He takes me down. I stumble, scraping my knees, as he pushes me onto my back.
“Damon, please!” I scream, in real terror now.
I can see it in his eyes. His black eyes. This is not Damon. This is not the man I love.
Pushing at him, clawing at him, I try desperately to leverage my strength against him but he is so much bigger than I am. He’s like a block of lead and won’t budge.
The dagger gleams in his hand as he raises it above me. This is it.
The first cut stings but I can tell it is a surface wound. I fight with every ounce of energy I have. He lowers the dagger again and it cuts into my lower abdomen. Again. Again.
Now the pain is real. The blood is real as it pools onto the pavement. Damon is real as he lifts the dagger again, sweat slick on his forehead, his teeth exposed like an animal.
I cry out. It’s a cry of pain. A cry of loss and betrayal. A cry of fear.
There is so much blood, and there are four ghosts at my side, all wearing masks that depict what I feel now. I know I will join them, soon.
I reach out to them, four young women who are senselessly gone from the world–soon to be five of us. I hold out my hand and hear myself, disembodied, saying, “I’m sorry. I tried.”
And then, as the world goes black, I feel Damon’s weight lifted off me. I feel arms around me. And then, I feel nothing.
Chapter 10
Groggy, I look around my bedroom.
Familiar. This is my space. In my own home.
I sit up, wincing at the pain in my abdomen. Looking down, I find myself in only a sports bra and panties, my abdomen heavily bandaged.
Well, this waking up injured and half-dressed is becoming kind of a thing for me. At least I’m consistent with my activities. And my not-dying. Every time I think I’m a goner, I wake up here, not dead. Yay me. Maybe I’m part cat, with nine lives. Or, like, six now.
I slip to the floor and pull on a pair of yoga pants before shuffling slowly out of the room.
In the kitchen, I find Damon bound and gagged. Faye and Alexis stare at him, both of them frowning, arms crossed over their chests. Vincent is in the corner, looking out into the night.
“Amy, welcome to the world,” Faye says without looking at me. “I got the sense that you needed me and came straight here.”
“Why is she here?” I ask accusingly, my head tilted toward Alexis.
“Damon did not come to work this evening. I called and when he didn’t answer, I got worried and came over to check on him,” she says. “I didn’t want to lose another member of our staff.”
“Well, that’s rich considering there are all kinds of dark magic in that club and you happen to be a witch,” I say. “Kind of a coincidence that you’re here right after he tried to kill me the same way all those other girls were killed.”
“I’m not the bad guy, here,” Alexis says.
“How can we possibly believe that?” I ask.
“Amy,” Faye says, her voice stern, “Alexis is telling the truth. She is not responsible for this dark magic.”
I narrow my eyes but know that Faye’s abilities let her see the truth. She often doesn’t know how threads intertwine, but she senses things like this. I will have to trust her for now.
“How am I still alive?” I ask, gesturing to my bandaged abdomen.
“Thank goodness for vampires with heart,” Alexis says. “Otherwise you’d be another ghost, off to torment some other witch.”
I scratch at my throat. When I say, “What happened?” my voice is hoarse from screaming. “What’s going on with Damon?”
“He’s under a spell,” Faye says. “We’ve been working to undo it but it’s drenched in darkness. Very complicated.”
Alexis turns to me. “Your vampire saved you. You have about five stab wounds, two of which were centimeters from major organs. I healed you as best I could, but you might need to engage in…other activities to truly mitigate the damage. Or, you know, go to the hospital.”
“You can heal?” I ask. “And what do you mean by other activities?”
She nods once. “Among other talents. Including running strip clubs and making girlfriends jealous.”
It’s a bad joke and badly timed, considering the circumstances. I would tell her so, but honestly, who cares at this point. Still, I’m not sure how I feel about this witch right now.
I frown. “I thought…”
“You thought I was trying to steal your man,” she says. “I know. I’m very sensitive to people’s intentions, as well. I was there investigating on my own, on behalf of my coven.”
“Ah,” I say. “Well thank you for healing me. And you didn’t answer my question. What other activities are you referring to?”
“I think she references potentially drinking some of my blood, to help you heal.” Vincent enters the conversation from his place by the window. “I heard your plea for help. I came as fast as I could. The stab wounds may have affected your ability to have children.”
The news hangs in the room. I am not sure how I feel about this. I have never imagined myself as a mother, but the thought of having that option taken away from me, by a person I love and might have considered having a family with, it is really rather painful.
