Dropping the damp one, she turned resolutely to the clothing supplied to her and wondered with disgust who had picked all these ridiculous nightgowns. Muttering under her breath, she settled on a black one with a short, sheer skirt, but lace on the top that would mostly cover her breasts. She'd have to wear a thong with it for it to be anywhere near decent, but the top was what Domitian would see sitting at the table and that was her main concern. Most of the other gowns were sheer there too.
She pulled it on quickly, found a black thong, donned it with a grimace and then hurried into the bathroom to run a brush through her wet hair. Her gaze slid briefly to the makeup table as she did, but then slid away. This wasn't a date. The last thing she needed was to make herself attractive. They already had trouble keeping their hands off each other and she didn't want to end up splayed on the dining room table and howling for the cameras as Domitian--
Sarita cut that thought off quickly as she felt heat pool in her groin. Honestly, she was like a bitch in heat around the man. Just thinking about him made her . . .
Rather than finish the thought, she threw the brush on the counter and hurried from the room.
Domitian was in the dining room, standing behind a chair that he politely pulled out for her when she entered.
Sarita glanced at his face as she approached, caught the way his eyes started to glow that strange silver as his gaze slid over her latest ensemble and just managed not to shake her head as she took her seat. Much to her relief, Domitian didn't so much as touch her shoulder, but eased her chair in and then immediately moved around to claim the seat opposite.
Sarita glanced down at her plate and then stopped and said with surprise, "Lomito en salsa de mango!"
"Si." Domitian smiled faintly when she glanced to him with amazement. "It is what you ordered each of the three times you were in my restaurant, so when I saw we had the ingredients to make it, I did."
Sarita smiled crookedly. "Well, now I know which restaurant you own. Buena Vida was my father's favorite. But expensive--it was only for special occasions," she said with a reminiscent smile. "Before my mother died, Papa took her there every year on their anniversary. The first time I got to go was the night before we moved to Canada. He wanted 'our last meal in Venezuela to be memorable,' as he put it, so he took me there."
She smiled faintly, and then her expression turned sober and she said, "We went again five years ago when Grandfather died. We came back to arrange the funeral and see him buried, and the night before we left for home, Papa took me there again . . . the last time I was there was two years ago when Papa--" Much to Sarita's horror her voice cracked, and she bowed her head quickly and stared through eyes suddenly glazed with tears at the sirloin in mango salsa on her plate.
"When your father died and you brought him home to be buried between your mother and grandfather," Domitian finished for her solemnly.
Sarita nodded once, but was concentrating on her breathing. She was taking in repeated deep breaths that she then let out slowly, the whole time thinking, Dammit, I never cry!
"You ate in my restaurant the night before you flew back to Canada," he added. "This time alone."
Sarita closed her eyes as that last word cut through her. Alone.
She'd thought she'd lost everything when her mother died and her father moved her away from her friends and grandfather to live in Canada. But Sarita hadn't felt truly alone until the day her father had a heart attack and left this earth. Oh, she still had the friends she'd made in Canada, and the other cadets who had been in police training with her at the time. But she alone had flown home to Venezuela with her father's body, and she alone had seen him buried.
Even her grandmother hadn't been there, which was Sarita's fault. It had all happened so quickly and there had been so much to do to arrange to fly her father's body back to Caracas as well as make the funeral arrangements long distance that she hadn't thought to contact her grandmother until the morning of the funeral. By then it was too late. She hadn't had a phone number for the woman then. They'd only ever written. So she'd seen her father buried, and then she'd written and mailed a letter to her grandmother with the news of his death. That night she'd followed tradition and eaten at her father's favorite restaurant, alone.
"I wanted so much to comfort you that night," Domitian confided quietly and then admitted, "I got the latest report from my detective just that morning. I knew your father had died and that you had flown home with his body to see him buried. The moment I got the lone order for Lomito en salsa de mango I looked out. I could not see your face, you were sitting with your back to the kitchen, but I knew it was you. You looked so lost and alone sitting there all by yourself. It was a struggle for me not to go to you."
