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Blood Calls
Caridad Pineiro
The scent of blood lured him… But for vampire Diego Rivera, Ramona Escobar’s sensuality proved even more potent. He had to resist – for there could be no such thing as love for him. Five centuries ago Diego had vowed never to turn another with his bite. When the artist’s life was threatened by a reclusive millionaire who had used Ramona’s skills to build a forgery ring, Diego needed to unleash his inner demon to save her.Then he was faced with a choice – lose the woman he loved…or turn her with a vampire’s kiss.
The air rushed against his body, but barely cooled the heat of the demon driving him.
He landed on the ledge of Ramona’s building, and imagined her down below, standing before one of her canvases, stroking the brush across the surface. Immediately the erotic paintings she’d completed came to mind, reawakening his desire. A desire only she could satisfy.
He crept towards the skylight and glanced down. There she was, lying in bed, the sheets in disarray around her naked body.
Diego groaned and reared back, knowing how wrong it was and yet drawn to the sight. This was all he could allow himself with her – this distant passion. Anything else was wrong on so many levels.
She was human. He wasn’t.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caridad Piñeiro was born in Havana, Cuba, and settled in the New York metropolitan area. She attended Villanova University on a presidential scholarship and graduated magna cum laude. Caridad earned her Juris Doctor from St John’s University and became the first female and Latino partner of Abelman, Frayne & Schwab.
Caridad is a multi-published author whose love of the written word developed when her fifth-grade teacher assigned a project – to write a book that would be placed in a class lending library. She has been hooked on writing ever since.
Articles featuring Caridad’s works have been published in various magazines and newspapers. Caridad has appeared on Fox’s Good Day NewYork, New Jersey Network’s Jersey’s Talking with Lee Leonard and WGN-TV’s Adelante Chicago. Caridad was also one of the Latino authors featured at the first ever Spanish Pavilion at the 2000 Chicago BookExpo America. In 2006 Caridad made an appearance at BookExpo America as one of the authors helping launch Nocturne.
Caridad’s novels have been nominated for various readers’ and reviewers’ choice awards, including Affaire de Coeur and RIO awards.
When not writing, Caridad is a mum, wife and lawyer. Caridad also teaches workshops on various topics related to writing and heads a writing group at a local bookstore. For more information on Caridad’s books, contests and appearances, or to contact Caridad, please visit www.caridad.com.
Dear Reader,
Sometimes I can’t believe that we’re here, at book six in THE CALLING series. When I wrote the first novel, Darkness Calls, everyone told me I would never be able to sell a story with vampires, but Mills & Boon believed in the story and in me. I am eternally grateful for that since it provided me the opportunity to create this very different cross-genre series that’s a little bit suspense, a little bit vamp and a little bit romance.
I’ve loved seeing the growth of the characters from the first book and allowing you to become involved in the underworld of Manhattan vampires. I hope you’re enjoying the continuing mention of characters such as Melissa and Sebastian, and I promise that Maggie and David will soon have their story! I know how popular David has been with so many of you and how sad it may have been to realise that in Death Calls David was paralysed as a result of being injured during the terrorist attack.
I’m working on another three books in the series with yet more of the characters you’ve come to know – Blake and Stacia for starters, as well as Diana and Ryder again because their story is the foundation of the entire series. Yes, it’s true! In a future book, Diana and Ryder will face yet another challenge to their love, one which will propel the series into totally new ground. I hope you’ll be back for more! Thanks for all your support and belief in THE CALLING.
Sincerely,
Caridad
Blood Calls
CARIDAD PIÑEIRO
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Leslie Wainger, who believed in my vampires
from the very start and gave me this amazing
opportunity to share them with you.
Prologue
1491, Galicia, Spain
The thought of slowly strangling the life from his wife made the flogging almost bearable for Diego Rivera.
As each lash stripped another bit of skin from his back, he imagined his hands encircling her throat. Imagined himself watching her eyes bulge as he exerted pressure and heard the crack of cartilage beneath his fingers.
The pleasure of his near-delirium daydream evaporated as one particularly sadistic blow penetrated his defenses and his body jerked spasmodically.
“Madre de Dios,” he gasped as fire erupted between his shoulder blades. Beside the heat of the whip as it tore into his flesh, Diego sensed a warmth that could only be blood trickling down his back.
“Confess your sins, convert. It will go easier if you tell us the truth,” the Inquisitor urged from his spot a few feet away. Beside him sat a physician whose job it was to make sure the heretic wasn’t too far gone to confess.
This business of saving lives wasn’t supposed to kill anyone, Diego thought cynically, then laughed out loud.
The sound bounced off the stone walls of the room, shocking his torturers, who looked at him as if he was crazy. Maybe he was, Diego mused, as he heard the eerie echo of his laughter, sounding too much like that of a madman.
