“Feverish, you say?”

“Sì,” Tomasso muttered as he unlocked the door to the villa he’d arranged for him and Abigail when the fishermen had let them off at the resort dock here. It was a luxury resort and where the men had been staying, and since Tomasso didn’t know the first thing about Punta Cana or what was available here, he’d decided their resort would do. Besides, they were leaving early in the morning, practically at sunrise, so he only had to make sure he avoided them until then to ensure the memories he’d tampered with about their encounter with him stayed buried.

“Any other symptoms?” the doctor asked, following him inside when he opened the door.

“No,” Tomasso said, but frowned. He hadn’t really examined Abigail before rushing off to find the doctor, and while he felt he probably should have thought to do so, he was glad he hadn’t. Doctor Cortez did not live at the resort and had been getting ready to head home after having dinner and drinks here when Tomasso had found the man. It had taken his special brand of persuasion—aka mind control—for him to get the man back here to the villa.

Leaving the doctor to follow, Tomasso led him through the villa to the master suite, opened the door, and then paused briefly when he saw the empty bed. Frowning, he rushed to the bathroom door, calling, “Abigail?”

There was no answer. He understood why when he reached the open door and saw Abigail sprawled naked on the tile floor. She lay on her side with her back to him, her arms and legs askew. She looked like a doll who had been tossed away. Cursing, he hurried forward, calling her name again, aware that Doctor Cortez was following.

Tomasso knelt at Abigail’s side and turned her over, only to sit back with dismay when he got a good look at her face. She was as pale as death, the circles under her eyes almost black against her paper-white skin.

“She’s vomited.”

Tomasso glanced around at that calm comment to see that Cortez had set his medical bag on the sink counter and was now peering into the toilet. After flushing the toilet, the doctor walked over to squat on the other side of Abigail. He felt her forehead briefly, lifted her eyelids to check her eyes, and then pulled her lips back to look at her gums, before turning his attention to her arms. After lifting each one to examine all sides of them, he then returned Abigail onto her side to look at her back.

“She has a lot of insect bites,” the doctor commented. “And she appears to be developing a rash.”

Tomasso frowned as he noted that the doctor was right.

“Has she been complaining of a headache?” Doctor Cortez asked, straightening to move to the tub.

“No,” Tomasso growled, his concerned gaze sliding over Abigail’s face as he eased her onto her back again.

“Achy joints?” the doctor asked, bending to press the button that would set the stopper. “A pain behind her eyes?”

“No,” Tomasso snapped impatiently, his eyes now moving over the mosquito bites he could see. Had Abigail had them and the rash when they were in the tub earlier? He hadn’t noticed.

Turning the cold tap on full force, the doctor asked, “How long has she been in the Dominican?”

“Four days,” Tomasso answered.

“Hmm.” The doctor straightened. “Sounds about right.”

“What does?” Tomasso asked with a frown. “You know what it is?”

“I will take some blood and have it tested,” Doctor Cortez said cautiously as he moved to his medical bag to retrieve several items. Returning then to kneel beside Abigail, he finished, “But my guess would be dengue fever.”

“What’s that?” Tomasso asked with concern. He was sure he’d heard the name before, but hadn’t a clue what it was.

“This is just a band. I wrap it around her arm to make the vein—”

“No. What is dengue fever?” Tomasso ground out with irritation, interrupting the unwanted explanation of what the doctor was doing in preparation for taking blood.

“Oh.” Doctor Cortez finished tying the band around Abigail’s arm, then slipped a needle into her vein and watched blood begin to pour into the attached test tube, before explaining, “A virus that’s quite common here. It’s transmitted by mosquitoes.”

“Is it bad?” Tomasso asked with concern.

“Unpleasant,” the doctor said with a grimace. “But she should be fine.”

“Thank God.” Tomasso sagged with relief, then stiffened and glanced to Abigail’s face when she moaned and began to stir.

Her eyes fluttered open, and Tomasso tried for a reassuring smile when her confused gaze found his. But it dropped away into dismay when she accused in a raspy voice, “You bit me!”

“She’s delirious,” Cortez said soothingly when Tomasso merely stared at her, his expression blank.

Abigail’s eyes rolled to the man, her head slow to follow, and she frowned with confusion. “Who are you?”

“I’m Doctor Cortez, child. Now just rest. You’re ill.”

“Nooooo.” She moaned the word, her head flopping in the other direction as she muttered, “I’m turning. He bit me.”

