She took him in from his Italian designer shoes to his perfectly tailored suit, to his blood-red shirt that matched his eyes and his jet-black jacket as dark as his hair. What, she wondered, would happen if he lost control?
“I would bite you back. In a bloodlust, I would react much the same way you react with your mate.” He grinned, showing perfectly white, straight teeth and sharp fangs. “I would…how did you so eloquently put it? Ah, ‘go all horny and practically dive into your pants.’”
Uh-oh.
“Yes, exactly. But there are measures we can take. And I really need to teach you how to block your thoughts.”
“Can’t you just cut yourself and put it in a glass or something?”
“Straight from the vein, or it has no potency at all.”
Before long, Ricardo was strapped to a chair in the cabin and bound with netting Stefan said was used to secure loose items being transported. It all seemed a little excessive to Elena, but all of this was new to her, so she just stood back while Margarita tied one last knot in the rope around the vampire’s arms, then put a large silver cuff over each wrist. Stefan sat on the edge of the seat facing them.
“The neck is the best location. The fastest. And do me a favor,” Ricardo added. “Think of something awful. Something other than your mate or me or what you are doing. Think of paint drying or something utterly boring, okay?”
“Can’t you turn the mind-reading thing off?”
“Sadly, no. But I can’t read everyone’s mind. Time Folders and Slayers for example, are immune.”
“But you can hear me all the time?”
“Like a bullhorn in my brain, baby.”
Shit.
“Exactly. Now, let’s get this over with.”
His voice was tinged with a Spanish accent that was appealing. And as she got closer, she noticed he smelled like starch and clean linen.
“Stop it. You hate my voice, and I smell bad. Like horse manure.”
And soap and shaving cream. The blood pulsed just under the surface of his skin, and her body approved with a sharp pulsing of her canine teeth.
“I am so screwed,” he groaned.
She leaned down, but for some reason, despite the aching in her teeth, she couldn’t go through with it.
“Do it now,” he ordered.
Nik. She would do this for Nik. She had to be strong to save Nik and the baby.
“And your people,” Ricardo added. “And stop thinking about him. Think about drying paint and do it.”
She bit down hard and he gasped. His blood didn’t taste like Nik’s. It was more metallic. Still, it felt amazing as it charged straight to her veins. This couldn’t be right. She didn’t want to be unfaithful to Nik. This was wrong.
“No. Don’t stop. You’re not cheating. You’re not fucking me. You’re getting strong so you can save the guy you want to fuck.”
He had that right. Boring thoughts… Drying paint. Being stuck in traffic. Logging entries in the research journal. Looking at slides through a microscope. Vacuuming the blue velour sofas. Folding clothes.
His body relaxed, and she kept monotonous thoughts running through her head. And then, the visions started. Nik was chained by his ankles and wrists to a stone wall like out of some medieval horror movie, being questioned by a huge Slayer wearing black leather. The Slayer held a club like the kind cops used. She couldn’t hear anything, like watching TV with the volume turned off, but the man would talk, and when Nik didn’t answer, he would hit him in the head with the club. Over and over and over, he slammed the club into Nik’s head until blood ran from his nose and mouth and his body went limp. Then he turned to talk to someone else in the room.
“Enough,” Ricardo whispered from far, far away. “Stop now, Elena.”
Like an app being closed in her brain, the images stopped. Still latched on to his neck, her current reality replaced the horror she had just seen. She pulled away and her canine teeth retracted. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Your thoughts were a jumble. All I got was no, no, no.”
She stared down at the bound vampire, still horrified by what she’d seen in the vision. Before her eyes, the marks on Ricardo’s neck closed and faded. Nik was immortal. His wounds would fade, too, if she could get there in time.
“She has visions. She saw him beaten,” the vampire said, obviously hearing her thoughts. “Only seers can see the present or future. It is not a Dhampir ability at all. What the hell is she?”
The two men exchanged glances.
“What did you see, Elena?” Stefan asked in a calm, soothing voice across from where Ricardo was bound to the seat.
“They are torturing him.” Her voice was so low she wasn’t sure she had said it out loud.
“Of course they are,” Ricardo said. “That’s not helpful information. What else did you see?”
“Nothing. Only another Slayer—huge with long, black hair. He was beating him.” Elena shuddered. “And there was someone else in the room. Someone I didn’t see.”