Chapter 15: Chapter 14

My eyes snapped open and I let loose a shrill scream. My hand clamped on my chest, but it took a moment before I realized that there was no dagger. There was no blood. My hand shook as I held it out and saw there that was no silver blood. My hand was normal. Pale. I looked around and there was no Alice’s Wonderland. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re awake.”

I turned towards the voice and was dazed to see a hooker leaning against a grand oak door. She wasn’t really a hooker, but she looked like one. She smiled coolly and straightened from her post, then stalked towards me with one precisely placed black boot in front of the other. She was a vampire. That was obvious, but she wasn’t like the other vampires around Benshire. They dressed like regular folk. She wore a black leather corset held together by silver safety pins. The leather looked like it cut into her skin, but I doubted she cared. It’s not like she really needed to breathe. It gave her some massive cleavage.

The corset looked like it was tucked into her pants. The ends were tucked inside those high-heeled black boots that started below her knees.

Uncomfortable. Dangerous. Sexy.

Her dark eyes flickered and I almost expected to see a drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. It would’ve blended with her lipstick and the auburn curls that hung down to her waist.

“So… welcome back.” She clipped those words out.

“You say that, but I don’t think your heart’s really into it,” I replied with a raspy voice. I frowned and glanced down—that’s when I saw where I was. Black satin sheets. I was in a massive bed placed on a pedestal in the center of the room. The bed was… whoa. That’s all I could say and the rest of the room…. I took a second look at the doors since they were my only exit. They were massive too and made of oak with little swirls in the frame around the doors, like an artist had custom-made the frames just for the room. The swirls in the frame matched the two window frames, bed posts, and headboard. Someone was more decorative than me. Then I looked at myself and saw I was dressed in my jeans with only my thin camisole. That was it. No socks. I always wore socks. I loved my socks. “Where am I?”

“Lucas wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“What happened to me?”

~Her body is changing… ~My body shook as I remembered those words and I focused on her again. “You know who I am? You were there. You said—” I fell silent, confused. How had she known? I hadn’t even known.

She was smug. “Do I know who you are? Yes. I’m one of three who knows. And yes, I was there when your body started changing. You were seizing. I had to put you out of your misery.”

I sat further up in the bed. “You told Roane to do it. You told him that I needed ‘to know.’” My throat was sore so I started to massage it.

“Now you know… don’t you?” I saw a flash of dislike in her eyes and knew this vampire ~really~ loathed me.

I threw my legs out from underneath the sheets and stood weakly.

“He’s not going to want you to leave. Lucas said to keep you here no matter what.” There was a warning in her dark eyes. So I made sure there was a wide berth as I rounded to the door. When I reached it, I held her gaze. That’s when I saw that she had no intention of stopping me. Why? Did she really hate me that much? Was it about Roane?

As those questions formed in my mind, I was inside her. Her shields were like air for me. She had no idea. She was frozen in place, like I had paralyzed her. I could easily slip through now whereas I would’ve broken a sweat before.

“No, Davy.” A hand wrapped around my arm and jerked me out.

So many things flashed through my mind, but I watched as she blinked. She was slowly coming out of her trance. Then comprehension flashed and loathing quickly followed. It had been there before, but this time it was tenfold and she bared her fangs. If Roane hadn’t been there, she would’ve killed me.

Roane pulled me against his chest and tucked me to the side at the same time. He moved and stood between the two of us. “Wren, walk away. She doesn’t know her powers yet. Go.”

Wren straightened to her full height. She didn’t spare Roane a glance, but she promised so many lethal things in her eyes. If Wren had been at Kates’ bar, I knew I would’ve tucked tail and just left Emily to fend for herself. Not now. I felt something in my gut. I held a hand over my stomach and the feeling instantly speared to my skin, like I had called it there. It on the other side of my skin and I watched horrified and amazed as a spark came out of it. “Oh my god!”

“She’s going into shock again. She can’t handle it.” Take a guess at who said that.

“Not now, Wren,” Roane snarled as he swept his arms underneath me and I felt myself being lifted in the air.

“Put her out again. She can’t handle it, not yet. It’s too soon. Her body changed too fast, Lucas. Put her out.”

“No!” I struggled in Roane’s arms, but he laid me on the bed and held me down.

“Calm down, Davy. You have to calm down. I know it’s hard. I know the adjustment is disconcerting, but please stay with me.”

“She can’t handle it. She’ll be another kicker before the week’s end.”

