Delilah made a grab for the stake in Amaury’s hand, but he stopped her.
“No, it’ll be my pleasure. Samson is the best thing that ever happened in my life. Anybody who wants to hurt him had better defeat me first.”
Delilah had to concede. Amaury’s determination was palpable.
“Thanks for the great sex, but as I said before, it’s all meaningless. See you in hell.”
Ilona’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe he’d actually do it. Her lips opened, but no words came out. Amaury raised his arm and slammed the stake into her heart. For a split-second disbelief spread over Ilona’s face. A second later she was dust. The air picked up the tiny kernels of dust and carried them away.
When Amaury turned back to Delilah, he gave her a long look. “Without emotions, it’s all meaningless.”
Amaury organized Samson’s transport back to the house while more vampires were dispatched to hunt down Milo.
Carl expected them when they returned and had already prepared Samson’s bedroom, placing clean sheets on the bed. Carl and Amaury helped cut the torn clothes off Samson’s body and clean his wounds before they placed him onto the bed and put a single white sheet over his body.
“He’ll need fresh blood every couple of hours,” Amaury advised. “You can change your mind, you know. He wouldn’t expect you to do this. In fact, he’d want me to dissuade you from continuing this.”
Delilah shook her head. “He’s hurt because of me. I’ll give him what he needs.”
She’d changed into a t-shirt and leggings and sat next to him on his bed.
Amaury nodded. “Carl, we’ll have to mix Delilah some strengthening tonic so her blood regenerates faster. We should have everything we need in the kitchen.”
Samson stirred.
“He needs you now.”
Amaury and Carl left the bedroom, and Delilah leaned down to Samson, placing her wrist at his mouth. Without opening his eyes his fangs sank into her skin.
“Yes, drink, my love. We’re home now.”
She cradled his head in her lap as she fed him. Already she could see that some of the wounds had started closing. The blood flow had stopped, and the blood was clotting, creating a crust over the wounds. The healing process had started.
The sucking sensation on her wrist wasn’t painful; on the contrary, it filled her with peace.
When Samson finally let go of her wrist, his lips moved. “Delilah,” he whispered, but drifted back into unconsciousness instantly.
Delilah held him while she watched every movement of his body. This time she had not hesitated when action had been required of her. This time she hadn’t stood by to let somebody she loved die. She had acted. She had surprised herself at how strong she’d been there on that street. The courage she’d felt when being confronted with Ilona had been new to her, but knowing that all the vampires that had surrounded her were on her side, had helped.
Amaury came back to the bedroom, bringing her a disgusting-looking concoction of vile-smelling liquid.
“What’s this?”
“You don’t want to know. But it will help you sustain the blood loss.”
Delilah believed him. How had her world changed like this? She was lying in bed with a vampire who she would give as much blood as he needed and willingly drank the vilest liquid her lips had ever touched, trusting the vampire who handed it to her.
“I’ll keep you company.” Amaury pulled the armchair closer to the bed before sitting down. “He’ll need about twenty-four hours to recuperate.”
“But he’ll pull through, won’t he?”
“With your help, he will.”
Amaury rested his head against the high backrest of the chair.
“Tell me what happened,” Delilah wanted to know.
Amaury nodded. “Samson told you about Ilona, about their breakup?”
“Yes. He told me about her. But he didn’t mention that you and she …” Delilah cleared her throat.
“He didn’t know.” His look when he met her eyes was sincere. “Listen, there’s no need for him to know. I didn’t betray him. She came to me after he’d thrown her out of his life. Hey, I’m not proud of it, but I’m not exactly choosy when it comes to women.”
“You killed her as if you felt nothing for her.” The thought made her shudder. What did it take for a lover to be so cold? When she looked into his eyes, she recognized pain.
“Sex is just sex for me. Nothing else. It’s something I need, and I pretty much don’t care who provides it. I don’t mean to shock you, but that’s who I am. It doesn’t change where my loyalties lie.” His gaze drifted to Samson, and she understood. “Without Samson, I wouldn’t be here today. He saved my life numerous times. He’s a good man.”
She nodded and stroked Samson’s cheek. “And he’s mine.” She looked back at Amaury just in time to catch his warm smile. “What was Ilona’s plan?”
He sighed. “She wanted to be mistress to a multimillion-dollar fortune. She wanted what is his. If Samson had blood-bonded with her, Milo would have killed him. And all the money would have been Ilona’s.”
“Oh my God, she wanted him dead?” Cold fear gripped her.
“That’s what greed does to people. Living off his fortune wasn’t enough for her.”
“What do you mean?”
“When a vampire blood-bonds, his mate has a right to everything that’s his. They will become joint owners. It obviously wasn’t enough for her. She wanted it all. When Samson broke it off with her, her dream went up in smoke. So she had to figure out something else.”
Delilah shook her head, trying to shake off the images in her mind. “What was she planning?”
“First she had her brother, Milo, infiltrate us. We had no idea. She was new in town herself, and suddenly Milo showed up and … well, it wasn’t that hard for him to seduce Thomas, I guess. He’s a big softy at heart, and frankly, even in San Francisco, there aren’t that many gay vampires. So his choices were always a little limited.
“Milo figured out enough about the internal workings of Scanguards to know that just stealing Thomas’ password wasn’t enough. So he dug around in the records, and must have found out about John’s little depreciation fraud and used it to blackmail him. It was easy enough. You were on the right track, you know, with your audit. You would have found it eventually.”
He gave her an approving look.
“You did half the work,” she conceded.
“Only after you showed me which way to go. Ilona was smart. Carl told me earlier today that he saw her at Samson’s computer once, possibly trying to get into the system, but he’d never given her his logon or password. So she obviously had the idea before.”
“Are you sure? He gave it to me, and he’s known me a lot less time than he knew her.”
“Not even I know his password, and I’m his closest friend. He trusts you like he’s never trusted anybody else. I don’t think he ever trusted Ilona, even though he was prepared to marry her. I guess the loneliness was finally getting to him. He always wanted a family.”
Amaury smiled softly, his look drifting to Samson on the bed.
“Once Milo had John’s password, he was able to upload encrypted wire transfers. He then just had to go back in with Thomas’ password and authorize them.”
“Thomas must be devastated.”
“Milo overpowered him earlier tonight and chained him with silver.”
“With silver?”
“It’s the only metal we can’t break or bend. Vampires can’t escape silver chains. And it burns our skin. We were lucky to get to Thomas in time. He was in a lot of pain, but he’ll be fine. Personally, I’m surprised Milo didn’t kill him. Maybe there were some feelings involved after all …”