by L. E. Wilson
Ryan found a dark corner far away from the elevator and slid down the wall to sit on the dirty pavement. Dumping out the contents of the stolen bag, she picked through the loose change and tampons until she found everything that she needed. As she gathered her supplies, the voices returned with a vengeance. They whizzed around her, some screaming, some sobbing, and some begging her not to do what she was about to do.
Hurrying now, she lit the lighter under the spoon and heated up the tar. Her hands were shaking so badly, it took her twice as long as it normally did. When it was ready, she filled up two of the needles. She didn’t bother with a filter this time even though there was some cotton in the bag. It didn’t matter. She didn’t plan on being here long enough for it to matter. Taking off her wet coat, she used one of the sleeves as a tourniquet and tapped out the big vein on the inside of her elbow. Track marks didn’t matter at this point either.
She stuck one of the needles between her teeth and picked up the other one. She’d have to hurry to get them both in before she nodded off. Hopefully, it would be enough to do the job.
Pricking her skin with the first needle, she put her thumb on the plunger…and stopped. Her head fell back against the wall and tears streamed down her face as she left the needle hanging in her arm, the plunger still up. The voices quieted, as if they knew what she was thinking and didn’t want to take the chance of distracting her now.
What the hell was she doing? She didn’t want to die. And being with Christian these few days…she’d actually felt a surge of hope, the first one she’d ever felt, that things might be okay. No, it wasn’t the type of life she used to envision for herself before the drugs had taken over. And no, he wasn’t the kind of man she used to fantasize about sitting in English class as a teenager.
Actually, he wasn’t a man at all. He was better. He was good to her, he wanted to help her, and he made her feel amazing. Better than she’d felt about herself in a long time. And all he asked in return was that she let him do it.
But he doesn’t want you like that. Not for the long haul.
Or did he? He’d told her he didn’t regret meeting her. How would either of them know if they didn’t give this relationship a chance? If she didn’t give Christian the chance to help her? Maybe she really could learn to control the voices, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being tied to a male that made her blood pound until the only thing she needed was him. If not? Well, they still had their deal.
She was reaching to pull the needle out of her arm when she heard a man’s laughter not ten feet in front of her. Her hand froze in mid-air and her eyes widened in disbelief as she stared up at the guy that had tried to rip out her throat back in Tijuana.
How was he here, in this place? How was this possible?
She blinked and he was no longer ten feet away but squatting down directly in front of her. His eyes fell to the needle hanging out of her arm.
“You’re making this way too easy for me. It almost takes all the fun of it.” His lips turned up into a wide grin, exposing a row of white teeth and two long fangs. “But it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten high.” Grabbing her wrist in one hand and the needle in the other, he depressed the plunger before Ryan realized what was happening.
“Nooooo!” The denial shot from her lips to blend with the voices in her head, only to end in little more than a whisper as the heroin flooded her system.
Her sight was already glazing over, her body lifting from the hard concrete, but she managed to lift her head just enough to see his dark eyes light up with anticipation as he brought her wrist to his mouth and bit her.
Chapter 41
Christian tucked the pistol into the back of his jeans and followed the others down the hall to Nik and Aiden’s apartment. Vaguely, he wondered why they still roomed together. Dante hadn’t used his place across the hall in years, and Aiden could probably have easily moved in there or to one of the other apartments on the floor below.
He shrugged internally. Maybe they liked the company. They were like an old married couple. Nothing but bickering but unable to leave each other after so many years together.
Luukas came out of the elevator just as they arrived, and while they waited for him to walk the short distance down the hall, Christian tried really hard to ignore the unrest that was growing by leaps and bounds inside of him. The feeling was similar to how he’d felt when he’d needed to be with a woman, that same kind of pull, but without the crippling pain.
You can’t fuck this up. You can’t fuck this up. Everything is fine. Just do your job.
Looking over at Aiden, he saw him frown and rub his chest. “Are you all right?” he asked. Nik’s head whipped around and he took a step towards his best friend, but Aiden held up his other hand and warded him off.
“I’m fine, mate. Just a bit of rumbling is all.”
“Is he…” Nikulas didn’t finish the sentence.
Aiden shook his head. “No, no. Don’t think so. Just a bit restless with all that’s going on and where we’re going. He senses these things you know, even when he’s not listening.”
Luukas walked up then and narrowed his eyes at Aiden, his body visibly tensing. Although he had of yet to get the full story about what all had happened to his creator while he’d been gone, Christian knew enough to know that Aiden was lucky that tensing up was all he did.
“I’m good,” Aiden assured him without being asked.
Luukas studied him for a moment and then turned and rapped on the door before he opened it. The cloud of magic that rushed from the room was invisible to the naked eye, but powerful nonetheless. They all cringed when the felt it, Luukas stepping back so fast he rammed through the others behind him and didn’t stop until his back hit the opposite wall.
The chanting they’d heard within abruptly stopped and the air cleared almost instantly.
“Almost,” someone mumbled from inside.
