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  "I know. It's barely there, and whoever he is, he's blocked me. Only a vampire, another witch, or someone knowledgeable of black magic would make sure they couldn't be tracked by a witch. He actually cleansed her aura of all traces of himself."

  "But you know she wasn't scared of him."

  "Yes, but I can't get a face or a name."

  "Why did you see Eron?"

  "I don't know, but it worries me. He's missing."

  Rialto stared at her in surprise. “Missing?"

  She nodded. “I haven't heard from him in a while, and his Keeper hasn't seen him."

  Rialto examined the holes in the corpse's neck, trying to shake off his feelings of unease. “The bite marks look real, Mother. Why wouldn't they heal?"

  "I don't know. And all of the blood has been taken. You can tell by how shriveled she is. Maybe that has something to do with them being unhealed."

  "What exactly happens if you continue drinking after death has set in?"

  She shrugged. “We get our strength from the blood that still has life flowing through it. As you know, Christian drinks bagged blood. It merely sustains his life, but it has no power to it."

  "Could the killer be a new vampire? Someone too ignorant to know that you're supposed to stop feeding when the heart ceases to beat?” Rialto could feel the dread creeping into his voice. How was he going to tell Aria that one of his kind had, in fact, killed her mother?

  "No.” Seta shook her head. “No single vampire could stomach that much blood, even if a pack of them feasted on this woman they wouldn't have taken every single drop. Once the heart stops pumping blood, it's hard to extract. Whatever evil being did this, it was not a vampire. “

  "But, the scent—"

  "That doesn't matter. It isn't the right scent for a vampire. I have no idea what kind of creature is doing this, but we will find out."

  Aria slept fitfully, waking repeatedly throughout the night. The sixth time she awoke, a shadow loomed over her bed. She gasped, jolting upright.

  "It's me,” Rialto said as he sat beside her, easing her back down against the pillows. “Relax."

  "Did you find anything?"

  "We found a body but I'm afraid my mother wasn't able to get enough off it to identify the killer. We're not through yet, Aria. Not by a long shot."

  Aria tried to bank down her disappointment. At least they were trying. She shook her head in wonder, still a little surprised that the vampires were turning out to be the good guys. More surprising was the fact they still wanted to help her after the way she'd reacted when Seta had entered the room. The woman must have thought she was unbalanced. “I'm sorry about earlier. I saw a beautiful young woman and I thought that . . ."

  "I know,” he said, smiling knowingly, and Aria knew he could sense her confusion as she tried to sort out the jumble of emotions coursing through her. “She looks much younger than I do. I have to remind myself of that when we're out in public. If I call her Mother, we get quite a few odd looks."

  "I can imagine. I hope I didn't offend her. Where is she now?” She hoped the woman wasn't staying away because of her earlier behavior.

  "Actually, she likes you a lot, but reading auras off the deceased takes a lot of energy. She needed to feed.” Rialto grinned again. “Now go to sleep."

  "I can't. I keep waking up."

  "Bad dreams?"

  "Incredibly good ones.” She could tell by the way his eyes dilated that he knew exactly what she'd been dreaming of. He was leaning over her, his mouth close to hers, and Aria threw caution to the wind, grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him closer, giving in to the attraction she'd been trying to fight.

  "Aria—"

  She stopped his protest by covering his mouth with hers, quickly dipping her tongue inside to discover the depths she had so recently explored in her dreams. Rialto started to pull back, but she quickly wrapped her leg around his and rolled, landing on top of him in the big bed.

  "Aria, you're coming out of sleep, out of a dream."

  She shook her head as she stared down into his gorgeous face. “I'm not asleep. I want this. If I'm going to be honest, I've wanted this all along, despite knowing what you are."

  And that was no lie. The longer she was with him, the more dreams she remembered and dreamed anew, the less she thought of him as a creature. He was a man, a sexy as hell man who would continue to haunt her dreams until she finally discovered what he was able to do to her body in reality. If it was half as good as what he delivered in her dreams, she'd be a fool to deny herself that pleasure.