"Why didn't you?" she asked, her voice sharper than she'd intended. But she had really needed comfort that night. Sarita raised her head to peer at him through watery eyes.
"To you I was a stranger," he said simply. "You would not have wanted comfort from me. And had the natural attraction between life mates overwhelmed us, I feared you would hate yourself for whatever happened between us at such a tragic time."
Sarita gave a short nod of understanding, then peered down at her plate and breathed out slowly again. Sirloin in mango salsa. She would never look at it again without thinking of her father . . . and she simply couldn't eat it.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, pushing her chair back. "I think I just want to go to bed."
Domitian didn't protest or point out that he'd worked hard to make the meal that she wasn't eating. He simply murmured in understanding and let her go. Sarita was quite sure he couldn't know how much she appreciated that.
Sarita wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep or even what woke her up, but suddenly her eyes were open and she was staring into the dark, listening to a soft rustling sound somewhere at the bottom of the bed. Ears straining, she tried to figure out what it was without giving away that she was awake. When she couldn't, she reached slowly for the bedside lamp, only to pause as her hand encountered material.
Frowning, Sarita slid her hand first to the left and then to the right, but the material appeared to be hanging there like a wall. Easing silently up the bed a bit, she ran her hand along the cloth until she found the end, and then reached around it, felt for the lamp on the other side and turned it on.
Of course, she was immediately blinded by the light, but her eyes quickly adjusted and Sarita noted the wall of white cloth along the side of the bed, hanging from the top frame. Another ran along the bottom as well and Domitian stood on a chair, even now affixing a third swath of white cloth along the frame on the opposite side of the bed.
"Sheets?" she asked with amusement.
"Si." Domitian continued his work, stepping off the chair and onto the edge of the bed to string the cloth farther along the frame without having to move the chair now that she was awake.
Sarita watched the play of muscles in his arms and chest until she noted that she had an interesting view up the bottom of his boxers from her position. Clearing a suddenly full throat, she asked hopefully, "Are we going to have sex?"
"No."
"No?" Sarita squawked with disbelief. "Why not? What's all this for then?" she asked, gesturing toward the curtain of sheets now nearly surrounding the bed. She'd assumed it was so they could have sex without worrying about the cameras in the room capturing it . . . Apparently not, Sarita thought and scowled at him.
Domitian chuckled at her outrage as he continued his work, moving farther up the edge of the bed until she could have reached out and touched him. "First it's 'no sexo!' Now it's 'What? No sexo?'" Glancing at her, he arched an eyebrow. "I have plans for you, you will see."
"Hmm." Sarita muttered, but resisted the urge to touch him and sat up in the bed. She shifted back to lean against the headboard, but didn't bother tugging the sheets up to cover her lap despite the fact that she was now nude under the sheer black nightgown. The last thing Sarita had done before climbing under the sheets and
duvet was to strip away the latest hated thong she'd donned earlier to wear under it. They really were uncomfortable. She wouldn't have been able to sleep with it on. Now, she was as good as naked to him from just under the breasts down.
"Oh," Domitian sighed. "You are going to make this difficult, si?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said with a shrug, straightening her shoulders and thrusting her breasts out as she pretended to examine her nails.
Domitian chuckled under his breath but continued to work. It seemed to take forever for him to finish, though, mostly because he kept casting furtive glances over her rather than paying attention to what he was doing.
"Finally."
Sarita glanced up at that to see that the sheet now reached all the way to the wall on this side as well, and frowned when she noticed that he was now outside it. She was about to lean over and tug the sheet aside to see what he was doing when he did it himself.
Pulling the sheet back with one hand, he climbed in to join her, balancing a tray on his other hand like an expert waiter.
"What's this?" she asked with interest as he let the sheet slip closed again and settled cross-legged next to her.
"Food. You must eat," Domitian said firmly. "You have had little more than a couple of pieces of fruit all day."
