by E E Everly
And all the vamps know it.
I cling to Killian’s shirt, begging him to restrain himself. Seth breaks the silence. “How did it feel to sink your teeth into her neck that first time, Killian, knowing you could keep her as a rare prize all for yourself? As her warm, potent, magical blood filled your mouth, is that when you decided she was worth preserving, worth saving? How did you stop yourself? How did you subdue the thirst?” Seth sneers. “How do you continue to exist in her presence without ripping into her?”
Fear rolls off me as several vampires lick their lips. I curl into Killian, resting my head between his shoulder blades. Dumitru places a light, reassuring hand on my back. Natalia spreads her arms, prepared to fight.
“I must be a stronger man than you, Seth,” Killian says.
My fear ripples in waves upward. The air fills with static, and a deep rumble growls across the sky. Clouds form, turning on themselves in response. The vampires shift, looking around nervously.
Seth glances to the sky. “What’s she doing?”
That’s right. Fear me, you pompous vampire.
A lightning bolt streaks to the ground, striking the transformer near the mansion’s entrance. An explosion rocks the courtyard and sparks shoot heavenward. Vampires scramble, thrown by the commotion. Killian takes off, pulling me after him. Natalia creates a buffer ahead of us as we bolt toward the garage while Dumitru heads the other direction. When we reach the garage, Natalia forces the automatic door to the bay open and turns to punch another vampire in the face in one fluid motion. She tosses Killian his keys, and he clicks the car unlocked.
He throws me across his seat, and I shift my legs around to situate myself on the passenger side.
“Nice theatrics with the lightning, shocking Sasha.” Killian shoves the keys into the ignition. The car roars to life, and we barrel out of the bay, slamming into a vampire who is dumb enough to jump in front of us.
I scream as the vampire rolls off and leaves a huge dent in the hood. “What about the gate?” I grip the seat, hoping Killian doesn’t intend to ram the century-old wrought iron. It will undoubtedly crumple his car.
“Dumitru should have a handle on it.”
“You hope.” I screech when a dozen frothing hellhounds charge into my side door. Their impact fishtails our car, but Killian maneuvers back on track.
“I’ll get you out of here; I swear,” Killian says.
“Famous last words, vampire.”
The gate is ten feet away. Dumitru has it open. I exhale, but my relief is too soon. A vampire heaves Dumitru into our windshield. Killian stomps on the brakes, and I slam into the dash with an oof. Poor Dumitru slides off in a lifeless heap, leaving a webbing of cracks halfway across the glass.
I push myself back in my seat. “Fizzled faeries, is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine.” Killian’s too busy downshifting and eyeing the vampires running toward us to really convince me Dumitru’s fine.
Another vamp pries a dazed Dumitru out of our way and slaps the hood. “Go. Go.”
I close my eyes, briefly relieved someone else is on our side.
Killian doesn’t hesitate. We blast through the gate and down the narrow drive. He takes the winding curves so fast I slide in my seat.
“Put your seat belt on.” He punches the gas.
“Right, because I had so much time to do that earlier.” I click the belt into place.
Killian swears as he shifts and checks his mirrors.
I hope it’s to confirm that vamps aren’t following us.
“Is that blood I smell?” He merges onto the main road and floors it toward the city. His hands are white from clenching the steering wheel and probably from fighting the metallic scent filling the car.
“Is that blood, you ask? Are you insane?” Of course it’s blood, and of course it’s mine. Whose blood would Killian smell? I touch my forehead, and my fingers come away red. “I cracked my head when you slammed on the brakes.”
“Let me see.” Killian takes one hand away from the wheel and turns my face toward his. “It’ll need stitches.”
“Watch the road!” I pull my face out of his hand.
Killian swerves to avoid an oncoming car. “I’m really sorry, Sasha. I am so sorry.”
“About which part? Nearly getting me killed because you brought me to a mansion full of vamps or nearly getting me killed because your driving sucks?”
He grins. “I deserve that.”
