“No, but the wolf has been frantic. I’m not sure if it’s because you’ve left or if it senses something is about to happen.”
I kept my face and tone blank as I waved a dismissive hand. “They won’t find the spell book. It’s been hidden for years.”
Dahlia stared at me, a cunning in her eyes, as if she knew it was missing …
But she couldn’t know; no one knew aside from Michael, Bob, Ethan, and Monique. Karson didn’t trust the witches enough to tell them, even if they could help search for it. The smoke in the room was beginning to thin like clouds stripped by the wind.
She gulped down the rest of her coffee and placed her mug down. “It has, but I wouldn’t put anything past those who are desperate enough to get their hands on it to track it down by any means necessary.”
She stood up, collected her jacket, and reached into the pocket. She threw a small glass vial to me. I caught it in one hand. It was the same powdery substance she used to ward the room. “You can use this in a room or on your person if you need to. The smoke and flames aren’t detectable to vampires, and they won’t burn you. Train, Amy, learn. Or youwilldie.”
Chapter 7
Don’t Tell
Itwiddled the card in my fingers, blinking my bleary eyes.
Karson stirred in his sleep. His breathing was more even now, at least. I wanted to wrap myself around him, but he was still burning with fever, too hot to hold. So I lay down beside him, staring at his face. Even pale and slicked with sweat, he was beautiful. His soft mouth was shaped like a cupid’s kiss, a stunning contrast against his sharp-angled jaw. His nose was straight, not too large, not too small, in perfect proportion with his face. Perfect. He was perfect. My eyes slipped to his throat, sweeping over the curve of his Adam’s apple. Down to the jet-black raven on his sleek, hairless chest. In the bird’s black eye was the glint of a star.
I remembered the first time I saw him across the bar. When our eyes locked, it was as if I’d been struck with a bolt of electricity. I couldn’t breathe, all brain cells departed. I just stared, absolutely shocked by his beauty. Later, when he’d talked to me and I’d seen his hazel eyes up close, I saw strength, I saw hope, I saw a twisted torment I didn’t understand but wanted to erase. I’d felt drawn to him, a strange connection, a pull I couldn’t resist.
Even when I found out he was a vampire, I should have wanted to run. Instead, I only wanted to get closer.
My fingers ran over one of the three other “gifts” Dahlia had left for me on the coffee table. I’d hidden the vial in one of my jacket pockets. I wouldn’t tell him about any of it. It was hard enough for him to accept what I was with his painful past. There was no need to make things harder for him. Everyone told us we should be enemies, but I couldn’t hate him just because of what he was. Too many wars were started, too much innocent blood was spilled, because of ideational rhetoric. People judged what someone was, or where they came from, instead of trying to understand who they were. I didn’t understand him, I didn’t pretend to, but I wanted to know every part of him, explore every cell in his body, if he’d ever let me get close enough.
The card seemed to vibrate under my fingers, calling for attention. Dahlia probably spelled it so I couldn’t ignore it. I slipped it into my pocket. My mind shifted to one of the other “gifts.” The blade simmered with power. I felt it as soon as I touched it. It seemed to whisper for violence. For a moment, the power had seeped from it into me, and it was intoxicating. I’d shoved it back in its sheath and the blade had disappeared along with the power. I would have handed it back if she hadn’t already left. I’d buried it under layers of clothes in a safe hidden at the back of the wardrobe. Guilt and doubt twisted through my chest; deception had a way of ripping out the strongest of roots.
But the last thing I wanted was for Karson to feel threatened by me. I wanted him to trust me. I wanted him to love me. If he could ever love someone like me?
Drowsiness crept in and my eyes fluttered closed.
I’d keep it hidden; he’d never see it; he didn’t have to know.
Some secrets were best kept buried.
Chapter 8
Karson
The pain shattered him to pieces. It was like blades of fire striking through him over and over again. Nothing made sense; there were only fragments of memories. Thin strands glinting like broken webs slithering against the crushing darkness.
A flare of light so bright it burned his eyes. Searing pain, a terrible agony he knew instinctively he’d felt before. Chanting and screaming echoing in the abyss of his head. Witches. Pain—gods the pain.
He wanted to fight. He gritted his teeth and tried to rise, but his muscles refused to work. He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe. The chanting screaming through his ears drove him to near madness. A dagger slicing through his flesh. An image of her face, so beautiful his heart ripped in half. The agony was unbearable. Then he heard screaming, but this time it was his.
He smelled her first,heard the steady thrum of her heart, felt her touch on his arm. Pain struck his retinas as he blinked intothe syrupy throes of daylight, trying to clear his vision. Then as the ceiling loomed into focus, he turned his head, wincing against a flare of agony as if someone drove a brick through his skull. She was lying on her side fast asleep, one hand under her cheek, the other resting on his arm.
He felt his heart swell—ache—with the need to draw her closer.
His gaze drifted over the creamy softness of her skin, taking in the four small, faint freckles on her cheek. Over the soft peak of her pink lips, down the slender curves of her throat, the mounds of her breasts.
He remembered the first time he’d seen her face; he’d frozen. There was something so captivating, so raw, so utterly broken, that instead of wanting to kill the witch, something had screamed at him to protect her.
It was madness. He knew it and he’d almost … He couldn’t bear to finish the thought. But when their eyes had connected, all the hatred, all the armor that had shielded his heart, was flayed in an instant.
He’d wanted to touch her skin to see if it was as soft as it looked. He’d wanted to make her laugh just to hear the sound. He’d wanted to taste her blood to see if it was as sweet as it smelled.
He had tried to tell himself he would just play with her for a while. His lips curled at the absurdity of the thought. He was strong, ruthless, the most lethal vampire on earth. He’d battled and won more times than he could count. But he’d been ill-equipped to resist her.
