A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1)

by Becca Lynn Mathis

  The seat at the end of the table was open, between Jonathan and Daniel, and I sat as Daniel passed the chicken my way. He was careful to put the platter down close to me before I reached for it.

  As I piled chicken and potatoes onto my plate, I was mindful of my elbows, careful not to brush Jonathan or Daniel. The usual game that had developed between Jonathan and I of brushing against each other as we reached for things was distinctly absent—no warm hand on my knee, no brush of an arm as he reached for more potatoes. Not that either of us would dare, I supposed, given the events of the day. But it hurt. He didn’t even meet my eyes.

  I shoveled potatoes into my mouth. Maybe if I could get the meal over and done with quickly, I could just escape to sleep.

  Sheppard stood soon after I sat down and took his empty plate to the kitchen. He placed a hand on Kaylah’s shoulder in thanks as he left the dining room, heading back to the basement with the caged wolf. It hadn’t made a sound during our meal, but I heard the growl start soon after Sheppard closed the basement door.

  I jammed a fork into the chicken, tearing a piece off and shoving it into my mouth sullenly. There still wasn’t any chatter at the table, which set me on edge perhaps more than the lack of touch did. We just weren’t going to talk about it?

  Another forkful of chicken down.

  I took a crazed werewolf and made her human again. Part of me felt like I should be really proud of that, but I couldn’t get past the shock. And I guess, neither could the pack.

  Yet another bite of food down.

  If I had been in wolf form, I think my hackles would have been up. I felt like an outsider.

  But this was still my pack, and I could still see the strands tying all of us together when I closed my eyes. That wouldn’t still be there if I wasn’t pack, right? Maybe I just needed to wait until we heard from that guy Sheppard called. Maybe that was all they were waiting on too. But there was an emptiness in the quiet here that was hard to bear.

  I stood and took my plate to the kitchen.

  “You all done, hun?” Kaylah asked as she stood. Her blue eyes were fixed on my plate.

  I looked at the bits of chicken and potatoes still on my plate. I couldn’t stand making them any more uncomfortable. I could have eaten more, but I wasn’t going to make them suffer through my presence. My eyes watered as I placed the plate on the counter next to the sink.

  “I’m fine,” I lied as I hurried away toward the stairs.

  I didn’t turn the light on in my room. I didn’t need to. I just shut the door with a quiet click and crawled under the blanket. I stared at the light coming from under the door, listening to the sounds of the pack finishing dinner as I fingered the beads of the rosary around my neck. They were still eerily quiet even as I heard the plates being gathered and cleared from the table.

  Spicy musk wafted under my door, and there was a light knock.

  Matt. I pressed my lips into a line. What did he want?

  “Lynn,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  “Um. Sure.” I sat up in the bed, pulling my knees to my chest. The blanket pooled around my ankles.

  Light spilled into the room from the hallway as he opened the door.

  “All right if I turn on the light?”

  I rolled a shoulder. “Sure.”

  He flicked the light switch, and I blinked at the sudden light in the room.

  He watched me for a moment. “Killing a vamp shouldn’t bother you like this. They’re monsters. All they do is kill, so we stop them.” He sat on the far corner of the bed. “And every new wolf gets a little freaked out their first hunt. Most are scared they’re gonna die. But that’s not pack. Pack protects each other. And with that ability of yours, you have nothing to be afraid of, you can just dust them all.”

  I furrowed my brow at him. He thought I felt bad for killing a vampire? I mean, I suppose I did. But I was more freaked out by the fact that I had held the bone of someone that I thought had been my friend in my mouth, and then followed that up with something that should have been impossible. So much so that even my alpha couldn’t do it, and he had shown to have considerable power.

  “Matt, I don’t even know how this works.” I made a vague gesture in his direction, my palm open. He didn’t move or flinch, but the widening of his eyes—yes, even the scarred one—told me that even he was afraid of my touch.

