She ran her hands back through her dark hair and lifted her eyes skyward. She missed him something fierce. She was strong. She was ready to take on the world. But she wasn’t ready to move past him. Her heart ached for him. It was actually beating fiercely in her chest.
She shook her head in confusion and started walking. Why was she having this reaction? A tear slipped down her cheek as she kept going down the gravel road. She was nearly to the gate when she picked up to a run. She didn’t even know what she was doing, but she couldn’t stop.
When she rounded the last corner, the gate was hanging wide open. Fear pricked at her. They surely had not left that open. None of them would be so careless. And yet the only way into Washington’s mansion was open for anyone to come in.
She stilled her feet as she approached. Her heart was still pattering away, and the feeling only intensified the closer she got to the gate. What was happening? Why was she walking right toward danger?
And then a figure appeared at her right. A vampire woman with ruby-red hair and two wicked-looking blades. Another vampire was beside her—a short, Black woman with a shaved head. The next two men she recognized on the spot—Beckham’s driver, Gerard, and Reyna’s bodyguard. Both also vampires.
Her stomach twisted at the sight of them. “What…what are you doing here?”
She felt him before she saw him. Reyna whirled around. Her heart was in her throat. The sense of rightness overwhelmed her.
“They’re with me, Little One,” Beckham said.
Chapter Seven
Reyna’s hand flew to her chest.
Beckham.
Beckham.
Beckham.
Her mind raced ahead of her. Her heart ceased palpitating. She simply froze.
This made no sense.
It was impossible.
Beyond impossible.
People didn’t come back to life. Well, not more than once. Once a vampire was dead, they were dead. There was no second life as another vampire.
Yet, there he was.
Her heart contracted painfully.
There.
He.
Was.
Her perfect Beckham. Tall, brooding, with midnight eyes that whispered threats and echoed passion. A figure so imposing that others shrank back at the sheer size of him, the promise of death on the razor-edged planes of his face, and the confidence that oozed out of every pore. And that was before they even learned of his reputation. A person didn’t need to know it to recognize the threat before them.
And yet, he wasn’t a threat to her. He never had been. He never would be.
“How?” she finally gasped out.
“It’s a long story,” Beckham said.
Reyna shook her head. She wanted to run to him, to put herarms around him, to believe what she was seeing. But how could she?
She had watched him die. Seen his body slump to the ground and die before her very eyes. It wasn’t secondhand knowledge that she could refute. She had been there. She cut open her own arm to try to save him, and it hadn’t worked. How could he possibly be here right now?
“No. It’s…it’s not possible,” she stammered out.
