But I doubted many would, if any. Not at this time of night. The entire town and campground pretty much went to bed around nine or ten o’clock. What else was there to do? All the businesses shut down, and there weren’t any bars or clubs in the immediate area.
Which was what weighed on my mind even as I ran hard enough to make me pant. Sweat rolled down my back and pooled between my boobs and basically rendered the bug spray useless, but I couldn’t stop thinking about those gorgeous people in their gorgeous cars.
Where the hell were they going? I had done my fair share of searching the area online before deciding to come up, trying to navigate what had changed in the ten years I’d been busy doing other things like falling apart and hitting rock bottom.
There was nowhere to go that would warrant that level of sophistication. Not unless a person wanted to drive a couple of hours. Was that it? Maybe, but the idea didn’t ring true.
The wash of headlights surprised me enough to brush these thoughts aside. A car was coming up behind me, so I hugged the shoulder to give them as much room as possible. There were a full two lanes for them to use—nobody coming in the other direction, no sudden bends in the road ahead.
The engine roared like the driver had floored the pedal.
And the next thing I knew, I was flying without wings. Pain screamed through my left hip, where the car glanced off me. I struck the ground with a bone-rattling thud and rolled once, twice before coming to a stop against a tree.
The only thing in the world was pain. That was all. Head to toe.
Pain and the glimpse of a blood-red convertible speeding away from me.
I couldn’t draw breath without sheer agony. Broken ribs?
There was white-hot fire running down my left leg, starting at my hip. Dear God, was it broken? I could smell blood in the air and knew it was mine.
I would die there on the road. Nobody drove past. I wouldn’t be found until morning, hours away.
By then I might bleed to death, or at least attract animals from around the woods. I wouldn’t be strong enough to fight them off.
Was this what I came here for? To die where my parents had died? But not before suffering?
My consciousness started to fade, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing considering I wished I had never been born in the first place.
Not if there was nothing but pain in front of me.
I barely noticed the sound of feet crunching through pine cones and leaves before blacking out.
* * *
DOMINIC
“You have to be joking.” Jessabelle stared down the road. “I wouldn’t put much past him, but to do something this brazen?”
I wasn’t interested in what my brother had or hadn’t done. Yes, that was his vehicle speeding into the night, but it hardly mattered.
Not when the girl before me hovered so close to death.
“Help me, damn it.” I crouched by her side, touching her face, her forehead. So many bruises already forming, so many scrapes and contusions. I would kill Gabriel when the time came. This was not that time.
My cousin joined me, sighing. “He did his best. I have to give him that much.”
“You have to give him nothing.”
“Her blood…”
“I know.” The aroma hung in the air, intoxicating. “I would have secured scent blocker but there was no time. You’ll have to get through it.”
She snickered, gesturing to the white bone sticking out through the flesh of Sophie’s thigh. “It’s like adding insult to injury. The blood is right there. Waiting for us.”
“Enough.” One look at her was enough to frighten her into silence. I didn’t want to know what my face looked like, how my features had arranged themselves to startle her so.
“She won’t make it.” Jessabelle used the belt I’d removed as a tourniquet above the grisly wound. “You know she won’t. Not unless…”
“She would hate it,” I whispered.
“You hear it as well as I do.”
I did. I didn’t want to, but I did.
The heartbeat.
Slowing. Growing fainter as Sophie’s heart struggled to pump her dwindling blood supply. Soon there would not be enough. Her brain would become deprived of oxygen. Her organs would shut down.
“I haven’t spent the last quarter-century waiting for this moment to lose her this way.” I removed the cuff link from my left cuff before rolling the sleeve up to my elbow. “We need her too much.”
“You won’t get an argument from me.” When I glanced up from my wrist, I found Jessabelle averting her face from the sight of Sophie’s dying body. Not because she’d developed tender feelings toward the girl who was unwittingly our salvation.
Because the pull of Sophie’s blood was too strong to be borne.
A quick slice of my nail against the skin and a red line appeared on my wrist. The cut soon filled with blood, and I lowered my wrist to Sophie’s mouth. “Drink,” I whispered, holding the back of her head in my other hand to keep her steady. “Drink. It will heal you.”
“You realize what it will mean if this doesn’t work,” Jessabelle whispered.
“You never grow tired of stating the obvious, do you?”
“It would mean we’ve been wrong all this time.”
“Silence.” I never took focus from Sophie’s face. Her lips moved. Her throat worked. “Yes. That’s right. Drink.” I closed my eyes against the sensation of being drained, losing my life force one gulp at a time.
It meant saving her. Saving us. I would have given every last drop.
“It’s already working!” I had known my cousin for nearly two centuries, but I could not recall her ever sounding quite so amazed—and relieved. No matter how callous and unaffected she pretended to be, I knew better.
Opening my eyes, I found how right she was. Already the bruises at Sophie’s hairline were fading. The cut over her right eye knitted itself together, smoothing out.
Something else happened, as well.
Sophie decided she had a taste for blood.
