“You saw your brother? Is Bat okay?”
“She’s fine. Kraven ran into trouble, too, and I found him first while I was searching for you. We took care of Decker’s men but more could be close by.”
“Are you sure she’s okay?”
“Your sister and my brother are fine. They’re nearby. They had to cross the river as well, and I just brought us closer to them.”
“Where are they?” She stirred in his arms, blindly looking around. “I need to see Bat. I want to talk to her.”
“She can’t hear you unless you yell out, which I don’t suggest. More enforcers could be out there.”
“Why didn’t you take us right to them? I don’t think splitting up was such a good idea.” She worried about her sister far too much, especially if Bat had seen one of those creatures.
“We’re sitting in a small dent in the ground space next to a tree that will shield us from the wind. There isn’t enough room for all four of us. Kraven found a hole not too far away. He’ll keep your sister warm and safe until the sun rises.”
“Did she see what I did?”
He hesitated. “I’m not certain what she saw or didn’t.”
“She’ll be freaked-out and scared. I should check on her, Drantos. It’s not every day you see some creature that looks like it came right out of one of those hell-dog movies. She doesn’t even like horror flicks.”
His arms tightened around her more and his head lowered to rest against the top of her head. “Kraven will deal with her if she saw one of us shifted. He’ll explain to her the same thing I am to you. We lost the ability to resemble wolves when we inherited our Vampire genes.” He drew in a deep breath. “Hell isn’t involved. It’s just genetic mutations from being half-breeds. Decker’s men could track us faster in animal form than they could if they’d remained in their skin.”
An image of that terrifying beast flashed in Dusti’s memory. It had been huge and vicious looking. The claws… She trembled.
“Easy,” Drantos urged. “I’d never hurt you. Feel my warm skin?” He brushed his fingertips over her arm. “No claws or fur, sweetheart.”
“Stop calling me that. You’re doing it on purpose.”
“I am. There’s no reason for you to ever wonder if I’d hurt you. That’s why I didn’t want to show you proof of what we are so soon. The last thing I want is for you to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not one of those beast things.”
“No. Your father was pure human. Your blood is diluted enough that you’re unable to change forms. You took more after him than your mother.”
Her mind wanted to resist believing what he said but she’d seen that thing as clear as day. She’d never forget it either. And Drantos could turn into one of them. She’d been intimate with him.
“I told Bat that you were nuts,” she admitted. “I know you didn’t want me to say anything to her but I did. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about that now, Dusti.”
“I thought you were like my friend Greg. He thinks aliens are after him when he doesn’t take his meds.”
Drantos rubbed her back. “I’m not crazy and I don’t need medication.”
“I think I’m going to lose my mind. Maybe I’m the one who needs meds.”
“Please don’t fall apart on me. Call me names, insult me, but damn it, don’t cry. I can’t handle that. If it helps, remember that your mother was pure VampLycan. She could shift.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Sorry. I just wanted to remind you that we’re all not monsters. I got the impression you loved your mother and she was good to you.”
“She was the best.”
“She loved you and cared for you. Not all of us are bad.”
“If that’s true, if she had to run away from her father, why didn’t she go to her own people to protect her from being given to some bad guy?”
He shrugged against her. “Maybe she feared it would cause deaths in whatever clan that took her in, if her father tried to get her back. I don’t know, Dusti. No one could answer that but her. We would have tried to protect Antina and welcomed her if she’d sought sanctuary. Maybe she believed everything bad her father ever said about us. He feels we’re too soft and weak because we’re not as bloodthirsty as he is. That’s why he wants to rule all the clans. It’s possible she felt we couldn’t protect her. We like to live in peace but that doesn’t mean we’re not deadly when we’re on the defense. We are. Was she happy in the human world?”
“Yes.” She fought tears. “My parents were really in love. You could see how much they meant to each other every time they touched. That was often. We were a happy family. She used to say meeting my father had been the best moment of her life, besides having her daughters. We had a lot of great times.” Memories of her childhood surfaced in her thoughts. “We laughed a lot.”
“Didn’t you ever notice anything strange about her?”
Dusti racked her brain. “She looked pretty young for her age. Everyone used to comment on it. Of course, it’s just in the genes. Bat and I get mistaken all the time for being in our early twenties.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-one, and Bat is thirty-three.”
“You don’t look it.” He paused. “You may have inherited the very slow aging process we possess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Vampires don’t age at all from the time they are turned. Lycans have a lifespan of about five hundred years.”
She couldn’t imagine. “Are you kidding me? How is that possible?”
“Vampires use blood to heal and survive. As long as they feed, it repairs most damage, including any from aging. Lycans heal much faster than humans. The same applies but they don’t need fresh blood. They just have to keep in good health by eating regularly and allowing the shift to happen from time to time. It would be as if a human refused to use their legs to stand and just sat around nonstop instead. Over time, it would make their bodies weaken.”
She let that sink in. “What about what you are? How long do you live?”
“We’re not sure.”
