Kenzie!
The blood donor’s mop of orange hair disappeared from the window on the next slap of my heart. I didn’t have time to stop and wait to see what she was doing—if she was doing anything at all. She never liked Vincent. Back before I’d sworn to become his personal blood whore, the red-headed mortal had been his blood donor, and in Vin fashion, the bastard hadn’t been very gentle with her.
This would be the perfect opportunity for her to exact revenge.
The seconds felt like hours as I dragged Vincent’s burning body up the rocky beach. “I’m not going to let you die,” I assured him, even as fear sundered my voice. “We haven’t come all this bloody way just so you can eat it in our back freaking yard, asshole!”
His cracked, blackened lips parted to speak, but no words came. The only sound he could get out was the most sickening noise I’d ever heard. It was the garbled cries of a man painfully dying.
“Don’t fucking die on me. If you die, you’ll go straight to Hell. My grandfather is Satan. I know there’s gotta be some way for me to get there, just so I can kick your ass for leaving me!”
A gurgle bubbled in his throat, and it took me a second to realize he was laughing. This mother fucker was literally seconds away from meeting the true death in one of the most painful ways a vampire could, and he was freaking laughing.
“You’re bloody unbelievable,” I mumbled, my voice swimming with emotion. “Please. Please don’t leave me. Get up.”
It was no use. We were both too weak to move any farther. I crumpled to my knees and threw myself onto his chest, trying to block him from the sun’s rays. As if I could.
“S–s–and,” he managed to gurgle as he raised his hand, letting it plop to the ground at his side. “S–sand, R–Ru.”
“Sand?” I repeated with a pathetic sniffle. What was he talking about? His flaking fingers scraped faintly at the bed or course sand he laid on.
Then it dawned on me. He wanted me to bury him.
I frantically started scooping handfuls of sand onto his body, using my bare hands as a makeshift shovel. I worked as fast as I could, starting with his face and moving down. It was working, at least enough to slow the burning process.
“Princess Ruby!” a familiar voice called to me, and I twisted around to see Kenzie moving toward me with a roll of dark cloth bundled beneath her arm, her coils of hair bouncing around her shoulders as she ran as fast as her legs would carry her.
She wasn’t alone.
Since it was in the middle of the day, all the coven vampires were asleep. But vampires weren’t the mansion’s only residents. The coven’s human blood donors were bound to the indoors during daylight. Every mortal blood donor, including ones that must have belonged to the visiting Elders, rushed outside to help us.
“You came,” I sniffled as tears of relief ran down my face. “Thank fuck. Kenzie. Help us. H–he’s dying.”
“You did the right thing burying him.” Taking the rolled-up blanket from under her arm, she gave it a shake and spread it over the mound in the sand where I’d buried Vin. The other donors surrounded him and knelt at his sides. Reaching underneath the sheet, they swept the sand off him as best they could, then tucked the edges of the blanket beneath him and rolled him up.
With all of us taking a handful of the blanket, we set to dragging him inside the house.
I took the lead with Kenzie, our shoulders knocking together as we hauled him to the front door.
“Thank you. Really,” I told her, smiling at her through my tears. “You didn’t have to go get help, but you did, even though I know you hate him.”
Kenzie gave me a sideways glance, and she chuckled a little as if in disbelief. “Rumor has it that he’s changed since you’ve come along.”
I looked down at the makeshift body bag holding Vincent, feeling a deep sense of calm seep into my bones. "He really has.”
Chapter thirty-four
Every Drop
“SomeonegetLavinia!”Iscreamed into the crowd of blood donors the moment we were in the foyer. They all stood there, looking nervously amongst themselves.
As if I’d asked them to throw themselves off the cliffside instead of fetching the doctor.
I threw Kenzie a panicked look. “Sterling said Lavinia was here. That she was sent on the BC leader’s behalf.”
Sterling had said something about Lavinia finally getting through to Erik Thorn and that he agreed to supply me with his forces and bow to me as his queen on the condition Lavinia joined his coven and sat on my council as his representative.
That couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination. I took Kenzie by her arms and gave her a shake. “Please tell me she’s here.”
