Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [472]
“When I was in Jiáín, I heard about a man who was attacked by a demon. An old farmer witnessed it, said this demon came down off a nearby mountain to feed. To drink human blood.”
Rio stood there, staring at the door in front of him while Dylan spoke. He knew the night she referred to, remembered it clearly because it was the last time he’d allowed himself to feed. He’d gone more than two weeks without nourishment when he prowled onto a humble farm outside the forest at the base of the mountains.
He’d been starving and it had made him careless. An old man came upon him—saw the attack, saw Rio holding the human throat in his teeth. It was a reckless slip, and the interruption was likely the only thing that saved Rio’s prey from an out of control feeding that might have meant his death. He stopped hunting that very night, afraid of what he might become.
“It was just an exaggeration, right?” Dylan’s voice got a little quieter during his answering silence. “You didn’t really do that. Did you, Rio?”
“Make yourself comfortable,” he growled. As he started to leave, he grabbed her messenger bag that contained her laptop computer and digital camera. “I have things I need to do.”
He didn’t wait for her to protest or say anything more, just knew he had to get the hell out of there. A few brisk strides carried him to the open French doors and the living room beyond.
“Rosario…?”
He stopped walking at the sound of her voice behind him. Scowling, he pivoted his head to look back at her. She had lifted up on the bed at some point, now bracing herself on her elbows.
God, she looked deliciously disheveled like that, beautifully drowsy. It didn’t take much to imagine this was how Dylan might look after a night of rousing sex. The fact that she was lying against the plum-colored silk of his bed only made the image all the more erotic.
“What?” His voice was a thick scrape of sound in his throat.
“Your name,” she said, like he should know what she meant. She tilted her head as she studied him from across the room. “You told me that Rio is only part of your name, so I just wondered what it’s short for. Is it Rosario?”
“No.”
“Then, what is it?” When he didn’t answer right away, her light brown brows knit together in impatience. “After everything else you’ve told me these past couple of days, what can it hurt to tell me the name you were born with?”
He scoffed inwardly, recalling all the things he’d been called since his birth. None of them were kind. “Why is it important to you to know?”
She shook her head, gave a mild lift of her slender shoulder. “It’s not important. I guess I’m just curious to know more about you. Who you really are.”
“You know enough,” he said. A ripe curse slipped off his tongue. “Trust me, Dylan Alexander. You don’t want to know anything more about me than you already do.”
He was wrong about that, Dylan thought, watching Rio stalk away from her and out of the spacious suite. He closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the softly lit apartment.
She pivoted off the side of the big bed. Her legs were wobbly, like she hadn’t used them for several hours. Like she’d been out cold for the better part of the night. If what he’d said was true—that they’d left Berlin and arrived in the States—then she figured she was missing about nine hours of conscious memory.
Could that really be possible?
Had he truly put her into some kind of trance this whole time?
She’d been stunned to feel his fingers caressing her face as she woke up. His touch had felt so soothing, so protective and warm. But it had been fleeting too, gone as soon as he realized she’d become aware of it.
She didn’t want to feel any warmth from Rio, nor toward him, but she could hardly deny that there was something electric in the way he looked at her. There was something unmistakably seductive in the way he touched her. She wanted to know more about him—needed to know more. After all, as his captive it would be in her best interest to learn everything she could about the man who held her.