by Amy Patrick
“Are you talking about the people you bit? About turning your family?” she asked. “Reece, I already told you that doesn’t matter to me. No one who understands what it’s like to turn could blame you for that—me least of all.”
She scooted even closer until our knees were nearly touching. “Not only did I turn Josiah, my actions resulted in him wiping out his family. So technically, I’m worse than you are.”
I closed my eyes, letting out a heavy exhale. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
She came off the bed and reached for me. I stood, catching her hand in the air, preventing her from touching me or coming any closer. If she did, I’d never be able to get through this.
“No, Abbi. It’s not. You’re not the one to blame for those people’s deaths... I am.”
“What? Reece, you had nothing to do with—”
“Just shut up and listen to me, okay? Please?”
The sounds of my labored breaths mixed with her shallow ones.
“After I left my hometown, I went looking for you,” I said. “I tracked you from the accident scene back to your village. Then I followed your scent to the farm.”
“You were there?”
I nodded, though it was doubtful she could see me. Her hand was still in mine, but it had gone slack.
“I was desperate to find you, and I kind of hoped I wouldn’t, too. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I did see you again—I thought you were still human at the time,” I explained.
“I still hadn’t tried animal blood at that point, and my thirst never seemed to cease. It felt sort of tangled up with the last emotion I’d been feeling as a human—extreme desire—for you.”
Abbi let out a quiet gasp, but she didn’t speak, just let me continue damning myself.
“I went to the barn, stood there looking up. I could hear you breathing, hear your heartbeat. I hadn’t decided yet whether to go up and talk to you—I was afraid I might hurt you—and then a wagon pulled into the drive. Your friend Josiah was in it with an older couple. I ran and hid behind the house.”
“That was the night they died,” she said in a reverent tone.
“That’s right.” And don’t I know it.
“I don’t remember everything about that night, but I remember watching and listening as you climbed the tree and went into his room. And then you left. I knew from eavesdropping on your conversation you had both been turned. I could tell he wasn’t going to make it in this life. Even as small and innocent as you were, you were much stronger than him. You had this... determination. I decided I would reveal myself to you when you returned from town.”
“Why didn’t you Reece? Why did you leave? We could have gone through this together. We could have helped each other. We could have avoided the Bastion altogether.”
Squeezing her hand, I urged her to sit back on her bed. “Just let me finish. After you left, I sat on the ground against the house, listening to the whispers inside, the everyday noises of people getting ready for bed. Josiah’s parents were kind, they were worried about him—and about what their friends and neighbors would think—but mostly they were worried about him. In spite of my burning throat and the aching emptiness of my stomach, I felt good listening to them, knowing there were at least some people in the world who’d try to understand and accept us.”
I swallowed hard. This was the hardest part of the story to recall, much less say out loud. But Abbi needed to hear it. She needed to know.
“Then I caught the scent of blood. I don’t know if the man cut himself shaving or maybe the woman slipped with a kitchen knife... that’s where my memories end. I must have gone into a blood frenzy and killed them. Maybe I killed Josiah, too.”
She came off the bed again and grabbed my hands. “You couldn’t have. I saw his ashes the next morning. He killed himself by exposing himself to the sun. And if you were in a frenzy, how can you be sure you’re the one who killed his parents?”
Removing my hands from her grasp, I clenched my gut against a swell of nausea. “Based on my previous behavior, that’s what I would have done. What makes more sense? Your little upstanding Amish boyfriend getting up from his prayers, unlocking his door, and going downstairs to slaughter his parents or me smelling blood and doing what I’d already done multiple times in the days leading up to that? Besides, that’s what Imogen said happened. She told me on the night of the Inception Ceremony.”
It was the information that had tipped me over the edge and driven the last nail in the coffin of my humanity.
It was the information that had proven to me once and for all that Abbi was better off without me.
How could I have gone with her to Los Angeles and presented myself as one of the good guys, ready to fight for peace, justice, and the American vampire way, knowing what I’d done?
“Imogen?” Abbi said, sounding baffled. “She wasn’t there. How would she know what happened?”
“She knew, okay? She’s our maker. She laid it out for me in gory detail, described the farm, what they looked like, everything. She knew where to find you, didn’t she? She sent Kannon after you.”
Abbi was quiet for a minute before speaking again. “And this is what you’ve been hiding from me? This is the ‘terrible secret’ that made you feel so unworthy of love you enslaved yourself for an eternity.”
“Yes. I’m the reason you lost your best friend, your community, your whole way of life.”
“You’re an idiot.”
My head snapped back in surprise. “What?”
“You’re an idiot if you really believed that would keep me from loving you.”
“I murdered the people you considered your second parents. Josiah killed himself because of me. And you blamed yourself for it.”
“None of it would have happened if I hadn’t chosen to turn Josiah in the first place.”
“And I caused the accident on the highway that started everything,” I argued.
