He licked his lips, his eyes still on me, waiting for my answer. When his brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to speak, I thought he would tell me it was okay to not answer. I thought he would say it was a stupid question, one he shouldn’t have asked, but he didn’t. Instead, what he said kick-started my heart.
“I thought I had until I first saw you.”
My palms began to sweat. My heart beat too fast. I opened my mouth to say something in response, knowing I was supposed to, but unsure as to what. Thankfully, I was interrupted when his cell rang. He struggled to get it out of his pocket without standing and managed to answer it on the fourth ring.
“Yeah?”
A male voice on the other end with a muffled, deep voice caught my attention.
“I’ll be home in a minute,” Tristan grumbled, leading me to think it might be his dad. “Yeah, I know.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
I stared at him, waiting for him to say who had called. He didn’t. Instead, he crammed his cell back into his pocket and shifted to glance at me.
“We should get back. It’s getting late, and my dad is about to ground me for life if I don’t come back in the next twenty minutes.
“You’re dad?”
A smile twisted his lips. “Yeah. What, you didn’t think I had any parents?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s just I haven’t heard you mention him before.” I wondered if he’d been at any of the meetings Jasper and I had attended with the others.
“Well, there’s not much to say.” He shrugged.
I guessed that was a normal response. My situation was complicated; maybe that was why it struck me as odd he’d never mentioned his dad before.
“I guess I just assumed since you were sent here on a mission to woo me you had been sent alone.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think about them and how they might come across. While my tone hadn’t been bitchy, it didn’t mean the words weren’t.
“Right.” He pursed his lips together and nodded his head. “I guess that’s fair.”
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“No. It’s cool. I get it.” He stood and scooped up our trash, cramming it into the grocery bag. “Here, did you want one of these?” He handed me the container of donuts.
I took it and opened the lid, thankful for something to shove in my mouth besides my foot, while walking with him to the ladder we’d climbed up. Tristan paused beside it and reached inside the container for another one.
“I can’t ever get enough of that grainy sugar across my tongue,” he said, sending spasms of delight to my lower regions.
I reached in the carton for one more, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way his words had caused me to shiver. “I know.”
Tristan took the carton from me and deposited it in the bag he was holding. “Ready to head down now?”
I nodded and started down the ladder, hoping my legs didn’t shake as they straddled the top rung. Once I made it over and was in a comfortable pace of climbing down, I glanced up at Tristan. Even in the dim lighting from the street lamps I could make out his cute butt. My stomach warmed at the sight. Never had I been a butt girl before, but now I knew what Reese meant when she said Nic had a nice ass. Tristan had one too.
Once my feet were on the ground, I crammed my hands into my back pockets and took in the alley we were in. It was grungy and dirty.
“Did you want another?” Tristan held the carton of donuts out to me. I shook my head. If I had another, I was bound to get a stomachache. “Suit yourself.” He grabbed another one and popped it into his mouth.
We walked shoulder to shoulder toward his car. Another breeze blew against my face, but it wasn’t the same from down here.
“You never answered my question, you know,” Tristan said once he’d swallowed his mouthful of donut.
My stomach dropped to my toes. I thought I’d gotten out of answering, but apparently he’d had other thoughts. My palms began to sweat as the words I wanted to tell him formed in my mind. His eyes locked with mine once we reached his car, and I noticed a glint of amusement sparkle within them.
“Too deep of a question for you?” he asked.
“I just—”
I didn’t get to finish what I wanted to say, because a dagger flew from nowhere and buried itself into my thigh.
Chapter 8
My entire body lurched forward, crashing into Tristan and knocking him back a few steps. He dropped the bag he’d been holding, but righted himself in order to bear my weight. A sharp scream tore past my lips as I felt every inch of the blade buried in my flesh.
“Are you okay?” Tristan asked. There was a frantic edge to his voice.
I twisted at the waist to stare at the back of my leg. A carved wooden handle protruding from the middle of my thigh caught my attention, and I thought I might pass out.
“Holy shit! You’ve been stabbed!” He maneuvered around me and dropped to his knees to get a better view of the dagger sticking out of my leg. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying he wouldn’t touch it. I didn’t want him to do anything besides look.
The sound of high heels caught my attention, and I glanced up to see a woman with long brown hair walking into view. She was dressed in solid black with high-heeled boots that hit above her knees. I didn’t know who she was, but it was clear from the expression on her face, and the dagger protruding from my leg, we were in trouble.
Tristan stood tall and placed himself in front of me. It was a protective gesture, but one I wished he hadn’t done. This woman meant business. The look on her face made that much clear.
“Give me the girl, and I promise I won’t hurt you,” the woman insisted. Her voice was sultry with almost a sweet quality to it, but her facial expression was anything but. “Much.”
“Not gonna happen,” Tristan growled.
“Come on, dragon boy. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Ditto. Now why don’t you turn around and leave?”
“Not gonna happen.” She tossed his words back at him as she lunged toward him.
