"Are you reading her mind?" Gordon asked with a frown. "I thought it was too strong. I still can't read it."
"The virus is weakening it." Lucian said.
"Oh my God." I mumbled running my hands over my face. "This is not real."
Lucian took my wrists and pulled my hands away from my face. "I'm sorry Mckenzie, but it is and you need to accept it because I need to heal you."
I gave a laugh of disbelief. "It's not like I can force myself to accept it Adams. You can't be a demon, demons just aren't real."
"Zombies weren't meant to be real either." He pointed out.
I opened my mouth to say something else, but instead a gasp came out as it felt like my blood had been replaced with acid. A scream of agony escaped my throat before I fell back on the bed.
"What the fuck is happening?" Gordon shouted. "She was only bitten like an hour ago!"
"It was by one of the zombie masters." Lucian growled. "Their venom is stronger, it's working quicker."
My body seemed out of my control as I started thrashing and crying. Lucian grabbed my arms and held me down until Gordon reached us grabbing my wrists. Lucian moved his hands over my shoulder before shouting.
"Shit, Taylor you have to believe me or you're going to die, say you believe me now!"
"I believe you." I choked out, anyone could say that to survive right?
"Fuck!" He yelled about five seconds later.
"You didn't actually expect that to work, did you?" Gordon asked. "She has to actually believe it, she can't just say it."
"Taylor, look at me!" Lucian shouted. It took a few moments before I managed to focus on him, but when I did he held his hand out and some kind of ball of fire appeared in his hand. Great, now I was hallucinating through the pain. "You're not hallucinating! This is real Taylor, I'm really a demon, you need to believe that now!"
I couldn't believe him though, how could I just make myself believe it? It wasn't the sort of thing I could force on myself and the pain enveloping my body was just too distracting for me to accomplish anything right now. Breathing was getting difficult and I knew I wouldn't last much longer. The agony was ripping through my body killing off my muscles one by one.
The last thing I felt was a warmth through my whole body and the last thing I heard before my last breath escaped my throat painfully was Gordon saying in amazement.
"Lucian, you shouldn't be able to do that."
Chapter 21
The first thought I had when I woke up was, shit Lucian let me turn into a zombie and didn't kill me. The second thought was, was Lucian really a demon or had that conversation been my imagination?
I laid there and waited for my zombie side to kick in, any minute now I would want to eat brains I just knew it. My shoulder was still hurting from the bite though, was that normal, did zombies feel pain? It always seemed to me like they didn't feel anything, but I guess I had been mistaken on that and why did brains still seem unappealing to me? I had to be the worst excuse for a zombie ever. Maybe if I just kept my eyes closed I wouldn't become a zombie.
I didn't want to wait around here though in case I did, since Lucian didn't seem to have been able to kill me I would have to do it myself. There was no way I would let myself be a zombie and eat people. Snapping my eyes open I sat up on the bed in the now empty room and grabbed one of my guns still strapped onto my belt. I could do this, all I had to do was point it at my head and pull the trigger, it couldn't be too hard right? It would just be like killing any other zombie.
I lifted the gun to my head and held it there, it was just a little trigger I had to pull I could do it. There were sounds of yelling coming from the hallway, I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I could identify the voices as belonging to Lucian and Gordon. They might come in here soon, I had to do it now before they did, the sight of them might set off my need to eat brains.
Before I could talk myself into it though the door opened, I shut my eyes quickly before I could catch sight of them. Their arguing cut off immediately and Lucian yelled.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
I heard him walking towards me, but I shouted. "Stop, don't come near me it might make me want to eat you. I have to kill myself since you didn't do it, I told you I didn't want to be a zombie!"
Tears ran down my cheeks and I wiped them away with my free hand in frustration, I had to be strong enough to do this.
"Is she joking?" Gordon asked in disbelief.
"Of course I'm not joking! I don't want to eat anyone, you have to leave the room before your brains start to sound tasty to me!"
