Blood washed off my skin and out of my hair, some spots needing a little more scrubbing than others, until it all swirled down the drain. I let the water turn scalding. Steam filled the bathroom and my skin pruned as I boiled myself under the spray. Dominic’s story about Jillian and how he had brought her back from the Damned and transformed her into a vampire was supposed to give me hope, but I couldn’t quite accept his story as the beacon of hope he’d intended. Jillian had been saved from the Damned only to become a vampire.
Even if we saved Nathan, he wouldn’t be himself again. He would be a vampire.
A week ago, I’d thought he was either dead or a vampire, and I hadn’t known which would be worse. I’d never imagined that he would be the creature he is now, and I’d never thought that attempting to transform him into a vampire would be his salvation. Vampires were worse than death: they were undead, but dead or undead, anything was better than being Damned.
I dunked my head under the water, knowing that despite my healthy fear of vampires and placing my aversion to becoming one aside, being undead wasn’t entirely the case.
After my continued experiences with Dominic, “undead” wasn’t quite the term for his existence. “Mutated” was probably a better description. Night bloods transform into vampires by morphing their DNA with vampire blood. Dominic was once a night blood, too, just like Walker and me, with human worries and fears about disease, death, and his own mortality, but whether by force or by choice, he’d transformed into a vampire instead of dying.
I’d been so sure of right and wrong and good and evil. The distinction between vampire and human was black and white, but when I thought about Dominic and his stories—his attempts to comfort me, give me hope, and his plans to save my brother—everything was gray. Dominic wasn’t pure evil, but did that mean I could trust him? Even if his motivations were selfish and self-serving, would he still pull through when I needed him most? When my brother needed him most? If everything was shades of gray, how could I find my way?
I turned my face into the scalding spray and let it all go. The suffocating uncertainties—whether Nathan was better off dead than a vampire, whether resisting Dominic was futile, whether facing my own mortality was really the preferable option—I let it wash over me and swirl down the drain along with the horrors of last night. I was alive. I was human. In this moment I was still me, and in that clarity, I could still breathe.
* * * *
Tendrils of steam followed me from the bathroom when I opened the door and walked into the bedroom. It hadn’t occurred to me until after my shower that I didn’t have anything to wear. The rags of my shirt and jeans that hadn’t been torn were unmercifully stained with blood. My leather jacket, which had made me feel and look so badass, hadn’t fared much better against Nathan’s fangs and claws than the cloth of my fitted t-shirt. Even my phone was crusted with blood. At least the case had proven its worth and protected it from being damaged by Nathan’s abuse.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same of my body. The shower had helped both my mood and my sore muscles, but I still ached in places deeper than a shower could reach.
I found a turquoise terrycloth robe hanging in the bathroom closet amidst the towels, so I wrapped that around myself, double knotted the cord around my waist, and held the lapels at my neck closed with my hands. For the first time in my entire adult life, my height came to my advantage. On a woman of average height, the robe likely cut off mid-thigh, but on me, it reached my knees.
I was still unsteady on my feet, battling the dizziness of blood loss and the usual grind of my hip. It took me eight excruciating steps, but with one foot in front of the other, I managed to cross the room without collapsing.
Dominic didn’t move. He didn’t turn to help me nor rebuke me for struggling on my own. He waited until I reached the bed, and then he walked into the bathroom, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.
It took me aback for a second, watching him enter the bathroom. I supposed he needed a shower, too—he’d been nearly as encrusted with blood and dirt as I was—but I never imagined him using a bathroom. The transformations between his many forms—his gaunt, emaciated body before feeding, the model perfection after, and the grotesque horror of his true, gargoyle-like form—were so unnervingly sudden that I’d somehow imagined that his hygiene and immaculately styled hair were simply products of that transformation rather than something he achieved by hand.
My preconceptions seemed silly now—I could hear the shower running and his belt hitting the tile floor—but that realization exposed an entire host of questions: did he cut his hair as well as style it? Did vampires’ hair grow despite other bodily functions having stilled? Considering his liquid diet, did he need the bathroom for other, more basic necessities?