As the physician rose from the chair and walked toward him, Diego realized they would stop the punishment now and wait for him to be more lucid. That was the way it had been for weeks now. Maim, wait, repeat.
It was the way it would be today.
The physician jerked his head toward Diego, and two guards quickly undid the shackles that had been cutting into his wrists. Released from his bondage, he slumped and would have fallen to the ground if not for the guards, who dragged him from the chamber toward the small cell that had held him prisoner for nearly a month now.
They tossed him inside unceremoniously. He landed roughly on the floor, his head smacking against the cobblestones, since his arms were too feeble to break his fall.
What was one more bruise? he thought as the chilly humidity of the cell quickly registered his burning flesh. He shivered violently, which brought renewed pain to his mangled back and sore arms. He tried to quell the chatter of his teeth and swore he would get vengeance on those who had betrayed him.
He didn’t know how long a time passed before the slight scuffle of footsteps on the stone floor drew his attention.
“Esperanza?” He glanced upward and smiled as the familiar face of the plain servant girl from his home crept into his vision. Esperanza had been sneaking into the prison to care for him.
“Don Diego, I’m so sorry,” she said as she dabbed at his back with a moist cloth.
At his groan, she explained, “This will keep it from getting infected.”
Diego knew she meant well, but keeping him alive would only benefit the Inquisitor. He gently laid a hand on her thigh as she knelt beside him. “You are a good girl, Esperanza.”
Her gasp confused him. In her vibrant brown eyes, however, he finally saw why she risked her life to help him—she was in love with him. In a way, he cared for her, as well.
Diego had barely noticed her the entire time that she labored in his home. He had been too busy whoring with many more beautiful women, including his own bitch of a wife. His infidelities had been the reason that his wife had lied about him and turned him over to the Inquisitor. Backing her claims that he was a relapsed convert was a lower nobleman who coveted Diego’s properties and wife.
God help the poor man when he discovered the real nature of the harridan Diego had married.
A woman nothing like kind and gentle Esperanza, he thought, passing his hand over her cheek. Her skin was soft and smooth and remarkably creamy in color, in sharp contrast to the deep auburn of her hair.
“Do not come again, little one. I am not worth your life,” he said, and in truth, he meant it. Selfish and materialistic, he had not been a good man up until now. It had taken this unfortunate encounter with the Inquisitor to make him realize he needed to change.
“Don Diego—”
“Promise me you will stay away.” As tears filled her eyes and spilled over, he whispered, “I will never forget you.”
She kissed his cheek, then rose and rushed from his cell.
He didn’t expect the loneliness that followed her departure. It was a greater torture than any the Inquisitor could visit on him.
Loneliness had been with him for most of his life, he had realized in the weeks of numbing pain and solitary confinement within this small cell.
He vowed that if he survived, he would strive to change that. Strive to do good.
God had to have visited this torture on him for a reason, and he wasn’t about to question why he had been called.
He just intended to answer when the time was right.
Chapter 1
2007, New York City
Passion.
It didn’t exist in every person who graced the earth, Diego suspected. Only a handful truly knew what it meant to live their lives with such intensity. In the five hundred years since a vampire’s kiss had turned him into an immortal, Diego had surrounded himself with artists and others who lived life to the fullest. Who lived life with passion.
Ramona Escobar was such a person, Diego decided as he looked over the latest work she had done.
As he strolled back and forth in front of the six paintings, the vibrant colors called to him, as did the amazing movement and life splashed across the canvases. Beneath it all shimmered the sensuality of the scenes Ramona had depicted in her works—a study of men and women in various stages of making love.
He considered how to best display these paintings in his gallery. He had no doubt he would do so, since they were as wonderful as the others Ramona had done over the years, except…
A yearning existed in these works he hadn’t seen before. A need that connected to something deep within him. He had to take a shaky breath to quell the desire that rose in him as he perused one piece. He was sure other people would feel the same and that the paintings would fetch a good price. Possibly an immense price. Thanks to the many centuries he had mingled with the artsy set, he knew how to recognize talent.
“These are wonderful,” he said.
Petite and slender, Ramona stood beside him, wiping paint off her hands with a rag.
“Do you think so?” she asked, clearly uncertain. He wondered, as he had more than once during the half-dozen years he’d known her, about the kind of woman she was. One with passion mixed with equal parts humility and doubt. She had matured since the day he had met her, during her final year of art school. He had been intrigued back then by the young, tough ragamuffin with so much talent, but little ego.
But then again, had she been a braggadocio like some other artists he had encountered, he doubted their professional relationship would have lasted this long. Diego did not suffer fools or braggarts. They reminded him too much of how he had been before beginning his eternal life.
Driving that thought from his mind, he said, “Truly unique. They will sell well.”