Abbi rose again and put a soft finger over my lips. “Even if it was you who killed the Yoders, and even if you had killed Josiah, it wouldn’t change things. I’m sad about their deaths, but I had to learn this lesson for myself, and you need to learn it, too—you can’t change the past. There is nothing and no one beyond forgiveness. Not even you.”
I sat back on the edge of my bed, stunned. Abbi moved forward, coming to a stop just in front of me, standing between my spread knees. Before I could prevent it, she put her hands on my shoulders, then slid them up to clasp my jaw.
She looked down into my face, her eyes shining in the darkness. “I forgive you, Reece. For whatever you’ve done... for whatever you might do in the future. You are the most important person in the world to me, and there is nothing you could ever do that would stop me from loving you.”
For long excruciating seconds I remained motionless, staring back at her, drinking in the love in her eyes and preserving every line of her beautiful face in my mind’s eye so I’d never forget a single detail of this moment.
17
The Answer for Now
Reece
When I finally released the floodgates, it was more like a tsunami than a wave.
I literally couldn’t keep the emotion inside any longer. My arms went around Abbi, pulling her down on top of me and bringing her lips to mine.
Stroking her back and hair and face, I spoke between fervent kisses, letting the words and passion I felt for her crash over her, drowning her in my love.
“God, I love you. You have no idea how much I burned for you while you were away. It was even worse when you came back. When I saw you in that corridor outside the clinic, I thought I was going to spontaneously combust.”
“Me too,” she said. “I was overwhelmed to see you. I didn’t think I could love you more, but when I saw you again it all came rushing back, and it was like it had doubled somehow.”
I kissed her again deeply, trying with my lips and tongue to express the truth behind my words. “Since then, I’ve b
een in agony, wondering how I was going to survive eternity without holding you and kissing you and making you mine, wondering how I was going to keep us both alive if Imogen suspected. I still don’t know the answer to that one, but I don’t care anymore. I can’t hide from you anymore.”
“I don’t want you to. I don’t want us ever to hide our feelings from each other again,” she said.
For a few minutes there were no words as our mouths and hands devoured each other. Then Abbi pulled back slightly, speaking against my mouth, which wasn’t nearly finished with her.
“We do have to hide it from Imogen, though.”
“I would never let her hurt you,” I vowed. “That’s why I had to get you out of there. I’d die before letting anything happen to you.”
Abbi’s hands came up to bracket my face, holding it in place. “No. Reece... you can’t say that. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. We have to be careful. Promise me we’ll be careful.”
She was so sweet and sincere and so incredibly beautiful and sexy I would have promised to pluck a star from the sky for her if she asked.
“We will. She’ll never know.”
I wasn’t even sure what I was saying, I just wanted another taste of Abbi’s delicious lips. I dived in again, holding her against my burning skin, wishing it was possible to pull her inside myself.
After a minute, she broke the kiss. “What if she knows already? What if she can... see us somehow?”
She was doing her best to break the mood with that question. After waiting so long for this moment, I wasn’t having it. I kissed her again.
“She can’t. Don’t think about her right now.”
Flipping Abbi over so I hovered above her on the bed, I started moving down her body, kissing her neck, then working down the center of her chest to her stomach.
Abbi grabbed my shoulders, stopping me. “But... you said she saw what happened at the Yoders’ farm. She described the scene to you. She’s not just my maker, she’s yours, too. She might be watching us right now.”
A shiver raised gooseflesh on her warm, smooth skin. I attempted to kiss it away, but Abbi wiggled from my grasp, rolling to the other side of my bed.
“I’m serious, Reece. Even if she can’t see us now, she’ll know when we get back to the Bastion. She’ll be able to tell—I just know she will. You’re bound to her. We can’t do this.”
I rolled over onto my back and covered my face with both hands, blowing out a breath of frustrated desire. “Now you’re worried about the Bloodbound vows?”
There wasn’t one part of my body that wanted to shift focus from Abbi to Imogen, but she was forcing the matter.
“You know how much I hate it, but it’s still true,” she said. “You said you’d die before letting her hurt me? I feel the same way about you. I can’t be a part of something that’ll get you killed.”
Making one last attempt, I rolled up onto my shoulder to face her and dragged her close to me again. “For me, it would be worth it. If I could have one night with you, I’d die a happy man.”
Abbi’s expression melted but then she put a small palm against my chest, holding me back from renewing our impassioned activities.
“Don’t say that. I don’t want just one night with you—I want eternity,” she said. “We can’t have that. Not yet. Not without Sadie’s help. We have to keep our heads on straight and focus on getting to her. This mission has to succeed, or it won’t be just us who suffers—it’ll be the whole world.”
At her mention of “our” mission, the last of my ramped-up excitement subsided. “So what are you suggesting? That I take back everything I just said, and we go back to being ‘friends?’”
She ran her gaze over me, taking in my naked torso and arms, my shoulders, my mouth. “I don’t think that is possible. I could never be just friends with you. But I think... for now... it would be best if we avoided situations like... this.”
“Can I still kiss you?”
