Authors: Lydia Michaels
“Save him?”
“Yes, from going
unanswered,” Gracie said.
“You lost me.”
“When a male is called
he must find his mate. If he does not he will grow
feeish
. They can
die.”
A cold chill ran through
Delilah’s blood. “He never told me that.”
“He had to have
explained it on some level in order to get you to agree to mate him.”
“I didn’t agree.”
Gracie was about to say
something else, but stilled, her mouth open, silent understanding registering
in her eyes. “Oh,” she breathed. “I am sorry, Delilah. I did not know.”
The mood on the porch
became overwhelmingly uncomfortable. Delilah wanted to talk to someone about
everything that happened. “Is he allowed to do that?” she asked.
Gracie showed great
interested in the stitch pattern of her apron.
“Gracie, I have no one
here. Please talk to me about this. I don’t want to get all my information from
the man who took away my choice.”
“I cannot,” she
whispered, appearing self-conscious someone might overhear.
“Why not?” Delilah
balked. “I’m asking you. If you know the workings of this stuff, please tell
me.”
Gracie looked left then
right. She leaned in close. “It is a private matter between mates. It is
against our laws to involve one’s self in such personal business.”
Delilah scoffed. “That’s
bullshit. He’s
not
my mate. He’s my captor. I don’t love him. I don’t
even like him. He brought me here and changed everything without even asking.
Sometimes it takes everything I have not to strangle him. I would if I wasn’t
sure he could stop me. He’s a strong son of a bitch. He may be able to
overpower me in some ways, but I’ll never forgive him for doing this. He can’t
force me to like him—”
Delilah’s words cut off
as she took in Gracie’s expression. The girl was completely uncomfortable with
what she was saying. Maybe she overestimated the given girl bond she assumed
she would have with these women. Why was everyone here so fucking weird?
Then she understood.
“Delilah.” Her name snapped through the air like the crack of a whip. She felt
every drop of blood drain from her face.
Turning, she found
Christian standing on the path. He’d likely heard every word she’d said. Her
heart raced, but the bitch inside of her said,
Good! He should know I hate
him.
Rather than let him know
that look of censure affected her she said, “See any likely sheep to play hide
the gourd with?”
Gracie gasped and
covered her mouth.
Christian’s eyes blazed.
His nostrils flared and he growled.
The swish of Gracie’s
dress told Delilah she was making her escape, but Li kept her eyes on
Christian. No way was she going to let him intimidate her.
“Thank your hostess,
Delilah.”
She hated following his
orders, but she didn’t want to be rude. She could apologize later. Without
turning her head, she said, “Thank you for having me, Gracie. I look forward to
hanging out again.”
The girl made a noise
between a whimper and a
you’re welcome
and fled into the house. The
second the screen door snapped shut Christian was in front of her, yanking her
to her feet. She snatched her hand out of his grip.
“Get off of me, jerk!”
He breathed in slow and
deep, shoulders rising as he stared down at her. “I see I made a mistake,
trusting you on your own.”
The idea of having to
stay in that house alone for another week seemed the worst sort of punishment
after an afternoon in the sun chatting with others. Her stubbornness faltered,
but she bluffed her way through it, refusing to let him get the best of her.
“Seems to me, that’s all
you ever make. Mistakes.”
Yanking up her skirts
she marched past him. He followed, but she didn’t look back. She had no idea
where she was going, but she marched on anyway. In her peripheral she saw
several other Amish people—vampyres—whatever the hell you called them—working
in the distance. Most of them were men. Where were all the women?
She walked without pause
for over twenty minutes, stilling only for a moment to catch her breath. Her
anger began to fade and her exhaustion returned with a vengeance. She
practically stumbled once she acknowledged how bone tired she was. Shouldn’t
she have had, like, super human strength or something? Maybe she was standing
in a patch of vamp kryptonite. Something was draining all her energy.
Coming up on a lone rock
at the corner of a harvested field, she sat. Her body nearly collapsed. Her
bones screamed as her weight left her feet and she swayed. Christian was right
there glowering at her. Her fingers trembled with exertion as she clumsily
lowered her body to the ground.
“What are you doing?” he
asked, still obviously pissed. Was the man ever not grumpy?
“What’s it look like?
I’m sitting.”
“Are you ill?” He
frowned.
“No,” she said snidely.
“I’m just resting for a minute.”
His expression softened.
He tipped his head and eyed her critically. She hated the when he looked at her
like that, all sympathetic and understanding. Huffing, she turned her face as
far away from him as possible, wishing she had the energy to simply keep
moving.
Her gaze fell on a
dandelion beside her, snapped at the base of its stem. Her fingers gently
rolled over the toppled flower and the weed suddenly pulled upright as if on an
invisible thread. The stem mending itself back together and its yellow petals
taking on a brighter hue.
Awesome.
Her body swayed and she
vaguely heard Christian call her name. The world tilted and she was being
scooped off of her rock and held securely in strong arms against a warm chest.
Her head lolled and her eyes shut.
* * * *
Dane sat on the cool
concrete, ignoring the sounds above of the bishop and his family settling in
for their evening meal. The downfall of discovering his immortal half was that
he fed and therefore had developed a keener sense of hearing.
Even down in the
basement of the Safe House he could make out the quiet sounds of the world
above, a piece of silverware scraping along a plate, Larissa’s soft laugh as
Eleazar whispered something for her ears alone. He was grateful they allowed
him unlimited time to visit his sister, but even their generosity regarding his
sick sister, Cybil, enunciated his status of outcast.
