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“What’s wrong?”
How could he tell her he could see people in the dark when mortals couldn’t? “I heard Dylan snoring," he lied. "I’ll get him out of here, but I don’t want you getting hurt.”
She hesitated.
“Go, Caitlin. Please. I know martial arts.”
When she closed the door to the bathroom, Levka said, “Start the shower. Maybe if they hear it, Dylan will sneak out without my having to make him leave.”
The shower began to run. “Be careful, Levka.”
Dylan glanced up from the bed when he heard the shower. “She’s come back. She can find somewhere else to sleep.” He climbed out of bed without a strip of clothes on and headed for the bathroom.
No, she won’t, Levka said privately to himself. Instantly, his fangs extended, though in the dark stateroom, Dylan couldn’t see the terror he had unleashed.
Levka swooped across the room with vampiric speed and seized Dylan’s throat. Dylan cried out in fright.
Alicia stirred. “Dylan?”
“Sleep, Alicia,” Levka compelled her.
When she plopped her head back on her pillow, Levka captured Dylan’s mind, as the jerk tried to wriggle free, his tongue silent. “Be still, mortal, and it will hurt less. Or struggle, and you shall feel my centuries-old wrath.”
Dylan stood still like a mannequin while Levka bit into the creep’s neck and drank deeply, enough to make the bastard weak for a couple of days. His blood tasted heavily of rum, and Levka cursed inwardly. Disgusted, he finished feasting and sealed the wounds. In the next instant, he wiped Dylan’s memory of having been with Alicia, of knowing her, of knowing Caitlin. Then Levka opened the door to the stateroom and tossed Dylan—more like a rag doll now than a menace to anyone—into the hallway.
Let him explain what he was doing sleeping naked on the floor later that morning.
Levka grabbed up Dylan’s clothes, walked onto the balcony, and tossed them over the railing into the ocean. On his way back through the stateroom, he ensured Alicia was still asleep.
“Do you need anything more of me?” he asked Caitlin before he left.
“Is he gone?” Caitlin shut the shower off.
“He’s gone and will be no more trouble to you.”
“I guess I don’t need anything else then. Thanks so much for everything, for helping me save Lynne in the pool, for getting rid of Dylan. Thanks.”
“Goodnight, Caitlin.”
“Night, Levka.”
Assuming she wasn’t properly dressed and wouldn’t want a goodnight kiss, he finally left.
But the compulsion to have her as his mate had not abated.
When Levka returned to his stateroom, Arman was leaning back in bed, reading a medical journal. “You’re wearing a path across the zigzag carpeting. If you would at least zigzag when you did it, the wear on the carpet would not be as noticeable.”
“Go kiss her. Or better yet, why don’t you get it over with and just bite her? You’re disturbing my concentration.” Ruric flipped another page in The Great Galaxy War.
“Go to sleep, Levka.” Stasio tossed a book on the battle strategies of WWII on the bedside table and turned off his light. “You should not disturb the lady in her bed.”
“Besides,” Arman added, “what if you get caught?”
Levka thought of her dark hair splayed out on the pink pillow, of her long lashes hiding her eyes, of her full pink lips that her old boyfriend “Vlad” had wanted to kiss. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter 11
Caitlin slept a fitful sleep. Levka leaned over and kissed her lips. She reached up to touch him like she’d done before, but he moved beyond her reach. It was best she thought she only dreamed of him coming to steal kisses from her…it was best he remain in the shadows of her night.