A tortured look of pained temptation crossed her face. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
Abbi’s lush body was still pressed against mine, her soft breasts cushioning my chest, the sleep t-shirt bunched somewhere around her waist, leaving her smooth legs free to tangle with mine.
Her rapid breaths tickled my hungry lips, and from the pace of her heartbeat, I surmised it was just as hard for her to resist crushing them to mine as it was for me to keep my mouth off of her.
If I hadn’t been bathed in sexual frustration, I might have laughed at the absurdity of it all.
My hand coasted from her back downward, sliding over her curves and pulling her lower body more tightly against mine.
“What about this?” I whispered against her lips, not kissing her but not not-kissing her either. “Can I do this? Would this be wise?”
Abbi let out a shuddering breath. “Reece...”
Her breathy plea did nothing to discourage me. My excitement kicked into high gear again. Instead of kissing her mouth, which she’d instructed me not to do, I dropped my lips to her neck, nuzzling the warm, intoxicating skin before opening my mouth to taste it.
For a moment, she allowed it, groaning in pleasure and squirming against me in a maddening rhythm.
Then those little hands worked their way between us again, and she pushed herself back. With great difficulty, apparently. “We can’t. I have to get out of this bed. You feel too good. You make me feel too good.”
“I want to Abbi,” I nearly begged. “I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life. Let me make you feel good.”
With another groan—this one not quite so happy as the last—she kicked her legs and scrambled backward, popping out of the bed on the other side.
“You’re impossible to say no to. But you’re asking me to sign your death sentence. And I have to find the strength to say no to that.”
Walking quickly back to her own bed, she got in and pulled the covers up to her chin.
“So in regard to your question about kissing—and all the other stuff—the answer—for now—is no.”
18
A Plan I Could Get Behind
Abbi
Looking over at Reece’s astonished face, I saw the moment sexual excitement converted to frustration.
“So it’s okay for you to kiss Shane but not me,” he said in a bitter voice.
“This has nothing to do with him. This is about you and me.”
“You’re damn right it is. But every time I think about him putting his mouth on you, I want to punch a wall. Or the dashboard—or whatever inanimate surface is handy.”
“It only happened once,” I began.
“Twice. He kissed you in the clinic—I was there, remember?”
“Yes. Clearly. You made your presence—and your disapproval—obvious to everyone involved. As I was saying, it only happened twice, and it won’t be happening again. I don’t feel that way about Shane, and his kisses don’t even begin to compare to yours. They’re not even the same thing.”
Reece grunted, apparently pleased.
“So how long is this kiss-ban of yours going to last?” he asked in a bruised-sounding tone. From this distance I could no longer see his face, but I knew he was pouting.
“As long as it takes. I don’t like it any more than you do.” My tone softened. “You know I want you, but I could never be happy with just fooling around with you or having cheap sex behind Imogen’s back. As long as you’re under her rule, you’re not free to be my mate. I love you too much to be anything else to you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, sounding resigned. “But for the record, I would have settled for the cheap sex in the meantime.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”
“And you’re gorgeous. And sweet. And sexy. And you’re going to drive me insane before we get to Canada and get back home again.” He let out a surprising roar and gripped the bedsheets so hard they ripped.
When I stopped laughing, I sai
d, “I’m sorry. It’s not easy for me, either. I’ve wanted you for so long, but we have to be patient. Sadie will know what to do. She’ll help us.”
Reece was quiet for so long I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he spoke, sounding as wide awake as I was.
“What if there’s another answer?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What if Imogen wasn’t queen anymore?”
“She’ll never give up the throne—not for a few thousand more years anyway.”
“I wasn’t talking about voluntarily.” He shifted, pushing up to an elbow and turning toward me. “I’m going to tell you something you’re not going to like—and then I’m going to suggest something I hope you’ll like very much.”
“I’m listening.”
“Okay, first for the bad news.” Reece hesitated but went on. “My mission isn’t to gain an audience with Sadie and ask for her cooperation and partnership. It was at first—that’s the mission I initially suggested to Imogen before the bombing of the VHC headquarters—but things changed. Imogen sent me to assassinate Sadie.”
I sat bolt upright in bed, so stunned I could barely breathe, much less respond. Minutes earlier I had been making out with Reece. We’d probably have been making love right now if I hadn’t put a stop to things. And all along he’d been planning to kill my mentor? I felt sick.
“You were going to use me to get close to her.”
“I know you’re upset,” he said quickly. “Just hear me out. I never felt great about it, but Imogen’s the queen, and I didn’t really think I had a choice. And accepting the mission was the only way I knew of to get you out of the Bastion and out of Imogen’s hands. If it had come down to Sadie’s life or yours—well, you know how I feel, so I’m not even going to say it. The point is, I have no intention of going through with it now. Maybe I never would have.”
I was still a little bit in shock. “If you had gone through with it, I don’t know if I could have—”
“We’re never going to have to find out, okay? I’m not going to hurt Sadie. I have a better plan. Instead of asking Sadie to join forces with Imogen, who cannot be trusted, we can ask her to help us overthrow Imogen.”