“Is that so?” Dr. Cortez asked mildly, switching out the now full test tube for an empty one.

“Yes.” Her head swung back sharply, her beautiful green eyes now wide and panicked. “You shouldn’t be here. I could bite you.” Raising her head she added plaintively, “I don’t want to bite anyone.”

“That’s good,” Doctor Cortez murmured, his attention on the quickly filling second vial.

Tomasso glanced from the man to Abigail, his mind in an uproar as he tried to decide what to do. She obviously knew what he was, or knew something anyway. And she was blabbing to the doctor who shouldn’t be hearing any of this. The man seemed to be assuming this was all fever-induced delirium, but what if he got thinking about it later and—

“I taste blood,” Abigail muttered fretfully, her head twisting again. “Why do I—oh!” her expression filled with horror. “I already bit someone. Didn’t I? I did,” she decided and moaned, “I don’t want to be a bloodsucking fiend!”

“She’s quite delirious,” Doctor Cortez diagnosed, finished with drawing the blood and straightening with his apparatus and the test tubes in hand. Returning to his medical bag once more, he ordered, “Put her in the tub. You need to get her temperature down.”

Tomasso hesitated, still torn over what he should do about the doctor.

“Whose blood is this?” Abigail moaned, peering at her hands as if they were covered with the substance. They weren’t, but her believing they were made Tomasso’s decision for him. Scooping Abigail off the floor, he carried her to the tub. He’d leave the man alone for now. He could always wipe his memory later if it became necessary.

The water was halfway up the side of the tub. Tomasso lowered Abigail into it, noting that it was extremely cold as it closed over his arms and her body. Still, he wasn’t prepared for Abigail’s reaction. Her eyes flew open, she began to shriek as if in pain, and immediately tried to get out of the tub. She did so by trying to climb Tomasso’s chest and head, her nails digging ruthlessly into his flesh to manage the task.

“Calma. Abigail, calmati,” Tomasso said soothingly as he caught her wrists and pulled her claws out of his skin. Forcing her back into the water, he held her there, just repeating those same words over and over again. Much to his relief, after barely a minute, she suddenly collapsed, the fight going out of her and her eyes closing again.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get the test results.”

Tomasso glanced around sharply to see that the doctor had packed up his bag and was heading for the door.

“Wait!” he barked with dismay. When the man paused and glanced back, he asked, “What about medicine?”

“I’ll have the front desk find some acetaminophen for her to help with the pain. Stay away from aspirin though, it will encourage bleeding,” he instructed. “And keep bathing her in cold water when her fever gets too high.”

“That’s it?” Tomasso asked with disbelief. “What about real medicine? Antibiotics or something?”

“Dengue fever is a virus. Antibiotics aren’t effective with viruses,” the doctor explained patiently. “Just give her the acetaminophen and cold baths and keep an eye on her. She should recover on her own in a few days. If she doesn’t, or she starts bleeding, call for me. It could mean complications.”

“What kind of complications?” Tomasso growled, not liking the sounds of that.

“In some rare cases the patient can develop dengue hemorrhagic fever, and even dengue shock syndrome, which can be deadly,” Cortez admitted, but then quickly added, “However, that is rare. It usually only happens to people with weakened immune systems. So just keep an eye on her and call if there are problems.”

Tomasso’s head turned slowly back to Abigail, his concern leaping as he recalled that she’d been pale and exhausted when he’d met her. Run-down from tending her dying mother. And they hadn’t eaten or drunk much these last few days. No doubt she was dehydrated. Would that combination of things be enough to weaken her immune system? Maybe he should take control of the doctor and make him stay until they knew if Abigail was going to be able to recover on her own or—

The sound of the bedroom door shutting made him glance around and Tomasso cursed when he realized that Dr. Cortez had slipped away. He considered chasing the man down and bringing him back, but couldn’t leave Abigail alone in the tub while she was unconscious. He also didn’t want to take her out of the water until her temperature had gone down though, so he let the doctor go and concentrated on keeping Abigail’s head above water with one hand while turning off the tap with the other.

Sighing then, Tomasso settled more comfortably beside the tub and simply peered at Abigail with concern. Not only was she sick, but she seemed to have some idea of . . . Well, she knew he’d bit her. He didn’t know how since he hadn’t bit her since the plane four days ago, and she hadn’t said anything about it before this. Unless she’d known, but hadn’t cared until she’d started to get sick.

