Sweet Last Drop (50 page)

“Of course. I didn’t just lamely await your command,” I scoffed.

His lips twitched. “Well, besides your stubbornness in refusing to lay ‘next to me,’ I didn’t sense any resistance from you. Not like I used to,” he added softly.

I sighed. “You didn’t see my mirror?”

He shook his head.

“When I spoke to Dr. Chunn, she mentioned that the female body typically takes sixteen weeks to replenish blood cells after donation. It’s possible that—”

“We don’t have sixteen weeks,” Dominic interrupted. “It’s been over a week since your blood transfusion. My Leveling is in five days, and if you haven’t regained the advantages of your night blood by now, it won’t matter if you regain them sixteen days or sixteen years from now. We need them for the Leveling.”

“I’m sorry my recovery isn’t on your schedule,” I snapped.

“Me too,” Dominic said gravely. “If you don’t have them for the Leveling, I need to consider an alternate plan to protect my position as Master.”

I crossed my arms. “It’s not my fault that this happened. I didn’t ask for a blood transfusion. I didn’t want to lose what little protection I had against you and the other vampires. I was unconscious, I was dying, and the doctors were just trying to save my life. They succeeded, if you haven’t noticed, but you’ve been less than grateful.”

“You’re damn right I’m less than grateful. If I was there, I could have—”

“But you weren’t,” I interrupted. “You weren’t there, and the doctors did the best they knew how.”

Dominic looked away. “I’m just telling you what must be done.”

“And what exactly must be done?” I demanded. “What are you saying?”

He stared off into the distance, across the expanse of city lights. We couldn’t see the stars here, not like I could upstate when I visited Walker last week, but I’d missed the city. I’d missed the bustle and life and conveniences I’d taken for granted, like streetlights and taxis and the absence of wild animals. I’d especially taken for granted the protection of Dominic’s presence.

Before my visit upstate, I’d felt constricted by his visits and considered his limitless reach an unwanted invasion of my personal, physical, and mental boundaries.

Until he’d been out of reach.

I would have died upstate without Dominic, killed by my own brother when he didn’t know anything but how to kill. When I’d needed Dominic most, despite the risk and distance and my own reluctance, he came.

I stared at the scarred side of Dominic’s face as he continued studying the expanse of city below us, and I had the sudden, insane, urgent impulse to kiss those luscious, imperfect lips. In this form, his lips were the only feature that was imperfect, and I cherished that reminder of his former life, a life in which despite our age, gender, and moral differences, was very similar to my own in the fact that we were at one time both night bloods and bore the physical reminders of our mistakes.

He met my gaze, and I looked away, embarrassed by my thoughts and urges. We wanted two very different futures for ourselves and this city, but the one want we agreed upon—very recently and only sometimes, although with increasing and alarming regularity—was his lips against mine. He hadn’t kissed me since that crazy moment upstate in Erin, New York, when I’d been high on his blood, but I thought about that moment every day since. I’d relived the smell of his longing and the heat of his breath and the demand of his lips in the quiet solitude of my hammock on this very roof every night.

But I wasn’t alone tonight.

I forced myself to meet his gaze. By the intensity in his eyes, I didn’t need my night blood back to know that he thought about that moment as often and with as much longing as I did.

“I’ve never faced a situation quite like this before,” he said. When he finally spoke, his voice was coarse, like he needed to clear his throat. “A human knows of our existence, knows about me and the inner workings and location of my coven intimately, and I have allowed her memory to remain intact. If my coven knew, if the Day Reapers found out, it would ruin me.”

I frowned. “Who are you talking about?”

Dominic blinked at me. “My dear Cassidy DiRocco, I’m talking about you.”

“Oh,” I said. I remained quiet, waiting for his next words. My gut churned; I didn’t like the direction this conversation was headed. “You’re asking me my preference?”

He nodded.

He knew my preference, and if he didn’t, he didn’t know me as well as I thought he did. “I’d prefer to keep my memory.” I gave him a look. “Obviously.”