"Oh." Sarita peered with interest over the tray he set on the bed between them. There was a selection of meats and cheese, crackers, olives, two glasses of juice, and one glass of wine.
"Who gets the wine?" she asked suspiciously.
"You," he answered easily. "Wine is no good for us."
"Us being immortals?" she asked with interest.
Nodding, Domitian picked up an olive and popped it into his mouth.
"How is it no good for you?" Sarita asked at once, picking up a cracker and piling cheese and meat on it.
"The only effect it has on us is to make the nanos work hard to remove the alcohol from our system. It means consuming more blood."
Sarita wrinkled her nose at that, placed a cracker on top of the meat and cheese, making a mini sandwich and ate half of it in one bite. Flakes of cracker immediately sprinkled down on her breasts and thighs and she made a face. Thinking they were going to have crumbs in bed, she raised a hand to brush away the ones on her chest, but Domitian caught her hand.
"I will lick them off later," he assured her, urging her hand down.
A slow smile spreading her lips, Sarita said with satisfaction, "So there will be sexo later."
"No," Domitian answered promptly and built a cheese, meat, and cracker sandwich for himself.
Sarita stared at him for a moment, half confused and half annoyed, but then just shook her head and popped the second half of her own cracker sandwich into her mouth. She was hungry. More like starved really. She would worry about the "sex or no sex" thing later.
They ate in silence for a bit, and then Sarita glanced at Domitian and said, "So you're a chef with your own restaurant. Why would you accept a job cooking for Dressler?"
Domitian blew a breath out and shrugged. "It is a long story."
"Yeah, well, it doesn't look like we're going anywhere for a while, so spill."
Nodding, he said, "Several immortals have gone missing from the United States over the last couple of years. No one noticed at first, because it was only one or two and they were spaced far apart. But the number has grown and the time between kidnappings grew shorter recently and it was noticed."
Sarita's eyebrows rose slightly, but she nodded to encourage him to continue.
"I knew that my uncle had the Rogue Hunters looking into it from a phone conversation I had with Drina, and--"
"Who's Drina?" Sarita asked sharply, surprised at the different emotions whipping through her at the mention of another woman. Possessiveness, worry, and even jealousy were suddenly tugging at her emotions, which was kind of unexpected for Sarita since she wasn't clear on her own feelings for the man.
"My sister," he explained gently. "She is a Rogue Hunter in Canada. She used to live and work in Spain where my family lives, but found her life mate recently. Since he lived in Canada, and Uncle needed more Rogue Hunters there, she moved to be with her mate."
"You have family?" she asked, unable to hide her surprise.
Domitian arched his eyebrows. "You thought I had been hatched?"
"No, of course not. I just--" Shaking her head at her own stupidity, Sarita said, "Dr. Dressler mentioned that your kind were like us, with families and everything, but I guess I just--I mean Dracula didn't have family, you know? I guess I just keep mixing you up with him." Seeing from his expression that she'd managed to insult him, she quickly said, "I'll try not to do that. So what are Rogue Hunters?"
Domitian stared at her narrow-eyed for a moment, but then slowly relaxed and explained, "Basically, they are the police for immortals. They hunt rogue immortals, those who are breaking our laws and feeding on or harming mortals, or turning them in numbers, and so on."
Her eyebrows rose. "You have your own police force?"
"Well, mortal police could not manage our kind what with our ability to read and control minds," he pointed out gently.
"Right. Dr. Dressler mentioned that you guys were able to do that," she said with a frown. Tilting her head, she added, "But he said you couldn't read or control me?"
"No. It is how I knew you were my life mate," he said solemnly.
Unwilling to talk about that, Sarita lowered her eyes and tried to think of something to say that would steer the topic away from this life mate business. She wasn't sure how she felt about the man sitting across from her. He was sexy as hell, and she'd never had sex like they shared, but really he was still a stranger to her . . . and he was different. Not mortal.
