Knight came out and closed the door behind him. He sighed and sat down next to me. He put his arm around me and pulled me into his side. I wrapped my arms around him. I really needed the hug after the weekend we had. Then there was the conversation with Lexie.
“Did he say anything to you when he came out here?” he asked.
“No. Mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand what.”
“Probably crazy talk. He does that when he’s got a bottle of bourbon in him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“You have problems at home, and you still make everything about me. We hardly ever talk about what you’re going through.”
“Because I don’t want to.” He pulled away enough to look into my eyes. He smiled. “Don’t you get it Hope? You’re a distraction from my shitty life. A very amazing, beautiful, wanted distraction.”
“I bring more problems into your life.”
“You’ve made my life better Hope. You gave me hope.” He laughed. “Pun intended.”
I laughed. But I was still unsure if he was just saying that. “Are you sure?”
He pressed his lips against mine. His lips always tasted so refreshing. He chewed on spearmint gum a lot and the taste always remained on his lips. That and a tinge of vanilla. When his lips left mine, I felt a pang in my chest. “I’m more than sure.”
We stayed sitting together on his porch for a good hour. We didn’t say much. We just looked up at the stars. I should be getting some homework done, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Knight’s side. I think I needed the company as much as he did.
“Do you think I’m selfish?”
He looked at me confused. “Where is this coming from?”
I looked away from him and up into the stars. “Lexie said something that got me thinking.”
“Lexie called you selfish?”
“Not directly. I think she was more referring to herself. But she’s not wrong. I don’t think I should be friends with Jade anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re dangerous. Lexie thinks the same thing. I mean for her to want to let Jade go, it must be true. We all know how much she actually likes Jade.”
“But how are you going to get Jade to just stop being your friend?”
I looked back at him. Slowly he put two and two together. “You want to compel her?” He was as surprised as I was when Lexie suggested it.
“It’s the only way we can protect her. I hate even thinking about having her compelled, but if it keeps her safe and alive, isn’t it the right thing to do?”
He sighed and paused to think it over. “I think that if you compel Jade to stop hanging out with you, then you’re no better than Francesca.”
I scoffed at his words. “I think it’s a bit of a stretch to compare me to that thing.”
“I said if you do that, which I know you won’t. Hope, you can’t take Jade’s choices away from her. Yes, being associated with us puts her in danger. But we’re still humans first. She was your friend before you found out you were a witch-werewolf hybrid.”
He had a point. We weren’t just supernatural beings. We were humans living in a world surrounded by humans.
“Hope, being a supernatural has already taken so much from you. Don’t let it take your best friend from you too.”
I nodded my head and wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning into his body.
I wanted him to be right so badly. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was putting Jade in danger. I was the only reason Francesca was using her.
I was the reason for everything bad that was happening in Salem Point.
Chapter 36: Hope
The next morning, I got up early to train with Gemma. She had some serious moves. Just by looking at her you’d never be able to tell just how bad ass she was.
She didn’t like to talk too much about her days as a hunter, but I could tell she faced her fair share of vampires. Hence why she didn’t want to talk about it. I think she felt guilty for all of the vampires she killed. She was a doctor. Most people that become doctors are interested in saving lives, not ending them. I think it’s why she became a doctor in the first place. Her way of making amends for her past.
After we did some sparring, we got started on our cool down. I was drenched and out of breath and this was supposed to be an easy day for us. Gemma put up her hands for me to punch at.
“You came in late last night,” Gemma said.
“I was hanging out with Knight. I was just next door.”
She grinned and nodded her head.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You have that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that means you’re worried, but you’re trying not to make it seem like you’re worried.”
“I wouldn’t use the word worried, and you are really good at reading people.”
I shook my head punching her wrapped hand. “Nope. Just you. You’re really easy to read.”
“I’ve just noticed that things seem to be getting pretty serious with Knight.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I really like him.”
“And Christian?”
I winced. “Is it bad that I like him too?”
She smiled lightheartedly. “Not at all. It’s the twenty-first century, and you’re only about to be seventeen. There’s no need to choose just one.”
“Aunt Gemma. You never cease to amaze me.”
“Hey, I can be hip.”
Ugh. The fact that she just said that completely canceled out her statement. I don’t think anyone used the word hip anymore, and anyone that called themselves hip, wasn’t hip.
The thought floating around in my head had been on my mind since Knight brought it up. I wasn’t sure if it was best to talk to my aunt about it, but I trusted her more than I trusted anyone and I had to tell someone. I didn’t know how I felt about it yet.
“Speaking of Knight, he wants to activate his werewolf side.”
Gemma paused right away and looked at me seriously. “When you say he wants to activate his werewolf side, do you mean with someone else or with you?”
“The second one.”
“Hmm. I see.”
“Don’t get weird.”
