What Lies Inside (A Blood Bound Novel, Book 1) (30 page)

“I guessed as much,” Mr. Malau remarked. His gold-pulsing eyes raked over me like I was the vilest thing he had ever seen.

A throat-constricting gulp did nothing to clear their scent or the tingle from my gums. I extended a sweat-dampened hand. “Mr. Malau, thank you for allowing me into your beautiful home.”

Ty’s father stared down at my outstretched hand as though it were rotting vermin. He sniffed the air, flaring his nostrils. His eyes slid sideways to Ty and his mouth thinned into a tense line. “Dinner is waiting.” He rose from the piano bench and walked past us back the way we had entered.

Ty laced his fingers though mine and squeezed as we began to follow. “You’re doing great.”

Mr. Malau paused inside a squared opening near the center of the hall and pushed a button on the intercom. “Harper, dinner is ready.” He then positioned himself at the head of a long, beech wood dining table.

“So, the brat is home early?” Ty asked. He pulled out a velvet-cushioned chair for me and took a seat next to his father, picking up the white-folded napkin from his plate. Before us was a large platter of spit-roasted pork, surrounded by an array of colorful vegetables. “I thought he wasn’t expected until the morning.”

Mr. Malau grasped the bottle of red in front of him and popped the cork. It launched from the bottle and flew across the room, connecting with the wall only an inch from an enormous oil painting. Pictured was Mr. Malau, a young boy, who at a second glance I realized was a very young version of Ty, and a woman who was cradling an infant. My eyes narrowed at the face of Ty’s mother. She was breathtakingly beautiful with billowing, raven hair, delicate tan features and full, rose-red lips. Yet there was something about her appearance that struck me with confusion. Her eyes weren’t the gold, or even the honey-glazed with bordering green of werewolves. They were blue. Not the silvery-blue of vampires, or even the lackluster blue of most humans. Instead they were the intense blue of a sun-speckled ocean.

“Well, I would have preferred him to arrive tomorrow.” Mr. Malau’s stern voice pulled my wandering gaze, while snuffing the rising questions in my mind. His expression hardened, shifting to me. “But some things in life
cannot
be controlled.”

The sound of footsteps bounding down stairs broke the tension growing in the air. A second later an exuberant boy blew into the room. The moment he caught sight of me he tripped on the contemporary rug that spanned almost the entire floor-space of the room. The boy’s jaw dropped and his tan skin paled. His deep-brown eyes stared at me in complete horror.

Ty swiftly broke the thickening silence, pointing at the staring boy. “This is my brother, Harper.” He then turned his head to scowl his sibling. “Harper, stop staring. It’s rude.”

“This is Ty’s
friend,
Amelia,” Mr. Malau explained, his voice drenched with contempt.

Harper broke his stare on me, nervous eyes flicking to his father. “But she’s a vampire.”

Mr. Malau motioned with an authoritative hand for the young boy to sit. He wordlessly complied, sliding into the spot opposite Ty, close to the safety of his father. “Ty informs me that Amelia and her family are…
different
. They
do not
hunt or kill.” His skewering eyes turned on me. “You will have to forgive my son. We are not used to encountering
your kind
,” he enunciated the words with disdain, “on neutral terms.” He poured wine into his crystal glass then handed the bottle to Ty. “An imported French drop.”

Ty began topping my glass and I looked to his father questioningly. I desperately wanted a glass to distract my thoughts from their blood, but this wasn’t an unsupervised party and neither of us was anywhere near drinking age.

Mr. Malau caught my eye and glowered, his narrowed eyes boring into mine. “Sorry, Amelia, but we don’t stock anything richer, unless you intend on tapping a vein.”

Ty’s head snapped up, his hand on mine tightening. “Father!”

The intensity of their scent grew so thick I felt my fangs pricking through my gums. An image—so clear and surreal—of biting Ty in the hot tub, rushed through my mind. Could he know? My stomach lurched, the taste of dead blood licking my throat. The rush of blood through my veins quashed any lingering nerves and gave way to a tumbling indignation. In light of my enemy’s unbridled resentment, a primal need to defend myself rose. I gritted my teeth, letting my fangs slide free. “I drank a pint of blood before Ty picked me up. But there’s always room for more.”

Ty coughed beside me, almost choking, while Harper’s face faded to gray. Mr. Malau’s eyes narrowed. His expression revealed no shock at my outburst, but rather, a basking expectation that I had readily fulfilled.

