The woman staggered backward, not taking her eyes off Matthias. He looked more demon than angel now. In the light of her room his veins were easily visible and now appeared to cover most of his face. His eyes were as black as death. His cheekbones had sunken in, giving his face a skull-like appearance.
He reached out a bloody hand to her, while keeping the other tight against his split-open gut, and swept the brassy blond hair off her shoulders. Then he grabbed the edge of her leopard print teddy and pulled it down over her shoulder till it was low enough to expose a large, sagging breast. He did the same to the other side. The trashy garment fell to the floor, leaving her completely naked.
“Jesus,” I hissed under my breath, gripping the edge of the window. I could barely breathe. I shouldn’t be here, watching this. I felt sickened and afraid, but I couldn’t turn away.
Matthias didn’t waste any more time. He bent over and sank his fangs into her throat and red blood slid down to her shoulder as he began to feed. I half expected the woman to fight, but of course, she couldn’t. His bite had paralyzed her and her arms hung slackly at her sides. However, her head was turned toward me and I could see the expression on her face. It disturbed me as much as anything else I’d witnessed tonight.
She looked orgasmic.
My hands trembled and felt cold despite the heat of the night, so I rubbed them together. I knew I had to wait there. I had to make sure he stopped before he killed her. Another glance in the window showed that he now had her limp, naked body pinned on her bed, her legs spread, his hand sliding down the length of her.
The whole scenario made the memory of what had happened to me in Matthias’s chambers come back vividly. Other than the blood-drinking it wasn’t that far off. I hadn’t been afraid when I was in his bed. His influence worked to make everything seem okay, even desirable, even when it wasn’t.
After another minute, I sank down to the ground, covered my face with my hands, and started to sob.
Weak and pathetic. Yeah, I know. It had been a difficult couple of weeks.
I jumped nearly out of my skin when the door opened a few minutes later and Matthias emerged. The veins were gone from his face and his eyes had returned to their regular color, but his mouth was smeared with blood. He wiped the back of his right sleeve over his lips as he continued to hold his stomach with his left hand.
“She’s still alive,” he said. “She’ll be weakened for a while, but she’ll recover. I promise.”
I got shakily to my feet and looked in the window. The victim was in bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin. Her chest moved so I could tell she was still breathing. He didn’t hurt her. He’d drank enough blood to fix himself and then he’d tucked her into bed and left.
I was surprised. Truly, completely surprised. Relief moved through me so quickly it nearly made me dizzy.
“Good.” I turned away from him and walked back to my motel room. He was behind me, and without asking permission, he entered behind me and closed the door. I tensed. “Matthias, I want you to leave.”
Before he said anything, his knees buckled and he sank to the floor, his eyes rolling back into his head.
Shit.
I waited for a moment for him to wake up, but he didn’t. I worried that the woman’s blood hadn’t been enough. I crouched next to him and pulled at his hand so I could see his bloody wound.
I ran into the bathroom, and my hands were trembling violently as I wet a towel, then returned to kneel beside him so I could clean the wound a bit to check how severe it was. I braced myself for the worst. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before. I watched in disbelief as the skin a couple inches above his navel knit together like magic over the next couple of minutes.
I’d watched Declan heal like this before, knife and gunshot wounds that needed to be cleaned and taken care of before they had a chance to properly heal. The speed was nearly the same, but the results were very different. While Declan retained a scar to show where the injury had been, a raised reddish pink patch of hardened skin before it faded with additional time, Matthias’s skin healed flawlessly. Not a single mark remained after ten minutes had gone by of the injury that had almost introduced his internal organs to the cold, hard pavement.
I rubbed the damp towel over where the wound had been only minutes before, then touched the healed flesh with my fingertips just to prove I wasn’t imagining things.
“A little lower, please. And feel free to kiss it better.”
I yanked my hand back. Matthias watched me with half-lidded eyes and a pained smile stretching across his face.
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
His amusement faded. Even though he’d been healed from this injury, it didn’t change anything. He believed he was going to die soon from drinking my blood a week ago, and I had no proof that he was wrong about that.
“You look worried about me,” he said.
I swallowed hard and turned away from him. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t find the strength. I had cared if he lived or died tonight, and I couldn’t simply say it was only because of the information he had about Declan.
Maybe I was more softhearted than I gave myself credit for.
“You thought I was going to kill that woman,” he said.
I bit my bottom lip. “I thought it was a distinct possibility. I mean, you
are
a vampire.”
“I could have killed her easily. But her death wouldn’t have made any difference in strength to me. I took what blood I needed and that was all.”
“So getting her naked first was just personal preference?”
He raised a pale eyebrow. “Keeping watch, were you? I never would have guessed you were a voyeur, Jillian.”
I hated that he was able to make me blush. “I guess I don’t understand how biting someone’s neck requires them to show their tits and ass.”
“No.” He began to push himself slowly up to his feet. “You wouldn’t understand.”
I watched him warily. “So make me understand.”
“Bare skin allows me to feed better. After all, I don’t just feed on blood. At my age, I can feed on a human’s sexual energy as well, which I could tell at a glance she had in spades. I needed all the help I could get.” He smiled. “I really wouldn’t worry. I think she enjoyed herself. And when she wakes, she’ll remember nothing from the incident. No damage done. Is it still sick to you now that I’ve explained it?”
