find a way to keep you alive and I can’t do that.”

“But you can save your mother and daughter, Frank. Now let’s
get this rescue on the road. Get me some more coffee. We have a long day ahead
of us and I’m not used to being up at this hour.” He watched the man he’d once
feared drag his feet as he left the room.

“Damien?”

Damien turned. Tomas, his wounds already healing, sat on the
couch glaring at him.

“Are you crazy? You’re going to let him drop you on
Fentmore, in the middle of the city?”

Damien shrugged. “Angelina’s my soul mate, Tomas. Her life
is more important to me than my own.”

“But if you’re dead—”

“If I’m dead there’s at least some chance we will meet again
in another lifetime. Go back to sleep, Tomas. We’ll need your help tonight.”

“Sebastian’s already there, you know,” Tomas mumbled as he
snuggled back down into the cushions.

“He’s on Fentmore?” Damien strode over to the couch.

“Yup. The fool thought I was dead.” He yawned and rolled
over. “They’re bonding the ancient way.”

Damien grabbed Tomas’ shoulder and rolled him onto his back.
“The ancient way? Why the hell would he do that?”

“What’s the big deal? All of the ancient ones bonded with
their human mates that way.”

“And most of them died, Tomas. Most of them bled to death
and were buried still tied to each other. You know that.” Damien shut his eyes,
searching for Sebastian, but Tomas’ finger poking his chest broke his
concentration.

“I think the two thousand years you’ve lived since your days
in school have fogged your memory, Damien. They died because both their bodies
didn’t really need to take in the other’s blood. Not so with Sebastian and
Diana. She was already dead, bled nearly dry—”

Grabbing Tomas’ arms, Damien raised him until their eyes
were level.

Tomas’ eyes flew open. “Put me down, Damien.”

“Explain what the hell you’re talking about,” he uttered,
his voice deadly.

“Well, I didn’t get all of it, because Sebastian kinda
vanished from my mind in the middle.” He watched Damien’s rage escalate and
rushed on. “But I’m sure he’s okay. He’s in some sort of hospital. Outside the
city.”

Damien dropped Tomas back down to the couch and strode to
the table. He returned to couch, the map crushed in his fist. “There is no
hospital outside of the city. There’s nothing but wilderness around it.”

“Ah, well, it seems that an awful lot has gone on over there
you elders don’t know about.” Tomas leapt over the back of the couch when
Damien advanced. “Okay. Shit! Get a grip.”

“I’ll get a grip on your neck if you don’t tell me what the
hell you’re talking about.” Damien soared over the couch and pinned his nephew
against the wall. “Talk, Tomas. And don’t stop until you’ve told me everything
you know about Fentmore.”

“Okay. Okay. You elders all blocked that place from your
minds. Sure, you had the Slashers dropped down in the center of the city, but
you always had us young ones fly the helicopters. And never more than a few
times, warning us to wipe the memory from our minds and block out the maddening
cries for blood. We had to promise when we returned not to talk about it so
that we wouldn’t open any vampire’s mind to the cries. Well, some went when
there was a full moon, some saw a different place than the—”

“Different?”

“Yeah. Marek told me right before
he
,” he nodded
toward the kitchen, “killed him. Marek said a wall surrounded the city. Olympia
used to tell him frightening bedtime stories about the island. So when he
returned, he said she’d lied, because it wasn’t all that bad. He’d seen a town
on the other side of the wall, so it couldn’t be like she’d said.”

“A town? You mean the Slashers built a wall and a town?
That’s impossible.” Damien started to turn away, chuckling. “Marek was pulling
your leg.”

Tomas grabbed his arm and jerked him around. “Marek didn’t
lie. He said the Slashers were in the city. This town had others in it. It was
night, but he saw women with babies, kids playing in a park and even farms.”

“Did Sebastian know about this?” Damien couldn’t believe
word of these changes hadn’t leaked out.

“If he did, he didn’t hear about it from me. I swore to
Marek I wouldn’t tell anyone that he’d talked. He was afraid you and the elders
would punish him. Can you imagine if Tobias heard someone talked?” He let out a
long whistle.

“Go on, Tomas. What else do you know?”

“Well, I
did tell Diego, you know, because he’s been my best friend for, oh, years and—”

“Just get to the point, Tomas.”