He came here to get his
mind off of Gracie, which was an impossible task. The girl was never far from
the forefront of his mind. Dane wondered if things would ever return to the way
they’d once been.
When he first arrived on
the farm she’d been the first person in a long time that he’d been able to call
a true friend. That friendship slowly evolved into something more for Dane, but
Gracie never allowed him to forget that he was different. He wasn’t like the
rest of them. He was mortal.
True, in the past two
years he’d learned of his birth father and discovered he did have some immortal
genes, but for the most part he was ordinarily mortal. The entire idea of
immortals having only one true mate made it impossible for Gracie to see him as
anything more than a friend and as a mortal male he had natural urges.
His mind detoured away
from Gracie’s bright blue eyes and dark wavy hair. Flashes of wild blonde curls
and Maggie’s long spine spun through his brain. His body instantly reacted.
Dane shifted his weight.
He was twenty. How did
she expect him not to react to a willing, attractive woman? Maggie was like
him, a half-breed. She’d taught him much about his genetic makeup, how it was
different from the others on the farm, how he was limited, and how feeding
enhanced his immortal gifts. Blood was strength and Maggie openly offered hers to
him.
It was a biological
reaction to become aroused while feeding from the opposite sex. He and Maggie
had discovered ways to stave off two kinds of hungers. It was a pleasant
arrangement—until Gracie discovered what they were up to. For over a year now nothing
had been right between him and his old friend. He missed her.
While Maggie was fun and
easygoing, she was not Gracie. She did not trigger the same reactions in him
that Gracie did. Perhaps it was a case of simply wanting what he knew he could
never have. And the more time that passed without forgiveness, the more Dane
admitted Gracie was a female he would never know in the carnal sense.
She was saving herself
for her one true mate. Half-breeds did not get callings. Gracie someday would
dream of another male and give herself mind,
body,
and soul to him.
Dane’s fists clenched.
The idea of another man knowing her in such a way twisted his gut to the point
of pain. But there was nothing to change the destiny they all so wholeheartedly
believed in, a destiny that did not include him or Maggie. So he had continued
his liaison with the other woman.
His thoughts were
interrupted by the subtle shift in the cell before him. Cybil, his younger
sister, once so gentle and kind, now a deranged transition sick with bloodlust,
slept silently on a pallet in the corner of her cell.
Dane rarely visited her.
She was so far gone from the sweet child she’d once been. He’d forgotten her
voice and no longer thought in terms of the past. This was who she had been for
the past three years. Now, almost in adulthood, his sixteen-year-old sister
looked nothing like the girl he had grown up with.
Her eyes opened in an
abrupt flash of awareness. Blood red orbs turned on him as her head
dispassionately turned. She growled.
He sighed. His presence
was becoming less and less sought after everywhere he went. “Good evening,
Cybil.”
And then came the deeper
growl of the male in the cell beside her. Isaiah. Everything wrong in Dane’s
world, he believed, could be traced back to that animal. Although the Hartzlers
had given him shelter and saved him from a life trapped in the care of the
government with the rest of the orphans of the world, Isaiah Hartzler was not
part of those he looked upon kindly.
Everything changed the
moment he and Cybil had come upon an animal in the woods holding their mother’s
lifeless body. Cybil had screamed the last of her words that night. It was the
night their reality had shifted forevermore.
Dane stared into
Isaiah’s cell, taunting him with the freedom the three hundred year old
deranged male lacked. He hated him. He had murdered their mother and now
resided in the cell right beside his deranged sister. There was probably some
poetic symbolism there that he was missing, but he didn’t give a shit. He
wanted him dead and grew more and more aggravated with the counsel’s reluctance
to end the other male’s useless life once and for all.
He knew they were
holding off because Isaiah was Ezekiel’s brother and it would pain the other
elder to see his kin destroyed, but Dane believed justice should be served. The
animal had killed his mother and ended the lives of dozens more while running
wild in the woods. Either The Order would destroy him or eventually Dane would.
He just had to figure out how.
Cybil sat up and stared
at him. Dane no longer believed she recognized him as anything more than an
intruder to her solitude. He found little comfort in being there, yet he
returned once every few days out of a sense of duty—or perhaps his own pathetic
loneliness.
He picked up the long
stick that leaned against the cool plaster wall and nudged the pewter goblet of
blood through the bars of her cell. In a flash she snatched up the offering,
guzzled it like the animal she’d become, and threw the empty cup back at him.
It hit the wall beside his head with a crash, sending a dusting of plaster
flurrying over his shoulder.
Ingrate.
Her pale lips were
stained crimson to match her eyes. Her wild mass of gold hair formed a halo
around her youthful face. Isaiah purred.
Neither spoke so Dane
was constantly left guessing what was actually going on. Cybil didn’t seem to
mind Isaiah’s presence so close to her prison. He wondered if she even realized
the male was the beast that killed their mother.
She turned and faced the
wall separating their cells. Her motions were jerky and abrupt. Lurching back
to Dane she narrowed her red eyes. Slowly she stood and walked to the corner of
her cell, leaning into the bars and the wall dividing the two prisoners. Isaiah
did the same.
She pressed her face
along the plaster wall and purred like a cat, eyes closing, small white fangs
still tipped in red showing over her parted lips. Dane’s spine stiffened as
Isaiah’s hand reached through the bars of his own cell and into Cybil’s. The
vibrations coming from her throat grew louder. She dragged her cheek over the
male’s dirty knuckle.
“Hey!” Dane snapped.
“Don’t touch her!”
Isaiah did not remove
his hand. He simply lowered his chin and narrowed his eyes as if laughing at
Dane, daring him to stop him from touching his sister.