You’ve made yourself into a monster.
He wanted to deny it, but it was true. He’d forged himself into this unfamiliar creature who feasted on blood and misery. He’d anticipated his increased appetite for blood, but he hadn’t expected this intense craving to experience the pain of others too. Having to battle both needs was a war he wasn’t prepared to wage, and he didn’t know if he could.
Chapter Fourteen
Unwilling to getclose enough to close the punctures on the man’s neck with the healing agent in his saliva, Killean searched for another way to obscure his marks. He discovered a pocket knife next to the lantern beside the sleeping bag and opened it. Gripping the man’s head, Killean kept him at arms-length as he placed his knife to the man’s throat. The man flinched but didn’t recoil when Killean carved a line connecting the two punctures, obscuring what they were.
He closed the knife and returned it. Taking a moment, he gathered his rattled composure before facing the man again. When his eyes fell on the blood trickling down the man’s neck, his fangs pricked. Everything in him thirsted to drink all the blood from this man and experience the rush of life filling him with power.
No one would have to know if he killed this guy.
Simone glanced anxiously at the other tents as she watched the trees. No breeze stirred the air, and in this section of the campground, it was quiet as a tomb. From here, she couldn’t see the groups of humans gathered around the fires or hear the rushing water of the river.
The occasional snore from someone in a nearby tent broke the hush. She supposed quiet was a good thing, but dread crept up her spine, as did the growing certainty something terrible was closing in on them.
Crouching, she leaned closer to the tent. “Killean?” she whispered.
Killean’s head turned toward the flap when Simone’s voice pierced the growing haze of bloodlust clouding his judgment. She’d asked him not to kill the man, and maybe she wouldn’t know if he did, buthewould know, and he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye again or live with himself.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Areyouokay?”
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
Killean edged further away from the man while he still could. He crossed the line when he killed before, but ending the life of this innocent man would make him no better than Joseph. It would forever sever any hope Killean had of somehow saving himself—if he wasn’t already damned.
“Where are your truck keys?” Killean demanded.
“Under the pillow,” the man replied in a wooden voice.
Leaning around him, Killean retrieved the keys from under the pillow. “You scratched your neck on a branch while hiking. You will remember none of this, and you will not report your truck stolen for two days. Understood?”
The man’s eyes remained glazed as he nodded. “Go back to sleep and wake up tomorrow as if nothing happened.”
The man was settling onto his mattress again when Killean pushed the flap aside and left the tent.
Simone scrambled back when Killean emerged. Her eyes shot behind him, but the flap fell into place before she could see whoever was within. The scent of fresh blood tickled her nostrils as her gaze raked Killean.
During his run to the campground, the breeze had mostly dried their clothes, but Killean’s shirt and jeans hugged his lean frame as he towered a good seven inches over her five-eight frame. The scar on his face was whiter than usual and stood starkly out against his bronzed complexion. The lethal air surrounding him caused her to step further away.
“Are they…?” Her voice broke on the question as a tremor raced through her.
Did she really want to know if he’d killed the man or not? Killean was all that stood between her and the Savages and the only one she had to rely on, what would she do with the answer? Run from him? And go where?
She doubted Nathan and the hunters were still at the hotel where she last saw them, so how would she go about finding them? And what would they say or do if she found them? She was a vampire now; the hunters may have formed an Alliance with the vampires, but what would they do with her? Even if they took her back, she certainly couldn’t just resume her old life.
But then, she had no idea what Killean intended for her. It couldn’t be any worse than what Joseph planned, and because of that, she would follow him anywhere right now.
Then his crass words from when she was a prisoner drifted back across her mind and her blood ran cold.“I knew her when she was a hunter, and the little bitch thought she was better than vampires. I think it’s time she learns what it’s like to have one between her thighs.”
Was all this because she’d broken their kiss on the beach? Had he come after her and taken her from Joseph just to punish her? She may not know him well, but she wanted to trust Killean, and if he took that trust and destroyed it, he may just ruin her too.
“What you said to Joseph about me in that place, isthatwhy you came for me?” she blurted.
Killean frowned at her; he was still fighting against going back into the tent and finishing what he’d started, so he couldn’t recall what she was talking about. “What did I say?”
“That I thought I was better than vampires and it was time to… to…” Her words trailed off as fire crept into her cheeks.