“What the hellfire is Seth’s beef with you anyway?” Thank the blundering brownies for Natalia and Dumitru, or I’d be toast. “Do you think Dumitru’s okay?”
“He’s probably already healed.” Killian slows as we enter the city, heading toward the hospital.
“No.” I glare at his stern profile. “Take me back to my dorm. I’m done.”
Killian doesn’t even blink. “You need stitches.”
“I’ll pull it shut with a butterfly bandage,” I say, although I’d like to say, “Just suck it up and lick it shut, you big baby.” But I soften; I’m being too hard on him. He hasn’t had this much contact with my blood since that night—the night my roommates found him drinking from me.
Nonetheless, Killian’s reply is firm. “No.”
“Fine”—I cross my arms over my chest—“if having a needle rammed over and over again through my forehead will make you feel better.”
Killian pinches his brow. He doesn’t like the image I created.
Tough, deal with it.
He changes the subject. “Besides, do you really believe you’ll be safe at your dorm?”
I almost roll my eyes. He’s really going to go on about my safety when he carted me into the country to a vamp-infested mansion. “The vamps have never attacked me there.”
Killian pounds the dash, swearing quietly. “Now they know who you are, thanks to me. I really didn’t think this through.”
I try not to be smug. “No, you didn’t. Never mind. I just hope your shortsightedness won’t get me killed.” Killian’s cheek twitches, and I pretend I don’t notice. He should feel guilty. “I’ll set up wards against the vampires and demons. It’ll prevent them from coming into my dorm.”
“And me? You’ll set up wards against me too?” He almost sounds concerned or even hurt because of my suggestion.
“You still want to come into my dorm?” I could exclude him from my wards, but he might not know I can.
“Who else will keep an eye on you?” Killian turns to me after he pulls into a hospital parking spot. “Why didn’t you put up wards for the demons before?”
“Until I need them, I don’t cast wards because that magic’s like a magnet telling the supernatural that someone scrumptious is within its boundaries.”
“Right. If the demons didn’t know you were on campus in the first place, then they weren’t after you.”
“I don’t know.” I undo my seat belt. It’s naïve to think demons didn’t already know I resided on campus, particularly when they were the reason I was on Earth. They haven’t made a move on me before, so I never worried. “It had to be the girl they were after all along.”
“But why?”
“Let’s go back to the crime scene and sniff it out.”
“I’d prefer to examine the body.” Killian comes around to the passenger side and helps me out before I can bat my eyelids.
“The morgue?” I ask.
“Yep.” He tips my face toward the street light and studies my gash. “I know someone who’ll let me in.”
“Someone with just as much of an aversion to the sun?” I feel vulnerable in Killian’s hands. An impulse almost makes me tip my head down so the oozing blood is near his lips. My demented urge is part of the odd link between us. No matter how much Killian fights his inner desire for my blood, his wishes slip into my subconscious. It’s some sort of vampire compulsion, which my storm sprite blood usually fights, but right now, I can’t help leaning toward his whims.
Perhaps it’s because of my current
lack of storm sprite blood.
Killian shakes his head and lets me go. “You won’t be happy until I drain you, will you?”
“Trust me”—I shoulder past him, a dizziness wobbling me—“I wouldn’t want you to feel any more guilt, especially if my death was by your hands.” Ugh, I grab my head. I could have a concussion.
Killian steadies me by grabbing my elbow. “Sooner or later, the pretty girl dies. Don’t you watch horror?”
I nuzzle into Killian as he drapes his arm around my shoulder and escorts me into the emergency room. “Well, the pretty girl can’t seem to fend off her vampire.”
“I think you should include me in your wards.”
“No.”
Killian deposits me into a waiting room chair and crouches in front of me. “I love you too much, sassy Sasha, but I’m too dangerous.”
“I don’t care.” I lean my head against the wall while Killian checks me in. My brain tells me he’s right. My brain also tells me he doesn’t really want me to include him in the wards. He’s saying it just so it’s out there.