“I’m not. Hope, you’re practically seventeen. I think you’re old enough to make that decision for yourself and I trust your judgement completely.”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t trust yourself?”
“I don’t know. I mean it’s not just sex, it’s the fact that having sex will make me turn into a hairy monster.”
She smiled. “You’re not a monster. You’re a werewolf. And it’s perfectly natural to be nervous about both sex and activating your werewolf side. I’d be worried if you weren’t nervous.”
“I just don’t know what to do. Not to mention taking this step with Knight is like completing our mating ritual or something.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works. It’s sex babe, not marriage.”
“Is there a difference in the werewolf community?”
“Absolutely. There’s a whole process when two wolves get together. There’s also the fact that you’re both in line to be alphas.”
We didn’t know that for sure. Hayden could still be the alpha of my pack. She was raised to be the alpha. It didn’t seem fair that I was going to swoop in and take that from her. I didn’t even want that. I wanted nothing to do with the pack.
Hayden was someone else on my mind. I kept feeling like I was stealing my sister’s guy. I know it was stupid. Knight didn’t belong to anyone. I was pretty sure they hated each other.
But I didn’t. I could never hate Knight. And that brought me to my final problem. Sex would mean bringing our relationship to the next level. What if in doing that I completely screw up what we had together. I couldn’t take losing him.
“This is all so complicated.”
She nodded her
head in agreement. “Extremely.” She stopped for a moment and narrowed her eyes at me. “We don’t have to have the talk do we?”
“Nope. I’m good. I know where babies come from.”
“Cool. Excellent. No glove, no love.”
I shook my head. “Oh, Aunt Gemma.”
“What?”
We finished up our cool down and headed upstairs to get ready for the day. Gemma grabbed us both a water. She handed me mine. “By the way, I wanted to ask you, what do you want to do for your birthday?”
I hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t celebrated my birthday since before Mom died. I was so used to not even acknowledging it. One year, I actually forgot it was my birthday until a week later.
“I don’t know. What do you usually do for birthdays?”
“Well, we can have a party.”
I shook my head. “Mmm, no.”
“Okay, how about dinner? Nothing fancy. Just you, me, Drake, and maybe some of your friends if you want.”
I guess dinner would be okay. Which friends I would invite was a huge question mark at the moment.
“That sounds cool.”
“Awesome, I’ll set it up.”
“You said nothing fancy.”
“And it won’t be. Entirely.”
I looked at her pointedly.
She sighed. “Fine. Pizza it is.”
I smiled. “Perfect. I’m gonna go shower.”
“Don’t use all the hot water again.”
“I told you. That wasn’t me. That was your diva boyfriend.”
“He does like hot showers.”
“Okay, TMI. I’m gonna go.”
“Sorry,” she said as I left the kitchen.
My life was going so great. Hopefully Francesca and her father weren’t going to ruin it.
Chapter 37: Hope
As soon as school was over I went home with Christian and Elizabeth.
Wyatt had some kind of plan that he came up with for dealing with Francesca. He wanted to share it with me and the others. I was going to fill Knight in later. He didn’t like being at the Hale mansion.
“That’s your plan?” I looked at Wyatt in disbelief.
“Yes, and it’s an excellent plan.”
“It’s stupid.”
Wyatt’s face contorted in anger and I heard him breath deeply. “Hope, I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”
“You want to capture a centuries old vampire that you aren’t strong enough to defeat?”
“Once she’s captured, we’ll weaken her.”
“Assuming you’re even able to capture her. And if you are, that solves one part of the problem. But it doesn’t solve the rest. What about Kane?”
“What about Kane?”
I looked at him pointedly. “Wyatt.”
“We’re talking about you.”
“We’re talking about Kane too.”
“Oh will you forget that geezer?”
I couldn’t. I knew I should, but there was no way I could live with myself if I left Kane to rot while I went on living my life. It wasn’t fair to him.
“No. He protected me. The least I can do is try to save him from his psychopathic father.”
“Kane made his choice. He can live with the consequences.”
I looked at Christian. He was staying quiet. So was Elizabeth. That told me they probably agreed with what their brother was saying to me. I looked back at Wyatt and crossed my arms. “I’m not leaving Kane stranded. You’ll have to come up with a new plan.”
Wyatt laughed. “I don’t know why you think you have a choice in this.” He appeared in front of me in a flash. He looked down at me, his eyes void of any emotion. “Newsflash Hope, I’m evil. I can force you to do whatever I want, and if not I can lock you up until the plan is a success, which I know it will be.”
He didn’t know shit. One day his arrogance was going to get him killed. Hopefully someone would be around to save him from himself. Like I was going to do for Kane.
“Fine, we’ll do your plan.”
Wyatt smiled smugly. “That’s more like it.”
Christian looked surprised by my willingness to comply. I wasn’t the type to comply with anyone, especially not Wyatt. I didn’t like him thinking he was going to order me around and make me do what he wanted. I was a person with a mind of my own. He wasn’t my father. Hell, even Caleb wouldn’t control me like that. I wouldn’t allow it.
