“It’s not the bite that’s killing your friend. It’s the venom. That’s what’s hurting him, not the blood loss.”
I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t.
What the fuck.
“Listen, buddy, I was there, I am fully aware he was bitten. What I want to know is why he’s getting worse when his wound is actually healing?”
Stark and Alek exchange a long look, an entire conversation passing between them that I’m not allowed to hear.
My teeth grind together so hard I expect to hear them crack.
“Can we please discuss this out loud? Stop your mental whatever you’re doing and just tell me what is happening here. What will happen to Casey now? Where are we going? Who is attacking me if it’s not your vampires, and finally, who the fuckareyou?”
I finish, panting, the questions finally filling the space between us instead of churning my gut.
“Kallie—” Alek starts, but Stark cuts him off.
“Don’t.” One word. Spoken like an order.
“She deserves to know the truth, Boss. She already knows more than most.”
Boss? Is Alek Stark’s employee? Henchman?
They stare at each other, Stark’s jaw a knot of granite, Alek’s eyes begging. It’s like watching a movie on mute. Whatever they’re fighting about, it’s about me, and I’m stuck on the outside of the glass.
I tear my eyes away from their silent war and focus on Casey. He groans in his sleep. His breathing is too fast, his eyes squeezed tight against a pain I can’t see.
I can’t lose him. Not now. An image flashes in my mind—Casey last week, laughing so hard at my stupid pun that he snorted wine. The memory is so sharp it hurts. I can’t lose him before I finally admit the boundary I kept between us was my own damn fault.
Fuck.
The thought slams into me, knocking the air from my lungs. He was just trying to protect me.
“He’s going to be okay, Kallie. But he’s… changing. He won’t be the same in the coming days.”
Alek’s voice is impossibly soothing for someone driving at breakneck speed, his reflexes confident and controlled. Hehandles the Jeep like the velocity is nothing, even as my own heart tries to beat its way out of my chest.
“Different how?”
This time, Stark answers.
“He’s changing. It shouldn’t be possible, vampires don’t produce venom anymore, but he is. What you are seeing are the symptoms for what we used to call the shift.”
“Wait. Hold up. The shift. As in, he’s becoming one of you?” The question tears out of me in a panicked screech. The sound is shrill even to my own ears, and both Stark and Alek wince, their faces tightening in unison.
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I hurting your delicate monster sensibilities?” I sneer, the words tasting like acid as my hold on Casey tightens.
Stark turns fully in his seat, so his dark eyes can look into mine, but we must be out of the city now because not even a streetlamp illuminates the inside of the dark Jeep. The shadows swallow his features, not just hiding them but claiming them, as if he belongs to the night itself.
My whole body seizes up, a reflex I’ve never understood until this second. It’s not just proximity. It’s prey. My pulse hammers against my eardrums, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of the predator in front of me.
“Wearemonsters, Daisy. Something worse than what’s under your bed. We are need made flesh. We exist only to take, and we ruin everything we touch. For centuries, our bite created more of us—more mouths, fewer throats. The math was never going to work in our favor.”
“But you said that’s impossible now. You can’t change us anymore.”
“There isn’t time for a history lesson. All you need to know is a group called the Guild used ancient magic to render our bites… impotent. We can still feed, but we cannot create more of our kind. And for that, the world should be grateful.”
“But Casey?—”
