Feeling a little slimy and a lot guilty, Atticus cleared his throat and asked, “You got a name?”
Her breath was hot on his slightly sweaty neck. “Of course I do.”
“You gonna give it to me or what?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Good question. It didn’t really matter. He was deep in the shit now. It would have been the smart decision to say he wanted to know nothing about her, reducing his liability as much as possible. But hewantedto know. And really, there was no chance he was going to be able to put her back in the trailer and forget about her. Whether she gave him her name or not, he was going to help her.
“I’m Atticus,” he offered, his voice rougher than normal. That was saying something, too, since his smoke-scarred throat really did a number on his voice. “Atticus Caldwell. You can call me Atty, if you want.”
She was quiet as he crossed the last few yards to the RV. He had to nudge her to open the door for him, but eventually they made it safely inside. A good thing, too, since the sun began to crest the horizon not a minute later. Carefully setting her on the bed in the far back, he hunched a bit and moved as fast as hecould to pull down the blinds over the windshield and windows, plunging them into comforting darkness.
He stood there for a moment, his hands gripping the headrests of the driver and passenger seats, trying to collect himself before he faced her again. It wasn’t an easy thing when her sweet scent began to fill the small cabin, mixing with the intoxicating tang of real, warm blood.
He’d heard that venom neutral vampires gave off a different scent than normal. Most vampires were repelled, sexually-speaking, by the scent of each other. It was some evolutionary thing. Since they couldn’t procreate and could kill one another with a single injection of venom, it made good survival sense to build in a disgust mechanism to one another. There were exceptions, but very few that he knew of.
Frankly, he’d always assumed the venom neutral scent to be a myth. Adriana had never smelled any different to him than another vampire, but she was also his baby sister, so maybe he never stood a chance of noticing that sort of thing.
The bride, though…
If he hadn’t seen the bride’s fangs or the green, night-glow reflection of her eyes, he would have sworn on every god’s name that she was human. Deliciously, potently human.
Atticus tried to breathe through his mouth, but that didn’t help. All it did was paint her scent on the back of his tongue, which made the gland in the roof of his mouth pulse and his aching cock begin to leak in his pants. One touch and he’d go off like he was fourteen and getting his cock sucked for the first time again.
There were so many levels to why that was messed up, he couldn’t even begin to pick through them all.
He needed to get himself together. He needed to grab his medical kit out of his backpack. He needed?—
“Carmine.”
Atticus turned his head so fast, the world blurred. “What?”
“That’s my name,” she explained, nervously smoothing her filthy hair behind her ears. They were just a little too big for her face.Cute as shit.
“Do you have a last name, Carmine?” He had a bad feeling knowing her family name wouldn’t help him find her people, but he had to ask.
She looked everywhere but him when she answered, “No. It’s just Carmine.”
“Why?”
“They don’t give us names.”
And just like that, the arousal that twisted him up so badly disappeared in a puff of smoke. Atticus turned the rest of his body to face her. Speaking slowly, so he didn’t let on to the rage that was beginning to rise inside him, he asked, “And why is that?”
Carmine stared down at her battered feet. A grimace flashed across her face for a split second before she locked it down. “Because we’re supposed to get new ones anyway.”
“When you become your bridegroom’s anchor,” he finished for her, flat and furious beyond words.
“Yeah.”
Atticus squeezed his eyes shut.I’m going to fucking kill Junger.
Chapter Three
Carmine had seenplenty of men in the crypt. There were dour priests and shifty-eyed acolytes who watched the brides a little too closely. There was the instructor who came to the crypt to help them get their mortician certifications and the quiet, observant healer who’d come around a few times to examine them. A number of her fellow brides were men, too, but they were all kept so isolated from one another that she couldn’t say she was familiar with any of them.
But mostly, the men in her life were dead.
