I didn’t wait around for him to get up. Turning on a heel, I darted down the hallway toward freedom. The red glowing exit sign was suddenly before me as I cleared the entire length from one end to the other in seconds.
The door slammed open, and I was gone, shooting through the parking lot like a bullet from a gun. Right away I felt the coming sunrise. It was less than an hour off. Instinct warned me to be careful. There was no taunting the sun and living to tell the tale.
I ran down the street, darting across in front of traffic, ignoring the sound of horns blaring and drivers telling me off. Running north, I followed the erratic urge to flee, paying no mind to where I was actually headed. My legs moved like the wind carried me. There was no gasping for breath. It felt like a dream.
Then something did bring me to a halt. As I passed the university a few blocks from The Wicked Kiss, the scent of humans and the sound of voices drew me to the dorm parking lot.
Despite the early hour there were people just getting out of a vehicle. I didn’t pause to reconsider. There was no moment of tortured decision making. The bloodlust was in charge, and I was its slave.
They barely had time to scream. Two men and a woman, I was on them before they could react. The men went down fast and easy. Their blood sprayed, and I greedily consumed all that I could. The rush of their fear was perhaps the best part. Bittersweet and mesmerizing, it quenched a thirst I hadn’t known I had.
The woman ran. She made it to the next row of vehicles before I caught her. With wide eyes and an expression of pure horror, she begged for her life. Not a single word penetrated the blood-crazed force commanding me.
Jerking her close, I breathed deeply of her scent. So human and so tantalizing. My fangs slid into her vein with perfect precision. It was leaps and bounds better than using wolf fangs. I could get used to this.
Only when she lay dead at my feet did I come back to myself. Slowly, like surfacing from a deep sleep, I became aware of where I was. I stared at her bloody throat, wide eyes, and mouth frozen open in a silent scream. At first I felt nothing but confusion. Then the fog lifted from my brain, and what I’d just done sunk in.
“Oh my God.” I clapped a hand over my bloodstained mouth. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.
I backed away from the corpse, bumping into a nearby car, which set off the alarm. The lights began to flash, and the horn honked repeatedly. There was no time to linger. It would draw attention soon enough. I fled, continuing for several blocks. As I ran I asked myself if this was reality because if it was a horrible nightmare I really needed to wake up now.
When I reached Saint Joachim Catholic Cemetery I let myself stop. Amongst the headstones I felt a sense of safety. Everyone there was already dead; I couldn’t harm them.
I walked along the paths that wound between the trees. Fallen leaves crunched beneath my feet, the only sound to accompany my descent into madness. It was impossible to wrap my mind around it all, what had happened and what I was now. It just couldn’t be real.
But it was. Knowing that I’d been trapped inside myself while the bloodlust commanded my actions was terrifying. I could not be a prisoner inside my own body.
Slumping against a headstone, I lay down in the leaves and waited for sunrise. It was the only way out of this. What I had known of the bloodlust thus far had been nothing, a bare shred of what it really was. I couldn’t control a force like this.
I dissolved into hysterical tears. With clawed fingertips I held tight to the headstone, praying that death would be fast. The stone gave beneath the pressure of my grip. With such little effort, it crumbled. Perhaps the claws should have been comforting, a sign of the wolf that dwelled within. In that moment I could only focus on the taste of blood and the memory of how damn good it felt to spill it.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered to nobody. “I can’t do this.”
Dawn crept ever closer with each passing minute. It wasn’t suicide if you were already dead. Right?
The taste of honey in my mouth was sudden and sickly sweet. The overpowering scent of genuine leather accompanied it.
Kale.
His name drifted up into my thoughts, and I was sure it was a hallucination. Until he spoke.
“Aww, Alexa. How could Arys let this happen to you?” He knelt beside me and gently tried to pry my hands off the headstone. “Come on. We have to get you out of here before sunrise.”
“No.” I clung harder to the headstone, causing crumbs to flake off beneath my fingers. “Just let me die.”
“It’s hard at first. Actually, it’s always hard. But if anyone can handle it, it’s you.” Kale touched the side of my face, drawing my gaze to him. There was such sorrow in those beautiful brown and blue eyes.