“Sorry,” they heard Keira call right before she rushed into the foyer. Her large hazel eyes swept by the others in the group and landed on Luukas where he stood with his back against the wall, chest heaving, eyes darting around the hallway. They landed on her as she walked towards him and stayed there.
“Witch,” he growled.
Christian half expected her to stop, give him some room to calm down, but she didn’t. She walked right up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her body into his. Luukas’ arms shot around her and pulled her in tight and held her, his face buried in her dark hair. Bit by bit, the tension left his body and his breathing returned to normal.
“He’ll be okay in a minute,” Nik whispered. “This stuff freaks him out.”
“Who are you kidding?” Aiden said. “It freaks us all out. Let us all hope and pray that we stay on their good side, or we may find ourselves waking up as toads or some such nonsense someday.”
As they continued with their bantering, Christian followed them inside and looked around for Ryan, but he didn’t see her. “Where’s Ryan?” he called out. He realized he’d perhaps spoken a tad too loudly when everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at him. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “She wasn’t at my place, I assumed she’d be here. Is she in the other room or something?”
Emma was the first to speak up. “She hasn’t shown up yet, but she told Keira she’d be here. Maybe she just ran out for coffee or something.”
That tight feeling in Christian’s chest constricted until he couldn’t breathe. “Something’s wrong,” he said to Aiden.
“I’m sure she’ll be along, mate. Don’t panic. It’s just the bond.”
Christian barely heard him. Sucking in deep breaths of air, he tried to calm his pounding heart. They were both right. She probably just stepped out for a minute, maybe went out to get snacks for everyone or something.
Except she had no money to do something like that, even if she’d thought of it.
Well, maybe she’d just left. Taken off. Decided she didn’t want to be here with him afte
r all. If he knew Ryan at all, and he felt that he did even in the short time he’d known her, she wouldn’t care about the money he’d offered her to help her get a new start. If she decided to go, she would just go. And he should be relieved that there wasn’t some big break-up scene or hard feelings between them. She was a grown woman. She could take care of herself.
Then why did he have to purposefully restrain himself from running out the door after her?
As the others said their “goodbyes” and “be carefuls”, Christian took deep breaths and tried to focus himself. He wasn’t going to run out on everyone over a female. Not again. He could already feel that their trust in him was tentative to say the least, especially Shea’s. She stared at him from across the room where she’d taken up a stance well away from all of the hugging couples. She seemed to be waiting for him to pull something.
He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. He’d prove to her and everyone else that they could depend on him and he could be trusted. He’d earn back all of that respect that he’d lost.
“Let’s go, everyone,” Luukas ordered from the doorway. Giving Keira one last look, he ran his fingers down her cheek and then abruptly turned and marched down to the elevator.
Christian filed in between Shea and Nik and joined his maker. Crossing his arms over his chest, he could feel Luukas’ eyes on him, but he didn’t acknowledge the look. He knew what Luukas was thinking, what they all were thinking. And they were wrong. He was fine.
The doors opened and they all crowded inside. No one spoke as the elevator made its way down to the parking garage. Forty years later, the little chime went off and the letter “G” lit up on the panel. Eons after that the doors opened up.
Christian shot out of there and into the fresh air. Instead of getting better, the tightening in his chest got worse, and this time it was accompanied by a buzzing inside his head. He was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t better after all, but maybe the symptoms had only changed. The funny part was, he wasn’t craving the touch of just any woman. He was hungering for the sight of only one.
He noticed that Shea was holding the door of the SUV open for him and he quickened his steps. Lifting one foot up onto the floorboard, he started to lift himself up into the vehicle but stopped as the buzzing in his head turned into something more like a wailing.
“Are you kidding me, C? Come on. You can’t do this again.”
Christian looked up and realized that Shea was talking to him. Everyone else was inside the vehicle, waiting. “I’m sorry. Something’s wrong. I have to go.” Turning on his heel, he strode towards the exit door that would take him up to street level.
“Dammit, C! Come back here!” Shea yelled.
“Christian! What the hell?” Nik’s voice joined hers.
Yelling back over his shoulder, “I’ll meet you there!” Christian slammed through the door and took the stairs three at a time. A few seconds later, he was on the street. He started walking as fast as he could without drawing undue attention to himself from the humans, and soon found himself down by the water at Pier 57 staring up at the giant Ferris wheel. But no, this wasn’t right. Continuing on past the wheel, he picked up speed as a sense of panic hit him that was so strong his heart nearly stopped beating all together. He took off at vamp speed, uncaring now who saw him or what they would think, and tracked the call that had his blood singing in his veins.
A sense of déjà vu hit him like a sledgehammer as he ran down a set of steps and burst through another door. He found himself in the nearly empty level of another underground parking garage. Ryan was standing directly in front of him, facing him. The vampire from the park in Mexico was holding her in his arms from behind, and his mouth was at her throat. She stood passively in his arms as he drank from her, her eyes rolling around to land on Christian, just like they had the last time she’d shot up. And just like before, a single fat tear escaped and ran down her cheek. She lifted one hand in front of her, reaching for him…
In the space of a heartbeat, the sense of panic and fear that had brought him here was replaced with a rush of fury. Everything went red and a roar of rage echoed through the barren space as one word pounded through his mind:
MINE!
