His words in my head were a fist closing around my heart and squeezing. Goddammit. No. Just no. Think, Eva, think.
The boarded-up window called from behind me. It wouldn’t take much to pull off the boards and escape. The windows were the key.
I locked gazes with Ash. “We can get them out through a window. We can get out through this one and then climb up to the first floor. There has to be a window up there. If we’re quick, we can still save the humans. The Vladul still need to get past the Feral. That should buy us some time.”
Ash grabbed the boards and began to tear them down, and then he clambered out into the parking lot. Jace lifted me out next and then he and Logan followed.
Ash signed at Jace.
“Fuck no,” Jace said.
Ash shoved him. Hard.
Jace grit his teeth.
“What is go—”
But then I was being swept off my feet and carried away. Away from the building. Away from Tobias, away from danger. I didn’t kick or scream because that would attract unwanted attention, and there was no fighting the Fangs, they were clearly stronger than me. The bushes loomed and then we were under cover.
Jace set me down. “Eva, I’m—”
I slapped him. Hard.
His head didn’t even move, but he did blink at me in surprise. My handprint bloomed to life on his cheek before melting away.
“What the fuck, Eva?” Logan said.
There was something wrong. Something missing. Ash. “Where’s Ash?”
Jace’s lips twisted. “He stayed to get your friends out. He ordered me to keep you safe.”
A sledgehammer slammed into my chest. He was putting his life on the line for me?
Not for you, for your blood. You’re important to them. They need you alive.
No … it was more than that. With Ash, it was more … “I can’t let him do this alone.” I made to push past Jace, but he gripped my upper arms and pushed me back.
“No. You stay.”
“He could die.”
Jace’s jaw ticked.
“She’s right,” Logan said.
“Chain of command,” Jace replied stiffly. “Ash is Noah’s second.”
A crash filled the air, and my head whipped up to the office building in time to see something flying through the air. It was person-shaped. It was Ash!
Jace shifted forward, but Logan grabbed him, because someone was leaping out of the upstairs window after Ash. One of the suited figures. He was tall, powerfully built, and he landed like a cat.
Ash rolled and pulled himself to his feet, his hand going to his ribs. Blood covered the bottom half of his face. More figures came jogging around the side of the building, their silver suits glinting in the afternoon sun, and behind them came the bedraggled figures of the Feral’s human captives. Ten in total. Ten uninfected. Shit, shit, shit. Oh, thank God. Tobias stood tall like a stately oak, his green eyes defiant when a silver-suited figure shoved at his shoulder. Emily was nowhere to be seen.
Infected then, which meant she was dead.
My gaze went back to Ash, who was facing off with the silver suit. The Vladul reached up and pulled off his helmet to reveal shocking white hair and alabaster skin. He was a marble ghost with obsidian eyes. He called out something, and someone threw a silver bar at him. He caught it neatly and then flicked his wrist. The bar elongated.
Behind him a van drove up and came to a standstill. The doors opened and the other Vladul began herding the humans in.
“No.” I clenched my fists, impotence a writhing inferno in my stomach.
The swish and crunch of the Vladul’s weapon had my focus back on Ash. He was on the ground again, shaking his head to clear it after the blow. My nails bit into the palms of my hands, gums aching from clenching my teeth too hard.
The Vladul laughed, a cruel, harsh sound that stabbed at my heart. Someone jeered. He struck again, but this time Ash caught the pole and twisted, sending the Vladul flying. But Ash’s victory was short-lived as an arrow whizzed out of nowhere and buried itself in his shoulder. The force of impact loosened his grip on the pole and dropped him to one knee.
A new figure strode onto the scene—tall and broad and dressed entirely in black. His hair was silver, long enough to fall into his violet eyes. His face was what cruelty would look like if it were parading as beauty. He was carrying Ash’s crossbow as if it were a child’s toy; he raised it now, aiming for the kill shot with an impassive look on his face, as if he were aiming at a wooden target, not a living, breathing being.
