by J. N. Colon
My brow lifted in suspicion. “Not really…” Why did I suddenly sense a hidden agenda?
“Oh.” She twisted her ponytail with one finger, an unusual nervous gesture from her. “Not even that boy…” Her teeth snagged her bottom lip as if in deep thought. “What was his name… Jason?” Her voice went up an octave or two.
Ah… now I see. I pressed my lips together to keep the smile at bay. Emmaline and Jason, my surfer friend from Florida, did seem get tongue tied when in the same vicinity. I had a feeling they would like to tie their tongues together. Apparently I was right—at least on her part. I was sure Jason felt the same for the beautiful vampire. Of course he didn’t know she was a vampire.
It was odd. I didn’t expect the smart, ethereal Emmaline to fall for a surfer type.
I put my fork down and narrowed my eyes playfully at her. “You like him, don’t you?”
Her cheeks turned pink and she averted her gaze to her plate, stabbing a piece of chicken. “No. Of course not.” She glanced demurely at me from under her lashes. “Unless you think he might feel the same…”
“Let’s find out.” I wiggled my brows and took out my phone, dialing his number. This was a good distraction to keep her from worrying about my state of mind.
Her mouth dropped to a little ‘O’. “I don’t know…”
Too late. “My little sea goddess!” His happy voice came over the line and I could hear waves crashing in the distance.
“Hi Jason. How’s UCLA?”
“Awesome. I don’t have any morning classes.”
I shook my head. “Cool.”
“When are you going to visit me?” I could hear the pout in his tone.
“Soon.” I cleared my throat. “And I might bring Emmaline with me. Is that cool?”
She bit her lip, her eyes focused as she listened in with her vampire hearing.
“That blue eyed, tall blonde piece of angel food cake?”
“That’s the one.”
“Awe, you better bring her. She’s so sweet she gave me a tooth ache.”
Her cheeks flushed deeper while a wide, excited grin stretched over her face as she beamed from across the table, looking like the freaking goddess of happiness.
“Well, do you want her number?”
“Really?” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “I mean really?”
I held the phone away so he couldn’t hear my laughter. “Yeah.”
“You think she’d go for me? She’s super smart and I’m not exactly an Einstein.”
“Oh yeah.” I grinned. “Besides I’m sure she wouldn’t mind teaching you a few things.”
Girlish giggles pealed out of Emmaline’s mouth that usually only happened when she had a buzz.
After I gave Jason her digits and hung up, her phone immediately sounded off. She snatched it off the table, her face dropping when she read the text. “Damn. It’s Tristan. I need to run to the lab at Highland really quick.” Her gaze flickered toward me, hope radiating out. “Want to come for a minute?”
Abso-freaken-lutely not.
My brows knit. “I don’t know. All those students and you know how I feel about labs.”
She shook her head, swishing her ponytail. “The students won’t see you. We’ll take a secret way to the underground and the labs are not that bad.”
I sighed. “Okay.” I was making an effort, remember?
The lab for Emmaline was created in one of the hidden rooms under Highland Academy. Nearly the entire campus held a network of secret stone tunnels and areas beneath it with several concealed entrance points. Electricity and even internet ran throughout, bringing modern conveniences to the windowless haven.
We took a series of twisting turns, passing several doors before we entered a large room with bright lights, cream tiled floor, a few metal tables, black cabinetry, and weird mostly unfamiliar science equipment. A clean, overly astringent odor sifted through the air.
Emmaline lied. It definitely resembled most labs, meaning it gave me the willies.
“Princess Rubi.” Tristan was behind one of those tables looking up from a microscope—about the only piece of equipment I recognized—wearing a white lab coat. That gave me the creeps too.
“Hi Tristan.”
He left the table and strolled over, grabbing me in a bear hug. “Long time no see.” His white blonde hair was cropped short and formed into tiny spikes with gel that took a lot longer than he wanted people to think. Thick, sooty ashes lined his molten gold eyes, making them even more striking in his pale face.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling away and pointing to the lab coat. “That’s just weird.”
