Chapter Twenty-One

“Your place or mine?” Mateo asked as they passed the Apache Junction City Limits sign.

Dawn drew in a heavy sigh. The new Joseph Red Feather CD Mateo purchased from the musician’s stash of merchandise on a table in the hotel lobby played softly from the truck stereo. As always, when they were in his truck, their hands were entwined.

“I love the condo. It’s so beautiful, but I hate being there when you’re not.”

“I’ll be there with you until right before sunrise.”

She nodded slightly. “But then I wake up and you’re gone. My imagination and emotions go crazy. I’m either scared shitless or I’m so desperate to see you. I can’t stand it.”

“I prefer the second choice,” he said, chuckling. His voice grew more serious. “I’m sorry you are so afraid. I hope you know I didn’t expect things to turn out this way.”

She squeezed his hand tighter. “I know, but there is so much I still don’t understand.” Endless questions just started falling from her mouth and she couldn’t stop them.

“Will I still know who I am when you take me to the mountain? Will I ever see my parents or my brother and sister-in-law again? Will I remember any of them? What about my teaching career? Will everyone just think I’m dead? And what about those babies you say we are going to have? Will I be able to love them and watch them grow once I’m fully under your vampire control? Most of all, will I still feel this intense desire and overwhelming love for you I am feeling right this very second?”

Mateo turned to stare at her. He untangled his hand from hers and put both his hands on the steering wheel as he slowed the truck down and pulled over to the side of the road. He turned in his seat and reached out both hands, placing one on each side of her face.

“Udaya—Dawn, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you everything before. I’ve left you alone with all your fears and questions, and that was so wrong of me.”

Her head tilted to the side and she closed her eyes for an instant as she let his hands cradle her face. When he was touching her like this, it was so easy to pretend he was just the human man she loved with all her heart and soul, and they were just a normal couple in love. She opened her eyes and met his troubled gaze. “I don’t want to just be an empty, mindless shell of a woman whose only purpose is to have half-breed babies until I get too old to be useful anymore.”

He gently pushed one of the long strands of blonde hair away from her cheek and smoothed it behind her ear. “Your beautiful inner soul will never die, and you will still be the loving passionate woman you are now. You will remember your family with fond memories. But you will have no desire to see them again. Once I complete the mating process, you will not want to be anywhere but on the mountain with me and our children when we have them. Your life will be devoted to the Clan and you will live forever. As I’ve told you before, this is your fate and nothing can prevent it from happening.”

Dawn was helpless to stop the shudder that shook through her body. “I will never die? I would become like you? A dham-vamp-pire?”

He shook his head as a slight smile touched his mouth. “A vampire. Remember, a dhampyre is half-human and half-vampire, like our children will be. But I will not turn you into a vampire for a very long time, not until—” He shook his head again, adding, “This is not the place for us to have this talk. I’ll take you home then I will explain everything.” He hands slid away from Dawn’s face as his attention returned to driving.

A thick permeating silence settled inside the cab of the truck as they drove the rest of the way to Dawn’s apartment.

She slumped in the seat as her mind spun with the bits of information he had already given to her. She wouldn’t be completely mindless apparently, and she would remember her human life here, but she would never see her family again; never stand before a room full of eager young students to teach again; probably never experience another romantic night dancing to live music; never...

But to not be with Mateo Two Moons forever? Well, she already determined that was never going to be an option, either.

Her door opened and he was lifting her out of the truck. She had taken her high-heeled sandals off after they left the hotel; they dangled from her hand, the rhinestone straps shimmering in the pale moonlight. He carried her to the apartment and let her lean down so she could unlock the door with the key she had taken from her evening bag.

He didn’t put her down until they were in her bedroom. As he placed her on the mattress so she was leaning on the pillows against the headboard, she tossed her shoes and purse on the floor beside the bed. He kicked his boots off and removed his black blazer before sitting down next to her on the bed. She watched him turn to switch on the small lamp sitting on her bed side table. Her overpowering love for this vampire made her entire being ache as she observed every small gesture he made and as she cherished each moment they spent together.

