The vampire’s lip curled. “He also told me that you haven’t been feeding,” he growled between clenched teeth. He smiled. “You’re starved, which means you’re weak. I, on the other hand, have fed. Often. I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be,” Kallias warned.
“I was a soldier when I was human. I was one of the best,” the vampire bragged. “Why do you think Theron sought me out? I was bred for combat.”
“You were bred?” Rose repeated, laughing at the strange word choice. “What did they do? Throw your parents in a pen together and tell them to mate?”
A deep, guttural growl sounded from the vampire’s throat. Before she had time to react, he’d raced past Kallias and snatched her up by the wrist, his fingernails digging into her skin. His dark eyes narrowed. “How dare you…”
The vampire never finished his sentence. Instead, the last word trailed off into a scream as Kallias jerked the vampire’s hand off of her.
Or, at least, that’s what she thought happened…until she saw the blood.
Rose jumped backward in shock as she saw blood pouring from the vampire’s shoulder, pouring from where his arm had been a moment before.
“I did warn you,” Kallias told the vampire as he tossed the severed arm onto the pavement. Snarling in pain, the vampire made an attempt to attack Kallias, despite his injured state, but Kallias moved too swiftly, moving in a blur, until he stood directly behind the vampire. He shoved his dagger into the vampire’s back and said, as the vampire cried out in pain, “You’re right. I am weak and starved, but what you neglected to consider is the fact that I’m also twenty-five-hundred-years-old. You were born in 79 A.D., Marius. I was born nearly six hundred years before you. Even starved, I’m still stronger than you.”
Marius froze. Blood poured profusely from the hole where his arm had been and the new wound in his stomach, soaking his button-down shirt, turning the white fabric a blackish red color. “How do you know when I was born?”
“Another thing you didn’t consider,” Kallias said as he walked around the wounded vampire, until they stood face-to-face again.
Even as Marius staggered from the pain, barely able to stand, he still managed to make another attempt to grab Kallias, but Kallias caught his hand easily and shoved him back. Panting harshly, as if he could barely breathe through the pain, the vampire staggered toward Kallias again, half-crouched, as if he planned to pounce at him. But before Marius could reach him, Kallias managed to take control of the vampire’s mind. He commanded, “Don’t move.”
Marius froze, his eyes widening. “What’s happening? Why can’t I move?”
“Oh, come on,” Kallias laughed. “You’re not that stupid, are you?”
Marius paled in fear. “Theron would have told me if you were a telepath.”
“Unless Theron didn’t know,” Kallias said with a slight smile.
The sanctimonious arrogance that had been etched across the vampire’s face before faded, replaced by pure terror. “You have to let me go. Please.”
“What’s wrong?” Kallias sneered. “Don’t you like being helpless?”
Rose watched the scene before her in horror. “Kallias,” she said.
He turned toward her suddenly, his eyes softening with concern, as if he’d just remembered that she was there, watching, witnessing that side of him.
“Theron is on his way,” Marius warned them.
Kallias looked as if he wanted to say something to her, but as soon as Marius spoke, he turned back toward him. “Good. He can clean up the mess.”
Marius’s eyes widened, but before he could react, Kallias was suddenly behind him again. Holding Marius head with one hand, Kallias slid the dagger swiftly across the vampire’s throat, decapitating him. Rose turned away this time.
She looked up at him as she heard footsteps quickly approaching her.
He stopped in front of her. “I’m sorry. We don’t have time to waste.”
Rose frowned at him. “Sorry for what?”
“This,” Kallias said as he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder.
She didn’t have time to protest before the world tipped before her eyes. In less than a second, the world around her became a blur as her body seemed to lurch forward at a speed her mind couldn’t comprehend. Her head whirled, and her stomach twisted. Finally, the movement stopped, and he set her on her feet.
Rose’s palms found the brick wall behind her as she fell back against it, her vision still spinning. It reminded her of the way she’d felt as a child after getting off of a merry-go-round…if that merry-go-round had been moving at light-speed. She held herself up against the wall until her vision cleared, until then, finally, she could see Kallias standing in front of her, watching her worriedly.
“Did we just teleport?” Rose asked him breathlessly, placing her hand on her stomach. “Because that’s how I always assumed teleporting would feel.”
His lips twitched. “We ran,” he said. “Well, I ran. You…kind of…rode.”
She nodded. “Well, next time, could you maybe warn me before you toss me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes and move at freaking light-speed?!”
“I said sorry,” Kallias said defensively. He watched, his brows furrowed, as she inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to calm her racing pulse. “Are you okay?”
“Well, my stomach feels a bit inside-out at the moment, but I’m sure that will pass now that I’m standing still,” Rose muttered, “hopefully, before I puke.”
“I didn’t mean physically,” he said, his voice quiet.
She looked at him, caught off guard by the sadness she heard in his voice.
“I assume that you’re not used to seeing that kind of…violence,” he said.
Rose stared at him, her heart sinking as she saw a flicker of something in his eyes, something she’d seen before…guilt or self-loathing, she thought…or both, most likely. She wanted to soothe that pain in his eyes, for some reason.
