Sobs wracked my body as I felt Luka’s presence slip away and our bond grew fuzzy as blackness took me. Was it only day two? Or was it already day three? Time was so weird. I’d changed clothes and I was no longer on the couch.
“Liv?”
“You passed out.” She looked at me with wide eyes; dark circles hung like bags under her black lashes.
I felt for him, for Luka, and burst into tears when I came up with nothing. Just an open void where he once used to be.
I didn’t realize how much of myself had been enmeshed with him until now. Until he was gone.
“He’s go—” Before I could get the words out, the door burst off its hinges and splintered in half.
Liv wasted no time throwing herself forward into an army roll and grabbing her katana.
In the doorway stood three women I recognized.
Sage, Demi, and Isabella.
“You little bitch!” Isabella seethed.
They were here for revenge. They were here to kill me, and I was so weak and frail right now there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Izzy rushed forward, but Demi reached out and yanked her by the back of the neck.
“I got this. Standdown,” the alpha growled.
Izzy froze, lowering her head in submission.
Whoa.
I’d never seen anyone subdue a vampire like that.
Sage was looking at me with pity as she and Demi strode across the room and over to Liv, who was ready to fight them both to protect me.
“Stand down,” Demi growled, her eyes flashing yellow, and Liv went stock still.
I gasped as I realized what was happening.
Demi had the gift of compulsion.
A wolf? How? It wasn’t supposed to work on us … my mind reeled as I prepared myself for the inevitable.
Demi strode past Liv, her long blond hair swishing at her back, and my eyes fell to her t-shirt.
It’s a good day to leave me alone, it said with an image of a sloth hanging in a tree.
Any other day and I would have liked this girl; we would probably be friends. But she was an alpha werewolf who had just compulsed my best friend and was now here to revenge-kill me. She was my enemy.
I grabbed the remote, clutching it loosely in my hand as my body started to shake from thirst symptoms.
Demi looked down at me and shook her head in disappointment.
“Listen, Aspen, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re in a cult. They lie to you, make up profiles on the vamps you kill to assuage your guilt, and trick you into murdering them. Luka’s a good guy, an innocent guy, and you’rekillinghim.”
Cult? Fake profiles? Did she think I was stupid? Maybe it was the three-day headache or the lack of sleep, but I found what she’d just said hilarious. Tipping my head back, I laughed, deep and throaty.
Demi crouched onto the couch and leaned inches from my face. I swear I saw the ghost of a wolf flash over her face then. A white one, but then it was gone.
“Listen,hunter, you think you know about the supernatural world because you’ve killed a few vampires? Seen a werewolf? You knownothing. You have no idea what we deal with, blind to your human eyes.”
Chills rose up on my arms.
