Release, book 3 of The Angler series (13 page)

Sun
light warmed my face as I sat in Central Park. Cool grass tickled my toes, and a breeze played with the curls along my neck. I touched them. Hadn’t I cut my hair? I held a cone in my other hand with vanilla-flavored ice cream that melted slowly.

Suddenly the
bench I rested on flipped back, and I smacked my head on grass that felt more concrete than it should. “My ice cream.” I flailed and came into contact with something solid. The smack sounded like flesh on flesh.

I opened my eyes t
o Tane’s face hovering close to mine. What the fuck was he doing in the sun? Blinking in the dim light of gas lamps, I took in my real surroundings of hardwood floors and old Venetian building. It had been only a dream. Instead of lying on the cool grass in a park, I was on the floors of Catarina’s home twisted in a blanket. I wish Tane had waited until I’d eaten the damn cone.

He
scooped me into his arms, a confused expression on his face. “What are you doing?”

I peeked over his shoulder at the tangle of blankets and Rurik’s naked limbs. “Have a good time?”

He squeezed me tight, and I glimpsed what could possibly be a tinge of blush on his cheeks. “It wouldn’t have been safe for you to join us and it kept his mind off your blood.” Stalking across the hall to my room, he set me on my bed. “Why are you sleeping in my doorway?”

I shrugged. “Just in case one of the humans thought it would be cool to stake the king of vampires.”

He blinked and tilted his head to the side.

“I was guarding the door since Kam isn’t here.” Duh, I shouldn’t have had to spell it out.

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. It developed into something shy and sweet. Wow. The man could be breathtaking. “You were protecting us?”

“Well, I would
n’t call it protecting, since that requires combat skill, but I could at least scream if someone stepped on me.” I searched the room for a clock. “What time is it?” According to my body, I didn’t sleep long.

“Late aftern
oon. I have to feed before the sun sets and Rurik wakes.”

I perked and offered my neck. “Say no more.” No other human would be trustworthy in this household. Heck, in this city. The nations couldn’t afford to lose Tane. We might argue over many petty things
, but Tane was the best king they could have. He truly cared about what happened to his people, humans, and their futures. It had nothing to do with power.

He ran his thumb over my pulse. “Odd how being with both of you for
a mere year, I’ve developed a wider spectrum of emotion.”

My eyes fluttered shut at his feathered touch. “What do you mean?”

He licked along the same path with the tip of his tongue before whispering, “Guilt. I’m about to feed on the one person Rurik desires the most but can’t have.” And he’d had sex with the one person I was losing and couldn’t even be in the same room with.

The air
suddenly grew too heavy for my shoulders and I melted into Tane’s arms. There had been a time when I’d wanted to start my own family. With Laurent’s death, that dream had died. One had to lead a normal life to raise children, and like Tane said, we weren’t normal people. Sometimes, in my darkest moments, I wished I could return to humanity with a fresh start. No ghost of Laurent to haunt me, no slayers to expose me to a new world, and no vampires to drag me into danger. How much longer could I keep up with Tane and Rurik before my luck ran out? So far I’d been surviving by the skin of my teeth. I don’t think I had many layers left.

Tane
set me on the bed and turned away. “I am old and selfish, Connie. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have lain with Rurik.”  He misunderstood my silence.

Pinching my lips together, I stared at his tense back. “For all your age, you can be pretty stupid. If your being with Rurik upset me, I wo
uld have let you know. I’m not exactly known for my reserved tongue.”

He chuckled. “You’ve been under a lot of strain. I thought maybe you had developed some tact.”

I snorted. “Don’t insult me.” I opened my arms and engulfed this hulk of a vampire. “This is a shitty, shitty situation.”

Curling around me on the bed, Tan
e rested his face in the crook of my neck. “Catastrophic.”

“Wow.” For me and Rurik, yes, this description fit what was happening. But Tane? “You really feel that way?” He was old as dirt. He must have lost many loved ones over the centuries. Didn’t it ever get easier?

“Of course I do. By now my brothers will have realized I betrayed them. My kingdom is without their ruler. All those who oppose me will run amok until I can regain control again. I’m losing the man I love and my human companion is exhausting herself trying to save everyone.”

“Oh.” Not the same level of catastrophe as mine. My world seemed much smaller and simpler than Tane’s yet not less important
. He was sacrificing a lot to save us. Mine and Rurik’s deaths would not affect his rule but our living could destroy it. Yet he fought alongside me without complaint. “If anyone deserves to feel terrible, it’s those god-awful brothers of yours.”

“Even if they had left us alone, I’m not sure it would
have made a difference. The transformation is taking too long, and Rurik’s mind is devolving.”