Mateo’s hand seemed to freeze in mid-air after he turned on the light. His gaze was glued to the nightstand. She looked to the spot he was staring at. Damn it! She left the extra pregnancy test laying there.

“Dawn?” he gasped without looking away from the box.

“I’m not,” she retorted. “I took a test yesterday and it was negative. The directions say you should do it twice to be sure, but I never got around to it.”

“But—” He stopped and looked down at her. “Why did you even take one? I mean, what made you think you might be pregnant already?”

“My paranoia,” she replied with a shrug and a shake of her head. “I know it’s probably way too soon to tell. But I’m not, so no worries.” She felt a heated blush flare up her cheeks. Why the hell had she left that stupid box laying there?

He settled back against the pillow and was silent for a moment before pulling her into his arms. “We may be running out of time, you know.”

Her breath trembled slightly when she drew in a heavy sigh. “I thought we had eternity?”

He kissed the top of her head. “We do in my world. But recently something happened in my village that might change things in the future for our kind.”

The tone of his voice sounded different. She sensed whatever happened was bad—really bad.

“I don’t think I want to hear this,” she said in a meek tone.

His long pause made her certain she didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to tell her.

“Rafael’s mate, Lydia, gave birth to a stillborn dhampyre two nights ago.” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

“What? Rafael had a dham—I prefer to just think of them as children, okay?” Her mind could not comprehend the words he had spoken. She thought about Mateo’s two handsome brothers, Rafael and Anton, whom she met on the mountain when she had been camping with Chloe, and again the night they met at the pizza place. It never occurred to her they would have women or mates, as Mateo called them, and children of their own.

“As you know, I’m the youngest of my brothers. Anton is the oldest. He and his mate, Nita, have six dhamp—children; three girls and three boys. Rafael and Lydia have twin girls and a three-year-old boy. The baby who died was also a boy.” He drew in a heavy sigh and rested his cheek on the top of Dawn’s head. “This is the first child my clan has ever lost. He is the first to be stillborn in the history of all of the Blood Clans as far as we know.”

“My God, Mateo, I’m so sorry.” She snuggled closer to him. The life Mateo and his clan lived in those secluded mountains was so much more involved than she imagined. “What do you think happened?”

He shrugged. “It’s beyond comprehension. We have always believed when we mate with real ones—humans—the combination of our blood with our mate’s blood creates a strong healthy child. That was always the way it was before this happened. The males are the strongest of all because we become full vampires as we mature, and we must carry on our bloodline. But even the female dhampyres born to the clan, who live common human lives are free of illnesses or disease until they grow old and die, usually of natural causes, because they have the strength of their father’s blood in their veins. After the mating process is completed, I will share a small portion of my blood with you occasionally. It will keep you healthy and strong while you are still a mortal.”

The core of her existence hardened to stone as she tried to absorb all he was telling her. She swallowed hard and her throat constricted with the idea of drinking Mateo’s blood. Her stomach did an unexpected twist. How much more would she be able to accept without freaking out again? She pulled back slightly and looked up at him. His own pain was apparent in his expression.

“So, the girls do not become vampires as they age?” she asked, trying to concentrate on little bits of information at a time. “Only the boys? And they are normal when they are young but grow up and become vampires?” She placed her hand up to her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to absorb this new knowledge.

“Yes, my sisters were all born around hundred years ago, like my brothers and me. They lived in the village on top of the Superstitions until they were young women, then they moved down to the Apache village with the real ones. They married real ones and had children that were also human. They grew old in the typical way until they died of old age.”

She stared, wide-eyed, at him. “I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the idea you are more than a hundred years old.” She rubbed at her temples as they throbbed unmercifully. “You and your brothers, you look like you’re in your twenties. Are all the men in your clan like that?”

“I’m so sorry to be causing you all this pain. I’ll get you some aspirin for your headache.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I just need answers right now.”

