Chapter 13
“Jillian?” Dominic asked slowly, breathlessly.
Jillian’s talons pierced my back between my shoulder blades, and with her incredible strength, she held me off the ground as I tried to scream and kick away from her. The movement only made me sway as I dangled. I coughed harder.
“Release Kaden,” Jillian ordered. “Now.”
“As your Master, I command you to set Cassidy aside, unharmed. We can still discuss this, but if you kill her, I will kill you.”
“We’ve had enough discussion. You’re unbendable,” Jillian said behind me, her voice measured. “Step away from Kaden and leave him unharmed, or I’ll tear out Cassidy’s spine.”
“You’ll regret this decision, Jillian,” Dominic said, his voice equally measured. I suspected that both were attempting to calm the other. “Kaden thinks he’s adopting the Master’s power on the Leveling, but he would be much more powerful by now if that was the case. Don’t trust his delusion, Jillian. He’ll never be more powerful than I. I’m still your Master.”
A low, deep rattling growl vibrated through Jillian’s body. Her claw imbedded inside me vibrated, too. I shrieked, coughing more blood and writhing from the sharp, needle-like pain of her claws tearing through my insides.
“I have no Master,” she hissed. “You killed him, and I became my own Master.”
“This is still about Desirius? I’m sorry for your pain, but if I hadn’t killed him, his coven would have exposed us to the humans. I’m sorry a vampire from your own coven didn’t inherit his reign, but you’re my vampire now, and I—”
“The truth is here, right in front of your face, and you still don’t see it. You still don’t see me,” Jillian said, laughing, but the bitterness in her voice was thick and biting. “I inherited Desirius’s reign. Kaden isn’t adopting your Master’s power on the Leveling. I am. If you had died under the sun like you were supposed to die Sunday night, I would have already been Master and the world would know of our rightful existence.”
Dominic stared at Jillian, visibly shocked. I didn’t think vampires had the range of emotions to be shocked. So many times Dominic seemed more animal than human, more rabid than empathetic, but a rabid animal doesn’t have expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met, they don’t feel betrayed. Dominic, however, looked distraught.
He shook his head. “You knew I didn’t return to the coven Sunday night? And you didn’t come to my aid?”
“Knew? I planned it that way.”
“But I thought—”
“We know what you thought,” Kaden said. A slow grin twisted his lips. “How could I overpower you on my own? I’m just barely your equal.”
“I saw you,” Dominic insisted, looking down at Kaden. “Just before the ambush, I saw the glow of your purple eyes.”
Jillian tutted. “Of course he was there, but he wasn’t alone. He was with me.”
A cold, tight expression washed over Dominic’s half-transformed features. He looked still and calculating, but he must have sliced something inside of Kaden, because he screamed.
Jillian twisted her hand inside of me, and I shrieked.
Dominic jerked his gaze back to us. Kaden had already recovered from whatever wound Dominic had inflicted, but I was going into shock. My teeth were chattering and my body was going numb.
Dominic narrowed his eyes to slits. “Jillian—”
“Don’t worry,” Kaden interrupted. His voice escaped in a painful rasp. “If Jillian kills her, I’ll bring her back.”
Dominic stared at him, dumbfounded. “You can’t complete a transformation. Even if Jillian has adopted the Master’s power, she can’t perform a transformation until I’m dead.”
“So you’ve been telling us for decades,” Kaden spat.
“I haven’t told you anything. That is simple fact.” Dominic looked up, horrified. “Jillian, tell him the truth. Tell him that only a Master can transform a night blood.”
“We don’t know for sure that—”
“You’ve witnessed the horror caused by coven-turned night bloods! I pulled you from that hell! Tell him that—”
“Decide,” Jillian interrupted harshly. “Step away from Kaden, and I will step away from Cassidy. Or remain where you are and kill her. Choose.”
Jillian waited a moment, but Dominic hesitated, thinking on his next move. She twisted her claw a little deeper.
I gasped and twitched.
Dominic stared deep into Jillian’s eyes and said, “You will release Cassidy and step away from her, now.”
