Fratelli: The Awakening (The Vampire Cartel #1)

25. Lovers Battle

Chapter 25

Lovers Battle

4 2,000 feet in the sky - 3 1/2 hrs flight

April 14, 2018

(8 Days Before Death)

“I’m sorry,” he wheezed. “I can’t stop. I’m not strong enough.”

“Stop what? Biting people? I’m telling the pilot! I’m going to stop the plane. I’m hurt! I’m hurt!”

“No!” He yelled.

“Lucio? Let me in. Please, I need your help. I’ve lost too much blood, I’m getting weak,” she moaned.

Lucio pulled himself up at the vanity, standing before a mirror that no longer held his reflection. It was evident he would need more of her blood to return to his mortality. He gripped the sink and groaned over the loss of his humanity. The madness of it all. He had survived lust and betrayal with Darlene but love with Dolly was different. He spat blood he hadn’t swallowed from his mouth into the sink and fought the urge to lick it clean, still savoring the taste of her. Tristan was right. He was a fool to think he could control any of this. If he didn’t reverse course, he could get Dolly killed. No one in the Fratelli who discovered how sweet and decadent it was to be chosen by her would spare her life the way he did. No one.

“I’m bleeding to death; you must have hit an artery; let me in,” Dolly’s weak voice came through. The door handle rattled, and Lucio whirled at the sound of her distress. Against his better judgment and in panic for her, he reached for the door. But then she spoke again. “Deal with me, Vampire. Or I’ll let Dolly suffer through the truth. I’ll let her bleed.”

Laughter rose from the other side of the door—not Dolly’s. He knew that voice. Lucio opened the door and stepped back. Darlene came inside with him—no fear. He saw the wound on her shoulder and the look of amusement in her eyes. Was it her all alone?

“I warned you,” Darlene said.

“I didn’t… I couldn’t….” he stammered.

“Resist?” she asked.

“Control it,” Lucio said.

“Who do you think you are? Her lover? Her best friend. You don’t belong to her. You’re mine. Dolly blanked out the moment she knew you had attacked her. It was me at the door. Oh, Lucio, I’m hurting, oh, Lucio, I’m bleeding going weak ,” Dolly laughed. “You see. I can be her when I want to be.”

Lucio blinked at Darlene in surprise. “What did you say?”

“She’s weak, she’s useless. She’s only strong when I make her that way. You don’t want her. You want me!”

Lucio's brows lowered with concern. “You are the same. Don’t you know that? There’s not two of you. There’s one. Tell Dolly the truth and then we can truly be together,” he explained.

Darlene laughed even louder. She laughed so hard she had to put her hand to her chest. “Is that what you think? After everything I showed you. There’s no one of us. There’s me and there’s her!”

“Darlene, listen to me, darling. You’re confused.”

“I am not!” she said.

“You are,” he said, advancing on her. Darlene did not retreat. Lucio slammed the bathroom door behind her and locked it with his will. There was no more retreat. He was sick of playing this weakling game, of denying his nature, disrespecting his Draca. He wanted them whole, the better for his enjoyment. And he didn’t have to beg.

“You think you have some power over me? You think good pussy and your blood is all it takes to tame a master vampire like me?” he seethed, his words making the mirror shake and threaten to shatter. He had no concern about the flight attendant, or the pilots being alarmed. They knew that things on his planes could go any way he chose.

“I have drunk the blood of a hundred of you, goddess. You are no different,” he said.

Darlene smirked.

They faced each other in silence.

“Oh, I am different vampire. I’m your mate. I’m the chosen one. I was born with that knowledge, and I have been waiting for you.”

Lucio chuckled.

“Are you suffering from the same dementia as Dolly?” Darlene asked. “Have you forgotten the last time you tried to overtake me, vampire?”

That was the final straw. Lucio swarmed in on her. His powers were so precise he seized her within the lapse of a blink and pinned her to the door with a hand to her throat.

“Release her! Let Dolly face us both. See who she chooses! See who is strongest!” he snarled.

Darlene unleashed a thunderous blast of dark energy with such force that it threw him back through the glass shower door. Lucio landed naked on shards of serrated glass that pierced his body, backside, and legs.

The energy he was hit with was hotter than the sun, it scorched his skin, which self-healed from the brief contact. His chest felt as if a sledgehammer had crushed it. Shocked at Darlene’s strength, he couldn’t summon a countermove—he didn’t dare. He did not know what he was dealing with.

“You are not my master. Your power vampire has no reach over me. Not me. I am not like the others; I am no bed wench. Touch her or me again without my permission and I will end you!” Darlene said in the sweetest, alluring, voice he had ever heard.

Lucio sat upright, fully bewitched. He pulled the largest shard of glass from his side. The black blood oozed from the wound before his skin healed.

“No. You won’t,” he said.

Darlene looked at him, confused.

“Oh, I believe you could do it. Somehow, you have the power to do it. I believe you may have even wanted to the night we first met. Instead of ending me, you rescued me. You let me taste that sweet nectar of yours, knowing I’d become an addict. Didn’t you? You made me thirst for it and fall in love with it. Dolly is the source of your power, and you’re just colonizing her spirit. Am I right?” Lucio asked.

“No!” Darlene frowned.