Still, I can’t show how I feel about this to these three. Not while Damon remains under the control of someone, something else. Not when I don’t really know how having feelings for both Damon and Vincent will play out. Not while we have someone killing women in order to start some new world order of witches and wipe out countless other beings in the process.
So, I just say, “Thank you for saving me.”
“I knocked him out. I would have killed him but I imagined that you would be angry with me if I had. It was hard to control myself,” he says.
I take the few steps toward him. I know what happens when he loses control. James Roberts was ripped to shreds when Vincent lost control after James tried to rape me. I almost died when Vincent lost control. His hunger can get the best of him.
“I’m proud of you,” I say. “I know what you could have done, wanted to do. That you let him live for me means a lot.”
Vincent pulls me into his arms.
“Are you…hugging me?” I ask against his muscular chest.
“Yes. Is that not an appropriate display of relief that you live?” he asks.
“No, no, it’s appropriate,” I say. “It’s just…weird. Out of you. You’re not really a hugging kind of guy.”
“Amy,” Faye says. “I need you here.”
I wander back over. “What can I do?”
“You’re going to be our conduit,” Faye says. “You and Damon are deeply emotionally connected. He remembered you when you went to him at the Sisters. We believe we can unbind him by tapping into your connection to one another.”
I nod. “Okay. What do I need to do?”
They have me take Damon’s hands. He flinches when I do, as if I burn him. His eyes are still black and sweat rolls down his forehead. He growls at me through his gag.
The other two women place hands on me and begin to chant. The sound is rich and powerful and as they get to the third time through, the lights flicker off. A swell of power surges through me, images of my life with Damon at the forefront of my thoughts as if they are being pulled from my body by some invisible force.
The chanting gets louder, almost as if there are more than two voices in the room. The floor rumbles beneath us. The windows bow as if they will explode.
Just when I feel like I might be ripped in two and swallowed into an abyss, it all stops and Damon blinks, his eyes green once more. He looks around, confused, and then sees me, bandaged so heavily, and begins to sob.
I unbind him and pull him to me, not caring that it hurts like hell. We fall to the floor in an embrace as this big, strong Hunter sobs like a baby.
Faye says, “Amy, we have things to discuss.”
“Tomorrow,” I say. “I have information, but I need time with Damon
now.”
She and Alexis let themselves out. As Damon works through his realization of what has happened, I look up and meet Vincent’s gaze. There is relief there, and hunger. There is also something else that I cannot name. Perhaps jealousy. Perhaps something else entirely.
Thank you, I send to him mentally.
The coven would like to see you, Amy, he sends back. They believe that you need training to fully unlock your abilities. They would like to help you.
This is not the time, I respond. And what would they ask in return?
There is always a price, he sends back. Always. Never forget that.
There is a lot that I wish I could ask Vincent. I would like to know if vampires can feel love. If they feel emotion at all, the way humans feel emotion. Did it mean anything to him when I said I thought I loved him? Did it mean anything that I was willing to die to save him?
Vincent is incredible in bed, hunger and lust and war all intertwining to create an experience that makes it easy to see why people find themselves in thrall to the vampires. It is heady and addictive. But it isn’t a real connection, and while I believe that Vincent is attached to me somehow, I do not know in what way, or why. And I am not, at the moment, willing to risk Damon to figure it out.
I send him a mental thank you and he nods, leaving on foot, out the door, like a human.
Somehow, I manage to get Damon off the floor and toward the bathroom. I run a bath and we both climb in. He is numb and vacant for a long time as we sit, almost until the water is cold.
Finally, he says, “I nearly killed you.”
I suck my lips in and then nod. “It wasn’t you, though, not really.”
He lets out a sound of grief. “I am so, so sorry, Amy. Here I am doing all of these things to try to protect you, to keep you safe, and it was me who did this to you.”
“It was a witch,” I say. “Someone intent on killing women to gather power. He or she–I’m not sure which–wants to create stronger witch-spawn so they can take down all of the other supernatural creatures.”
“Still, I…” his voice breaks.
I reach across and take his hands. “It’s not your fault.”
“The wounds…Amy...”
“It’s okay,” I say, “Alexis healed me. I’ll be fine, for the most part.”
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“I mean I’ll live, but I may not be able to have children. The wounds were aimed at my abdomen. They were the same in all of the victims. I am starting to believe that these sacrifices are two-fold, the woman’s life but also her ability to procreate. I just don’t know how it works. I really need to tap into my abilities as a Witch to better understand it.”