I held my breath, waiting to drop to the ground. Jillian’s arm shook from the force of resisting the command, but the moment passed, her arm steadied, and I remained impaled on her claws.
Dominic’s eyes widened.
She tore something from my body, and it landed on the ground with a wet, suctioned sound. I gasped and coughed and screamed and coughed up more blood.
Jesus, I thought, don’t let that be my spine or an organ or anything important. As if she could have torn something out of my body that wasn’t important. I laughed slightly, and coughed harder at my own twisted humor.
Dominic’s chest vibrated with a loud, rattling growl. The sound grew cacophonous and vibrated throughout the entire room.
“Calm yourself, Dominic,” Jillian warned. “This is simple. If you want Cassidy to live, step away from Kaden,” she said coldly. “Now.”
“I could tear you limb from limb before you could think to scream,” Dominic growled. The room hummed with the vibrations coming from his throat.
“You could try,” Jillian said blandly, “but not before I snap Cassidy’s spine from her back.”
“I trusted you,” Dominic hissed. “Together, we’ve pulled this coven back from the brink of several civil wars, but now you’re leading them against me?”
“It didn’t have to come to this,” Jillian stated, not pleading or defensive. She knew she’d crossed a line, had in fact pole-vaulted clear over it, and was unashamed. “I’ve warned you many times throughout the last few years that someone would rise if you didn’t change along with the tide. The coven is tired of hiding our existence. We want our freedom!”
“Someone, yes, but not you.” Dominic laughed, sickened. “Many times, the tide of the coven is not in the best interest of the coven. Many times, you must fight for them by straining against them. You must steer the tide in a different direction to—”
“You’re wrong. The coven is sick of hunting in secret. I am sick of hunting in secret. We are predators, and our true place is to rule this city, not cower in hiding beneath it.”
Dominic made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “We are predators of the night. We hide because we’re nocturnal and vulnerable during the day. Humans may be our food after sunset, but they are our greatest risk during the day. How will you protect an entire coven when the sun rises without anonymity?”
“I’ve heard this speech from you many times, but it is nothing but words. I believe in you, and although I’ve forgiven you for killing Desirius, I can’t forgive you for keeping us imprisoned here. Desirius’s actions were twisted; he tortured and killed his closest and truest vampires. He tortured and nearly killed me before you saved us, but I supported his cause to free us. He was the wrong man for the right cause. I believe that you could be the right man to lead that cause, but if you refuse, then I will lead it myself.”
Dominic shook his head slowly, as if the weight of her words was crushing him. “You’re wrong. This will destroy our coven like it destroyed yours.”
“You refuse to see an entire coven of vampires, myself included, who would stand by you no matter the cause, if only you would stand by us in this. And that’s why we’re here now, because you refuse to listen or change or bend for the benefit of this coven,” Jillian said emphatically. “Step away from Kaden.”
“Jillian Allister,” Dominic intoned, and I could hear the power in his voice as he linked his mind to hers. “Place Cassidy on the ground and step away from her.”
Jillian’s body shook with the effort to resist his command. “Step away from Kaden, Dominic Lysander. Now.”
Her own power was equally strong. I could feel their mental battle heat the air between them. Neither Dominic nor Jillian stepped away.
Jillian laughed harshly. “I’m your equal, Lysander. Step away from Kaden before we both lose what is most precious.” She lifted me higher, and I felt the long, slow slide of her tongue. Her chest rattled. “I understand why you want her. She’s delicious. But whether she dies now or later, it doesn’t matter. The coven will sense your struggle and come to feast anyway.”
The movement of her laughter was sharp inside my back. I tried to bite back a reaction, but her talons were so sharp and the pain was so overwhelming that my whimpers and moans and gasps were involuntary. I writhed, suspended in midair, and couldn’t think of how to survive this. After everything I had survived—my parents’ deaths, supporting my brother, losing Adam, the gunshot wound, and recovering from Percocet addiction—this was how I would die, caught in the crossfire of a vampire rebellion. This wasn’t even my fight. My anger, that churning, unfathomable depth of seething rage that always boiled beneath the surface, erupted. I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t do anything to physically channel the rage, but Jillian had just ingested my blood. My rage flowed over me with the same vibrating, enflamed mental power that flowed from Dominic and Jillian.