  "Aria, I don't want to hurt you."

  "You won't."

  "I could."

  "You won't."

  She kissed him until she felt him respond, matching and surpassing her own intense passion. Clothes were strewn across the room as they continued their foreplay, kissing, touching, and licking every body part they could find. She wasn't a virgin, but she felt as though she had never been touched by a man before this night. No other man had ever mattered. This man, this vampire, was who she belonged to. It might seem insane, but it was a fact she knew in her heart.

  She gasped as his fingers sought entrance to her throbbing body, mimicking the same action his tongue played inside her mouth. She tightened her fingers over his shoulders, trying not to come apart. Not yet. She wanted him with her when she went over the edge.

  "Rialto, please—"

  "Not yet,” he groaned as he bent his head to take one hardened nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue over the tip.

  "Ri-ahl-to!"

  "Not yet.” He continued suckling at her breast, stroking her with his fingers as though playing a piano, hitting each note just right. Aria felt the first sweet tickle starting from that very spot, then spreading through her body until she shook from the enormity of it.

  "Rialto!” she gasped, breathing heavier now as her body was racked with a pleasure she had never thought possible. Would it always be like this with him? She knew sadly that it wouldn't. He would either leave her or else stay only to watch her grow old and feeble, unable to satisfy him in this way.

  You can go with him, be like him.

  She stilled as the whispered voice invaded her thoughts, and Rialto cupped her cheek. “Are you all right?"

  She nodded, unable to find words to explain what had just happened. She shrugged off the odd feeling that she was being guided and gripped his narrow hips. “Your turn,” she breathed, raising her own hips to meet his, sliding him deep inside her body and sighing with pleasure as she felt every hardened inch of him slide against her slickened walls until she was completely filled.

  He groaned low in his throat and started to move, gliding in and out, alternately fast and slow, his hands over her breasts as his mouth mated with hers, stifling her cries. She moved with him, riding out one orgasm after another as he continued to find that magic spot and stroke it just right. Oh, how to make this last? Whatever she had to do, it would be worth it.

  You can be with him like this forever.

  How? Aria asked silently, hoping whoever was guiding her could give her the answer that would make Rialto hers for eternity.

  Share his blood.

  The thought should have disgusted her. Instead, she found the concept highly erotic, remembering when he had taken her to the alley to watch him feed. He had looked so powerful, so strong, and she remembered the smell of his blood as his neck was scratched, the delicious aroma that had whet her appetite.

  Growing hungry with the thought of it, she bit down into Rialto's lip and suckled at the juicy flesh. Her body screamed with pleasure as the first tangy droplets touched her tongue, electrifying her instantly.

  Rialto pounded inside her until he groaned, his body shaking as his own orgasm hit him fast and hard. Aria continued to drink from the tiny spout she'd created in his lip until he pulled away to dip his head against the hollow of her neck. She felt something scraping across the skin at the side of her throat and cried out in ecstasy as she
was hit with another bone jarring orgasm.

  Then something changed. Rialto pulled away, his face etched in horror, his eyes glowing. She could see blood on his lips, hers and his. The hunger inside her sent her flying for his mouth but he grabbed her before she could reach it, pinning her to the bed with her hands raised over her head. She struggled against his grasp. Although she felt a new and powerful surge of strength inside herself, she was no match for him.

  "No, Aria,” he growled. “No . . . no . . . NO!!!” His shout was as mighty as a lion's roar before he disappeared from the room in a blur of motion, leaving her in his bed, naked and burning with shame, although she didn't know why she felt ashamed.

  She loved him, she realized suddenly, as pain held her fragile heart in a vice. He was a vampire and she knew very little about him, but she loved him. Her brain could scream at her all it wanted about how stupid she was to even consider loving him, but she couldn't deny what she felt inside. She wanted this man, and the voice in her head had told her sharing his blood was the way to be with him forever. But, obviously, he didn't want to share the rest of his life with her.

  Aria buried herself under the sheets and cried into the pillows, her heart aching for Rialto's love and her body aching for his blood.