"Sweetheart, you're not a zombie." Lucian said softly.
"Yes I am!" I shouted. "I got bitten and then died and now I'm awake again, that is the zombie process, I will want to eat people soon!"
Lucian sighed. "You didn't turn, I healed you just in time, now take the gun away from your head."
"You didn't heal me! You said I had to believe that you were a demon and I just couldn't do it, it just sounds too crazy. You should have told me before so I would have had more time to accept it! I still don't even know if it's really true!"
"Have you ever seen a zombie cry?" He asked me.
I shook my head unsure what he was getting at.
"Then why are you crying if you're a zombie?"
I frowned, how was I crying and why did my shoulder still hurt? My grip relaxed on my gun a little bit, maybe I wasn't a zombie. Slowly I opened my eyes to find Lucian standing in front of me, he put a hand over mine holding the gun before slowly slipping it out of my grip and sliding it back into its holster.
"You're not a zombie and you never will be. I made you immune to the virus." He whispered
"If we are immune, can't our blood make a cure?" I asked.
He shook his head. "It isn't our blood that makes us immune, it's magic."
I snorted, I couldn't help it. "Like Harry Potter?"
Gordon chuckled. "We don't need a wooden stick to use it."
"I still don't know how to believe this." I admitted.
Lucian gave a small smile. "It's ok, you can take as much time as you need. I'm going to have to leave soon though."
"What?" I asked starting to panic, he couldn't leave me.
"I'll be back." He assured me. "I just have to go for a while, when I healed you I tapped into something that I shouldn't have. My Dad needs to talk to me about it so I have to see him."
"No." I shook my head. "You said your Dad wasn't nice, you can’t go."
"I'll be fine Blondie, you and Gordon are going to stay here and take over leading here for a while until I get back."
"No, take Gordon with you. He's a demon too right?"
"See, she agrees with me." Gordon said.
By his tone and the look on his face I gathered that this was what they had been arguing about in the hallway.
Lucian sighed. "I have to go there alone."
"When?" I finally said after a few minutes of silence.
He looked at me in confusion so I elaborated.
"When do you leave?"
He lifted his hand and stroked the scar on my cheek with his thumb. "Tomorrow."
"Why so soon?" I asked as tears clung to my eyelashes as I tried not to cry.
"My Dad is very impatient, keeping him waiting would just piss him off more."
I closed my eyes in an attempt to keep the tears from falling, but before I could do anything about it they fell from my lashes and ran down my cheeks. He was going to have to face the wrath of his demon Father because he had saved my life.
"Well, I'll leave you two to it." Gordon said.
Neither of us looked in his direction as the sound of his footsteps disappeared out into the hallway before he closed the door behind him.
He kissed away the tears from my face and slid his arms around my waist to pull me close. I clung to his t-shirt and relished being in his arms, I had to get everything I could if he was leaving tomorrow because I didn't know how long he would be gone
. My heart felt like he was gone, it was already missing him with an intensity that I didn't want to feel. I had just found out that he returned my feelings and now he was getting taken away, it was cruel. There was a possibility that he was a demon, but I didn't care, it didn't change the way I felt about him one bit, I was already in too deep.
"I love you." He whispered against the top of my head.
"I love you too." I sobbed into his t-shirt. "I love you so much."
"Shh." He soothed moving his hands up from my waist to fist his hands in my blonde locks holding me closer.
The only sounds for a few minutes were of me sniffing and crying into his chest while he ran his hands through my hair and down my back. It wasn't until I had calmed down somewhat that he said.
"You should take a shower, we need to get that shoulder cleaned up properly."
I nodded pulling away from him, I really needed to quit crying, but it just seemed that too much had happened today for me to hold it in.
When I was in the shower it just proved that theory when I broke down in tears yet again.
