Blood Submission (Deathless Night Series Book 5) Page 13

  “So, where is she?” Aiden asked once the females had gone up to Nik and Aiden’s, and the Hunters had gathered behind the glass walls of Luukas’s office and found chairs.

  Dante cocked an eyebrow. “Who?”

  “The female you’ve mated with.”

  Dante stared at the male like he’d lost his fucking mind. Which he was pretty sure had happened a long time ago. “Come again?”

  “Come on, commander. Don’t be obtuse. We can all smell her, no matter how hard you just scrubbed yourself.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Dante looked at each of them in turn. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

  “Aiden.” Nik shook his head at his friend with a frown.

  But Aiden was not one to take a hint, as Dante well knew. “You show up here in a car that you can’t drive. You smell like one particular female who’s scent is all over that car. You have her blood inside of you even now, so I know you haven’t killed her yet. Shagged her? Probably. Killed her? No. You get your knickers all in a twist the moment you scented Keira last night, who smells amazingly similar to the female you’ve obviously been getting on with. Almost like she was your”—his eyes widened dramatically—“Mate!”

  Denial rose up inside of Dante, fast and furious. “No. That’s not how it happened. Or why. I went after Keira”—he glanced at Luukas—“again, no offense,”—then went back to Aiden—“because I was fucking starving.”

  Aiden sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Bollocks.”

  “Aiden,” Luukas interrupted. “We can discuss this later.”

  “Actually, Aiden might be right to bring this up now,” Christian cut in. “He needs to know. Because if he kills her, he’s completely screwed.” He turned to Dante with dawning horror. “You haven’t killed her yet, have you?”

  Dante stood up so fast his chair went flying back into the wall. “What the FUCK are you all talking about.” It was a demand. Not a question.

  Nikulas stood up and came around to stand eye to eye with him. “All right, look. You’ve got a female with you that you’ve been feeding from. Am I right? A human one?”

  He narrowed his eyes at the face in front of him that was just entirely too fucking pretty to be on a male. “So what if I do?”

  “Have you fed from anyone else since you found her?” Nik asked. “Or tried to? Other than Keira?”

  Dante crossed his arms in a defensive pose. The asshole that he’d taken the dog from immediately came to mind. But that had been meth in his veins that made him taste so nasty. Right? “What exactly are you fucking getting at?”

  Luukas came around his desk to join his brother. “Have you hurt her?” He didn’t seem particularly put out about it if he had, just mildly concerned.

  Dante looked between the two of them, and then over to where Aiden and Christian sat leaning forward in their chairs. They all stared at him, waiting for an answer. “No,” he finally said. Then he shrugged one shoulder. “Not really.”

  A collective sigh of relief followed his short answer. Nik nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

  “Where is she?” Luukas asked with a forceful tone.

  Oh hell, no. He wasn’t answering that one. So they could go down there and take her out? Fuck, no. Laney was no one’s concern but his. He stared back at Luukas with a steady gaze and clamped his mouth shut. Luukas had not created him, so he could not make him talk. A problem that arose once in a while. A problem for Luukas, that is. Not for Dante.

  Nik gave his brother a look before turning back to Dante. “Look, man. We’ve all gone through the same thing recently. We can all relate. None of us wanted this—”

  “Speak for yourself, Nik,” Aiden said. “I knew the moment I saw Grace’s derriere sticking out of that doorway that I had to have it all for myself.”

  “But it’s happened,” Nik continued, ignoring him. “Luuk still has a problem with being mated to the witch that caused him so much misery.”

  Confusion crept over Dante. “What?”

  Luukas shook his head. “I’ll explain that later. Right now, I just want to debrief you and find out what happened.”

  “And let’s not forget about my demon,” Aiden said casually. “We need to warn him about Waano.”

  “Your what?” Dante was beginning to wonder if he was still in the desert. Hallucinating, maybe.

  “My demon,” Aiden repeated with a cheerful smile. “Waano.”

  “We’ll get to that, too,” Luukas said. On his way back to his desk, he paused. “And don’t kill the girl. If she is yours, you will die without her now.”

  Dante was familiar with the tales. Once a vampire found his fated mate, and drank from her, he could no longer feed from anyone else. And without her, he would die the true death. His mate, on the other hand, after drinking his blood in return, would freeze in time and not age until their vampire mate was no longer around to keep them immortal. Then they would begin to age naturally again, though it may be a thousand years from when they were born.

  It had always sounded extremely cruel to him. That after losing their mate, the human then had to continue to live without them.

  Picking his chair up off the floor and setting it upright again, Dante fell into it.

  “Did you happen to catch her name before you dragged her to your cave?” Aiden asked.

  “Laney,” Dante answered automatically. “Laney Moss.”

  Christian snorted. “Yeah, man. You’re screwed.”

  “She’s a Moss witch,” Dante said in that same faraway voice. Laney Moss…as in the Moss family of witches. It was all making sense now. That was why he was so attracted to the blood of the women upstairs. They were her family. They shared the same blood. He didn’t know how he had missed it before. Of course, at the time he’d asked Laney what her name was, he’d been more worried about his own survival. “Just like your females.”

