CHAPTER 17
WHEN DANI NEXT STIRRED, darkness had fallen. The room was cold and still. She tried to sit up, only to gasp. The right side of her body felt like one giant bruise.
Falling back against the pillow, she forced herself to take shallow breaths to keep from jarring her stomach. But even as she held as still as she could, the waves of dull, diffuse pain threatened to make her sick. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed a mouthful of sand.
Water. She needed water. Turning to the nightstand, she spied a glass someone had left there and gingerly reached over, angling her head up to the straw just enough to swallow a mouthful, then two.
With shaking fingers, she set the glass back down, weak and sweating from the effort. The water should have helped. But if anything, the fire in the back of her throat seemed to intensify. Tears filled her eyes.
What was wrong with her?
Without warning, the room began to spin. Dani blinked.
Had she been drugged?
She licked her lips, about to reach for the glass again, when her tongue traced sharp, dangerously pointed canine teeth, fangs that had definitely not been there before.
With a rush, it all came back.
Blood. The turning. She needed blood.
Voices sounded from somewhere out in the other room. Weak and shaking, she turned her head towards the cracked door where a faint strip of light shone against the scuffed wood floor.
“I left him, Sera,” a man said in a strangled voice. “You have to let me go back there.”
“If you go back, you’ll be captured, too. Alex understood that. He made the choice he did, knowing what was going to happen. You throwing your life away won’t help him right now.”
There was the sound of muffled sobs.
“He released my shackles instead of his.” The man, who Dani now recognized as Dante Visconti, sounded absolutely wretched. “I was so stunned, I almost didn’t get out of there in time. I never thought he would have done something like that. Maybe for you or Isabella. But not for me.”
“That’s because you’re as stubborn as he is.” Sera sighed. “Alex loves you. He always has.”
“What are we going to do?” Dante asked after a moment. “We have to get him out.”
“And we will, but right now we have bigger problems,” Sera said firmly. “We have to move Dani. Father could be sending people here right now. I’ve already texted Evan, told her she has to move the others to a secure location.”
“Alex won’t give up our location,” Dante insisted. “He would never betray us.”
“Everyone eventually breaks. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Alex,” Dani whispered, tears filling her eyes. She drew as much air into her lungs as she could stand. “Sera?”
A second later, the door to the bedroom opened.
“You’re awake.” Sera snapped on two pairs of gloves and pulled the blankets back to check her belly. “The swelling is going down. That’s a really good sign. Do you need to feed?”
When Dani nodded, she turned to Dante. “Can she feed from you?”
He cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t it be better if you did it?”
“She’s already weakened and I don’t want to risk touching her.
” Sera’s tone softened. “And if Alex were here right now, he would absolutely want you to do it, would insist we both do everything possible to ensure her change takes, and that includes this. She needs more blood. Evan can feed her once she gets here, but the bruising on her abdomen indicates she’s not fully through the transformation process yet. She needs vampire blood.”
“Yeah, okay.” Dante rolled up his sleeve. “Sorry. I probably don’t taste nearly as good as my brother.” He pulled a wooden chair over to the side of her bed and extended his wrist.
Dani gingerly took it. She’d never actually used her fangs before. Alex had always slashed his own vein for her so all she had to do was drink. But surely this part was instinctual?
“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked quietly.
Dante looked down. “Alex got me out. He could have saved himself, but he chose to save me instead. We’ll find a way to get him out, Dani. I promise.”
The burn in the back of her throat was intensifying to the point her eyes were starting to water. Her fangs definitely hurt. But she could practically smell the blood beneath Dante’s skin, and she wanted it. Baring her teeth, she sank them into his wrist.
Dante yelped in surprise.
Sera cleared her throat. “Softer strike next time. And you don’t need to chew. We’re not werewolves and he’s not a steak.”
“No biggie.” Alex’s brother winced as she tried to slow down, to just let the blood flow over her tongue. “Takes a little practice on entry there. Vampiring 101.”
“Urm-shorry,” she mumbled through a mouthful of blood.
Tears filled her eyes. They had Alex. They’d been so close to getting away, to their chance to finally be together. He’d saved her. She’d been… hurt? Frowning, Dani tried to remember what exactly had happened, her head swimming every time she blinked.
