Catch

Chapter Seven

The momentum of Tane shoving me off his chest as Rurik came into the room sent me bouncing on the covers. I flinched, expecting pain to tear through me, yet nothing happened.

“I was healing her.” Tane sounded as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I had to admit it looked bad. He only wore track pants and I wore nothing except my birthday suit, but come on, it was Tane. We could barely stand each other and on top of it, he was gay.

Rurik slammed the tray of food he carried onto a nearby coffee table. The plate rattled and the drink slopped over the edge of the glass. “You had to wait until I left and sneak in here like a rat?” He crossed the room and shoved the Nosferatu against the wall.

Tane didn’t fight back. He allowed Rurik to push him. The Master of all vampires could turn my lover inside out if he wanted to, however he did not deflect Rurik’s fury.

He diverted his gaze to the floor as if he couldn’t meet his friend’s glare. His head bounced off the wall as Rurik shoved him again with more homicidal force.

“How could you betray me like this?” Rurik shouted in Tane’s face. “It’s not enough you steal her bond, you need to seduce her as well?”

I sat up and pulled the covers to my chest. A flush of color rose in Tane’s cheeks. He glanced at me over Rurik’s shoulder. No desire lived in his stare. He didn’t want me. My lover saw things that didn’t exist.

Watching these two predators face off, I recalled their friendship, their letters.

They’d known each other longer than I’d been alive. An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

“Don’t touch her. Understand me?” Rurik tried to shove Tane out of the room, but the Nosferatu grabbed his wrist.

“She’s my blood slave. Don’t make me quote our laws.” The mask of guilt he wore crumbled and the anger that seethed when Tane first entered the room resurfaced. A vein pulsed in his temple as he held my lover back.

“You can choke on those laws. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“Which is why I’ll let you keep her!” Tane released Rurik then stomped across the room and threw himself onto the sofa. Crossing his arms over his chest, he glowered at us. “She’s healed, you’re welcome.”

Rurik turned toward me and quirked an eyebrow in my direction.

I twisted at the hips and showed him my back.

He ran his hand over my skin. “Beautiful. Not a scar.” It gave me a pleasant shiver.

Most relationships lose that magic touch, the one which makes us quiver inside from just a brush of fingertips. He still did it to me. “It’s the least you could do after placing her in harm’s way.”

“What?” The disbelief in Tane’s voice rung true.

Wheeling back around, I saw him lean forward and brace the edge of the sofa seat with his hands.

“I didn’t swing the whip.” His knuckles turned white.

Rurik stood between us, his back to me. “You didn’t answer their demands. I saw what you let them do to Eric. You would have let them do it to Connie.”

If the tension got any thicker in the room, I’d drown in it. I reached out and touched Rurik’s hand. “He did his best to make them stop hurting me.”

He glanced at me over his shoulder.

“Tane really did try. They were going to kill us no matter what he told them.” I glanced past my lover to my demon. A glimpse of gratitude flickered in his eyes, but it passed too quickly for me to be sure. “There’s nothing for you to worry about, Tane doesn’t like women, remember?”

My statement didn’t have the reaction I’d hope for. Rurik’s brow furrowed and he frowned at me while shaking his head. “Don’t be so naïve. He likes both.”

A slap to the face would have surprised me less.

Rurik sat on the edge of the bed next to me and faced his so-called friend.

He had touched me, hell, he had licked me. God, I could be so stupid. I glared at my blood master across the room who sat with an innocent angel’s expression on his face. I mouthed the word asshole in his direction.

For a brief moment, he struggled to hide a smile.

Had he been trying to seduce me? Like that would have happened, give me some credit. I wanted to laugh out loud, except my night had already been filled with violence and I didn’t think insulting Tane would be such a smart move. I defended the fiend instead just to make peace between them. “He wasn’t trying to seduce me, only heal me.”

“But you drank from him.” Rurik glared at me.

I nodded. No need to bring up the licking part.

“Your bond to him is real then.” It sounded like he didn’t want it to be true. The defeat in his words hurt me.

“Your love binds you both together. It’s something just as strong.” Tane’s soft words barely reached my ears. “You must have suspected she was changing, otherwise you never would have brought her to my city.”

Sorrow aged Rurik’s immortal face as he lifted my chin so our gazes could meet.

“Change?” I felt my eyes go wide. Even with the blankets wrapped tight around me, I seemed very exposed. I looked from him to my lover as if they’d grown horns from their heads.

“The bloodlust,” Rurik answered.

Oh that, I didn’t understand the concern. “Aren’t I supposed to want your blood?

You told me I would need to feed from you—or I guess Tane—to stay alive.” Not once had Rurik hinted that my hunger concerned him. Why did we keep secrets from each other?