Lucian had helped me take off my weapons and top when it had proved difficult with my shoulder before I had gone into his bathroom, taken off the rest of my clothes and stepped under the spray. I had washed off my shoulder until I was sure it was clean trying not to wince too much.
Now I was sitting on the shower floor sobbing my heart out. I just knew I wouldn't be able to make it through losing someone else. It was too much heartbreak for one person to deal with. How could I be strong when it hurt so bad?
I wasn't in there for long when Lucian pulled the shower door open without warning, it didn't even bother me that I was naked. Without a word he reached in, turned the shower off and held a towel open for me. I stood up and walked into it letting him wrap it around me.
"I can't do it." I cried. "I can't lose someone else I love."
"You're not losing me sweetheart, I'll come back for you, I promise."
"What if you can't, what if something bad happens?"
"Nothing can keep me away from you Tink." He whispered.
My tears were beginning to slow down as I nodded. Of course he would come back, nothing could kill him right? That meant that nothing could prevent him from getting back here as soon as he had spoken to his Dad. I was just being silly, it had been a long day and I hadn't had any sleep last night, if I just went to bed I would feel ok when I woke up, but if he was leaving tomorrow how could I spend my time sleeping?
"Come on." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and lead me into the bedroom. "I know you're stronger than this, you need to stop acting like a girl."
I snorted and sat on the bed. "I am a girl, in case you didn't notice."
His eyes travelled up and down my body in the towel as if he wanted to tear it off. "Trust me Mckenzie, I noticed, but you know what I mean."
I crossed my arms and glared at him. "Did you just check me out?"
He chuckled. "Definitely."
I raised my eyebrows wondering how I had missed that he had feelings for me if he had given me looks like that before. "And how often do you do that?"
"Every chance I get." He admitted with a smirk.
"Are you always that obvious about it? Because I feel completely stupid for not noticing if you were."
He rolled his eyes. "Give me some credit Blondie, no I wasn't always that obvious. At least not as obvious as you were when you checked me out in my boxers."
"I did not!" I protested, but my blush gave me away.
He chuckled. "Of course not."
He walked towards me and shivers ran through my body all the way down to my toes the closer he got, but all he did was lean down and touch my shoulder gently before saying. "It's not bleeding, it doesn't need covering."
I nodded absently not really taking much notice of what he was saying as my eyes examined him from head to toe.
"Mckenzie." He murmured, his voice husky. "You need to stop looking at me like that because you're making it really hard for me to resist you right now."
"Then don't." I mumbled.
He groaned. "You're vulnerable right now and I won’t take advantage of you."
"You won't be taking advantage." I insisted.
"You can be a very evil woman Mckenzie." He said shaking his head as if to clear his head before walking backwards pointing at me. "I'm taking a shower, you better be dressed when I get back."
I chuckled at his expression and he glared at me. "Get dressed Mckenzie!"
I didn't even try to stop myself from staring at his ass as he turned and walked into the bathroom. If he was going to insist on playing the gentleman then I had to get something. I couldn't help laughing when he slammed the bathroom door behind him.
Rather than mess with him by staying in my towel I walked over to the wardrobe and opened it. Of course none of my clothes were in it, I had almost forgotten that this was his room and not mine. Not having much choice unless I wanted to go walking down the hall in just a towel I grabbed one of his shirts and a pair of boxers before pulling them both on. I shivered with pleasure as I was surrounded by his scent. He always smelt so good, maybe it was just a demon thing because no one should smell like he still had after that fight. Sweat shouldn't make someone still smell good, but now I thought about it he had never even broken a sweat during the whole thing. In fact I had never once seen him sweat even on those long walks in Australia I had always wondered, did demons have never ending energy. He hadn't even sweated on that walk back when the heat had been scolding. I had questions about this whole demon thing he had going on.
Instead of waiting for him to come out I walked over to the bathroom door and knocked loudly until I heard him shout.
"What?"
"Do you sweat?" I shouted.