Regret instantly coursed through me, retracting my fangs. My challenging eyes dropped. I was here to show Ty’s father I wasn’t a threat, that my family and I were different. Not prove his suspicions right with uncontrollable outbursts. I shrank back in my seat, my thirst for their blood quashed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“
She’s
the one,” Mr. Malau’s sharp tone cut through me like a knife. My eyes snapped up to view his glare. He drew in a long breath, sniffing the air. Utter disgust wrinkled his nose and face.

“Father, don’t!” Ty pleaded.

“Ahh…” Mr. Malau’s lips curbed with an amused smile. “She doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” Harper questioned. His voice was shaky but his color had returned.

“Harper, shut up!” Ty growled. His intense stare didn’t shift from his father who had braced himself, hands strained into tense claws that bit into the wooden table top. “Don’t do this.”

Fear and mind-muddling confusion caused my body to tremble. What didn’t I know? I looked sideways at Ty, keeping his father in my peripheral vision. “What’s going on?”

Ty looked away while a sinister chuckle rumbled from Mr. Malau’s chest. “I picked up your scent on him, all those months ago, in Alaska. The smell of monstrous fear and blood-hungry desire.”

My insides squeezed and my muscles grew tight. The sound of my voice was a quiet echo. “
Alaska?
”

“You may pretend not to be a killer…” Mr. Malau tilted his head and leaned back in his seat. Smugness careened across his face. “But
I
know the truth. You have tried to kill, to drain a human of their life’s blood. Soon enough you will again.”

The breath was knocked from my lungs. Too many memories were flooding my mind. The boy who had appeared in the alley outside
Pulse
had been intent on killing me. My surreal dream had revealed Ty as that very same boy—but when I’d asked, Ty had completely denied having ever been in Alaska. Last, I recalled Ty’s words after I had lost control and drank his blood at Troy’s party.
I knew what you were from the very first moment I laid eyes on you.
My head was shaking back and forth. My brain throbbed against my skull. No, it can’t be.

“I see the realization in your eyes,” Mr. Malau stated. “Ty was there that night, and you know it. He was there to kill you.”

Ice invaded my chest and tears clouded my eyes. With my heart beating with a rapid ache that stole my breath, I turned my sight to Ty. “
You?
”

Everything was suddenly adding up, holes being filled with a truth I couldn’t deny. All this time, Ty’s absences, his excuses, the scars… The hunting expeditions had never been for fresh game. Vanessa had hinted at the truth on a number of occasions. But I had been too blind to see, too caught up to force the truth from him. All this time Ty had been hunting vampires.

Adrenaline spiked my veins and I kicked my seat back. It toppled to the ground, connecting with the wall behind me with a crack of wood and plaster. Ty jumped to his feet, his face parchment white. “You lied to me!” I tried to scream, but what came out was a croaked whisper.

“Amelia, please,” Ty pleaded, stepping forward with raised hands. It almost looked like he expected me to lunge at him like the monster we all knew I was.

I spluttered a cough, clearing my throat. “Don’t you dare come near me! I don’t know you. I never did
.
” With my muscles bunched, I darted from the room and Ty’s house, fleeing my enemies’ turf, fleeing Ty. The thought that invaded my mind was far from fleeting. It imprinted across my heart. Ty was my enemy.

~

Without making a sound to alert Kendrick, I flew through the foyer of my house and launched upstairs. With my heels clutched in my hands I slumped against the inside of my bedroom door. Instantly an unmistakable scent alerted my nostrils. My eyes sifted through the darkness of my room to a moonlit figure perched on my windowsill. Ty’s chest heaved with ragged breath. The hard lines of his pecs were visible through the thin fabric of his shirt. Frost-chilled air blew through my open window. The force billowed the dark curtains in a ghostly wave around him.

Against the anger still surging through my entire body, my heart fluttered. My skin prickled—at the sight of him or from the icy air, I wasn’t sure. With effort I retained the bitter edge to my low tone. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“Amelia,” Ty said pushing off the sill. “Please. You have to hear me out.”

“Why,” I spat, fighting the temptation to strike out at something. “So you can tell me it wasn’t you? That you were never in Anchorage? That you
didn’t
intend on killing me?”

