“Right now you do not need to know the specifics of our location for your own protection, at least until we get you to the hospital. Are you all right with getting another blood transfusion?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“I could Control you to not be able to feel him, but I want the connection gone. Just the thought of him having a blood connection with you makes me sick,” he said angrily.
Loud noises began to echo throughout the house, making me jump and putting my heart once again into overdrive.
Gabriel kissed my cheek. “It’s all right. It is a surprise for you. Your guests have arrived.”
“Guests?” I asked doubtfully. But then I saw the twinkle in his scintillating eyes, and I understood immediately.
I threw my arms around his neck, pain twisting my shoulder. “Thank you, Gabriel!”
“They’ve been with a sitter again, so they will be overjoyed to see you. I paid the woman to bring them out here. A few of the coven members were watching your house and made sure she wasn’t followed. Just to be safe, Thomas picked your pets up about ten miles away from here, so the members will not know our exact location, either,” Gabriel explained.
The bedroom door opened. “Heads up,” Thomas said.
My dogs bounded into the room. Tassy, Clover, and Everest jumped up onto the bed and covered me in dog kisses. I laughed joyously, and I was trying my best to hold all three of them when Inola came inside the room.
“Where do I put the snake?”
“Nelly can come in here,” I said, smiling.
She looked relieved. “Good. I’ve never liked snakes. I was bitten by one when I was little, and I have not been able to shake my uneasiness around them since.”
Thomas looked down at his feet. Millie and Denny were rubbing their heads against his shoes.
“Yeah, well, I don’t like cats,” Thomas muttered.
Inola giggled. “They sure love you. It’s probably because you usually smell like food.” She looked to Gabriel and me. “I am going into town to pick up some more pet supplies and groceries. Need anything?”
“No, thank you,” I replied.
“Some more blood bags, if you don’t mind going by the blood bank,” Gabriel said casually. “Kara is going to need a complete blood transfusion, but we will go tomorrow. I would like to give her a day to enjoy her pets, but I need the blood now.”
Thomas looked confused and opened his mouth to speak, but Inola elbowed him in the ribs.
“I don’t mind at all,” Inola said.
“Thanks.”
“Why does she need a transfusion?” Thomas asked anyway.
“I’ll tell you two later, Thomas,” Gabriel said in a way that ended the discussion immediately.
The pet sitter had actually brought my fish as well, and it was a good thing Gabriel had a fish tank in the living room. After I fed all of my babies, I sat down on the floor with Panini and Dandelion in my lap.
Gabriel watched me cuddle with them, a soft fondness in his eyes.
“Not tired anymore?” he asked me.
I nuzzled Panini. “Not really. My animals have always been revitalizing to me.”
He chuckled. “I am glad. It’s nice to see you this way.”
I pulled a wad of Everest’s hair off of my shirt. “What way? Looking like I just spent the night in a kennel?”
“Seeing you happy.”
His words made glowing warmth spread throughout my body, but all too soon, the warmth faded.
“I wonder if Candice thinks I took off again. I wonder if she’s worried,” I said.
“I can always have someone from Violet Memory stop by her shop and Control her to not be concerned,” Gabriel said.
I shook my head. “That’s all right. She already thinks I took off once, so she probably isn’t surprised I’m gone again. I wonder if Lila or Miles . . .”
I stopped myself. They were from a part of my life I could never return to. For their own safety, I had to accept that.
I kissed Dandelion’s nose to hide my face from Gabriel, but I still felt his gaze on me. I knew he was worried, but I also knew he was watching for when I could feel him again. Gabriel could read me well enough to know; he had known when I’d stared at the painting of Lucy.
I knew he also couldn’t stand the idea of me having such an intimate connection with his worst enemy, and I was surprised he was letting me have this day with my animals instead of severing the connection as quickly as possible. But I knew Gabriel was worried about upsetting me; he had said I’d felt unstable and broken on the inside. Maybe my animals would lift my spirits enough to heal a small part of me.
The rest of the day went well. My animals helped my mood tremendously, but when evening came, I walked out of the bathroom to find Gabriel gone from the bedroom.
Unreasonably, I started to panic. I knew he hadn’t left, but it was almost as if Gabriel was the only thing connecting me to sanity, and I needed him more than I ever had before.
I ran out of the bedroom, shoving past Inola in the hallway. Thomas grabbed my waist before I could fully enter the kitchen, but it was too late.
It was then I found out that it wasn’t just my blood that bothered me, but blood in general.
Gabriel was in front of the refrigerator drinking from a blood bag. The sight of the liquid staining his lips made me start shaking, and I dry heaved a little.
Gabriel looked up in surprise as Thomas whirled me away.
“He didn’t want you to see that,” Thomas said as he sat me down on the couch in the living room.
I was frozen. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything. All I could see was blood running down wooden walls. Silver eyes gleamed at me in the dark.
Thomas held my wrists in his hands. “You came running out of that room like it was on fire. Gabriel would never leave you, Red. You know that, don’t you?”
His words didn’t fully register in my mind. The pressure around my wrists, just like iron manacles, stole the majority of my focus. I shook so hard the walls quivered.