  I tilted my chin down and looked scornfully at him. “None of you are willing to touch me, Matt. You’re all afraid of me now. Even you. It’s why no one said anything at dinner. You’ve all had time to consider that you have a pack member that could take all of this away from you.” I made a sweeping gesture of the house, careful to keep away from Matt.

  “Whoa now.” Matt put his hands up in a placating gesture. “You just caught me off guard is all. We’re pack. We’ll get this all sorted out.” His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “With your ability, we could kill every bloodsucker at the Chateau.”

  I sighed. Of course I could. And a part of me surged to agree with him.

  “But I don’t even know how this works. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “No,” he chastised. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re pack. We’ll figure it out.”

  I turned my head away from him. “Just leave me alone.” I pulled my legs closer to my chest, resting my cheek on my knee so that my face was turned away from him.

  There was movement on the bed, and I snapped my head to face him. His hand was inches from my knee.

  “Don’t,” I whispered. “Please, Matt, just leave me alone.”

  With a slow, deliberate movement, he placed his palm on my knee, spreading his fingers along my leg. I would have thought it a brave move of him, except there were sweatpants between his hand and my skin. It didn’t stop the stillness that spread through me. What was he trying to prove here?

  His eyes met my own. “I’m never going to be afraid of you, Grace.”

  It was odd to hear him use my proper name.

  “God gave you that ability for a reason,” he continued. “I’d put cold hard cash down that you can only do that to vampires and crazed wolves.”

  There was a resolute faith in his words that almost made me believe them.

  Almost.

  “Listen,” he said. “Sheppard’s got a call in to Kristos.” His mouth turned wry. “And if any asshole is gonna know anything at all about this, it’s that asshole.”

  I didn’t even have words. I just stared at him.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “We’re pack. You’ll see. We’ll sort it out and everything will be fine. Don’t worry so much.” He squeezed my knee and stood.

  He was convincing himself more than he was convincing me.

  He didn’t turn off the light as he left. He didn’t even shut the door. I sighed.

  Ian’s sapphire eyes met mine as his head appeared around the edge of my doorframe. “Look,” he said, scratching his head as he leaned against the doorframe. “You ran here, right?”

  What kind of question is that? I shrugged. “Yea, why?”

  “Well,” he said. “Why did you run here?”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “Every other time you’ve run, you ran to your apartment. What made you run here this time?”

  I tilted my head back like I had been smacked. Why did I run here? I hadn’t even thought of it. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. I certainly hadn’t even been thinking about it at the time, I was just running.

  But I knew. I ran back here because pack was home. Pack was safe. Pack was where I belonged. My apartment wasn't home anymore, it was just where most of my stuff was.

  “Pack is home,” I said, the simple truth of the words flowing through me and humming along the strands of the pack. My vision blurred again.

  “And that’s what sarcina eiusdem sanguinis really means,” he said.

  I nodded, the tears spilling onto my cheeks.

  “We’ll get it all sorted out, Lynn,” Ian said. �
�We’re pack. All of us—including you.” He pushed off the doorframe and turned to leave.

  “Ian,” I called.

  He turned back to me.

  “Could you turn off the light please?” I nodded my head at the light switch.

  “Sure.” He smiled and flicked the switch, then grabbed the door handle and closed my door with a quiet click.

  My thoughts swirled almost as hard as they did only a handful of days ago, when I learned I was actually a werewolf. What the hell had Matt been trying to prove anyway? But Ian was right, I had run here because this was pack. And even if they couldn’t touch me, this was where I belonged. Maybe we’d all have to get long gloves so no one accidentally got turned back to human. God, but there had to be another way. How could I be sure they would even still want me around? Ian had said we were all pack, but even so. Would I just get used to them not touching me? Over and over my thoughts tumbled until the house fell quiet and dark.

