Kiss of Crimson (4 page)

Something about him didn‘t quite fit that mold. With the grim cut of his face, he looked like the kind of guy who could tear a gym rat to pieces with his teeth.

She moved her hands lightly over his face, feeling for trauma. His skull was intact, but her touch told her that he‘d suffered a mild concussion in some fashion. Probably was still in a state of shock.

―I‘m just going to check your eyes,‖ she informed him gently, then lifted one of his lids.
Holy shit.

The slitted pupil cutting through the center of a large, bright amber iris took her aback. She recoiled,

freaked

out

by

the

unexpected

presentation.

―What the—‖

Then the explanation hit her, and she instantly felt like an idiot for losing her cool.

Costume contacts.

Chill out,
she told herself. She was getting jumpy for no good reason. The guy must have been at a Halloween party that got out of hand or something. Not much she could tell from his eyes so long as he was wearing those ridiculous lenses.

Maybe he‘d been partying with a rough crowd; he certainly looked big and dangerous enough to be part of some kind of gang. If he‘d been rolling with gangbangers tonight, she didn‘t detect any evidence of drugs on him. She didn‘t smell alcohol on him either. Just some heavy-duty smoke, and not from cigarettes.

He smelled like he‘d walked through fire. Just before he took a dive into the Mystic River.

―Can you move your arms or legs?‖ she asked him, moving on to inspect his limbs. ―Do you think you have any broken bones?‖

She skimmed her hands over his thick arms, feeling no obvious fractures. His legs were solid too, no real damage beyond the bullet wound in his left calf. From the look of it, the round appeared to have passed clean through. Same with the one that hit him in the torso. Luckily for him.

―I‘d like to move you to one of my exam rooms. Do you think you can walk if I help hold you up?‖

―Blood,‖ he gasped, his voice thready. ―Need it... now.‖

―Well, I‘m sorry, but I can‘t help you there. You‘ll need a hospital for that. Right now, we have to get you off this floor and out of those ruined clothes. God knows what kind of bacteria you picked up in that water out there.‖

She put her hands under his armpits and started to lift, encouraging him to stand. He growled, something deep and animalistic. As the sound left his mouth, Tess caught a glimpse of his teeth behind his curled upper lip.

Whoa. That’s weird.

Were those monstrous canines actually...
fangs
?

His eyes came open as if he had sensed her awareness. Her unease. Tess was instantly blasted by piercing bright amber light, the glowing irises sending a bolt of panic straight into her chest. Those sure as hell weren‘t contacts.

Good Lord. Something wasn’t right with this guy
at all.

He grabbed her upper arms. Tess cried out in alarm. She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he was too strong. Hands as unyielding as iron bands clamped tighter around her and brought her closer. Tess shrieked, wide-eyed, frozen in fear as he drew her right up against him.

―Oh, God. No!‖

He turned his bloodied, battered face toward her throat. Sucked in a sharp breath as he neared her, his lips brushing her skin.

―Shhh.‖ Warm air skated across her neck as he spoke in a low, pained rasp. ―I won‘t... not going to... hurt you. I promise... ‖

Tess heard the words.

She almost believed them.

Until that split second of terror, when he parted his lips and sank his teeth deep into her flesh.

CHAPTER Four

B
lood surged into Dante‘s mouth from the twin punctures in the female‘s neck. He drew from her with deep, urgent pulls, unable to curb the feral part of him that knew only need and desperation. It was life pulsing over his tongue and down his parched throat, silky, cinnamon-sweet, and so very warm. Maybe it was the severity of his need that made her taste so incredible, so indescribably perfect to him. Whatever it was, he didn‘t care. He drank more of her, needing her heat when he was chilled to his marrow.

―Oh, God. No!‖ The woman‘s voice was thready with shock. ―Please! Let me go!‖

She clutched at his shoulders reflexively, fingers digging into his muscles. But the rest of her body was slowly going still in his arms, lulled to a boneless sort of trance by the hypnotic power of Dante‘s bite. She sighed a long gasp of breath, sagging limply as he eased her down onto the floor beneath him and took the nourishment he so badly needed.

There was no pain for her now, not since the initial penetration of his fangs, which would have been sharp but fleeting. The only pain here was Dante‘s own. His body shuddered from the depth of its trauma, his head splitting from a concussion, his torso and limbs laced open in too many places to count.

It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.

You are safe. I promise.

He sent the reassurances into her mind, even as he held her tighter, brought her more firmly into the cage of his arms, his mouth still drawing hard from the wound at her throat.

Despite the ferocity of his thirst, a need amplified by the severity of his injuries, Dante‘s word was good. Beyond the bite that startled her, he would not harm the female.

I’ll take only what I need. Then I’ll be gone, and
you will forget all about me.

Already his strength was returning. Torn flesh was mending from the inside out. Bullet and shrapnel wounds were healing over.

Burns cooling.

Pain fading.

He eased up on the female, willing himself to slow, even though the taste of her was beyond enticing. He‘d registered the exotic note of her blood scent on his first draw, but now that his body was rejuvenating, his senses coming back online fully, Dante couldn‘t help but savor the sweetness of his unwilling Host.

And her body.

Beneath the shapeless white lab coat, she was strong, lean muscle and long, graceful limbs. Curvy in all the right places. Dante felt the mash of her breasts pressing against his chest where he pinned her on the storeroom floor, her legs tangled with his. Her hands were still gripped hard on his shoulders, no longer pushing against him but simply holding on to him as he took a final sip of her life-giving blood.

God, she was so exquisite he could drink from her all night.

He could do a hell of a lot more than that, he thought, suddenly aware of the erection that was wedged hard and demanding at her pelvis. She felt too good beneath him. His blessed angel of mercy, even if she‘d come into the role by force.