Tristan darted forward, meeting her halfway. He was quick to dodge her first blow, but not the second. It connected with his jaw, causing his head to snap to the side. I shrank into a tiny ball, folding in on myself as I pressed my back against Tristan’s car. The pain in my thigh radiated down to my toes as it pulsated with my heartbeat. I struggled to catch my breath, focusing on lengthening each as best I could. Tristan was going to need my help, but I couldn’t offer him anything if I wasn’t able to pull myself together. My hands pressed to the area around my wound in an effort to take stock of the damage while trying to stop the bleeding as well. The dagger was in there deep. It had to have touched bone. And the blood. I could feel the sticky warmth trickling down my leg to pool inside my sock.
“Who are you?” Tristan shouted as he evaded another blow from the mysterious woman with intense anger issues.
“Your worst enemy if you don’t let me have the girl,” she insisted. Her high-heeled boot struck out, connecting with Tristan’s gut. All his breath rushed past his lips as he fell to his knees, gripping his stomach.
Anger burned through me. I didn’t know who this woman was or what the hell she wanted with me, but I couldn’t stand the sight of her hurting Tristan. My fingers skimmed the asphalt where I sat, searching for a rock to throw. Anything. The only thing I found was the bag of Lucky Duck donuts and trash Tristan had dropped when the madwoman first appeared. I gripped hold of it and pulled it closer to me. Pressing it to my chest, I forced myself into a standing position. My eyes never left Tristan and the woman as they continued to war against one another. When the woman landed another kick, this time to the side of Tristan’s head, I watched him fall to the ground. On instinct, I reached into the bag and started throwing trash at the nut job, wishing I had something else that would do more damage to her. She turned to face me, and all I could think was how grateful I felt to at least have created a distractio
n. Tristan needed time to recoup.
I tossed the container of donuts at her, nailing the right side of her face. She didn’t flinch, but I knew from the glimmer in her eyes I’d managed to piss her off.
She placed a hand on her hip and slung her long hair over her shoulder, revealing a tattoo spanning the entire left side of her neck. It was a large black bird. One that reminded me of the dead ones I’d seen the other night. While I wondered if the two were connected, the woman started toward me.
“You’re going to regret that,” she spat, murder flickering in the depths of her eerily colored eyes.
I didn’t move. Where would I go? I had a knife sticking out of my leg, and there was no way in hell I was leaving Tristan alone. Besides, fear had my feet rooted in place. I leaned against the car behind me for more support as I steadied myself, ready to put up some sort of a fight. While I knew she might kick my ass in seconds, I at least had to try. It wasn’t in me to not at least try to get a few hits in. Before the woman could reach me though, Tristan gripped her by the back of her head and slung her down to the ground. I watched as her head hit the asphalt and bounced back up only to meet it again. The pain didn’t seem to faze her though. She was back on her feet in a matter of seconds, ready to direct her rage toward him once more.
I whipped around to search in Tristan’s car for something better than empty food containers to throw at her, knowing I needed something to do some damage to her if we were ever going to get away safely. There wasn’t anything though. Not a single thing that could be used as a weapon. Damn Tristan and his neatness!
My heart raced as I scanned the interior once more. Another loud grunt from Tristan filled the night air and fueled the adrenaline pumping through me. I jerked open the driver’s side door, hoping to find something hidden in one of the compartments inside. Hand sanitizer, tissues, his registration, and an MP3 player were all I found. Nothing. What the hell? I’d take a freaking pen to stab her with right now if I could find one.
Stab. The word vibrated through my mind.
I did have a weapon, only it was embedded in my leg.
The fight between Tristan and the crazed woman continued a few feet in front of me. I could hear the grunts and hard hits as they connected with skin and bone one right after the other, but I tried not to focus on them. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped the hilt to the dagger in my thigh. Pain froze my hand in place. I knew what I needed to do, but I also knew it would hurt like hell.
The woman, whoever she was, was a skilled fighter. I wondered if she’d trained in some form of martial arts, or if it was something that came naturally to her. A loud thump filtered to my ears, and I swore I felt the car vibrate beneath me. My eyes sprang open to find Tristan lying on the ground at my feet. His face was dirty and bloody as it twisted into a pained expression, and I knew it would be forever etched into my memory.
High-heeled boots stepped into my line of vision as they came to a stop beside his head. My eyes traveled up the black leather knee-highs, past the matching skintight pants, beyond the tight-fitting tank top, only pausing once they reached the determined face of the nameless woman with the black bird tattooed along her neck. Her eyes weren’t on me, but I could sense the anger rolling off her toward Tristan. She hated him. She wanted him dead. It was in her stance and the hard set of her facial features.
She lifted one of her heeled boots and placed it on the center of his chest. I watched as the spiky heel disappeared into Tristan’s chest. Groans of pain slipped past his lips, causing the icy touch of panic to blast through my body. She was going to kill him, and then who knew what she’d do to me.
“You shouldn’t have stepped in my way, dragon boy,” she seethed. Another groan of pain spurred past Tristan’s lips as she dug her heel into him deeper. The wind blew, sending the weird scent of her perfume to me. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but the scent had me feeling nauseated. “Things would have been so much easier, and I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my time. I don’t like wasting time. It really pisses me off.”
