Blood Crave

by Jennifer Knight

  “He—was—my—first,” she choked. “My first—creation. My mate.” Her expression turned stormy. “You will PAY!”

  She flew at us.

  The room exploded again as the five remaining vampires attacked. I screamed and crouched down to the floor, head pressed hard on my knees by Lucas’s weight. He was surrounding me, his arms a shield against the attack. His head was next to mine, and I heard his voice in my ear, crying out in pain. The sound rattled my heart. His body jerked as someone tried to pull him off of me. He made gurgling sounds, and I was willing to bet he was choking on his own blood, but he held tight to me, shielding me.

  I heard Derek fighting, racing around the room. Squelching sounds reached my ears. Two more sounds of death.

  Three left.

  Something grabbed my ankle and yanked me out of Lucas’s grasp. I screamed when I saw Melissa had me. I struggled, twisting my knee, and then Lucas vaulted for her and sprayed me with blood as his fist went through her chest.

  I was so stunned, I couldn’t even move. Lucas cracked her spine in his fist, pried her head off, then turned and grabbed my arm. As he tugged me across the room, I saw Derek fighting Arabella and a dude vampire—Kevin. Derek’s coat was hardly white anymore—just a collage of pink, dark red, and filth.

  I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t have much of a choice, either.

  Lucas raced to the door on the ceiling and scooped me up. He jumped high, breaking the door with his back and running with me in his arms. We were in a wide, dark alley that smelled of grease and chemicals. I looked around Lucas’s shoulder as he ran and saw that a vampire dude was coming after us.

  “Lucas!” I yelled, pointing.

  He cursed and stopped, slamming me against the wall as his body shook. He changed.

  The vampire jumped, and Lucas met him in the air, crushing his body to the ground. I watched, huddled in the corner as Lucas fought off the vampire. Watching him, I suddenly realized how deluded I’d been to think I could handle the vampires alone. I was definitely more than happy to let Lucas and Derek save me.

  It didn’t take long for Lucas to finish off the vampire. Once Lucas had pinned him to the ground, he knocked the knife away with his muzzle and started ripping.

  I turned away as Lucas tore up the vampire’s throat, spilling muscles out onto the grimy street like bloody spaghetti.

  Lucas’s body trembled and he changed back. His face was covered in gore, and he wiped it with his arm as he came to me, panting.

  “You’re not paralyzed,” he said, kneeling in front of me. He held my face.

  “N-no,” I said, shaking. “It was Derek. They s-switched bodies somehow, I don’t know.”

  Lucas nodded, though I could tell he was confused about what had just happened as well. Screams and sounds of fighting continued to sound from the lair down the alley.

  Lucas glanced in that direction and said, “I have to help him. Stay here. I’ll be right back for you.”

  I nodded jerkily and watched Lucas zip down the street.

  In the silent, lonely moments that followed, I began to relax in tiny increments. After a minute or two, I began to breathe more normally, and after throwing up behind a trash can, I felt considerably better. I leaned against the wall, panting as the sounds of battle slowly drifted away.

  Then a high-pitched screech—and then another and another. Oh, God. . . . There were more vampires down there. More had come to help Arabella.

  I had to do something—help my boys. But what could I do? My power was useless against the vampires. I could only control the pack.

  The pack!

  I rose to my feet and tugged my cell phone from my pocket. It took me three tries to get the right number in, but when I did, Julian’s voice came through the phone.

  “This is Julian,” he said.

  “It’s Faith,” I said. “We need you. We’re in major trouble.”

  “Faith? Where are you? You were supposed to be here—”

  “That doesn’t matter now,” I said angrily. “Where are you?”

  “At the house,” he said. “Where are you?”

  I faltered. “I—I don’t exactly know. We’re at the vampire lair.” There was more yelling and bodies thudding together. I heard Lucas’s voice above the others. He was human again, and for once, I wished for a full moon. “We need help! You have to come help us!”

  “I don’t even know where you are. How can I do anything?”