“Think on it, Cassidy. Without your night blood, you have no protection against other vampires, and if I don’t survive the Leveling, Jillian will come for you. She knows where your loyalties lie. She will not tolerate you or any of my supporters, but if you no longer remember me or her or any of us, if you don’t know that vampires even exist, she may allow you to live. You might be able to carry on with your life as you did before we met. Isn’t that what you truly want?”

I shook my head. “What I truly want is for vampires to not exist at all, but they do. To pretend anything else would be a lie, and didn’t you once say that I’m in the business of exposing the truth?”

Dominic nodded.

“I have no interest in living a lie, no matter how pretty that lie is. You know me better than that, or at least I thought you did.”

“I suspected you would say as much, but knowing what may become of me and also knowing what Jillian may do to you, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least offer that option.”

“Wiping my memory doesn’t ensure my safety anyway,” I argued. “If Jillian comes for me, I want to know exactly why she’s here and why I’m being killed. I wouldn’t change anything I’ve done for you or Nathan, so if Jillian wants to kill me for it, that’s her prerogative. I don’t want to forget it happened.”

Dominic reached across his body and touched my ankle. “You say that now, but you may sing a different tune when she breaks you. I couldn’t bear to witness your suffering.”

“You won’t be witness to anything. If Jillian comes for me, you’ll already be dead.”

He leveled a look on me. “I couldn’t bear the thought—”

I pulled my foot from his hand. “Save it. You watched Kaden break me. Literally limb by limb, you sat back and watched him break every bone in my body as he tortured me to get to you.”

“I intervened before he went too far,” Dominic growled.

I laughed. “Your threshold for ‘too far’ is way higher than mine.”

“We did what was necessary for the bigger picture.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking you to do now. If you fail, Jillian won’t just come after me. New York City as we know it will be devastated. Vampires will be exposed. People will need someone who knows what the hell’s going on. I can be that person.”

Dominic was quiet for a long moment, so long that maybe he was reconsidering his stance on allowing me to keep my memory. I bit my lip.

“Letting me keep my memory is the bigger picture,” I said softly. “For humanity.” I winced inwardly. Even I could tell that was pushing it a little too far.

“Allowing you to keep your memory puts you at risk, but it also puts me and my coven at risk,” Dominic finally said.

“That’s typical!” I snapped, exasperated. “As usual, your coven comes first, even before common sense. This was never my choice at all, was it?”

“Cassidy, please—”

“No! If you think I’m going to agree to let you wipe my memory for the benefit of the coven, you’ve lost
your
mind. I’m not letting you off the hook so you can feel better about mind-raping me. I’m not agreeing to this. I’m not your martyr!”

Dominic’s face tightened. “If you would shut up and listen—”

“Screw you,” I snapped.

Dominic was suddenly on top of me, his hands grasping my shoulders, his body pressing across my body, his face in my face. “I’m not going to wipe your memory!”

I blinked up at him. Squished into the hammock from his weight on top of mine, I could barely breathe, let alone think. “Oh,” I said. “But you said—”

“I said for you to shut up and listen.” His voice was a growl, and I could feel the hard proof of his anger and excitement dig into my hip. He was a vampire and he was dangerous—there was no denying the facts of his existence—but in many ways, he was still very much a man. Lately, he seemed determined to remind me of that fact, too.

I shut my mouth.

“Are you listening now?”

I nodded.

“Allowing you to
keep
your memory compromises the security of me and my coven, so I need you to promise me that you will keep our secret. Promise me that you will not expose our existence before Jillian does, that you will only acknowledge our existence after I’m gone, after she makes vampires a known threat to humanity.”

I glared at him. It was impossible to impress an advantage from my prone position beneath him, but I glared anyway. “I don’t want to expose your existence,” I denied, “but if your existence is going to be exposed anyway, I—”

He put up a hand. “You don’t want to be out-scooped. I understand, but this isn’t your career on the line. It’s your life.”

