“I’m thinking someone trapped all the vampires in the tunnels, and left them there to starve to death,” said Jared. “But why? And who would do that? It can’t have been an attempt at usurping Quentin or we all would have heard about his replacement by now. The guy would be bragging and claiming his position as the new High Master of Quentin’s territory.”

Jared made a good point, but there was something else that was bugging me. I cocked my head. “This is what I don’t understand. Why, if the vampires were so hungry, hadn’t they all turned on each other? If they were thirsty enough to attack all of us like that, so senselessly, why hadn’t they fed from each other?”

Antonio leaned forward in his seat; there was a sense of urgency in his manner that hadn’t been there before, and apprehension slid through me. “I need to ask you something. And this is very important. In the tunnels, was there an awful smell?”

“Yeah.” Jared’s elbow brushed against mine as he folded his arms across his chest. “Like rotten fish.”

Both Jared and I tensed when Antonio and Luther exchanged a frantic look. They actually paled, which was hard for two extremely pale-skinned vampires to do.

“What, what does that mean?” demanded Jared.

“It means that this was not a case of them starving due to having been trapped there,” said Antonio, worry etched into every line of his face. “And it perfectly answers Sam’s question.”

Jared sighed with impatience. “Antonio, you’re losing me here.”

“Have you ever heard of ‘The Reaper’s Call’? It is often abbreviated to ‘The Call’.” When both Jared and I shook our heads, Antonio explained. “As you know, vampires are immune to illnesses. But like with many species, vampirism has a natural killer designed to keep the population down. Throughout human history, there have always been diseases or viruses that have done much damage to their race. When cures are found for those viruses, others later develop. Some theorise that their purpose is to keep the human population under control, which makes sense. It is the natural way of things, and the same happens for vampires. If it did not, we would outnumber our prey and quickly die out. The Call is not an illness, more like a preternatural poison that travels like a bug. And it is a killer.”

“There is only an outbreak every few centuries,” began Luther. “It seems that it occurs whenever nature feels that the population of vampires needs a ‘tweak’. It is a perfectly natural cycle, and this cycle helps maintain a balance in the population. But it does not do so cleanly. The Call works by stopping the vampire from being able to digest anything. Not blood, not food – nothing. As such, the vampire will regurgitate anything it tries to consume and slowly starve to death. A vampire can only survive starvation for four weeks.”

Jared rubbed at his nape. I could actually feel the crick in his neck. “How does the poison spread?”

Luther took a brief pause before answering with sympathy, “It can only taint its victim by travelling through saliva or blood to open flesh.” In other words, a bite would do the trick.

Jared’s eyes fell closed and then he was pacing in front of me. “Shit.”

Antonio nodded. “Yes…darn.”

An ache suddenly struck my chest; I wasn’t sure whether it was mine, Jared’s, or a combination of both our pain. If Antonio was right, then Evan, Max, and Stuart were now ‘tainted’. “Does this mean it’s possible that Ava’s brother isn’t tainted? He was clawed at badly, but not bitten.” Currently, all the injured were in the infirmary.

“If he has not been bitten, he is not tainted. Unless, of course, they somehow exchanged blood.” I was pretty sure that the latter hadn’t happened, so Antonio’s news would certainly calm Ava down. The girl was a nervous wreck at the moment, worried she would lose her brother – much like my mate was.

Jared halted. “Okay, so how do we stop it? How do we remove the taint from Evan, Max, and Stuart?”

“You can’t.” Antonio looked utterly distraught.

“Nothing can stop The Reaper’s Call.” Luther’s voice was sensitivity itself. “As the name suggests, death comes for them. Eventually, it will stop spreading through the vampire population and remain dormant for another few centuries.”

Everything Jared was feeling – all the panic, the anger, and the helplessness – hit me so hard that I almost lost my balance. He was vigorously shaking his head, pacing again. “No. No. My brother is not going to die, and neither is Stuart or Max.” I could sense that he felt he’d failed them all.

