The second I hit the outside alleyway I took off like my ass was on fire. I needed to save my idiot best friend and not get her killed.
Jumping into my Beetle, I threw it into first gear and took off through the city. By the time I pulled up to Luka’s apartment, I’d been honked at three times and flipped off twice. I skidded into a spot and tore out of the car, taking the steps up to his door two at a time. When I burst onto his floor, I found Luka waiting in the doorway. He was shirtless, a thin bead of crusted blood at his neck.
Razor wire.
His tattooed abdomen was covered in small, puckered scars I’d never noticed before—stake marks.
Holy hell, he’d been staked that many times!
How had I not noticed until now? I guess because I kept trying to avoid looking.
“Where is she?!” I yelped.
“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” Luka said dryly.
I waved him off and burst into the apartment to find Izzy with the tip of her sword to my bestie’s neck. Liv was out cold, lying on the floor with the razor wire in her hand. Luka’s blood was all over it.
“You can take that off her neck,” I growled to Luka’s cousin.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh, is that right?”
“Izz,” Luka warned, his presence coming up behind me.
Izzy pulled the blade back and I knelt down before my bestie. If Luka hadn’t recognized her as my friend from that night … she’d be dead.
“Thank you.” I looked up at him. “She’s … important to me.” My throat tightened as I hooked an arm under Liv’s leg and another under her neck.
“Sisters?” he mused, looking from her brown skin to my pale complexion.
“Yep.” Might as well be. Screw genetics. Liv knew me better than I knew myself.
“You’re just going to let her go?” Izzy seethed, gripping her sword tightly.
Luka looked amusingly at his cousin. “I don’t think it would behoove me to kill my feeder’s sister.”
Feeder.Ouch. I mean … I was, but he’d never called me that before.
Izzy stepped closer to Luka. “They’re insane. They’re in a cult. Tell them!” she growled.
Luka’s gaze snapped to her. “Stop.”
“What?” I asked her. “What did you just say?”
Bitch wasn’t going to call me insane and live to tell about it.
Izzy chuckled, shaking her head. “Tell her or I will,” she threatened.
I frowned, and opened my mouth to ask Luka what she was talking about, when Liv groaned in my arms, waking up. She was heavier than a sack of rocks but I clutched her tightly to my chest while my back buckled under the strain.
Luka looked at Liv. “Better get her out of here and make sure I never see her here again.”
I nodded, pushing everything else aside, and stepped out the front door, starting down the steps.
“Can you come back later for … dinner?” Luka mused, his eyes lighting up when he spoke as if his comment about dinner would be funny.
I groaned. “I’ll try to slip out, yeah.”
Now wasn’t the time for a feeding. I needed to get Liv home and shake the shit out of her for almost getting killed.