His frown drew his thick brows together as he nodded in agreement. “Yes, all the men stop aging in appearance around twenty-five years. This is also when we start to drink human blood, although we still eat food. We do not become mature vampires until we are a hundred years old. It is around this time our mates will come to us.”

She pulled completely away from him now. “Wow,” she whispered as his words sunk in—drink human blood—that was the really scary part. “And you’re not just talking about drinking the blood from your mates, are you?”

“No,” he said quietly.

The thoughts in her head were too horrible to speak out loud. Even though he had already done it to her, the idea of Mateo biting someone else and drinking their blood like the blood suckers in the horror movies was more than she could deal with. Her mind spun with more images of the pale undead creatures she had seen in the books she had been studying the past couple of days.

But she had only to look at him to see he was not like the monsters in books and movies. She tried to clear her mind of the upsetting images and focus on learning all the facts she could so she could try to understand what Mateo truly was. Yet, the numbing terror controlling her mind at this moment was stuck with another horrifying thought.

Someday, he said she would become a vampire, and that would mean she would need to drink human blood. This was too unbelievable to comprehend. She moaned out loud.

“Dawn?” he asked in a worried tone. “You know I could just end this agony you are going through right now if you wanted me to? I can’t bear seeing you like this. It’s going to happen sooner rather than later, anyway, and once you are my mate in every way, and living in my world, you will not have any more worries.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “A baby just died. How can you say there is nothing to worry about in your world?”

He exhaled sharply. “You’re right. But as I told you before, this has never happened in all the history of the Blood Clans. We can only hope it will never happen again.”

“So, why now? What changed that would cause a baby to die for the first time?”

His voice sounded tortured when he answered, “I wish I knew. We have no answers. Only heartbreak and disbelief rules my clan right now. We have reached out for help in finding answers, and hopefully, once we hear back from other Blood Clans we will know more. If it’s happening to other newborns in different parts of the world we might be able to figure it out. Some of the other clans have doctors in their Clan Societies. They might be able to do tests or something. If it’s only happened in our clan, to Rafael and Lydia’s baby, I don’t know if we will ever find out what happened. Their child has already been cremated.”

Silence engulfed the bedroom. Other Blood Clans? How was it possible for vampires and dhampyres to exist in all parts of the world for centuries without being discovered? Dawn could ask questions all night about the things Mateo had just told her, and she did want to know everything. But there was time for those questions and right now she could only envision one thing…Her fate was going to happen sooner rather than later.

When it was time for it to happen, she would not fight against it, because she knew she wanted to be with Mateo always. At this moment, though, maybe they should just concentrate on the time they had left to spend here in her world before their destinies led them to his world.

She pulled up to her knees beside him and straddled his lap with her legs. Her fringed mini dress was hiked up around her waist, but she didn’t care. As she placed her hands on each side of his handsome face, she saw the look of surprise filter through his eyes. Gazing into the shimmering depths of those twinkling eyes was as alluring as peeking through Alice’s looking glass in Wonderland. She didn’t know what she would find, but she knew she had to step through to the other side if it meant being with this vampire forever.

“Kiss me,” she commanded in a breathy tone.

One thick brow lifted slightly over his eye for an instant. As her intention became clear to him, his gaze glowed with eagerness and his long ebony lashes closed half way as he leaned forward to obey her order. She slid her hands up into his hair and leaned into him to meet his lips with her own. They touched lightly at first. His lips were gentle, almost timid as they came together. Pulling her closer, his arms wrapped around her waist as his kiss intensified. She grabbed handfuls of his hair in her tightening grasp and rose from his lap to push her body hard against his.

Bending over him, she continued to kiss him with forcefulness as their lips devoured one another. His hands were up under her dress, clutching the thin straps of her panties for the second time tonight. “You know you want to rip them off again,” she murmured as she pulled her lips from his mouth for an instant.

One swift motion and her only other pair of black lace G-strings were shreds. She didn’t even have time to give them a second thought. As he pulled them from between her legs, he asked in a sly tone, “Like this?”