“How is that possible?”
“We’ve only been in existence for about two hundred years. We age slower than Lycans. “
“How do you know that?”
“Just meet a Lycan and a VampLycan born the same year. The Lycan will look a few years older than one of ours. It’s the best measure we’ve found so far. It’s estimated that we might live eight hundred years or so but that’s a guess. It would also depend on what traits are more dominant of the two. A mostly Vampire-blooded VampLycan will probably live longer than a mostly Lycan-blooded one.”
“My grandfather had gray hair when he visited us.”
“He probably dyed it and put on makeup to look aged before going into your world. He was playing a role for you and your sister. Some of us do that if we have dealings with the same humans long enough. We try to blend in and not raise suspicion.”
“What kind of dealings?”
He hesitated.
“Is it a secret or something?”
“No, I was thinking of a good example to use. There was a family who used to own some land by one of our borders. My father met them thirty years ago. They ended up moving away but kept ownership of the land. Two years ago they wanted to sell it, so they contacted my father and wanted him to meet them. He always makes it clear to surrounding human families that he’s interested if they’re ever willing to sell. He hasn’t aged in that time and they would have noticed. He had to pretend to be his own son.” Drantos chuckled lightly. “He didn’t want to wear makeup or dye his hair to appear older.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes. They sold the land to him and weren’t suspicious.”
She let that sink in. “I’d ask you how old you are but I’m afraid to know the answer. I don’t want to be grossed out if you’re super old, considering where your mouth happened to be earlier. Just tell me you we
ren’t born in the year eighteen hundred and something.”
He chuckled again. “I wasn’t.”
“I’m glad you think this is funny.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“No. Do you want to know how old I am?”
She shook her head. “I’ve had enough shocks for one day. You only appear to be about thirty.”
“We grow a bit faster than humans do as children but then it slows once we hit adolescence. Lycans tend to hit between the mid-twenties to low-thirties range and then the aging just seems to halt there for a few hundred years. We might be the same way. I’m older than the number you said I look but I was born in the nineteen hundreds. Are you warmer? You’re trembling less and your skin doesn’t feel as chilled.”
“You put off a lot of heat.”
“We run hotter. I wish you had gained that trait from your mother. I knew you hadn’t though when I saw how cold you became when the sun went down last night. In that regard, you’re totally human and need to be kept warm.”
The silence stretched between them. Dusti wasn’t sure what to say. She knew so little about Drantos except he certainly wasn’t at all similar to any guy she’d ever been interested in. She needed answers though to the questions relevant at the moment. The future seemed bleak.
“Are more of those…men going to come after us?”
“Not the ones who attacked Kraven and I.”
The tone of his voice, the sureness of it, made her heart stutter. “What does that mean? How can you be so sure?”
He adjusted his body into a more comfortable position and pulled her firmer against him, and continued to hedge. “We did what we had to.”
“What is that?”
“They won’t be coming after you again. At least not those three.”
Her eyes opened to pitch darkness. The grim tone of his voice finally gave her a hint. “You killed them?”
“Two died. One conceded. We had no choice, Dusti. They would have killed my brother and me if we hadn’t won in battle. That would have left you captured, taken to Decker, and he would have handed Bat over to Aveoth.”
She’d known deep inside that’s exactly what he’d meant. He’d killed to protect her.
A laugh burst from her, totally unexpected. Random, silly thoughts followed. She pictured trying to put that beast she’d seen into a coffin. It wouldn’t fit. That seemed funny to her, despite knowing it shouldn’t. It happened when she was under too much stress. It was as if twisted humor helped her cope.
“You find it funny that I had to take a life?” He sounded surprised.
“No. I think I’m having a breakdown of sorts. And I was just thinking that I couldn’t even get a guy to buy me flowers, and you killed for me. We haven’t even been out on a date yet.”
He pulled her tighter against his body. “I’ll cut down a field of flowers to give you when we reach the safety of home. We don’t have any restaurants in the village but I’ll cook you dinner.”
“That’s so sweet of you to say. Its total bullshit but I appreciate it.”
“You’d be surprised over what I’d do for you, Dusti.” Sincerity rang in his tone.
“You just want to finish what we started today.”
“I won’t deny that.”
“You can’t hide what you want from me in that regard. I can feel you digging into my stomach. My, what a big bulge you have.”
He tensed. “I can’t help it. You’re touching me and in my arms. I know you need rest though. You’re exhausted.”
She nodded again, enjoyed rubbing her cheek against his hot skin. She loved the way he smelled too. Masculine and woodsy. The woods part may be coming from the tree we’re next to, she acknowledged, but it didn’t matter.
She focused, pushing away lightheaded sensations that threatened to make her giggle. Her head swam again and she felt as though she might float away. Her fingers and toes tingled…
The symptoms sank in. She wasn’t having an emotional breakdown. It was more of a physical one.
“We have another problem.”
“I know you’re hungry. I can hear your stomach rumbling. We’ll catch something at first light, and I hope you enjoy sushi since we can’t start a fire.”