“I cut open Sebastian,” she blurted suddenly. “It was sad.”
Kallias blinked in shock. “What?”
“We dissected frogs in my freshman Biology class. I named mine Sebastian,” she rambled, “after Johann Sebastian Bach. I had to cut him open.”
He stared blankly at her. “Sebastian was a frog?”
“Yes,” Rose confirmed.
He nodded, his lips twitching. “Of course he was.”
Kallias stepped away from her, his lips a thin, tight line, as if he were barely holding back laughter. She watched him with a puzzled frown as he glanced around the alley, obviously looking for something. Spotting a fire hydrant on the corner, he walked directly toward it and knelt in front of it. Then, he suddenly ripped a long strip of fabric from the bottom of his black T-shirt.
“What on earth are you doing?” Rose asked.
Kallias didn’t answer her. Instead, he hit the fire hydrant with the side of his hand. Rose blinked in surprise as the force of his hand chipped off one side of the fire hydrant, causing water to pour out of the small hole. He held the piece of fabric under the stream of water until the water soaked it thoroughly.
She glanced around nervously. “Are you trying to get us arrested?”
He returned to her. She straightened, frowning at him, as he stopped directly in front of her. He held her face, his fingers curling around her jaw. His touch heated her skin, and her chest tightened as she stared into his light brown eyes. He tilted her head back as he began to wipe the fabric across her face, the icy cold water on the fabric drastically different from his warm touch. Rose stood, frozen, trying to remember how to speak, as he washed the blood from her face.
Finally, he stepped back. “You had blood on your face,” he said quietly.
“The vampire’s blood? The vampire you…” she trailed off, swallowing.
“Killed?” he provided, a cold edge to his voice. “Yes. Obviously.”
She opened her mouth but then closed it again, not sure what to say
. She watched as Kallias threw the piece of fabric on the pavement and headed back over to the hydrant. Purposely avoiding her gaze, he shoved the sleeves of his leather jacket up to his elbows, revealing his bloodstained arms and hands. He knelt in front of the hydrant again and held his hands under the water. The water ran over his hands until the dark red bloodstains lightened, becoming pink and then, finally, disappearing. He cupped his hands together and then splashed it on his face. Rose watched his actions closely, noticing how routine his actions seemed. His hands didn’t shake. He didn’t pause to think about what he was doing. He simply washed the blood from his body, as if it were nothing but dirt.
“How many people have you killed?” she asked.
Kallias spit out a mouthful of water on the pavement before he answered her question. “They’re not people. They’re monsters,” he said, “like me.”
“How many vampires have you killed?” she amended.
He splashed his face again. “I don’t keep count.”
She watched the reddish pink stream of water flow along the pavement, not sure how to reconcile this part of him, the part of him that killed vampires in the most brutal way possible, the part of him that scared her, with the part of him that could be gentle and kind. “Right,” she said nervously. “Of course.”
Kallias stood and walked back over to her. Water dripped from his face and hair, his skin now clean of blood. She blinked in surprise as he took her arm and pulled her away from the wall. He shrugged off his jacket and walked around to stand behind her. She shivered as his chest brushed against her back.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He lifted her arm. “Theron could find us at any moment. Luckily for us, he assumed that I died when the sun rose, so he’s not in much of a hurry,” he explained as he slid the sleeve of the jacket over her arm, “because he doesn’t think he needs to be. But once he sees those bodies, he’ll know that I’m alive, and he’ll be right behind us. So, we need to get to my car as quickly as possible, which means crossing a large highway. And your clothes are torn and covered in blood.”
Rose knew she should pull away from him and just finish putting on the jacket herself, but something about the way his fingers felt sliding along her arms and shoulders kept her frozen in place. “So are yours,” she managed to say.
As he pulled the other sleeve over her other arm, his breath fell against her ear. “Yes, but I’m also six and a half feet tall,” he chuckled, “and a man. No one is going to assume that you have hurt or kidnapped me. You, on the other hand…”
She scowled. “That’s sexist.”
“But also true,” he said as he walked around her.
She stared up at him, her breathing shallow and fast, as he pulled the leather jacket closed around her and zipped it all the way up to her neck.
His eyes watched her lips, the same, soft, pink, parted lips that he’d felt against his just an hour or so before. He cleared his throat and stepped back, offering her a playful smirk. “If you’re going to keep getting blood all over you, you should invest in some black clothing,” he teased. “It’d be less noticeable.”
She glanced at his all-black outfit and laughed, “I’ll think about it.”
Rose followed Kallias as he led the way out of the alley and onto the sidewalk that ran alongside the highway. The jacket hung halfway down her thighs, covering her torn, bloodied T-shirt and her torn jeans. Even so, she felt as if someone might see through the jacket somehow. She worried that someone would know. She glanced around at the people walking down the sidewalk.
“None of them are paying attention,” Kallias said, “and you look fine.”
Rose looked up at him in surprise. “Were you reading my mind?”
“Yes,” he said. He pointed across the street, where she could see the hotel parking lot, well-lit beneath the streetlights. “My car is parked over there.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little invasive?” she asked.