I shook my head and bit my lip as I fought back another wave of tears. “I can’t be like this.”
His touch was tender as he stroked a hand down my face. “You already are. Taking the easy way out just isn’t your style. If you want to stay here to die, then I’m staying with you.”
Alarm sang through me. “No! Just get out of here, Kale. This is my choice.”
“Yeah, well, it’s mine too.”
I groaned and rolled away, turning my back to him. Maybe he would just go away. But as dawn drew closer, Kale stayed.
“Are you really going to make me watch you die?” he asked. “I think you’re better than this. In fact, I know you are. The Alexa I know and love would never give in so easily.”
I said nothing, choosing to stare at the 1973 etched into the headstone in front of me. Everything in me demanded that I flee the sun before it could roast me. I’d seen a vampire die that way, and it had been ugly. We were quickly running out of time. Doubt crept in. Fear was not far behind.
“All right,” he announced. “You’re forcing me to do this. As appealing as dying together is, I’d much rather exist another night with you instead. I hope you’ll thank me later.”
Without giving me a chance to protest, Kale lifted me in his arms. My claws slid across the stone, unable to get a grip. I was confused and afraid, an emotional wreck. Rather than fight him, I settled in to his embrace, resting my head against his shoulder.
As he carried me from the graveyard, back to the land of the living, I clung to him as if he were the only life preserver in an ocean of pain. I felt safe. In Kale I found the solace that my soul so desperately needed.
Epilogue
Arys
The soft scratch of my pencil against the paper usually brought me satisfaction. As I watched the image come to life on the page before me, I remembered why I’d given up this form of self-expression.
A dragon sneered up at me, a mocking gleam in its reptilian eyes. Every feather on its wings was drawn with precision and detail. It was one of my best. I hated it.
Three nights since Alexa rose. Five since I had killed her.
“Come on, Arys. You can’t just sit here feeling sorry for yourself. Let’s go out.” Jenner wandered about my living room, bored and impatient. Though I had wronged him greatly in the past, the fact that he was still here spoke volumes as to his ability to forgive.
“Go without me. Shaz will go with you.” I volunteered the wolf pup who sat on my couch frowning at his cell phone. “Oh, and I am not feeling sorry for myself. I’m choosing to lay low and reflect rather than act out by doing something rash.”
Shaz and Jenner shared a look. I ignored it, knowing what they were thinking. I also knew that they were wrong.
“If you don’t hunt soon you’re going to snap,” Jenner warned with a knowing look. He had seen me at my worst, something I didn’t need to be reminded of.
“What you need to do,” Shaz interjected, “is go bring Alexa home. Or I will.”
“No you won’t.” I didn’t look up from my sketchpad. “You will leave Alexa right where she is. If you force her to do anything before she’s ready, you’re just going to drive her further away.”
Tossing his phone down on the coffee table, Shaz shot me a dark glare that I didn’t have to see in order to feel. It was one of many such looks he’d given me over the last few nights.
“I don’t know how you can sit on your ass and do nothing while she’s with him. That’s not where she belongs.” The angry vibe emanating from Shaz was raw and predatory. If he knew how much it tempted me, he might have toned it down a little.
“No, it isn’t. But it’s where she wants to be right now. This is a difficult time for her, pup. Try to be understanding.” It was a conversation we’d had repeatedly since the night Alexa awoke and ran out of The Wicked Kiss as if the devil himself chased her.
That’s how she’d looked at me too. Like I was the greatest evil she’d ever laid eyes on. I wanted only to help her, and she saw only the monster who had delighted in every blissful second of her death. And I had.
Hurting Alexa was never something I enjoyed. That wasn’t what it was about. It was about the moment with a victim when we are one. When everything they are becomes a part of everything I am. It’s the brief but poignant moment where there is no way of knowing where they end and I begin. That is what I always desired when it came to Alexa. The need to consume her so fully, in a way that no other ever could. Being her twin flame should have been enough. But for me, a vampire, it wasn’t. I had to have it all.
Then I did. And it was spectacular. She was mine in every way, and it drove her straight into Kale Sinclair’s arms. Now she was his.
