by J. E. Taylor
“Then I’ll get it for her,” Alex said.
I glanced over my shoulder at him, and he squared off with Bridget, adopting the same crossed arms and stare as she had.
“You can’t deny she looks great in that.”
“I agree, but I can’t see your uncle agreeing to let her wear that out of the house, can you?”
“I see your point,” he said just as April closed the door behind us.
I took the outfit off and went to hang it on the no pile.
“That belongs over here,” April said and put her hands out.
“But...”
“It would be a crime not to buy that for you.”
I relinquished the outfit and tried on one of the dresses. April changed back into her clothes and grabbed all the yes outfits, including the leather one. She headed out to where her mother and Alex waited and dumped everything into the cart.
“Now that’s more like it,” Bridget said, smiling at me in the royal blue dress.
April went back into the dressing room with me and helped by holding items and saying yes or no.
When I peeled the last shirt off, I winced and handed it to her before I reached for the clothes I had come with. All the effort left me a little light-headed.
“Um, Faith?”
“Yeah,” I said, pulling my skirt on with my back to her.
“You’re bleeding through one of your bandages.”
I sat down on the bench, my brain swirling, and heated panic raced across my skin and pooled in my palms. I clenched my fists. “Go get Alex,” I barked.
She balked. “This is a women’s dressing room.”
“Get Alex,” I yelled.
April backed out of the room with her arms full. Before the door could close all the way, both Alex and Bridget stepped into the room.
“What’s wrong?” Bridget asked, and I turned so she could see what April had seen.
“Sweet Jesus,” Bridget whispered. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
That was the last place I wanted to go. I reached out and grabbed Alex’s hand, grounding myself before my nerves ignited. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“You are bleeding. A lot.”
“I need help cauterizing it.” I glanced up at Bridget, and then to Alex. “I need you to help me so I don’t set this whole building on fire.”
“Okay,” Alex agreed and squeezed my hand.
“Your mother said that if it got worse...” Bridget said.
“I know what my mom said, but she’s already pale and we’d still have a twenty-minute ride if we left now. I can help her. You go with April and check out. We’ll be out just as soon as we are done.”
“If anything happens to you...”
“I’ve got this,” Alex said.
“You’re sixteen.”
“Why is everyone throwing my age in my face today?” he asked, exasperated. “We will be fine. Now go, before Faith passes out.” He pointed at the door.
The conflict was clearly written in the creases around Bridget’s eyes.
“We don’t have time for this,” Alex said softly. “Please, just trust me.”
Bridget took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll wait just outside the changing rooms.”
Alex closed the door and locked it before he sat down behind me. He moved my hair to the side and placed his hand on the back of my neck.
His soft touch sent tingles all over my skin, and I became aware that I was only in my skirt and bra. Both heat and chills ran through me.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Take the bandage off,” I said, and winced when he did.
He dropped the saturated bandage on the ground and sucked in air. “Now what?”
His voice shook, and I glanced back at him. “Keep my hair away from the flame and guide my finger to the cut.” I pulled my hand from his and raised my index finger, willing the flame to ignite. Heat flared, and a blue flame rose from my fingertip like a blow torch.
Alex grimaced but didn’t hesitate. He wrapped, his hand around mine and pulled it toward the cut on my neck.
I clenched my teeth, waiting for the pain. The sizzle of burning flesh filled the air a split second before agony clenched every muscle.
He brought my hand away. “Done,” he whispered.
The pain was too much.
“Control,” Alex commanded sharply, but I couldn’t. His hand left my neck, and he wrapped it around my finger, squeezing.
His reaction slapped me into full control, and the fire fizzled out. But I wasn’t fast enough to pull it back. Alex pulled his hand away, wincing.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered and took his hand in mine. Angry red blisters formed on his palm.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before glancing at my back. “Your back looks as painful as my hand.” He met my gaze. “Come on, before the smoke alarms go off.”
I pulled the shirt over my head gingerly, and slipped my shoes on.
Alex grinned at me.
“What?”
“This is not how I imagined being alone with a half-dressed girl.”
I snorted laughter. “Let’s go.”
We walked out of the dressing room.
“We’re going to need some aloe,” Alex said and showed Bridget his hand.
Her gaze narrowed, as did her lips. “Alex...”
“I’ll be fine. It’s a burn. It will heal. Besides, her neck is just as bad.” He wrapped his good hand in mine.
He headed towards the checkout counter, and the rest of us followed. The back of my neck stung like hornets had found a new playground. I just wanted to get home, slather my sore with aloe, and sleep for six weeks.
Bridget stopped in the underwear department and grabbed a handful of things, then tossed them into the cart before she paid for everything and herded us to the car.
She didn’t even notice the black leather going into the bag. I had a feeling that would prompt a discussion when we got home, but right now, all I wanted was something to soothe the fiery burn on my neck.
Bridget made one stop to grab antibiotic ointment and bandages and then headed over to drop Alex off. Tom’s truck was in the driveway. Instead of dropping off Alex and leaving, Bridget turned off the car. She grabbed the bag from the drug store and headed inside.