Her pussy throbbed and grew wet. She sat back down on his lap, wanting him to feel how hot he made her. His cock was hard and pressing against the material of his black jeans. The ridge of it swelled into the area between her legs, making everything below her waist contract and quiver.

She released the tight hold she had on his hair and grabbed his loosely knotted tie. Her eyelashes narrowed as she smirked.

“I’ve wanted to do this all evening,” she said in a suggestive tone as she leaned back slightly.

Her nimble fingers slipped the loose knot in his tie apart. The tip of his tongue dampened his parted lips. A soft moan escaped from her own mouth as her desire for him raged out of control.

“What else have you wanted to do to me?” A slight tremor in his voice hinted at his anticipation as he looked up at her with eyes hooded in growing desire.

She stopped short of letting the tie slide completely away from his neck as she grasped it close to his throat and used it to pull herself up to him roughly. Her lips hovered just over his, brushing lightly for an instant as she answered, “Everything.”

His breath flooded her mouth as he answered, “I will be your sex slave tonight, my love. Anything you desire…it’s yours.”

He was making her so wet it could get embarrassing if she wasn’t so seriously turned on right now. She leaned back and cast him a provocative smile as she cocked a brow in the suggestive manner he had done early. “Take your clothes off,” she ordered with authority. He swallowed hard enough she could see the Adam’s apple in his throat expand for an instant.

“Um? You need to—” His head tilted to the side as he motioned for her to move.

“Oh yeah.” She groaned inwardly. Now, the really awkward part was about to happen. She rose to her knees and swung one leg over his thighs so he was free to get up. The wet spot soaking the front of his pants was a glaring tribute to how much she wanted him. Her only consolation was her womanly juices saturated the area over his swollen cock, and it was about to rip itself out of his pants. It was more than obvious he was every bit as turned on right now as she was.

She reclined on the bed as Mateo rose to his feet and stood in an awkward pose as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. She was reveling in this new-found power over him.

“You are my sex slave, remember?” Dawn said as she stretched her legs out and crossed her ankles in a modest gesture. She smoothed the ruffled fringe on the hem of her dress down over her bare thighs. “I want you naked. Then, I want you—” She let her gaze travel slowly down over his body as she added, “Inside of me.”

Mateo stared at her as if he were looking at her for the first time. For a moment, Dawn wondered if she was taking this dominatrix thing a bit too far. A nervous fluttering in her stomach caused a quivering frown to tug at the corners of her lips. She started to say, ‘Just kidding’, when a wicked smirk curved his mouth. His eyes narrowed and his gaze raked over her body with unrestrained longings that made her feel as naked as she had just commanded him to be. Excited anticipation shook through her body.

He began to undo the little black buttons running down the front of his black dress shirt. His fingers moved slowly, pushing every button through each of the button holes with deliberate intention. His piercing gaze never left her face.

It took all her willpower to remain calm and still on the mattress. She wanted to jump up and rip that shirt off his body, especially as his hard, muscled, six-pack peeked out from between the material of the shirt when he finally had all the buttons undone. She swallowed hard, and waved her hand through the air in an impatient motion for him to continue.

A teasing smirk curled Mateo’s lips. “I like it when you are bossy. What other surprises do you have in store for me?”

Dawn gulped heavier this time. She was acting like she knew what she was doing, but the truth was she had never been quite this adventurous in the bedroom before. His impulsive actions earlier this evening inspired her to be a little naughtier than usual and right now her body was alive with eagerness, and her mind was on overdrive with wanton thoughts. Otherwise, she was just winging the rest of this dominate stuff.

“You’ll never find out if you keep wasting time,” she taunted, hoping she sounded more confident than she was feeling.

His thick eye brows rose slightly. He obeyed. The black shirt slipped from his shoulders, sliding down his muscled arms and disappearing to the floor beside the bed. Dawn let her gaze linger on his well-defined shoulder muscles and firm pecks. She remembered the first time she had seen those finely-toned muscles move under his white western shirt the night they met at the pizzeria; the night she had fallen in love with him.

