"I'm Tegan," he said, and held out his hand to help her up.
The contact seemed too forward to her, even though she could hardly pretend that this male's huge hands hadn't been clamped down on her shoulders and her waist just a few hours before. She'd felt the lingering heat of his touch for a long time after he'd let her go, the outline of his strong fingers seeming burned into her flesh.
She got to her feet on her own power and brushed awkwardly at her wet cheeks. "I am Elise," she said, giving him a polite bow of her head. "I am Sterling's sister by marriage."
"Are you recently widowed?" he asked, his head cocking to the side as that penetrating gaze of his drank in every inch of her.
Elise fidgeted with the long scarlet sash at her waist. "I lost my mate five years ago."
"You still mourn."
"I still love him."
"I'm sorry," he said, his tone level, his face placid. "And I'm sorry about your son too."
Elise looked down, not ready to hear sympathy for Camden when she was still clinging to hope that he might return to her.
"It's not your fault. You didn't drive him to this, and you couldn't have stopped him."
"What?" she murmured, astonished that Tegan could know anything about her guilt, her secret shame. A few Gen Ones were gifted in mind reading, but she hadn't felt him probing her thoughts, and only the weakest humans were penetrable without some notice of psychic invasion. "How could you possibly--"
The answer came to her at once, the explanation for the strange buzzing of her senses when he'd touched her earlier that night, the lingering heat his fingers had left on her skin. He had pined her emotions in that instant. He had stripped her bare without her will.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's not something I can control."
Elise blinked away her discomfiture. She knew what it was like to be cursed with such an ability. Her own psychic skill had made her a prisoner to the Darkhavens, unable to bear the bombardment of negative human thoughts that assailed her whenever she was among their kind.
But sharing a similar affliction with this warrior didn't make her any more comfortable in his presence. And worry over Camden--the raw misery she felt when she thought about what he was doing out there, swept up in the violence of the Rogues--made her anxious to be alone.
"I should go," she said, more to herself than to Tegan. "I need to... I have to get out of here. I can't be here right now."
"Do you want to go home?"
She shrugged, then shook her head, uncertain what she needed. "Anywhere," she whispered. "I just need to go."
Closer now, moving without even the slightest stir of the air around him, Tegan said, "I'll take you."
"Oh, no, I didn't mean--"
She shot a glance back down the corridor, in the direction she'd come from, thinking that she probably should try to find Sterling. A bigger part of her was thinking that she wasn't at all sure she should be in this warrior's company now, let alone considering going off with him somewhere unescorted.
"You afraid I'm going to bite you, Elise?" he asked, his lazy, sensual mouth quirking at one corner, the first indication she'd seen in him that he actually might feel any emotion at all.
"It's late," she pointed out, casting about for a polite excuse to deny him. "It must be getting close to dawn. I wouldn't ask you to risk exposure--"
"So I'll drive fast." Now he smiled, a full-on grin that said he knew full well she was trying to dodge him and he wasn't about to permit it. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of here for a while."
God help her, but when he held his hand out to her, Elise hesitated only for a second before she took it.
Chapter Thirty-two
Dante was gone longer than a few minutes, and the waiting made Tess anxious. She had so many questions, so much to sort out in her mind. And despite the internal, enlivened buzzing of her body, on the outside she felt strung out, antsy.
A hot shower in Dante's spacious bathroom helped wash away some of that feeling, and so did the fresh change of clothes that he had left for her in the bedroom. With Harvard watching from his curled-up position on the bed, Tess put on the tan cords and brown knit shirt, then sat down to slip on her shoes. Scuff marks and small splatters of blood were vivid reminders of the attack she'd suffered. An attack, Dante would have her believe, perpetrated by inhuman creatures with a thirst--an addiction--to blood.
Vampires.
There had to be a more logical explanation, something grounded in fact, not folklore. Tess knew it was impossible, yet she knew what she had experienced. She knew what she had seen, when her first assailant leaped off Ben's apartment balcony on foot and dropped to the ground, as fluid as a cat. She knew what she had felt, when that man and another who joined him hauled her off the sidewalk and into the old shed. They had bitten her, like rabid animals. They had punctured her skin with huge fangs and drawn her blood into their mouths, feeding off her like something out of a horror movie.
Like the vampires Dante had proclaimed them to be.
At least she was safe now, wherever Dante had brought her. She looked around the large bedroom with its simple, understated furnishings. The furniture was masculine, with clean lines and dark finishes. The only indulgence was the bed. The king-size four-poster dominated the room, its glossy black silk sheets as soft and sleek as a raven's wing.
Tess found similar tasteful appointments in the adjacent living room. Dante's quarters felt comfortable and unfussy, like the man himself. The whole place seemed homey, but it didn't feel like a house. There were no windows on any of the walls, just expensive-looking contemporary art and framed photography. He had mentioned this place was a compound, and now Tess wondered precisely where she was.