I took out my earings and placed them and my phone on the nightstand, but as I stared at the bed—more pointedly, as I stared at the soiled sheets on the bed—I banished those questions for tonight. I was exhausted. The more pertinent question, more imminent than my musings over Dominic’s hygine, was where Bex kept clean sheets. Dominic was right, as usual—damn him—because I found a freshly laundered comforter in the linen closet.
Making the bed properly was beyond my current energy capacity, so I tore off the dirty, bloody sheets, left them in a twisted heap on the floor, and crawled into bed with the comforter burritoed around my body.
Despite the fact that sunrise was approaching and a new day was beginning, mine was finally ending. The guest bedchamber of Bex’s coven wasn’t the ideal place to sleep, but strangely enough, I felt safer here than I had in Walker’s house. Walker had a safe room against the vampires, but here with the vampires, Dominic was the safe room.
Although, I had no real guarantee who would keep me safe from him.
I thought about the opulence of Bex’s coven and the time it must have taken to establish her place here. I thought about Dominic’s coven and the many vampires hidden under New York City, an entire city of vampires beneath our own, and I wondered at the other covens throughout the United States, hell, throughout the world, and how the Day Reapers thought to maintain and enforce such a widespread secret. If Dominic was having trouble convincing powerful and intelligent vampires like Jillian that secrecy was the best policy, I was willing to bet that in all the hundreds of covens in the world, Dominic wasn’t the only Master struggling. It was only just a matter of time before someone powerful rose to Master with the opportunity and will to reveal their existence.
The bed dipped gently behind me. I opened my eyes, realizing I’d dozed off. Dominic’s palm grazed my cheek.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” he whispered over me. “Go back to sleep. I need to rest as well.”
I frowned, easing away from his hand. “You sleep?”
Dominic let his hand drop on a sigh. I could sense his disappointment, but I didn’t bolt upright when he joined me beneath the covers. That was concession enough.
“In a sense,” he replied, and it took me a moment to realize he was referring to sleep. “My brain doesn’t have a REM cycle like yours; I don’t dream, but I find a trancelike state in which I escape from reality. Like your sleep, my day rest is important for both physical and mental health.”
“Oh,” I said on a yawn.
“Sleep well, Cassidy.”
“But what about—”
“Shhh,” Dominic hushed against the back of my neck. The rush of his breath shot goose bumps down my spine. “Enough questions. We’ll talk more at sunset.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Have a good night, er, day, I guess.”
The rumble of his laughter vibrated between my shoulder blades. Considering we were sharing a king size bed, he seemed unnecessarily close behind me, but I refused to turn and give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that I’d noticed.
“A good day rest,” he clarified. I could hear the smile in his voice.
I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t contain myself. “Do you need a full eight hours, like us, to feel completely rested, or do you—”
“Sleep well, Cassidy,” Dominic said, his tone cutting.
I sighed. “Have a good day rest, Dominic.”
Moments later, when I had just slipped between waking and dreaming, I felt the weight of Dominic’s arm drape over my hip and the press of his bare stomach against my back as he gathered me close, but I knew without a shred of uncertainty that I was dreaming when I heard his voice tremble as he whispered.
“Let the hours pass uncounted. I could rest for eternity if it meant resting with you.”
* * * *
My entire backside and the line of my hip were ice cube cold.
Despite having snuggled under the layers of terrycloth robe and comforter, I woke with a disoriented suddenness, shivering and uncomfortable. The steam from the shower had long since dissipated, but without windows, deciphering the time was impossible. Even in a world of cell phones, computer screens, and watches, a world in which time was catalogued by mechanical hands and digital numbers, I never realized how telling the sun and shadows could be until I’d become obsessed with the exact moments of sunrise and sunset. Now my life’s decisions hinged upon knowing the sun’s rise each day and its fall each night, and being separated from that knowledge was like holding my breath underwater without access to breach the surface. I could grasp at guesses or check my phone, but I wouldn’t breathe easy until I felt the warmth of the sun on my face and soaked the physical proof of its safety into my skin.
I wiggled my arm from beneath the covers and pressed the unlock button on my phone. The time glowed brightly through the room, and I blinked at it in denial.
8:17p.m.
The sun had already set.
