“What is it?” I asked.
She swiped a hand over her brown hair. “If you’re calling Layla, she’s not coming.”
Every muscle in my body froze. “Say that again?” My fangs were ready to shoot out, and not because of her statement but the disdain in her tone. I angled my head, opening my empath senses. Fear lay beneath the fake bravado she was trying to portray.
She squared her shoulders. “She won’t be going anywhere with you.” Her voice was calm, in stark contrast to her rapid pulse.
“Is that what Layla told you?” I wouldn’t put it past Layla to run from me, but I knew without a doubt that she hadn’t changed her mind within the last fifteen minutes. If she had, I would stake my own heart.
“Something like that. Sam, just get in your car and go.” Her voice cracked on the last three words.
I closed the distance between us, and she stiffened. “Are you warning me?” At least she wasn’t threatening me like she had the first time I met her.
She lowered her gaze. “I’m telling you to go home. Let my family handle Layla.”
My fangs lowered, quick and deadly. “How in the fuck will your family handle Layla?” I fisted my hands at my sides. With the hard wind and the storm about to dump a ton of rain, it was the perfect opportunity to fuel my elemental powers. I pulled my energy from nature, which meant I was more powerful than Rianne was ready for. If she thought my compelling abilities were scary, she had no idea how powerful I could be in nature’s storm.
I leaned in, and she faltered, her back hitting the tail end of the SUV. “What’s really going on?”
She craned her neck up and stuck out her chin, defiant and brave, or at least she was trying to show me she was. “We’re ending any chance you have to corrupt my sister.”
Before I could grip her throat or compel her into oblivion, a series of rapid sounds pricked my ears before I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my back. Then another. Then another. Suddenly, fire whipped through my body. I felt as though I was burning from the inside out. Rianne’s face blurred.
I shook it off as I slapped my hands on the SUV on either side of her head. The need to cause destruction saturated my veins, but I was about a gnat's ass away from collapsing.
Rianne pushed me, and I stumbled back easily.
Then a male voice, deep and mocking, muttered words that were garbled.
I straightened and shook off the effects of the drug as best I could. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Rianne scurried away. “Noah, you need to pump a lot more into him. He’s powerful.”
I roared like a lion who was primed to fight off his attacker then whirled around—and not too gracefully, either. The man before me looked like an Aberdeen, only younger, and aimed a dart gun at me. He laughed like he’d won the fucking war.
“Is that all you got?” I uttered, but I sounded like I’d had one too many bottles of bourbon.
He shook his dark head of hair. “Vampire, you have no idea how powerful I am.”
I opened my arms. “Then, asshole, give me all you got.” I was about a second away from collapsing. I wasn’t sure if I would come out alive, only because I could feel the cobalt doing a number on my insides. “Because when I wake up, you’ll regret what you’ve done.”
The brave motherfucker marched closer with the gun, ready to pump more darts into me. “Oh, you might wake up, but when you do, you’ll have a front-row seat to your own death.”
Rianne rushed up to him. “Noah, shut the fuck up.”
I roared like the animal I was and tried with all the energy I had to conjure my elemental powers—to no avail.
Before I could take a step, Noah fired three more rounds into me. “There, that should do it.”
I blinked once, then everything around me went black.
15
LAYLA
My aunt pulled into the Deer and Elk. “I’m glad we had a chance to talk. I would love for you to stay longer, but I know you need to see that vampire doctor.”
Even though my aunt and I were on better terms, my decision to leave would still be the same. It was best if I created distance from Jack. I wasn’t even sure if I could be around Rianne.