“Diego flew Sebastian in this morning, so I guess he went
right to the town instead of the city. Well, Sebastian yelled some sort of
goodbye to me, like I was already dead. I set him straight and gave him a piece
of my mind about not coming to save me. Then, bam! He floods me with info.
Diana’s dead. Ancient bonding. Hospital. Doctor. Nurse. Diana dead. He shouted
that about twenty times.”

“Diana’s dead?”

They both turned. Frank stood on the other side of the
couch. The cup of black coffee tilted forward in his loosening grip, its
steaming contents pouring onto the cushion below.

Damien rushed to him. “No, Frank. She can’t be. Angelina
would have sent me some kind of word.” He grabbed the cup and looked down at
the dark stain on the couch. “When she gets back here, we’re going to have a
lot of explaining to do.”

“Maybe she didn’t send word because she’s dead too,” Frank
mumbled, turning away.

“Oh no. I definitely picked up that Angelina was fine. Just
freaked out about Diana being dead and all—” Tomas clamped his mouth shut when
Damien bared his fangs. “But Sebastian’s giving her his blood.”

“And probably killing himself in the process,” Damien
muttered, draping his arm across Frank’s slumped shoulders. “Frank, Sebastian
won’t let her die. He’ll give her his last drop before he lets that happen.”

Frank shuddered. “If she’s already dead, how could she
suck—?”

“Ancient bonding, man.” Tomas leapt across the couch and
flung his arm over Damien’s from the other side of Frank.

Frank looked at the vampires standing on either side of him.
“You’re both consoling me as if I’ve never killed your kind. You’re better men
than I could ever hope to be. So how does this bonding help Diana suck?”

“Sebastian tied his open vein to hers,” Tomas said, making
the motion of biting into one of his wrists, then holding it to the other.

“Tied?”

“This way, when he passes out from loss of blood, his vein
remains on hers,” Damien answered, a chill at the implications running down his
spine. “The old ones believed their blood would pass back and forth until it
had completely merged, making them one with their mates.”

“Right. We’re talking big-time romance, Frank,” Tomas said,
grinning.

“Except Diana supposedly has hardly any blood. Which means
it will all flow into her, probably take all day. We heal during the day. By
dusk, Sebastian’s vein will have closed.” Damien stared at the two men and
waited for what he said to sink in.

Frank grasped his meaning first. “Before enough flows back
into his body?”

Tomas’ grin vanished.

“Then she would live and he would die,” Frank mumbled.

“It doesn’t quite work that way,” Damien explained. “If he
dies, then his blood will be useless to her. Ancient Bondings are where you
humans got all those fallacies about vampires only living as long as the one
who transformed them lives. The Ancient Bonding created one entity of two
people. Each couple’s blood is unique. Ancient Bonding is no longer acceptable
because, for some reason, when one of the bonded mates died, the other quickly
followed.”

“And Sebastian knows this,” Frank asked.

Damien raised a brow and looked at Tomas.

Tomas grimaced. “I guess that’s what he meant by their
hearts would either beat as one or he would join her in death.”

“Do you all commit suicide so casually?” Frank gasped.

“Only for our soul mates, Frank.” Damien tried to smile, but
failed.

“He’s counting on us getting there in time,” Tomas said. “He
said you knew what to do.”

“Then let’s get moving. If I understand you two,” Frank
said, moving out from under their arms, “I don’t have to use Damien as bait.”

Damien nodded.

Frank glanced at the clock. “Well, we’ve got three hours ‘til
dusk.”

Damien handed his cell phone over to Tomas. “Call your
friend, Diego. Tell him to pick us up by the lake at dusk.”

When Tomas had finished, the three gathered around the map.
Damien grabbed a pen and drew a circle around the city.

Tomas once again let out a long whistle. “I bet the Slashers
can smell Sebastian’s blood a mile away. They must be freaking out.”

Two grim faces turned his way.

Tomas laughed. “They couldn’t get over that wall. Marek said
it was really tall.”

Damien scowled.

Tomas shook his head and looked at Frank, then back to
Damien. “They couldn’t possibly get over it. Could they?”

Doc Jenkins paced back and forth between the foot of Diana’s
bed and the window.

Angelina tore her gaze from Sebastian and Diana and watched
him peer into the darkness for the tenth time. “Doc, would you please sit down.
You’re driving me crazy.”