Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

"I tried to tell you, Dylan. This is what I am."

Chapter Sixteen

"Vampire."

Dylan heard the word slip past her lips, despite the fact that she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

In a matter of moments, Rio had transformed before her eyes. She stared in shock at the changes she'd just witnessed. His irises glowed like embers, no longer the smoky topaz color they normally were, but an incredible shade of amber that nearly swallowed up his impossibly thinned pupils. The bones of his face seemed starker now, lean, blade-sharp cheekbones and a squared jaw that seemed carved of stone.

And behind the lush cut of his mouth, Rio sported a pair of fangs like something straight out of the movies.

"You..." Her voice trailed off as those hypnotic amber eyes drank her in. She sat down weakly on the edge of the bed. "My God. You really are..."

"I am Breed," he said simply. "Just as I told you."

Seated in front of him, her vision filled with the broad musculature of his bare chest. The complicated pattern of skin markings on his forearms tracked up over his shoulders and down along his pectorals. The entire array of markings - dermaglyphs ,he'd called them the first time she noticed them - were livid with color now, the darkest they'd been yet. Deep reds, purples, and black saturated the beautiful flourishes and arcing lines.

"I can't stop the change," he murmured, as if he felt obligated to explain himself. "The transformation is automatic for every Breed male when he senses fresh spilled blood."

His gaze shifted slightly down from her eyes, to where her cheek burned from the bite of the glass that struck her. She felt the warm track of blood sliding toward her chin like a tear. Rio watched that droplet fall with an intensity that made Dylan tremble. He licked his lips and swallowed, but clamped his teeth together as rigidly as a vise.

"Stay here," he said, scowling hard, his voice dark and commanding.

Instinct told Dylan she might be smarter to run, but she refused to be afraid. Strange as it seemed, she felt she'd come to know this man over the past handful of days they'd been thrust together. Rio was no saint, that was for sure. He had abducted her, imprisoned her, and she still wasn't certain what he meant to do with her, but she didn't think he was a danger to her.

What she'd just witnessed here wasn't exactly cause for celebration, but in her heart, she didn't fear what he was.

Well, not completely, anyway.

The water was still running in the shower. She heard it turn off, then Rio came out holding a damp white washcloth. He offered it to her at arm's length. "Press this to the wound. It will stanch the bleeding."

Dylan took the cloth and held it to her cheek. She didn't miss Rio's long exhale as she covered the gash, like he was relieved he didn't have to look at it anymore. The fiery color of his eyes slowly began to dim, his slender pupils resuming their round shape. But his dermaglyphs were still flushed with color, and his fangs still looked deadly sharp.

"You really are...aren't you?" she murmured. "You're a vampire. Holy shit, I can't believe it's true. I mean, how can it be true, Rio?"

He sat down next to her on the bed, no less than two feet of space between them. "I already explained it to you."

"Blood-drinking extraterrestrials and human women with alien-friendly DNA," she said, recalling the outlandish story about a vampiric hybrid race she'd tried to dismiss as science fiction. "It's all fact?"

"The truth is a bit more complicated than your understanding of it, but yes. Everything I told you is fact."

Incredible.

Absolutely mind-blowingly incredible.

A mercenary part of her nearly shouted with excitement over the potential fame and fortune there would be in breaking such an enormous news story. But it was another part of her - the part that reminded her of the little birthmark on the back of her neck and its apparent connection to this strange new world - that made her feel instantly protective, as though Rio and the world he lived in was a delicious secret that belonged exclusively to her.

"I'm sorry I upset you," she told him quietly. "I shouldn't have been nosing around in your things when you weren't here."

His head came up sharply, dark brows crushed together. The curse he muttered was ripe and vivid. "You don't have to apologize to me, Dylan. I'm the one at fault. I should never have come in here the way I was. No one should be near me when I'm like that."

"You seem a little better now."

He nodded, head slumped down toward his chest. "The rage subsides...eventually. If I don't black out first, it does eventually pass."

It didn't take much to see him as he had been when he stumbled into his quarters a short while ago. He'd been almost mindless, his limbs hardly working as he struggled with each difficult step. He'd been barely coherent, a shuddering bulk of muscle and bone and unfocused fury.

"What brings it on, Rio?"