Dante breathed in her spicy-sweet scent, gently dropping a kiss on the wound that had fed him a second chance at life.

―Thank you,‖ he whispered against her warm, velvet-soft skin. ―I think you saved my life tonight.‖

He smoothed his tongue over the small punctures, sealing them closed and erasing all traces of his bite. The female moaned, stirring from her temporary thrall. She moved under him, the subtle shifting of her body only heightening Dante‘s desire to be inside her.

But he‘d already taken enough from her tonight. In spite of the fact that she would remember none of what had occurred, it seemed less than sporting to seduce her in a puddle of stale river water and spilled blood. Particularly after going at her neck like an animal.

He moved slightly off her and brought his right hand up near her face. She flinched, understandably wary. Her eyes were open now—mesmerizing eyes, the color of flawless aquamarine.

―My God, you are beautiful,‖ he murmured, words he‘d casually tossed out to numerous females in the past but surprisingly never meant more than he did now.

―Please,‖ she whispered. ―Please, don‘t hurt me.‖

―No,‖ Dante said gently. ―I‘m not going to hurt you. Just close your eyes now, angel. It‘s almost over.‖

A brief press of his palm against her brow, and she would forget all about him.

―Everything‘s all right,‖ he told her as she shrank back from him on the floor, her eyes locked on to his as if she waited for him to strike her. Dared him to. Dante smoothed her hair off her cheek with the tenderness of a lover. Her felt her tension ratchet a little tighter. ―Relax now. You can trust—‖

Something sharp stuck him in the thigh.

With a vicious snarl, Dante rolled away, flipping onto his back. ―What the hell?‖

Heat spread from that stabbing point of contact, burning through him like acid. A bitter taste gathered at the back of his throat, just before his vision began to swim crazily. Dante tried to heave himself upright from the floor but fell back again, his body as uncooperative as a lead slab.

Panting rapidly, those bright blue-green eyes wide with panic, Dante‘s angel of mercy peered over him. Her pretty face warped in and out of his vision. One slender hand was pressed to her neck, where he‘d bitten her. The other was raised up at shoulder level, holding an empty syringe in a white-knuckled grip.

Holy Christ.

She’d drugged him.

But as bad as that news was, Dante registered something even worse as his blurring gaze struggled to hold on to the small hand that had managed to fell him with one blow. Between her thumb and forefinger, in that fleshy juncture of soft skin, the female bore a small birthmark.

Deep scarlet, smaller than a dime, the image of a teardrop falling into the bowl of a crescent moon seared into Dante‘s brain.

It was a rare mark, a genetic stamp that proclaimed the female sacred to those of Dante‘s kind.

She was a Breedmate.

And with her blood now pulsing within him, Dante had just completed one half of a solemn bond.

By vampire law, she was his.

Irrevocably.

Eternally.

The very last thing he wanted or needed.

In his mind, Dante roared, but all he heard was a low, wordless growl. He blinked dully, reaching out for the woman, missing her by an easy foot. His arm dropped like it was weighted down with irons. His eyelids were too heavy to lift more than a fraction. He moaned, watching his erstwhile savioress‘s features blur before his eyes.

She glared down at him, her voice edged with defiant fury.

―Sleep tight, you psychotic son of a bitch!‖

* * *

Tess leaped back from her attacker, breath heaving out of her in a raw, rapid pant. She could hardly believe what had just happened to her. Or that she had managed to escape the crazed intruder at all. Thank God for the tranquilizer, she thought, relieved that she‘d had the presence of mind to remember the syringe in her pocket. Not to mention the opportunity to use it. She glanced at the spent needle, still clutched tightly in her hand, and winced.

Shit. She‘d plugged him with the entire dose. No wonder he dropped like a ton of bricks. He wasn‘t going to be waking up anytime soon either. Eighteen hundred milligrams of animal tranq was one long kiss good night, even for a massive guy like him.

A sudden pang of worry stabbed her.

What if she‘d killed him?

Unsure why she should be concerned about someone who seemed bent on tearing her throat out with his teeth just a few minutes ago, Tess inched her way back to where the man lay.

He wasn‘t moving.

But he was breathing, she was relieved to note. He was sprawled flat on his back, his muscular arms flung out on the floor where they‘d fallen. His hands—those large mitts of brutal strength that had held her in a vise grip as he‘d attacked her—were slack and still now. His face, which had been concealed by the fall of his dark hair, was almost handsome at rest.

No, not handsome, because even unconscious, his features held their stark angles and knife-edge planes. Straight black brows cut dark slashes over his closed eyes. His cheekbones were razor sharp, giving the slope of his face a lean, feral quality. His nose might have been perfect at one time, but the strong line of its bridge had a faint jag in it from an old break. Maybe more than one.

There was something strangely compelling about him, although she was certain she didn‘t know him. He wasn‘t exactly the kind of guy she‘d associate with, and trying to picture him coming into the clinic for pet care seemed absurd.

No, she had never seen him before tonight. She could only pray that once she called the cops to come and collect him, she‘d never see him again either.

Tess glanced down, and her gaze caught on the glint of metal concealed beneath his sodden jacket. She moved the leather aside and drew in her breath to see a curved blade of steel sheathed under his arm. An empty holster on the other side seemed to be missing a gun. Other hand-to-hand implements studded a wide black belt that wrapped around his slim hips.

This man was a menace, no doubt about that. Some kind of thug, who made the hard-asses down here on the riverfront look like rank poseurs. This man was hard and deadly, everything about him throwing off an air of violence.

His mouth was the only bit of softness on him. Wide and sensual, lips parted slightly in his drugged state, his mouth was profanely beautiful. The kind of mouth that could wreak havoc on a woman from about a hundred different angles. Not that Tess was counting.