Dylan sat next to her on the couch and pulled her to him. What was he doing? Now he wanted to kiss her? Now he wanted them to be together? When he’d done nothing but make her believe he didn’t want that?
She had to agree with Schuyler and Oliver. Dylan was dangerous. He had changed. Was he corrupted? Was he turning into a Silver Blood? He’d taken Aggie, hadn’t he? After their meeting at the Odeon they had placed Dylan in the back of a taxi, and Bliss had had a quick, whispered conference with Sky and Ollie.
“He can’t be alone.”
“I’ll stay with him,” she’d promised them.
“Be careful. He’s not the same.”
“He’s not sane.”
“I know,” Bliss admitted.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.” That was Oliver. Always optimistic.
And now here she was, in this dirty, smelly room, with the boy she’d once loved so much her heart had ached for months after his disappearance.
Dylan peeled off his jacket. It was a nylon one, a light beige windbreaker, the kind they sold at warehouse stores where you could buy tires in the same aisle as your underwear. She dimly remembered stuffing a bloody leather jacket in the trash. Whatever happened to that? Incinerated.
She stiffened as his hand grazed her arm lightly.
“What are you doing?” she asked, wanting to be angry but feeling a rushing, queasy excitement instead. He was so different from the Red Blood boys she’d had. Mimi was right—there was something about being with your own kind that got the blood flowing in a different way.
He nuzzled her cheek. “Bliss . . .” The way he said her name, so softly, so intimately, his breath warm in her ear.
“Stay with me,” he said. Before she could even halfheartedly protest, he had deftly maneuvered it so they were lying on the couch, her knees underneath his, his thighs pressing against hers, his hands entwined in her hair, and she was running her hands all over his chest—he’d gotten scrawny, but there was a hardness to his muscles that hadn’t been there before—then his tongue was in her mouth . . . and it was so sweet. . . . She could feel the tears behind her eyes slipping down her cheek, and he was kissing those away too . . . God, she had missed him . . . He had hurt her, but maybe you only hurt the ones you love?
He fumbled for the hem of her shirt, and she helped him lift it up; he buried his face in the hollow beneath her neck, and then suddenly he jumped away, as if burned.
“You still have that thing,” he said, leaning as far back as he could, pressed up against the other end of the couch, away from her. “Palma Diabolos . . .” He was speaking in a language she could not understand.
“What?” she asked, still dizzy from his kisses. Still feeling drunk with his scent. She looked at where he was pointing.
The necklace. Lucifer’s Bane. The emerald hung in a chain over her heart. Somehow she had never returned it to her father’s safe. Somehow she had gotten into the habit of wearing it everywhere.
It comforted her to know it was there. When she touched it, she felt . . . better. Safe. More like herself.
Dylan looked stricken. “I can’t kiss you with that thing around your neck.”
“What?” Bliss pulled her shirt back over her head.
He continued to look as if he’d been poisoned. “You’ve been wearing that all along. So that’s why I couldn’t . . . I knew there was a reason.” Then he was babbling again. In a different language. This time it sounded Chinese.
Bliss put her shirt back on. He was incredible. She’d been a total idiot. Okay, so maybe she’d promised Schuyler and Oliver she’d keep an eye on him, but it wasn’t like he was a danger anymore. He knew Schuyler wasn’t a Silver Blood. Plus, he was old enough to take care of himself.
She certainly wasn’t going to stay here one second longer. She was humiliated. She had no idea how he really felt about her. He ran hot and cold. One minute he was ripping her clothes off, and the next minute he was cringing away from her as if her body were the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. She was tired of this game.
“You’re leaving?” Dylan asked as she gathered her things and headed toward the door.
“For now.”
He gazed at her sadly. “I miss you when you’re gone.”
Bliss nodded as if he’d just told her something innocuous about the weather. Dylan could take his hangdog eyes and his sexy voice somewhere else. She just wanted to be alone.
ELEVEN
Last call, guys,” the waitress informed them ““Another Campari?” she asked Oliver.
He rattled the ice cubes and emptied his cocktail glass in one gulp. “Sure.”
“Anything for you?”
Schuyler considered another glass of Johnnie Walker Black. She used to hate the taste of whiskey but lately had developed a liking for it. It was fiery and sweet and succulent—the closest thing you could get to the taste of blood. Oliver had once asked her to describe what it tasted like, since he didn’t see the appeal. To him, blood tasted metallic and faintly sweet. Schuyler explained that vampires tasted blood with a different sense—it was like drinking fire.