“It’s not my favorite but I can eat it. That’s not it. You said you had to leave your jacket behind. My shots were inside it. I’m feeling lightheaded and dizzy again. My thoughts are a mess and my emotions are all over the place. It’s going to get worse. I’ll start to ramble, as if I’m drunk, if I don’t pass out soon. I’ll go into shock next, then lapse into a coma. It happened once when I was fourteen. I hated taking the shots so I’d lied to my mom about giving myself one. I blacked out and next thing I knew, my mom was staring down at me with that look on her face that said I was in big trouble. She yelled at me for an hour about how dangerous it was not to take my shots and how I could have slipped into a deep coma.”
“I told you that you don’t need shots. You take after your grandmother.”
“Right. What are you going to do? Kill a rabbit and make me drink its blood? Big ewww. I’d throw it up before I could even get it down. I know you said I’m part Vampire but I can’t stand the sight of blood. I tried volunteering at a hospital in my teens for extra credit during high school and fainted the first time I was in the emergency room, when they brought in some guy with a head wound. That makes me a shitty Vampire, doesn’t it?”
“Dusti.” He sounded irritated.
“I need a shot, Drantos. That’s what I’m saying. I think the cold water was too much of a strain or something on my body. I’m exhibiting all the symptoms of when I’ve gone without a shot for too long. Only worse. The stress probably didn’t help matters.” She fought to calm her thoughts and keep in control of her emotions. Tears filled her eyes but she managed to resist bursting into sobs. “It’s going to get worse. It always does.”
“Do you trust me at all?”
She paused to feel out her emotions. “Yes. You’re not a lunatic. You saved me on the plane, protected me again from that beast by the river, and you found me tonight to keep me from dying in the woods.”
He chuckled. “You don’t have to sound so irritated about it.”
“I just don’t feel well. I get kind of bitchy when I’m dizzy and scared. It beats the giggles. Trust me.”
“Straddle me.”
“You’re going to hit on me now? Really?”
“Straddle my lap,” he repeated. “Do it.”
“I thought you said you knew I was too tired for sex.”
“That was before I knew what you needed.”
“I need sex? I hate to break this to you but it’s only going to wear me down more and make me sicker if I do physical activity. I think the swim across the river exhausted me or sent me into shock.”
“Please trust me.”
She hesitated but when his arms released her, she moved. She didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver. She could feel the chilled vegetation brush against her legs when she faced Drantos and put her knees on either side of his hips. His thighs shifted together and she adjusted until she wasn’t touching cold Earth anymore except for under her knees. The rest of her sat on his lap. The bulge in his jeans pressed against her pussy and her hands flattened on his chest.
“Now what?”
“I’m going to supply you with blood. Lean in until your face is at my throat.”
It took her seconds to understand his meaning. “You want me to bite you?” The absurdity of it caused her to laugh. It wasn’t funny but she couldn’t help herself. “You are nuts. I don’t have fangs.”
“No, but I have claws. I’ll scratch my skin to bleed for you.”
All humor left. She wished she could see his face. “No. That’s insane. I’m starting to get a bit woozy but I’m not that far gone.”
“You need the iron, Dusti. You’re part VampLycan.”
“You drink blood?” She reached up to
examine her neck on both sides where he’d bitten her the night before. She didn’t find any scabs or flaws on her smooth skin. “You drank my blood?”
“I nicked your throat with a fang, then I licked it closed. My saliva heals wounds. It’s one of the Vampire traits passed down to us. It hides the bite marks quickly on someone we’ve fed from to help us survive without detection. The more saliva, the faster the healing.”
Dusti leaned back away from him. “Are you serious?” She searched her skin again with both hands but couldn’t find any healing injuries on her neck where he’d been kissing her.
“Calm down. I smell your fear. We don’t need blood the way a Vampire does.”
“Then why did you take some of mine?”
His arms wrapped around her waist and he sat up enough to press against her chest, pinning her to him. She didn’t resist. He was warm.
“Easy, Dusti. We get our blood through eating meat. You’ll never find a vegetarian VampLycan. I told you that you take after Marvilella, your grandmother. She needed to drink fresh blood about once a week or she’d suffer some symptoms of illness. You obviously need it as well. I needed to test your blood to determine exactly what you are.”
“And what am I?”
“Mostly human, but more Vampire than Lycan.”
“You could taste all that with just a little blood?”
“Yes.”
“How do Lycans, Vampires, and humans taste?”
“You really want to know?”
“I’m trying to be rational. Work with me or watch me flip out.”
He chuckled. “It’s impossible to explain. Can you tell the difference between chicken, pork, and beef? I can tell the difference between species.”
“That disturbs me on so many levels.”
“I’m sorry.” He rubbed her hips with his hands. “You still need blood.”
“Maybe my body will recover if I just rest. It happens sometimes. I’ve had to go without my shots for a few days when I didn’t have time to go see my doctor.”