Every instinct told me to look away. To bite my tongue and staunch the scream and survive. But where Tobias had tethered me, Ash had broken me. His gentleness, his kindness, his warmth had peeled back my armor. He’d never uttered a word and yet his actions had said a thousand, but it was the unspoken words that carried me forward now. They propelled me from the bushes and forced my legs to pump toward the atrocity; they brought my tulwar out from its sheath and sent me skidding across the ground in perfect time to intercept the arrow as it flew toward Ash’s heart. The arrowhead met my steel with an ominous clink before changing trajectory and burying itself in the earth.
For a moment the world stood still. There was only me, my sword, and the violet-eyed Vladul. His gaze bore into me, trapping me in lilac starlight.
I smirked. “Wanna dance?”
He cocked his head. “I’ll lead.” His voice was a vibrating rumble that teased the hair on the back of my neck and shook awake my primal fear.
My sword arched toward his throat, but he intercepted it with a wicked-long blade. Two blades. Where the fuck had those come from? But my body was going into auto drive, countering his every move with one of my own, using his momentum against him to gain the advantage. Logan fought to my left and Jace and Ash to my right.
The van … We had to get to the van and let the humans out. An engine flared to life, and I made the mistake of glancing over my opponent’s shoulder. Logan’s bellow of pain ripped through the air just before fire glanced off my collarbone, forcing the breath from my lungs.
The Vladul loomed over me, dagger at the ready. Shit, this was it, but the blow didn’t come. Instead, he was staring at me as if absorbing every detail of my face. Taking advantage of his momentary lapse, I twisted, attempting to roll out from under him. His hand shot out lightning fast to grab my shoulder, and then his gaze dropped to my chest. What was he looking at? I tracked his gaze to the key around my neck, now exposed.
“How?” He reached for it. But he didn’t make it. Ash hit him from the side, taking him down.
“The van!” Jace cried.
It was on the move. I scrambled up and began to run toward it. Faces peered at me from the back window. Green eyes locked on mine.
“Tobias!” I reached out a hand, legs pumping, heart racing. “Stop.” He pressed his palm to the glass and shook his head. No, that look said, don’t come for me. Let me go.
I ran, and I ran, but the van accelerated, increasing the distance between us, taking those green eyes farther away from me, taking Tobias. No. Please. And then it was a speck in the distance. My ankle buckled, and my knees hit the ground, tears a noose around my neck. Something inside me cracked as if the distance between us was a physical force tugging at the heart of me, as if every kilometer between us was another pump of the lever prising a hole in my heart.
Get up. Get up, and get the fuck out of here.
“Eva.” Jace hauled me up. “We have to go. Now. Logan’s hurt bad.”
We ran back past the building. Past the dead bodies. One of them moved, moaning softly. The violet-eyed Vladul. He was alive.
“No time.” Jace pulled me along.
We hit the bushes, where Ash waited with Logan slung over his shoulder, and then we ran.
Chapter Eighteen
Blood coated my hands and soaked my shirt, thick and dark, and shit, not good.
“He’s not healing fast enough.” Jace pressed his balled-up shirt to Logan’s abdo
men. It was already soaked through, and Logan lay pale and still in the back of the van as it hurtled down the road. Ash drove like a demon, careening round corners to get us onto the main road and back to base, but Logan wouldn’t make it.
The pallor of his skin, white and bloodless, his pale lips and shallow breaths told me that he was dying.
Jace made a strangled sound. “The wound is too deep. It won’t … He won’t.” His voice cracked with too much emotion.
This was his brother; this was his comrade. There was only one thing left to do.
I pulled the tulwar from its sheath and wrapped my palm around the blade. It sliced into my flesh like hot steel through butter, stinging wickedly. Blood bloomed instantly, bright red and viscous.
Jace’s eyes widened, his irises flaring crimson. “What are you doing?”
“Saving his life.”
I pressed my palm to Logan’s mouth, smearing my blood across his lifeless lips. “Come on, you wanted this, right. Take it, dammit.”