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  Chapter Eight

  Aria woke to find herself still naked, wrapped up in the sheets from Rialto's bed. She didn't have to peek out from beneath the covers to know she was alone. Groaning, she sat up in bed and willed herself not to cry. The pillowcases were still slightly damp with the tears she'd shed the night before after Rialto practically vanished right before her eyes.

  "I never could pick them right,” she mumbled to herself while finger-combing her mass of unruly hair.

  As the events of the previous two days came rushing back, she shook her head in disbelief. “I slept with a vampire,” she said to herself, needing to speak the words aloud in order to emphasize just how serious an action she'd taken the night before. When she was with Rialto, he was just a man, nothing mystical or supernatural. But when she was away from him, she was able to look at the situation from a different perspective and she instantly realized her mistake. She couldn't have a relationship with a vampire. It couldn't possibly work, so why were her feelings for a stranger so strong?

  Because he wasn't a stranger, she conceded. He'd dreamt about her since her birth, and for whatever reason she'd had her fair share of dreams about him. They were linked somehow.

  Watch out for the vampire.

  Her mother's words rang through her , reminding her how reckless she'd been. Her mother had always had a way of knowing things . . . which made it all the more surprising she'd been murdered. She should have seen her killer coming from a mile away. Mary Ayers had been an excellent judge of character and had the uncanny knack for sensing trouble brewing. She'd even woken in the night screaming the moment Aria's father had been murdered. If her mother had managed to come back in a dream to warn her about the vampire, she'd do well to listen.

  Still, his rejection hurt. Aria looked at the clock sitting on the nightstand and saw it was nearly noon. She wondered where Rialto had escaped to. He was probably sleeping now, possibly in another room at the same hotel or maybe he'd needed to get completely away from her.

  She walked over to the small bathroom, trying to ignore the dull throbbing between her legs which served as a reminder of the passion the night before, a reminder of just how long it had been since she'd trusted anyone enough to allow them inside. And no, it wasn't just her body that Rialto had entered, but her heart and soul as well.

  "Leave it to me to fall for a frigging vampire who I barely even know,” Aria grumbled to herself before she looked into the bathroom mirror and gasped, shocked by her own reflection. She raised her hand to her face and ran her fingers over the newly darkened skin. It looked as though she had been in a tanning bed, her skin now slightly darker than it reached in midsummer. “What in the world?"

  She continued to stare at herself in wonder, trying to figure out how she'd darkened so dramatically overnight. All she had done was sleep and have sex with Rialto. And . . . she had tasted his blood. She gasped, recalling that part of the evening. Heat grew inside her as she remembered its taste as it spilled over her tongue, the way it seemed to empower her more with every sip.

  She ran her fingers over her neck while she looked at it in the mirror, but if Rialto had bitten her, there was no evidence to be found there. The healing properties in Rialto's saliva would have erased any punctures. But she remembered the feel of his teeth scraping over her neck before he'd fled. She'd drunk from him, and he had quite possibly drunk from her. Was that why her skin was darker?

  Oh, dear god, had Rialto turned her into a vampire

  Aria ran back into the room and pulled on her clothes, then paused just as she started to run outside. If she was a vampire, could she handle the sun? Rialto said the UV rays would destroy them. She thought about sticking her hand out a window just to see, but fear stopped her. She didn't feel any different except, maybe, a bit stronger, and that wasn't by any large degree. She ran back to the bathroom mirror and checked her teeth. No fangs. Of course, Rialto didn't have visible fangs most of the time either.

  "So you drank his blood, hmm?"

  Aria jumped at the sound of Seta's voice and whirled around to find the elegant beauty standing just beyond the bathroom's entrance, a knowing smile plastered to her face. Realization slowly dawned. “It was you I heard last night!"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "It is your destiny to be one of us, to be with my son.” Seta walked to where Aria stood and held her chin with the tips of her long fingers. “This is the real you, Aria. The blood has revealed the way you are meant to be seen by the world. You are so beautiful when you don't try to hide from what you are."