Damon looks at me, horrified. I realize I am going into “forensic investigator mode,” when he is just trying to process the fact that I’ve said I might not be able to have children.
“Damon,” I say, reaching out to touch his face, “It’s no big deal. I never really saw myself as a mother. Not really. This is the least of my worries right now, and it might not be an issue.”
He opens his mouth but then shuts it again with a snap, his jaw twitching angrily. We don’t say anything for a few more minutes.
When the water goes cold, I coax Damon from the bath, and to the bedroom. I’m still in pain but I need to be close to him. But as I begin kissing him, he pushes me away.
“I can’t kiss you, Amy,” he says. “I don’t deserve it.”
I force him back onto the bed, crawling on top of him awkwardly but with determination. I lean in and put my lips on his chest. I reach down and stroke his sex. It hardens at my touch and I work my hand back and forth along his length as I kiss and lick at his hard, sculpted chest.
“I need you to know that I love you, Damon,” I say, my voice cracking and unsteady as the emotion overtakes me. “I love you. I know you’re trying to process this, but this is why I came back early from my run. I needed you to know that no matter what else happens, I love you. This is real between us, and I don’t want to lose it.”
“Amy, no,” he says, his voice pained. “Don’t try to use sex to distract me from what I’ve done.”
I can’t take no for an answer. I need him to feel what I feel. I slip onto him, sheathing him inside of me. Moving slowly at first, I hold his hands, eventually moving them to my breasts. I meet his eyes, trying to show him with all of my being that this love is real, that it is tougher than what the supernatural world can throw at us. We have already proven that.
Damon breathes my name as I ride him, his hands big on my modest breasts, his calloused fingers rough against my hard nipples. We are so connected right now, as I move against him. I don’t even care about the pain in my abdomen, but he obviously does, because he gently flips me onto my back. He touches my face and kisses my lips before he enters me again. His thrusts are gentle as we stare into each others’ eyes, so many unspoken thoughts between us.
I’m too battered to find my release, but it doesn’t matter. I needed this. I needed to be close to him, to have him inside of me, to let him know that we are still okay. And when I feel him shudder with orgasm, I want to pull him close, to hold him and never let go.
But he pushes me away. He isn’t rough, but he is firm as he withdraws and rolls over. He sits up, his feet hitting the floor as he stands in a fluid, decisive moment.
“I love you Amy, but I can’t do this.”
I watch as he dresses and pulls together a bag of his belongings. All of his weapons. Much of his clothing.
He looks at me from the doorway to our bedroom. I can feel the pain and guilt he is feeling from the look on his face. “I can’t do this Amy. I’m supposed to protect you. Look at what I did to you. I can’t be the source of your pain. You will never know how sorry I am for what I’ve done to you. If I can’t control myself, how can I guarantee your safety? I think the best thing for you is for me to get as far away as possible from you. I need to go back to the brotherhood. Back to Hunting. Unattached.”
I can’t tell if he actually means what he is saying or if he is trying to make me hate him. “What…what are you saying?”
He opens his mouth, closes it, sighs heavily. “I’ll try to do what I can to help catch this rogue witch. Until I hunt her down, I need to stay as far away from you as possible.”
“Damon, this is crazy,” I say. “Don’t go.”
“I love you,” he says, shouldering his bag. “Goodbye.”
I wait and wait, cold and naked, and he doesn’t return.
* * *
I call his cell the next day and find it disconnected.
The weight of loss feels heavy as I return to work. I try to act normal, try to redouble my efforts on the case, knowing I am getting closer to the answers that I seek.
If I can find this rogue witch, maybe I can head off a war between the supernatural creatures of the world. Maybe I can save lives.
Maybe I can convince Damon to come back.
I have never imagined myself as a woman with a husband and two children and a white picket fence. It is simply not something I have wanted or needed in my life. And while I do not imagine that is something Damon ever imagined for himself as Hunter, I admit that I never asked him what he wanted.
I never asked him if leaving the Hunter brotherhood was his way of saying he wanted those things. It never occurred to me that the possibility of not being able to have children might hurt him in some way. It makes me realize that this lack of normalcy between us has stopped us from getting to know each other as real people.
This makes me incredibly sad, for some reason. This feels like a real loss to me, and I wasn’t prepared for it.
All the more reason to crack this case and get him back.
* * *
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