  That’s when the worst thoughts started to swirl. Frederick had been my friend. I had killed him. Worse, I had absolutely destroyed him, in a very literal sense. I saw his face again, the skin sagging along his bones as it turned to ash. His short black hair bleaching to stringy grey. The dust crumbling away from his bones. The bones falling out of his clothes. The powdery grit in my mouth.

  My stomach roiled, and I rushed to the bathroom. I managed to make it in time again. The chunks of my dinner hit the water in the toilet with sickening little splashes that only intensified the taste in my mouth and made the next heave harder.

  Until there was nothing left.

  I still hadn’t turned on any lights.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I TURNED ON THE FAUCET, splashed water on my face, and left the bathroom. Jonathan was in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. I watched him until he met my eyes in the dark hallway. He sucked on his bottom lip for a moment and then nodded toward the stairs, pushing off the wall.

  “Come on,” he said quietly as he turned toward the stairs.

  What? Come where? Why?

  He looked over his shoulder at me. I hadn’t moved.

  He pressed his lips into a line and sighed. “Everyone’s gone to bed. It’s just you and me. Come on.” He gestured with his elbow toward the stairs, keeping his hand in his pocket.

  I sighed and followed him. Why not?

  Downstairs, I paused at the hallway. The basement was through that door on the left. Judging by the smell, Sheppard was still down there. There was silence where there had been snarling after dinner.

  “If Sheppard can get that one to change back,” Jonathan said, “there may be a place for them here.” He stood next to me now, closer than he had been earlier. “He’ll do all he can to save that one.” Jonathan met my eyes. “Just as he’ll do all he can to save you.” He dropped his eyes and turned away. “Just like I’ll do all I can.”

  I got the distinct impression that he was ashamed of himself, and I couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t even sure how to ask him. So, I kept quiet and followed him to the kitchen.

  He opened a cabinet and filled a glass with some water, carefully handing it to me so that our fingers didn’t brush.

  I stared at the water and hopped up to sit on the counter. I took a swig from the glass, swishing the water in my mouth before gulping it down.

  Jonathan rummaged around in the fridge. “My first kill was awful too,” he said, his dark head emerging from behind the fridge door. He pulled out what was left of the lunchmeat, along with some cheese and mayo, and plopped it on the counter.

  I didn’t think I could be hungry, but the scent of meat proved me wrong.

  A chrome breadbox sat where the counter met the side of the fridge, and Jonathan pulled out a handful of slices of bread. He started to assemble a couple of sandwiches.

  “Vampires are awful,” he said. “They talk like people. They kinda move like people.” He moved his shoulders to accent the words. “They even sometimes have a heartbeat if they’ve fed recently.”

  He handed a sandwich to me. A vampire with a heartbeat? That’s new. Certainly not something pop culture would have you believe about the night-dwelling undead.

  “But they aren’t people,” he continued. “And that’s hard to make peace with—at least at first.” He took a bite of his sandwich. I did the same.

  “You’ve got it worse,” he said, jerking his chin toward me. “Because that vampire—you thought he was your friend.”

  He was my friend. I nodded and took another bite of my sandwich.

  “But you don’t know how long he’d been feeding on you.” Jonathan took another mouthful of his own sandwich. “We don’t even know how long he’d been feeding on you.” A corner of his mouth pulled outward, and he shrugged. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  He was right. Frederick was a vampire, so God only knows how long he had been feeding on me. My hand floated to the scars on my neck. Jonathan’s eyes followed the movement, and his chest puffed out. A corner of my mouth pulled outward then too.

  He still wanted to protect me from that, even if he couldn’t touch me. Well that was something. I took another bite of my sandwich.

  “Matt’s got it easy,” Jonathan said. “He’s a fanatic. He’ll kill vamps and be happy about it because he’s dead certain that they’re an abomination that needs to be cleansed.”

  Something in me surged in agreement.