She was jolted back to the present when, with a slow brush of his fingertips, Mateo pushed the long strands of his hair back from his forehead in a sensual motion. Giving his head a slight toss, he sent the rest of the heavy mass swirling over those broad shoulders. The floodgates broke between Dawn’s legs. Her hands curled into tight fists in her lap.

He was so incredibly hot. And he belonged to her for eternity. She was going to be nothing more than a smoldering pile of soaking wet ash at his feet long before eternity got here.

Since it was obvious he was enjoying torturing her to the brink of madness, she attempted to keep from writhing all over the mattress in delirious rapture. She reminded herself this might be the one and only time he would be her love slave if their fates had anything to do with it. But, oh God, if he didn’t get those damn pants off soon, she might have to rip them off with her teeth.

He sighed as if he was in no hurry and casually undid the clasp on his belt. The silver buckle dangled at the side of his bulging erection for a moment before he reached down and slowly pulled the belt from the loops on his jeans. Her gaze honed in on his washboard stomach and the way a tiny bit of hair trailed down from his bellybutton to places still barely concealed by his low hanging jeans. She couldn’t stop the impatient moan that escaped from her dry mouth.

With the belt still dangling from his palm, Mateo held the leather strap up. He grabbed an end in each hand and pulled it taut. It made a loud cracking sound. One cocked brow and a lopsided smirk transformed his expression into one of mischievous intentions as he asked, “Will we be needing this, Miss Malone?”

Dawn gasped. His innuendo was clear. She shook her head from side to side in a negative motion. This joking around was fun, but she wasn’t sure how far she wanted to go with this roguish game. She was open to trying new things, but the idea of being whipped with his belt did not sound like much fun.

A smirk reclaimed his lips. He tossed the belt aside, then unsnapped his jeans and slid the zipper down with one swift motion. Hooking his thumbs in a belt loop on each side of his slender hips, he began to pull the pants down past his muscled thighs. He kicked them away from his feet and stood tall with his arms held out slightly from his body presenting her with a full-frontal view.

She made a discreet attempt to clear her throat. To her ears, it sounded more as if a frog was croaking. He didn’t seem to notice or care. As this flawless man stood before her, she reveled in the realization that he was hers—her man—her dangerous vampire. His impressive cock stood out proudly below his masculine v-shaped abdomen, which was lean and taut. His legs were long, sinewy, with well-defined thigh and calf muscles.

Yes, he truly was perfect.

“Well?” Mateo asked as her lustful gaze held him captive. “Don’t you think you are the one who’s a bit overdressed now?”

His voice snapped Dawn out of her drooling trance. She glanced down at her lacy fringe-trimmed dress and realized that as excited as she had been to wear this dress earlier tonight, she was way more anxious to get out of it now. She grinned impishly and scooted to the edge of the bed, sliding off so she was standing right in front of him. This game wasn’t quite over, yet.

“Take it off,” she said forcefully, “And don’t waste any more time, understand?”

“Loud and clear,” he retorted as he leaned over and grabbed the fringed hem of the vintage dress and pulled it effortlessly over her up-stretched arms. Since her second pair of panties for the night were already long gone, and he didn’t wait for her to order him to remove her black lace push up bra, in barely more than a blink of an eye she was as naked as he was. A fevered flush rippled through her body and made a light sheen of perspiration break out on her skin. This was delicious torture.

“Wasn’t I supposed to be inside you now? That was an order, wasn’t it?” He glanced down at himself, adding, “And it appears I’m standing at attention.”

“Oh, babe, I do think you’re getting the hang of this,” she muttered as he grasped her bare buttocks and fell onto the mattress with her landing on top of him. She giggled as they thudded against the bed and bounced together. But when she glanced up, she noticed a strange expression filter through Mateo’s face.

“What?” she asked in a tentative tone.

“I would like to try something, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it without hurting you.”

She drew in a deep sigh. “Okay? Does it have to do with that biting thing?”