Stop tormenting yourself, I told him. It wasn’t your fault.

He ignored me. “There has to be a way to help them.” Pausing in his pacing again, he took a deep breath to steady himself. “If it spreads through bodily fluids, then it’s almost like a human virus, right? If we follow that logic, then surely there’s an ‘antivirus’. There has to be some kind of counteragent.”

“If there is, I’ve never heard of it,” said Luther.

“Where did it first originate?”

Luther shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Okay, so who do we talk to? You must know someone who’s studied this.”

“No one dares get close enough to a tainted vampire to study it.”

A string of curses flew out of Jared’s mouth.

Aching for Jared, I turned to Antonio. “What now?”

“We need to contain Evan, Stuart, and Max. Although the symptoms may not show for a few days, it is still important to isolate them. It would be safe for them to be contained together as opposed to separately, since they will not attempt to feed from each other. Tainted blood will not appeal to them on any level.”

We’ll help them somehow, Jared. Again, he ignored me. But I had the feeling that he was simply too trapped by his own panic to focus on anything else.

“We can’t afford to allow this to spread any further.” Antonio’s gaze danced from Jared to me as he asked, “Are you positive that none of the others were bitten?”

I nodded. “Positive.” Jared gave him a nod as well.

Luther’s brow creased as if something suddenly occurred to him. “Did you see Quentin Foy down in the tunnels?”

“No. But I’m not sure I’d have recognised him anyway.” Not when they had all been more like skeletons.

“I have to wonder if Quentin sealed them in there, leaving them to die.”

“Why would he do that?” Jared asked.

“Maybe he couldn’t find it within himself to destroy them. You know that you would find it difficult to kill any vampires from The Hollow, no matter if they were tainted.”

After a short silence, Antonio rose from the bench. “I need to hold a teleconference and alert the High Masters. They need to be aware of the outbreak so they can take precautions with their vampires.”

Before he and Luther could walk away, Jared held a hand up to stay them. “Wait, what about Quentin? I mean, if we find out from him when The Call first became an issue in his nest, could we find some way of understanding it better, of fighting it?”

Antonio sighed heavily. “I would like to say yes, but this is something that has been around for a very long time, Jared, and nothing has ever been able to stop it. If there was some way of fighting it, I would imagine that someone would have discovered it by now.”

“But not if the only response to the outbreak that vampires have ever made is to kill anyone who became tainted and then hide away, right?”

“Maybe,” was all Antonio said, but there was no hope in his voice. “I must get things in motion now.” Antonio and Luther hurried away with the guards and dogs, leaving Jared and I alone.

I went to Jared and slid my arms around his waist. He was trembling with fury and hurting so badly, and I felt so helpless. Oh sure I was worried about Evan as well, and the thought of him dying was too much to bear. Similarly, knowing that Stuart and Max were tainted was intensifying the ache still in my chest. But considering that one of the victims was Jared’s twin brother, this whole thing had to be a million times worse for him than it was for me.

“I’m not dropping this.”

I kissed his throat. “Neither am I.”

“We basically have four weeks to find a way to help them. That’s the longest they’ll last.”

I nodded, but I had no clue whatsoever where to start. Apparently, neither did Jared because rather than coming up with some sort of game plan, he just buried his face in the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply. I spoke into his ear. “Come on, let’s go home. We’ll talk about it there.”

He teleported us to the living area of our apartment, but instead of releasing me, he tightened his hold, still vibrating with anger. I soothingly smoothed my hands up and down his back while dabbing kisses on his neck. Bringing his forehead to rest against mine, he rubbed a thumb over my bottom lip. His irises were glowing red, but there wasn’t just rage there now. There was also heat and desperation. I knew that look, my body knew that look, and it sent a shiver of need down my spine.

One hand fisted in my hair. “I need you right now.” It was a dark rumble.

“You have me.”

“I can’t go slow,” he warned, yanking my head back slightly.

“I don’t want you to.”