“My career is my life,” I grumbled.

“Not anymore. To survive, you need Jillian to take the fall for exposing us.”

“Why? What’s the harm in writing my article if she’s going to expose you anyway?”

“It matters because when the Day Reapers come, and believe me, they will come, they will come for her and not you.”

I closed my mouth. I hadn’t considered the Day Reapers. Dominic spoke of them like boogiemen in the shadows, reigning justice and order over our heads, but I’d never experienced their wrath. From the horror of Dominic’s own personal experiences with them, I wanted to keep it that way.

“Promise me,” he insisted.

I sighed. “I promise.”

He opened his mouth.

“I promise by the certainty of time that I will not expose the existence of vampires before Jillian,” I clarified. “I promise to keep your secret until it’s already exposed.”

Dominic smiled.

“What’s another bond here and there when you’re already linked for life, right?”

“Right.” He eased his grip on my shoulders and laid next to me the way he’d intended for me to lay next to him. “Kiss me before I leave.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Is that a request or a command?”

“If I’d commanded you, your lips would already be pressed against mine instead of arguing with me, would they not?”

I pursed my lips.

“Almost, but not quite. You need more of a pucker.”

I smacked his shoulder. “And why in the world would I do that?”

“I want to say goodbye. I need to make other arrangements to secure my standing in the coven since my original plan has failed me, and I need a token of courage to give me strength.”

I placed a fist over my heart. “Ouch.”

He crooked his finger, beckoning me.

“That’s a reason why you should kiss me, not why I should kiss you.”

Dominic raised an eyebrow. “I should kiss you because I ache for you.” He pressed against me again, as if I wasn’t already perfectly clear on the part of his anatomy that was aching.

I nudged him away with my shoulder. “If it’s just physical satisfaction you’re looking for, I’ll pass.”

Dominic groaned and flopped back on the hammock to gaze at the sky. “You’re insufferable. What about allowing you to keep your memory is just physical satisfaction?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you’re looking for a thank you for allowing me to keep something I already have the right to keep, then fine.
Thank you,
” I said snottily.

“Wiping your memory was never truly an option. I just needed to ensure that you’d considered all of your options. That we were, as you say, on the same damn page.”

I couldn’t help but smile. He really did listen to me when I spoke. “And why is wiping my memory not an option? Not that I want to encourage you, but it’s the option I’d thought
you’d
prefer.”

“If I wiped your memory of vampires, I’d be wiping your memory of my existence. Of everything I can and can’t bear, everything I’d do for the bigger picture and for my coven, I could never do that.”

I stared at him, trying to determine the truth in his words.

He gave me a long look. “I can’t bear that you forget my name on command. I can’t imagine you forgetting me entirely.” He made a strange noise in the back of his throat that clogged my own. “It’s unthinkable.”

I touched the scar on his chin and urged his face toward mine. He looked at me, wary now that I’d pissed him off, but still willing.

“I’m sorry that I can’t help you on the Leveling. I really am. And I’m grateful that you’re allowing me to keep my memory, that you’re choosing me over your coven. I understand how big that is.”

He nodded.

“But you and I, whatever this is between us, is wrong. I’m human, and you’re—”

“And I’m a monster,” he interrupted bitterly.

“And you’re a vampire,” I said firmly.

“It’s just a kiss.”

I laughed. “With you, it’s never just anything.”

His focus honed on my lips, and my laugh died from the seriousness of his expression. I wanted him. God help me—vampire or not, monster or not—I wanted to kiss him.

“Tell me you don’t want to kiss me,” he demanded.

“Stop reading my thoughts,” I snapped.

“I’m not. I’m reading your expression. Say it,” he urged.

I shook my head. “I want to kiss you, damn it. But that’s not the point—”

“That’s exactly the point,” he growled. Dominic took my acknowledgement as permission, and he kissed me.

And damn me, I kissed him back.

Don’t Miss