Jace made a strange sound, part wanton moan, part protest, but Logan was too far gone to react to my blood. I needed to get it into his mouth, to start him feeding. I pressed down on his chin, forcing his lips apart, and then squeezed my hand, allowing the blood to trickle into his mouth. It hit his teeth and then his tongue.
Nothing.
“Dammit, come the fuck on.”
As if on command, his throat began to work, and then he swallowed. I pressed my palm to his mouth and braced myself. His tongue swept over the wound, lapping at the blood.
Jace averted his gaze, jaw tight, nostrils flaring.
Was it working? “Jace? Is this okay? Is it helping?”
Jace swallowed hard and then lifted Logan’s shirt to check the abdominal wound. Blood welled up too fast.
“He needs to drink from the vein,” Jace said.
Oh, fuck.
I pulled my hand away from Logan’s mouth, and he moaned softly in protest. His eyelids fluttered but refused to open. Sweeping my ponytail to one side, I leaned over him and nudged his mouth with my neck. God, how messed up was this? How totally messed up.
“Come on then.” I pressed against his mouth. “Bit extreme to get yourself mortally wounded just to get your fangs into me, but points for effort.”
Jace let out a strangled laugh.
And then pain lanced through my neck as Logan buried his fangs into it. His hands clamped around me, pulling me flush against him, pressing me to the wound on his abdomen. I bit back a scream as his lips latched onto my skin. He began to suck, drawing on me, painful, hard, and then a gentle heat bloomed at the point of contact, sending ripples of desire in ever growing circles. Every nerve ending flared to life with a new kind of tightening, one that prepared me for a different kind of action. A pulsing, throbbing action. A sigh drifted from my parted lips as Logan’s fingers dug into my back, my hips.
“Oh, fuck.” Jace’s voice was a hoarse whisper, distant and inconsequential.
And then I was rolling, being pushed onto my back, being covered by another body. Logan’s body. Yes. This was good. This was what I needed. Hands in my hair, tugging my head farther to the side, pressure on my neck, tugging at my core. Stroking, building. It was getting dark. Just darkness and the pleasure and the rocking motion of the van.
“Stop, Logan. Enough.”
Who was that? Why wouldn’t they just leave us. Felt so good. So fucking good.
“Logan, get off.”
Jace. It was Jace. But he didn’t sound so sure. There was hesitation, there was—
A roar, and then the pressure was gone. My eyelids were too heavy, and my head buzzed as if a hive had taken up residence inside.
“Shit, shit, Eva. I’m sorry, I … I know. I’m sorry. Fuck, Ash, it’s been a while and … I know. I should have.”
“Oh, shit.”
It was Logan’s voice now. His vanilla scent, his hands on me. “Jace, is she okay?”
Jace’s cool fingers on my brow. “She’ll be fine. We just need to get her to base. She needs to rest.”
“Fuck, Jace. You almost let me drain her,” Logan admonished.
Strong arms lifted me up, and the aroma of cedar spiked my senses. I opened my eyes to look up into Ash’s furious face, but his attention wasn’t on me.
Logan and Jace wouldn’t meet my eyes. We were all crammed into the back of the van, and Ash had me in his arms, while the other two were squished up on the sliding door side.
Ash shook his head, his lip curling in disgust, and pulled me against him, cradling me on his lap. He winced and then adjusted me.
The wound on his shoulder. He was hurt too.
“I’ll drive,” Jace said. He climbed into the front of the van.
Logan leaned on the van wall across from us, one leg up, arm propped on his knees, gaze hooded. His mouth was a crimson stain on his pale face.
My head throbbed as the engine flared to life again.
Logan licked his lips, flashing fangs. “Sleep. We’ll be home soon.”
I closed my eyes and buried my face in Ash’s shirt, but there would be no sleep for me, because as my faculties returned, the events of a few minutes ago hung starkly in my mind. Logan had been about to drain me, and Jace would probably have let him.
* * *
Ash laid me on his bed and pulled a blanket over me. His concerned gaze raked me over.
“I’m okay.” I sat up against the headboard and blinked away the black dots.
Ash sat down facing me, his fingers going to the wound at my neck.