“Be understanding?” Shaz repeated, aghast. He clenched a fist as if he wanted to take a swing at me. “After everything that happened, you just let him have her? There’s no way in hell I’ll ever understand that. It’s dangerous for the two of you to be apart, especially now.”
“The wolf is right,” Jenner said. He came over to where I sat on the recliner armchair and scrutinized my drawing. “You said yourself being apart takes its toll on you both. What do you think it’s doing to her as a new vampire?”
I frowned and met his gaze, finding it held unspoken judgment. “Don’t you have a plane to catch, Jenner? Vegas must be imploding without you.”
“Trust me, brother. If I thought it was safe to leave you, I would have been gone by now.”
My frown deepened into a glower. “I’m not a child. I don’t need you to watch over me.”
Jenner crossed his arms and studied me pensively. “A pointless argument. How many nights do you plan to while away sitting in this house starving yourself?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Angrily I tore the page from my sketchpad and tore it in two. Then I tore it again, crumpled the pieces, and threw them on the floor.
Nobody had seen nor heard from Shya since the night Alexa died and took with her his only chance at overthrowing Lilah’s empire. The demon was down but not out. Only a fool would think otherwise. It was only a matter of time until he finished licking his wounds and resurfaced.
Falon believed that Willow’s descent to full demon might be keeping Shya at bay. As angels Willow far outranked Shya, and as demons it would be the same. Now that Willow was no longer in between, Shya had great reason to fear him.
Unfortunately, we might all have reason to fear Willow now. He too had yet to show his face. Though I know he loved Alexa dearly and cherished his guardianship of her, he was not that person anymore. The darkness reigned in him.
“I can’t take this anymore,” Shaz said. He grabbed his phone and stuffed it into a pocket as he stood up. “I need to see her.”
“She’ll try to kill you, pup. She doesn’t have the self-control it takes to be around blood as potent as yours.” Feeling exasperated, I set my things aside and rose. The headstrong wolf was going to force me to knock him out if he kept this up.
“Well, if you won’t go, then you leave me no choice. Kale is taking advantage of the situation. He is the last person she should be with right now.” There was such vigor in his declaration. He really believed it.
“As much as I wish I could agree with you, I’m afraid I don’t.” I braced, expecting his fury and accepting it. “Believe me, I’m not any happier about it than you are. But Sinclair loves her. She is safe with him.”
Shaz glared at me with enchanting wolf eyes. In recent months he’d shown himself to be as much monster as he was man. Ready to fight as needed with a growing stubborn streak, he was really coming into his own as a werewolf. It was admirable. It was also likely to write him some checks his ass couldn’t cash.
“Bullshit,” he spat. “They’ve been killing together. It’s going to get the FPA on their asses and then what?”
He threw his hands up as if he couldn’t be bothered to waste another word on me and marched for the door. I was faster, blocking his path to the front porch.
“Get the hell out of my way, Arys.” Fangs bared, Shaz clenched and unclenched his fist.
“Do you want to hit me, pup? Come on then. Let me have it.”
Jenner’s laughter followed us as he ambled into the kitchen where we stood staring one another down.
“You two really have to learn how to be a team,” he observed. “It’s the only way you’ll get your girl back.”
I could explain my reasoning to Shaz until he was old and grey, but he would refuse to accept it. In his mind Alexa was his mate, and he couldn’t understand why he could not simply ride to her rescue.
What I tried to make him see was that she was in no need of rescue. Alexa had been with Sinclair for a few days now. If she wanted to leave, she would have. Her power was far greater than Sinclair’s. She was no hostage.
Sinclair offered her something that I could not. Comfort. It was temporary though. Two vampires as mentally unstable as they both were right now would only feed that instability. They could never fix each other. Still, I knew I had to let her see that for herself.
“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?” Shaz demanded, getting much too close. He was in my face, trying to provoke me. “You’re abandoning her when she needs you the most.”
“She needs space, Shaz,” I nearly shouted. With great difficulty I stopped myself from shoving him back a few steps. “She will come to us when she is ready. I can feel her, you know. In my dreams, I enter her thoughts, and I know that she is not ready to face either of us. Have some patience and back the fuck off.”