"What the hell sort of question is that?" He asked after turning off the shower.
"Well, I thought about it and I've never seen you sweat, is that a demon thing?"
"Really?" He yelled. "You want to have this conversation through the bathroom door?"
"No, hurry up!" I called before walking over to the bed and sitting down before falling back and staring up at the ceiling.
"Has anyone ever told you how frustrating you can be?" He asked after I heard the bathroom door open.
"Hmm, I'm pretty sure you have on a number of occasions actually." I said before looking in his direction to find him standing there in nothing, but a towel around his waist.
My mouth dropped open and I sat up quickly to take in every inch of his sexyness. Demon or not, he was one fine example of the male species and right now I wanted to rip that towel off and do any number of things to him.
"Oh, come on Mckenzie, you have less control than I do."
I glared at him then. "Oh my God, it's you being a demon! You're like some sort of sex demon that makes everyone want you."
He chuckled. "No, I'm not."
I crossed my arms. "Ok fine, it might be because you look like you do, but what about the sweating?"
He rolled his eyes. "Out of all the questions you could ask me, that's the one you're stuck on?"
I shrugged. "It was the one that came to me first."
"Ok, no I don't sweat, over exertion isn't a problem for me and temperatures don't affect me." He said as he walked over to his wardrobe and grabbed some clothes. "Do you believe that I'm a demon then?"
"I don't know." I admitted. "But I figured I'd get all the information. How do you think everyone would react if they knew that we were all in a hotel with two demons?"
"Truthfully?" He asked. "They would probably call me evil and blame me for the arrival of zombies. Demons have been driven out before after revealing themselves to the wrong people. I won't defend all of us because some do choose to be evil, but there are those of us who don't want to be."
I frowned. "How could they blame you for that?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Demon isn't exactly thought of as something good Blondie."
"This
feels like some kind of crazy dream." I mumbled laying back on the bed again.
"I'm afraid it's all real."
I grunted before glancing over at him again to see that in those few seconds he had shed his towel, pulled on some pyjama bottoms and was pulling a t-shirt over his head. Dammit, why had I had to look away and miss that?
He walked over to the bed and sat down next to me. I sat up again and turned around on the bed until I was facing him sitting Indian style.
"So what other powers do you have?" I asked. "Wait, was that fireball thing I saw real?"
He smirked. "Yup."
"How did Michael know what you were?"
"Zombies, can sense us. They are made from evil, just lesser demons than we are. The zombie masters are as close to being demons as they can get while still being zombies." He explained before yawning and moving until he was sat with his back against the headboard.
"Lucian?" I mumbled before crawling up to his knees and straddling his legs.
He moved his hands to my hips and rested them there as he looked at me questioningly. "What is it?"
"Did you really mean all of that stuff you said earlier?"
"What do you think?" He asked lifting one of his hands up to run his thumb along my scarred cheek.
I shrugged and murmured. "I don't know, I hope so."
He leaned down and rested his forehead against mine. "I meant every word."
I lifted my hands up and tangled my fingers in his soft, dark hair, still damp from his shower. He grabbed me by the hips and pulled me up his legs until our fronts were plastered against each other. His mouth went to my neck where he began kissing it gently sending shivers through me. A moan escaped my throat vibrating against his ear before his mouth moved across my jaw and devoured my lips with his. He had me cocooned in his muscled arms as our tongues explored each others mouths in a frenzied dance. I removed his t-shirt quickly as if I couldn’t bear for it to be there for another second and threw it across the room.
His hardness grew pressing between my legs through his pyjama bottoms and the boxers I was wearing making me gasp into his mouth. He groaned as I rocked against him and he grasped my thighs kissing me deeply. Heat pooled in my stomach and he started sliding a hand into the front of my boxers. His hand was warm against my skin as he slid his fingers past the waistband and down between my legs. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan was released from my lips.
Demon Hotel (Zombie Apocalypse Series, Book 1) Page 26