I sucked air in through clenched teeth as her drinking became more determined. “Easy, easy,” I crooned.
“She’ll need her memory wiped after this.” There was a note of laughter in Jessa’s voice. “If she ever finds out she drank blood so eagerly, she might not get over it.”
I knew the truth of what she said, but I ignored it for the time being in favor of focusing on the bond growing between me and the young woman whose broken femur was beginning to work its way back beneath her skin.
Drink deep, I whispered in my head. Drink deep, my queen.
Four
SOPHIE
“You’re a real pain in the ass, in case you were wondering. But you wouldn’t wonder, would you? Because you haven’t the first idea what your world is. What takes place in it. Another self-centered human, believing the world revolves around you.”
I had to be imagining that. The voice of a woman, silky and rich with an edge to it. This was one of those hallucinations people had around the time of death. It had to be.
Though that didn’t explain the pillow under my head. A head that hurt like two million tap dancers were having a go inside, but still. There was a pillow underneath.
And I was indoors. No night sounds. No owls or rustlings.
A hand touched my forehead. Put something cool on it. “And here I am,” that voice went on, “wasting the night playing nursemaid to you, all because you were stupid enough to go on a run in the middle of the night. So fragile, so foolish. How any of you manage to stay alive as long as you do is a mystery.”
“Wh-what are you—”
“Oh. You’re awake. Congratulations.”
I wanted to tell this snarky bitch off, but I didn’t have it in me. No strength. Not even consciousness enough to stay focused. My lips were dry, my mouth like sandpaper.
Otherwise I would’ve told her to shove her attitude up her ass on her way to hell.
&nb
sp; “Here.” Something touched my mouth a second before a hand lifted my head. I winced and groaned. “Yes, I know. It hurts. You must drink the water, or else your pitiful little human body will dry up like a dead leaf.”
I managed to swallow the water before struggling to open my eyes. “Fuck you.”
The first thing I saw was her smile. Bright, white teeth. Like a smile from a whitening strip commercial.
Plump, red lips. Pale skin. Delicate features. Dark, perfectly arched eyebrows over eyes the color of jade.
“I do like your spirit. I’ll give you that much.” Once I was finished drinking, she lowered my head to the pillow. “You had a close call this evening, as they say. Everything will be well soon enough.”
That had to be a straight-up lie. “Have you seen me? I know how I feel, and it can’t look good.”
“Be honest with yourself. Do you feel as badly as you did before we took you from the side of the road?”
“Who is we?” I croaked. It was too much for me to handle just then, all things considered, but I couldn’t help trying to put it together.
“Answer my question first, little human girl. Do you feel as badly as your injuries would lead you to believe you would?”
Once I quieted my mind down a little, I was able to tap into my body and listen to it. Sure, I ached all over. No big surprise there.
But when I took a breath, there wasn’t that searing pain I’d felt before.
I ran a hand down my left hip, my leg. They felt… intact. Sore, but otherwise fine.
“How long have I been out?”
“Unconscious, you mean? Roughly three hours.”
“Impossible.” I looked up at her, shaking my head as much as I could without it falling off. It sure felt like it might if I moved the wrong way.
Another smile, though this time she kept her lips closed while she leaned over me. Chocolate brown waves brushed against my chest, my face. “You might be surprised to learn just what is possible. Your world view is so limited. You bore me, honestly.”
“Shut up, you snarky bitch.”
“There’s that spirit again. Only one as spirited as yourself could have lasted as long as you have relatively unscathed.” She looked up and down the length of my body with a smirk. “Before this evening, that is.”
“What’s your name?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I want to use your full name while telling you to fuck off with your snarky, smirky attitude.”
“I could have left you to die. We could have. But we did not.” Her lip curled in a sneer. “And I gave up a night out for you with friends and family I haven’t seen in decades.”
Decades. When she couldn’t have been older than me. “Wow. You must’ve made some close friends when you were five years old.”
She snorted. “Right. Do us both a favor and go back to sleep. I’m not sure how much more of this scintillating conversation I can handle.”
I couldn’t argue with that, since my eyes were already closing. “Your name,” I murmured.
She clicked her tongue. “Jessabelle Montclair. Happy?”
“Thrilled.” I let out a sigh and closed my eyes. At least I knew who to curse out if and when I ever got up the energy to do it.
Sleep came on fast. I welcomed the darkness, since there was no pain there.
No pain, but plenty of weird dreams. The sort of dreams I’d have when I was sick, where nothing made sense and everything was super tense and confusing.
That dick from the parking lot, watching me. I wasn’t at my car, though. I was in a lake, paddling maybe thirty yards from the shore. Naked, but he could only see me from the shoulders up.
I didn’t feel embarrassed. It felt… normal. Natural.
He wore the clothes he was in outside the store, which seemed out of place in the woods, near a lake. They had seemed out of place at the store, too, so this wasn’t too surprising. Sunlight made his brown hair gleam.
“Come out of there,” he beckoned, holding out a hand. “Come out and be with me.”
