killed the last of my mother's attackers and watched as she lay dying in the sunlit grass, some knowledge buried deep within me seemed to come awake and rise up. I finally understood that I was different, and what that meant."
"You were just a child," Dylan said softly. "How did you survive after that?"
"For a while I went hungry. I tried feeding from animals, but their blood was like poison. I hunted my first human about a week after the attack. I was out of my mind with hunger, and I had no experience with finding my own food. I killed several innocent people those first few weeks I was on my own. I would have gone Rogue eventually, but then something miraculous happened. I was tracking prey in the woods when a huge shadow came out of the trees. It was a man, I thought, but he moved so fast and so stealthily I could hardly keep focus on him. He was hunting too. He went after the peasant I'd set my sights on, and with a grace I was sorely lacking, he brought the human down and began to feed from the wound he'd opened in the man's throat. He was a blood-eater, like me."
"What did you do, Rio?"
"I watched in fascination," he said, remembering it as clearly as if it had just happened a few minutes ago.
"When it was over, the human got up and walked away as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I was astonished, and when I drew in my breath, that's when the blood-eater saw me hiding nearby. He called me out and after hearing that I was alone, he brought me with him to his home. It was a Darkhaven. I met many others like me, and learned that I was part of a race called the Breed. As my mother had not seen fit to give me a name, my new family in the Darkhaven gave me the one I have now."
"Eleuterio de la Noche Atanacio," Dylan said, the words sounding far too sweet as she spoke them. Her hand, as she placed it tenderly on the scarred side of his face felt far too comforting. "My God, Rio...it's a miracle you're standing here with me at all."
She moved closer to him now, looking up into his eyes. Rio could hardly breathe as she rose onto her toes and tilted his chin down to meet her kiss. Their lips came together for the second time that night...and with a need that neither one of them seemed willing or able to conceal.
He could have kissed her forever.
But it was at that precise moment that the quiet promenade erupted in a sudden cacophony of gunfire.
Chapter Twenty-four
Panic flooded Rio's veins like acid.
The gunfire came again, another rapid report that split the night. The sharp staccato pops were coming from somewhere close; in his head they were cannon fire, the sound of them - the shock of a sudden attack - ripping through his senses, filling his mind with a thick fog that swallowed the here and now.
Dylan, he thought fiercely.
Had to keep her safe.
He was only barely conscious of his actions as he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down onto the grass beneath him. Her cry of alarm was muted, more felt than heard as he covered her body with his, willing to sacrifice himself for her.
Protecting her was all that mattered.
But as they hit the hard earth together, Rio felt his mind splintering off. Past and present began to blend, mesh...morph into a hazy confusion of thought and fracturing logic.
Suddenly he was in the warehouse again - Lucan, Nikolai, and the other warriors moving in on a raid of a Rogue lair in Boston. He was glancing up into the rafters of the abandoned building, noting the movement of enemies in the shadows.
Seeing the silver glint of an electronic device in the suckhead's hands.
Hearing Niko shout a warning that a bomb was set to blow...
Ah, fuck.
Rio roared as remembered pain blasted into his head, into every inch of his body. He felt like he was on fire, flesh burning, filling his nostrils with the stench of seared skin and hair.
Cool hands came up to his face, but he was too far gone to make sense of what was real and what was a nightmare from his recent past.
"Rio?"
He heard the soft voice, felt those soothing hands moving over his face.