Dominic was silent. He stared at Jillian for a long moment before shifting his gaze to me. I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, if my expression had anything to do with his decision or if the potential he saw in me as his night blood overrode common sense, but he slipped his arm from Kaden’s chest, stood slowly, and stepped away as Jillian had commanded.
I managed to open my mouth and uttered a low rasp. “No, don’t listen—”
Jillian ripped her arm from my back and dropped me to the ground. I crumpled on my side and watched as she appeared behind Dominic, seemingly from thin air. Her claw, which she had just ripped out from inside of me, skewered through Dominic. She pounded her bloodied hand through his back and all four of her bat-like gargoyle talons punctured Dominic’s chest. I looked down at my own undamaged chest, and I realized just how much she’d restrained herself while threatening me.
Could anyone, even a vampire, survive that? I thought. I winced as the next thought slammed home. Without Dominic, would I survive?
Kaden rose up from the stone, no worse for Dominic’s wear, and faced Dominic while Jillian held him immobile. Dominic coughed, and blood spewed from his mouth. Drops clung to his lower lip. His blood was more viscous and darker than mine, perhaps because it wasn’t constantly flowing through his veins.
Jillian jerked back on Dominic’s head to better expose his chest, and Kaden pulled back his claw to strike.
We didn’t have anything left with which to fight, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t survive.
“Jillian Allister,” I said, and I poured every drop of rage and loathing I could summon into the syllables of her name. The moment the words left my mouth, I could feel the connection bind us. Dominic had played his cards tight to the chest as I’d suspected, so Jillian was as unprepared for me as Dominic had been that first time. She might have reflected Dominic’s commands with her metal mirror, but she didn’t have anything in place to deflect mine.
Her eyes widened in horrified astonishment.
Dominic jerked his gaze between Jillian and me, and I could see the instant he remembered my connection and exactly what I was capable of. “No,” he whispered. “Jillian’s too powerful to be entranced by you.”
“Release Dominic Lysander immediately,” I commanded.
Jillian’s face fell slack, and as per my direct command, she released Dominic.
Dominic dropped to the stone floor, much like I had, and crumpled onto his side in a heap of black designer clothing and blood. He didn’t move.
“Jillian Allister,” I continued my command, “grab Kaden and lock him and yourself inside the silver cage. Now.”
Kaden lunged for me in a blur of glowing violet eyes and hissing fangs, but Jillian was faster and more powerful. She rushed him before he could reach me, and they both disappeared with the force of her incredible speed. A loud clang sounded behind me. I jolted, but by the time I managed to turn my head, the barred door of the silver cage had already slammed shut with Jillian and Kaden locked inside.
Jillian stood silently, dumbly, waiting for her next command. Kaden raged next to her, pounding on the bars, hissing and growling and rattling the cage in a roaring tantrum. Smoke steamed from under his claws where his hand wrapped around the silver bars. He shrieked and yanked away from the cage. He stared down at his burned palms and then glared up at me, and I could see the variety of deaths he imagined for me reflected in the heat of his fury.
With Jillian and Kaden effectively detained, I turned back to Dominic. He still hadn’t moved. Although I could move my legs, muscles in my back were damaged or missing, and I couldn’t support myself. Everything hurt. My entire body was in screaming, chattering, unbearable agony, but I dug my elbows into the stone and dragged myself next to Dominic until my head was even with his.
I slumped next to him. I was exhausted and spent and if I admitted the truth to myself, likely dying. Dominic’s eyes were open and focused on something behind me.
“Dominic,” I whispered, terrified that I was too late. How would I escape the coven and survive the night without his help?
A moment of still silence passed. I held my breath, and then like a miracle, his eyes shifted to focus on me.
I exhaled in relief. “You’re not dead.”
“Not yet,” Dominic whispered. Blood poured from his mouth when he spoke.
I winced back, but the blood spread faster than I could move. It seeped around my face as it pooled on the stone. Where it flowed over the scrapes on my cheek, I could feel the heat of it healing.
