Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Like an angel, ah, kiddo, that doesn’t even begin to cover it .

The man strokes Dante’s hair, curls a black lock around his finger. Fucker’s name is Eddie. He’s visited Dante in the basement a bunch of times. This time he brought a present—a handful of comics. Dante wishes he’d finish and leave so he can look at the comics and practice his reading. And, later, share them with Chloe .

This time Eddie’s tender and full of careful kisses. Some of the things he does feel good, make Dante close his eyes and suck in a breath. Yeah, feels good, but he still hates Eddie and everyone else who tromps down those fucking basement steps .

Do you think you could love me?

Nope .

If I had Papa remove your handcuffs, could you love me then? Nope. I’d kill you then .

When Eddie leaves, the fucker takes the comics with him . And Papa, pissed as hell, comes downstairs .

The world spun away. Time spun away.

And Dante felt himself falling and falling and falling.

Damascus, OR

March 25

THE SEIZURE ENDED.

Dante laid motionless on the floor, eyes closed, his breathing ragged. Sweat trickled down his temples, blood from his mouth and nose. Heather knelt beside him. She blinked hard until her vision cleared. Her hands trembled as she pushed his hair back from his face.

“You’re killing him,” she said, her throat almost too tight for words. She shifted her gaze to Athena/Hades. “He’s not going to remember. For all you know, your father programmed a self-destruct safeguard into Dante’s mind.”

“Self-destruct,” Athena/Hades mused. She tilted her head. “You might be right. I wanted him to know why he was killing father, but maybe that doesn’t matter.”

“I thought Dante was supposed to heal you.”

“Heal me?” Athena/Hades smiled. “No.”

“But your brother said—”

“I said what?” Lyons asked. He walked into the room, a body slung over his shoulder. Sneakers, taped ankles, black jeans, and a black sweater, hands flex-cuffed behind the back, slim but rounded hips—female.

“That you wanted Dante to heal your sister,” Heather said.

“I don’t need to be healed,” Athena/Hades said. “I’m who I was intended to be.”

A dark, desperate emotion flitted across Lyons’s face. “Of course, but Dante can make it so you’ll never need meds again. You’ll be able to sleep.”

“We won’t need sleep once we’re joined—Conqueror, Counselor, and Creator.”

“Do you know how we’ll be joined?”

The whisper-wind sprang to life. “Holytrinitydantewillmakeusoneholytrinity…”

Shooting Heather a furious look, Lyons dumped the woman he was carrying onto the sofa. She landed on her side, her dark hair fanning across her face. Duct tape sealed her lips. She was conscious and her calm gaze skipped from Heather to Dante. Recognition sparked in her hazel eyes.

She knows who we are or who Dante is, at least .

She also seemed to be very cool and collected for a woman bound and gagged and about to be offered to nightkind. Heather wondered who she was and how she’d ended up on Lyons’s sofa.

“Your father wanted to know if Dante had compromised your humanity,” Lyons said, his gaze locking with Heather’s. “Betcha he’d give you up to the SB without hesitation if he believed Dante had.”

Heather held his gaze. “Is that the best you can do?”

A muscle in Lyons’s jaw flexed. “Just warming up.” Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out a pocketknife. He flipped open the blade. “Ever seen your boyfriend feed?”

A chill touched Heather’s heart. She remembered Rodriguez’s body sprawled on the floor of his office. Remembered how Dante had torn into Étienne at the slaughterhouse in New Orleans. Remembered the pungent tang of spilled blood.

Lyons bent over the woman on the sofa and nicked her throat with the knife. A thin line of blood trickled from the cut, disappearing into the collar of her sweater. Then Lyons swiveled around and passed the knife’s bloodied blade underneath Dante’s nose.

“Wake up and feast,” Lyons said.

Dante’s nostrils flared. His eyes opened. “J’ai faim,” he whispered.

HOLDING HER BREATH IN the stinking room, Annie hurriedly unbuckled the last strap around the man’s ankle. He eased up into a sitting position, then swung his legs off the bed. One slippered foot brushed against the IV stand, an IV stand topped with a woman’s gray-haired head, her face with its gaping mouth aimed like a spotlight—a flesh spotlight—at his bed. Something Annie was trying hard to avoid looking at again.

And failing.

When she’d seen Alex come out of this room with a woman draped over his shoulder, she’d wondered just how many people the Psycho Twins had stashed in their House of Horrors. Wondered if anyone she found and freed would help her rescue Heather and Dante.

“Who are you?” the man whispered. He seemed to be close to her father’s age, maybe a bit older, with graying blond hair.

“Annie,” she whispered. “Who are you?”

“Bob.”

Annie glanced at the door. It was awfully quiet out there. She crept across the carpeted floor to the doorway and listened. A low voice, then another. No sound of footsteps headed down the hall. She released her breath, relief curling through her.

Glancing back at Bob, she noticed the glass sitting on the nightstand beside his bed/prison. Her throat felt cactus-spiked. “Is that water?”

Bob followed her gaze to the glass. “Yes.”

Carefully skirting the IV stand and its flesh spotlight, Annie laid the pocketknife down on the nightstand and grabbed up the glass. She drank the room-temperature water down in two throat-stretching gulps and wished for more. When she set the glass back down on the nightstand, she noticed the pocketknife was gone.

Musta fallen, she thought, scanning the beige carpet.

The bedsprings squeaked as Bob stood up.

“Did you see where my knife went?” she whispered.

Bob’s arm slipped around her shoulders as if for support and he leaned against her, stinking of BO and piss like an old wino. “It’s right here,” he murmured and pressed something sharp and steel-cold against her throat.

DANTE BAPTISTE ROLLED ONTO his knees, his gaze on Caterina’s bleeding throat. Hunger and delirium burned in his dark, dilated eyes. His beautiful face was etched with pain. Weariness smudged the skin beneath his eyes blue. He knee-walked to the sofa, then pressed himself against it.

Heather Wallace was kneeling on the floor behind him, her attention not on Dante, but focused on something either on the floor or maybe under the sofa. Caterina wondered what she’d discovered, hoped it was a possible weapon. She’d seen bitter hatred simmering in Wallace’s eyes when she’d locked gazes with Lyons.

A hatred Caterina understood and shared.

Dante’s screams still echoed in her mind. Dante might have escaped Bad Seed but his torture had never ended.

Dante leaned over Caterina. He lowered his face to her throat, his lips parting and revealing the points of his fangs. Wishing she had the use of her hands, Caterina tried to shake her hair back, then arched her neck to make it easier for him to feed since he also didn’t have the use of his hands.