Abigail had said something about her turning and not wanting to be a bloodsucking fiend, he recalled with a wince. No one had ever called Tomasso a bloodsucking fiend before, and he didn’t like it. More importantly though, it didn’t suggest that she was taking the idea of what he was very well at all.

But she was delirious, Tomasso reminded himself encouragingly. Perhaps she didn’t know what she was saying. Maybe she was just spouting stuff from a dream she’d been having before waking up.

“Yeah, right,” Tomasso muttered to himself unhappily and acknowledged that he really should have sat her down and explained everything to her while they were still in the jungle. He suspected he’d made things much harder for himself by not doing so.

Tomasso gave a snuffling snore that made his chin bob where it rested on his chest and Abigail smiled faintly. She’d been awake and watching him sleep in the chair next to her bed for perhaps ten minutes, and she’d spent that time sorting out where she was, what was happening and just who or what Tomasso was. Abigail had come to several conclusions.

They had reached civilization and, from her guess and what she’d seen of the room she was in, had to be at a luxury resort. She didn’t recall actually finding civilization or checking in here, so supposed she’d been too sick at the time to remember it now. Which actually was part of her second conclusion. Abigail had been seriously sick. Like deadly ill. From what she could recall since waking up in this room the first time, Abigail knew without a doubt that she had never in her life been as sick as this. Ever.

She was aware that she’d been out of her head with fever for a while, although she wasn’t quite sure how long that while might have been. She’d also had a few lucid moments, though, too, and during one of those she’d woken to see Tomasso talking quietly to a man he’d addressed as Dr. Cortez. They’d been by the door, the doctor obviously leaving, and she hadn’t been able to hear much of what was said, but she had caught the mention of dengue fever before dropping back into her restless sleep.

Abigail frowned. She had read about dengue fever while researching vacation destinations with her mother and knew exactly what that was. Or, she’d thought she knew exactly what that was. It had sounded like an unpleasant flu-like illness to her. However, having now suffered it, she could honestly say that in the competition for Worst Illness to Have, dengue fever could kick every flu’s ass up and down the block ten times. Honestly, she’d never felt so awful in her life. She hadn’t been able to keep down any of the broths or even the water Tomasso had tried to give her to keep her hydrated. Every joint in her body had ached so that she felt like she’d been run over by a semi. Her head had been pounding like a tribal drum, and the pain behind her eyes had been unbearable. Abigail had been sure she was going to die.

And then she’d woken up this time feeling a lot better. Well, comparatively speaking at least. Her head still ached, as did her joints, but the fever appeared to be gone. That was a good sign, right?

Abigail sighed and moved her tongue around inside her mouth, trying to work up some saliva to ease the dryness she was suffering. The effort didn’t seem to do a thing. She needed a glass of water or something.

Her gaze slid over Tomasso again, but she didn’t say his name or do anything else that might wake him. Abigail was pretty sure he’d not slept since her illness had started. Every time she’d woken up, he’d been right there taking care of her. Crushing up pills he then stirred into water and made her drink, assuring her it would help with the pain. Spoon-feeding her broth, murmuring to her the whole time that she had to eat and keep up her strength to fight this off. Supporting her head and holding her hair back as she vomited up both the water and broth. Helping her to the bathroom and back when she needed it. Lowering her into icy baths, his voice full of apology and regret as he tried to soothe her and told her it was necessary.

She’d also woken a couple times to find him simply holding her hand and mumbling away to her in Italian. Abigail wasn’t sure what he’d been saying to her those times, but there had been a lot of caras, bellas, and life mates mentioned so she thought he probably wasn’t telling her tales of his childhood.

Tomasso stirred restlessly in his chair, mumbled something in Italian, and then settled back into deep breathing, and Abigail let out the breath she’d held as she’d waited to see if he’d wake up or not. She wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t woken up. While she was thirsty and restless, she also wasn’t looking forward to offering him the apology she knew she owed him. And she did owe him an apology, because another conclusion Abigail had come to was that she’d briefly lost her mind to imagine even for a minute that he was some kind of vampire and had even bit her. That had obviously been some fever-induced madness, because now that she was lucid again, she could see how ridiculous that idea was.

First, there was no such thing as vampires. That went without saying.

Second, the man had been running around in daylight, swimming, spearing fish, climbing trees to get coconuts and so on, and everyone knew that vampires couldn’t go out in daylight. They burst into flames and turned to ash if they dared it . . . which of course they wouldn’t, because vampires didn’t exist.

