by Lizzy Ford
Jonny shook his head and went to the second. He felt her eyes on him. There was a time when he hadn’t wanted to kill and another when he’d killed – and felt guilty.
Both those times had passed. He didn’t feel remorse when it came to death, not anymore and no matter how hard she was glaring at him.
Finishing off the last of the vamps, Jonny rose and snatched Ashley’s arm.
She yanked away, but he grabbed her again, this time allowing his magic to leak into her. She was too fast to stop, but he could slow her down, and he did just that, forcing her muscles to relax the way he often did the women he drained for dinner so they wouldn’t fight back either.
He Traveled with her out of the restaurant and to the beach nearby.
She wrenched free the moment their shoes touched the sand. “Get the hell away from me!” she hissed.
Jonny was about to read her the riot act for taking on vamps when she whirled and glared up at him.
He’d always loved her blue-gray eyes that bordered on silver at night. Her cheeks were flushed, her willowy form balanced and crouched as if she were considering attacking a god. Until this moment, he had remembered her only as the delicate, almost too thin seventeen-year-old who tried to kill herself.
She’d grown into a woman in the past four years. Her body was shapely, her hips flared and breasts large enough to fill his hand. Training to fight rendered her toned, and she’d lost what remained of the baby fat in her face to reveal high cheekbones with natural hollows beneath them and a softly shaped chin.
Ashley was stunning in a way few women were, from the contrast of her dark hair and pale complexion to the shapely musculature of her thighs and calves outlined by her snug leggings.
What shocked him more? The unfamiliar fire in her eyes or the fact she wasn’t the vulnerable girl he left?
“You have a lot of nerve!” She spoke before he could recover from his surprise.
“For rescuing you?” he retorted.
“For getting near me!”
“Because you’ll run and hide behind Xander.”
“I won’t run and hide,” she snapped. “I’ve been waiting for this day for years.” She stepped back and shifted the knife he had given her from her left to her right hand.
He studied her, realization dawning. “You’re going to fight me?”
She nodded.
“I thought you were crazy taking on vamps but this is insanity,” he said, unable to help his amusement. “You can’t kill me, Ash.”
“You destroyed my life and almost killed my cousin. I want to repay you for that.”
He crossed his arms, not expecting Ashley to be furious at him four years later. “I’m not a normal vamp. I won’t play fair, either.”
“Figures.”
“All right then. Come on.” He dropped his arms. “I’ll let you hit me once before I show you why no one messes with a god.”
She eyed him.
He beckoned her towards him.
She struck in a blur of movement he couldn’t track, even with his godly senses. But then something happened. She froze in place for a split second, and he snatched her. Jonny whirled her and wrapped one arm around her, hauling her against him while his other hand went to her neck. She was animated once more, jerking and ...
… convulsing. Her breathing was ragged and uneven, her movement out of control.
Jonny reacted instinctively. He gripped her jaw and forced it to the right, exposing her neck, and sank his fangs into her. Her emotions flooded him, as he expected them to whenever he bit someone. He had learned to ignore the intimate assault in an effort to stem his hunger. Normally, he used the physical invasion of his teeth puncturing his victim to ease the suffering of the life he was about to take. This time, he used his level of access to assess what was wrong with Ashley.
Epilepsy. Her body whispered the secret to him among her tumultuous emotions.
From the untainted honey flavor of her human blood, she wasn’t on meds to stop the seizures from happening. He used his power to relax her muscles and soothed the short out in her nervous system. Her body was telling him more, and he listened, interested. He had never fed from a Natural before. The sensations running through him were different, stronger, his connection to her more intense than any he’d experienced. Vaguely, he recalled hearing Xander say Jessi’s grandfather, and therefore Ashley’s, had been a Watcher. Was this why her flavor was more intoxicating than anything he’d ever tasted?
He saw her Natural skill – fighting – and also the reason she was able to continue training hard as a warrior when she was epileptic. Her body regenerated quickly and repaired any damage the seizures caused within a day or two. She healed with speed second only to his. His healing was instant, but her skill was closer to his ability than that of a human.
Beneath his magic, the uncontrolled seizing of her womanly frame turned into trembling. She was scared both of him and the loss of control of her body. This much he was able to feel, along with the other hot emotions flowing through her. Fury. Frustration.
Jonny drank enough from her to sate his curiosity and hunger for the woman he hadn’t seen in four years then pulled his fangs free and held her securely, one hand remaining on her neck in case she tried anything stupid. She was limp in his arms, and it didn’t take him piercing her neck to know she was panicking.
“Just breathe,” he said quietly. The cool ocean breeze swept by both of them. His sense were alert, his ability to spot potential danger before it reached them in full effect. He listened to Ashley’s breathing stabilize and sensed her testing her balance.
“What did you … do?” she whispered finally. “I’ll kill myself before becoming a vamp!”
“I didn’t vamp you,” he replied. “I stopped the seizure.”
“How?”
“Manipulating someone’s body is one of my talents. Keeps my meals from fighting back.”
