Chapter Fifteen

The strange unnatural calm in Dawn’s mind and body felt nothing short of weird and unreal. She was in the most defenseless position a woman could be in at this moment; naked, flat on her back, impaled by Mateo’s body as intimately as possible, and she wasn’t even sure if he was real or merely a figment of her obviously diminishing sanity. Shock was the only way to describe what she was feeling.

“What are you?” she asked in voice that sounded so oddly calm to her own ears. She should be trying to run as fast and far away from him as she could go, or at the very least, fearing for her life. Maybe she wasn’t deathly afraid because perhaps Mateo Two Moons—her perfect man in every way—didn’t even exist.

His eyes were black as coals as he stared down at her, and an unreadable expression held his face motionless.

“What are you?” she repeated in the voice she still didn’t recognize as her own.

His mouth barely moved as he whispered, “Dhampyre.”

“Wha—What?” Irritation was edging into her voice. “What the hell is that?” All at once she realized the excruciating pain in her neck. She reached up to cautiously touch the fresh blood pooling along the ridges of the teeth marks. Her shaking hand pulled back slowly as she stared at the red stain on her fingertips.

Her confused gaze rose again. An expression of pain and dread contorted Mateo’s handsome face and his eyes were misted with unshed tears.

“Dawn, I’m so sorry,” he said a hoarse voice. “I-I just lost control.”

Her fingers shook more visibly as she glanced at the deep red smears along her fingertips. She could barely speak as she choked out the words again, “What are you really?”

“I was born a dhamp—half-human, half-vampire. My mother was human when I was conceived, and my father is a-a vampire.”

He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear witnessing the mortified look of disbelief on her face.

She wished she could close her mind to this lunacy as easily as he just blocked out the sight of her.

“There is no such thing,” she stated in a low and surprisingly controlled voice.

He lifted his hips carefully, releasing his intimate hold on her, and rolled to her side. In spite of everything, the absence of him molded into her body felt as if a part of her was missing. She was cold and empty without his touch, yet at the same time, so thoroughly confused.

The expressive black eyes of the man she loved more than life were watching her again from within the perfectly handsome face she had memorized, and those lips she yearned to kiss every moment of each passing day were saying the most insane things. Was he really trying to tell her he was part...vampire?

“Mateo.” She turned on her side and stared back at him. The pain in her neck reminded her that whatever was happening here was not natural, but she wasn’t ready to believe the outlandish lie he told her. “This, whatever this kinky biting fetish is you have going on here, well, it’s definitely weird, but it’s something we can work on toge—”

“I know you are just trying to find a rational explanation, because what I’m telling you must sound so impossible,” he cut in. He reached out and gently placed his hand against the side of her face. “I wish there was an answer that didn’t include exposing you to horrors you never could have imagined exist. Most of all, I just wish I never had to hurt you in any way.”

She could only stare at his beautiful tortured face. Did he seriously think she would believe the nonsense he was telling her? If she did, shouldn’t she be pulling away from him in repulsion and horror? Begging for her life? Anything other than just lying here beside him with his warm loving hand against her cheek?

He was still her Mateo Two Moons, her perfect forever love. She reached up and placed her own hand over where his touched lightly on her face. His skin was smooth and hot, still sweaty from their recent love-making. He felt like what he was...just a man. Her man. A touch of a smile curved her lips.

“Vampires or d-dhamp—whatever you said, they don’t exist. You are the man I love and want to spend the rest of my life with, and I refuse to believe anything else.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. She felt engulfed in love with his soothing gestures. There was no way she could believe what he said.

Vampires were cold pale creatures with long fangs protruding from their mouths; they bit people in the neck and drained them of all their blood until they were nothing but hollow corpses. Vampires slept in coffins during the day and lived in castles in Romania or…what the hell was she even thinking?

Vampires did not exist.

“Do you want to take a bath,” he suggested after a few minutes of silence. “It might help to calm you and we can talk while we soak.”

His worried voice intruded into Dawn’s conflicting thoughts of rationality and insanity and fictitious horror stories. Yes please, she thought as she nodded her head. Let’s do something normal like take a bath. But no more talking. Let’s stop talking and thinking about crazy things that don’t exist.

She realized they were really perfect together…they were both certifiably insane.

She let him pick her up from the bed and cradle her in his arms as he carried her into the big master en suite. An over-sized oval tub sat in one corner of the room. He stood her on the brown tiled floor as he turned on the water. Dawn took his hand as he helped her step over the side. She sank down gratefully as hot water poured into the tub and over her numb body.

He climbed in behind her and she leaned back against him as soon as he sat down. This felt so perfectly normal. This was something an ordinary man would do with his woman after making mad passionate, somewhat deviant, love to her.

The biting thing—well, that was another story. Guess it was too good to be true that he could be perfect in every way. There were probably sex therapists to help him overcome that kinkiness. She would discuss this awkward issue with him tomorrow. Between Chloe’s disappearance and now all this, she was too tired to think straight tonight.