A chuckle escaped Mateo. He reached up and pulled one of the little rhinestone hair pins from her blonde curls. A long tendril of hair swirled down along the side of her cheek. His lips parted slightly as he exhaled a passion-laden sigh.

She could feel his cock pressing hard and full against her bare thigh. The inferno inside of her was raging again. He could just slip so easily inside of her right now, and she was so ready. But obviously, he had something else in mind. Should she be scared? She didn’t have time to ask as he unexpectedly rolled her back over, pinning her beneath his hard body. The sudden movement made her squeal.

Now, his swollen cock was throbbing against her stomach. The heat it radiated against her already fevered skin was sweet agony and only increased her curiosity and desire. She immersed her fingers in the profusion of his long hair as it fell over his shoulders and covered her bare skin with its lush strands. Her red nails raked through the heavy locks, down along the back of his neck and dug slightly into the hard muscles rippling at the top of his shoulders.

He began sliding his body down the length of hers in a slow, sensuous decline. His mouth trailing hot kisses along the side of her neck, on each of her breasts, making her nipples hard the moment his lips encircled their eager knobs. His lips continued lower, lightly nipping and kissing down to her waist. When his wet tongue darted into her belly button on his sweet descent, she squirmed with delicious anticipation.

His mouth rained more kisses and teasing bites over her taut stomach. He gently kissed the downy blonde curls covering the tip of her pelvic bone. Her pussy tightened with the expectation of how those taunting lips were about to take her to a whole new level of sexual euphoria.

He gently spread Dawn’s legs as his head slipped between her thighs. The fleeting thought of how close he was to the spot in her thigh that concealed the large blood artery he so desperately wanted to bite passed through her delirious mind, but she was too far gone to care.

Her hands slid downward with him, still entangled in his long hair. When the tip of his tongue flicked along the sensitive edge of her clit, her fingernails unconsciously clawed into his scalp. Her body buckled up against his face of its own accord. She felt his hands grasp the sides of her waist to hold her down on the mattress. If this was what he meant about hurting her, oh God, he could hurt her anytime he wanted to because it was hurting so damn good.

His tongue worked its way into the concave of her pussy and flicked in and out, lapping around in teasing swirling motions. Her juices overflowed as he tasted the succulent nectar of her womanly core. He drove her to the brink of a frenzied orgasm, then produced a phenomenal climax that sent her washing over the edge with nothing more than his extraordinary tongue.

When he finally rose from in between her shaking thighs, she was certain she couldn’t handle another mind-blowing event like the one that just occurred. She was wrong.

The sweet indulgence of his tongue had only been a precursor to the rest of his plan to make her his love slave…tonight and forever. And to think she actually thought she was being the dominate one earlier this evening.

Her body gave no resistance as he rolled her back over to the top position. His hands were still clasped around her waist and he effortlessly impaled her on his cock, which was still standing straight up. She was reeling from his tongue porn, but as she sank down letting him slide deep inside and fill her completely, she was elevated to an entirely new level of pleasure. She grasped onto his hips and gazed down to meet his shimmering black gaze. His expression was so filled with awe and love as their gazes locked she knew without a doubt she was the most cherished woman in the world.

They began to move together, his hips rising up and her hips driving down to match each of his movements. She arched back as his hands cupped her breasts and kneaded them gently in his palms. She held on to his muscled hips, unaware of how deeply her nails were digging into his skin. Their hunger for one another seemed to have no limits and his energy was boundless. But Dawn matched his endurance until they both lay breathless, exhausted and fulfilled in more ways than their mortal and immortal bodies ever imagined.

After tonight, she truly understood the meaning of the phrase, ‘Rode hard and put away wet’.

****

With her head resting on his muscled chest and her fingers splayed out on his chiseled stomach, she stared at the way her shimmering red nails complimented the golden bronze of his satiny skin. They were just a perfect match in every way.

She was finally feeling she could talk coherently after their most passionate night so far, and she had to ask a couple more questions before she knew he had to leave her.

“Why were you worried about hurting me earlier? Was it because your mouth was so close to the artery in my thigh?”

