Page 32 of Blood Submission

Dante frowned. “I don’t understand. Why do you think that was your fault?”

She started at the sound of his voice, as if she’d forgotten he was there. Her eyes searched him out in the soft light. “Because I sent his soul away to where he’d be happy. He wasn’t happy with me. He just cried all thetime.”

“What do you mean you ‘sent his soul away’?” If he hadn’t been inside her mind at just that moment, he would have worried about her sanity. But there were no threads of madness, only overwhelming grief.

“I can do that. I’m a monster.” That phantom smile was there again. “Just likeyou.”

She was nothing like him. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve done it before, when I was younger. I watched my grandfather’s soul leave his body. I forced it out. He hadn’t been himself for months. He got mean, and started beating my grandma. I was only eleven, but I knew what was going on. And I loved my grandma. She used to always make me my favorite foods whenever I was at her house, and we’d watch the birds together in her feeders. She knew the names of every single one. So when grandpa went crazy, I protected her.” She wiped at her eyes. “I meant to do it that time.” This was said with no remorse. “I didn’t mean to do it to my son. I was just so tired.” She was quiet for a few minutes, then she sniffed and drew herself up. He could see her pulling herself together, and could only imagine how many other times she’d done it, like pulling a protective cape around her pain. “I’ve never told anyone that it was me. But I guess it doesn’t really matter if youknow.”

He could feel her complete misery, her desperation for him to understand. But he didn’t understand. Though he had no doubts that she believed what she was telling him, something wasn’t sitting right with her story.

“What did the humans say exactly, about how the babydied?”

She shrugged. “They said it was SIDS.” When he looked at her blankly, she added, “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Sometimes babies just die in their sleep.”

Dante didn’t keep up with all of the human illnesses and syndromes; there were just too many these days. Some real, and some created by the pharmaceutical industry to make a quick buck. Plus, he just didn’t fucking care. He didn’t normally associate with humans, other than to prey on them as they once did him. “And you don’t believethem?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Why not? There are a lot of human illnesses. It could have been anything.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “No. It wasme.”

Dante didn’t know what else to say to her. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing. Running his hand over his head and feeling the bristle of new hair, he had the passing thought that he needed to take a blade to it again.

His body’s lust was lessened by her grief. Another unusual occurrence. And he could feel her exhaustion, both physically and mentally. “I’m tired,” he told her. “And I’m still healing. I need to rest.” He paused. “You do, too.” Lying down, he pulled her down beside him, arranging the blanket over the both of them. He still had his pants on, but didn’t bother to removethem.

She stiffened in his arms. “I want to get dressed.”

He almost smiled, glad that the fight hadn’t gone out of her entirely. “No. I want to feel you against me.” Turmoil continued to rumble around inside of her, but eventually she sighed and relaxed against him. He looked down at her face, noticing for the first time the fine lines on her forehead. “How old are you, little mouse?”

He didn’t think she was going to answer him at first, but then she said, “Thirty-eight.”

“And when did your childdie?”

“Six yearsago.”

No time at all. “Where is the father?” He tensed, waiting for her answer, and wondered why it mattered tohim.

“He’s gone,” was all shesaid.

“Tell me again what you think youdid.”

“Why? It doesn’t matter now.” Her tone was resigned.

He didn’t know why it mattered. All he knew was that he felt this incredible longing to make the sadness go away, and to protect her from anything else that would make her unhappy. Every cell in his body was exceedingly aware of the woman beside him, tuned in to the slightest nuance in her mood. “Just tell me, little mouse. I want to hear the words from you. And don’t bother to lie. I will know if youdo.”

She sighed and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he gathered her in closer to his chest, unconsciously lending her his strength. Giving up, she began to speak, her words muffled against his chest.

“Apparently, I was born with the power. My father told me that my mom was a…she was a witch.” She hurried on, as if used to being questioned or ridiculed when she said that. Dante, however, took her at her word. He knew about witches. “I figured it out as a child, and when I confronted him, he didn’t deny it. He thought I had gotten lucky, that the magic had skipped a generation. We found out with Grandpa that it hadn’t.”

“Where was your mother?”

“She was killed when I was a toddler. Some kind of accident. My father moved us to Vegas and raised me by himself. He worked in one of the clubs on the Strip. As did I, up until recently. I was a hostess.”

“Is he still alive?”

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