"It's no mistake. God, I wish it was, but I saw him with my own eyes, and I've seen surveillance footage of him collected by the warriors as well. He and a group of other Darkhaven youths--all Rogues now--were caught on satellite, attacking a human in full public view."
"I need to see it."
"No, trust me, you don't--"
"Sterling, listen to me. Camden is my son. He's all I have left. If he's done these things, as you say--if he's become such an animal and you have some proof of this--I have a right to see it for myself."
Chase drummed his fingers on the roof of the black Porsche, knowing that none of the warriors was going to appreciate him bringing a civilian into the compound.
"Sterling, are you there?"
"Yeah. I'm still here."
"If you care the least bit for me or for your brother's memory, then please, let me see my son."
"Okay," he said, relenting at last and consoling himself with the idea that if he granted her this dubious request, he would at least be present to catch Elise when she fell. "I have some business topside, but I'll swing by the Darkhaven in about an hour to pick you up."
"I'll be waiting." That incredible warmth was back, Tess mused from within the dark tide that held her. She stretched her senses toward the engulfing heat, toward the wondrous scent and taste of the liquid fire that fed her. Conscious thought seemed to dance just out of her reach, but her nerve endings clicked on like strings of tiny lights, as though her body was slowly thawing, coming alive inch by inch, cell by cell, after a long, cold sleep.
"Drink," a deep voice beckoned her, and she did.
She drew more of the heat into her mouth, swallowing it down in greedy pulls. A strange awakening began somewhere deep inside her as she drank from the source of that powerful warmth. It started in her fingers and toes, then spread up into her limbs, an electricity that hummed through her in undulating waves.
"That's it, Tess. Take more. Just keep drinking, angel."
She couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted to. It seemed as though each sip made her thirsty for another, every swallow only adding fuel to the fire that was building within the very core of her. She felt like an infant at its mother's breast, vulnerable and uninitiated, trusting completely, needing on the most basic level.
She was being given life; she knew this in that primitive part of her mind. She had been near death, maybe close enough to touch it, but this warmth--this dark elixir--had pulled her back.
"More," she croaked. At least she thought she had spoken. The voice she heard sounded distant and weak. So desperate. "More... "
Tess shuddered as an abrupt absence of warmth answered her demand. No, she thought, a dark panic rising with the loss. He was leaving her now. Her protective angel was gone, along with the font of life he' d given her. She moaned weakly, forcing her listless hands to reach out and search for him.
"Dante... "
"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
The chill vanished as a heavy weight settled in alongside her. Heat warmed her entire length, heat from him as he pulled her up against him. She felt strong fingers at her nape, guiding her head closer to his voice, pressing her mouth to the firm column of his neck. Warm, wet skin met her lips.
"Come here, Tess, and drink from me. Take all you need."
Drink from him? Some fading part of her consciousness rejected the idea as nonsensical, unthinkable, but another part of her--the part that was still spinning wildly in the tide, grasping for solid ground-- made her mouth seek out that which he so willingly offered.
Tess parted her lips and sucked long and hard, filling her mouth with the roaring force of Dante's gift.
Holy. Hell.
As Tess locked her mouth down over the vein he'd opened for her in his neck, Dante's entire body went as taut as a bowstring. The hungry suction of her lips, the silky caress of her tongue as she drew his blood into her mouth and swallowed it, made his cock stand up at attention, a fierce, stone-hard erection like he'd never experienced before.
He hadn't known how intense it would be to let her drink from him so intimately. This was the first time in all his existence that he'd ever given his blood to another. He had always been the taker, feeding out of necessity and often for pleasure, but never with a Breedmate.
Never with a woman who moved him the way Tess did.
And the fact that she fed from him now out of pure survival instinct, because his blood was the very thing--the only thing--her body needed in this moment, just made the act all the more erotic to him. His sex throbbed, hungry and demanding, a heavy pressure that he wanted to ignore but couldn't.
Christ, but it felt as if she were sucking on that very male part of him, each pull of her mouth ratcheting him up tighter, nearly sending him straight over the edge. With a groan, Dante fisted his hands in the silk sheets of his bed, holding on as Tess fed from him in primal need.
Her fingers started twitching where they clutched his shoulders, kneading his muscles in a mindless rhythm as she continued to draw his blood into her mouth. Dante felt her strength coming back to her with each passing minute. Her breathing grew deeper, no more the rapid, shallow compression of her lungs but a cadence of long, healthy draws.