Page 10 of Dark Reign of Forever

Dominique waited, flattened by the power of his sudden longing for Jackson’s blood, his mind…his trust.

Jackson pushed back his chair and stood. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Cassidy repeated, straightening.

“Yes. Fine. If that’s what it’ll take for you to trust me with this, then you can—” He gestured resignation with one hand. “You can—God help me—feedfrom me.” He scrubbed the same hand over his face. “Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

A nameless thrill raced along Dominique’s nerves.

Hell may have just frozen over,Cassidy thought, but kept her expression remarkably neutral.

Nonsense. I am impossible to resist, non?Dominique countered, grateful for the humor to break the tension. She squeezed her lips together, but he heard the derisive snort in his mind.

“You realize that once my serum is in your blood, there is nothing you can hide from me.”

“Plus, I’m opening myself up to major compulsion. Yes, I’m very aware. Remind me again, why don’t you, and I’ll change my mind.”

Dominique got up and moved around the dining room table, one hand caressing the brocade backs of the chairs he passed. The thump of Jackson’s heart began to drown out the Euro-jazz streaming over the house sound system. “Blood offered without compulsion or deception and with full knowledge of the consequences…that is precious to me beyond words. I shall not abuse such a gift.”

The human’s bright eyes blazed. “I’m letting you see what you need to decide. That’s all this is. Get what you need and get out.”

Dominique stopped in front of him and produced his most disarming smile. That wasn’t how he fed.

“I know why seeing the sun again means so much to me, but tell me this…” In a blur of speed, he had his mouth against the slightly taller man’s ear and whispered, “Why is this so important to you?”

“What the fuck?” Jackson yelped but caught himself, jerking his head aside only a little. The artery in his neck pulsed with shimmering life energy, but the thin, silver chain stuck to his clammy skin drew more of Dominique’s attention. If he wanted to avoid having his mouth burned by this, he’d have to take care, which was probably why the hunter wore it. “Maybe turning you back into a human is less trouble than having to kill you.”

“Awwchèr,” Dominique said with a sigh. “I always knew you cared.”

“Don’t get all weir—” The last word ended in a gasp as Dominique’s teeth pierced the skin.

Hot, intoxicating blood filled his mouth, thick, salty, and powerfully male. One swallow, two, and then the blood no longer mattered. Then he had the mind.

Though Jackson wasn’t aware of him in his mind, his thoughts bristled with a well-practiced obscuring anger. Dominique brushed against it like a summer wind over a frozen lake. Without something concrete to rail against, the anger quickly crumbled.

No, Jackson was no blood-drinker advocate. Far from it. He either pitied or despised them, and could kill them with the same ease others crushed bugs. There was only one vampire he credited with any honor at all, even if that individual was a rival for the affections of a woman he knew would never have him again. So it was for his lingering love for Cassidy and for his growing respect for Dominique that Jackson Striker had spared no expense in finding the cure Dominique sought so desperately.

It was all there. The researchers, the experiments, the fascination and the hope. Even the rats. Their tiny fangs and supernatural reflexes appalled Dominique, and he was stunned when they succumbed to the day and then were dosed with tiny needles. Within moments, they jerked back to consciousness.

At the awe-filled memory of seeing them blink peacefully in the light of day, Dominique stopped drinking. He licked the punctures closed slowly, but did not release Jackson, who remained stiff in his arms.

The rats reverted to their true natures as night returned. In their steel security cages, they were ruthless with their mortal brethren and with each other. In his memories, Jackson flinched to see a vampire animal dispatch its mortal companion with bloody brutality.

Instantly, his memories flashed to another place only five years in the past. Deep underground, in a long-abandoned subway station, Jackson’s mirror image, his twin, Justin, stood cornered and bug-eyed by a male vampire. To Dominique, the blood-drinker appeared uncoordinated and panicked. To the humans, that didn’t matter.

“Why isn’t it asleep? What’s wrong with it?” Justin shrieked. They were to be his last coherent words before he was shoved against the filthy tile wall, his throat torn open.

The hunters had tracked the vampire there. With the sun up for almost an hour now, he should have been an easy target to dispatch. He was anything but. Justin screamed and clawed at the creature while Jackson threw himself onto its back, roaring with bravado, and drove a small dagger into the vampire’s collar. In the next instant, a geyser of blood hit his face. Then he was airborne, followed by a hard tumble over the ground.

When he righted himself, ready to spring up again, he saw the vampire come for him, fangs bared and covered in blood, morphing into a snarling, skeletal incarnation of terror. Jackson raised his hand, blocking the inevitable, when a sword blade flashed from the side, taking off the vampire’s arm. Not until much later would Jackson realize that two of his fingers had also come off.

The sword slashed again, and this time hacked off the head. The body pitched forward. One of the clawed hands slammed into Jackson’s leg and scraped downward, cutting a deep gash into his inside thigh. Uncle Garrett kicked the head and the arm into a sewer drain. Jackson’s fingers went with them, though he didn’t know, nor care, petrified with shock. He swayed on his feet, ears ringing. The room spun.

Garrett, looking every inch the blood-spattered warrior, surveyed the scene, his face hard with rage. Only when Jackson staggered and crumpled to the ground did Garrett turn to see the blood pooling around his nephew. He fashioned a crude tourniquet high on the leg with a strip of rope and the dagger. “We need to get you to a hospital,” he said, pulling Jackson back to his feet and preparing to half-carry him. “Hold it together.”

“Justin. We can’t…we need to—” He strained toward the motionless body, but froze when he saw the ragged stump of his brother’s neck, the head gone.

“It’s too late for him, kid, and I’ll be damned if I lose you, too.”

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