An image poured into Renata’s mind in detail so vivid it was as if she were viewing it in real time and through her own eyes.
Even though she’d studied the pictures of Dante that Caterina had emailed her and was acquainted with his lust-stirring looks, her breath still caught in her throat as though she were seeing him for the first time—a sudden intake of air she heard echoed from Fionn’s throat.
But as Renata looked past Dante’s dangerous and moonlit beauty, she noticed the tight set of his jaw, the smear of dried blood beneath his nose, the blue smudges beneath his kohled eyes, the dilated pupils like pools of ink.
He’s in pain. Or had been, anyway.
Shirtless, his white skin practically glowed in the waning night, pale moonlight pulsing through his veins. A ringed collar was buckled around his throat and snug, low-slung leather pants were belted over his hips. Smears of dried blood streaked his shoulders and down along his sides, blood that seemed to radiate out from his back.
Has the child been fighting? Feasting? Perhaps both.
But it was the scar on Dante’s chiseled chest that throttled Renata’s heart into high gear. A looping glyph in angelic script. Either Caterina had never seen it or it was new.
The heart-stopping image of Dante shimmered as though underwater, then vanished as the llygad withdrew it from their minds. Renata opened her eyes.
“A dangerous beauty,” Fionn breathed. “But that looked like a Fallen sigil on his chest.”
“I agree. Perhaps it was placed there by his father,” Renata said, hoping it was true. If he’d been marked by the Elohim …
Stefan sent.
Renata felt a another gentle touch from the llygad’s mind. Images streamed in.
The strobing lights of rumbling fire engines, police cars, ambulances, and a squat bomb squad van chip away at the night with red, blue, and white spikes of color.
Shards of broken glass in the street. Dented vehicles, cars slanted across the road as though kicked aside.
The cemetery walls, shattered and ruined, have collapsed; tombs, crypts, and statues have been cut in half, their contents spilling onto the ruptured stone paths; the sliced-off tops of cypress and oaks bury chunks of broken stone and masonry, the edges of their leaves curled up and blackened.
Rescue personnel and first responders search the cemetery, their voice perplexed at what they don’t find. A cause for the explosion. Or a reason why the first responders simultaneously fainted an hour earlier.
The thunderstorm scent of ozone lingers in the air.
The flood of images and sensory input wavered, then vanished as Stefan withdrew from their minds once more.
Renata opened her eyes to find Fionn staring at her. She wondered if her expression looked as troubled as his.
“I don’t care for the looks of that,” he said. “Could it be the work of the creawdwr? Perhaps in a fight against the Fallen?”
Renata shrugged. “Troubling things are always occurring in New Orleans, sì? Why be bothered by this one? It may have nothing to do with Dante Baptiste.”
But despite her words, Renata couldn’t help but think that the mysterious explosion was tied to Dante Baptiste. But how and why eluded her.
A sudden thought, a horrible possibility, raised its head as Caterina’s words returned to her.
He’s been damaged, Mama. Monsters seized him the moment he was born and hid him among even more twisted monsters who fed upon his beauty and tried to shatter his spirit.
And did the monsters succeed?
No, I think they failed …
But what if Caterina was wrong and the monsters had succeeded in shattering his spirit, his mind? And Dante Baptiste, first True Blood Fallen creawdwr in history, was insane?
Gently shooing the cat from his lap, Fionn rose to his feet and inclined his head at the blood gift. With a smile she didn’t feel, Renata nodded in agreement.
As they feasted together on the young mortal from Naples, his blood pouring hot and well-flavored down their throats, Renata mulled over the relevance of the ruined city of the dead in New Orleans and pondered the possible destruction of the world and all it contained. Opium-birthed visions rippled through her mind.
The night burns, the sky on fire from horizon to horizon.
The Great Destroyer looks up and gold light stars out from his kohl-rimmed eyes.
Sitting back on her heels, Renata studied the runic patterns created on the mortal’s cooling skin in trails and smears and spatters of his own blood. But no matter how long she looked at them, their shape and revelation remained the same—revealing only swords and cracked towers, death and destruction and utter transformation.