“Why aren’t you healing like before, like when you were battling Kaden?” I asked. “Why aren’t you recovering this time?”
“Kaden wasn’t next to inherit my Master’s power. Jillian is, so unlike Kaden, the wounds she inflicted are lethal.” Dominic choked on more blood before catching his breath. “Without feeding, I’ll die in a matter of minutes, Cassidy. My final death.”
“No, you can recover from this,” I insisted.
“Jillian will keep the powers she’s gained thus far, and the rest of the power will die with me.” Dominic continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “The coven will come to either finish me, challenge Jillian, or claim Jillian as their new Master, but in any scenario, they are likely already on their way.”
I blinked. “The entire coven will come here? Now?”
“Yes, and I’ll be dead. You need to heal yourself as best you can with my blood and leave. You—” Dominic coughed, and although I wanted to ease back from the gore of his struggle, I needed to lean closer to hear his words. “You still have the necklace?”
“Yes, but—”
“Take it, and use the blood I’m hemorrhaging for yourself. I wish I had more time. You would have been—”
More coughs racked his body. I waited for him to gather his composure and continue, but he couldn’t stop coughing this time. Blood poured in a steady flow from his chest wound, hemorrhaging in a strange, thick viscosity that seeped instead of pumped onto the floor around us. My skin burned from its healing as it soaked into the superficial slices and nicks on my arms and legs.
The other vampires were approaching. Their growling rattles and the clicks of their talons scraping against stone grew cacophonous as they closed in. I opened the vial of blood still hanging from my neck and stared at the shining crimson liquid inside, reluctant to pour it on my injuries. With the coven approaching, the healing properties of Dominic’s blood would only prolong the inevitable.
“Do you hear them?” Kaden hissed from across the room, echoing my thoughts. “Go ahead. Use his blood to heal, and see how far you can run, little one.” Kaden laughed.
I shifted my gaze back to Dominic. His coughing fit was starting to subside, but so were his breaths and bleeding and movement. He was dying, and even with his blood, without him, I wouldn’t survive. I needed him. I hated not being able to save myself, but I’d always believed in facts. And the fact was that I would not survive the next five minutes without Dominic Lysander.
I twisted the lid off the vial and poured Dominic’s blood down my back to heal as much of myself as possible. The heat of its healing scalded my wounds, and I felt some of the strength return to muscles as they regenerated. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough considering the extent of my injuries, but I didn’t need to heal completely to survive.
I smashed the empty vial on the stone floor and sliced my wrist open with the jagged edge of the broken glass. Blood welled from the wound. I massaged it to gain a steady flow and held my wrist over Dominic’s mouth, streaming the blood down his throat.
Watching my blood flow from my wrist into his mouth made me nauseous and woozy. Black starbursts dotted my vision. I closed my eyes and focused on the chill of the stone floor beneath my cheek to ground myself. A minute passed, and Dominic still remained unconscious. I bit my lip. The vampires were approaching, hundreds of vampires who would release Jillian and Kaden and feast on me. I could order Jillian to protect me, but there was an entire coven of vampires against only one of her. I bit my lip harder, feeling desperation, like the approaching vampires, closing in from all sides.
“Dominic,” I whispered. I scooted closer to him, ignoring the tacky cling of blood suctioning my skin to the stone floor, until my body spooned the side of his. “Your coven is coming. This is your chance. You are the only one who can save them from Jillian and Kaden. You are the only one who can save me.”
The vibrations of the coven’s approach shook the floor beneath us. I flexed my wrist over his mouth to increase its flow, and blood poured into his mouth.
He didn’t stir.
“You said that life often takes more than it gives, but you were born to lead this coven, Dominic. Life gave you this coven and this opportunity to prove to them that you are their rightful Master. You are greedy and single-mindedly selfish, as I recall, and you have the means, power, and authority to take exactly what you want. Isn’t that what you said to me?” I leaned even closer, so my lips pressed against the shell of his ear. “But I’ve never been one to believe in words. You want me? You want to lead this coven? Prove it. Dominic Lysander, I dare you to heal stronger with my blood, survive this, and fucking prove it! Take back what is yours!”