  "I'm not hiding."

  "I'm a witch, Aria. You may lie to yourself, but I see the truth. I have seen images of your past. I know your mother encouraged you to stay out of the sun and cover yourself in excessive amounts of sunscreen in order to appear white."

  "I had to,” Aria explained, coming to her mother's defense. “In the town we lived in, racism was so bad it was easier to pretend we were both white."

  "And why didn't that change when you came to Baltimore? You should not be ashamed of what you are."

  "I'm not ashamed,” Aria stated as she exited the bathroom to sit on the bed. “It's just that, well, the areas I've lived in haven't been ideal for someone like me. Passing myself off as white was just easier than dealing with the scorn of being biracial."

  Seta gently shook her head. “But it was wrong. I don't blame you. I have already seen your past, and I know you were taught to hide this very special part of yourself. In fact, it probably saved your life while you lived in that dreadful little town. Now, however, it is time to accept who and what you are. Your destiny is beckoning."

  Aria eyed her skeptically. “And just what is my destiny?"

  "You are to join with my son and save the world."

  Aria started to laugh, then bit her tongue to stop the sound from emerging when she saw the seriousness in Seta's eyes. “How could I help save the world, and what would I be saving it from?"

  Seta flinched and turned her head toward the door. She muttered something too low for Aria to hear and wrung her hands nervously.

  "What is it, Seta?” Aria asked in concern.

  Seta frowned as she returned her attention to Aria. “It's Rialto. The stubborn fool knows I'm talking to you, and he is rushing over here right now, in broad daylight."

  "In daylight!” Aria's chest contracted, and her heart felt as if it would burst with panic. “Won't daylight kill him?"

  "It could, but he's moving quickly and he's protected himself. He stayed at your apartment last night instead of renting another room here."

  "Why would he risk being out in daylight?” Aria asked, too concerned with his safety to care tha
t he'd stayed in her home without her permission.

  "Because he doesn't want you to know the things I want to tell you, so I must be quick. He's almost here.” She spoke rapidly. “Aria, Rialto feels strongly for you and wants to protect you from your destiny, but it isn't necessary. You were meant to be one of —"

  The door slammed open before Seta could finish her sentence. Rialto appeared in the doorway, wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before, and his head was bowed down like a bull about to charge. “That's enough, Mother."

  He looked awful, yet Aria couldn't help the rush of heat that overtook her as she watched him enter the room and shut the door. His clothes were wrinkled, his body rigid, and his dark, angry eyes were red-rimmed as if he hadn't rested in days. And he smelled overwhelmingly of coconut.

  "I see you found Aria's supply of sunscreen,” Seta commented. Then, to Aria's mortification, she said, “Did I not teach you better manners than to run out on a woman after sleeping with her?"

  The tense silence that filled the room fueled Aria's anxiety. She wanted to run to Rialto, despite the tactless way he'd left her before, but as he glared at his mother, the burning fury in his eyes warned her to stay back. He had yet to even acknowledge her presence and she had the feeling he didn't intend to.

  "What I do and who I do it with doesn't concern you, Mother."

  "In this case it concerns all of us."

  He snorted. “Says an old story."

  "It's true, Rialto. Stop fighting your fate."

  "I will not be with her in that way!” Rialto accentuated his declaration by pointing a finger straight at Aria. “Once we find her mother's killer, I'll make sure I never see her again."

  Aria gasped at the same time Seta's face reddened in anger. Rialto still wouldn't look at her, as though she were too unworthy for that much of a gesture. If he didn't want her, he could have said so, but to dismiss her so thoughtlessly in front of another person was a complete humiliation. She searched her mind for some response, something that would let Rialto know that she didn't need him anyway, but she couldn't think of a lie. Her entire body shook with the pain of his confession. He'd only wanted her for one night of sex, and he'd even had to be coaxed into that. In that moment he made her feel lower than any man from her past had ever managed because her ancestry had nothing to do with his behavior. He'd known all along what she was. He simply didn't want her.