Her breath hitched. Ashley tried to pull away. Still weak from her seizure, she was easy to subdue, and Jonny nuzzled her neck once more.
“Don’t!” she gasped and gripped his arm with both hands.
“You gonna stop fucking with my vamps?” he replied.
Ashley said nothing.
“I take it that’s a no,” he said, not surprised. “I’m going to start considering every confrontation you have with them a personal invitation to pay you a visit.”
“Xander –”
“Xander doesn’t know what you’re doing. If you want to tell him, I’m happy to tell him who rescued you tonight.” Jonny kept his tone even, his voice calm and firm. He wasn’t about to let her know just how much he didn’t want to have that conversation with Xander.
“Let me go,” she said quietly.
“Do you understand me, Ashley?”
She squirmed.
“Wrong answer.” Jonny bit her again, this time harder, letting her feel what it was like to have three inch incisors slicing into her neck.
Ashley gasped and clawed at his arm. He dwelt on her flavor. As usual, he mentally deciphered the complex taste unique to each person he’d drunk from. Ashley was sweet, heady, a mouth full of nectar mixed with the saucy tang of an unknown spice. It was addicting and ensnared every one of his senses. She was complicated and delicious bouquet, a combination arousing more than his hunger, especially when coupled with her shapely body squirming against his.
He drank long enough to prove his point she wasn’t going to escape if he didn’t want her to then lifted his head. His tongue flickered over the puncture wounds to heal them.
“Do you understand?” he whispered again.
“Yes,” she managed.
Jonny released her. Ashley hurried away and faced him, paler than usual after her seizure. She didn’t try to retrieve the knife she’d dropped when her episode hit and instead, glared up at him. He met her gaze, uncertain why the ocean breeze felt so much colder when her warmth was gone from him.
“You killed your vamps to save me.
Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“They weren’t mine,” he replied.
She lifted an eyebrow.
“I have a mild problem with mutiny right now,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing I can’t handle.” For the most part.
She frowned. “You’ve changed, Jonny.”
“So have you. I never knew you had epilepsy or an interest in fighting.”
“You never cared to learn anything about me at all,” she replied. “I was a means to an end to you.”
“Yeah. You were,” he said. Whether or not it was true no longer mattered. Ashley needed to be scared straight. There couldn’t be anything left over from their short relationship four years ago. He wasn’t about to draw the ire of Xander or the White God for messing with her, and he couldn’t afford to open the door he’d closed on his hope not to be alone the rest of his life. His duty to the vamps was more important than his personal feelings.
Emotion flickered in her gaze. Hurt? Anger? He hadn’t thought it possible she’d still be feeling the pain of how he’d left her. Neither was he completely surprised. He still thought of her, too, even when he knew it wasn’t right.
He had let her go years before because their paths were too different. If she were hanging onto something from the past, he needed to cut that string now before she got herself in worse trouble.
“Means to an end,” he repeated.
But he knew it wasn’t true. He had no place in his life for anyone or anything from his past.
Chapter Six
Ashley struggled with her indecipherable emotions. She had always imagined what she’d say or feel when she saw him again, and it was nothing like what she went through now. She touched the spot on her neck where he’d bitten her, unwilling to look away from the man she’d envisioned killing when they met again.
Jonny was very different from the uncertain, emotional boy she’d dated four years before. He was quietly confident, and the oldness in his eyes led her to believe he’d been serious about killing people for blood. He had been a knobby, lean twenty year old when they last met and had filled out since then. His caramel skin and shaggy dark hair gave him the dark-and-brooding look but the assurance in his tone and steady gaze dispelled any hope she’d had some part of the boy she once cared about remained.
He had stopped her seizures and killed vamps to rescue her, ensuring those she fought never got up again. Why did this surprise her? Why did she wish he’d never done those things, never brought her to the beach and held her? Never crossed her path despite her plan for revenge?
He was everything she’d hoped he would be – everything she wanted to hate – and yet she was devastated by it. His claim never to have cared warning infuriated her, made her want to spend the next week tracking every vamp in San Diego.
Except her body was always weak after one of her epileptic attacks. She was drained, unsettled, and in desperate need of rest where she was normally strong enough to take on even a god.
Jonny was watching her, and she couldn’t help imagining he wanted to make her his dinner.
“Where are we?” she asked to break the thick tension between them.
“Monterey.” Even his voice had changed. It was soft and low, befitting the night. “You need to go home.”
“I can’t Travel anymore,” she shot back. “It triggers my seizures.”
“You had epilepsy when we met?”
She didn’t want to reveal something so personal. “No,” she said shortly. “When my Natural skill took hold there were complications.” It had taken Xander and a team of Guardians to get her through the first year. The trauma of her experience with Jonny and the Original Other had triggered her and Brandon’s gifts years before they were supposed to emerge. Brandon’s mind talent revealed itself easily, but hers had nearly killed her.
And Jonny didn’t deserve to know anything about it.
Jonny’s cool, level gaze was on her. “I can take us to San Diego.” He held out his hand.