“Yes, but not crave it like…like one of us.” Rurik gestured to himself and Tane. His brow furrowed.

“You never mentioned it was out of the ordinary.” I growled out the statement. The heat of a blush seeped over my cheeks. “You should have said something. What does it mean?”

“I’m not sure. It’s why I contacted him.” He glanced at Tane. “Did you ever find any information?”

“When did Tane get involved with our affairs?” I cried out, finally reaching the end of my rope. Rurik wanted to help me, yet it felt like betrayal. That he’d speak about my hunger issues with Tane, a person who didn’t have a problem using it against me, injured my vulnerable heart. Hurt too many times in the last day, the tormented fragile center of our love shut down, leaving me numb.

“I had no other resources to turn to. Like it or not, he’s older with more experience.”

This was the first time Rurik had ever snapped at me.

I flinched.

“Archios, my second-in-command, bonded with Belatia as a human before being forced to bring her over.” We both turned as one to look at Tane. “He’d been captured by the church and held captive. Unable to rescue him, Belatia almost went mad with blood lust after a year. Dragos kept her as a curiosity until Archios escaped. The only solution we could figure out was to make her vampire.” He shrugged. “We assume that not being able to get her source blood drove her to madness.”

“But I’m not crazy.”

“Not yet. If Rurik had not brought you to Rio…”

Where I got tortured, found out I was bound to Tane and drank from him. Yada, yada, yada. I sighed. “It would have driven me crazy. Is it gone now that I’ve fed from you?”

It was Rurik’s turn to flinch.

Tane glanced from me to him and back. “It should be, though I don’t understand why you craved Rurik’s blood. I’m wondering if we created something new in Budapest. I’d never heard of two vampires trying to bond the same human before. Best you stay close until we figure this out.”

I stared at the rich tones of brown swirls intermingling on my blanket. The tangle of color looked like my life.

“What happened to Belatia?” My head popped up at Rurik’s question.

“She lives here on my estate with Archios. Her hunger became natural when she turned vampire.” He glanced at me. “See? There’s a solution if the hunger drives you mad.”

“No thanks.” By being bound to a vampire, I stopped aging. Bonus. Why would I want to give up daylight and food?

Tane leaned back against the sofa. For a moment he looked tired. “As odd as it sounds, both of you are the only two I can trust at the moment. I have a traitor in my home.” He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers before continuing. “Eric drugged me with the same thing we used against Dragos. I don’t think he ever forgave me for what transpired between us and Colby on the Danube River.”

Tane had kidnapped my ex-boss when we hunted Rurik in Budapest and I assumed did some nasty things to him on his yacht. I doubted Colby forgave him, either.

“They imprisoned me in that hole but I hadn’t ingested enough of the drug for them to break my mind.” He sighed. “Eric had been my companion for so long. I wish it hadn’t ended this way. They killed him for amusement. I had no power to stop it.” I could almost believe the regret I heard in Tane’s voice. It was hard to imagine him caring for someone. He peeked at Rurik. “If I could have stopped either of their torture, I would have.”

Rurik nodded. “I know. I spoke in anger before, unaware Eric had betrayed you.”

Tane closed his eyes again. “Luckard wants to know how the drug is made. He’s never had enough support to oppose me before. Someone else has to be behind all this.”

“One of Dragos’ supporters.” It seemed obvious to me. A no brainer.

His eyes sprang open. “Really? Do you think so?”

Rurik moved to sit closer to me. “Easy, Tane. Connie’s not familiar with our ways.”

“Then start teaching her. She has a new role. It won’t be long before word spreads that she’s bound to me.” Tane stood and met my angry scowl. “All of Dragos’ people are dead. I don’t keep loose ends.” He stalked across the room and back. “There are so many ways to abuse that drug. I wish I knew to what purpose they want it so I could figure out the traitor.”

“Did you capture any of your captors alive?” Rurik touched my hand without looking at me.

“Yes, I’m on my way to—interrogate them.” Tane’s hands fisted. I would hate to be the target of his wrath. His prisoners better hope for a quick death, even though I doubted they’d get one. Not after skewering him with thick metal bars like a brochette. “I know things are tense between us, but you’re the only two I can trust. I need your help.”

“I get to keep Connie?” Rurik confirmed, before I could even open my mouth and tell Tane where he could shove my assistance.

A small smile crept across his face. “Of course.”

Rurik squeezed my hand almost to the point of pain, telling me to keep quiet. “I’ll do my best to find the traitor, Master.” He stood and bowed to Tane, whose eyes narrowed at Rurik’s action.

Tane left the room as silently as he entered. I could see his guards posted at the door before it closed and left us alone. I snorted and crossed my arms over my chest. “Keep me how?”

Rurik glanced at me over his shoulder, a salacious smile on his face. “Naked, preferably.”