The next thing he knew, he was behind the other vampire. The fingers of one hand were sunk down to the second knuckle through his eye sockets as the other hand pried open his jaws from his female’s throat. He wanted to sink his fangs in and rip the male’s jugular from his throat, but the thought of tasting all that blood wasn’t as appetizing as it once had been.
The vampire screamed in pain and rage and clawed at Christian’s forearms. Christian barely felt his frantic attempts to free himself. His only concern was that Ryan was out of harms way.
As soon as she was free, Ryan stumbled away and fell to her hands and knees on the floor.
When she was far enough away, Christian started to slowly pull the vampire’s face apart with his bare hands. The vampire kicked and screamed as he tried to get Christian to release him, but it was like trying to get a crocodile to release his dinner. Bones cracked and blood spurted as Christian separated the young vampire’s jaw from his face, then he smiled as he let go and watched him bounce off the concrete wall and fall on his ass.
Strolling up behind him, Christian reached down and wrapped his hands around what was left of his face. With a hard twist to the right, he broke the bones in his neck. For good measure, he yanked the pistol out of his waistband and holding the head by its tight, curly hair, he pulled the trigger. Brain matter splattered the wall in front of him. He barely glanced at it before he shoved the pistol back into his pants and wiped his hands off on the body.
It wasn’t enough. Christian stared down at the body, the rest of the world forgotten as he dropped down, about to tear it into tiny pieces.
A quiet groan shattered through the blood lust, and his head whipped around to his female. She had slid forward onto her stomach and was lying there with her limbs twisted awkwardly beneath her. The other vampire was instantly forgotten. He was no longer a threat.
Very carefully, he rolled her over and pulled her onto his lap. “Ryan? She’ashil?” Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. That sense of déjà vu continued as Christian brought his own wrist to his mouth and bit down until the blood flowed freely from the wound. This time he had no second thoughts as he put his wrist to her mouth and softly urged her to drink.
She did, weakly at first, and then with stronger pulls as her strength began to return. His cock responded instantly, punching up painfully in his jeans, but he didn’t even bother to readjust himself. He just wanted her to keep drinking.
She stopped all too soon. Blinking up at him with tear-filled turquoise eyes, she said, “I’m so sorry.”
He brushed her hair out of her face. “Shhh. It’s all right, she’ashil.”
“No, it’s not.” She pressed the heel of one hand against the side of her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “I need to tell you…” Her face scrunched up as she winced. “I need to tell you. I was going to do it, but I changed my mind.”
“Do what?” he asked.
Instead of answering him, she straightened out her right arm and showed him the ragged needle mark. The hole was beginning to close, but he could tell it had been ugly before the healing powers of his blood. Faced with the evidence of her weakness, he didn’t know what to say to make her feel better, so he said nothing. Just took her hand in his and held it until her voice brought his eyes back to her face.
“I’m not lying,” she whispered. “I changed my mind.”
“Why did you change your mind?” he asked quietly.
She only hesitated a moment before she confessed, “Because I want to stay with you.”
Christian’s heart expanded until the last remaining remnants of tightness were pushed from his chest, leaving only a space full of so many feelings that he couldn’t even begin to describe them.
“So, what’s it gonna be, Christian?” she w
hispered. “Red or blue?”
He frowned down at her. “Red or blue?”
She swallowed hard, but her blue eyes were steady on his when she said, “Red I stay, blue I go.”
The mere thought of her going anywhere had pure panic rushing through his veins again and he pulled her up tight against him. “Red, she’ashil. I choose red.”
“That’s good,” she mumbled into his shirt. “Because according to Keira, we’re mated. It’s worse than marriage she says.”
Christian recoiled in shock. “What?”
But Ryan just shrugged and gave him a small smile. “Can you take me home, please?”
A black SUV pulled up next to them and doors opened and closed. “Yeah,” he said as he watched his four friends and fellow Hunters pile out of the vehicle.
Luukas gave him a questioning glance as he walked past to check out the body. With a snarl, he gave it a vicious kick. “Gods, I hated that son of a bitch.”
Christian paid him no mind. “Yeah,” he told her. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 42
Christian sat sprawled in his favorite chair as he watched Ryan play with Mojo. They were hedgehog-sitting while Grace and Aiden and the others went back up to the remains of Leeha’s fortress. Luukas was determined to dig his way through the rubble to the altar room, and Keira had finally convinced him that having some witch power there was better than not. The three girls together had been working really hard, and together, they were becoming a force to be reckoned with.
This was their fourth trip up there since he’d been back. He had wanted to go with them this time, but Luukas had told him to stay and he hadn’t argued. Although Ryan was doing really well, she was still fighting off the addiction, and he worried about her being left here on her own for too long.
The other girls had been working with her though, and come to find out he’d been correct. She wasn’t crazy. The voices she heard all the time were entities that only the most truly powerful witches could hear and control. Kind of like her familiars.