IM02 - Hunters & Prey (28 page)

Quentin eyed me curiously, as if wondering what to do. He’d have to turn away from me to confirm the images I’d projected in my mind. I focused hard, trying to send a clear picture of Santino, ready to strike. After a moment of debate, he looked over, and I sprang forward. Without hesitation, I did what instinct had been screaming at me to do.

My body collided with his, and my teeth found his flesh. I clamped down on his neck. Quentin yelped in pain. The sound vibrated into my mouth with his hot blood and a rush of pure energy.

Time seemed to slow as we fell. The sound of a shot firing rang in my ears.

Warmth trickled down my spine as we both hit the concrete. My teeth, still firmly entrenched in his neck, ripped away his flesh as I was flung to the hard ground with the jerk of impact. Blood shot out in a spray, coating my face. I looked over to Quentin and saw his eyes roll back into his head. His body twitched, arms and legs flailing. His face paled as it became freckled by the spray of his own blood.

A sticky, wet, warmth pooled under me. A cold prickling sensation began spreading throughout my body. I looked down and spotted the fountain that was my chest, pouring blood out onto the ground. The gun shot must have blown a hole straight through me.

Dizziness set in again. I couldn’t fight it this time. The heaviness of my eyelids was too great.

At least Quentin should be no danger to anyone now.

My eyes rolled back, and I let darkness take me.

CHAPTER 21

*****

I
toed the line between peaceful, numb unconsciousness and painful reality. As if floating, I felt weightless and detached, unencumbered by the problems and pain of the world. Was I finally dead? Was this death, real death? Would I be carried to the infamous light that people claim is supposed to greet you as you cross over into the afterlife? Was that just a myth? There was no light to be seen in this peaceful abyss. The world was dark and fuzzy, as if I’d been cocooned in a warm fleece blanket.

I was not alone, though. I sensed the presence of others around me. Distorted voices called out to me, as if shouting from a great distance, begging me to return to reality. I struggled fight the tempting pull of the peaceful welcoming abyss. I tried to open my eyes, but my body wouldn’t respond.

Unseen hands grasped at my limbs. Large fingers parted my dry, parched lips. My teeth found flesh and pierced it.

Cool, thick liquid drizzled into my mouth, pooling at the back of my throat. I struggled as instinct told me to swallow but my body refused to cooperate. A soft tingling sensation accompanied the cool, refreshing liquid. I felt it run down into my stomach, like ice water. It diffused through my body, sending chills to my limbs, reawakening them. My wounds too found fresh new life, revitalized by the liquid pumping through my veins. Weak numbness quickly became a searing pain that radiated out from my chest as if I was being dealt fresh new wounds to replace the ones that had sent me to my death.

But I wasn’t dead. Was I? Dead people don’t feel pain. I didn’t want to feel pain anymore. Stabbing, burning, stinging; all the hurts I didn’t want to feel anymore came back. My chest ached with a thumping pulse like the slow beat of a heart. Each beat sent a shock through my body as if the very blood in my veins was injured. It was a torment I didn’t want to take. I wanted my peaceful, warm, and fuzzy numbness back. I had nothing left to hold me to this world. Lysander and the clan had met their deaths, and Fallon too was probably waiting for me the other side. She’d lost so much blood.

The distorted voices surrounding me became louder. I heard my name being repeated over and over again as if someone was calling out to me, but I couldn’t tell who it was. The voice was muffled and indistinguishable as either male or female. I gurgled the liquid in my throat as I attempted to respond. I wanted to answer back, to scream out in agony, but I had no voice.

Unconsciousness, unrelenting in its siren song, continued to call me back into the abyss. I willingly followed, hoping to end the pain.

***

“Alyssa, come back. Please come back to me,” a soft sobbing voice called out. It pierced the black emptiness in my mind, rousing me.

Gentle warmth enveloped me. I recognized the sensation. The same one that Lysander and I had shared through our bond.

Lysander?

His voice invaded my mind.
I’m here, love.

I felt his presence and knew, without having to open my eyes, that he was with me.

It can’t be. He’s dead.

A strong, rough hand stroked my cheek. A man’s hand. Large fingers parted my lips and a heavy weight pressed down on them. Again I felt the cool trickling of liquid down my throat.

Sudden realization that Lysander was with me, in the flesh, and he hadn’t been killed by Quentin’s creatures filled me with a new desire to awaken from the peaceful numbness.

I had to see him with my own eyes. But my eyelids, still too heavy, wouldn’t open yet. It took all my strength to swallow, but I did, knowing it would help rouse my body. After one choking gulp, the tingling began again. It gradually diffused through my body, traveling to the ends of my limbs. I stiffened, waiting for the pain to follow the reawakening of my wounds. The dull ache started in my chest, but thankfully didn’t intensify. It throbbed with the deathly slow beat of my heart. Each thump ached with the soreness of overworked muscles. A small measure of strength returned to me, enough to make the act of swallowing easer. I gulped down another mouthful of the revitalizing elixir, Lysander’s blood.

“Yes, drink,” he said softly. “Good. Take all you need from me, love.”

His voice was music to my ears. His hand stroked my cheek again. The soothing cool touch helped to ease the pain.

I let his life-giving blood fill my mouth before gulping it down. Each swallow slowly brought me back to reality.

I became aware of the soft pillows at my head and the warmth of the plush blanket covering me.

Home?

“Yes, my love, you are home.” His voice cracked as he answered my unspoken question. He sounded as if he had been crying.

