Chapter 11
LUCA
Ican still smell her on my fingers. I can still feel the way her arousal soaked me as she came, the way her pussy walls clenched against my touch. The way her whole body shuddered to climax while she lay at my mercy on this bed.
I was so close to biting her. I’ve had centuries to learn self-control, and she almost undid it all in minutes. Fuck. Is this the blood spell, or is it something else?
I can’t imagine a spell strong enough to do this.
Maybe it’s part of it—maybe it’s in the mix.
But it can’t be the only explanation for how I feel about this woman.
This is bigger than some witchy meddling; it is real and powerful and all-consuming.
I never for a minute seriously thought I’d be able to Call her to me—to use her own powers to connect with her.
But it worked, and fuck, every second of it was incredible.
Even with Isabella, the only woman I’ve ever loved, I didn’t feel anything like this.
I picture Rosa’s skin, pale against the sheets, dark hair spread around her like a supernova, her arms obediently stretched overhead.
Her trembling body, inviting me to do whatever the hell I liked with it.
The fact that she’s normally so feisty makes it all the more delicious.
Breaking down that independence, that surface strength, calls to the predator in me.
She puts on a good show, her words and her body language telling the whole world that she needs no one, but inside, she is soft. Vulnerable. Yearning for all those choices to be made for her. Her body knows what she needs, even if her mind does not.
I run my hand up and down my engorged cock. I’ve never been so hard, so desperate. A million images run through my brain. Rosa bound and chained, my dick shoved in her mouth. Rosa lying in my arms, murmuring my name in her dreams. As I watch her sleep and keep her safe.
Where the hell did that come from? I fucking hate this … this tenderness. It’s not me, and it won’t end well. If this is all from a spell, then that damn witch deserves a pay raise.
Forcing my mind to more pleasant matters, I think about her tits instead, how she squirmed as I took her nipples in my mouth. Yeah. That’s better. I’m building up speed with my hand, knowing I need the release, when a voice wrenches me out of the moment.
Hey, she says. Luca, are you there?
Hearing her—the hesitant note as she whispers, the gentle sound of her uncertainty, is enough to push me over the edge. I come with blinding ferocity. My seed spills all over my belly, and my slow-beating heart feels like it’s about to explode in my chest. Merda.
I lie still and broken for a moment, my whole being rocked by a simple self-administered hand job. If I came like that from thinking about her, from hearing her, what the fuck will it be like when I finally shoot my load inside her? It might be the end of me—but what a way to go.
Umm … I’m on my way, she says, her words as real in my mind as if she were sitting next to me. Please tell me I haven’t lost my mind.
You haven’t lost your mind, bella. And yes, I am here. I will always be here, whether you like it or not.
She doesn’t reply, and there’s a vague buzzing in my ears, like static on a dead line. Grinning, I stretch and feel a deep sizzle of excitement. She hung up on me, but she’s coming. Soon she will be here.
I jump out of bed and bundle up the soiled sheets, planning to use the fresh ones from the closet. The big bad vampire is becoming domesticated, I think as I throw on a T-shirt and a pair of black jeans.
I’m hoping to be naked again before the night is out, but we also need to talk.
I need to tell her about this fucking blood spell and try to figure out who cast it and why.
We need to work together to find out who’s trying to hurt her, why the fuck Don Vincenzo is mixed up in it all, and what we do next.
If she walks in here when I’m naked, I get the feeling there won’t be a whole lot of talking that follows.
I’m changing a pillowcase—if Matteo could see me now, he’d piss himself laughing—when I feel her presence again.
There’s no hesitation this time. No uncertainty.
She screams for me so loud my eardrums vibrate, and the pillow falls from my hands.
I have no idea how this whole thing works.
As much as I tried to appear like I knew what I was doing earlier, I was as surprised as she was when I was able to Call her.
But if that worked, maybe this will too.
With my eyes closed, I focus on what she’s seeing. It’s dark, and she’s standing on a street. She feels fuzzy, faint, and I prop myself up against the wall with one hand as her weakness flows through me. Shit. She’s hurt. She’s in danger!
What kind of a man lets a woman like her walk across town to him? What the fuck was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking at all. I was jerking off.
I clamp down on the self-recrimination and focus on what she’s showing me.
An address. A van. Three men. She looks around at it all so clinically, so precisely, giving me as much information as possible.
Fury engulfs me at the thought of them daring to lay hands on her, and I force myself to take deep breaths. She’s calmer than I am. Even under threat, Rosa is strong enough to fight back the panic she must be feeling. If she can do it, so can I.
Our connection is already fading by the time I leap down the stairwell of the fire escape. I feel her shutting down as whatever was in that syringe courses through her veins.
South, she murmurs, her voice the barest flutter. We’re driving south toward the lake. Come find me, Luca. Come find me—I need you.
My bare feet slap down on the pavement outside, and I snatch the first passerby I see by the collar of his shirt. I don’t know Chicago well, and now is not the time to consult Google Maps.
“East Boulevard!” I bark, ignoring his yelp and pathetic attempt to break free. “Where is it?”