  I held the phone away from me, staring at the screen. “Wait— I think I have a GPS thingy.” I started fiddling around, trying to figure it out, when something whizzed in front of me. I shrieked, dropping the phone. Julian’s muffled voice sounded through the receiver, asking if I was still there. Then a dial tone.

  He’d hung up.

  I looked up to see what had distracted me from finally being the savior, and my jaw hit the floor.

  It was Heather.

  I stared for a moment, out-of-my-mind-relieved to see her. And then it penetrated my brain that Heather didn’t look like herself. She stood in front of me, dressed like a sexpot, with gloved hands on her hips. Her normal, gentle vibe was snarled with otherness, and her face was pale as the moon.

  She had been turned.

  “Miss me?” she said. She smiled and long, pointed teeth glittered at me.

  “Heather,” I murmured. “Oh, God . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry for what? For being a jerk to me practically every moment since you met me? Whatevs. You know what they say. Karma’s a bitch.”

  I swallowed hard. “But, we made up. I tried to warn you about the drugs and now ... just look at you.”

  “You’re so stupid. Like I gave a crap about anything you said. I wanted this, you idiot. What did you think, I didn’t know what I was taking? Why do you think I never mentioned it to you—they forbade me because the vampires like to kill bloodies for fun. When they found us, it was sheer luck they kept me alive long enough for me to convince them to turn me.”

  “Turn you? Why would you want that?”

  She bent and leered in my face. “So I can eat that fucker Pete once and for all—suck the life out of him the way he did to me.”

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even stand properly, I was so horrified. My poor Heather ... how could I have let this happen to her? “Please,” I begged. “I’m sorry for everything, but you have to help me. They’re going to kill Lucas and Derek.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll live through it,” she said. “I did when Pete dumped me.” Then she feigned an epiphany and put her finger to her glossy red lips. “Oh wait. I didn’t live, did I?” She made a mock sad face. “Well, after I’m through here he’ll be a goner, too. And so will you.” She grabbed me and ran down the alley with me over her shoulder like I was a pile of logs.

  She jumped down the hole that led back to the lair, and her shoulder knocked the air out of me on her landing. The room was oddly quiet. Heather put me on my feet and pinned me to her body as she walked me to the center of the room, where Arabella stood, seething.

  Her face was ripped open with slash marks, but there was no blood, meaning she hadn’t eaten in a while. I saw the shining pink wounds healing already, returning to perfection. More vampires filled the room now, at least twenty of them, and I saw Kevin still among them, battered but alive ... ish. Lucas was being restrained with silver again, but this time there was much more of it, and he was completely immobilized. Knives stuck into his limbs and pointed at his throat, threatening to slice his flesh open.

  Derek was still in wolf form. Six or so vampires held him down, but that didn’t look necessary. He was unconscious.

  Heather released me when we reached the front of the room and drifted into the crowd, leaving me—her so-called friend—to face the wrath of the vampire monarch.

  I shook involuntarily. I couldn’t bear to look at her and stared at Lucas’s tortured face instead. He looked right back, defeat in his gaze, and in that moment, I knew we weren�
��t getting out of this alive.

  I turned to Arabella and she immediately slapped me so hard I felt the skin on my cheekbone split. Lucas snarled ferociously, but I righted myself, not wanting him to do anything stupid.

  “You have cost me my best subjects,” Arabella cried. “Not to mention my mate! Your debt to me has been increased tenfold. You will never live long enough to repay it. You will be punished. I will not kill your dog. I will let him live. I will make you hurt him. I will make you lash him with silver and watch the life drain from his mongrel eyes. I will be your sire so I can force you to do anything I like. You have eons of pain in your dismal future, Faith Reynolds.”

  She bent and I felt her teeth hit my skin. In the corner of my eye, I saw Derek stirring, shaking his head as if waking up from a nap. I almost smiled at him. He’d saved me, after all ... or at least, tried to. His white wolf-eyes widened as he watched Arabella’s mouth slide toward my collarbone.