And third, she hadn’t been suffering from blood loss and the turn as she’d feared, she’d had dengue fever, so . . . well, she’d obviously just lost it. Those fangs she’d thought she’d seen before she passed out? Probably just a fever-induced hallucination. And the passing out itself? Probably her body weakened from trying to fight off the illness.

Of course, that didn’t explain why he’d passed out each time too. Or the marks on her neck for that matter, but there was just no way that Abigail could accept that the sweet man who had shown her such pleasure, and cared for her so tenderly while she was ill, was a vampire. No way. No how. No sir.

“You’re awake.”

Realizing that her gaze had somehow dropped and fastened on Tomasso’s bare chest as she’d run through her thoughts, Abigail shifted her gaze back up to his face and managed a smile as he lunged out of the chair to perch on the edge of the bed next to her.

“The fever is gone,” Tomasso said with relief as he felt her forehead, and then he frowned and noted, “But you are—how you say? Not like the clam, but something like that.”

Clammy, Abigail translated in her mind and grimaced. She was clammy. No doubt the aftereffects of the fever or something. Before she could speak the correct word aloud, though, he asked with concern, “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty,” she replied, surprised when her voice came out a barely audible dry rasp.

“Of course. You must be parched,” Tomasso muttered, turning to a table next to the bed where a pitcher of water sat next to an empty glass.

“Yes. Very,” Abigail whispered as she watched him pour the lovely clear liquid into the glass. Setting the drink on the table, he then quickly swung back to slip an arm under her shoulders and lift her upper body. Tomasso then piled some pillows behind her back before easing her back against them and turning to reach for the glass of water.

Abigail sipped eagerly at the water when he urged it to her lips. She then closed her eyes on a relieved sigh as the sweet liquid dampened her tongue and filled her mouth. It felt so wonderful that she held it there for a moment, letting it fill and wet every crevice, before allowing it to slide down her equally parched throat.

“More,” she mumbled, trying to hold onto the glass when Tomasso started to pull it away.

“Slowly,” he cautioned, giving in and raising the glass to her lips again.

Abigail tried to go slowly, but it was just so nice after feeling parched for so long, she swallowed more than she probably should have. Tomasso was trying to ease the glass away from her lips again when she noted the drop of red liquid that landed in the water and quickly spread, then dissolved even as a second drop followed.

“Tomasso?” she mumbled uncertainly, raising a hand instinctively to her face just as the blood began to course from her nose in earnest. She could taste it in her mouth too, and what was that on her arm? Abigail wondered with concern. She noted what looked like blood blisters under the skin even as droplets began to form on top of the skin—like sweat, but bloodred. Before she could become too alarmed at that, a sudden shaft of agony ripped through Abigail’s stomach. A cry of pain slipping from her lips, she immediately hunched forward on the bed, her arms instinctively wrapping around her stomach, and then she felt the liquid she’d just swallowed trying to climb its way out of her throat and muttered, “I think I’m gonna—”

Cursing, Tomasso set the glass aside and scooped her from the bed. They were in the bathroom a heartbeat later, so fast that Abigail thought she must have missed some time somehow. He carried her to the toilet and started to lower her, but Abigail didn’t make it. Her stomach tossed out the water all over the back of the toilet and the seat. It was mixed with blood, she noted hazily.

Some part of her brain acknowledged that probably wasn’t a good thing, but Abigail had little time or energy to consider it; her heaves hadn’t stopped despite the fact that she was pretty sure there was nothing left to throw up. The pain hadn’t stopped either, but had intensified. It felt like someone had stabbed her with a knife and was now dragging the weapon up and down and left and right inside her gut.

The moment Tomasso finished setting her on the cold tile floor next to the toilet, Abigail instinctively curled into a protective ball around her stomach. She was vaguely aware of Tomasso leaning over her, calling her name and asking questions, but simply lay there releasing little gasps of agony and misery until a blessed darkness dropped over her, taking away the pain, or at least her awareness of it.

“Dengue hemorrhagic fever,” Doctor Cortez diagnosed grimly, straightening from examining Abigail. She was back in bed, under the sheet and sleeping, or unconscious really, Tomasso thought. She’d passed out in the bathroom and hadn’t stirred once since he’d carried her back in here and called the doctor and then waited for him to arrive.