I shook my head. “No healing. Not yet. I don’t think I could take it right now.”
He nodded slowly, his silver eyes making tracks across my face, pausing on my lips, and then flicking back up to lock with mine.
I reached out and lightly touched his shoulder. “You’re hurt too.”
He glanced down at the tear in his shirt, at the puckered wound, and shrugged.
“Tough guy, huh?” I couldn’t help but smile.
His gaze softened, and his eyes crinkled slightly, and then his mouth curved in a smile that transformed his harsh face into something truly beautiful. If I hadn’t been lying down, my knees would have given way.
I cleared my throat and dropped my gaze. “You should have healed too by now, right?”
He nodded.
“You’re all not getting enough blood. Sharing one donor isn’t enough, is it?”
He was silent.
They were strong and powerful, but how much stronger would they be if they fed as much as they needed to instead of rationing a single donor?
“Give me an hour and you can …” I licked my lips. “You can feed.”
He grasped my chin and forced me to meet his gaze, and then he shook his head.
“You don’t want to feed?”
For the first time since we’d met, there was real frustration on his face at not being able to communicate with me. He exhaled slowly, then touched his mouth with his fingertips and then touched mine.
My mouth was suddenly dry.
“What?” Was he saying what I thought he was saying. “Kiss?” My neck heated.
He nodded, deadly serious, and made the same motion—touching his lips and then touching mine. And then he released me and made the sign for heal.
“You want to heal with a kiss?”
His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded.
“But blood—”
He shook his head.
He wanted to kiss me, and it was suddenly as if an elastic band was wrapped around my lungs. I glanced at the angry wound on his shoulder and reached out to touch the area below it. His body was warm through the fabric, almost as if he was running a fever.
It had to hurt like a bitch, and still he’d carried Logan and then me to safety.
I lifted my chin. “Okay.”
He hesitated a moment, as if giving me the opportunity to change my mind, and then he leaned in, pupils dilating as he got closer. I kept my eyes open, because
this was a healing kiss, not a kiss-kiss, but his eyes fluttered closed, long, thick lashes making crescent shadows on his cheeks, and then his lips met my parted ones, soft yet firm, and his palm cupped the back of my neck, warm and steady. For a moment, we remained like this, parted mouths touching, and then he applied pressure to the back of my neck, tilting my head and claiming my mouth with his tongue. The first lick was teasing, coaxing my heart to beat faster, but the second meant business, sweeping and questing, and no, this wasn’t a kiss, so no, I didn’t need to respond, but my body, the traitor that it was, pushed back. My tongue, not willing to be outdone, fought back and claimed his mouth.
We shared a low moan, breathing each other in. His hand cradled the back of my head, possessive and sure. And then a fist closed around my heart and squeezed. I inhaled sharply, the pressure a mixture of pleasure and pain, and then the fist eased and my breath rushed into Ash’s mouth. A tingle ran up my chest and neck, over my chin, and settled in my lips before dissipating. Ash broke the kiss, pulling back to look deep into my eyes with hazy ones of his own.
My hand slid up his chest to the tear in his shirt, skimming over the unmarred, taut skin peeking through. Gone. It was gone.
“How?” The word was a whisper laced with wonder.
His lids at half-mast, he brushed my nose with the tip of his, once, twice, his breath warm on my lips, lips eager to feel the pressure of his again. I lifted my chin involuntarily, wanting that connection again, and his grip on the back of my head tightened a fraction. Was it a warning? Was it a question? Was I reading too much into this? But his lips were on the corner of my mouth, barely touching me, hovering, uncertain. His heart beneath the palm of my hand was a wild thing wanting to burst free. All I needed to do was turn my head, just a smidge.
A knock on the door shattered the moment. Ash pressed his forehead to mine and then released me. He padded to the door and opened it.
Gina entered carrying a tray. She smiled up at Ash, then turned her attention to me. “Jace told me what happened. You saved Logan’s life.”
Logan and the back of the van. Logan on top of me, pain and confusion. “He almost drained me.”
For the Blood: For the Blood Book 1 Page 14
