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“Stop, princess. Take a breath. Adrian? I need to settle her down. Our room; now, please.”
“Follow me, I’ll show you to it.” He looked totally unaffected by Kyla’s state of mind. And this royally pissed her off.
Tristan led her to the door, “Sunglasses. For fuck sakes, keep it together if we pass anyone.”
She choked on a sob.
“Kyla,” he warned, “Chill out or I’ll have to get him to sedate you.”
She was about to glare and retort but common sense managed to settle in. She nodded at him and tried to clear her expression, to put on a mask of indifference. Inside, she felt like she was crumbling completely.
Adrian walked ahead of them. A man appeared pushing a cart of refreshments. Adrian told him to follow to Tristan’s suite. Kyla didn’t have to work hard to act like a zombie because she felt like the walking dead. They passed vampires in the hall and then as they walked through a large open lobby-type room with sofas, chairs, conversation areas, toward a staircase she was aware of a variety of things all at once.
She saw Sam, sitting at a table with another guy, drinking coffee. Sam gave Tristan a chin-jerk and then resumed listening to the man speaking to him without looking at Kyla.
Not far from Sam was a chess board and two men in lounge pants and bathrobes were playing. To the right of them there was a redheaded woman in orange pajamas whose throat was being fed on by another redheaded woman on a sofa by a big window that overlooked a garden area. Outside, in that garden, Kyla took in a man being pushed in a wheelchair by a woman wearing scrubs.
They began to climb a winding quadruple wide marble staircase in bright white with red veins with a heavy ornate marble banister. Descending the stairs was a gorgeous blonde whose eyes landed on Kyla when she said, “Tristan, you are a sight for sore eyes!”
“Faye,” he replied, moving along.
“Not ill, I hope?” she looked concerned.
“Not at all. Excuse me.” He ushered Kyla forward.
“Celia’s here. Have you seen her?” Faye called back.
“I know,” Tristan answered without looking back.
“Not thrilled with the level of exposure I’m feeling here, Adrian,” Tristan muttered, “Would’ve been better to break everything to her in our suite.”
“Not to worry,” Adrian replied, “I have a cover for you. Meet me back in my office after you’ve settled her. We need to get those samples into temperature-controlled storage.”
“Can you have a treadmill sent up? I’ll wait for it.”
“Yes, of course.”
They walked down a hallway and Adrian handed Tristan a key card.
Tristan pushed the card into a slot and then opened the door. Kyla glanced ahead and saw their bags were already there. A man followed in and put down the tray of drinks and then left.-7-She didn’t hear what Tristan said to Adrian as he closed the door. She was staring ahead, seeing nothing, just reeling…totally reeling as she started to feel the impact of the truth, the truth behind her blood, their connection, her whole life thus far, the danger she was in.
He spun her around by the shoulders and pulled her to him. She closed her eyes and absorbed the feel of him. Her hands slipped under his arms and around his waist. She inhaled him.
“Angel food cake,” she whispered.
He caressed her head.
“Mixed with chocolate chip cookies,” she started to sob.
He squeezed her tight and said, “Sunshine, mixed with laughter, fire, and silk.”
She lifted her chin to look up at his face.
“You’re everything I crave, too,” he kissed her nose, “I smell it, I feel it, I taste it. You’re my ambrosia. I love you.”
“But Tristan…” she whimpered, emotion burning in her chest, “Your love … it will ... kill me.”
His eyes were sorrowful. He backed her up, through the fancy old-world looking living area with lots of dark wood and fabric in colourful brocade, to the attached bedroom, and they got into a big wooden canopy bed done with blood-red linens and blood red curtains both on the windows as well as on the canopy drapes. Vamps sure did seem to like the colour of blood. He curled her against him and let out a sigh.
She nuzzled in to his shoulder. “This is fucked up.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t know any of it?”
“Baby, I was as surprised as you. I’m not happy about a lot of things but I have no luxury of dwelling on it. My outward reaction is important. I can’t appear weak or anything other than completely in control. Not even if someone seems trustworthy.
Vamps are predatory, they have innate reactions to weakness. They are opportunists. You just started your ovulation cycle yesterday and Adrian told me on the phone last night that tomorrow night will be even testier for me as you’ll hit the peak by then. I’ve got to deal with a bunch of shit, including the fact that Sam, my right hand man, was in on this, and he fooled me. Others have been deceiving me, too. Well, keeping information from me but the same outcome. Liam’s here in Arizona somewhere, fortified with your blood, and no doubt trying to figure out how to get more of it. I want to crush him into dust for putting his mouth on you, not to mention…” he tensed, then continued, “…what he did. And I’ve got you freaking out with all this new knowledge, and I don’t trust anyone around us. I trusted Sam Jasper and I was wrong about that. There’s a fuckuva lot ahead of me here.”