I rubbed his smooth head. “We’re in a safe place now.” Relatively speaking. “Maybe you should go back to Rio and do king
ly things. I’ll take care of Rurik until this resolves.”

“Ho
w do you plan to care for him after he drains you dry and leaves you dead?”  He nibbled my earlobe.

“I’m sure Catarina would console hi
m, and he can replace me with her.” The bitterness in my voice didn’t come as a shock. Even though I kept reassuring myself that it was a coincidence, I didn’t believe it.

I could sense Tane smile. “Jealous?”

Elbowing him would hurt me more, so I pouted like a sap. My options were limited when entrapped in Nosferatu limbs. “Shut up. Wouldn’t you be if you found out he had an ex-Nosferatu lover?”

“Who says he hasn’t?”

“Uh…” I glimpsed the amusement in his eyes. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not. Well, not intentionally.” He shrugged. “People have certain characteristic they like in their mates. So
you look like Catarina a little. Do either of us resemble your late husband?”

My g
ut twisted in a knot. Did they? Laurent had been tall and with dark hair. All three men had dominated my life yet allowed me more freedom than I’d ever experienced on my own. Security and protection were two major things they all had in common. So I had less physical attributes I required and more emotional.

Tane pressed his fangs to my neck but still didn’t break skin.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I’m listening to your body to see if you’re strong enough yet to feed me.”

“That’s so romantic. Do I pass, doctor?”

“There’s more. I can’t use any of my mental powers to mask your pain,” he whispered in my ear. “We’re hiding. My presence on the other plane is so much larger than on the physical. I’ve created a type of void. It’s more difficult to find me this way.”

I blinked and faced him. “I’d think it would be impossible. I sense nothing from you.”

“You sense
nothing. Not just from me but from this house and this neighborhood. My brothers would have to look for a spot of nothing to know where I am. Much harder to find.” He sighed. “I’m not the only one who knows this trick. I sensed something similar near Florence when we’d caught Rurik.”

I recalled him taking off and leaving me with Kam in the field. He’d sensed a
nothing? “Okay, so this is going to hurt?”

“A lot.” He hesitated. “I could use one of Catarina’s humans.”

I gave him my what-the-hell look. “And hurt them instead? Are you nuts?”

“Given the choice, I’d rather not cause you pain.” He gave me an amused smile. “You tend to be vengeful.”

I sighed. “Fine, you get a free pass on this one due to the circumstances, but I’d appreciate it if you aimed true and make it fast.”

He made a hungry noise and rolled on top of me,
pressing his very naked body against my clothed one.

“God, why am I always wearing more clothes than you lately?” I ran my ha
nds over his firm, wide back and arched my throat.

With a playful growl, he bit deep and hard. He dug his fingers into my short curls, holding me tight in his grip.
Tane moaned and bit even deeper, drinking in quiet gulps.

I dug my nails into his flesh and
sucked in the cry of pain wanting to burst from my lips. The sharp pain was new. I had expected something like a regular human bite. This came closer to what a tiger would do to my neck. Too many years defending myself on the streets took hold and I jerked my knee as if trying to crack it against my forehead. Instead, my knee slammed against Tane’s balls.

He yanked
away. Curling into a fetal position next to me, he gasped for breath. “Fuck.” He closed his eyes. “Next time I’m using a donor.” Ancient vampire or not, his balls hurt like any other man’s.

I sat up and clutched my neck.
“That hurt like a son-of-a-whore.”

His gaze focused on me
. He let go of his precious cargo and pressed his hand to my bleeding wound. “I should heal you.”

I smacked him in the fore
head with the heel of my hand. “Healing requires more of your blood in my system. We decided that was bad.”

He flinched when I hit him and laughed. “Stop hitting me, woman.” Crawling onto his knees, he clutched his nuts again and grimaced.
“I bit deeper than I’d wanted. You’re bleeding too much. The damage is done with Rurik and I don’t plan on letting him feed from you again. So take a little.” He licked along the edges of my wound. Nosferatu saliva slowed the healing process enough to prevent scarring. Without it, my flesh would seal too quickly. Once he finished coating the wound, he dripped his blood into my mouth. Tane’s last blood slaved liked the scars. I didn’t. The process didn’t even tingle. Pain faded and skin knitted together as if nothing had happened. Too bad the memory remained.

I
cupped his face. “Sorry about kneeing you. I’m not a fan of pain.” I rubbed the spot where he’d bitten me. It didn’t hurt anymore, but the shock still made my flesh tingle. “It’s a reflex that’s saved my ass quite a few times.”