There had been blood. She remembered that now. And before that—
Ava.
She stopped feeding with a gasp.
Dante quickly lifted his wrist to his lips, sealing the bite wound.
“I remember now,” Dani said urgently. “Evan texted me, then Nadine, saying Ava was hurt. She said I had to come home right away. I tried texting them back, but I couldn’t reach either of them.”
“The texts might have been faked. It’s a common scam.” Dante made a sound under his breath. “They know you’ll be so panicked over the thought of your loved one in danger that you won’t stop to question it.”
“When I got to the apartment, Lara was waiting for me.”
“Lara was the one who shot you?” Sera’s face darkened.
“She said Alex would never move on as long as I was alive. And that killing me was the only way to sever the bond and end his obsession with me.”
Sera swore. “She’s the one who’s completely obsessed. I can’t believe we didn’t see it before now.”
“That means she has Ava.” Dani started to get out of bed, only to collapse to the floor.
“You aren’t in any condition to be running around the sector.” Dante helped her up, easing her back onto the mattress.
“She has my sister. I can’t just sit here.”
“We don’t know that,” Sera said. “Lara could have made the whole thing up to mess with you. I’m calling Evan. Right now, until we confirm anything, the more pressing issue is finding a safe location to move to.” She turned to Dante. “Ideas?”
He worried the edge of his lip with a fang. “You’re not going to like it, but our best option is probably hiding out somewhere in the borderlands until this dies down.”
“Dani can’t safely dematerialize, not in her condition.” Sera rubbed her temples as she paced across the room. “It was a risk bringing her here at all, but we had no choice. It needs to be somewhere closer.”
“If we have to stay in this part of the sector, Evan and I have friends who would be willing to hide me,” Dani said. “I could call and ask.”
“Anyone with a connection to you or Evan will be the first ones they’ll check,” Dante pointed out.
“The whole city is searching for you. It’s all over the media feeds.
Lara is offering a reward for anyone with information that leads to your arrest. She knows you didn’t die back in the staged accident she set up back at your apartment.
You being alive poses a threat to her little coup attempt. We have to move.”
Dani opened her mouth to answer when a searing pain knifed through her chest. She screamed, arching off the bed.
“Shit!” Dante launched himself out of the chair. “Was it my blood? Is she having a reaction?”
“Hold her still.” Sera uncapped a syringe. “She’s shaking like crazy. We have to get her blood pressure down.”
Hands held her down. Dani could barely stop her teeth from chattering, couldn’t draw in a full breath. It felt like a pile of bricks was crushing her chest. Sera was just leaning over her with the syringe when she finally managed to gasp,
“It’s Alex.”
The two Visconti siblings froze.
“You can feel him?” Sera said, understanding in an instant.
Dante looked away, mouth pressed in a flat line as the implications became clear.
“He’s in pain. Oh gods. They’re hurting him.” Dani curled on her side, clawing at her chest. “Sera, they’re hurting him. I can’t breathe. I can’t—”
“That’s it. Dante, hold her down.”
“No, please don’t—”
She couldn’t lose this last connection to Alex, needed him to know that wherever he was, whatever was happening to him, she wasn’t leaving his side, would stay linked to him through the tether they shared, even if they could only touch each other through their bond.
If she could just hang on, just be there for him, she could give him the strength he needed to survive what lay ahead.
He had saved her that day in the auction house when he could have turned away.
She couldn’t fail him now.
“Your blood pressure is too high,” Sera said. “I’m sorry.”
“Wait, please—”
She felt the needle go in. As the room around her blurred, she prayed that Alex would still be there when she woke.
The next time Dani stirred back into consciousness, the pain in her side was gone, and she desperately needed to pee.
Sliding out of bed, she hurried to the tiny bathroom off the hall.
As she stood washing her hands with the slice of pale pink soap by the sink, she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
The dark circles beneath her eyes stood out in the harsh lighting. And yes, those were definitely fangs. She would have to learn not to bite herself. She lifted her shirt and found the bruising on her stomach was gone, the wound from where Lara had shot her completely healed over.
Did that mean she’d made it through the change?
Voices carried from down the hall. Snapping off the light, Dani padded out from the bathroom.