I turned, about to blast my outrage at Dominic for allowing me to sleep the entire day away, but I stopped dead, realizing why it was so frigid under the covers.
Dominic wasn’t himself. Or rather, he was a version of himself that I hadn’t seen since we’d first met. He was staring at me, his eyes open and unblinking. His icy white irises were ringed by a dark midnight blue, and their pupils reflected a nocturnal green tint in the dim of the room. His face was gaunt, the shape of his features and skull nearly skeleton-skinny. The arm draped over my hip was nothing but skin and angled bones, and his entire body pressed against mine—from the top of his chest, down each protruding rib, and over his concave stomach—was naked and burning cold.
Although his eyes were staring in my direction, they looked through me rather than at me. I eased back, wondering if he was still “resting” with his eyes open. Maybe I could slip out of bed unnoticed. Even if I managed that, where would I go? All the vampires would be waking from their day rest, all hungry and in a similar state as Dominic.
I achieved an inch of distance between our bodies before he sprang from the bed. I bounced up from the absence of his weight and was just as quickly smashed back down into the mattress. He was on top of me, the length of his naked body only separated from mine by the fluff of terrycloth robe between us. I wriggled beneath him, desperate for some distance. My heart was a frightened, trapped thing, pounding for release.
His chest rattled, low and deep.
“Dominic?” I whispered. My entire body was shaking.
He buried his face in my neck, but this time I wasn’t wearing any earrings to impede his progress. I’d removed them for bed. My weapons were still in the pockets of the ruined leather jacket I’d left in a heap on the bathroom floor, but my phone was on the bedside table and within reach.
I tried to squirm my hand loose between us. Dominic’s chest rattled again. His lips peeled back, and I felt the press of his fangs against my skin. The heat of his breath chilled my neck, and I froze.
“Stop. Moving,” Dominic growled. His body was shaking too. “God, your fear is so sweet. You smell delicious.” He breathed in, and this time, the vibration of his growl shook the bed. “You smell like prey.”
“Stop it. You’re hurting me,” I said, forcing the tremble out of my voice. “Don’t make me entrance you.”
His growl expanded. “You can try, but I thought we were past those petty tests. Haven’t we already determined who would win?”
I cocked my head, trying to block his mouth from accessing my throat. “I thought we were past these petty threats,” I threw back at him.
“You are not making it easy for me to resist,” he said on a growl. He pushed my face aside, and despite my attempts to block him, he licked a long, slow path from my collarbone to my ear with his tongue. “I told you to stop moving!”
Goose bumps puckered my nipples. “I told you to stop hurting me!” I said, but my voice sounded less than convincing.
“I’m trying,” he snapped back. His voice rasped like his throat was shredded by razors. “I’ve always had to hunt for my first feeding, but after rousing from my rest tonight by your smell—that delicious, spicy-sweet, cinnamon smell—I can’t think beyond craving you.” He was pressed so close to my skin that I felt his throat convulse as he swallowed. “Bex, Rene, and the others will expect me to feed from you. They will question my strength and your loyalty if I don’t.”
I bucked at him, anger finally incinerating the fear in a hot blast. “You knew that, and you shared your bed with me. You conveniently omitted that protecting me throughout the day meant killing me tonight!”
“You’re being dramatic,” Dominic growled. “Drinking from you won’t kill you. You don’t need the entire cow to make a hamburger, remember? And neither do I, concerning you.”
“Number one, I don’t like being compared to a cow. It’s insulting. And number two, you may not need the entire cow for one hamburger, but the cow ends up dead anyway.”
“We’ve argued over dietary preference in the past, and it’s a conversation I grow weary of discussing,” Dominic said. “Either you trust me, or you don’t. Either you’re my night blood, or you’re not.”
“I’m playing your night blood to uphold my end of our deal, but it’s an act. I’m not really your night blood.”
“Fine, but we’re still within Bex’s coven. You will continue the act until the deal is off, and as my night blood, it’s your responsibility to sustain me until I can obtain a full meal,” he said, and his tone brooked no argument.
“My blood will weaken you,” I reminded him. “Losing more blood will weaken me, and we need to be our strongest to face Nathan tonight.” I narrowed my eyes. “We are still facing Nathan tonight, aren’t we?”