“Red? Hey, snap out of it. No one here is going to hurt you.”
Cold air whipped around me, and the scent of pine needles drifted into my nostrils. I was too dizzy and sick to truly see my surroundings, but soon I felt familiar silk sheets beneath me once again.
“Kara, look at me. I thought I had time to do that while you got ready for bed. It’s over, and I am here now.”
I was trying to reach him. I was there with him, but only halfway. My eyes burned.
“She needs to let it out. It needs to run its course. It will not heal her completely, but it will help.”
“Inola—”
“Trust me. I have been where she is, after I lost my first husband and son.”
“How can I help her?”
“Just keep doing what you are doing, but don’t encourage her to hold it in.”
I thought a door clicked shut.
Gabriel was stroking my face, my arms, my sides. I was aware enough to see how worried he looked. My heart broke for him, but the waves of panic and fear far outweighed my concern for him.
“You know, since I got you back, you have not shed a single tear. You used to cry so much, and I know you hated it, and I know you thought you were weak because of it, but you were so sad, scared, and angry. It was a completely appropriate response. Maybe if you cry, you will feel better. Let out some of the poison inside of you, heart.”
He was right. For once, I wanted to cry. I truly did, but my body wouldn’t let me.
Gabriel studied my lack of response. The shaking stopped, and I just stayed there, barely blinking.
Blood still ran down the walls. Searing pain gripped my body, my muscles locking up from lack of water. My fingertips started to go numb.
Gabriel was there, and then he wasn’t. My hair flitted across my face, the only proof I had that he had been with me at all. His absence was like icy water, shocking my senses into full awareness.
It fe
lt as if the manacles were still chaining me to the ground, but finally, I was able to sit up and get off the bed. My dogs paced the room, whining worriedly.
“Gabriel?” I said hesitantly.
Why would he leave me? Where did he go?
I left the bedroom and searched the house, pretending the blood on the walls didn’t exist.
No one was there. Not even Inola and Thomas.
My throat was constricting, and breathing became difficult. Rational thought left me. The deep-rooted instinct inside of me that told me Gabriel was still there became buried.
I went to the front door and tried to open it, but it was locked from the outside. So was the back door. I pulled aside the front drapes to look for a car, but it was too black out to see. I turned the porch lights on, but the light was weak, giving no evidence of a vehicle.
The red on the walls shifted into something far worse. Pure darkness. The silver-eyed monster had left me without a trace of light, trapped like an animal.
And now Gabriel had left me in the same way.
“Gabriel!” I screamed.
No answer.
“Please, Gabriel. I can’t see. . . .”
Silence.
Blindly, I felt my way toward the kitchen. It took a few minutes, but my fingers finally touched the phone hanging on the kitchen wall. I knew Gabriel’s phone number by heart; I had spent a lot of time staring at his contact information during our three months apart.
It took several tries. My fingers were shaking bad enough that I dropped the phone twice. I dialed wrong six times because I couldn’t see the buttons.
The phone went straight to voicemail. And it was hearing his voice, but him not being there, that finally allowed my burning eyes to shed tears. I dropped to my knees and sobbed.
Immediately, he was there. My sight returned as soon as his arms went around me.
“I didn’t want to leave you. I am so sorry. Thomas said it was the only way to get you to let it out,” Gabriel said, his voice raw with agony.
He didn’t try to stop me when I weakly pushed him away. I brought my hand up and slapped him as hard as I could across his cheek.
The action didn’t seem to faze him; he only caressed my face and pulled me onto his lap.
I cried in Gabriel’s arms for two hours straight. I wasn’t strong enough like I had thought, but Gabriel shared with me his unending strength.
When I was done crying, I knew I wanted nothing more than to be connected to Gabriel once again after I got my blood transfusion.
***
My dream was not my own that night.
I knew what it felt like to be inside someone else’s dream. But of course, this dream was not Gabriel’s.
It was Elias’s.
The dream wavered around the edges and flickered precariously, warning me that the blood connection with Elias was thin and already close to fading completely.
It was nighttime, the moon full and glowing in the sky. I was terrified of Elias when I saw him, and I hid from him as he walked down a street. There were houses around, but they were so far apart it was likely the owners never even made friends with their neighbors.
I watched Elias as he looked around, something on his face I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Finally, I realized it was the face of a lion stalking its prey.
He was hunting.
His head tilted to the side, hearing something I could not. He went toward one of the houses, slinking into the backyard. I ran after him, confident now I couldn’t be seen.
“Please . . . help me,” a weak voice said.
Shock tore through me. A girl no more than eight years old was sprawled on the grass under a large tree. Her left leg stuck out at an odd angle. Drying blood covered one side of her face and neck where the skin had been scraped raw, and she was holding her torso as if she couldn’t breathe.
But her injuries were not what surprised me.
The girl looked very similar to a young Lucy. She was not identical, but she could have easily been mistaken for a sister of Lucy and Gabriel. Her hair was an inky black, tangled and matted with clumps of dirt. Her eyes were green, much darker than Lucy and Gabriel’s, and they were flecked with golden specks. Her nose was exactly the same as Lucy’s, but her mouth was smaller, and her cheekbones were a little higher.