I hesitated with my hand on the door. At least I was on the side closest to the front door. Alex glanced at me before he closed his door. He crossed around the car and helped me out. April seemed to understand my hesitation as well, like we had been sisters all our lives instead of just for twenty-four hours. They flanked me to the door like body guards.
The silent communication we had was odd, but it gave me a sense of peace like I’d never felt before. I took a moment to silently thank Fate for bringing me here.
Chapter 9
Bridget stood just inside the doorway to the kitchen, her gaze locked on the family room. We stepped in behind her and stared at the scene.
Tom lay on the kitchen table with his shirt unbuttoned and his chest and face bathed in sweat. Valerie held his wrist and was staring at her watch. CJ stood on the opposite side of the table.
“You have to stop,” Valerie said.
“What are you doing?” Bridget asked.
Tom sat up and banged his head on the chandelier over the table. He exchanged a glace with CJ as he rubbed the spot that took the brunt of the collision. “Trying to extract Lucifer’s grace,” he said and mopped his face.
“I gather from your faces it didn’t work?”
They all shook their heads.
I didn’t quite understand the tension filling the room and glanced at Alex.
He let go of my hand and approached his mother with his injured hand outstretched. “Think you can take a second and fix this for me?”
“What happened?” Valerie said with a sharp tone that made me shrink back a step, especially when her accusatory stare landed on me.
“She needed to
cauterize one of the bite wounds.”
“And she burned you?” CJ asked, his lashes batting wildly as if he couldn’t quite reconcile his son’s calm demeanor with the severity of the burn on his hand.
“I didn’t mean to.” All eyes turned to me, and I shifted in place. “I just...” I dropped my gaze to the floor, letting my hair block my view.
“She lost control, and I reacted,” Alex explained, but no one seemed to grasp the magnitude of what could have happened if Alex hadn’t been there.
“She has blood in her hair?” Tom’s voice cut through the tension.
I glanced up in time to see him slide off the table. He nearly dropped to his knees but steadied himself with a hand on the wood. Bridget moved like lightning and was at his side in a blink. He lowered into a kitchen chair looking sickly, almost the same pallor as my mother had near the end. My chest tightened with concern.
“She was bleeding pretty badly,” Alex said, pulling my attention away from Tom.
Alex hissed when his mother pressed a kiss to his palm. Light danced over his skin, like a hundred fireflies had taken flight. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his jaw tightened. He blew air out of his puckered lips slowly as his blisters flattened, and then melted away. The redness in the center of his palm lessened but did not completely fade. He flexed his hand and glanced up at me. He didn’t quite manage a smile, but it was there in his eyes.
Valerie turned to me. “Let me take a look at you.” She waved me over.
I crossed as I gathered my hair into a twist and piled it on top of my head so Valerie could look at my wounds.
After a quick look, she pulled out a chair for me. “We’re going to get you cleaned up a bit. Get me a clean, wet washcloth, please,” she said to Alex.
“I have antibiotic ointment.” Bridget handed her the bag she’d brought in.
“Go get my medical bag upstairs. And grab a couple hair clips while you’re up there,” she said to CJ. “I think it might be a good idea to address these tonight, so there isn’t any chance you have to do that again,” she said, leaning so I could see her. “What were you doing?”
“Trying on clothes,” I replied.
“You probably should have held off on that,” Valerie said.
“I didn’t even think...” Bridget started and then closed her eyes. “I guess I’ve gotten used to having you around.” Her cheeks turned red. “I’m sorry,” she said to me.
“It’s not your fault.” I glanced at Bridget and then across the table at Tom. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and tried to smile, but he didn’t look okay. Dark circles rounded his eyes, and his cheeks now had some blotchy red marks, like a fever had set in.
“Maybe you should go lie down on the couch,” Bridget said to him. She helped him to his feet and guided him to the couch where he sat down hard. “I’ll get you some juice.”
CJ came down with Valerie’s medical bag, hair clips, and clean towels draped over his arm. He spared a glance at his brother and his brow knit, but he continued to us at the table and handed a handful of hair clips to his wife. He set the bag on the table and waited until she clipped my hair before he handed her the towels. “What do you need me to do?”
“Wipe down the table. Tom sweat all over it, and it can’t be sanitary.”
CJ crossed to a plastic container of disinfectant wipes and started wiping the table down in front of where I sat.
Alex returned with a handful of wet washcloths. “Where do you want these?”
“On the table where your father just cleaned off.”
“Did you find anything you liked?” Valerie asked as she tucked a towel around the collar of my shirt.
“She did,” April said. Her gaze was planted on the back of my neck, and her usually high color had faded.
Valerie wiped the skin around my burn with a wet washcloth.
Pain flared, and I inhaled sharply, my back arching away from the source. I clenched my hands into fists.
“It probably would be a good idea to have a couple pots of cold water nearby,” I said, my voice higher-pitched than normal.
The cloth stopped moving.
“I’ll get it,” Alex said and left my side. He grabbed two saucepans, filled them with water, and set them on the table in front of me.