He crooked a smile. “Adalynn likes it. We play doctor all the time.”
I smacked his arm. “TMI Tristan.”
He shrugged noncommittally.
“How is Adalynn?” She was a shifter that had attended Highland with Demy and a few others for a semester. Tristan fell madly in love with her and now the pair has a long distance relationship while she attends college at Yale. They must see each other a lot, according to Tristan’s doctor games.
“She’s good. Although I hate she’s in cooed dorms.” He pouted.
I rolled my eyes. “I doubt you have anything to worry about.”
A devilish grin split his lips, darkening his golden gaze. “Oh I know. I compelled all the males on her floor to think she was horribly unattractive. Kind of like a reverse Shallow Hal.”
“Tristan!” I couldn’t help but laugh at him.
Emmaline shook her head as she pulled her arms through another white lab coat. “He’s horrible, isn’t he? I have half a mind to go up there and reverse it.”
He gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”
My face formed a grimace as I took her in. “Ugh. Not you too. Must you guys wear lab coats? I feel like someone’s about to come shackle me to a table or shoot me full of drugs.”
Emmaline sucked her teeth, looking crestfallen. “Sorry Rubi.” She rang her hand together, clearly hating to ruin our long awaited lunch together.
A bout of guilt assaulted me and instead of fleeing the scene like I wanted I waved a dismissive hand in the air. “It’s okay. I’ll deal.”
Relief crossed her elegant face while her chest expanded before releasing a deep breath. “Thanks.” Emmaline turned her attention to Tristan, her azure eyes pinning him with a serious, glowering gaze. “Now what is the problem? I was busy eating lunch with Rubi.”
“Ouch. Sorry for interrupted your meal time Rubi.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Please don’t kill me.”
I smirked. “I’ll let you live. This time.”
As they began discussing some scientific mumbo jumbo that was a foreign language to me I walked around the room, imagining what horrid experiment I’d find behind each closed cabinet door. I wondered if there were brains in jars… or hearts like that song. Then again Emmaline does like all that Celtic, Wiccan stuff so it could be crystals, spell books, athames, or even eye of newt.
A sudden wet coughing noise echoed through the hollow lab, sending waves of trepidation through my system. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end while an icy chill slithered down my spine. Everything in my body screamed for me not to look. I didn’t listen.
The revolting girl ghost I encountered in the cemetery was standing in the center of the lab, black hair dripping with slim, obscuring bits of her face. Her gray skirt was tattered, navy knee highs sliding down her thin, skeletal legs. Her skin was ashen gray, more corpse like than anything alive.
My pulse skyrocketed and muscles tensed as if preparing for a fight. The girl’s arm rose, pointing a long, boney finger at me. “Your fault.”
“Rubi?” Tristan was staring at me, his golden eyes scrutinizing me. “You okay?”
The girl growled, more toxic drool mixed with blood dripping out her mouth and onto the tiled floor, sizzling upon contact.
Emmaline inched closer. “Rubi, there’s some snacks in that cabinet…”
<
br /> Her words trailed off at my grimace. Even picturing food while staring at the disfigured ghost before me sent my stomach curdling and acid crawling up my throat.
She limped closer, her white collared shirt in rags around her. I flinched, already smelling her rotten odor.
Emmaline and Tristan were whispering heatedly, probably wondering why I was suddenly acting like a nut job. They were aware of my special talent for seeing the dead, but this certainly wasn’t my typical reaction.
“You will payyyyy princessss…”
I stumbled back to avoid the claws swiping at me. “Um, I uh need some… air.” I whirled around and sped out the lab before they could follow me, turning down the maze of corridors.
Darkness permeated the halls, lit only by sparse sconces. Of course I could see better than any human. That still didn’t take away the eerie feeling surrounding me. Maybe it was the ghost following me. That would make anyone break out in goose bumps and heebie-jeebies.