“Yes, you said dengue before, but she—”

“It’s not simply dengue fever anymore,” the doctor interrupted sternly. “It is dengue hemorrhagic fever now.”

Tomasso stared at him blankly, not sure what the difference was.

“You let her get dehydrated,” Doctor Cortez accused, moving to the phone and beginning to punch in numbers.

“I gave her broth and water. She could not keep anything down,” Tomasso said, moving closer to the bed to peer down at Abigail.

“Then you should have called me,” Cortez snapped.

“I did. Repeatedly,” Tomasso growled. He’d called the main desk at least twelve times a day for the past two days since the man had left him here alone with Abigail. Each time he’d been promised the doctor would be sent to him, but the man had never shown up. Tomasso had almost gone out himself to hunt down the doctor, but hadn’t been willing to leave Abigail alone here while he did it. He was actually surprised the man was here now. Perhaps it was his telling the front desk that she was bleeding from everywhere and he would go down there and beat the person on the other end of the phone to death if Abigail died that had worked. If he’d known that would do it, he would have made the threat sooner.

“They just installed a new message system. I never got the messages,” Dr. Cortez muttered, and then began to speak into the phone in rapid-fire Spanish. He paused to listen to whoever was on the other end of the line for a moment, spat out another round of Spanish and then slammed the phone down violently.

“What?” Tomasso asked, knowing the news wasn’t good.

“She needs a hospital. Immediately,” the doctor snapped, sounding frustrated. “She needs to be put on an IV to raise her fluids and she no doubt needs a blood transfusion too.” He paced over to peer at Abigail again and shook his head. “But apparently the road has been washed out just outside the resort and with this tropical storm there is no way to get a chopper or boat here to transport her.”

Tomasso frowned and glanced to the glass doors. He’d been vaguely aware of the storm raging outside for the past several hours or so, and had noticed that the doctor was soaked through and out of breath when he got here. However, Tomasso had been so concerned about Abigail, he’d paid little heed to anything but her since she fell ill. Now he saw at a glance that this was more than just your average tropical storm. Mother Nature was pissed, and she was taking her fury out on anything in her path, which apparently included this resort, Tomasso thought as one of the lounge chairs went sailing past the window.

Frowning, he turned to Cortez to see that he was taking Abigail’s blood pressure again. “What do we do?”

Doctor Cortez was silent for a moment as he removed the pressure cuff and wound it up. “If we can’t get her to a hospital, she doesn’t stand a chance, and right now, we can’t get her to a hospital.” He put the cuff away in his bag only to pull it back out again. Returning to Abigail he started to put the cuff on her again as if intending to take her readings in case they’d changed in the last moment and said, “I suggest you pray . . . and say your good-byes.”

Tomasso stilled at those words, his mind suddenly screaming. Good-byes? No! He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Life mates were rare and precious finds. Some waited millennia to find one. He’d been lucky to have her placed in his path while so young. He could not lose Abigail.

“Get out,” he growled.

When Dr. Cortez glanced to him in surprise, but when he didn’t immediately get up and leave as requested, Tomasso slid into the man’s mind and took control. Within moments all of the man’s medical gear was back in his bag and the doctor was walking out the door. Tomasso watched him leave, and then sat down on the side of the bed.

“Abigail?” he said, grasping and shaking her shoulders gently. When that got no response, he tried again, but as he’d suspected, she was unconscious, not sleeping. Tomasso eased her back onto the bed, leaving his arm under her neck so that her head fell back slightly over it, and her mouth opened.

He remained like that, simply peering at her for a moment, and his mind raced, and then he opened his own mouth and let his fangs slide out. Tomasso hadn’t got to tell Abigail that he was immortal, or explain what that was to her. He didn’t have her permission to turn her, and had no idea if she would be willing to be turned. But there was no way in hell he was risking losing her at this juncture.

Raising his wrist, Tomasso tore into it with his fangs, and raised Abigail up slightly to press the gushing wound to her mouth. He remained like that until the bleeding slowed and stopped, then removed his wrist. He was easing Abigail back onto the bed when a muffled knocking reached his ears.

Frowning, Tomasso glanced from Abigail to the door and back, then stood and hurried out of the room to make his way to the villa entrance. The window in the front door was frosted glass. Tomasso could see shadows through it as he approached, but that was all. Mouth tightening, he unlocked and opened the door, then froze; shock rippled through his body as he stared at the people on the doorstep.