Because he loves me too much. But how much of that affection is based on his craving for my blood?
SEVEN
After getting my stitches, we sneak downstairs to the morgue. How convenient for us that vamps work at night when humans are asleep. How convenient that Killian is poker buddies with Jakob, the local morgue vamp. As we round the corner and enter the chilly room, a voice speaks from the darkness.
“Don’t tell me you’re here to buy a few pints. Since when do you drink the bagged stuff?” The morgue guy, who I assume is Jakob, flicks on a desk lamp, illuminating the black room’s interior. He pulls out his earbuds and slides back from his desk and computer.
I wonder if he’s looking at vampire porn—necks with throbbing veins and super sexy clavicles.
Jakob cracks open a mini fridge and pulls out a blood bag.
I stiffen. So I haven’t envisioned all of Killian’s drinking habits. Do I picture him drinking from blood bags or sucking the blood out of sensuous slender necks? Eww. None of the above. I usually try not to picture anything involving drinking or sucking.
Killian glances at me without turning in my direction. His face turns a sickly shade of pink. “I’m not here for blood. A girl should have come in tonight. From the campus.”
Jakob eyes me with a hungry expression before nodding and chucking the blood bag into the fridge. “Yeah. Right. She’s over here. Was she one of your freshies?”
Killian flinches. “No. Cut the crap. I just want to see what those seed demons did to her.”
“All right, all right.” Jakob crosses the room, and we follow. He unlatches a freezer door and slides a corpse out. “Who knows what they wanted with her. She’s pretty ripped up.” He folds back the sheet from the girl’s face.
Lucky for me, her face is intact. Pale, as I assumed a corpse should be, but cleaned of blood.
“The poor girl,” I say under my breath.
Killian inhales. “She’s a storm sprite.”
I cock my head in Killian’s direction as if I didn’t hear him right. “What?”
“Do you know her?” Killian peeks under the sheet. I don’t dare risk a glimpse of the damage done to her.
“Nope.” I turn to Jakob. “So they just attacked her? Did they take anything? Did she have any personal belongings on her?”
“Not that I can tell,” Jakob says, “but if she just crossed through a portal from Belyven, she wouldn’t have a driver’s license or credit cards yet.”
“She might have been on Earth for a while,” I say. “I’m not the only storm sprite here, you know.”
“Easy, princess.”
“What did you call me?”
Jakob’s eyes flash black, but he blinks, and they’re normal. “Nothing.”
Killian smirks. I ignore him. “How’d she die?”
Jakob shakes his head as if he feels sorry for her, or maybe he’s just sorry he didn’t get a taste. “They broke her neck, but blood clotting indicates that occurred after they ripped her up.”
I press my palm to my mouth. The entire dorm heard her bloodcurdling screams. She was alive, and they practically eviscerated her, but for what?
Killian pulls the sheet over the girl. He rests his hands on her forehead and closes his eyes for a few seconds.
Is he saying a prayer for her? Do vampires pray? I’m uncertain what or whom they believe in.
Killian turns away, and his eyes meet mine. Sorrow fills them.
I shove my hands into my jeans pockets, warming them. I know the look on his face. “None of this was your doing.”
“It’s always my doing.” He brushes past me and out of the room.
I shrug when Jakob’s brows bend. I hurry after Killian before Jakob acts on my enticing scent.
EIGHT
“You can’t blame every supernatural death on yourself,” I say as we climb the stairs to my room’s floor. “You’re not the supernatural police.”
“You couldn’t understand.” Killian stops on the landing, the same place I found him a night ago. He doesn’t turn to face me, only bows his head, waiting—for something.
Sometimes he’s so impossible I want to yank my hair out, but instead I follow the curves of his scapulas, with my eyes, up to his shoulders. Troublesome trolls. He sure has defined muscles in his neck. What would biting him be like? Would it even be possible to bite a neck that solid?
If I had fangs.
