Page 36 of Blood Submission

But Aiden was not one to take a hint, as Dante well knew. “You show up here in a car that you can’t drive. You smell like one particular female who’s scent is all over that car. You have her blood inside of you even now, so I know you haven’t killed her yet. Shagged her? Probably. Killed her? No. You get your knickers all in a twist the moment you scented Keira last night, who smells amazingly similar to the female you’ve obviously been getting on with. Almost like she was your”—his eyes widened dramatically—“Mate!”

Denial rose up inside of Dante, fast and furious. “No. That’s not how it happened. Or why. I went after Keira”—he glanced at Luukas—“again, no offense,”—then went back to Aiden—“because I was fucking starving.”

Aiden sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Bollocks.”

“Aiden,” Luukas interrupted. “We can discuss this later.”

“Actually, Aiden might be right to bring this up now,” Christian cut in. “He needs to know. Because if he kills her, he’s completely screwed.” He turned to Dante with dawning horror. “You haven’t killed her yet, haveyou?”

Dante stood up so fast his chair went flying back into the wall. “What the FUCK are you all talking about.” It was a demand. Not a question.

Nikulas stood up and came around to stand eye to eye with him. “All right, look. You’ve got a female with you that you’ve been feeding from. Am I right? A humanone?”

He narrowed his eyes at the face in front of him that was just entirely too fucking pretty to be on a male. “So what if Ido?”

“Have you fed from anyone else since you found her?” Nik asked. “Or tried to? Other than Keira?”

Dante crossed his arms in a defensive pose. The asshole that he’d taken the dog from immediately came to mind. But that had been meth in his veins that made him taste so nasty. Right? “What exactly are you fucking gettingat?”

Luukas came around his desk to join his brother. “Have you hurt her?” He didn’t seem particularly put out about it if he had, just mildly concerned.

Dante looked between the two of them, and then over to where Aiden and Christian sat leaning forward in their chairs. They all stared at him, waiting for an answer. “No,” he finally said. Then he shrugged one shoulder. “Not really.”

A collective sigh of relief followed his short answer. Nik nodded. “Good. That’sgood.”

“Where is she?” Luukas asked with a forcefultone.

Oh hell, no. He wasn’t answering that one. So they could go down there and take her out? Fuck, no. Laney was no one’s concern but his. He stared back at Luukas with a steady gaze and clamped his mouth shut. Luukas had not created him, so he could not make him talk. A problem that arose once in a while. A problem for Luukas, that is. Not for Dante.

Nik gave his brother a look before turning back to Dante. “Look, man. We’ve all gone through the same thing recently. We can all relate. None of us wantedthis—”

“Speak for yourself, Nik,” Aiden said. “I knew the moment I saw Grace’s derriere sticking out of that doorway that I had to have it all for myself.”

“But it’s happened,” Nik continued, ignoring him. “Luuk still has a problem with being mated to the witch that caused him so much misery.”

Confusion crept over Dante. “What?”

Luukas shook his head. “I’ll explain that later. Right now, I just want to debrief you and find out what happened.”

“And let’s not forget about my demon,” Aiden said casually. “We need to warn him about Waano.”

“Your what?” Dante was beginning to wonder if he was still in the desert. Hallucinating, maybe.

“My demon,” Aiden repeated with a cheerful smile. “Waano.”

“We’ll get to that, too,” Luukas said. On his way back to his desk, he paused. “And don’t kill the girl. If she is yours, you will die without hernow.”

Dante was familiar with the tales. Once a vampire found his fated mate, and drank from her, he could no longer feed from anyone else. And without her, he would die the true death. His mate, on the other hand, after drinking his blood in return, would freeze in time and not age until their vampire mate was no longer around to keep them immortal. Then they would begin to age naturally again, though it may be a thousand years from when they wereborn.

It had always sounded extremely cruel to him. That after losing their mate, the human then had to continue to live withoutthem.

Picking his chair up off the floor and setting it upright again, Dante fell intoit.

“Did you happen to catch her name before you dragged her to your cave?” Aiden asked.

“Laney,” Dante answered automatically. “LaneyMoss.”

Christian snorted. “Yeah, man. You’re screwed.”

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