He nodded and lay next to me
, staring at the ceiling. “I truly needed to feed. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.” He twisted to give me his shy smile, the one that could melt my clothes off. “I love that you don’t fear me like you should.” He cupped his sore spot. “You could kiss it and make it better.”

I snorted and w
hacked him across the face with my pillow. “You’re lucky I do love you. Otherwise I’d agree and bite you back. See how it feels on the other end, if you know what I mean.”

He paled, which I didn’t think was possible. “I should be present when Rurik awakens.” Tane stroked my face. “I did miss you in our be
d.” He left me lying limp. The blood loss wasn’t much. He’d taken the equivalent of a snack but emotionally I just felt drained to the bone. What were we supposed to do now? Hide in Venice forever or until the Nosferatu clan found us? Because find us they would. They’d only had a few days to organize their search. In a few weeks the whole nation would be after us. If I could toss a stone into my heart, I didn’t think it would ever hit bottom.

Tane hadn’t been gone from my room
for more than ten minutes before someone else disturbed me by knocking on my door.

I
threw a pillow across the room and missed the door by a mile. “Go away.” Couldn’t I have a moment to wallow? I grabbed another pillow, but a woman I didn’t recognize poked her head inside and I let go of my missile. I’m not sure who I had expected but it wasn’t her.

“Master Tane asked me to prepare a bath for you.” She spoke in broken English with a thick Italian accent.

“I’ll just take a shower.” Tane had called her? It seemed uncharacteristic. Rurik would have thought of it, but not the vampire king. Maybe old dogs could learn new tricks.

“There is no indoor plumbing.”

I glanced sharply at the bathroom and the wooden toilet I had used. I had forgotten. No wonder I couldn’t figure out how to flush. I didn’t want to know where it emptied.

When had I last washed? At the hotel, I’d done a cursory swipe of armpits, tits, and ass before we
’d gone after Rurik. I’d been through hell since then and a hot soak sounded like heaven. “That would be great.”

“I’ll have it prepared in the kitchen in thirty minutes.” She curtsied.

“Wait. Uh…what were you doing, speaking with Master Tane?” Paranoia would save me if it didn’t drive me mad first. Maybe I should make sure my boys hadn’t been staked.

“Mistress Catarina assigned me to feed him
, but he said he’d fed already.”

I touched my throat.
I’d saved her a lot of pain. You’re welcome.

She curtsied again and left me alone in my darkening room. Even though the curtains were thick, the sunlight still faintly lit the room so I could make out silhouettes
. The oil lamp on my bedside table remained unlit since I didn’t have any means to make fire.

Too bad I couldn’t
have ignited it with the flames of passion that had scorched Tane’s sheets.

I straightened my clothes and left my room to find the kitchen before
I fell asleep again. The lure of slumber and sunlit ice cream cones were strong. Such a simple pleasure that I didn’t get the chance to indulge in anymore. Laurent would join me on my walks through Central Park. He had liked ice cream too. It was something I never received as a child, when we didn’t even know where the next meal would come from.

My joy in this ritual didn’t come solely from the
treat, though it helped; it came from the fact that I finally had the means to indulge. Freedom came in many forms. Poverty was the chain I’d worn for a long time. Grief had been another type of jail. One that Rurik saved me from. Ironic he’d be the one to send me back.

I took a wro
ng turn and ended up in a lit sitting room. My bad. A lamp burned on the fireplace mantle. Turning to leave, I caught a glimpse of the painting above. My heart skipped a beat. I lifted the lamp higher so I could see it better. Catarina sat in a chair with a lovely dark-haired man behind her. His ice-blue eyes were too familiar for my soul not to ache. Rurik’s hands rested on her bare shoulders and he appeared as he had before the change had gripped him.

I set the lamp back on the mantle before I dropped it. The last time I’d done that I
’d burned down a whole vampire nest and the biggest bitch I’d ever met.

Knowing that Rurik
had once lived in this house was something I could deal with as a semi-mature woman. Finding physical evidence of his relationship with Catarina made me finger my stake. I slapped my hand against the mantel. She’d been pining for him all this time.

Rurik had a life before me. How would he feel i
f Laurent returned? Jagged agony ripped through my chest and I clutched it. How would
I
feel? I shouldn’t tread this trail of thought. The last few days had left me so emotionally fragile the slightest upset could possibly fracture my sanity. I loved Rurik and he loved me. Rubbing the ache away, I stared up at the painting. Or did he? I think that was what was shredding me inside.

“Signora?” The young woman who had come to my bedroom stood at the entrance. “The bath is ready.”