  The weight of what he was finally admitting out loud was starting to hit him. He remembered the overpowering feeling of possession he’d experienced earlier when he was with the female. How much he’d wanted to hurt her, to make her beg and bleed, and yet when she’d thrown herself in his arms, he’d felt an overwhelming sense of relief that he wouldn’t have to. “Fuck. Me.”

  Nikulas squatted down on his haunches in front of him. “Yeah. But it’s actually kind of cool. Being mated, I mean. The hardest thing about it is worrying about them all the time, and not just because you need their blood to survive. Because you get so damned protective over them.”

  “Why are they all witches?” he asked Nikulas. “Your mates?” If anyone noticed that he hadn’t included himself in the group, they didn’t say anything.

  “A little caveat that Keira snuck into that curse that Luukas mentioned earlier, although I like to think they would’ve somehow ended up with us anyway.”

  “Curse or no curse,” Christian said. “I, for one, am completely fucking grateful that Ryan found me. Fucking so many different females every night was seriously getting old.”

  Luukas cleared his throat. “Can we get on with things now? We need to find out what Dante knows.”

  “Oh, one more thing. Leeha is dead, by the way,” Aiden informed him. “But I have her head if you’d like to pay your respects.”

  Dante seriously wondered, not for the first time, what the fuck was wrong with the Brit. Of course, some would say the same about him. But at least he had a good reason for being as messed up as he was.

  Chapter 17

  Laney sat on the mattress in the candlelight with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She stared into the tiny flame in front of her without really seeing it, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She’d gotten dressed as soon as Dante had left, then she’d gone back to the pile of rubble that blocked her way out and dug at it until her nails tore and her fingers bled, not caring anymore if she made it all come toppling down on top of her. It was better than this. Better than the endless waiting.

 
; When that proved to be pointless, she screamed for help under the squares of opaque purple glass. Normal people going about their daily lives walked over that glass. She screamed until her voice went hoarse. Screamed until she sounded like a balloon with a hole in it.

  No one stopped in the street above her. No one came running to help her. No one heard her.

  Dante had been gone longer this time. She’d slept twice since he’d left, although she wasn’t sure for how long each time, or what time of day or night it was. Her stomach growled, more insistent this time. But she had nothing to give it. She’d finished her last protein bar hours ago. If she didn’t die by the vampire’s hands, she was going to die of thirst and starvation. Either way was fine with her by this point, just as long as it was over with. And there was no more waiting.

  Then Laney sighed. That wasn’t true. She was lying to herself. She wanted to get out of this rat hole he had her locked up in, yes. But if she were to be perfectly honest, she wasn’t so eager to get away from the vampire that was keeping her here anymore. Even when she’d sat with the knife poised above his chest, she’d been fighting an internal battle. Her mind had screamed at her that stabbing him through the heart was the right thing to do and the only way to ensure her own survival, but her soul had cried out in agony even as she’d lifted her arm high above her head and brought the knife plunging down. She’d sobbed with relief when he’d woken up just in time.

  He’s here.

  Warmth filled her from the inside out, every nerve ending in her body jumping to attention. It wasn’t unpleasant. More like a feeling of coming home, as strange as that sounded, even to her. Her senses flared to life. The soft glow of the candlelight was suddenly brilliant, the damp mustiness of the underground burned her nose, and ghosts of air touched her exposed skin with sensuous strokes. His footfalls sounded in the passageway as he neared, and she barely caught herself before she moaned aloud in anticipation. Squirming a bit, she tried to ignore the ache flaring between her legs. Laney was fully aroused, and she hadn’t even laid eyes on him yet. Her hunger forgotten, she focused on the entryway to the room, waiting for his appearance. And then he was there.

  He’d cleaned up and changed, and Laney felt disgusting sitting there in her unwashed clothes with her hair snarled around her face. She could only imagine what she smelled like by now.

  The vampire paused in the doorway for a moment, his sharp eyes taking in every nuance of her appearance, from her hair to her sneakers. They narrowed in on the torn skin of her fingers as the muscles jumped from his clenched jaw. She resisted the urge to hide the bloody stumps behind her. Let him be pissed. It was his fault that it had happened. If he would just let her the hell out of here, she wouldn’t feel the need to try to dig her way out. As he advanced into the room, her spine straightened even more.

  He stopped directly in front of her, and she had to crank her head way back so she could see his face. His expression was unreadable.

  “What happened to your fingers, little mouse?”

  He sounded different. As if he actually cared. “I tried to dig my way out,” she answered honestly. Her voice was still raspy, like she had a cold. “I didn’t get very far.” She laughed without humor. “As you can see, I’m still here.”

  He lowered himself down onto the mattress, crossing his legs in front of him and turning to face her. Laney’s body angled itself toward his without her consciously thinking about it.

  After a minute, he spoke, his voice deep and still a bit grating. “I’m not…overly fond of humans, in spite of the fact that I used to be one. Or maybe because of it.”

  His words surprised her. “I kind of got that impression.” Laney didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of her tone.