Renata felt her heart turn to ice.
31
NO OTHER CHOICE
NEW ORLEANS,
CLUB HELL
March 28
“GO AWAY, TEE-TEE,” TREY said when Dante walked into the bedroom. “Quitte moi tranquille. Just let me fucking be.” He rolled over onto his side, his dreads slithering across the bed.
Dante caught the bitter alkaloid odor of hunger undercutting the web-runner’s natural Spanish moss-and-still-water scent. Trey’s body wanted to feed, but he was ignoring it, willing himself straight into death’s ravenous heart instead.
Not if I can help it. Ain’t losing him too.
“I think you’re gonna want to hear what I got to say, cher,” Dante said, sitting down on the quilted comforter beside him. “Those motherfuckers who torched the house? I got word that they’re rendezvousing with Mauvais tonight at Lake Pontchar-train.”
Even though he wasn’t moving, Trey’s body seemed to freeze, every fiber of his being listening. “Word from who?”
“Vincent, and he sends his condolences.”
Trey flopped over onto his back. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes a lambent gleam in the darkness. “If he’s still an ally of that fi’ de garce Mauvais, he can keep his goddamned condolences. Was he telling the truth? About the rendezvous?”
“Ain’t sure, but I think it can’t hurt to check it out. We’ll be careful. Watch our asses. But if it’s true …” Dante lifted his arm and bit into his wrist. Blood welled up, dark and fragrant, on his white skin. “Then you’re gonna need strength.”
Trey’s nostrils flared at the blood’s rich grape-and-pomegranate scent. But he kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You gotta make me a promise first, Tee-Tee.”
A cold certainty crackled through Dante like winter frost. He shook his head. “No. You can’t ask that of me.”
“Then get the fuck outta here.”
“You want me gone? Fais-moi, you. Get the fuck up off that bed and make me. C’mon, toss my goddamned ass out the fucking door. Kick it all the way down the stairs.”
Trey bolted up on his elbows, fury blazing in his eyes. “Va t’cacher, Dante! Fout moi la prix!”
“Simone would want you to feed. She’d want you to fucking fight.”
“Don’t you tell me what Simone would want! She doesn’t want anything anymore. She’s dead! Nothing but ash!”
Fire scorches her lungs. Blackens her skin. Devours her with relentless teeth.
Throat tight, Dante forced the image and the pain it carried down below. He could only imagine the images Simone’s death had seared into her brother’s psyche. He leaned over Trey, held his furious gaze.
“Her body’s ash, yeah, but Simone ain’t. I fucking refuse to believe that. She’s here.” He touched his left hand to Trey’s T-shirt-covered chest, felt the slow pulse of his heart beneath his fingertips. The fading body heat. “And here,” he added, lifting his right hand and brushing the backs of his fingers against Trey’s temple. “Toujours.”
Trey sucked in a ragged breath. A muscle spasmed in his j
aw. He closed his eyes. “I don’t feel her,” he said, his voice rough. “But I still hear her screams.”
“Aw, fuck, cher.” Dante straddled him and wrapped him up in a tight hug. Buried his face in the thick coils of Trey’s dreads. Smelled bitter hunger and raw grief. Felt Trey slipping away from him even as his cold body rested within his arms.
“Von told me once that what you say from the heart has power to reach the ears of the dead,” Dante whispered, his lips beside Trey’s ear. “Told me that a spoken thing or a wished-hard thing takes a shape within the heart. Takes shape and becomes real.”
Trey’s muscles trembled. “But it won’t bring her back.”
“No, it won’t. But you can shape her within your heart, mon ami. Bring her back from pain and ash. Give her a place to dwell.”
Trey laced his arms around Dante, hugging him back, then he cupped Dante’s face between cold hands and looked into his eyes, his own as reflective as black ice. His pale face was composed of sharp planes and angles, all grief and hunger.