My face felt tight. “I don’t know.”
“Now I’d like to use your shower to clean myself up.” His smile widened. “You’re welcome to join me if you like. I may not be able to drink your blood, but I can still feed off your desire.”
I stood up and moved back from him, feeling that I’d been a bit too friendly with the former vampire king and given him the wrong impression. “Listen, Matthias. Let’s get one thing straight here. What happened between us—well, it was completely fake. It was no different from what just happened with you and your random blood donor just now. The only difference is you didn’t do me the courtesy of letting me forget about it.”
His amused expression held. “Of course, whatever you say. Now, your shower?”
“If I say no, will you leave?”
“You make an excellent point.” Without another word he walked to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. I heard the water turn on a moment later.
To say my feelings toward the former vampire king were conflicted would be a vast understatement. My current emotions included dislike and discomfort, as well as grudging admiration that he’d managed to survive being gutted enough to be a cocky asshole about it. I didn’t know what else to do other than stand there awkwardly and wait for him to be done.
Declan returned before the shower turned off. The door swung open slowly and he seemed surprised to see me standing there.
I tensed the moment I saw him. It felt as if he’d been gone a day, not just a couple of hours. “Where did you go?”
“I—I needed time to clear my head. I wasn’t thinking straight before.”
No shit.
I exhaled shakily, hating that I felt fear at seeing him again. “And now?”
“I’m better. Whatever that was—it passed. It took a while.”
I grabbed his hands so I could see them closer. His knuckles were red and it looked as if they’d recently healed from a more serious injury. I looked up at him. “Punching somebody?”
“Some
thing
. A wall. Concrete.”
“Did it help?”
“A little. Although the wall might disagree.” He glanced at the bed and at the damage he’d done to this wall earlier. His face showed strain. “I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.”
His brows were drawn closely together and he studied the floor. “How can you say that? I could have hurt you.”
“You didn’t. And you wouldn’t.” I believed it. I didn’t care what Matthias had told me, Declan wasn’t like that. This was an isolated incident only.
“Nothing like that’s ever happened to me before. But . . .”
“But what?”
“I’ve felt that rising violence inside me in the past, but it was something I could control. Distant. Fleeting. There was no control for me earlier.”
The water in the bathroom turned off a moment later and Declan’s head whipped in that direction.
“Who’s here?” he asked sharply.
Damn.
I’d forgotten about the showering vampire king for a blissful moment.
5
MATTHIAS EMERGED FROM THE STEAMY BATHROOM wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped low around his hips. His pale skin was scrubbed clean of any trace of the blood or injury that had been there. “Thank you, Jillian. I feel much better now.”
I’d wanted him gone. I’d helped him get his blood, heal himself, but he refused to tell me how to save Declan—if he even
needed
saving—until I found out where Sara was. I’d had enough trouble to deal with tonight.
Declan’s arms were flexed, his hands fisted, and veins had popped up in his neck and forehead.
“Why the fuck are you here?” The words weren’t much more than a growl.
Matthias raised his eyebrow. “Declan. You’re back.”
“Answer me.”
“Noah wanted me to deliver a vial of fusing potion to Jillian. During this delivery I was attacked and sliced open by a former blood servant and needed some time to recover.”
Declan’s gaze turned to me. “Is that true?”
I nodded. “Yes, but it’s all right now and Matthias was just leaving after he, uh, cleaned himself up.”
Matthias glanced at me. “Are you certain you feel safe alone here with the dhampyr?”
This earned him a fierce glare from Declan.
Declan had a lot of Matthias issues, starting with the lies he’d been told about the vampire that originated with Declan’s birth mother. She was dead now and you wouldn’t be seeing me putting any flowers on her grave.
Dr. Monica Gray had been the head of the research program that developed the Nightshade formula. and she was Carson’s boss. Her entire agenda wasn’t to destroy the threat of vampires as she would have had everyone believe. No, it was to destroy Matthias alone—the man who stood in the way of the release of her former lover, Kristoff.
Kristoff was Declan’s real father.
Declan didn’t know this because I hadn’t told him yet. Maybe I figured he’d been hurt so much, physically and emotionally, that one more blow might break him.
Stupid thought. Declan wasn’t that fragile.
“Your blood servant followed you here?” Declan said after the uncomfortable moment of silence passed between the three of us. He didn’t address Matthias’s comment about my current safety and neither did I. “How would they know where you are to begin with?”
“There’s a tracking device planted under my skin I didn’t know about until tonight.” Matthias’s jaw tensed. “It needs to be removed immediately. Will you help me?”
He wasn’t looking at me.
Declan stared at the vampire for a long time before he nodded. “Of course.”
The news of a tracker hidden under the vampire’s skin didn’t make him so much as blink.
Matthias sat on a wooden chair he pulled out from the small corner desk and sat on it backward. The towel split, showing off a long line of his pale thigh right up to the hip.
“It’s below my right shoulder blade and very small. So small that I never knew it was there. But now that I do, I was able to find it easily during my shower.”
Declan pulled his silver blade from the leather sheath at his right hip. He used that blade to kill vampires when he wanted a change from the gun he kept filled with silver bullets. One to the heart did the trick as well as a knife would, provided the bullet penetrated all the way through.