His brows furrowed. “Parking a car in a parking lot?”
“No, idiot,” Rose muttered, rolling her eyes. “Reading people’s minds.”
“No,” he answered. His eyes darted around the street, looking for any sign of vampires. He grabbed her arm and began to pull her along behind him as he rounded a bus stop, approaching the crosswalk. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Rose snapped, scowling at his hand.
Kallias froze and followed her gaze down to his hand currently wrapped around her upper arm. “I need you close to me,” he explained, frowning at her, “in case someone attacks you. I need to maintain physical contact with you.”
She scowled at him. “And you figure the best way to do that is to grab my arm and drag me along behind you like a puppy on a leash?”
He took his hand off of her arm. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Uh, yeah,” Rose shot back in her most smart-aleck tone. She grabbed his hand and peeled it open, ignoring the bemused look he gave her. She placed her small hand in his larger hand and curled her fingers around his. “If you don’t want it to look like you’re kidnapping me or something, you probably shouldn’t drag me by the arm. Holding hands, on the other hand, looks a little more natural. There’s a lot of couples on this street. We’ll just look like one of them.”
He stared at their joined hands apprehensively. “But we’re not a couple.”
“I know that,” she muttered, “but they don’t have to.”
“Fine,” Kallias sighed. He reluctantly intertwined his fingers with hers.
Rose stared at him curiously, her bright blue eyes sparkling with amusement as she noticed how nervous he seemed. “So, let me get this straight. Kissing means nothing, but holding hands… That makes you uncomfortable?”
His jaw tightened. “It’s just been a while.”
As they briskly crossed the highway, Rose found herself watching the people walking along the sidewalks, going in and out of stores and restaurants. The sounds of laughing and conversation and cars passing blended into a loud chorus of noise as they walked. It felt strange to Rose to see people enjoying their night, as if everything were normal, after everything that had happened.
“Ignorance is bliss,” Kallias commented as they walked.
She blinked and turned to look at him. “You’re reading my mind again.”
“Yes,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
She sighed, “I don’t envy them, actually. Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s the illusion of bliss. I would rather know the truth, even if it makes me miserable, than spend my life believing a lie. At least then, I know what I feel is real.”
“A nice sentiment,” he said, “until the truth stabs you in the back.”
Rose sighed at his cynicism. She frowned at she noticed a woman standing at her car, staring at them. Her boyfriend or husband stood beside her, talking, but the woman seemed to be in a trance, her brown eyes focused intensely on Kallias. Rose grunted as her tennis shoe hit the curb, nearly causing her to trip.
Kallias’s hand tightened around hers. “Watch where you’re going.”
“I was looking at that woman,” she said defensively.
He followed her gaze. “Honestly, babe, I don’t think she’s your type.”
She rolled her eyes. “She’s staring at you.”
“Of course she is,” Kallias said. “Humans do that.”
Rose glanced up at him, confused by his answer. “What?”
“The better question is,” he said, frowning suspiciously, “why is that man by the gray car staring at us? Either he is gay, in which case he would only be staring at me and not you, or he has a more worrisome reason for watching us.”
She followed his gaze to a figure leaning against a car at the far end of the parking lot. He was too far away for Rose to even make out his appearance, much less the fact that he was watching them, but she supposed vampire vision was much better than hers. “Can’t you just rea
d his mind to find out why?”
“He is too far away,” he said. “I can’t connect with his mind from here.”
“It sounds like you’re talking about Wi-Fi signal,” she muttered.
She heard him chuckle quietly. The sounds of traffic grew louder as they crossed the parking lot, toward the outer edge that was closest to the Interstate. A steep, grassy, downward slope separated the parking lot from the busy Interstate. The cars raced by below them, and the lights from the highway and Interstate illuminated the parking lot. As they neared the man that watched them, Rose stared back at him, finally able to make out his features. She wondered if Kallias’s suspicion had been misplaced. The man didn’t look like much of a threat to her. His blue and beige flannel shirt hung loosely over his scrawny body, and his wavy, brown hair hung over his wide, worried, hazel eyes. Those hazel eyes did seem to watch them awfully closely, but he looked afraid, not threatening.
Kallias pulled on her hand, drawing her closer to him, as they cut through a line of closely parked cars. Rose swallowed uneasily as his body brushed against hers, instantly affected by his closeness. She glanced down at their joined hands, trying not to notice how nice his hand felt, wrapped around hers.
“Your hand is sweating,” Kallias said, his mouth near her ear.
She blushed. “It’s a normal physiological response to anxiety.”
His lips brushed against her ear. “And why are you nervous?”
She could practically hear the smirk in his voice. She glared at him. “Well, in case you’ve forgotten,” she hissed, “I’m being hunted down by vampires.”
He smirked, just as she predicted. “It has nothing to do with me, then?”
“Of course not,” she lied, her cheeks reddening even more.
“If you say so,” he chuckled. His hold tightened around her hand suddenly, pulling her to a stop. He tilted his head toward the car beside them, a large, black sedan with a shiny, silver Lexus symbol on the front. “This is it.”
Rose scowled at the car that was obviously brand new. “This is your car?”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 31