She roars in frustration, and it rattles so hard that a cloud of dust rises. My hair stands on end as she fights against my magic.
Power surges through my veins as Hannah’s energy mixes with my own. It’s more than enough to get us out of here.
“Hold onto me,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her waist.
Her eyes widen as she realizes what I’m planning. “Julia,no—”
But I’m already pulling her over the railing with me, and her protest gets lost in the wind. When will she learn that she’s safe under my protection?
She screams as we plummet through the air toward the grassy courtyard.
I focus all my newfound power downward, calling to the earth. Chunks of soil tear free from the grass and garden beds, rising to meet us in a spiral. We hit them in stages—a pillow of soil, a mound of grass, an entire bush, until we land on the stone walkway with a thud that knocks the air from my lungs.
Hannah gasps, and as I try to disentangle my limbs, it becomes clear that she’s landed on top of me.
“Are—you hurt?” I ask between breaths.
“I d-don’t think so,” she stammers, her breath tickling my lips.
She shifts, and one of her thighs slips between mine, pressing against my center.
She’s staring at me, frozen, her face an inch away. Her scent envelops me, sweet and inviting.
For a moment, we stay there, the intimacy of the feeding still hanging between us.
Past her, high above, Maya’s silhouette appears at the railing. Power crackles around her hands like white lightning. “You should have left me alone, Julia Moreau!”
Normally, words like that would make me pause to show her what a mistake she made by threatening me. But given my reduced power and my need to keep Hannah alive…
I push Hannah off me. “Run.”
She scrambles to her feet, and we make it two steps when the earth erupts beside us. We fall to our knees, coughing and throwing our arms up in the wave of dirt and rocks.
Another blast hits even closer, and without thinking about it, I grab Hannah and pull her down, covering her body with mine as debris rainsaround us. She gasps in pain beneath me, but better bruised than dead. She’s under my protection, and I will not let Maya’s tantrum end what’s mine.
“Wait,” I snarl in her ear, using my magic to shield us.
I spin and send the uprooted bush toward Maya. She deflects it, and the pause is long enough for us to get up and keep running.
“If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you both!” Maya shouts.
I gather my power from Hannah’s sweet energy still flowing through my body. With a grunt, I hurl another wave of dirt and rocks toward Maya. As she raises her hands to shield herself, I take Hannah’s hand and pull her back to her feet.
We race away through the darkness, following the stone path out of the courtyard and back to the busy street. Hannah coughs and wipes her face, dark streaks of blood dotting her pale skin.
A jolt of concern lances through me before I can suppress it.Ridiculous.I’ve watched hundreds of people suffer far worse without batting an eye. Why should these little cuts on Hannah be any different?
But somehow, seeing Hannah get hurt by Maya makes me want to turn around and burn down Maya’s entire home. The entiretown.
An explosion of earth erupts behind us, but nothing hits, and soon, Maya’s furious shrieks fade into the distance.
My heart pounds hard, and it’s from more than just the escape.
I can still feel Hannah’s breath on my lips, taste her as she fills my soul, and hear her soft, hitched breaths as I fed. My fingers ache where her silky hair ran between them when I couldn’t help but touch her.
I cannot deny it: my attraction to her has become impossible to ignore. I want to feed on her again and again, but it’s more than that. I haven’t felt like this since Charlotte.
And that’s exactly the problem. Charlotte looked at me with breathless wonder once, and look how that ended.
