She was locked in a dark, dank place that smelled like wet dirt with a boy named Liam. The tangy taste of blood lingered on her lips. Then the realization hit. They weren’t dead. Didn’t feel dead. They were actually trying to survive. And to do it, Liam and Natasha were feeding off each other.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” Liam repeated.
“I’m not hungry,” she lied. She barely noted the skip of her heart, listening to the sound of her voice. Not Della’s voice. Natasha’s voice.
Who was Natasha?
Panic started to swell inside her chest. She buried her nails in the wet earth she sat on, and almost cried out from the pain. Obviously, she’d already tried to claw her way out.
And it hadn’t worked.
They couldn’t continue to feed off each other. She and Liam were going to die.
No, Natasha and Liam were going to die.
But the realization didn’t make Della feel any better. A feeling, a need, to save Natasha and Liam, swept through her. No, not swept. It felt as if it was tattooed on her soul, as if it was part of her destiny. As if not doing it would mean death not just for Natasha and Liam, but for part of herself as well. Part of her soul.
Save her! Save her! The words echoed as if in the distance. The same voice she’d heard before she’d come inside the falls. A ghost? Maybe.
“You okay?” another voice, a deep male voice, snuck into her awareness and tickled her subconscious. “You okay?” the deep voice repeated.
It wasn’t Liam this time.
The deep tenor carried an undertone of confidence that she recognized. A tone she admired, but wished she didn’t. Another feeling swelled inside her, and one word resounded in her heart.
Bonded.
Chase.
She mentally climbed out of the odd kind of dream state that had sucked her under. Chase held her by the shoulders, and he gave her a slight shake.
“Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked, his brow wrinkled, his lips almost white, he held them so tight. “Answer me.” He touched her face. His palms moved down her arms. His touch … felt so right. It felt so wrong. “Della?”
“Stop fondling me.” She slapped at his hand and took a step back, her gaze shifting around the cavern.
“I wasn’t … what just happened?” he asked.
Her breath caught, wondering how long she’d stood here, lost in that other place. Or not exactly lost, but trapped. Trapped like Natasha.
She suddenly remembered what the ghost—or whatever it had been—had said to her about Chase.
The Vampire Council sent Chase here about you.
“What does the Vampire Council want with me?” she asked.
Chapter Four
A look of surprise entered Chase’s eyes. “I didn’t say they sent me here for you.” He lowered himself and sat on a large rock. The filtered light from the falls cast shadows around him. Some of the light held tiny rays of color, like a mini light show.
“The truth, Chase. Please.” The “please” sounded wrong. She shouldn’t have to beg for the truth. And that was why she couldn’t ever really trust this guy, she reminded herself.
He exhaled. “They want you to work a case.” He let go of some air as if frustrated. “I’ll get my ass chewed out by Burnett for telling you this, but that’s probably a plus for you, isn’t it?”
She ignored the ass-chewing comment and the slight hurt in his voice, and focused on the information he’d finally leaked. “A case? What kind of a case?”
“One you’ve already partially solved.”
“What?”
“Supposedly, you captured and then led the FRU to that creep, Craig Anthony, who was enslaving new vampires and using a funeral home as a front.”
Yeah, she’d stumbled across his organization when she’d gone to ask questions about Chan and her uncle’s funeral, but … “Craig Anthony was caught, so what’s the case about?”
Glancing back at the falls, Chase rested his hands on his knees. His jeans, still wet, stretched over his muscled legs. “Anthony was caught, but he isn’t talking. Between the FRU and the council, we’re pretty sure we’ve reined in most of his clients holding vampires. But according to some leads, there could still be as many as twenty or thirty fresh turns under someone’s thumb.”
“So the FRU and the Vampire Council actually compare notes?”
Chase frowned. “Not very often, and only when it benefits the FRU.”
“Or the other way around,” Della said. Then she remembered how sleazy Craig Anthony was and she had no doubt those new vampires were being treated terribly. Somebody needed to find them. Why not her?
“So, they want me to work with the FRU to find them?”
“Not quite. They want us to find them.” He studied her face. “They want you to come and work for the council.”
Della stared at the wall of water, trying to wrap her head around this piece of news. Ever since she’d learned of the council’s existence, she’d considered them partly rogue. The FRU was the legitimate supernatural governing body. Knowing Chase was even halfway associated with the Vampire Council tainted her view of him.
She glanced back at him in his wet clothes. The idea of working with him, being with him, had panic swelling inside her again. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Don’t waste your time. Burnett already denied the council’s request.”