I’d meant my words as a taunt or pep talk, but between our shared blood and my command, our minds connected. I felt the frayed thread of his will stiffen with resolve as my words shot through his defenses and into his brain. His eyes snapped open. They glowed a luminescent blue, and he stared at me with inhuman stillness, like his thoughts were a language that I couldn’t comprehend.
His hand suddenly clamped around my wrist with crushing force. He pressed my hand to his mouth, bit into my wrist, tore my veins open, and guzzled my blood.
“Dominic,” I whispered, unsure if I should command him to stop, and if I did, trying to think of a phrase that wouldn’t endanger me if he reflected it.
Before I could decide what to do, Dominic rolled on top of me. His weight pressed my butchered back hard into the stone. My wound sizzled as it suctioned into the puddle of his blood and began to heal. I screamed. I struggled against him and the burning snap of pain, but Dominic pushed my head to the side and sank his fangs deep into my neck.
The pain was sharp and immediate and tore away my breath. His lips clamped on the wound to suck my blood, but instead of the pain turning to exquisite pleasure, like it had before, it just felt like horrible, aching, throbbing pain.
I pushed at Dominic’s shoulder and yanked hard on his hair in a final, desperate attempt to gain his attention, but my efforts were weak and he was astronomically strong. Eventually, even that movement was too much for my body, and I felt my arms drop away from him. My knuckles scraped against stone as they fell limply to the ground.
His fangs sank in deeper. He tore my neck open a little bit wider, and I heard a noise escape from me. I felt myself twitch in pain. The attack lasted mere seconds, but he was efficient and experienced and ruthless. Mere seconds was all the time he needed to drain the rest of my blood. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel. My mind drifted, and I saw everything as if from above, hovering over our bodies and watching from the rafters.
Hundreds of vampires entered the room and flanked around us. Dominic was holding me with an arm under my back and my neck clamped in his mouth, but as his coven approached, he dropped my neck to growl at the coven, like a dog will drop its bone to protect it from being taken.
I fell limply to the floor underneath him. My neck was bent at a harsh angle. The wound was still pumping blood and spilling in a creeping circle around us to mix with his, but Dominic didn’t notice my neck or the blood; he growled at the enclosing vampires. The noise began as the same low growl that I’d heard rattle from all their throats, but the noise quickly expanded, vibrating through the room in a terrifying, encompassing, awesome cacophony that shook my roots.
Most of the vampires shrank back, instantly recognizing Dominic as their rightful Master and bending to him. Some fought the compulsion for a moment or two, testing whether he was still strong enough and powerful enough to lead and protect the coven, but the majority of those vampires succumbed to Dominic after a moment, as well. They bowed their heads, hunched in on themselves, and backed away from the room in supplication.
A little over a dozen vampires stepped forward through the cacophony and stood in front of us in a tight semicircle, refusing to supplicate, denying Dominic as their Master. The rebels. They were all fully transformed into the gargoyle, beast-like version of themselves. Their eyes glowed brightly in the dim room and seemed to glow more luminescent as they growled back. Their own growls mixed into an equally awesome and compelling rattle. Together, theirs were almost as moving as Dominic’s, but Dominic didn’t flinch. He hovered over my body, spread himself over me in a strangely protective stance, and stood against them.
The first rebel attacked from his left. Dominic let the vampire approach from the crowd, but once separated, he met the attack. Dominic’s movements were faster than Kaden and Jillian, faster than I could comprehend. I couldn’t even track his exact movements, only their devastating effects.
Dominic’s hand blurred through the air, and the vampire’s chest exploded in a spray of blood. Their eyes met, and even impaled by Dominic’s arm, the vampire didn’t bow down. Holding his gaze, Dominic twisted his wrist while still inside his chest, and the vampire’s knees buckled. He crumpled to the ground, twitching and gasping.
Another rebel attacked, and a third and fourth, until a swarm swelled from the hallway, charged into the room, and crashed into Dominic. Dominic, however, crashed right back, and the faster and stronger they swarmed, the more powerfully he stood against their undertow until a ring of incapacitated vampires was strewn at his feet.