Dominic froze this time, his face still buried in my neck for a moment before he eased back. “Yes, of course. I haven’t forgotten our goals for tonight.” He pressed his thumb to the pulse at my throat and closed his eyes on another growl. “My own thirst, I’m afraid, prevented me from remembering your condition. You lost a lot of blood yesterday, too much for me to expect you to feed me now. Your health takes priority over appearances, and if questioned, even Bex would understand that. Forgive me.”
I tried to ease back, but his hold was still impenetrable. “There’s nothing to forgive,” I lied. “Just get off.”
He growled low in his throat, and I realized how my tone sounded.
More politely, I added, “Please.”
The low, rattling growl in his chest persisted while he spoke. “There are ways to replenish your blood supply after I’ve fed, so your health won’t be jeopardized.”
“Dominic, let me up,” I said reasonably. He moved his fingers down my neck, grazing my shoulder and over my bicep to the sensitive bend in my elbow. I shivered, no longer feeling cold while pressed against his iciness. “Please, don’t do this.”
“You smell differently now. The cinnamon’s still there, but the spice is different. Chai, perhaps.” He breathed in and groaned. “I don’t know which is better.”
Faced with my fear and desire, he didn’t know which he preferred. Who was more sick, the monster or the woman who desired the monster?
Maybe if I changed the topic we could claw our way back from this madness. “You’re naked,” I accused, blurting the first thought that came to mind. Despite our situation, despite the real, physical danger vibrating from him, I blushed.
“Yes,” he growled, and the rattling increased.
Not exactly the effect or topic change I’d hoped for, but I’d started it. May as well follow through. “There was another robe in the bathroom you could have worn.”
“I’m not ashamed of my body. Why should I hide it from you?”
“I’m not ashamed—” I started, but I caught the smirk twisting his lips and cut myself off. I took a deep breath and tried again. “I would have appreciated you wearing the robe.”
Dominic raised his eyebrows. “I would have appreciated you not wearing the robe, but you didn’t hear me complaining.”
I opened my mouth and closed it, not sure how the topic had so quickly flown off course. Again.
“Do you wear a robe for Ian Walker when you share a bed?”
He posed the question so abruptly and so devoid of inflection that I answered truthfully and without thinking. “Walker? I’ve never shared a bed with Walker.” I frowned. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Dominic smiled instantly and unabashedly, like a reflex and unlike any smile I’d ever seen from him before. He was normally so deliberate and calculating, but this smile erupted like a caterpillar from its chrysalis, finally free and unencumbered. Finally in its true form.
He threw his head back and laughed. His bellows shook the entire bed.
I narrowed my eyes. “I must have missed the punch line.”
“That’s all right, my dear, dear Cassidy. I thought it was funny enough for the both of us.” He eased his body off mine and stood. “I’ve always known that Ian Walker was a fool where Bex was concerned, but I never thought him a fool in regards to his relationship with you. This once, it’s very, very nice to be wrong.” He held out a hand to me.
I hesitated.
“Come, now. It’s just a hand.”
“You promise not to bite?” I asked, my tone dripping in sarcasm.
“You’ll need to touch more of me than just my hand to leave this coven, and I dare say you’d prefer to leave sooner rather than later to avoid contact with any of Bex’s vampires before they’ve fed.”
I shook my head. “We can’t leave. We need to share our plan to transform Nathan with Bex and Rene.”
“Before we share anything with them, I have business with Jillian to attend.”
Dominic’s tone on the word ‘business’ shot a thrill of goosebumps down my spine. I couldn’t imagine what further punishment he could inflict that hadn’t already been inflicted by her confinement—besides death—but I was more than happy, just this once, to remain in the dark.
“I’ll return before midnight,” Dominic continued, “but until then, you should stay out of sight. I don’t care how your relationship with Ian Walker is or isn’t progressing, I need you to lie low in the one place safe from all vampires.” He sighed heavily. “Although if the Day Reapers come, no place is safe.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Where exactly is the one safe place against all vampires? And what does my relationship with Walker have to do with it?”
“The safest place from vampires is within Ian Walker’s basement.”