  He struggled like crazy, but there was no way he could free himself.

  Then, without even a word of warning, Arabella’s teeth sunk below the surface of my skin, dipping into my blood like deadly quills into ink. It hit me in a blast of heat, followed immediately by coldness. Frost spread from her fangs throughout my body and all the way down to my soul. My vision swam as she pulled.

  I hit the floor, ears ringing oddly, unable to move. I could only stare straight at the ceiling as my body froze. I was so cold ... so incredibly cold. But I could hear. I could hear perfectly, maybe even better than normal.

  Lucas roared so loud it made my ears ring, and Derek struggled against the vampires, causing them to shout and strike him. The other vampires hissed and cackled, some jeering. Then a sound like water trickling, and Arabella’s face appeared in front of me. Her wrist was bleeding my blood tainted with venom. The venom that would kill me. Inside, I fought. Inside, I screamed.

  But outside, I just laid there.

  Paralyzed.

  She began to tilt her wrist toward me. I felt warmth on my chest, my cheeks, sliding ever closer to my mouth. I wanted to shut it, but I couldn’t. This was it. There was no escaping death now.

  Then Arabella jerked her hand away and looked up, as if listening. At first I couldn’t hear what she heard, and then it was there. The ground began to shake, and the thunderous sound of footfalls hit my ears.

  A single howl bit through the night.

  The werewolves.

  Arabella vaulted to her feet and began screeching out orders. The vampires mobilized. I watched them blur by me and heard them whizzing through the air and into the alley.

  And then the howling started.

  The glorious howling of the pack, like heralding trumpets calling out victory. Except that there would be no victory for me.

  I was dying. No matter what happened now, I would die.

  The sounds of battle began to fade until all I heard was sobbing and moaning. The crying came from behind me and then someone was talking. Two or three people—all male. I wished they would move so I could see them.

  Then Lucas’s face was above me, his human face. His perfect human face—all mangled up with scratches and blood, but still him. Derek’s face was next to his, human now, too. My boys ... my saviors. I prayed they’d get along after I was gone. That they wouldn’t kill each other like idiots.

  More talking, angry fighting and crying. Lucas’s crying. His eyes dragged with tears that cleared clean paths in this filthy skin. He held me in his arms and I suddenly felt a million times better, even though he was so sad. He clutched me to him possessively, as though guarding me. Suddenly, he was yelling.

  “You don’t know what that will do to her!” he shouted.

  “She’ll die, Lucas,” Derek argued. “Katie told me it would work.”

  “Katie doesn’t know what she’s talking about!”

  “We have to at least try. She’s dying!”

  “He’s right,” I heard a third voice say. Was that Rolf? “There is nothing else to do for her. We don’t have much time. If it fails, she would have died anyway.”

  Lucas held me closer.

  “I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m so sorry, baby. Please, please forgive me.”

  I wanted to tell him not to be sorry. That this wasn’t his fault. I wanted to say good-bye to him, and thank him for the happiness he’d brought to my life. I wanted to tell him it was okay to move on after I was dead ... but all I could do was look at him.

  He kissed my frozen lips, and I felt his tears drip onto my cheeks. Then his grip on my body loosened. He tilted my head back. Derek’s bleeding wrist appeared. It was punctured, like he had bitten himself. Why would he do that?

  I felt something warm and gritty fill my mouth and slide down my throat—something metallic.

  “Enough,” Lucas said. His face appeared in front of me again, so perfect, and so twisted with worry. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t in any pain. It would all be over soon.

  “Her eyes are closing. . . .”

  Everything was starting to go dark around the edges ... fuzzy. I heard more yelling. It sounded like Derek this time. I frowned. I didn’t like yelling. Yelling at Lucas . . . no . . . his face was staring to fade. The world was beginning to ebb. I felt almost good. Like I was about to fall asleep.