One of the vampires inched closer to me while Dominic fought. I felt myself trying to open my mouth, to warn Dominic, but I couldn’t form the words. Nothing was left inside of me that could speak or move. Dominic was distracted by three other vampires, and I couldn’t do anything but watch my own death approach from the sidelines.
The approaching vampire knelt beside me, and I recognized the burns across his face from my last visit to the coven. He was Neil, the young vampire who had singed himself on the silver bars trying to attack me. Neil gazed at me with his starving otherworldly eyes. My head was still bent backward where Dominic had dropped me, baring my esophagus like an offering. Neil rubbed his nose over the front of my neck and released a restrained, pain-filled exhale against my blood-soaked, clammy-cold skin.
Dominic froze for a fraction of a heartbeat, recognizing the movement and noise and intention behind it. Without further thought or hesitation, Dominic lashed out at the vampires currently fighting him with his long, lethal talons. He ripped out all three of their throats with one swipe of his hand. Blood sprayed in an arching wave, and their spines gleamed through the blood and hanging tissue.
Dominic was beside me before the three vampires hit the ground. I could feel the rush of his movement whip over my face as he flew, collided with Neil, and smashed him on his back into the ground next to me. Neil struggled and whipped at Dominic with his talons, but Dominic dodged his movements easily, punched his hand into Neil’s stomach, and jerked up into his chest cavity. Neil screamed, but Dominic didn’t even flinch. He twisted his wrist nearly elbow-deep despite Neil’s squealing pleas.
“No,” Neil hissed, his voice keening. A shocked, affronted expression lit his face as he stared at Dominic. “You can’t. You’re not my Mast—”
Dominic tore out Neil’s heart.
Deep red, nearly black, ropes of blood stretched from the gaping wound in Neil’s chest to his heart raised aloft in Dominic’s hand. The blood ropes broke after a moment and dripped in long strands from the heart, down Dominic’s blood-soaked hand, and to the stone floor.
Neil struggled for a frantic, ineffective moment, attempting to snatch his heart from Dominic, but Dominic restrained his efforts with one hand and held the heart out of reach with the other. Neil’s movements became lethargic and strained. His body jerked involuntarily. His eyes glazed and his lax, unseeing expression dropped to the side to face me.
Neil’s gargoyle-like features weren’t any less horrifying in repose, but his expression was still human-like enough to chill my heart. Neil had felt betrayal and fear and uncertainty at the very end, but he’d also looked desperate to recover his heart. I had a horrible, sneaking suspicion that if someone were to shove the heart back into its chest cavity, Neil could still potentially recover.
The hundreds of surrounding vampires shrieked, and a low rattle hummed through the room. The few whose throats had been slashed were healing quickly, and although bloody, their throats were formed enough to function again. They bore their fangs, and joined in the vibrating growl that spread through the coven. They shrieked and chittered like the frantic dissonance of insects.
I would have covered my ears if I could still move. I watched them form a tight semicircle around us, becoming a united force of will and power and strength. Even the majority who had initially shrunk back from Dominic were swept up in the current. Rage and solidarity infused them with courage, and they joined in the attack.
Dominic sheltered me under the protection of his body, lifted Neil’s heart high over his head, and belted out a blasting roar that shook the very foundation of the coven. From one heartbeat to the next, Dominic transformed from his human-like vampire form to the gargoyle-like version. Gone were his captivating blue eyes, replaced by glassy, black shark eyes. His fangs elongated, his ears pointed, his nose flattened, his forehead thickened, and his muzzle extended until he barely resembled himself. This massive, rabid, lethal creature crouched over my body, protecting me and claiming me as his in front of his entire coven. To cross me was to cross him. And no one would dare cross him.
Every single vampire, including the dozen rebels who had stood firm against his rule, were knocked back by the force of Dominic’s roar. They stumbled to regain their footing, hissing frantically to each other, but they reluctantly kept their distance.
Holding his crouched stance over me, Dominic met each of their eyes. He growled, and the noises that escaped his throat were like aftershocks to the initial blast. The vampires continued to stumble back, some unwillingly and others in complete submission, but not one could withstand the force of his power.