Sweat beaded my nape and blood thundered against my skull in a violent assault. Why was I getting these onslaught of horrific hauntings. I’d never experience these sort of ghosts in my waking hours except for William the hunter and even that wasn’t this bad.
I turned one corner and yelped as the ghost who crawled on the floor at Madame Josephine’s slithered from the shadows, his body leaving behind a wet trail of slime. His rotten, decaying stench clogged the air, choking me.
“You should be dead,” he wheezed. “It’s your fault.”
I stumbled back and spun around to run, coming face to face with the girl. A gasp flew out my mouth, my heart violently battering my ribcage.
“This is because of you.” A gnarled, skeletal hand reached up and tucked a lock of slimy black hair behind her ear, showing half her ashen gray, sickly face. A tiny dark speck of a freckle rested below the arch of her eyebrow, standing out so starkly against the corpselike paleness.
With panting breaths I clung to the wall, trying to slide by her. I was almost in reach of another hall when my body hit a cold, wet something with a sickening splat. I squealed and tripped, slamming into the girl. The new ghost was another man draped in slime. His blue eyes were covered in a dull, milky substance and a cruel snarl curled his bleeding lips. Blonde hair plastered to his sharp face where his cheekbones jutted out unnaturally.
He raised a hand, pointing a finger at me. “You’re to blame!” A tattoo of Celtic knots was stamped across the back of his hand.
Another gasp slipped out my mouth—except this time there was more shock than fear.
I recognized that tattoo. I recognized him.
My eyes traveled over to the girl, noting not just her raven hair and dark eyes that sported a freckle beneath the left brow, but also her clothes. They were soiled and in tatters, but I could distinguish the gray tartan skirt, knee high socks, and white collared uniform shirt.
A pit of dread ripped open in my stomach as I looked over at the man crawling on the ground, leaving behind a trail of slime like a slug. Grimy russet strands of hair sprouted between the sparse bleeding sores on his scalp. Hazel eyes baring a silver ring glared at me with unadulterated hatred while toxic drool dripped down a square dimpled chin. My gaze found within the folds of his loose neck skin, a gold chain with a tiny key dangling.
My mouth turned dry and ice trickled down my spine, sinking into my stunned body. It felt as if a fist had punched a hole through my stomach, reaching in and ripping my guts out. My eyes knew what they saw, but my brain was having trouble believing it. For my sanity I wanted nothing more than for my eyes to be deceiving me. It just couldn’t be true
It was.
Dana Livingston, Robert Cain, and Bronson Styles.
Oh god. They were murdered by the hunters. They were killed by their poison—the poison made from me.
Your fault. You’re to blame. You should be dead.
Guilt and horror slammed into my chest, so powerful I fell into the wall, staring wide-eyed at the victims. They were haunting me, tormenting me because their deaths were my fault.
I glanced down and saw blood smeared on my hands.
“Yessss…” Bronson hissed. “Our blood is on your hands…”
Whispers began in my ears, overlapping each other until they sounded like a cacophony of hatred, stabbing into my brain like knives. With a whimper I clutched my palms over my ears, but the voices were inside my head now, clawing at my skull.
All at once the angry spirits converged on me, touching me, pinching and prodding me. Sickness engulfed my stomach from the feeling of slime and stench. When I coughed and gagged they only poked harder.
With a scream I tore off down the corridor, sensing them close behind, the whispers still filling my ears. This was my fault. I didn’t blame them for wanting a little payback.
I ran until I became lost, spinning around in the center of a junction, unable to tell up from down, left from right. I cried out as darkness wrapped around me, taking me under.
Chapter 10
A familiar voice filtered through the murkiness, bringing me back to the surface. His calming scent flooded over me as warm hands lifted my body, cradling me against a hard chest. “Demy,” I mumbled, my fingers curling into his shirt. “What happened?”
“You tell me princess.” His deep Russian laced voice vibrated against my ear. “I got a call from Emmaline that you were acting strange and ran out the lab. I found you on the floor in a hallway.”