Elias did not move. He stared down at her in almost horror.
The girl did not seem to be frightened of the pale stranger whose eyes shone like the light of the moon.
“Help me. Please h-help me.”
Elias still did not move, but he finally spoke. “What happened to you? Where are your parents?”
The little girl looked up at the tree. “My dad had to go out of town today. I told him I was big enough to stay by myself. I was flying a kite, and it got stuck in the tree. I c-climbed the tree, but I fell.”
Elias looked to the pink kite in the tree. It was way too high up for a child to climb and retrieve.
He crouched down to her. “How long have you been out here?”
“S-Since afternoon. I’ve been trying to scream for help. . . .” She winced in pain, tears streaking her cheeks. “But it’s h-hard to breathe.”
Elias knelt down next to the girl, his movements slow. Gentle. He touched her side carefully, and she hissed.
“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It looks like you have a few broken ribs. Your leg is also broken.”
I couldn’t move. What was he doing? Would he seriously kill this helpless child? Was he that far gone?
“What is your name?” he asked her.
“Olivia.”
“Ok, Olivia. I need you to stay calm.”
Olivia’s face became trance-like. He was Controlling her.
“I’m calm,” she replied.
Elias brought his wrist to his mouth, bit with his fangs, and held the dripping arm out to her.
“Don’t be scared, all right? Go ahead and drink this.”
She had no choice, and she placed her mouth over the bite. It wasn’t long before her leg popped back into place. Her hand left her side as her ribs obviously healed, and the wounds on her face and neck faded. Only dried blood remained on her skin.
Elias pulled away from her and jumped up, scaling the tree’s branches as Olivia watched in fascination. He grabbed the kite and jumped back down, his movements silent.
He held the kite out to her. “Here you go.”
She stood up. “Wow, thank you! Are you my guardian angel?”
Elias actually laughed good-naturedly. It sounded so strange to me.
“Quite the opposite, really.”
Olivia smiled. “You are! You are my guardian angel! You saved me.”
He crouched down to her level. “Listen to me, Olivia. You need to go back inside. Do not come out until your father gets home, and don’t do anything else dangerous. Make sure you drink some water, too. Do you have food in there that needs cooking?”
She shook her head. “No. There are sandwiches and fruit.”
“All right, then. Inside you go.”
She ran to the house, the biggest grin on her face. When she got to the back door, she turned around.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” she said.
But Elias was gone.
Olivia clutched the kite. “I have a guardian angel! I have a guardian angel!”
She went inside the house, singing about her angel.
I could scarcely breathe. This was not a just a dream.
This was a memory.
Elias had saved Olivia, and he hadn’t Controlled her to forget about him. Had he checked on her since it’d happened?
I looked to the fading moon as the dream dissolved around me. I only knew one thing for sure. It was something I didn’t want to accept, but it was most likely my only chance for survival.
Elias could still be saved, and Olivia was the key.
Chapter 5 An Offer Refused
My eyes opened. I was in Gabriel’s bed, wrapped in his arms. His eye
s were closed, his black hair nearly covering them. His breathing was deep and even.
My heart hurt for him as I realized this was most likely the first time he had slept, truly slept, since I’d come into his life. Or rather, since he had forced himself into mine. He’d used the conscious sleep when we had stayed at the coven house, so he had still been aware of his surroundings; I knew it hadn’t been very restful to him.
The memory of his eyes snapping open when I’d held the stake over his heart flashed inside my mind, and I could still feel myself stabbing Gabriel while under Emma’s Control.
I shuddered. Just the thought of holding a stake anywhere even remotely near Gabriel made me sick.
I snuggled against him closer and fought the urge to stretch, not wanting to disturb him. He needed his rest. He needed a clear head so he could fully understand what I was going to tell him.
He wasn’t going to like it. I didn’t like it, but I knew how limited our choices were. I was going to have to get Thomas and Inola on my side. I would need their help in making Gabriel see the wisdom of my plan.
One of the biggest downfalls was that I couldn’t do the blood transfusion yet. I needed the blood connection with Elias so I could keep gauging his intentions, so that meant I couldn’t allow myself to be connected to Gabriel.
Elias trying to form a blood connection between us was an even bigger sign than the dream. Deep down, he was desperate. He had to be if he actually wanted my help.
I pushed away the remnants of the dream and smiled softly. I felt so much better today. Letting out some of the jagged pain inside of me had truly helped. Gabriel’s method had sucked, but that was one of the things I reluctantly admired about him. Gabriel wasn’t afraid to paint himself in a bad light or even push me toward the edge of hating him again when it came to doing what he believed was necessary for me.
I rested contently in Gabriel’s arms for three more hours. Finally, his eyelids fluttered, and vampire eyes blinked at me rapidly.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” I teased.
“What time is it?” Gabriel mumbled thickly.
I looked at the blue numbers on the alarm clock behind his head. “Eleven in the morning. You do realize the sun is probably out? Our schedule is backwards.”
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