Chapter 21

*Really short chapter, I know.  But I didn't want to combine it with the other one.  As always, let me know if something doesn't make sense.  (again, I had several distractions as I was trying to edit).  Don't forget to vote and comment--each one is much appreciated!*

“Did someone say blood?”  The muffled voice came from inside the second coffin just as a pale hand shoved off the lid.   In a flurry of motion, two black eyes peeked from above the rim.

“I’m starving,” Hazel murmured, licking her lips.  “Have you already gotten breakfast?”

Eliot ignored her.

Sage only grinned at his sister without lifting his head from the floor.

“You’re always hungry, Haz,” he said.  “But your stomach can wait. Apparently, Eliot is accusing me of something naughty—”

“What do you mean ‘tainted blood’?”  Eliot demanded in a growl, cutting him off.

Sage smirked and crossed his arms over his chest.  “I mean tainted.  Hazel—” He cocked his head back at his sister.  “Would you mind telling Eliot here the definition?”

“Disgusting,” she recited gleefully.  Her eyes sparkled as she folded her hands neatly against the edge of her coffin and perched her chin on top. “Gross, wrong, defective, unnatural—”

“Shut up,” Eliot snarled.

Hazel’s pink lips snapped shut, but not before she and her brother shared a secretive look.

He hated when they did that—not only was it creepy, but those secret little looks almost always meant trouble.

“What were you doing over there in the first place?”  He snarled, even though the answer was obvious.

Sage wasn’t the kind who went around introducing himself to the new neighbors just for the hell of it.

“Why?”  Sage countered, finally rolling into an upright position.  “I didn’t touch the mortal—at least in theory,” he added on a chuckle.   “So why the rude awakening?  That really hurt, you know?”

He grimaced and rubbed at his pale forehead—which was only for show; the wound had fully healed by now.

Still, Eliot almost felt the urge to give him another gash along his head.

Or maybe a hole made with something pointy and sharp and wooden…

“Hmmm?”  Sage prodded.  “Why do you care anyway—"  He broke, off and those black eyes narrowing ever so slightly.  “Wait,” he said, dropping the casual tone.  “How would you know I was even there, unless…”

“Ooooh,” Hazel piped from her casket.  She giggled and murmured, “Eliot went hunting.”

Hunting.

He flinched.  “I was not,” he hissed, fixing Hazel with a glare that made her bite her lip.

It was the truth—but that didn’t explain why a part of him shivered as if it wasn’t.

He hadn’t been hunting Miriam…had he?

“Goodness gracious, Eliot,” Sage grumbled, but his black eyes were oddly smug.  “But if you weren’t hunting, then what were you doing in the mortal’s house?”

“Yes!” Hazel pitched in, nodding in her brother’s direction.  “What?”

Damn it, Eliot thought simply.  He wasn’t even surprised that the two of them had somehow managed to turn this whole thing on him—it was how the twins operated.

They could be like a pack of hyenas tearing into a wounded animal.

No matter, he thought, feeling his eyes narrow; he was in the mood for a fight.

“Both of you know the rules,” he began, hands curling into fists.

“Of course!”  Hazel sighed and twirled a pale finger through the air.  “No feeding close to the house.  No killing.”  She pouted.  “Same old same old.”

“Then why did you break them?”  He bellowed, fixing Sage with a glare that he knew would have made a mortal shrivel up in fear.

Sage merely rolled his eyes.  “I was exploring,” he said, as if it was a likely explanation.

A vampire…exploring the home of lone girl in the middle of the night.

Yeah.  Maybe in a predator’s mind that explanation might have made sense.

Sage seemed to realize this, and quickly changed tact.  “I was looking for breakfast,” he added, hastily—which just made it worse.

Breakfast, could have come from only one place.

“I was just…”  Helplessly, Sage craned his head back to his sister, who promptly came to his rescue.

“What does it matter what he was doing?”  She said on a sniff.  Her black gaze was flinty sharp.  “What matters is what you were doing, oh fearless Eliot?  He who has sworn off of human blood.”

She smiled, revealing her fangs as he flinched.  “Breaking your vows, were you?”

“I was not!”  He took a step forward, instantly hating himself for giving in.

Hazel just beamed, knowing she’d drawn blood.  She pulled herself upright and tapped the bottom of her chin.

“Is there something special about this human?”  She asked, eyes gleaming.  “Maybe I should pay her a visit?”

Most days he took pride in his ironclad self-control—but now, Eliot couldn’t help the murderous urge that made him take a step forward in Hazel’s direction.  “You touch her and I’ll—”

“Her blood’s tainted, anyway,” Sage piped up from the floor.  His eyes were dark and his nose wrinkled as if remembering a bad smell.  “I’ve never sensed anything like it.  Disgusting,” he added with a shudder.

Disgusting?

That made Eliot freeze in his tracks and forget all thoughts of strangling Hazel by that slender throat.

Miriam…disgusting?  The words didn’t even seem natural in the same sentence.

How could anyone—especially a glutton like Sage—breathe in one drop of Miriam’s scent and not describe it as anything other than disgusting.

Tantalizing, perhaps?

Sweet.

Alluring.

Tempting…

Disgusting was the furthest thing from his mind—but he couldn’t ignore the way Sage grimaced.

“I thought I might vomit,” the vampire insisted, running a hand through his dark hair.  Then he smiled and added in a wistful tone,  “luckily though…a better feed wasn’t too far behind…”

Which brought Eliot's attention back to another important point.

“I told you never to kill,” he snarled.  “You idiot!  If you had the stupidity to disobey me the least you could do was not do it so close to the house—”

Sage frowned.  “Sorry to cut you off in your rant—you’re doing gloriously, by the way—but what the hell are you talking about?”

“What do you mean?”  Eliot felt his gaze narrow.  “You killed a girl last night.  Practically on our front porch.”

Hazel gasped.  “Sage darling, even you couldn’t be that stupid.”  But even she sounded skeptical.

“I wasn’t,” Sage snapped.  “I mean, I’m not—I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Really?” Eliot scoffed with a cold smile.  “Then who did?”

Sage shook his head.  “Not me!”

Eliot expected the denial...but rather than try to effortlessly charm his way out of his lie like usual, Sage just looked…

Confused.

“The girl in the white house freaked me out with her fucked up scent, so I went hunting in the town, instead,” he said.  “I found some girl stumbling out of a bar—but I didn’t kill her.”

For once, Sage seemed to be telling the truth.  Eliot couldn’t ignore that fact as the other vampire’s gaze bore into his.

“I swear, Eliot,” he said.  “She wasn’t dead when I left her.”

“Then who the hell killed that girl out there?”  Eliot demanded, jabbing his thumb in the wood’s general direction.

“It wasn’t me,” Sage insisted.

“Nor me,” Hazel said quickly as he turned his gaze on her.  “I prefer not to get my hands dirty.”

Eliot frowned.  “Then who the hell did?”

Sage or Hazel didn’t answer—but they didn’t have to.

The answer was obvious.

Someone else had been out there that night.  Another predator who had sought them out and wanted to make one thing clear, and one thing only;

There was a new monster in town, and whatever it was…

It wanted to make sure they knew it.