My brows furrowed as I snuggled into him. Unpleasant memories flooded my mind. Three dead vampires were tormenting me, blaming me for their deaths. They were right. “Just a ghost bothering me,” I lied.
His dark brow arched unconvinced.
“They were talking all at once and I got confused and dizzy. Then I passed out.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “It happens.”
Demy let out a long, tired sigh. I could tell he was worried about me. He was always worried about me. “Princess, why didn’t you call me? I would have come and got you.”
I shrugged again.
He sat on a plush couch with me still cradled against him. I glanced around to find us alone in a small stone room with a few couches and tables spread across the polished stone floor. Electric sconces spilled dim light on the gray walls trailing up to the intricate carvings running along the top. A white marble mantle surrounded a hearth where a fire was slowly coming to life as if motion activated. Candles in white, silver, lavender, and ice blue were stationed around while the scent of vanilla and cinnamon hung in the air.
“Where are we?” I asked, peering up into his violet eyes.
He shrugged. “A room in the catacombs beneath the school. I crashed here a few times when I attended Highland.” He pierced me with his gaze as his fingers traced beneath my eyes. “You should have some blood. I know you haven’t had any today.”
There was really no point in lying. He knew my deception pretty well by now. And I could see through his own defenses to where his anxiety for me lay within. I wanted to alleviate it and if it meant taking some blood without putting up a fight I’d do it. This time anyways.
“Okay.”
His studded brow lifted in surprise at my easy compliance. Without waiting for me to change my mind he shed his shirt, tossing it on the floor. His fingers stroked me cheek before tangling in my hair and urging me forward. My fangs broke through my gums, my jaws already aching with need. I could hear his heart pounding beneath my ear and feel the excitement thrumming through his body. I nuzzled my face against his soft skin, pressing a kiss along his neck.
“I love you Demy,” I whispered. Of course I did. Just not the same as Mac. No one could ever be his equal in my heart. I was forever in love with him, dead or alive.
“I love you too Princess.”
My fangs sank into his flesh, his hot blood spurting into my mouth. A deep moan rolled out of Demy and his arms held me tighter, his muscles flexing. Pleasure radiated through my belly, coating my skin in a heavy flush that only served to ma
ke my insides hotter. I could never tire of his taste or of the feel of him beneath me, surrendering completely to me. He trusted me more than anyone and let me have this vulnerable side of him.
The Russian shifter was putty in my hands.
I pulled back at the thought, feeling a little guilty for it. Demy looked down at me, his eyes half-lidded and filled with aching desire. My bites always turned him on—and I had to admit his blood did the same to me. He couldn’t help it any more than I could. It was hard to turn him away at least for a few kisses.
But he was the one that always asked for it, never me no matter how badly I wanted it. Staring up into his silently pleading eyes and feeling his heart rage inside him, I wanted to make him happy—if only for a few minutes.
My fingers trailed up his chest and tangled in the soft inky hair at his neck, drawing him closer. His eyes flared with surprise moments before I pressed my lips to his, initiating a kiss for the first time.
We moaned in unison at the feel of our tongues tangling together, exploring each other’s mouths. Desire unfurled deep within me, urging me on. As if he knew, Demy’s hands gripped my hips and twisted me so that I was straddling him without breaking the kiss. I gasped in surprise, but settled myself against him regardless of his fervor. I was hungry for him and not just his blood.
Demy’s hand pulled my sweater over my head, leaving me in a thin tank top that did nothing to keep his hot touch at bay. “Rubi,” he murmured before trailing kisses down my neck. “Tell me to stop.”
“No.” The word was out of my mouth before I could even contemplate his sentence. My body was acting of its own accord. And it wanted him. “I want you.” Oh shit! My mouth did not just say that.
A low groan that sounded almost like a growl came out of him. “That’s usually my line.”
At least his sense of humor wasn’t lost.
Demy brushed aside the shirt and bra straps on either shoulder, pulling my shirt down to spread kisses across my collarbone and lower. Then his hands grabbed my ass, crushing me against him.