LITMIR.BIZ

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know, the Agency’s going to make us wear helmets. What we do is dangerous. If that bothered me in the slightest, I’d have chosen another line of work. Like owning a bar.”

      A loud ruckus broke out near the pool tables as a couple of cops cuffed an old guy with a long, thinning comb-over and hauled him through the crowd. When he refused to walk, they grabbed him by each arm and dragged him outside to a waiting patrol car. Dom turned his attention back to Lily.

      “Three days ago you were shot with a silvie?” She pursed her lips, obviously contemplating what he had said. “Impossible. You’d still be flat on your ass.”

      “That’s why I called you here. A couple of DBs came after me, but I managed to dodge them early in the morning and bury myself in the woods. Then a sweetblood found me. And you don’t have to guess to know what happened next.”

      Lily whistled. “Shit, Dom. Did you drain him? Her? That explains the speedy recovery. And your fabulous smell.” She grabbed his arm and pressed her nose to the inside of his wrist. “Her, right?”

      He pointedly ignored her question and withdrew his hand. “I need your help. Foss and I covered up the scent trail, but in order to wrap up the assignment, I wanted to see if you could detect any lingering traces. To make sure the Darkbloods can’t track the scent back.”

      She played with her straw and scowled into her glass. When she met his gaze, his gut clenched. He really didn’t want to explain it to her when he didn’t understand it himself. Besides, the whole experience seemed too personal, too intimate to discuss. He wasn’t like Jackson, or Lily, for that matter, who loved recounting their exploits to anyone with a set of ears. Not his style. Or at least it wasn’t now.

      “Seems like a bit of an overkill, don’t you think? I’m sure you and Jackson covered the trail well enough.” Her hawkish eyes appraised him. He wasn’t going to get anything past her.

      “I just want to be sure.” Leaning back in his seat, he forced himself to tap his fingers to the music, pretending to be focused on the band. He could almost hear the cogs in Lily’s head turning. No goddamn questions. Just take the assignment.

      “It’s a woman, eh?” She reached over and put her hand on his wrist. She was too perceptive. Or maybe he was just a poor actor. He attempted to keep his face expressionless, hard. “And you have feelings for her. I’m right, aren’t I?”

      He didn’t know what he was feeling. “It’s a woman.” He tried to sound emotionless.

      “What’s going on? Talk. I can tell something’s up. I know you too well.”

      For chrissake. Running a hand through his hair, he took a deep breath and resigned himself to the inevitable Oprah-like scrutiny. Feelings and talking and shit.

      “The strangest thing happened. I almost drained her so I had to do a blood transfer.” She sat up straight and her eyes widened. “Spare me the lecture, Lil. Santiago knows about it and is probably going to report it to the Council. The bigger problem is now she and I have this weird connection, some kind of strange bond, yet we’ve never talked. She’s never seen me, or at least she doesn’t remember seeing me. I wiped her memory.”

      As he recounted the incident at Mackenzie’s house, Lily listened with her head bowed, nodding at times, and picked at her red-tipped nails. He braced himself for twenty questions, but she remained silent.

      “Have you ever heard of such crap? I had some unusual sensations with just her blood in my system. But now that she’s had a little of mine, it’s even more heightened. I even heard her dreams when she slept. I thought the old stories were a bunch of superstitious nonsense.”

      “Enlazado por la Sangre.” Lily dropped her voice so low he could barely hear even though the band was now playing a slow ballad.

      Her subdued reaction surprised him. “What?”

      “Bonded by blood. My grandparents shared a blood bond, have I never told you that?”

      Dom shook his head. Never heard of it.

      “Hardly anyone outside the family knew. In fact, not many inside the family did, either. I’m the only grandchild my grandmother told.”

      “I don’t believe it. You? Keeping secrets?”

      “Yeah, well, she ended up staking herself. So we don’t talk about it much.”

      “God, Lil, I’m sorry.”

      “No problem. You didn’t know.” Lily took another sip of beer from her straw. “She described the bond as a joining of body, soul and spirit. They knew each other’s thoughts. Could sense each other’s energy and emotions. Kind of like tuning into a private radio signal of someone’s life force. Prana, I think she called it. Not only did they share blood, but they also shared energies and could absorb it from each other just by touching. They thrived off it.”

      “What’s so earth-shattering about energy transfers?” Dom nodded his head toward their waitress still leaning on the bar.

      “Between two vampires? As much as I like your prana, Dom, what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. I’d take a little bit of yours if I could, though.” She flashed him a playful smile. “But my grandparents—they could share it between the two of them with just a simple touch.”

      He supposed he had inadvertently absorbed some of Mackenzie’s energy at some point, although he had been careful not to touch his palms to her hands or her face. Well, when he had his wits about him, he didn’t. Had he unknowingly given her some of his? Was that even possible?

      “And their emotions?” he asked.

      “Yeah. My grandparents could sense how the other was feeling even from a distance. Many years ago, when my grandmother worked at a medical clinic, a DB or maybe just a run-of-the-mill freak came in demanding Sweet. Said if she didn’t get him some sweetblood, he was going to kill her. Of course she was scared. A short time later my grandfather burst through the entrance with a couple of Guardians and they staked the loser. Said he felt her fear as if it were his own and knew she needed his help. That story is one of the reasons I joined the Agency. I thought it was so heroic. Still do. And very romantic.”

      Dom ran his fingers against his scalp and tugged at the roots of his hair. This was bullshit. Could it get any worse? “Anything else?”

      “Well, apart from the fact that the sex is like an awakening of sorts, that’s about all I know.”

      “You and your grandmother talked about sex?”

      “What can I say? She was a very enlightened woman, comfortable with her sexuality. Over cocktails once, she told me that intimate relations were much more enhanced. But, no, she didn’t go into detail.” She grasped his hand, gave a reassuring squeeze, then released it. “They were so completely bonded to each other that when my grandfather died, she couldn’t bear to live without him.”

      Every nerve ending seemed to shut down as his body numbed and the bar noise faded into the background. He stared at the amber liquid in his glass, twirling it gently, watching the foam cling to the sides. Was that what he was craving from her as well? Her prana? Sex? That certainly explained why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

      “But, like I said, they were both vamps. I’ve never heard of it happening with a human. Blood-bonded to a sweetblood? That sucks.” She barked out an unflattering laugh. “And you’ve never spoken?”

      “No.”

      “Don’t know what else I can tell you. Why don’t you go introduce yourself? What woman can resist your charms? I know I have a hard time.” She blew him an air kiss, obviously trying to lighten his mood.

      “Ha. ‘Excuse me, but you’re my soul mate. Pardon me while I kill you.’ Riiiight.”

      “I’d see if she’d go horizontal first, eh?” One perfectly plucked eyebrow lifted into a naughty arch.

      “Very

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