Sarita was no longer horrified by the fact that he was a vampire. Or perhaps it was closer to the truth to say she'd stopped worrying about that for now. However, while she needed to work with him to get off this island, Sarita wasn't sure she would be able to accept what he was once that was done. She certainly wasn't ready to think about what he might want from her or if she could give it.
"So is your uncle the head of these immortal police then?" she asked, finally, as that question occurred to her.
"Si. But no," Domitian said and grinned at the face she made in reaction to the confusing answer. Taking pity on her, he explained, "A man named Garrett Mortimer is supposed to be the head of the Rogue Hunters, but he answers to Uncle Lucian who was never good at delegating."
"So two cooks in the kitchen?" Sarita suggested.
He smiled with appreciation at her choice of words and nodded.
"Why does this Mortimer guy have to answer to your uncle? Who is he?"
"My uncle Lucian is the head of the North American Council of Immortals. They make the laws, and basically govern our people there. He also used to run the hunters before he put Mortimer in charge of them."
"Right, okay." Sarita nodded, sure she understood the basics now. "So, your uncle had this Mortimer guy put his Rogue Hunters on the job."
"Si. They were to find out if the disappearances were connected and, if so, who was behind them. Immortals were disappearing from several areas, but the last three disappeared from bars in Texas, so they concentrated there and hunters and volunteers were sent out to act as bait. But something went wrong. A couple weeks ago two of the volunteers--twin brothers I understand--were kidnapped together."
"Twins," Sarita murmured recalling Dr. Dressler's "experiment." Scientists had a thing for twins and experiments, didn't they? She couldn't even imagine what he was doing to them. Maybe cutting them in half and then seeing if once blood was applied Twin A's bottom half would reattach itself to Twin B's upper half and vice versa? The very thought made her shudder with disgust.
"Fortunately, both men escaped," Domitian added finally, and would never know how close he came to getting punched for not saying so right away and sparing Sarita her distressing imaginings.
"A handful of Dress
ler's men died," he continued obliviously, "but not before our people found out some vital information. One, the intent was to fly the two captured men to Caracas, and then on to an island, and two, that the man in charge was a Dr. Dressler."
Sarita nodded.
"So Uncle Lucian rounded up as many Rogue Hunters as he felt he could spare and flew down here to try to find Dressler. They quickly realized that he was a university professor here in Venezuela. But he must have caught wind that they were coming, or perhaps he suspected they might when he didn't hear from his men, because by the time the hunters landed in Caracas, Dr. Dressler had gone on sabbatical."
"During their first week here, all they were able to learn was that Dressler had both an apartment in the city where he stayed while teaching at the university, and a residence on an island somewhere that he went to on weekends and during summer break. No one seemed to know the name of the island, though, or where it was, although it was mentioned that he had a helicopter as well as several boats that he used to get back and forth. So Uncle Lucian decided they would have to check every island within five hundred miles of Caracas."
Sarita blinked and asked with disbelief, "Five hundred?"
Domitian shrugged. "He was being conservative in the hopes of speeding up the hunt."
"You think five hundred miles is conservative?" she asked with a disbelieving laugh.
"Si," he assured her. "The apartment in the city might have been necessary only for the nights he had evening classes. But it may also have been because the island was too far to travel to and from daily so that the island house was like a cottage would be to an American or Canadian. Helicopters can travel at speeds of one hundred and forty miles an hour. Five hundred miles would only take three and a half hours or a little more to travel to."
"Hmm," she murmured with a nod. A couple of guys at work had cottages up north in the Muskokas, a good three-hour drive away or more depending on traffic and coffee stops. One of them had invited a bunch of their coworkers out to the cottage one weekend last summer. Sarita had been one of those invited and she'd been chatting with the people in the neighboring cottage. They lived farther south and drove five hours to reach their cottage every weekend. Driving up Friday night and leaving Sunday afternoon. If the island house was used as a cottage for Dr. Dressler, three or four hours wouldn't be that far to go she supposed.