I was going to go along with Wyatt’s plan to trap Francesca. Only things weren’t going to go the way he wanted them to.
I had plans of my own.
I was going to save Kane. No matter what it took.
Chapter 38: Hope
After school the next day I took a chance and went to see Lexie. She was avoiding me in the hallways at school and she was acting very distant.
I hated that she was so mad at me. Aside from Jade and Knight, she was the closest friend I had. We got close. I didn’t want some dumb argument to ruin our friendship.
I knocked on the door and she answered after a couple of minutes. I saw Aria at the diner when I stopped to get myself and Lexie a coffee so I knew she was the only Drake home.
I smiled at her and held up her coffee. “Truce?”
She smiled back, but it was a small smile. She stepped aside for me to come in. I walked into the house and handed her her coffee after she shut the door behind her. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“I figured you might tell me to go to hell if I asked if I could come over.”
She seemed shocked. “Why would I do that?”
“You don’t seem to be very happy with me these days.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry if you thought it was because of you. It’s a lot. And yeah, we had that tift, but I’m not mad at you. I get why you don’t want to have Jade compelled. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been so upset this week. I’m scared.”
I was too. More than she realized. I was good at hiding my emotions. Sometimes too good. “And the other reason?”
Tears pooled in her eyes. I came forward and pulled her into a hug. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Tegan dumped me.”
A wave of relief flew over me. “Ugh, thank God. I thought something terrible happened.”
She pulled away and looked dismayed. “That is terrible. She had no right to dump me like that.”
I scratched my neck. I had to choose the right words. I know that Lexie was hurting, but on some level she must have seen it coming. I mean the way she looked at Jade, it was obvious. Apparently even to Tegan. Not to mention, Tegan was so wrong for Lexie. The two couldn’t be more different from each other.
“No offense, but isn’t that a good thing?”
“No. I still liked Tegan.” Lexie crossed her arms across her chest.
I raised an eyebrow.
She looked away from me sheepishly. “A little bit. And she was so mean. She kept saying that I was just using her and that I didn’t really like her. That’s not true.”
“Lex, I think she’s just seeing what everyone else is seeing. You like Jade. I think you have to stop ignoring that and recognize that you want to be with her.”
She shook her head, more tears pooling in her eyes. “I can’t.”
“I know it will be hard. But it’s not fair to Jade or yourself to ignore your feelings for each other. Where is it written that a witch and a human can’t be together?”
“It’s not. But the danger…”
“Is there no matter what. I get it. But not being honest with Jade is what’s putting her in danger. We have to tell her so that she can actually know the danger she’s in. The danger we’re all in. And not for nothing, but I think that Tegan was doing you a favor. She let you go so that you could be happy with Jade.”
It was the first nice thing I saw Tegan do for Lexie. Maybe she did like her after all. She just had her own messed up ways of showing it.
“I guess you’re right. I’ll think ab
out it.”
“Think about?” I grinned. I knew what she was talking about, but I wanted to hear her say it out loud.
She smiled. “I’ll think about telling Jade how I feel about her.”
“Yay!” I clapped and hugged her tight.
“Alright, don’t be so dramatic. I need a distraction from being dumped. I’m assuming there was a reason other than coffee that you’re here.”
“There is.” I pulled the spell out of my pocket and handed it to her to look over. I pulled it out of one of my family’s grimoires.
After she realized what it was she looked up at me for an explanation. “An entrapment spell?”
“Yes.”
“Hope, what is this for?”
“I’d rather not say. Can you help me learn it?”
She sighed. “Fine. But promise me you aren’t going to do anything crazy.”
“I’m not. I promise.”
It wasn’t crazy to try to save Kane’s life.
Chapter 39: Christian
I was worried about Wyatt’s plan. It was a good plan, but if something went wrong we were going to have serious problems.
Francesca was a strong vampire. Stronger than most. If you add in her martial arts training, she was a lethal weapon. A lethal weapon that was going to come after us if we failed to capture her.
I wanted Hope safe. That was the only reason I was still considering going along with this. So long as Francesca walked free, Hope was never going to be safe. She was going to continue to use Jade against her and eventually she was going to trade Hope for Kane.
I couldn’t let that happen. Even though I knew Hope would allow it to happen. I got the feeling she would trade her life for just about any of us. It was completely preposterous.
She lived but a little fraction of the lives we lived. Her life had barely begun, whereas we lived lifetimes. It wasn’t fair, and I wasn’t going to allow her to trade the wonderful life she had ahead of her.
I walked into the dining room. Wyatt was making sure the servants were getting everything in order. He was a micromanager. If he wanted things a certain way, he might as well just do it himself.
Saving Hope: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Bloodmoon Series Book 2) Page 12