Without thinking too much on what I was about to do, I bit my bottom lip and reached for the wooden handle of the knife in my leg, yanking it out in one swift movement.
White hot pain blinded me for longer than I liked. My stomach rolled as everything around me spun. The edges of my vision faded as the pain ebbed and flowed. Whimpers escaped me, but fortunately for me, they blended in with the ones coming from Tristan. Without focusing on the amount of blood I was now losing, I lunged forward and stabbed the knife into the back of the woman.
I released the dagger the moment it was deep in her back. My hand trembled from what I’d done and the pain I was in. My body slouched against the car as I swayed on my feet. I’d lost too much blood. I knew I had. And my brain was on overload.
When the woman crumbled to the ground beside Tristan, I felt a sense of relief and calmness flow through me. I’d stopped her. I wasn’t sure if I’d killed her, but I’d at least stopped her from hurting Tristan. My knees gave way before I could celebrate, and I crumbled to the ground. My eyes drifted up to gaze at the night sky. It was starless. The sound of someone stirring close to me made its way to my ears, but I couldn’t move. I was too weak. Warmth pooled beneath my leg. I could feel it soaking into the denim of my jeans. My stomach rolled as my eyelids grew heavy.
Sleep. If I could sleep this pain away I would be happy. My eyes fluttered closed as soon as I finished the thought.
The feel of someone lifting me up jostled my eyes open. Tristan’s face hovered above me. His brows were pinched together in concern, and his face was bloody and bruised. I reached up to caress his cheek, but my hand fell before it reached him.
“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” he insisted as he placed me inside his car.
He pressed against the wound in my leg once he had me situated, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop what was happening. He couldn’t force my blood back inside my body any more than I could. Neither of us held that type of power. I was dying, and we both knew it.
I fought against the pull of the darkness, wanting more time with him. There were things I needed to tell him. Things he needed to pass on to my brother. I couldn’t go now. I wasn’t ready. My eyes fluttered open in time to see Tristan pull off his shirt. This couldn’t be my first and last time I got to see him half-dressed either. Pressure against my wound startled me as bolts of pain surged through me.
“I’m sorry,” Tristan whispered. “But tying your leg off is the only way I know to slow the bleeding.”
His warm forehead leaned against mine, and I felt a rush of warm air blast against my face from him. The darkness called to me with more force, promising the relief I craved. I struggled against it as best I could, but it was gaining. It was winning.
“I’m taking you to the hospital.” Tristan’s words were distorted and far away, but I was still able to make them out. They jolted my mind, causing panic to bleed through me.
“No.” My voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but I knew he’d heard me from the way his body seemed to stiffen.
“I don’t know what else to do.” His voice cracked, letting me know how scared he was.
I didn’t want to go to a hospital. I wanted to go home.
“Call Jasper.” The words pushed past my lips before the darkness I’d been fighting finally pulled me under.
Chapter 9
Pain radiated through my body. My throat felt dry and scratchy, as though I was coming down with a sickness. Did I have the flu? I felt achy enough. And cold. My hands and feet were frozen. I shifted around, burying myself deeper into the softness of my bed.
“Are you planning on opening your eyes sometime soon, or are you just gonna lie there and make me worry for another damn day?” Jasper’s voice pounded through my skull. For a second, I thought I was dreaming. There was something ethereal about his voice and the sensations coursing through me. “Well?”
My heart lurched as my eyes opened to m
eet his. The room was too bright. It had to be late in the afternoon with the way the sunlight was streaming through the window behind my brother. Squinting, I attempted to focus on him. I could see the outline of him propped against my dresser. His arms were folded across his chest, and his head was ducked down as though he was glaring at me, but I couldn’t make out his face. It was as though I’d been staring into the sun too long and then finally decided to look away. Everything was fuzzy and made up of too much light. I blinked, but it didn’t help. When I resorted to wiping at my eyes, Jasper started to erase the distance been us. He moved to sit on the edge of my bed, his weight jostling me.
“How do you feel?” The irritation was gone from his voice. It had been replaced by raw concern.
“What happened?” My voice was scratchy and strange sounding, exactly like I felt. “Am I sick or something?” The words burned as they crawled up my throat to pass through my lips.
“No. Not really.”
“Then what’s wrong with me?”
“It’s your body healing.” He reached up and swept a few stray strands of hair from my forehead. They were damp. I hadn’t realized I’d been sweating. All I felt was coldness seeping into my bones, not heat. “I can’t heal myself, Jasper,” I whispered, because talking any louder made my throat feel as though it were on fire.
My eyes adjusted, and I was finally able to focus on his face. I noticed his lips were twisted in a sad smile, same as I noticed when his eyes shifted from mine in favor of the comforter I was wrapped up in.
“If you’ve been injected with vampire blood, you can,” he said.
My breath stilled in my lungs as I felt my heart cease for a split-second. Injected with vampire blood. I attempted to wrap my head around the thought, but wasn’t able to.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
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