The night has been too long, and my brain is fried. I shake my head, turning serious again. “That’s what I don’t get. Everything about you is a secret. You’re the most closed off person I know.” And the most mysterious, most ominous. He nails the vampire stereotype.
Killian’s head lifts slightly.
“You don’t tell me what’s going on with you.” Why he’s dared to spend more time with me over the past few months. Why he seems more concerned for my welfare yet remains as silent as a stone gargoyle.
His shoulders deflate. “Nothing’s going on with me.”
I resist curling my fingers into his shirt fabric and jerking him around to face me. “Why do you follow me around as if you owe me a life debt? We’re square. You don’t owe me anything.”
A nagging suspicion is that he can’t stay away from my scent any longer. You might be as good as doomed, storm sprite.
“Oh!” I exclaim when Killian whirls on me and pushes me against the wall. Hair-raising hellhounds! I hate being right.
As he leans toward my neck with his eyes closed, he inhales. “You know I can’t leave you alone.” He’s talking about that night again.
I gulp and press my lips together. He won’t bite you.
Unless you tell him to.
His nose tickles my skin, and I push on his chest, being playful, trying not to think about the pinching and the sucking when he bit me last time, trying not to think about the jealousy I had when he bit Helee.
Speaking of Killian’s reference to that night, I answer him. “You didn’t have to drink my blood.” In the back of my mind, my thoughts are irrational, because a secret part of me wants to feel his fangs in my neck. My desire is probably just because of the way Killian held Helee and touched her—the way he made her his, even for just that moment.
He’s already your vampire, but not in the way I want him to be. He’s my self-appointed guardian. Nothing more.
His mouth moves against my neck, sending a tickle up my spine. “You were already bitten.”
What are you doing? I mentally yell this at Killian and myself as I rest my head back, grimacing, chewing my lip. He saved me from two vampires who had bitten me outside the club one night, over a year ago. Killian carried me the few blocks to my dorm, and then he caved. He told me he promised himself he’d have only a taste before sealing the wound with his tongue.
But storm sprite blood has a way of breaking those promises.
I shiver as Killian laces his fingers into my hair, lifting the
strands away from my neck. He’s toying with his control big time.
Why am I letting him do this? He could lose it, and I’d be dead. He doesn’t need to prove his control to himself by using me.
Knee him where it counts. My heart races more than it already was. I’m seriously going to do it. I will give him until the count of five.
One.
His hands trail to my shoulders, and he runs a fingertip along my collar, pulling at it.
Two.
My heart rate jumps.
Three.
He stops. He just stops, frozen with his head tucked toward his chest, and his hand braced on the wall beside my head.
He’s not touching me, but his body is so close I have nowhere to go. I should move, but I can’t make myself. Probably because my heart pounds so hard in my chest I feel as if I’m having a heart attack.
Killian whispers near my ear. “This goes beyond you or me.”
I blink, trying to understand where his thoughts have jumped, trying to shake the haze he created from his contact. He’s insane!
No, he’s back to the dead girl and his unwarranted guilt.
“How do you know? How can you be sure?” I attempt to catch his eye, but Killian’s looking at the wall beyond my ear. “When a mysterious storm sprite in my dorm is murdered by supernatural beings, and you and I are supernatural, I’d say this does involve us.”
Killian brushes away from me and up the steps.
Impetuous imps! I fight to keep my inner storm suppressed. You know Killian. It’s been a rough couple of days for both of you. The air charges with static. I count now for a different reason. Go back to what’s important. By ten, my heart is calm. I’ve cooled my rising temperature.
The storm has passed.
I take several steps at a time to catch up. Killian’s at the top. I bet he heard the commotion in my heart. How could he not? How could he not feel the static in the air?
I chance a look at him. He’s red and sheepish. That’s when a thought occurs—vampires really are part animal. He’d lost himself.
But he pulled back. Get on topic. I grab the stair banister and regroup my intentions. The girl, Sasha. And the demons. “How many demons attacked you? How did you know to come last night?”