  “He joyfully goes on the hunt for vampires and kills them with a righteous fervor.” Jonathan finished his sandwich. “I sleep at night because I know that vampires are evil. They kill people. Lots of people.” He met my eyes, and there was an uncomfortable sorrow in them. I wanted to fix it, but I didn’t understand it. “Hunting them is a job. It’s work. It’s what we do to protect people, because they cannot protect themselves from this.”

  I swallowed the next bite of my sandwich. “Are they all killers? Do they only make friends with people to make them food?” Was it possible that Frederick was ever actually my friend?

  Jonathan shook his head. “They can only live on human blood. And humans get addicted to being fed on.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Well, most humans anyway.” He nodded at me. “Sheppard said consanguinea seem to be immune to that. Either way, they eventually kill the people they feed on—or turn them. But I’ve heard their strength increases if they’ve recently had the last drop of someone’s lifeblood.”

  I suppressed a shudder and hid what I could with the last bite of my sandwich. Jonathan and Matt were right. Vampires had to die if we were supposed to keep people like that poor girl that went to Blood of the Cross safe. I hopped off the counter.

  But I couldn’t help being fixated. “He was my friend, Jonathan. How can I reconcile the man who would take me to dinner anytime I wanted with the ashen bones in my mouth? I can remember the way he smelled, and his laugh, and what foods—”

  I furrowed my brow. I couldn’t remember what foods Frederick ate.

  “Actually, I’m not even sure I ever saw him eat something.”

  Jonathan refilled my glass and gestured out of the kitchen without handing it to me. I led the way to the stairs.

  “I don’t think vampires get anything out of eating actual food,” Jonathan explained. “I think they do it out of pretense, like when they breathe. Older vampires stop breathing altogether.”

  He was following me to my room? He couldn’t touch me, and I couldn’t touch him, yet he was following me to my room.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “What was your first hunt like?”

  Jonathan pursed his lips for a moment before taking a deep breath. “It was a little brood that had holed up in an abandoned mall in Dallas. They had been taking in runaways. Some, they turned. Others, they just fed on.”

  He followed me into my room. Well. I was just going to have to be extra careful not to touch him, then, wasn’t I?

  I sat on the bed, up near the pillows, and pulled the bl
anket over my legs. I wasn’t cold, but it at least offered another layer of protection between us.

  “We had staked out the place and blocked off all the entrances,” he continued, setting my glass of water on the bedside table. “My first kill was a vampire that looked like she was the same age as Jamie. Most of the vamps in that brood looked young though. No telling how old any of them actually were. I guess there’s never really a good time to get turned.”

  He waited until I was settled and tucked the blanket around me, careful not to touch me directly. He then sat facing me on the other side of the bed, crossing his legs before he continued. His eyes were elsewhere, unfocused, like they had been when he told me about when he and Jamie were turned.

  “She was just a girl, but when her fangs sank into my shoulder, I snapped her neck.” He blinked and was back here again. He looked at me in the darkness. “I had only ever killed rabbits and the occasional deer before that—aside from the wolf that turned Jamie and me, I mean.” There was a deep pain in his voice. “Poor kids had never stood a chance against the bloodsuckers. And once they were vampires, they never stood a chance against us.”

  I pulled a hand out from under the covers, gingerly placing it on his knee. Panicked, his eyes met mine. “Lynn?” His skin sagged against his skull, his hair turning to stringy grey.

  I jerked my hand away from him, covering my mouth to keep from screaming. Oh God, it was happening to Jonathan! “NO! Jonathan!”

  But it was too late for him. His clothes practically deflated, and ash poured from them, covering the blanket in a dark grey powder.

  I threw the blanket off myself and backtracked toward the open door, watching the pile of ash and clothes that used to be Jonathan. I couldn’t! He can’t! Oh God!

  My back ran into something—or rather, someone—and I quickly turned. “Ian!”

  But his skin was sagging too. He had touched me to try to stop me before I ran into him. His clothes sagged to the floor, ash spilling from the sleeves and bottom of his shirt to land in a neat little mound.