“It was me.” Ty sighed. He blinked slowly. “I was in the club when you entered. And I saw you let that drunken guy take you out back. I could smell your desire for his blood. I knew you planned to attack him.”

In a moment’s pause, I recalled what Kendrick had said to me as I’d left for my date. His words had been simple.
“Because I don’t trust him.”
Kendrick’s suspicions had been right all along. When I replied after a few long moments, I had intended my tone to sound harsh and sharp. Instead it emerged toneless and hollow. “Why were you there?”

“My father was tracking a rogue vampire in Anchorage. As long as we’re not taking any down without just reason, the Vampire Council doesn’t seem to mind. Really, I think they prefer it. Saves them from getting their hands dirty. This one had already killed three people. You must have seen it on the news—all those people ‘killed by animals’? Anyway, I went with him.” Ty glanced out my open window, eyes staring at the bright, moonlit sky. “He sent me to scope out
Pulse
. It’s a popular vampire hangout.” The distant look in his eyes faded and his focus returned to me. “And that’s when I saw you.”

I could so clearly remember the night my existence had changed. Mom and Uncle Caius had been oblivious to my growing hunger as I crept down the dark hall. The breaking news playing from the lounge room had been a distraction.

I shook my head and dropped onto the foot of my bed, arm curling around the corner post. A daunting notion hit me like a jolt of electricity. “You thought
I
was the killer?”

Ty lowered beside me, leaning back against his scarred arms. “It was a possibility. But I had to be sure.”

Letting my eyelids droop closed, I could remember that night with startling clarity. The glint of a weapon had caught the moonlight at his side.
“Kill me,”
I’d cried.
“I’m a fucking monster!”

And the boy had faltered. Ty had faltered, surprised words escaping his lips.
“You
want
to die?”

The panic I had experienced that night, the desperation of realizing that my mom and uncle’s revelation was true, surged through me now, just as gripping. Just as chilling.
I’m a living, breathing monster, a blood-hungry vampire.
I bit my lip, head twisting to face Ty. “Why didn’t you?” When he frowned, I said in a fading voice, “Kill me. Why didn’t you kill me?”

The muscles along Ty’s neck constricted with an audible gulp. “I was going to. I really was.”

Alarm shot through my heart, quelled in an instant by his next words.

“But I couldn’t. Your reaction to what you did to that guy, the pain and regret that contorted your face… It was like nothing I’d ever seen.” He shook his head. “And my father was wrong. You scent holds no comparison to a true monster’s. It’s volatile, I won’t deny that. Like a warning of an approaching electrical storm. But it’s the purest scent I have ever encountered. It’s as pure as your very soul.”

He took my hands and threaded his rough fingers through mine. “I knew then that you weren’t a cold-blooded killer, just a scared and confused girl. Your blatant self-loathing as you begged for death… Your humanity is part of everything you are. It stirred something in me. I didn’t care what you’d done, or what you were.” His head dipped, lips grazing mine. The intimate touch rippled with a shiver down my entire body. “I wanted to know you, Amelia, to comfort and pull you into my arms. To tell you that everything would be okay.”

“But Kendrick appeared,” I whispered, made breathless and dizzy by his blood.

“I didn’t want to leave.” Ty released my hands and folded me in his strong arms. “And I will never leave you, again. I don’t care who stands against us.”

My hands connected with the hard outline of his chest, fingertips feeling their way over the many scars that marked him there. I clutched his shirt and pulled his body against mine. “No more lies.”

Ty smiled, his lips finding mine and parting them gently. His kiss sealed an unspoken promise as I reclined, drawing his body onto mine. His voice emerged with escalating breath, melting away the last of my anger. “Amelia, I couldn’t stay away from you, even if my life depended on it.”

Warmed by his touch, scent, and words, I pulled him closer, my body telling him how much I needed him too. Ty’s body pressed harder into mine, hungry and pinning me against the soft mattress. Fire scorched where his calloused hands crept up my thigh and under the hem of my dress. I gasped, raking rigid fingers down over the muscles and scars of his back. When I reached the bottom of his shirt, I tugged. Ty’s chest lifted off mine, hungry eyes watching me as I removed the covering. He leaned down, kissing me with a hard ferocity that surprised and excited me. My pulse hammered with anticipation. Then a rumble, halfway between a growl and a moan, vibrated through his chest. Instantly every muscle along his body snapped tight.