“Que bueno. When do you think you can show them?” She continued wiping her hands with the cloth, the gesture telling.
Diego laid his hand over hers. Her fingers were cold, which worried him. “Is something wrong, amiga? If it’s money—”
“I know you would give it to me. It’s nothing, really,” Ramona said, and looked up at Diego’s remarkable face.
He was so handsome and so honorable. When she had first met him, she had been struck by his elegance and beauty. In the many years they had known each another, he had always done right by her, showing her that his beauty went far beyond his physical attributes. He would do right by her this time, as well.
“I’m fine. Let me know when you want to do the show.” She hoped to finish raising the money she needed to care for her mother.
He stroked her hand once again in a gentle gesture, and, unnerved by his touch, because it made her think of things that weren’t possible, she walked away from him. At the table holding her paints and brushes, she set down the cloth.
Diego glanced at the paintings once more before striding toward her. As always, he was impeccably dressed, in a suit that emphasized his broad shoulders and narrow waist. The blue silk brought out the color of his intense ice-blue eyes.
When he stood before her, he tossed his head, sending the longish strands of his artfully highlighted, nutmeg-brown hair back, which emphasized the strong lines of his pale face.
Ramona had always been intrigued by his looks, a product of the Celtic roots in his part of Spain. A Gallego to the core, he would often tease her when she mentioned her own mixed heritage—part cubana, part Newyorican and part Irish. The only thing they had in common was a bit of the Celt.
Not to mention that no one had to tell her Diego had known wealth all his life. He had the easy confidence of a man who had never experienced true want.
She on the other hand had known nothing but want since the death of her father, and her mother’s illness. And of course, her own illness now.
Ramona was a hard-luck gal, with the hardest luck of all to face—the possibility that she might soon die.
She hadn’t said anything to anyone. Not that she had anyone to say it to, she thought sadly as Diego bent and hugged her. Returning the embrace, she imagined it being more than friendly.
She was shocked when he turned, brushed a kiss across her cheek and whispered, “I’m here if you need me.”
At first it had been just business between them, which slowly developed into friendship over the last six or so years. But beneath it all, even from the first, there had been awareness of him as a man—a very attractive man. She had kept her distance, however, knowing of his involvement with Esperanza. But Esperanza had been dead for over a year now.
Ramona reached up and cradled his cheek, brushed her thumb across his lips. Those fine, full lips she had captured forever on the canvas. Had he seen that in the paintings? she wondered. Had he seen that it was him being loved by the stroke of her brush?
“I know, Diego. I’m fine. Really,” she replied, but eased out of his embrace. It would be unfair to both of them to head down a road that could bring nothing but pain.
His mouth tightened at her withdrawal, but then he promised to call her later that afternoon about the dates for her show.
“The sooner the better, so I can see Mami,” she reminded him.
Her mami was too ill to go out alone anymore, which was why Ramona was in a rush to hold the show. Together with the money she had made from creating some copies for millionaire recluse Frederick van Winter, a good exhibit would help her earn enough to hire care for her mother well after Ramona was gone.
She just had to hold on a little longer, she told herself as she walked Diego to the door and let him out of her loft.
She was feeling the weakness that came when she overextended herself. It was time to rest. Soon she would be even too frail to paint, and when that happened…
Without her beloved art, maybe she would be better off dead.
Diego flipped the pages of his calendar, trying to find a slot where he could have a showing of Ramona’s paintings.
Fortunately for him, business had been good lately and he had few days available. Unfortunate for Ramona, however. He had gotten the sense that she desperately needed the showing. Maybe money was tight again, he thought, remembering that Ramona’s mother had been ill and her care might be a financial drain on the struggling artist.
Although she’d taken advances from him in the past, she had always repaid them from her sales, not that he had asked for repayment.
Centuries of life had made it possible for him to amass quite a fortune. He really had no need of this gallery, but art had always fascinated him. Bored with an eternal existence of doing nothing, he had opened this shop nearly ten years ago after the suicide of a promising young artist he had known. The artist’s death had awakened the art world, making him famous posthumously and convincing Diego that he wanted to become a patron of the arts and prevent similar fates for others. He loved the passion and life of the artists. Loved discovering someone who might be the next Velázquez, Goya, Manet or Picasso, all gentlemen he had been lucky enough to meet thanks to his vampire existence.
Then there were the many parties he was able to host when he did a showing. They reminded him of the days before his wife’s betrayal, when he’d held such fetes at his estate, many times for an artist whom he had commissioned to do a work for him.
Not to mention that gathering with so many mortals let him make believe for a moment that he was like them. That he was still human.
Human like Ramona, he thought, recalling their embrace earlier that day and the sense of rightness he had felt. The desire that had arisen as he smelled her skin and felt her hair against his face.
