It became increasingly difficult for her to breathe as the seconds stretched endlessly onward. She struggled to focus on the humans as she turned from one to another.
Then, through the smoke and fire, a figure emerged. Cassidy held her breath as she stepped back toward the building. Please. Please. Please.
Disappointment crashed through her when Zan emerged from the chaos. Bull hung limply over his shoulder, and as Zan bent to lower his friend to the ground, Dante ran out the door behind him.
She released a strangled cry of joy and finished with the human in front of her. She staggered toward Dante as he lowered an unconscious woman to the ground. A glance at the woman’s soot-stained face told Cassidy it was the same woman he carried in the club.
When he knelt beside the woman, he placed his ear to her mouth as he checked her pulse. A frantic, desperate look crossed his face before he sat up and started doing chest compressions. He paused to rest his ear against her mouth while he watched her chest before cupping his hands again and pressing them to the woman’s chest.
“Breathe!” he commanded in a voice made raspy from smoke inhalation.
Cassidy tuned out the chaos surrounding them as she focused solely on him. The concentration on his face and his relentless desperation to save the woman mesmerized her.
He cares so much, she realized.
And that was why she would do everything she could to help him find Julie.
Chapter Fifteen
Cassidy felt like a bus had run her over by the time she trudged down the carpeted hallway toward Dante’s apartment building. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but she ignored it. It was Kyle or Julian again, and though she’d already told them she was taking care of something and would talk to them later, they wouldn’t take the hint.
She loved her brothers, but sometimes she’d like to kill them. And when she was younger, she’d tried a time or two.
Now, all she yearned for was a shower, clean clothes, and a bed, but she couldn’t go back to her apartment smelling and looking like this. Her brothers were already going to jump down her throat when they learned what she’d been doing. If they saw her like this, they would only be more pissed.
So, instead, she’d gone to Walmart with Dante and bought some clothes while Dante called the hospital to find out how the woman he saved was doing. They had no new information to give him.
The woman hadn’t regained consciousness before the paramedics arrived on the scene, but Dante did get her breathing again. Once he did, Cassidy watched as he bit into his wrist and gave the woman some of his blood.
The sight of him feeding another caused something malicious to awaken inside her, but with effort, she clamped a lid over it. Still, recalling that sinister feeling disgusted her.
He was trying to save the woman’s life, and she was being selfish. And it was selfish because she realized she wanted his blood. She tried to shake off the appalling, lingering effects of that moment, but she could still feel that more malevolent piece of herself churning within her.
And then the sirens started wailing, and Dante pulled his wrist away from the woman as the first responders arrived. Having already awoken, Bull took off with the bartender while Zan took control of the paramedic’s minds. He rode with them to the hospital while Dante and Cassidy followed in a taxi.
The taxi driver was not happy to see them climb into the back seat of his cab, but fortunately for him, he didn’t remember the trip or his occupants. By the time they arrived at the hospital, the woman was conscious and Zan had changed her and the paramedic’s memories.
Zan climbed out of the back of the ambulance and got into the cab with them. None of them spoke as the taxi navigated the subdued city streets before dropping Zan off at Lavender Moon.
“Thank you for helping me find Bull,” Zan said to Dante as he climbed out of the cab.
Cassidy’s eyebrows rose at this revelation, but she wasn’t surprised. She was beginning to realize Dante would go to any lengths to save another. She couldn’t help but admire, and fear, his relentless determination.
While it was honorable, it might one day get him killed. And why was he so determined to find others? What happened to make him this way, or was he simply born with the ability to put other’s needs ahead of his? No matter the answer, she couldn’t help looking at him in a whole new way as she considered crawling into his arms and never letting go.
“You’re welcome,” Dante said.
Cassidy glanced at the driver. They were going to change his memories anyway, but she didn’t want to freak him out beforehand, so she was careful with how she worded her question. “What about those guys who took off earlier?” she asked about the vamps who were losing control before.
“I know everyone who was there tonight. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good,” she said.
“Don’t take offense to this, but I hope never to see the two of you again,” Zan said.
“No offense taken,” Dante told him. “But if you see Julie or Preston, call me.”
“Stubborn motherfucker,” Zan muttered before slamming the door.
Unable to resist, Cassidy leaned against Dante as they went to Walmart and then his apartment. And now, they were standing outside the door to apartment twenty-two. She was about to see the place where he lived; she was excited to see if it would offer more insight into the mysterious man who was steadily working his way into her heart.
“Home sweet home,” Dante said as he removed the keys from his pocket.
She didn’t know what to expect as he slid the key into the deadbolt and turned it. He lived a couple of blocks from her in a brownstone remodeled to hold as many apartments as possible. She suspected they were all studios or one-bedrooms,