I nodded and pulled my shit together. There were times to fall apart. This wasn’t one of them. I was strong and had held myself together while I’d watched Laurent die. I’d find this inner strength again. Maybe if I made this my mantra, I’d start believing it.

The young woman led me to
the kitchen, where a huge copper tub gleamed by the candlelight. “The sun will set soon and the house will stir.” She set some towels on a stool. “Give me your clothes and I’ll launder them. Signora Catarina does not approve of modern clothing in the household.” She touched a dress hanging by the fireplace. “I took the liberty of finding you something more appropriate to wear until your things are clean.” She motioned me to hurry.

I got undressed and
set the wooden stake I’d been carrying since Rome aside before she carried my pile of clothes away. Even my bra. Sliding in the tub, I hissed at the scalding temperature. Any bacteria clinging to my skin were seared off, along with a little of my flesh.

The initial flash
-fry disappeared quickly and I examined the selection of soaps. Catarina might frown upon modern technology, but shampoo didn’t seem to fit in that category. Thank God.

I wished I could soak longer
, but the thought of Catarina’s ‘boys’ walking in on me sped my washing. I poured water over my head, rinsing away both physical and emotional aches.

Catarina stormed into the kitchen. “You have to speak some sense into him.”

I squeaked and sank lower in the tub. “What the fuck?”

Tane stormed in after her. “This isn’t open for discussion. You haven’t been part of his life in decades.”

“Then why bring him here?”

“You know why. He needs a place to finish this change. You wouldn’t betray him.”

“There is almost nothing left of our bond. I can’t even touch his mind.” She twisted toward me. “He’s going to steal Rurik from me.”

I glared at Tane. “What the fuck?”
I repeated. They both spoke English but I couldn’t process my own chaotic emotions, let alone theirs.

“Catarina is being overdramatic.” He folded his arms
across his chest and loomed over the smaller vampire.

She didn’t even notice. “Stop saying that.” Then she turned to me. “He wants to give Rurik
his blood directly. This could kill him. Talk sense into your master, Connie.”

“
First, why do you think he’d listen to me?”

Tane snorted.

“Second, he would do just the opposite.” With Tane, the best policy was to ask politely or after sex. Ordering just pissed him off. “Third, I’m in the bath.” I splashed water at both of them to make my point. “Can this wait two minutes so I can dry and dress in private?”

Catarina huffed and left with a pout
, but Tane remained.

With a resigned sigh, I rose. Water dripped from my body as I grabbed
a towel and wrapped it around me. “What brought this on?”

His frown deepened. “I had hoped as the change progressed
that Rurik would get better with Catarina being close enough to help support his mind, but his sanity is growing more unstable.” He pressed his fingers and thumb on his eyes, rubbing them. “After I fed and returned to my room, I found him gnawing his arm.”

I gasped and took a step
toward the door.

He blocked my path. “H
e’s fine, for now. Our link has begun to form finally and I was able to bulldoze my way into his head. I’m holding him together but I can only do this for a few hours before permanent damage sets in.”

“Hours?” I dried and grabbed the dress.

“You should put on the corset first.”

“You wear the corset. I need to breathe. So your blood could keep him sane?”

“Or kill him. Catarina wasn’t being overdramatic about that part. At this point, it’s a risk he should take. The change to vampire sometimes makes the candidate animal-like. It burns all their humanity away and leaves a—a—”

“Monster.” I turned my back to Tane. “Tie this dress up.”

He assisted without comment. His silence worried me. It meant he was deep in thought. That he was trying to figure out things as much as I was. Not reassuring.

I slipped the wooden stake between my breasts.
“What if Catarina gave him her blood?” I faced him, resting my hand on his upper arms. “Maybe it would reverse the process?”

He
chewed his bottom lip. “We’re treading new waters. He drank from her last night, and I see nothing positive so far. I can’t be the only Nosferatu in our history to have a blood slave. Why is this happening now?”

“No, but we’re in a three
-way relationship. Most people don’t want to share.”

“True.” He took both my hands within hi
s and kissed them. “Rurik’s body is in such a flux of genetic rewiring. The Nosferatu genes will overpower it eventually. If he drinks mine directly, it may give him the strength to heal like it does you, and he can finish the process.”

Rurik and I weren’t the only ones fracturing. Tane showed signs of it
, too. I hugged him tightly. “You know I won’t leave you. No matter the outcome, I’ll still be your girl.” It sounded stronger and more confident inside my head. Saying it out loud only expressed my fragility.

He gathered me in his arm
s and took a shaky breath. “I wasn’t so certain.”

I nodded and patted his ass. “Okay, let’s save Rurik.”