The weight lifted from my eyes, and I cracked them open. Faint, blurry light seeped in, and Lysander came into view. His messy waves of coffee-colored hair fell around his face like a hood as he looked down at me. Crimson tears had left their mark his cheeks, drawing a roadmap of his sadness in dried blood on his pale face.

He gave me a warm loving smile, the corner of his mouth quirked up just enough that I could see his fangs. I gazed into the beautiful pools of his twilight eyes, studying him, making sure he was really there and not some figment of my imagination.

What happened?
How long have I been out?

He lifted his wrist from my mouth and bent down, weaving his arms underneath me, and pulled me tight against his chest. I was like a rag doll in his arms, weak and pliant. Even if I hadn’t just come back from the dead, I would still be putty in his hands. He could hold me like that forever. I felt overjoyed that he had survived. If I had any strength of my own, I would be clutching him just as tightly.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he said in an exhaling breath.

I cleared my throat, testing my ability to speak. “You’re alive!” I rasped, finding it hard to speak. “I thought you were dead. Quentin said—”

He buried his head in my neck, kissing at the slow pulse there. “Shhh. It’s all over. I’m here.”

I melted into his body, allowing him to support me, unsure if I had the strength to sit up on my own. I nuzzled into his bare chest, savoring his masculine scent, enjoying the small hairs tickling my nose.

Lysander rocked with me in his arms as if I were a child. “Please don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispered into my ear.

Tears formed at the corners of my eyes as the weight of a multitude of emotions rushed through me. Like the breaking of a dam, I felt relief, happiness, sorrow, and then fear. I should have never left the group. I should have listened to Rozaline’s warning. I came so close to losing everything I had left in this world because of my reckless haste.

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.

“I know.” He smoothed a hand down my back. “We will discuss all that later. For now, I just want to hold you.”

That was a conversation I didn’t look forward to, but I accepted his desire to hold me, as it matched my own to be held. Still I wanted to be sure everything and everyone was okay.

“What about Fallon?” I asked. “Is she alive?”

He pulled me closer, crushing me to his hard body. “She’s fine. But you were not.” His chest vibrated my ear as he spoke. “You had us all worried. I thought you might never wake again.”

“How long was I out for?”

“We brought you home yesterday, just before dawn.” He spoke softly. I felt the brush of his lips against my forehead. “The bullet nearly destroyed your heart, and by the time we found you, the blood loss was…” He took a breath. “None of us … we didn’t know if there was enough of your heart left to regenerate the organ.”

I could only imagine what that bloody scene would have looked like.

“I thought we could heal. You said—”

“Our wounds heal. The skin can seal itself back up. We cannot regenerate missing organs or limbs.”

Lysander had once told me that a stake through the heart would do nothing more than irritate a vampire. I never thought to question it further, feeling fairly secure in my immortality.

“So if my heart had been completely destroyed …” The weight of the words sank in as I said them. “I’d be dead?” I really wasn’t as indestructible as I had thought. The pain I felt was clue enough to the extent of my wounds and explained why each beat of my heart still ached.

It shocked me to know how fragile I could still be. It made sense, though. Old myths usually included cutting out the heart of a suspected vampire. There was always some truth hidden in old stories handed down through the generations.

Lysander nodded against my forehead. His hand ghosted up and down my arm.

I looked up, meeting his eyes, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Confusion clouded his watery eyes. I saw the tracks of a fresh tear that had run down his cheek. “For what?”

“For being alive. For coming to my rescue again. For . . . just you.”

“No, thank
you
for being strong enough to survive. I may not show it well, but I love you. You are my world. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

“I know you love me, and I love you too. I was ready to cross over when I thought you would be there, waiting for me on the other side.”

“Let us hope it never comes to that.” He kissed my forehead again. “But know if it does, I will be there patiently waiting for you.”

As morbid as that thought was, the sentiment did make me feel a little
warm and fuzzy
. I hoped, though, to not have to test his promise anytime soon. I’d come close to death enough times recently to not want to deal with the prospect of it for a very long time.

“Speaking of death… what about Santino? What of the rest of the clan? Are they okay too?”

“Relax now, Alyssa. Everything is fine, but you need your rest.” There was an air formality to his voice that made me worry. I wondered if he was hiding something. Maybe he just wanted to have me to himself for a while. Either way, I didn’t have the strength or the desire to press the matter further.

I allowed him to hold and rock me as I pondered his words. I’d ask again after a little nap.

CHAPTER 22

*****

A
knock at the door pulled me out of deep sleep. I blinked my dry eyes and glanced around the dark room. I wondered how long I had been asleep. Surely it was night time now. No light seeped in from the corners of the curtains. Lysander’s arm tightened and pulled me closer. Instantly, I was comforted by his strong embrace and for a moment pondered returning to sleep and investigating the noise later.

Just as I was resting my head back into the pillow, the door creaked open. A faint ribbon of light danced across the bed.

“Lysander, Alyssa, I’m taking off now,” Fallon said in barely a whisper.

Excitement and a wave of relief swept over me upon hearing her voice. If she was up and talking, then she was more than just ‘fine,’ as Lysander had suggested.

I shot up from the bed against the protest of my aching muscles and scrambled to find some clothes. “Wait, Fallon! Don’t leave yet.” I yanked open the dresser and grabbed a shirt, tossing it on as I fumbled my way to the door, tripping over my feet in clumsy haste to see her.

I threw my arms around Fallon’s neck and squealed, “Oh thank god you’re alive.”

She whimpered under my tight grip. Realizing my strength had returned, I let her go, hoping I hadn’t crushed her. Her face contorted in pain and then relaxed.

I was so relieved to see that she was alive. She looked a little paler than normal, and her arm was cradled in a sling.