Her jaw went slack. “How do you know where I live?”
“I visit Xander on occasion.”
Duh. Xander had told her as much. Relieved Jonny didn’t know exactly where she lived, she shook her head. “I can make it home myself.”
“You don’t have a phone or a ride.”
“I’d rather hitchhike than go with you.” Ashley spun away. She wasn’t going to get her revenge this night, not when she needed to recover from her seizure. Angry with herself, she was nonetheless relieved to be walking away from the Black God with little more than scars from his bite and the fire burning in her blood from a source other than anger. She had thought anything but anger purged from her system. How did she see Jonny for the first time in four years and feel her knees go weak?
“I’ll let Brandon know where you are.”
She froze, hating to hear her brother’s name on Jonny’s tongue. “How do you know how to contact him?” She faced him once more. As far as she knew, Brandon’s Natural gift kept him masked from everyone, even Xander.
“When you went missing, he called me.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“I paid him a visit earlier. He assumed I had you,” Jonny explained.
“Paid him a visit? If you hurt him …”
“I didn’t. Just a friendly warning.”
She touched her neck self-consciously.
“Not the same kind. I went back to claim the phone you’d stolen,” Jonny said, amused. “I’d be interested in knowing how he got my number.”
“He’s a hacker. He can do shit like that.”
“Hmm. Useful gift.”
“Don’t you dare!” she approached him, stopping toe-to-toe to glare up at the Black God. “You don’t go near him, Jonny. I’m the one messing with your vamps.”
“Then I suggest you keep in mind I know where you both live,” Jonny replied softly.
“Nothing on this planet will stop me from finding you if you laid a hand on him! Even you can’t match me fighting.”
“No, but I’ll catch you when you have another seizure.”
Her face flamed hot. “I don’t have them often.”
“Weekly, according to your body.”
She stepped back. She knew from her cousin Jessi a vamp as powerful as Jonny or Xander was able to access someone’s mind and body when biting. That she and Jonny had such an intimate exchange when she wanted him dead sent her emotions tumbling again.
“Why aren’t you on meds?” he prodded.
“None of your damn business.”
“You’re right. It’s not. But if you’re serious about taking me on, you better be able to stay on your feet next time.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“Ditto, Ash.”
Had she ever hated him more than she did now? “Good luck with your mutiny.” This time when she walked away, she didn’t stop. She strode to the edge of where the parking lot started before sneaking a look over her shoulder.
Jonny was gone.
She paused and released the breath she was holding. Ashley leaned against the railing separating the sidewalk from the parking area, barely able to stay on her feet despite her anger. She was shaking. She still didn’t understand how he’d stopped her attack before the worst part came, and she feared he’d only ensured her next one was that much worse.
But why had he bothered either way? Why not just leave her writhing and seizing on the beach? Was his fear of Xander that great?
She drew a breath. No part of her trusted Jonny’s claim that he’d call Brandon. It was a long way to San Diego, chilly, and she was alone. She gazed around. What she wanted was a nap, sweatshirt and some decent food.
The sirens of multiple police cars and an ambulance approaching the wharf drew her attention back to the vamp issue she’d just escaped. How on earth did anyone explain to normal humans what those red-eyed creatures were? She wasn’t about to stick around to find out.
Ashley stood, mesmerized by the lights of
the police cars, uncertain what exactly to do next. Her grip on the railing felt like all that was keeping her on her feet, and the ocean chill was beginning to sink into her skin.
“You sure you don’t want a ride?” Jonny’s voice came from behind her.
She tensed and pushed away from the metal railing, not about to appear weak in front of him. No part of her wanted another favor from him. Yet no part of her looked forward to trying to find her way home without her family flipping out about her absence either.
“Fine,” she replied. “In exchange for me not telling Xander your people kidnapped me in the first place.”
“I told you. They aren’t mine.”
“They’re vamps. Of course they’re yours,” she said and turned, meeting his dark gaze again. “You’re the Black God. They answer to you.”
“Things are never that easy, are they?” he challenged.
“No,” she replied, considering all that had come between them four years before. “They aren’t. Especially when it involves the supernatural.”
“Or people meddling where they shouldn’t.”
“Or betraying someone who trusts you.”
He studied her. “Four years is along time to hold a grudge.”
“Betrayal’s a bitch. There’s no time limit on grudges, Jonny. In a million years, I’ll still hate you for what you did.”
He seemed to want to say something but changed his mind. “We’ll see. At least hate me from your own apartment instead of out here on a beach.”
This time when he held out his hand, she grudgingly accepted it.
A tiny thrill jolted her, racing through her, as their skin met. She didn’t want to be reminded of how they’d once held hands years ago, when they were different people, or how Jonny had changed from an unsure boy into a self-assured man. His large hand was like his body: warm and strong.
He seemed lost in the moment as well, his face an inscrutable mask and his emotions shuttered behind dark eyes.
“Well,” she said, a little breathlessly under his intent look. “Take us back.”
He shifted feet and lifted his gaze, as if catching himself staring at her.