The woman simply did something to him that he couldn't explain, let alone deny. And after she had eased him out of the tailspin of his death vision, all he wanted--all he needed--was to lose himself even deeper in whatever spell it was that she was casting. Except having Tess na**d beneath him only cranked him up tighter. Now that he'd had her, he just wanted more.
At the least, the visit to her clinic had netted some good news.
As Dante wheeled onto the compound's property, he pulled a crumpled sticky note out of his coat pocket and smacked it down onto the smooth surface of the dashboard. In the dim glow of the gauge lights, he read the handwritten message of a couple days ago, which he'd retrieved from Tess's appointment book on her desk.
Ben called--museum dinner tomorrow night, 7 pm. Don't forget!
Ben. The name rolled through Dante's mind like battery acid. Ben, the guy Tess had been with at the fancy art reception. The human scum who was dealing Crimson, probably at the direction of the Rogues.
There was a call-back number on the message, a Southie exchange. With that bit of information in hand, Dante was betting that it would take all of two seconds to locate the human via Internet or utility records.
Dante gunned the Porsche up the gated drive toward the Order's mansion, then rolled into the large, secured fleet garage. He cut the lights and engine, grabbed the piece of paper off the dash, then pulled one of his malebranche blades out of the center console beside him.
The bowed length of metal felt cold and unforgiving in his hand--just like it was going to feel against good old Ben's na**d throat. He could hardly wait for the sun to set again so he could go and make a formal introduction.
Chapter Eighteen
Tess slept well for the first time in what felt like a week and in spite of the fact that her head was spinning with thoughts of Dante. He'd been in and out of her dreams all night and was the first thing on her mind when she awoke early that next morning, before the alarm clock on her nightstand had a chance to go off with its usual six A.M. blare.
Dante.
His scent still clung to her skin, even after twenty minutes under the warm spray of her shower. There was a pleasant sort of ache between her thighs, an ache she relished because it called to mind everything they'd done together last night.
She could still feel all the places where he'd touched her and kissed her.
All the places on her body that he'd mastered and claimed as his.
Tess dressed quickly, then left her apartment, stopping only to grab a cup of Starbucks on her way to make the 5:20 train at North Station.
She was the first one in at the clinic; Nora probably wouldn't arrive much before seven-thirty. Tess went in through the back door, leaving it locked behind her since the clinic didn't open for another couple of hours. As soon as she entered the kennel area and heard the labored wheeze in one of the cages, she knew she had problems.
Dumping her purse, office keys, and the half-empty paper cup on the counter next to the washbasin, Tess hurried over to the little terrier Dante had brought in the night before. Harvard wasn't doing well. He lay on his side in the cage, chest rising and falling in a slow pace, soft brown eyes rolled back in his head. His mouth was slightly open, his tongue a sickly gray color and lolled out to the side.
His breath was a dry rattle, the kind of sound that said all the bloodwork and tests she'd run the night before didn't need to be sent out to the lab after all. Harvard would be gone before the samples made it into the mail.
"Poor baby," Tess said as she unlatched the cage and carefully stroked the dog's fur. She could feel his weakness through her fingertips. He was holding on by the thinnest strand of life, probably too far gone even before Dante had brought him in to see her.
Sympathy for the animal curled around Tess's heart like a fist. She could help him. She knew the way...
Tess retracted her hands and clasped them together in a knot in front of her. She'd made a decision about this a long time ago. She'd promised herself, never again.
But this was just a helpless animal, not a human being. Not the vile man from her past who hadn't deserved any pity or her help.
What would be the harm, really? Could she actually stand there and watch the poor dog die, knowing she had the unique ability to do something?
No. She couldn't.
"It's all right," she said softly as she reached back into the cage.
Very gently, Tess brought Harvard out, cradling his little body in her arms. She held him like she would an infant, supporting his slight weight with one hand as she placed her other hand on his gaunt belly. Tess focused on the feel of his breathing, the faint but steady beat of his heart. She could read his weakness, the combination of ailments that had been slowly sapping his life away for probably several long months.
And there was more--her fingertips tingled as she moved down to the dog's abdomen. A bitter taste began to form at the back of her throat as the cancer made itself known to her touch. The tumor wasn't very large, but it was lethal. Tess could picture it in her mind, seeing the web of fibrous strands that clung to the dog's stomach, the ugly bluish clump of disease whose sole purpose was to drain away life.
Tess let the tumor come into her mind through her fingertips as the vibration of her blood began to simmer with power. She concentrated on the cancer, seeing it illuminate from within and then break apart. Feeling it dissolve as she held her hand over it and willed it away.
It came back to her so easily, her unexplainable ability.
My curse, she thought, although it was hard to think of it that way when the small bundle nestled in the crook of her arm whimpered softly and turned to lick her hand in gratitude.
She was so caught up in what she was doing, she almost didn't hear the noise that came from one of the clinic's empty exam rooms. Then it came again: a short, metallic scrape of sound.