“I’ll feed, Tee-Tee. I’ll regain my strength. Then I’m gonna feast on the heart of Mauvais’s fille de sang before I feast on his. I’m only asking one thing of you.”
A muscle flexed in Dante’s jaw. He nodded. “Ask, cher.”
“If I decide to stop living, if I decide to take what’s left of Simone in my heart with me, then I’m asking you to let us go.”
Dante drew in a tight, painful breath. “Trey …”
“I’m asking, Tee-Tee.”
“Fuck you. No.”
“Fuck you back,” Trey said, voice coiled. “You’re asking me to live. You’re asking me to avenge my sister. Well, all right, you, but those are my terms.”
Dante grabbed hold of the words if I decide. He searched Trey’s eyes, searched for something beyond his icicle gaze, but only found more ice glittering in the depths.
“If, yeah?” Dante said. “If you decide.”
“Oui. If.”
Not knowing what other choice he had, Dante nodded. “Fuck. All right. Agreed.” He’d just have to make damned sure he gave Trey plenty of reasons to keep living even after they’d put an end to motherfucking Mauvais.
Dante bit into his wrist again, the first bite having closed already. Blood pooled in the fang punctures. Without urging, Trey’s cold fingers latched around Dante’s arm. Hunger had expanded his pupils until they’d swallowed the icy color of his eyes. He fastened his mouth on Dante’s wrist. And fed.
32
LIKE WHITE-HOT STARS
NEW ORLEANS,
CLUB HELL
March 28
PALE TENDRILS OF STEAM curled out from the partially closed bathroom door. Heather heard water drumming from the shower. She crossed the room to the cracked-open bathroom door spilling light and heated air and the clean scent of soap into the room, and slipped inside.
Dante’s leather pants were tossed on the slate floor in front of the tub/shower and his boots stood underneath the towel rack. His lean silhouette moved behind the white and silver striped shower curtain as he braced his hands against the tiled wall and tipped his face up into the spray of hot water.
Heather stripped off her clothes, leaving them in a semi-neat pile on the toilet tank, her Colt on top. Grasping the rubber edge of the shower curtain, she stepped cautiously into the tub and into water that was hot enough to pleasantly pink her skin and massage the knots from her muscles, but not so hot that it made her squeak and back pedal out of the tub in self-defense.
“That good, catin?” Dante asked.
“Perfect.”
She moved up behind him. Water glistened on his white skin, streamed in rivulets over the hard muscles of his back and shoulders and down to his firm ass. He started to turn around, but she stopped him with a hand to the small of his back.
“Stay put,” Heather said. “You fell asleep on me, Baptiste.”
“Yeah, motherfucking dawn. That sucked for true and not in a good way. Sorry about that, chérie. Let me make it up to you.” He reached back, his hand sliding over her hip to her ass, his fingers trailing liquid fire along her wet skin.
Electricity arced through her belly and farther south, a multiple lightning strike. As much as Heather wanted his hand on her ass and everywhere else he could reach, she slapped his hand away.
“Nope. Stay put and keep your hands to yourself,” she said, her heart racing as the sudden image of Dante doing just that—his hands slide over his own taut flesh—flared behind her eyes. “This is payback. I’m going to be doing all the touching.”
Pushing his wet hair from his face with both hands, he glanced at her from over his shoulder. A heated smile smoldered on his lips. Blue flames flickered deep in his eyes. “Yeah? Ain’t making no promises about staying put or keeping my hands to myself, catin. I want you.”
Heather sucked in a breath, her knees weakening at the raw and primal intensity of those last three words—I want you—both promise and threat in his husky voice, pouring molten through their bond.
“Too bad,” Heather managed to say, pleased her voice was steady, if a little breathless. “You’ll just have to wait.”
“In case you ain’t noticed, waiting and patience ain’t my strong suits.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed, Baptiste. Put your hands on the tile.”
Dante complied, slapping his palms against the slick tiles. She brushed her fingers over his shoulder blades, searching for the outline of his wings, but not feeling anything but satin-smooth skin over steel muscles.