  Black eyes flashed with a hint of amusement for a moment before narrowing in on her mangled fingertips again. He took one of her hands gently in his and brought it to his mouth. Laney hissed in pain as he put two fingertips in his mouth and sucked. His eyes closed, but not before she saw the flare of pleasure the moment her blood touched his tongue. Tenderly, he repeated the gesture for all of her fingers, healing her wounds. When he was done, he didn’t release her hand, but continued to hold it in his. They both watched as the skin bonded together right before their eyes.

  “I’m very old,” he continued in a faraway tone. “I don’t know if you’ve figured that out. I was born in Northern India, as one of the Romani people.” He glanced up at her with his mouth twisted in a sneer. “You would know us as Gypsies, dirty nomads who survived by stealing and lying.” He snorted with disgust. “In reality, we were persecuted for nothing more than being who we were. We were hunted, enslaved, forced to assimilate into a foreign culture.” His words faded away, but not his anger. “It only became worse when I was changed into what I am now.” His expression glazed over as he stared off into the distance, lost in the past. “I was hunted. Like an animal. By humans that used to be my family…my friends.” His eyes came back to her and he smiled a disparaging smile. “Of course, I gave them good fucking reasons.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Laney asked.

  He turned his attention back to her. A look of confusion passed over his face as long seconds passed. “I don’t know.” He shrugged one powerful shoulder. “I want you to know me.”

  “Why?”

  Burning. His eyes were burning as they stared into hers. “Because you are MINE.”

  Laney was tired, so tired of it all. She pulled her hand from his and threw them both into the air. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  He tensed visibly. “It means you can’t ever leave me.”

  She stared at his face, his tattoos menacing in the candlelight. Yet she wasn’t afraid. Did this mean he was going to kill her? Or not? “Was that ever an option for me?”

  His body seemed to deflate as he relaxed again. “No. It wasn’t.”

  Laney hated to ask, but she needed to know. “Does this mean you’re going to let me live?”

  Reaching out, his fingers skimmed the top of her breast as he tugged on her hair, running the strands through his fingers. She felt the heat even through her shirt. “It means I can’t kill you now, even if I wanted to.”

  A surge of hope had her heart doing double-time. She waited for him to say more. He didn’t. “You can’t?”

  He shook his head, the light playing off the tattoos until they appeared to slither and shift on his skin. “No, because you are mine.” His tone was matter of fact.

  Okay. There was obviously something she was missing here. “I don’t understand—”

  Tearing his gaze from her hair and breasts, he finally explained. “There are tales, ancient tales, of how vampires find their fated mates. I have never seen it happen in all of my years, and neither had any of the vampires I knew. We all thought they were myths. However, I recently found out that these tales are very much true. A lot has happened while I was gone. To my friends, and to me.” He searched her face. “I just didn’t realize it until last night.”

  He wasn’t with her last night, but that wasn’t the part of his speech that had resonated with her. She was almost afraid to even say the words out loud. “So, you think that I’m your…fated mate?”

  “I don’t have to think about it. You are.” He watched her closely, waiting for her reaction.

  “What does that mean? Exactly? And how do you know?” It was important to have all of the facts before freaking the hell out.

  Running a hand over his skull, he took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “I knew it the moment I drank from you in the desert. Your blood was the best fucking thing I’ve ever had. I just didn’t realize what was going on at the time. I thought you tasted so good because I was in such fucked up shape. I had to have more, and so I tracked you to your home.” He paused and frowned. “In retrospect, I should have known when I offed the asshole who was abusing the dog by the Dumpster. After drinking from you, he tasted like shit. I thought it was drugs in his system.”

>   Laney held up a hand to stop him from saying anything else. “You killed one of my neighbors? And my roommate?” God, I’m never going to be able to go back to Vegas. Then she almost laughed. Two people were dead, and all she was worried about was herself.

  His expression was nonplussed. “He was a fucking asshole. The dog was just hungry. He didn’t deserve to be hit.”

  So, he’d killed someone else, but he’d done it to save the dog. She could almost understand that. “And my roommate?”

  “I had no use for her after she invited me in.” No remorse in his tone for that one.

  It was Laney’s turn to take a deep breath. She wasn’t going to touch that one. “Where is the dog? And Fraidy? Is he okay?”

  “They’re fine. They’re upstairs in my apartment. I just took them outside before I came down here.”

  A thrill went through her at the mention of an apartment. An apartment meant a real bathroom. With a shower!

  He cocked his head to the side. “I’m not taking you up there, little mouse.”

  She couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice. “Why not? And stop barging into my head uninvited.”

  Getting to his feet with a growl of displeasure, Dante began to pace the small space. Occasionally, he would run both hands over his skull, but he didn’t answer her question.

  Laney stood also. “Dante? Why can’t I go upstairs?”

  “Because you can’t leave me,” he said without stopping. He was moving so fast the words seemed to come at her from every direction. “If you leave me, I will die.”

  She wanted to make him stop pacing. “What does that mean? For me?” When he didn’t answer, she yelled, “Stop! Stop and answer my goddamn question!”