When their bodies were immersed in deep water that teetered almost to the top of the tub, he turned the water off and wrapped both his arms tightly around her waist. She sighed and closed her eyes. Maybe she only dreamt all that insane stuff he told her about being a half-human, half-vampirey thing.

“We have to talk about it. Ignoring it won’t change the facts,” Mateo whispered in her ear.

She exhaled a heavy sigh. Okay, Cowboy up, Cupcake. Her neck throbbed as a reminder this madness was real. She swallowed tentatively, but thankfully, did not feel any more blood flowing down her neck.

“So, you really expect me to believe you are Dracula?” She retorted in a snarky tone as she shook her head slightly. “Dracula who drives a big truck instead of using your bat wings?” She tried to add a chuckle, because she was trying hard to make a joke. When she glanced back at him, she realized it wasn’t working. Her attempt to laugh sounded grossly forced. A scowl was his only response.

“If I had followed the customs of my clan, the Blood Clan, you never would have found out the truth about me. The first night you came up to the Superstitions, and I came to you during the night in your sleeping bag, you would have been powerless to resist me. I would have completed our mating ritual and taken you with me. Your disappearance would never have been explained. From that moment on you would be living with me in my hidden village at the top of the Superstitions. You’re only purpose would be to be my mate, to make love to me, care for my needs, and have my children so our bloodline could carry on.”

His words echoed through her mind. The frigid storm racing through her body froze her to the core. Now, she was beginning to get scared. Not even the hot water could heat her as her body began to shake vehemently. Mateo’s arms tightened around her.

“I’m sorry I had to say it so bluntly, but you refused to listen to the truth.”

“I still don’t believe you,” she replied in a voice shaking as ferociously as her body. She choked down the heavy sludge in the back of her throat with a loud gulp.

“We live in the r-real world, Mateo. I love you, but this is getting seriously strange and freaky. I-I just don’t understand why you would want to scare me like this? Do you belong to some underground vampire club or blood-sucking cult or something?”

“In my world we refer to humans—like you—as real ones,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard anything she asked him. “And, yes, you do live in the real world, my love. But I and the others like me, sleep in caves during the daylight hours. Only when the night begins to fall are we allowed to venture out into your world.”

Her head was pounding as his words reached her ears. Now that he mentioned it, she never had seen him in the daytime. But they’d only known one another less than a week, so it hadn’t seemed a big deal. The truth was she really knew nothing outside of the few hours they spent together—mostly making crazy uncontrollable love. Everything else about him was a complete mystery to her.

The one thing she did know was she loved him in an all-consuming unexplainable way, and she had ever since the very first instant when their gazes met at the crowded pizza place last week.

“If I was to believe you, and I’m not saying I do, but—” She exhaled a trembling breath before continuing, “If I should entertain the idea of dhamp—”

“Dhampyres.”

She swallowed loudly again. It was an intimidating sounding word. “Dhampyres,” she repeated in a quiet voice. She cleared her throat. “Okay, for argument’s sake, let’s just say they do exist and they live in a secret village up on the Superstitions. It’s so secret it has never been found even with all the people who hike around those mountains looking for gold and stuff. But these-these dhampyres can leave this secret place and steal women away from campsites or whatever and make them their love slaves?”

She shook her head as the absurdity of those words fell from her mouth.

He remained silent, so she continued. “If you are telling me the truth, and you are one of these so-called dhampyres, and you do live in this secret place with this Blood Clan—” She shook her head again in disbelief. “Then how is it possible you are here with me now, in this real place, doing things like—what did you call me—like real ones?”

Dawn twisted around in the water and looked at him. His ebony brows were knitted closely together and a deep frown held his lips captive. She could see her own pained reflection in his raven gaze.

“Or is the real truth that I have lost my mind and the past week and a half since I first went camping on the Superstitions never really happened at all? If this is the case, I should be institutionalized as soon as possible.”

Mateo pulled her around in the tub until she was facing him. She sat on his thighs and her legs wrapped around his waist. It would feel so natural to make love again right now. But instead of being taken back to a place of sexual fantasy, they had to face the reality of something horrific and unbelievable.

“It’s real, my love,” he finally said. “It’s all unbelievably real, and I realize how hard it is for you to comprehend. In time, you will know and understand everything. And I promise I will do everything in my power to make it all as painless as possible. I know you are confused.”

“I know you are confused. Your mind cannot grasp what is happening. It’s only your body responding to me at this time, because there is no way to resist fate. It was probably wrong of me to bring you here tonight since I’m not ready to take you to the mountaintop to become my mate, yet. But I just can’t stay away from you now that I’ve seen you and held you in my arms. I promise you, I will find a way to come to you in your world before we both must fulfill the destiny set in motion since time first began. You must trust me, Udaya.”

The words the faceless stranger had said to her the night she went to the Superstitions alone in a trance-like state came flooding back. They had not made any sense that night, and as crazy as it was, now they were starting to have some meaning.

“Wow,” she whispered. Her eyes widened as the rest of his words came back to her in vivid recollection.

“I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.”

“My grandmother and my mother told me about you when I was a child nearly a hundred years ago.”