“It’s like you have mini-gates in your back for your wings to fold into,” she mused aloud. “Is it still hurting?”
“Nope.” He chuckled. “Mini-gates?”
“Sounds better than pouches.”
Dante laughed. “For true.”
The memory of her flight a month ago with De Noir through the night-chilled air, tucked tight against his heated body as they flew from Ronin’s house, played through her mind. To do the same with Dante …
“Wings.” Heather shook her head, then pushed her wet hair out of her face. “Never saw that one coming.”
“Me either. Still ain’t sure how I feel about it.”
Seeing a few remaining streaks of blood staining his skin, Heather scooped the soap up from its sudsy dish and lathered up her hands. She stroked them over Dante’s back and across his shoulder blades, massaging the hard, knotted muscles underneath her palms. Even wet, his skin was hot to the touch. His breath hissed in.
But it wasn’t pain drawing in his breath. Pleasure funneled through the bond. Heat pooled low in Heather’s belly.
Dante bowed his head. “C’est bon.”
“Good,” Heather whispered, gliding the heels of her hands across his soap-slick back. She felt some of the tension drain from him—but only for a moment. She suddenly felt the muscles beneath her hands bunch and cord again.
Alarm prickled along her spine. Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, she felt Dante’s broken past scrape against her mind like the splintered bow of a ship, pain trailing in its wake. The room took a slow, lazy spin around her.
“Boy needs a lesson,” Dante whispered, his Cajun accent twisted thick. “Boy always needs a lesson.”
Grabbing onto Dante’s hips for balance, Heather closed her eyes against the dizziness. Imagined steel around her mind. “That was never true. Papa lied.”
Heather felt another shift, another splintered scrape, but no pain this time. Her shields were holding. She layered on another circle of steel, then opened her eyes. The twirling had stopped.
“Ain’t letting them touch you. Ain’t letting them take you. I promised.”
Dante’s words, low and harsh, determined, trailed ice down her spine. For a moment she wasn’t sure if he was actually speaking to her or from the past.
“No good-byes, Baptiste,” Heather said. “You’re not there.”
 
; She molded herself against him and held him tight. And poured a cool rush of white silence through their bond.
“You’re in New Orleans. At Club Hell, and in the shower with me. Come back, Baptiste. Come back to me, cher.”
Dante shuddered within her embrace, his muscles rippling against her. The tension thrumming beneath his skin vanished. The past-storm gusting and shifting and scratching against her shields stopped.
Dante sucked in a breath. “J’su ici, catin,” he said.
Relief flooded through Heather. “Welcome back.”
“This has gotta stop,” Dante said, strain and a desperate undertone Heather had never heard before edging his voice, “this fucking flipping between then and now. It’s too dangerous to you—to everyone near me. If I ever fucking hurt you …”
“It’s dangerous to you too, Dante.”
“There’s gotta be a way … wait. Do you still have the Bad Seed flash drive that prick Lyons gave you?”
Heather opened her mouth to say yes, then remembered that it had been in the pocket of her jeans. The jeans she’d left at the house just before the fire.
“No,” she replied. “Not anymore. It was at the house.”
“Fuck. I was thinking maybe if I looked, if I knew, I could piece it all together.”
“We’ll figure something out. De Noir had some of the file, maybe he still does. And we can both tell you what we know, what we saw.”
“Yeah, c’est bien,” Dante sighed. “That’d be a good start, catin.”
“So let it go for now and stay right there.” Heather slicked a soapy hand up Dante’s hard abs to his chiseled chest. His breathing quickened. “I’ve got all manner of naughty things in mind for you.”
“I like naughty.”
“Really?” She tugged on the ring in his collar. “Never would’ve guessed.”
She traced a finger along the raised scar the Morningstar had seared into his chest. Memorized the sigil that she’d felt burn like ice against her own heart.
She traced her finger in a wet and lazy circle around his nipple. “Think you can manage to keep awake?” she purred, pinching the hardened nub.