Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

He stared at her, unblinking, heatedly intense. "I am one of the Breed, Dylan. In your lexicon, for lack of a better term, I am a vampire."

For one stunned second, she thought she had misunderstood him. Then, all the unease and tension that she had been feeling since Rio had walked into the room vanished in a great rush of relief.

"Oh, my God!" She couldn't hold back her laughter. It barked out of her almost hysterically, a flood of disbelief and amusement washing away all her anxiety in an instant. "A vampire. Really? Because, you know, that makes so much more sense than everything I was guessing you might be. Not military, not a government spy, or a terrorist operative, but a vampire!"

He wasn't laughing.

No, he simply stood there, unmoving. Watching her. Waiting until she looked up and met his unsmiling eyes.

"Oh, come on," she chided him. "You can't possibly expect me to believe that."

"I realize it must be difficult to grasp. But it's the truth. That's what you asked for, Dylan. What you've been asking for since the moment you and I first saw each other - the truth. Now you have it."

Good Lord, he seemed so serious about all of this. "What about the other people living here? And don't try to tell me that there's no one else in this huge estate because I've heard them walking the hallways, and I've heard muffled conversations. So, what about them? Are they vampires too?"

"Some," he said quietly. "The males are Breed. The females living here in this Darkhaven are human. Breedmates...like you."

Dylan recoiled internally. "Stop saying that. Stop trying to pretend that I'm a passenger on this crazy train with you. You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough." He cocked his head at her, a move that seemed almost animalistic. Unconsciously so. "The mark on you is all I need to know about you, Dylan. You are a part of this now, an inextricable part. Whether or not either of us like that fact."

"Well, I don't like it," she blurted out, getting anxious again. "I want you to let me out of this room. I want to go back to my home, back to my family and my job. I want to forget all about that fucking cave and you."

He gave a slow shake of his dark head. "It's too late for that. There's no going back, Dylan. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry," she hissed. "I'll tell you what you are. You're insane! You're sick in your goddamn head - "

With a smooth flex of muscle, he came out of his lean near the wall and within one instant he was standing in front of her. Not even a bare inch separated them. He reached out as if he was going to touch her cheek, his fingers hovering so near, yet resisting.

Dylan's heart slammed in her chest but she didn't move away. She couldn't - not when he was holding her in that smoldering, almost hypnotic, topaz gaze.

Was she breathing? God help her, she wasn't sure. She waited to feel his touch light on her skin, astonished to realize just how badly she wanted it. But on a slow growl, he let his hand fall back down to his side.

He bent his head close to her ear. His deep voice was a whisper of heat across her throat. "Eat your meal, Dylan. It would be a shame to waste good food when you know you need the nourishment."

Well, that went down about as smoothly as a glass of razor blades.

Rio locked her door, then stormed into his adjacent guest room, hands clenched at his sides. There had been a time when he would have carried out a task like this with charm and diplomacy. Hard to imagine himself in that role now. He'd been blunt and ineffective, and he couldn't blame all of that on his lingering head trauma or the hunger that was gnawing at him like wolves on carrion.

He didn't know how to handle Dylan Alexander.

He didn't know what to make of her, or what to make of his own unwilling reaction to her.

Since Eva, there hadn't been another woman to pique his interest beyond the most basic physical need. Once he'd been strong enough to leave the compound - long weeks into his recovery - Rio had satisfied his carnal itch the same way he slaked his hunger for blood. With cold, impersonal efficiency. It seemed so strange to him, a male who had unrepentantly enjoyed life's many pleasures as a vital part of living itself.

But he hadn't always been that way. It had taken him many years to rise above the dark origins of his birth and do something meaningful, to make something good of his life. He thought he had. Hell, he'd really thought he'd had it all. It vanished in an instant - one blinding, white-hot instant a summer ago, when Eva sold the Order out to their enemy.

Rio had long thought his Breedmate's betrayal had ruined him for anyone else, and a part of him had been glad to be rid of emotional entanglements and the complications that came with them.

But now there was Dylan.

And she was in that next room thinking he was a lunatic. Not that far off the mark, he admitted grimly. What would she think once she realized that what he'd told her just now was the truth?

It didn't matter.

Before long, she would know everything. A decision would be placed before her, and she would have to choose her path: a life in the sheltering arms of the Darkhavens, or a return to her old life, back among humankind.

He didn't plan on sticking around to find out which door she picked. He had his own path to walk, and this was merely a frustrating detour.