“Over there! Three blocks down! For fuck’s sake, man, let me go.”
I shove him away and take off, building up speed until the buildings and cars are a blur around me. Even before I transitioned, I learned not to do this with people around—to never risk revealing myself to the human world.
Right now, I don’t give a shit. They can come at me with flaming torches and pitchforks and put me on YouTube. I have to get to Rosa. I need you, she said. That’s all that matters.
I’m there within minutes, but I’m too late. I pay attention to the skid marks where the van pulled up beside her and note the discarded syringe near the gutter.
I stop, force myself to freeze. To breathe, concentrate, and track when all I want to do is kill. A homeless man approaches from the sidewalk, pushing a shopping cart full of cardboard boxes. I growl at him, and he immediately backs off.
I pick up the needle and scent her blood—the blood of my woman—and let out a howl, vowing to end the lives of anyone who has ever harmed her. First, I must find them. There is a necessary order of operations here: Find Rosa, save Rosa, tear Rosa’s enemies limb from fucking limb.
They were heading south, but that knowledge is not enough. There’s a lot of south. It could mean a block away; it could mean Texas. I focus on ignoring my bloodlust and make myself to think.
My nostrils flare at a familiar scent. Lemon and spice and Rosa. Tiny shards glimmer under the streetlight, invisible to the human eye but glinting bright for me. The faint scent of blood is overpowered by the perfume.
I picture her being manhandled, staggering toward the back of the van, slamming her hands down on the doors. She did it on purpose—smashed the glass and left this trail for me. Leading me to her.
“Good girl, bella,” I murmur, taking off again.
Now that I have the scent, it isn’t hard to follow.
The van drove down side roads and headed back toward the highway that skims the border of the lake.
A vampire can’t run quite as fast as a moving vehicle, but I can follow its route and know that I’ll find it. That I will find her.
I follow her scent as fast as I can, passing parks and stores and idle squad cars. I run by schools and churches, under and over bridges and along the neon-lit edge of the highway. I never lose her despite the smells of the city at night. She is all that exists to me. Rosa is all that matters.
Eventually, the landscape around me shifts as I enter the grand suburbs at the outskirts of the city.
There are fewer vehicles and more trees, and the homes I pass get bigger and bigger as I go, featuring long driveways, tall fences, and electric gates.
This is where the rich people live—it is the same the world over.
They build their walls and lock their doors and think it all keeps them safe, but it won’t keep them safe from me.
Nothing will keep them safe from me as long as they have her.
I reach a point where her scent makes an abrupt turn down one of the paths. Stopping, I sniff the air and make sure I’m going the right direction. Every second counts, and I can’t afford to make any mistakes. If I lose her, I’ll …
No, I don’t have time to think about that. I won’t lose her.
The road goes into the trees and hits a gate. I skulk into the greenery for cover. There are lights all along here, and there might be cameras. I can’t just bust my way into this like I usually would. I have to be smart about it, like Rosa would be.
They won’t expect me. They won’t know I am out here, prowling, searching for her, until I emerge from the shadows and tear out their throats.
The walls around the property are about eight feet high and built to keep people out. Too bad for them that I am not people.
I am Luca da Firenze, and I’ve been turning up in places I have no right to be for hundreds of years.
Pausing, I listen for signs of life on the other side of the gate. A man, alone. Faint, tinny music tells me he’s about to die while playing Candy Crush on his phone.
I take a run at the wall, vault from the grass in front of it, and leap high enough in one jump that I get my fingertips on the curve at the top. It’s close, and my nail is ripped away, but I get enough of a grip to pull myself up and swing my legs over the side.
I land silently, and light spills from the window of a small security lodge.
If they have cameras, there will be a bank of them in there, but probably none on the structure itself.
I’ve been in places like this before—I’ve killed in places like this before.
These pricks never think they need security in the guard hut.
I scoop up a handful of gravel and throw it at the window. Not hard enough to shatter it, but enough to make some noise and get his attention.
The fucker in there assumes he’s safe within the compound, with his cameras and his gates and probably his gun.
The music from the phone stops. Within seconds, the door opens, and a man dressed in black emerges.
He looks young, tough, fit. Cautious. He’s not an idiot, and he has his gun in one hand, radio in the other.
He doesn’t see me, and before he has the chance to use the radio, I come up behind him and claw my right hand across the front of his throat.
Blood spurts, hot and delicious. He reaches up to try to hold his torn neck together, but I grab his head, yank it to the side, and sink my fully extended fangs into his flesh.
He tastes of coffee and a protein bar, and then he tastes of nothing.
His blood powers through me, and I drop his lifeless body to the ground, feeling stronger. Before going into the hut, I stamp on the radio and kick the gun away.
I lick my teeth, calmer now that I’ve released my true nature. Now that I’ve killed. There’s a bank of screens in front of me, along with a thermos and a copy of some bullshit celebrity magazine with a Kardashian on the cover.
Each screen shows a different viewpoint—the driveway, the pool house, several other buildings. At the heart of it all sits a stone-built mansion. A stone-built mansion with a van parked outside the door.
She’s here. I’ve found her. And now there will be carnage.