It was Dante's face she saw, bloodstained and grimy, his hair dripping wet as it spiked down over his brow. His lips moved, speaking the same words she heard him speak now: I'm not going to hurt you... I promise...
She had an abrupt but very distinct memory of strong hands gripping her by the arms, holding her in place. Of Dante's lips peeling back from his teeth--revealing huge white fangs that came toward her throat.
"I didn't know you," Dante was saying now, as if he could track her thoughts with his mind. "I was weakened and seriously wounded. I would only have taken what I needed from you and left you alone. There would have been no pain for you, no distress. I had no idea what I had done until I saw your mark --"
"You bit me... you... Oh, God, you drank my blood that night? How... why am I only now remembering this?"
His stark features softened somewhat, as if in remorse. "I erased your memory. I tried to explain things to you, but the situation was too far out of hand. We struggled, and you injected me with a sedative. By the time I came to, it was almost dawn and there was no time for talking. I thought it best for you that you didn't remember. Then I saw the mark on your hand, and I knew there could be no taking back any of what I'd done to you." Tess didn't need to look down at her right hand to know the mark he spoke of. The small birthmark had always been curious to her, a teardrop poised over the bowl of a crescent moon. But it didn't make any more sense to her now than it ever had.
"Not many women have the mark, Tess. Only a rare few. You're a Breedmate. If one of my kind takes your blood into his body, or gives you his, a bond is forged. It is unbreakable."
"And you... did this to me?"
Another memory swamped her now, a further remembrance of blood and darkness. Tess recalled waking from a shadowy dream, her mouth filled with a roaring force of energy, of life. She had been starved, and Dante fed her. From his wrist and then, later, from a vein he had opened for her in his neck.
"Oh, my God," she whispered. "What have you done to me?"
"I saved your life by giving you my blood. Just as you saved mine with yours."
"You gave me no choice, either time," she gasped. "What am I now? Have you turned me into the same kind of monster that you are?"
"No. That's not the way it works. You will never become a vampire. But if you continue to feed from me as my mate, you can live for a very long time. As long as I will. Longer, perhaps."
"I don't believe this. I refuse to believe this!"
Tess pivoted for the swinging doors of the infirmary and pushed against the panels. They didn't budge. She pushed again, putting all of her strength into it. Nothing. It was as though they were fused on their hinges, completely immobile.
"Let me out of here," she told Dante, suspecting that it was his will alone that kept the doors from opening for her. "Goddamn you, Dante. Let me go!"
As soon as the door gave the slightest bit, Tess pushed it open and bolted through at a dead run. She had no idea where she was going and didn't care, so long as it put distance between herself and Dante, the man she only thought she knew. The man she actually believed she was in love with. The monster who had betrayed her more deeply than anyone in her tormented past.
Sick with fear and angered at her own stupidity, Tess choked back the tears that stung her eyes. She ran harder, knowing that Dante was certain to catch up to her. She just had to find a way out of the place. Running up to a bank of elevators, she pressed the call button and prayed the doors would open. Seconds ticked by... too many for her to risk waiting.
"Tess." Dante's deep voice startled her with its nearness. He was right behind her, close enough to touch her, even though she hadn't heard him approach.
With a cry, she ducked out of his reach and made another mad dash down one of the corridor's twisting lengths. There was an open, arched entryway up ahead of her. Maybe she could hide in the chamber, she thought, desperation making her grasp for any means of escaping the nightmare that was pursuing her now. She slipped inside the dim space--a cathedral of some sort, with carved stone walls lit only by a single red pillar candle that glowed near an unadorned altar.
There was nowhere to conceal herself in the small sanctuary, only twin rows of benches and the stone pedestal at the front of the room. On the other side was another arched doorway, opening into more darkness; it was impossible for her to discern where it might lead. It didn't matter, anyway. Dante was standing in the open doorway off the corridor, his muscular body never looking more imposing than it did as he stepped into the small cathedral and began a slow prowl toward her.
"Tess, we don't have to do this. Let's talk." His powerful stride faltered for a second, and he scowled, bringing his hand up to his temple as if he were in pain. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped a full octave in pitch, coming out of him in a dark snarl. "Christ, can we just... Let's be reasonable, try to work this out."
Tess backed up, inching closer to the far wall of the chamber and the arched hollow carved into the stone.
"Damn it, Tess. Hear me out. I love you."
"Don't say that. Haven't you told me enough lies already?"
"It's no lie. I wish it was, but--"
Dante took another step, and his knee suddenly gave out beneath him. He hissed as he caught himself on one of the low benches, his fingers digging into the wood so hard, Tess thought it a wonder he didn't crush it.
Something strange was happening to his features. Even with his head dropped down, she could see that his face was growing sharper, his cheeks seeming leaner, more angular, his golden skin stretched tight over the bones. He spat a curse, something she didn't recognize any more than she did the gravelly roughness of his voice.