Dominic held the heart a little higher. “Anyone else?” he asked, and his voice scraped through his throat with a very inhuman, gravelly growl.
The vampires each averted their gazes. Even Kaden bowed his head, quelled without Jillian’s lead. I doubt Jillian would have bowed her head. She might have been the only vampire in the coven with the ability to overthrow Dominic, but she was still staring limply at the wall, waiting for my next command.
“Anyone else?” Dominic repeated.
The vampires shrank further into shadow, hunched in on themselves from the weight of Dominic’s voice. No one rose against him. Even if they still wanted to, and it looked as if a few were straining against the will that Dominic imposed on them, not one vampire was strong enough to act. Their mouths trembled and their fingers locked into fists and some of them even looked to Jillian for guidance or action, but they couldn’t defy him.
“I want all of you to remember this moment,” Dominic said, and his voice was harsh, like a cheese grater against my temple. I felt its grazing, and I wasn’t even the target of his command. The surrounding vampires hunched further in on themselves and shuddered. “I am your Master. Even as the Leveling approaches, I continue to safeguard this coven at my own peril. Some of you would rather use our temporary weakness for your own gain instead of pooling resources to strengthen us. Even against these adversaries, against vampires I trusted with my life, I still fight for you.
“I want you to remember this moment because should another rebellion rise, although my own strength may appear to decrease, I will not be vulnerable to anyone else’s rule; I have resources to counter such an attack. Should another rebellion rise, I will be less inclined to forgive.”
Dominic threw Neil’s body and his heart to the ground at their feet. A few vampires from the crowd carefully scooped up his remains and quickly disappeared into the hallway. The remaining vampires slowly exited. They eased out of the room without turning their backs or relaxing their guard, and once they reached the hallway, they fled in a blur of speed.
Dominic held his pose over me. He was powerful and massive and it wasn’t just his gargoyle form that gave him that weight, although it certainly helped. The strength of his will and mind and body became one leading force that was irrefutable. His growls urged the last remaining rebels from the room. I could see him with my own eyes—the drowning sharpness of his midnight gaze and the immense strength in his arms and body over me was spellbinding, like the beauty and uncertainty of encountering a tiger—but I could also see both of us from above, from my vantage on the rafters.
I felt myself slip further away, my spirit dampened by the force of his power. My view from above was becoming the more predominant one. I couldn’t feel or move or breathe, although I could smell a faint freshness, like the content comfort of coming home.
Dominic didn’t break his gaze or retreat from his protective stance over me, but I think he could feel my passing. I think it troubled him. He brushed the pad of his thumb against my bare shoulder. The comfort of his touch, of a wild animal’s concern and protective possession over me, brought me back slightly. My vision from the rafters receded, and I could feel the dull pounding of my injuries as if from behind a thick cushion.
From my strange double vision, I watched Dominic’s back muscles tense and his lip curl back in a grim snarl. He had expected me to stir from his touch. He had expected me to moan or respond, but I suppose even a night blood’s capacity for blood loss had its limits. I’d reached mine.
When the last vampire departed, Dominic gathered me in his arms and held my body against his chest. I couldn’t move to wrap my arms around him or support my head, so my arms and neck arched back, still grazing the floor as he lifted my back. Blood from his bite leaked over my jaw and behind my ear. This close, I could feel the vibration of the rattle in his chest before sound emerged from his throat.
“I can taste the thready squeeze and contraction of your heart, Cassidy DiRocco,” he murmured against my neck. The whisper of his breath caressed my skin when he spoke my name. “You are mine, and I don’t care if it takes an eternity to receive your forgiveness. At least you’ll be alive for me to receive it.”
No, I thought, not liking where his thoughts were leading. Find a better solution or let me die, damn it! I don’t want to be a vampire.
But I couldn’t respond aloud, so my opinion went unspoken and unheeded.
Dominic pressed closer, rubbing his cheek along my cheek. “Thank you for saving me and for helping me keep my coven.” He laughed slightly, and the human vibrations of his laughter coming from the depths of his gargoyle throat were deep and rattling, like his growl but without the intent. “Thank you for having my back.”