His mother resumed cleaning my burn. Alex sat in the chair and threaded his hand into mine. I locked gazes with him and the softest smile on his lips made the sharp drills of pain fade. He was my elixir.
“Soulmates.”
The word pulled us out of whatever trance we had fallen into, and I looked at April. Everyone was looking at April.
“Well, they are.” She waved at us.
I glanced back at Alex, wondering if April had put a name to the completeness I felt when I was near him.
The pull at the back of my neck sent another tremor through me and I winced, squeezing Alex’s hand harder.
The back slider opened, and the cause of my pain stepped in the room with an older woman leading her. The stern set of the older woman’s lips, along with her hand on the back of Grace’s neck like she was forcing Grace to step foot in the house, almost made me smile, but I was in too much discomfort to manage it.
“Grace has something to say,” she said.
Grace glared at me and pressed her lips together. She crossed her arms like a petulant child.
“She isn’t welcome here,” Alex said and stood, holding my hand in full view.
“Alex,” both CJ and Valerie said. The scold in that single word was clear.
“I’m sorry I bit you,” Grace said, but she didn’t sound like she was sorry. It sounded exactly like what it was. A forced apology.
I gave a nod. “Apology accepted.”
“The hell it is,” Alex snapped. “You attacked her twice for no reason.”
“She’s Lucifer’s daughter. That’s reason enough.”
“And I suppose being a vampire’s daughter is any better,” Alex said.
“Alex, she apologized.” I squeezed his hand.
The sharp look he gave me shut me up.
“You almost bled out at the store, and you want me to accept that half-assed apology?” He shook his head. “Nope. Not happening.” He glared at Grace. “You need to let go of whatever fantasy you’ve concocted about me. It will never happen, Grace.”
Her lips thinned, and her hatred pulsed on the air in time with the throb of each of her puncture marks on the back of my neck.
“They belong together. They are soulmates. Can’t you feel it?” April waved at us, interrupting the growing tension, sending it into ignite mode.
Grace snarled, and the woman’s arm tensed. “Let me go, Mom.”
My free hand tingled with heat, sensing the danger as much as the thrum of my heart. I clenched it into a fist.
“Please just go,” Valerie said. “You attacked her on my property, without provocation.”
“But...” Grace started, but her mother nodded, dragging her out of the house.
The peel of another bandage coming off pulled my attention, and I closed my eyes.
“You don’t get to tell someone that they aren’t welcome in our house,” Valerie said.
Alex sat down and stared at the table. “She won’t stop.”
Tom huffed from the couch. “She will if she knows what’s good for her.” He sat up with a half-empty glass of juice in his hand. His gaze flitted around me and then landed on mine as if confirming something only he could see. “You need to talk to Naomi,” he said to Valerie. “Grace’s aura is threaded with more darkness than light.”
The hands working on my injury stalled. Silence fell on the room.
“Grace has already chosen her path,” April said in a voice I did not recognize. “Death surrounds her now.”
Chapter 10
April’s revelation had left a chill in the air. No one spoke as Valerie finished her patch job and gave Bridget the rundown of bandage changes I would need. By the time she finish
ed, Tom had gotten his color back.
“Same drill as earlier,” Valerie said as we stepped out the door. “Don’t get those bandages wet for another day or so. Sponge baths and wash her hair in the sink.”
“Thank you,” Bridget said and led me to her car, April at my side.
Tom walked with us and made sure I got in the car without incident before he crossed to his truck.
“I’m sorry,” I said from the back seat once we were all belted in.
Bridget looked in the rearview mirror. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
April turned to me, her gaze pleading. “Promise me you’ll watch your back whenever you are here.”
I nodded.
“You can’t let your guard down when you are outside. Okay?”
“Okay.”
My agreement with her didn’t seem to wipe out the underlying urgency in her eyes, even after we drove out of the gate. I shifted in the seat and looked out the window.
“How do you feel?” Bridget asked.
“Like someone took a thousand needles and stabbed them into the back of my neck,” I said, keeping my hands clasped so I didn’t try to rub the prickle away.
“I’ll clean you up, and then you can rest,” Bridget said.
All I wanted to do was sleep a dreamless, dead-like slumber that would renew the energy I’d lost today. Not even Alex could bring the spark back right now. Only a decent night’s rest would do that.
In a repeat of what we’d done earlier in the day, Bridget washed the blood off my back and washed my hair in the sink. Then she rummaged through the pile of clothes April had left on top of the dresser. She came back in the bathroom with a nightgown, helped me into it, and then fixed my damp hair in a single braid.
We didn’t speak. Just went through the motions.
As soon as she tucked me under the covers, she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve been thinking about how to say what I want without you taking it the wrong way.”
My stomach tightened.
“Tom didn’t want any more children after his daughter died.” She glanced at her hands. “When he left, he had no idea I was pregnant.”
I shifted, uncomfortable with her unloading their past on me.
“Anyway, he’s been back long enough to regret his decision.” She met my gaze. “He made certain he would never have any more.”