“That’s not the truth, really? Dolly’s in there. Isn’t she? When I bit her and ran away, she didn’t run from me this time screaming. It wasn’t you at first at the door. It was her. You think I can’t recognize her sweetness? She came to the door. She wanted to help me first, before even asking me to help her. She believed in me even then. Because she knows what we have is two days old and it’s real,” he taunted.

“Nooo!” Darlene shouted at him.

“You keep her caged inside her own mind, but you can’t keep her there for long. I’m going to find the truth. I’m going to find out what you are. Dolly wants me to. She doesn’t even know why, but she does. It’s because she is my mate,” he gave her a dark laugh.

Darlene joined him. She laughed.

“You are an idiot if you believe those feelings that you have are for her, that you would even know those feelings if it weren’t for me. Dolly is too weak and too ignorant to even consider what you really are. She enjoys playing the victim. Ask her about Tyrone,” Dolly sang.

“Not going to work on me, sweetheart,” Lucio replied.

Lucio tried to stand but dropped over. He was stunned by his weakness. He could barely summon his Draca. She had not only hit him with her dark light energy, but she absorbed his darkness to do it. Maybe that was the key to it all—darkness into light.

“Stop fighting it! Face me. Face me!” Darlene seethed.

“Dolly, you can hear me. I know you can,” Lucio pleaded.

“She cannot,” Darlene scoffed.

“Dolly, listen…” Lucio begged.

“She isn’t listening!” Darlene said.

“I won’t hurt you,” he pleaded. “I won’t even fight back if you want to finish me. Resist her. Take control. Face me—face what I am.”

Darlene enraged, grabbed his foot and dragged him out of the shower across the broken glass. The pain was unreal. Wasted, weakened, and bleeding, he lay there, unable to move. She dropped on him, her eyes fiery hot daggers with anger and glowering in a golden-brown color.

“Dolly?” Lucio choked out her name. The power Darlene held over him was complete as if she were strangling him with her hands. She wasn’t. She used her mind. Pinned beneath the weight of her willpower as she sat on his chest naked, Lucio was crushed internally.

“Dolly,” he wheezed. “I know it’s confusing. I promise to get you the answers you need. A cure for you and me. Face me, darling. You can do it, Dolly.”

“She won’t face you. You’re so fucking stupid,” Darlene laughed.

“Let her go!” Lucio demanded.

She let go of her hold over him. Lucio gasped for air, and his body began to rapidly self-heal. He could breathe again. Disregarding the remainder of her brief speech, he promptly sat up. He grabbed her and forced her into another kiss. She fought against his hold at first, but only briefly. Lucio understood Darlene was the only way to reach Dolly. So, if it was Darlene, then so be it.

Darlene returned his passion, kissing him with such fervor that his incisors retracted and the pain from his wounds was all but forgotten. She eased onto his lap, lifting on her knees as he grabbed the root of his cock and guided it into her. Darlene giggled, relishing the attention focused solely on her, her mouth now covered with the blood he’d drawn from her. She rode his dick hard and fast as if not fully understanding the purpose of the seduction. He slowed her passion, eased her into a calming state, and let her make love to him in ways that gave them both the most pleasure.

Darlene clung to him and let him see through her protective force. To know how much of life she was denied. Only released through the vampire bite or an act of violence, she existed in the shadows of Dolly’s mind. He wasn’t wrong. Dolly was the one in control, but neither of her personalities knew it. Her trauma had a shield, and that shield was Darlene.

And he learned another truth. Darlene didn’t want to kill him; she craved him as much as he craved Dolly. She wasn’t hunting his family—she was enslaving him, willing to destroy his family to make him hers only. Lucio, a Master Vampire, had unmatched strength—except when it came to his dead heart. While Darlene rode his dick, he stood, held her, and placed her on the sink. She locked her legs around his waist, groaning with pleasure and relief. He fucked her harder and harder, sparing no mercy, and she shuddered with delight. Their kiss was slow, her tongue swept in deep, taught him maneuvers he had yet to explore. He kissed her neck and licked her shoulder, healing her.

“Drink, I’ll protect us,” Darlene breathed. “I want you too. I like it when you do.”

Lucio gave a hard dark smile at hearing her confess she too had an addiction. He sank his fangs into her and drank until his eyes rolled. And his Draca roared with triumph from within. She stopped him when it was too much, and this time he did not have the allergic reaction he had before. What he had was the climax of a lifetime, calling out Dolly’s name in his mind, but Darlene’s from his mouth as he went.

Dolly turned over into his arms. She smiled and hugged his chest. Lucio felt the sting of déjà vu when she sweetly purred his name. Darlene had healed Dolly’s wounds from their rough sex play, yawned, and said she wanted to nap. He had cleaned them both of blood and changed the sheets while the attendant and co-pilot did their best to clean up the mayhem in the bathroom.

“Are we there yet?” asked Dolly.

“How do you feel?” Lucio asked.

“Wonderful. I just love being with you. It feels so good to be in your arms in the sky,” she said.

He kissed her on the forehead. “You are safe. No matter what happens, nothing and no one will ever hurt you again,” he said.

When he moved, she winced.

“Something wrong?” Lucio asked.

“Yeah, my shoulder is sore. Guess I slept on it wrong.”

Lucio kissed her shoulder. Unable to tell her, he was deeply hurt to his core. He had to understand the magic that kept her so divided. He would have them both. He just needed more time to get the situation under control. And what he learned was he’d have to please both his ladies to make that happen.