Dominic shifted my body, so my head was supported by the bend of his arm. He lifted his right arm to his mouth and tore open the veins at his wrist with his own fangs. Blood poured over his forearm. He stared at me, then at his arm, and back at me for a moment, undecided, and I wondered if he was having second thoughts about keeping me. He hesitated with his arm raised, the blood dripping over his entire hand, wrist, and lower arm in a thick crimson glove. I braced myself for him to drip the blood into my mouth, but part of me, a denied, unheard part that crept out unexpectedly from the darker shadows of my heart, braced herself for him to change his mind.
Dominic’s arm finally lowered, but not to my mouth as I’d expected. He wrapped his arm under my back, so his dripping, blood-gloved hand grazed the wound I’d sustained from Jillian. The wound hadn’t completely healed even after using the vial or being soaked in the puddle of his blood. It was too deep, and his blood hadn’t reached the more extensive, debilitating injuries inside.
I couldn’t feel the pressure of his fingers against the torn skin, but I could feel the burn of his blood mingling with mine. It began as a dull tingling on the skin around the wound and quickly escalated to a deep, unrelenting inferno.
The pressure of his hand became unbearable. My body twitched.
“Yes,” he breathed. His own voice sounded strained. “Come back to me, Cassidy.”
His cheek grazed over my skin until our noses slid against one another, and he stared at me from inches away with his solid, midnight, gargoyle eyes. I didn’t feel the pull of his gaze capturing mine, but I felt a different kind of pull, a hypnotism that had nothing and everything to do with his strength of will.
He breached the mere centimeters of air and breath and anticipation between us and pressed his lips firmly against mine. My entire being rushed back into my own body. In a single blink, the double vision was gone; I could taste and breathe and hear and want again, but I could also feel.
The pressure of his lips was overwhelming, but not nearly enough to wash away the pain completely, like his bite. I understood why he’d chosen to kiss me—my body couldn’t sustain further blood loss—but my injuries coupled with the burning of his healing blood was anguish. I shrieked and writhed against him, desperate to find an escape. Dominic kept a steady pressure on my lips, nipping and licking and sucking and moving in the rhythmic motion that curled my toes. Although distracting, his kiss was like a Band-Aid for a torn limb. It couldn’t staunch the blood. It couldn’t salve the burn. It could only serve as a temporary, makeshift solution that would eventually succumb to the very injury it was attempting to maintain.
“I know this hurts,” Dominic whispered against my lips, his tone calm and deliberate. “Find something to anchor your mind, and just breathe.”
His hand slipped inside my back, deep into the wound to heal the torn muscle and flesh and organs from the inside. My breath caught, and I couldn’t think beyond the twitching writhe of agony.
“You can survive this,” Dominic growled, throwing my own words back at me. “Do you hear me, Cassidy? You have survived worse and have lived to bear the scars of others’ betrayals. You’ll live to bear this one, too.”
I tried to breathe with his hand inside of me and choked instead. His fingers caressed a muscle inside my back, places that fingers should never touch, and as he shifted his hand to caress an adjacent muscle, it burned even hotter.
“How did it feel when you realized that your source had betrayed you all those years ago? How did it feel when the first bullet was fired, and you realized that you’d placed your friends at risk, friends who’d trusted you and were willing to put themselves at risk on your judgment? And your judgment had been so terribly wrong. They would die because you were wrong,” Dominic said harshly, pressing deeper into my back. “Can you still taste the bitterness through to your core? Does it still rot inside of you and taint your judgment of others? Who can you trust when you can’t even trust yourself?”
I finally managed to squeeze in a breath, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
“Is that why you have such a crisis justifying why, despite your better self, you actually trust me?”
I felt the steady, constant anger that always boiled below the surface rise up and ground me. I knew what Dominic was trying to do, as I had done for him, and it was working. I could feel my mind shifting from the insanity of unrelenting pain to a more focused state of mind, but the pain was too much even for my temper. My vision spotted and dimmed in ebbing flashes.
Dominic continued to speak. I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. The black holes swiftly expanded and melded together into one inky sheet across my eyes until the inferno across my back, the pressure of his demanding lips, and the comfort of his arms cradling my body faded into nothing.