He slammed his mouth down on mine, and I immediately opened for him. The kiss was full of urgency and desperation, as if he thought I could somehow take away his anxiety and pain. Or maybe I was just his escape from it. Tingles of fire were everywhere because his hands were everywhere. Clothes were torn and dumped at our feet. Normally, Jared was the worst tease imaginable. His foreplay could go on for hours, and he’d love every moment of it. But this time there was no finesse, no teasing, no playfulness from either of us.

His hand slid down to the underneath of my thigh and he hooked my leg over his hip, grinding his rock-hard c*ck against me. An image of me on my knees with his c*ck in my mouth suddenly flashed in my mind, and I wondered if it had somehow come from him or if the thought was my own. It didn’t matter. I dropped to my knees and curled my hand around the root of his dick. Knowing exactly what he liked, I sucked in the energy around me and exhaled a small flame of fire, heating my mouth. I then took him inside, enjoying his groans and moans.

“Fuck, Sam.” His fingers tunnelled into my hair and tugged hard as he began pumping his hips, f**king my mouth. “That’s it. Keep those lips nice and tight around my cock.” As he repeatedly thrust into my mouth, I sucked and licked and swirled my tongue around him. Suddenly he stopped, panting. “Baby, I can’t hold out. I’ll go out of my f**king mind if I’m not inside you now.”

He lifted me into his arms, urged me to curl my legs around his hips, slammed me against the wall, and then drove into me. We both groaned as my muscles clamped tight around him. But he didn’t thrust again, didn’t bury himself deeper inside me. Instead, he held himself completely still. I could sense him digging deep for control, worried that he was hurting me.

“Baby.” The agonised sound was an apology.

“It’s okay. You’re not hurting me. Now move.”

Gripping my h*ps tightly, he took me at my word and began powering into me. It was deep, it was raw, it was primal, and it was exactly what I wanted just then. His face was a mask of intensity and determination, and he held my eyes with a gaze so piercing and hot it was scorching. “Nothing in the goddamn world beats being in you, feeling you around me, Sam. Not a f**king thing.”

I could feel my cl**ax fast approaching. “Jared, I’m not going to last long.”

“But you will, baby, because I’m not leaving this body yet.” He slowed his movements until every thrust was deliciously yet excruciatingly slow. Curling my hips, he went even deeper with each long, drawn-out thrust. My eyelids drifted shut with the bliss of it all. “Uh-uh, Sam. Eyes open.”

Oh he always bloody did this, the sod.

“Come on, open those eyes for me. I want to see them.”

But I ignored him. Seriously, what was the point in forcing them open when they’d drift shut again anyway? There was a whoosh of movement and suddenly I was bent over the arm of the sofa and a hand came down hard on my arse. I looked back at him, gaping. “Oh, you little shit.”

“Well, if I can’t look in your eyes, I might as well look at your ass.”

“I am so going to” But then he slammed into me and I no longer gave a crap.

“It really is the most perfect ass, baby.” He smoothed his hands over it before cupping it possessively. “Even better, it’s mine.” Then he was driving into me hard, deep, and fast. My cl**ax soon began creeping up on me again, making my inner muscles flutter around him. This time, he didn’t slow down. Instead, his thrusts turned fevered.

Curling his body over mine, he slipped his hands under me to palm and mould my br**sts. With his thumbs, he sent shards of electricity into each nipple while at the same time licking my neck. Then one hand again knotted in my hair and yanked, angling my head how he wanted it – a move that might have got him in trouble if I wasn’t so close to coming. Without hesitation, he sank his teeth into my neck. The moans he made as he drank from me vibrated against my skin and, oh God, I was going to come. The cl**ax hit me hard, wrenching a scream from me. Jared slammed into me once, twice, and then drove deep as he exploded inside me, half-growling-half-groaning my name.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed there, panting and quivering with the aftershocks, but eventually Jared withdrew from me and then teleported us to the shower. Standing under the spray, he simply held me to him for a little while. It wasn’t until we’d finished soaping each other down that he spoke. “How is it that coming inside you makes me calm down and think better?”