Kiss of Crimson(75)

She flipped the cell phone closed and shut the ringer off altogether. She didn‘t want to talk anymore, not to anyone.

As Tess walked over to put the cell on her desk, her gaze caught on something else that had been troubling her since she‘d found it earlier that morning. It was a computer flash drive, a slim, portable data-storage device. She‘d discovered it underneath the lip of the examination table in one of her clinic rooms—the very room where Ben had been yesterday, when she‘d caught him

unexpectedly and he‘d made excuses that he came in to repair the table‘s sticky hydraulics. Tess had suspected he wasn‘t being truthful with her—about a lot of things. Now she knew that was the case. But the question was, why?



In a furious mental outburst, Dante glared at his cell phone and sent the device hurtling against the opposite wall of his living quarters. It shattered with the impact, emitting a shower of sparks and smoke as it broke into a hundred tiny pieces. The destruction was satisfying, if brief. But it did nothing to assuage his anger, all of it self-directed. Dante resumed the tight pacing he‘d been doing while on the phone with Tess. He needed to be moving now. He just needed to keep his limbs in action, his mind alert.

He‘d been making a brilliant mess of everything lately. While he‘d never held an inkling of regret for being born of the Breed, now his vampire blood seethed with frustration over the fact that he was trapped inside. Denied the possibility of fixing things with Tess until the sun finally retreated below the horizon and freed him to move about in her world.

He thought the wait was going to drive him out of his mind.



It nearly had.

By the time he went to find Tegan in the training facility at a few minutes to sundown, his skin was hot and prickling, too tight everywhere. He was antsy and itching for combat. His ears were ringing, the incessant buzz like a swarm of bees in his blood.

―You ready to roll, T?‖

The tawny-haired Gen One warrior looked up from the Beretta he was loading and gave a cold smile as the clip snapped into place. ―Let‘s do it.‖

Together they headed up the winding corridor of the compound to the elevator that would take them to the Order‘s fleet garage on street level. As the doors closed, Dante‘s nostrils began to tickle with the acrid tang of smoke. He glanced at Tegan, but the other male seemed unaffected, his gem-green eyes fixed before him, characteristic in their unblinking, emotionless calm.

The elevator car began its silent climb upward. Dante felt an intense heat lapping at him from the ghost of a flame, just waiting for him to slow down enough that it could catch him. He knew what this was, of course. The death vision had been dogging him all day, but he‘d managed to beat it back, refusing to give in to the sensory torture when he needed his head fully in the game tonight.

But now, as the elevator reached its destination, the precognition slammed into his head like a hammer. Dante went down on one knee, leveled by the force of the hit.

―Jesus,‖ Tegan said from beside him as Dante felt the warrior take his arm to keep him from sprawling on the elevator floor. ―What the hell?

You all right?‖

Dante couldn‘t answer. His sight filled with billowing black smoke shot with bright plumes of flame. Over the crackle and hiss of encroaching fire, he could hear someone talking—taunting him, it seemed—the voice low, indistinct. This was new, a further detail in the elusive nightmare he‘d come to know so well.

He blinked away some of the haze, struggling to stay present. To stay conscious. He caught a glimpse of Tegan‘s face in front of him. Shit, he must look bad, because the warrior who was known for his ruthless lack of feeling now suddenly flinched back, pulling his hand away from Dante‘s arm with a hiss. Behind his pained grimace, the tips of Tegan‘s fangs shone white. His light brows dropped down low over his narrowed emerald eyes.

―Can‘t... breathe... ‖ Dante gasped, every panting breath he took dragging more phantom smoke into his lungs. Choking him. ―Ah, God... dying... ‖

Tegan‘s eyes bored into him, flinty sharp. His gaze was unsympathetic but level with a strength Dante knew would keep him steady.

―You hang on,‖ Tegan demanded. ―It‘s a vision, it‘s not reality. Not yet, anyway. Now, stay in there, ride it out. Go back as far as you can, and absorb all of the detail.‖

Dante let the images swamp him once more, knowing Tegan was right. He had to open his mind to the pain and fear so he could look past it to the truth.

Panting, his skin searing from the heat of the inferno surging all around him, Dante forced himself to focus on his surroundings. To place himself deeper into the moment. He stretched his mind backward from the worst of the vision, halting the action, then sending it into reverse. The flames shrank away. The smoke reduced from massive, roiling clouds of black ash to thin gray tendrils that crept in along the ceiling. Dante could breathe now, but fear still clogged his throat with the realization that these would be his last few minutes of life.