His voice was velvet and so hypnotic. I wanted to do what he said. No. I needed to.
“Sophie!”
I turned around with a gasp. “Mom?”
There she was, standing on the opposite shore. Just the way I remembered her—before she was murdered, anyway. Dressed in one of her long, flowy skirts, ropes of beads around her throat and wrists.
She held out her arms and tried to say something. I had heard her voice loud and clear before, but now she didn’t make a sound.
And she knew she didn’t. I could tell from the way her face moved, like she was struggling to scream loud enough for me to get the message.
I swam to her, or tried to, but she kept moving farther away. I was in the middle of the lake with no idea how deep it went and my body was starting to tire but I couldn’t stop. Not until I reached her.
“Mom!” I cried out between strokes. I was weeping. When was the last time that happened?
Headlights swept over me and I screamed and ducked underwater before the car could hit me again.
“She’s not ready for this.” Jessabelle’s voice carried through the dark, cool water. “This is unadvisable, Dominic.”
“I don’t remember asking whether you approved or not.” A man’s voice, low and dangerous. “What would you have preferred? Leaving her to die on the side of the road? What do you think would’ve been the outcome of that?”
“It might be the same outcome regardless. She is abrasive, ungrateful and self-deluded as only a human can be.”
The man chuckled. “Does it bring back unhappy memories?”
“Quiet. We should have left her here. She would have believed it was all a dream. She’s seen me, she’s spoken to me, and she’ll have questions.”
Meanwhile, there I was, fighting my way to the surface and getting nowhere. I sank deeper, deeper, but the feeling of being watched wouldn’t let up. How could anybody be watching me when I was this deep underwater?
“Allow her to rest,” the man said. “Once she has come to, there will be time to explain all.”
“The Summit is two days away.”
“I am aware of that, cousin,” he snapped. “Your talent for stating the obvious is more of an irritation than a talent, Jessa.”
Whoever he was, I wanted to congratulate him for putting her in her place. She was a complete know-it-all, and I couldn’t stand those.
The voices faded away the deeper I sank, until finally it was just me, alone.
The way I liked it.
The sound of chirping birds woke me up. I opened my eyes—they popped right open this time—and looked around the room.
I was in bed in the cabin. The big room. Was this where I’d been all along? When Jessabelle…
I sat up with a gasp. Jessabelle. The car. My broken body that… was not so broken anymore.
In fact, I was just fine.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and examined my left in particular. Not so much as a scratch, when I would’ve bet good money lying in the dirt that I’d had a compound fracture. I could still remember hearing the bone snap, could smell the blood in the air.
The room was untouched except for the bed. No signs of anybody else having been there.
Was it all a dream?
I launched myself from the bed and went straight to the hamper. No running clothes from last night. “What the hell?” I muttered, clawing through the pile.
The bathroom was spotless. No blood, no dirt in the tub or sink.
Poppy would think I was nuts if I told her about this. A look at my phone told me it was too early to even consider calling. There was nobody else I could go to.
Nobody I could ask whether or not I was losing my mind.
It hadn’t been a dream. I was never so sure of anything in my life. Somebody had deliberately hit me when I was out for a run.
So how come there wasn’t a single thing wrong with me? In fact, all things conside
red, I felt pretty goddamn fantastic. I could’ve run ten miles.
I might even have done that if it wasn’t for the footfalls on the porch downstairs.
Time to bring out the bat.
I carried it downstairs, ready to start swinging for the fences. Paranoid? Maybe. But I wasn’t a complete idiot, either. Out in the middle of nowhere, or just as good as, all by myself.
A girl needed a bat.
I peeked out the window next to the front door, but there was nothing visible from there but my car and the woods beyond.
Another footfall. And a creak, like somebody was sitting in one of the chairs out there and had gotten up.
“Whoever you are, get out of here!” I barked. “It’s six in the morning. You don’t belong here. Go away!”
Silence. I tightened my grip on the bat. “Here me? Get the hell out of here unless you want splinters in your head.”
A hooded figure suddenly filled the window, just on the other side of the glass from where I stood.
I screamed and fell back a few steps. My heart threatened to jump out of my chest.
It had been a long time since I’d felt fear like this. The sort of fear that made me break out in a cold sweat.
“Sophie.” The voice rang out even with the window and wall between us, not to mention the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it in my dream… that clearly wasn’t a dream.
Five
SOPHIE
It was a face-off, only I couldn’t see his face thanks to the hooded cloak thing he wore.
My chest heaved. I was pretty sure I might throw up.
But I’d be damned if I let this guy screw with me.
“Get out of here, I told you.” I raised the bat in both hands. “Or you’ll wish you had.”
“I heard you rushing around upstairs,” he said. If the bat bothered him, I couldn’t tell from his voice. “I heard you muttering to yourself. I realize you have a keen mind and would have questions about what happened last night, so I imagined it best to show myself.”
The bat sank a little.
I didn’t know what to tackle first.
New Blood Page 3