  Well, if this was what it felt like to die, it wasn’t so bad. It was pleasant, even. I could see Lucas; hear the grating of his voice someplace in the back of my mind ... maybe even smell him, too. Or was that my mom’s macaroni and cheese ... ?

  32

  THE OTHER SIDE

  I heard voices. Two voices, both soft, yet starkly different.

  Two boys ... they sounded muffled, like they were in a different room, or maybe a different life.

  “It’s been four days,” one said. “I don’t think it worked. I think we need to try something else.”

  “There’s nothing to try,” another said. He had a low, crumbly voice that sounded dead with defeat.

  “You could bite her,” the other said. “Then she might be like me.”

  “She’s already got enough magic in her blood. Any more would just make things worse.”

  They fell silent for a long moment.

  “You really love her, don’t you?” said the one with the mellow voice. It was sweet like low wind chimes.

  “Of course, I love her,” the crumbly voice said. “I love her more than my own life. I’d gladly have given it, if it could have prevented this.”

  Again there was silence.

  “I love her, too,” the mellow voice said. “I’ve loved her since the moment I saw her. I’ve been with her through everything. I can’t lose her.”

  “You don’t have to. You could keep her, if you just knew how to love her without wanting her.”

  “It’s not like I can help it,” the mellow voice snapped. “She’s . . . she’s perfect.”

  “Yeah,” the crumbly voice said. “I know.” He sounded almost resentful about this. “She might be different when she wakes up. She might be a lee—a vampire.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  No answer for a moment and then, “Yes. She’d be dead.”

  “You wouldn’t love her if she was dead.” He said it as a fact, not a question. “I would love her no matter what she was.”

  “That’s because you’re dead,” the other shot. “And I never said I wouldn’t love her.”

  Silence.

  “You never said you would, either.”

  More silence filled the caverns of my mind and I drifted off, thinking that was the strangest dream I’d ever had.

  I smelled Lucas. He smelled of woods and musk and something too delicious to put into words. I inhaled deeply and let my eyes flutter open. I saw a white plastered ceiling and a fan oscillating slowly. Light poured into the room, red light like I was in a darkroom.

  Then I felt something warm slide over my stomach. My head fell to the side as the bed shifted and saw Lucas sleeping next to me. I smiled and
then stopped because it hurt.

  “Ow,” I croaked.

  Lucas’s eyes popped open and he leaned over me, his gaze urgent and terrified ... apologetic, even. What could he possibly have to be sorry for? He saved my life.

  He and Derek saved my life.

  “Hey,” I rasped. My voice sounded like it’d been rubbed with sandpaper for a week.

  Lucas suddenly collapsed on top of me, grabbing me up in his arms and hugging me so tightly it hurt. He kept saying he was sorry over and over, kissing my neck.

  For some reason I was limp. It took tremendous effort to even breathe. Lucas finally set me down, and I smiled up at him. Again, smiling was painful so I stopped.

  “Why does everything hurt?” I asked.

  Lucas had tears in his eyes. He petted my hair away from my forehead. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he said. “Are you okay? Can you move everything? I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop—being—sorry,” I gasped. “I can’t . . . breathe.”

  Lucas’s face tightened. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t move,” I said. “It hurts to breathe. What’s wrong ... with me?”

  Suddenly Lucas sat up.

  “Rolf!” he shouted.

  He vaulted out of the bed and my body shook with the bedsprings, sending agony racing through my bones. I blacked out.

  I saw darkness. Only darkness. It was navy blue, like a winter night. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Then I let out a cry of relief. I was rubbing my eyes.... I could move!

  I sat up, but I must have done it too quickly because my vision spun and I had to lie back down. I looked out the window. It was nighttime.

  “Lucas?” I called out.

  Nothing.

  “Derek?” I asked more softly.

  Instantly the door banged open and Derek was there. He bolted to my side.

  “You’re awake!” he said. “Can you move? How’s your breathing? Does anything hurt?”

  I smiled and waved my hands around to show him I could move.

  “I think I’m okay,” I said. “What . . . what happened?”