Page 25 of The Vampire Always Rises
“So?” He was out of the car now, too, standing beside it and looking very annoyed.
“This is a fast road, so I can’t leave a dog here to be hit. Here, doggy. Come here. Oh, there you are. Hi. You look scared.”
The dog, some sort of a white shepherd, shied away and ran past me. I held my breath, wanting to yell lest it run right into the traffic, but luckily, the dog had enough sense to lope along the shoulder, straight toward Merrick.
“Catch it!” I yelled, hurrying after the poor creature.
He didn’t need to. The dog ran straight up to him and tried to climb him in its terror. Merrick, with a look that would have made me laugh in a less dire situation, picked up the dog and stood waiting for me.
“Oh, good, he’s OK. I thought he was going to run right into the traffic. Let’s get him into the car.” I opened the back door, gesturing toward the interior.
“You do not honestly expect me to place this stray into one of Christian’s expensive cars,” he said, his brows together.
“Of course I do. It’s our duty to rescue those who need our help,” I said self-righteously, and gestured again to the interior.
“Since when?”
“Since you developed a moral compass. Put the dog in, Merrick.”
He considered me for a minute.And if I don’t?
I’ll never speak to you again.
That is supposed to be a threat?
“Of course it’s a threat, you great big boob!”
He pulled himself up, his shoulders squaring even though he was holding a large white dog to his chest. “I am a Dark One. I walk the night, and am feared by mortal and immortal beings alike. I amnota boob.”
“You are if you think that losing your Beloved isn’t going to make your life a living hades,” I pointed out, and tried to pull the dog from his arms.
“I’ve survived this long without you,” he said dismissively. “I don’t see any reason I can’t go another eight hundred years.”
“I am going to ignore how wrong you are, and instead, I will point out that you have to do what your Beloved says.”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “In what world is that a rule?”
“In C. J. Dante’s books!”
“Perhaps for a Joined pair, but we are not Joined,” he said, but to my relief put the dog on the backseat of the car. “Despite your ability to access my thoughts, that does not mean you hold any sway over me. We will get along together better if you remember that.”
He moved around to the driver’s side while I tried to think of a good comeback for that statement, but my Inner Tempest failed me. She was too busy swooning over just how tight his shirt had been across his muscles while he was holding a dog who must have weighed at least eighty pounds.
I got into the car, and didn’t say anything when he drove off, but I thought a lot of things.
Notallof them had to do with wanting to get him naked.
Chapter Seven
“Ithink the dog is going to be OK. He’s curled up asleep back there. When we get to the next town, we can find a twenty-four-hour vet hospital, and have them scan him for a microchip. Maybe he’s just lost, and his owners are frantic trying to find him.”
The woman, Tempest, spoke just as if she was not in a dangerous situation, with a dangerous man, in a dangerous location. And yet, there she was, prattling on to Merrick about being his Beloved (he gave a mental snort at that idea), the stray she’d forced him to take, and every other subject that flitted through her mind.
“I love dogs.”
Of course she did. He had no doubt she also liked butterflies, kittens, and rainbows. He felt quite certain that if he ever saw a rainbow, he’d dislike it intensely.
“My papa would never let me have one, because he said the dogs and cats have no souls, and thus aren’t worthy of our love. I call bullcookies on that one. My friend Ellis has a cat, named Jose, who is the most soulful cat you’d ever meet.”