His fingertips were gently traipsing along her cheekbones and her jaw line as if he was a blind man and was trying to memorize the features of her face with his touch. He sighed heavily. “It has been difficult—excruciating—for me to be around you without wanting to drink your blood. Ever since the first time I bit your neck and tasted the indescribable sweetness of your blood I have fought the greatest battle of my life just to remain in control when I’m with you.”

His arm slid down to encircle her body when he felt her shudder. “I didn’t know if I was strong enough to taste more of you without losing what little constraint I had, especially since I was so close—” He wrapped both of his arms around her shivering body.

“So, you were worried about biting me down there,” she murmured. It was not a question; just a statement. It was terrifying, and even a little sad, for her to realize every time they were together it was a grueling test of his strength to keep from sucking more of her blood. But it was also an amazing testament to just how much he loved her.

“My entire existence now is about loving you and protecting you, Udaya, even though I have chosen to take a different path to begin our eternal life together than the one charted since the beginning of my vampire clan. I don’t know where this new course will lead us, but I know as long as we are together we will be able to overcome all the obstacles thrown in our way.”

“I trust you,” Dawn whispered. “You are my entire existence now, too. I will follow you anywhere—whenever you are ready to lead me there.”

She heard him exhale softly against the side of her head. As scary as it all was, she no longer had any doubts loving this immortal man with every fiber of her being and spending eternity with him had always been where she was bound since the beginning of her own life, too.

They held each other in the quiet dark of her small bedroom for a while longer. She knew he would be leaving and there was one more thing she had to know before he left her this morning, although she knew the answer was going to be hard to hear.

“Will you please tell me where Chloe is?” she asked in a quiet tone that seemed to shatter the peaceful atmosphere.

A moment passed before he answered, but it felt more like eons. “She is at the gold mine.”

“The-the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine?”

“Yes. It exists and my family has guarded it for over two centuries.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered as her mind spun with all the stories, legends, and wild imaginings about the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. It was real. Chloe believed and searched for that treasure until the day she—what?

“Chloe is still alive, though?” Her raspy voice asked.

He cleared his throat before speaking again. “Unfortunately, my father was the first one to sense her presence. Like others before her who got too close to our encampment and to the cave which contains the rich veins of gold, she could not be allowed to discover all the secrets of our hidden world.”

Dawn’s body was numb as her mind tried to comprehend what he was saying. “But you said before that she wasn’t d-dead.” Another vicious tremor shot through her body. He held her tighter.

“Not yet,” he said in a mournful tone. “She is still with the other blood sources, the real ones who provide the mature vampires of our clan with human blood. She is not in pain and does not have any idea what has happened to her. Her mind is gone. My father put her under his vampire spell and bit her before she even knew what was happening. He did not kill her. But eventually she will be drained of all her blood and her body will not be able to survive.”

His voice was just a hoarse whisper when he added, “You will never know how sorry I am about your friend. But it’s not your fault, and I won’t allow you blame yourself. She was not going to give up until she found that gold mine and once she did find it her fate was sealed. It would have happened with or without you or any dream you might have had about it.”

The heavy weight of guilt and the unbearable pain kept her from answering. The sensible part of her brain told her he was right about Chloe’s relentless quest to find the gold mine, but there was nothing else rational about what he was saying.

She couldn’t even begin to comprehend Chloe sitting mindlessly, partially drained of her blood, in a cave surrounded by the gold she had sought so desperately to find for her entire life. Dawn tried to push the horrific image out of her mind. Acknowledging Chloe’s fate along with all that he had told her earlier tonight would be more than her fragile state could handle right now.

There were things too horrible for words concealed in those mountains, and now she was also aware of innocent children and their human mothers who dwelled among the destruction and terror. There was so much she still had to learn about the hidden world where she would be living for the rest of her life—and eternity, but could she deal with more? Hopefully, her love for Mateo would give her all the courage she would need. She told him she trusted him, so now she just had to prove to him, and herself, how much.