A glance at his watch told Dante it was a little before ten. He didn’t want Jasmine to have any notice he was coming, and now was as good a time as any to visit her.
“Do you plan to warn her about me?” Dante asked.
“No,” Preston said. “I’d like to go with you.”
Dante glanced at Cassidy and Kyle. He wasn’t used to having anyone with him, and he did not want to drag three people with him, but when he turned back to Preston, the hopeful look in his eyes froze the no he was about to issue.
“Okay, but if we find her, you’re going to let me do all the talking,” he said.
“Absolutely,” Preston said and grinned at him.
Lying on his bed, Dante stared at the ceiling as he tried to reason out the pieces of the puzzle he had. When they went to Jasmine’s place last night, they discovered she wasn’t there. The furniture remained, but none of her things did, and the empty feel of the apartment suggested she hadn’t been there in a while.
Preston informed them the furniture wasn’t hers and came with the apartment, but that the closets and bureaus used to be full of her clothes and shoes. The superintendent lived on the first floor, and though it wasn’t the ideal time to get the man out of bed, Dante didn’t care. He went to the man’s apartment and banged on his door, but no one answered.
Dante planned to return today to talk to the man, but until then, he didn’t have any leads to follow.
After leaving the apartment, he got Preston’s phone number and address and watched as he pulled away in a taxi. He still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing by letting Preston go, but he was trusting his instincts on this. And those instincts said Preston had nothing to do with Julie’s disappearance.
If they proved to be wrong, he would spend an eternity kicking himself in the ass, and he would hunt Preston down and kill him.
The three of them returned to his building afterward. Kyle walked home while Cassidy came upstairs with him. For a little while, he managed to shut off his mind and lose himself in her before falling asleep, but sleep didn’t last long.
Cassidy’s lashes fluttered against his shoulder as she stirred, and her eyes opened. Holding her closer, he cherished the feel of her lush body against his. She was a part of him, and with every beat of his heart, he felt her blood flowing through him.
He was in love with her, and that knowledge scared him as much as it thrilled him. Everyone he’d loved was dead, and he’d barely managed to pick himself up and continue after those deaths. If he lost her too, he would lose everything. He understood why vampires went crazy after losing their mates; just imagining it caused something sinister to slither through him.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
He nuzzled her hair before kissing her forehead. “Good morning.”
They lay nestled together for a bit, and he marveled over how their breathing and heartbeats fell into the same rhythm. Then he recalled the weird exchange with Kyle last night.
“So, what was going on with Kyle and that woman at the party?” Dante asked as he lifted a strand of Cassidy’s hair and let it slide through his fingers.
Cassidy hated recalling the look of self-loathing in her twin’s eyes before he turned away from her. “He’s getting close to maturity, and when a male purebred vampire stops aging, they struggle with certain things. Some of them experience an increased need for blood, others crave violence and death, some lose themselves in pain, and others, like Kyle, lose themselves in sex. If he can’t keep his impulses under control, he’ll…” She swallowed back the sudden lump choking her throat. “He’ll become a Savage.”
Dante’s fingers stilled in her hair as her anguish beat against him. “He’ll have to deal with this for the rest of his life?”
“Or until he finds his mate.”
“What about female purebred vampires? Do they go through the same thing?”
“No. Or at least they don’t experience it at the same intensity and level as the males. I never had any problems, and neither did my sisters.”
“How come the two of you didn’t stop aging at the same time? You’re twins.”
“I don’t know why it works the way it does, but purebreds stop aging at different times. For some reason, it happens at different ages for all of us. One day, he’ll wake up and know he’s reached maturity.”
He stopped playing with her hair as he tilted his head down to look at her. “You just know?”
She smiled at him. “Yeah. It’s this… this feeling you get, and there is no denying it.”
“Interesting,” he murmured.
“I guess it’s strange, but all humans would probably consider our lives strange.”
He chuckled as he rolled over and pinned her onto the mattress beneath him. “That’s because our lives are a little weird, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Neither would I.”
He claimed her mouth in a kiss, both possessive and loving. The heat of his kiss and his body against hers caused an ache deep inside her belly. It spread out through her limbs until she was trembling.
He’d barely touched her, yet it felt as if his hands were all over as her body became electrified. When he entered her, it didn’t douse the fire he built; instead, it inflamed it until desire engulfed her.
Then that fire turned into an inferno that melted her bones and left her begging for more. When he grasped her hips and rolled over, she froze for a second as she discovered herself looking down into eyes the color of molten lava.
Then he started guiding her hips back and forth, and she matched the pace he set. When his eyes latched onto her breasts, a thrill of power raced through her as her fingers skimmed them. When she ran her fingers over her nipples and gave them