“I remember it all now.”

“You are remembering things that happened on the mountain?” he asked in a worried tone.

She felt as if every ounce of courage drained out of her body. She was helpless to block the horrendous images lurking at the edges of her mind of ancient undead creatures living among the frightening—and nearby—peaks of the Superstitions. But if she allowed these images total access, she might really fall into the black chasm of insanity.

She wished she was back in Colorado right now, living her once calm boring life; dating losers or visiting the Sluts R Us Club when she got horny, and just being an average twenty-six-year-old.

But then she never would have met Mateo Two Moons.

His dangerously handsome face swam before her eyes when she tried to focus her gaze on him. He was just watching her, patiently waiting for her latest psychotic episode to pass. All the insane words he had spoken to her during those times on the Superstitions kept gushing through the barriers of her weakened mind.

“My destiny?” she asked nervously.

“Yes,” he answered. “Since the day of my birth over a hundred years ago, and since the day of your birth over twenty-six years ago, we have been destined to meet, destined have dhampyre children together, and destined to spend all eternity together.”

Mateo’s voice, the voice she thought was so deep and sexy, had just spoken the most irrational words she’d ever heard. Did he honestly expect her to even begin to process any of this madness? It was just all too much.

Her head began to shake from side to side. “No. Not true. I refuse to believe you,” she yelled as she pushed herself away from him. She jumped up and sprang over the side of the tub, splashing water everywhere on the floor with her sudden action.

Her feet had barely landed on the tiled floor when the entire room began to spin before her eyes. Everything around her began to go black.

****

Dawn tried to force her eyes open. They stung. Her body hurt. The fierce pounding in her head invoked a fleeting memory from spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during college days she only wanted to forget. She moaned out loud. When she finally pried her eye lids apart, the bright sun shining through the tall windows made her eyes burn. She squeezed her eyes shut again.

Damn.

She was still in Mateo’s condo. If she was at her small cozy apartment, safe in her own little bed, she might be able to pretend everything that happened last night had only been another crazy dream, or make that, another crazy nightmare.

No such luck.

She placed her hands over her eyes and slowly let her lids separate again, allowing only slivers of daylight to peak between her fingers until she could bear the full force of the blinding glare. When she was finally able to focus on her surroundings, she immediately glanced around for Mateo.

She was alone—and naked—in the big velvet covered bed, in the middle of the fancy bedroom, in this big luxurious condo. It all seemed surreal. A quick scan of the room revealed the faded jeans and lilac tee she had been wearing last night laying on a plush blue loveseat along the back wall.

Last night…

Mateo’s words began to filter back into her reluctant mind much too fast. Vampire. Dham—whatever. Half-human. A hundred years. Children. Blood Clan. Eternal mate...

She sat up in the bed in an abrupt motion. The room spun before her eyes and the uneasiness in her stomach threatened to make her puke. She closed her eyes again until the spinning in her head stopped and the churning in her stomach calmed down. The throbbing in her bitten neck, however, only increased as she reopened her eyes slowly and firmly repeated this was not really happening.

A noise from downstairs made her entire body stiffen. Was Mateo down there? Well, that had to be proof she dreamed all this nonsense, except for the abnormal biting, of course. The pulsating pain emitting from her neck proved that part was real. But if he really was down there cooking her breakfast this morning, like an ordinary boyfriend, then he could hardly be sleeping in the caves up on the Superstitions like he told her last night.

Today she would definitely make an appointment to see a psychiatrist, for both of them. What time was it anyway? Where was her cell? Damn. She left it with her purse downstairs last night. She scanned the room for a clock. Red digital numbers on the corner of the huge flat screen TV hanging above the rock fireplace along one of the bedroom walls flashed 8:13 a.m.

Oh no, not again. She was going to get fired from her teaching job, and it was going to be all Mateo Two Moon’s fault.

Since her head and body were not feeling very sturdy right now, Dawn slid her legs over the side of the bed slowly and stood up cautiously on wobbly legs. She held the edge of the bed for a couple minutes until her head stopped spinning enough for her to walk without feeling as if she would pass out.

As she made her way over to where her clothes were laid out on the chaise, she was reminded of feeling almost this exact same way the day she thought she had the flu or had been bitten by a poisonous spider or bug after going camping with Chloe. Somehow, this had to be Mateo’s fault.

“Shoes?” she whispered glancing around at the floor. Now she remembered. The black flip-flops she had been wearing were downstairs by the couch where she kicked them off last night while she and Mateo had been talking about Chloe.

Chloe.

The horrific thought of Chloe’s disappearance crowded into her head with all the other outlandish thoughts she didn’t want to think about. Oh please, let Chloe be back home safe and sound this morning. But even as she tried to force that happy ending in among all the other not so happy thoughts spiraling through her mind, Dawn knew it was not going to turn out that way.

If she allowed herself to believe all the bizarre stuff he told her last night, then she would also know the Superstitions were filled with unspeakable dangers, and they were far worse than the mere rumors of evil specters or ghosts anyone ever mentioned in the history books or ancient legends.