“You stay here. I’l go wake Cade.”
Bo turned and strode angrily across the room. If there had ever been a doubt about Cade’s ability, it was likely put to rest in both our minds when Bo opened the door to find Cade standing patiently on the other side, thick arms crossed casual y over his wide chest.
“You need me,” Cade stated, his deep voice scratchy.
He didn’t phrase it as a question because he had no doubts. It wasn’t real y him rubbing in his ability and his usefulness. It was Cade simply stating a fact, stating a conclusion that he’d come to in his own precognitive way.
Bo said nothing, simply turned sharply away from the door to come and stand at my side.
“Ridley thinks you might be able to help her—”
“Find Devon,” Cade interrupted. “I know. And I can.”
Bo and I glanced at one another. Cade’s round-about reiteration of his integral role in Bo’s destiny only seemed to further aggravate Bo. Unfortunately, Bo’s comfort had to take a backseat in this case.
“How does it work exactly?”
“For me, the visions just come unexpectedly. But for you, I’m not sure. Try focusing on what it is that you want to know.
I think that might help.”
“Okay,” I agreed automatical y, already wondering if I could manage to concentrate that ful y, that completely while drinking delicious human blood.
“Where would you like to do this?” Cade asked in a very considerate way.
“It doesn’t—” I began, but Bo interrupted abruptly.
“Not here. Anywhere but in here,” he ground out.
“How about—”
“And not your room either,” Bo said, not even letting Cade finish his suggestion.
“The living room then. Is that platonic enough for you?”
Cade’s eyes sparkled with a devilish light, but Bo didn’t appreciate his teasing. He nearly growled in his displeasure.
“Can you heal like we can? Because I’d be happy to test your resilience.”
Cade merely smiled. Amazingly, even in the face of Bo’s blatant threat, it was an unconcerned smile, almost amused.
“Shal we?” Cade asked, looking at me and tipping his head toward the door.
He led the way down the hal to the den area just off the kitchen, what he’d referred to as the living room. As we trailed him, I could plainly smel his growing desire. It made his blood smel sweet and musky. My body’s response was the burning in my throat and on my tongue and the extension of my fangs.
By the time Cade had stopped in front of the sofa and stretched out ful length upon it, I was having trouble control ing my urges and my thoughts. As I eyed the heavy pulse in Cade’s throat, I was nearly consumed by the remembered taste of his rich blood on my lips.
“Ridley!” Bo cal ed sharply, grabbing my arm to restrain me from going after Cade right away. “Focus. Remember what you’re trying to find out. Focus on Devon.”
Although his voice penetrated the al -consuming throb of Cade’s heartbeat as it rang in my ears, I had to struggle to assimilate what he’d said and make the necessary adjustments. When I’d managed to form a couple of coherent thoughts, I turned and nodded to Bo. Reluctantly, he released my arm, al owing me to approach Cade.
As I knelt in the floor, crouching in front of him, I glanced up at Cade’s face. It was etched with a blatant desire that only exacerbated the trouble I was having concentrating. Thus far, feeding had been so thoroughly comingled with sexual passion I wasn’t quite sure how to separate them now. And though Cade was no Bo, I felt his desire for me like a tangible thing.
“Do it,” Cade croaked, his voice thick with his own kind of need and want.
His heartbeat had quickened and his breath came in short huffs as he panted with anticipation.
Right before I drove my teeth into Cade’s throat, I heard the angry hiss of Bo’s breath through his teeth. It was fol owed by the frustrated stomp of his feet as he paced behind me, an animal caged by his situational impotence.
There was nothing he could do and he knew it.
That was my last thought for a few mindlessly satisfying moments. When Cade’s blood squirted from his artery and coated my tongue with warm, sticky sweetness, I lost al thought of anything or anyone else. I pul ed the heavenly fluid into my mouth in great gulps, reveling in the feel of it sliding down my throat, putting out the flames of my need.
At first, I thought nothing of strong arms coming around me and hauling me up onto a hard chest, of wide hands roaming my back and burying themselves in my hair. But then, a face drifted through my mind. It was Bo’s. In my mind’s eye, I could see the hurt on his face, the discomfort of having to watch me so intimately embraced by another man. And enjoying it, no less!
It was that realization, that shocking and painful thought that drew the curtain back from my mind and opened it up to clarity of purpose. Shifting atop Cade, I let my legs fal until my knees hit the floor again and I focused al my attention on sifting through a fuzzy mountain of images for the familiar face of my friend.
Final y, I saw Sebastian and Heather. They were standing in front of a dirt wal , staring at something. There was a lantern hanging from a hook buried in a wooden support beam to the left of Sebastian’s head and I could make out the hint of a shimmer in the dim light. There were several stakes emerging from different points in the vague shape, from what would’ve been shoulders and thighs I imagined.
A horrifying image from my own memory overwhelmed the picture for an instant. It was the picture of Bo, staked by Sebastian himself, hanging helplessly in just such a position only one floor above where I knelt in the floor.
Before I could get lost in the demons from my own mind, voices brought my attention back to the scene from Cade’s blood. Sebastian and Heather were walking away.
They made their way through what looked like a mine shaft, replete with dirt wal s and floor, and Y-shaped support beams spaced evenly along the length of the earthen tube.
“We’l keep him here until we find the other blood elements that I need,” Sebastian said.
“If you’l tel me what they are, who they are, I’l help you find them.”
Sebastian stopped, turning to Heather in the darkness.
He rubbed his thumb in an arc from her temple to the corner of her mouth and he smiled. The gesture was a bewitching curl of his lips that gave me chil s as if someone had just walked over my grave.