“Out!” Roane roared this time.

I slammed back into reality and felt Roane’s body on top of mine. I heard his ferocity. He was tense and hard like a rock, but his attention was focused on her.

My palm itched. I looked at it, detached from myself, and saw it jerk. It was like it knew I watched it, like it had something it wanted to do. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I knew something was going to happen. It closed on itself and I felt a searing heat flare through my body. My hand trembled, but it remained fisted and then the heat surged through my body again and soared to my hand. The heat burst out of my body and shot through the air. It aimed perfectly.

Wren saw it coming. The heat slammed against her chest and she crashed backwards through the doors. She was there. She was gone.

“Where did you send her?” Roane scrambled off the bed and looked through the opened doors.

“I wanted her gone.” We still hadn’t heard her fall.

“Gregory!”

“She’s okay. She landed in the lilies.” Gregory’s voice echoed through the house.

Roane swung his impenetrable eyes my way from the doorway. “Wren hates lilies. Did you know that?”

My eyes went wide as I realized that when I’d been inside of her, I’d done a quick scan. It was like I was some ultra-charged empath now and I was the internet inside of humans, well, vampires.I shrugged. “Lucky guess. She didn’t look like the flower type.”

Roane studied me intently. The silence stretched out. One second. Five seconds. Thirty—a minute—five minutes. Ten minutes. That’s how long we stared at each other. Ten freaking minutes. Then, “You don’t even need a shield anymore.”

“That’s all? I heat-rayed your girlfriend out of this house. All you say is that I don’t need a shield anymore?”

Roane didn’t change expressions. “You’re changing, Davy. You know that you’re changing and you know what you’re changing into. Talia needed a shield and you don’t. It’s… remarkable.”

I didn’t like that name. In fact, I loathed that name. “Who is Talia?”

“She was the Immortal before you.”

“I know that look,” Roane announced a few hours later as he strode back into the room and closed the doors behind him. I knew he’d left to deal with Wren, but I didn’t care to ask what had happened. She was gone. I was glad and then I thought better of it when I watched him close those doors. It might’ve been his slow movements or how he paused before he pulled those two doors shut, but the entire movement was ominous.

I sat up slowly and swallowed tightly. My hands fisted into the satin sheets, but it was all I could do. I was afraid to move. I was afraid to breathe. I was even afraid to think. He looked long and hard as if to see inside of me. He might’ve been. He knew more about me than I did.

“What look?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer.

Roane gestured with a nod. “You don’t want to be here. Are you thinking of your little human boy? Are you hoping that he’ll take you away from here? You want to forget everything that’s happened this last week?”

He had no idea… how right he was. “Just because you can read other people’s thoughts doesn’t mean that you can read mine.”

“I can’t anymore, but I could before. Now there’s no way to get into that head. She wasn’t like that.”

‘She.’ Something about that word did not sit well with me. I didn’t want him to know, though, so my voice didn’t tremble when I asked, “She? Talia?”

Roane did his thing again. He measured me up and down for thirty seconds. “Yes. She was a good person.”

“She wasn’t really a person, was she?”

“You’re right. She wasn’t really a person.”

“Even though that’s what the lore says about Immortals. That they’re human, but they have immortality.”

“They?”

“I’m the last in a long line, right? Wren said that I’m not going to make the week before I’m on that rooftop.”

Roane took one of those habitual small breaths and leaned against the wall. He was across the room and yet, I felt suffocated by his presence. He was too close. He wasn’t close enough. I was on his bed. I wasn’t in his arms. I sucked in a harsh breath and shook my head. I couldn’t think like that—I couldn’t feel like that. It was wrong. Everything was wrong.

“I understand it, you know.” He sounded raw, scraped open.

Something relaxed inside of me. I didn’t feel so alone. “Understand?”

He moved closer. I didn’t see it, but I sensed it. I felt him move beside the bed, but he didn’t sit down. He stayed beside me, but just out of reach.

“You’re going through it again. You were empathic. You couldn’t control your gifts. I heard you with Kates, how horrible it must’ve been. I’m a vampire, Davy. I understand the complexities between Empaths and Vampires. I know you must’ve been tortured.”

~‘Hey, little girl, little girl, little girl. Come out and play… come out and play. I have some toys for you.’~

“Do you really?” I strangled out. “Do you know what he did to me? The things that he said and that was just… those were words. They weren’t even… do you really understand what he did to me?”

I looked up and was caught by Roane’s gaze. In the span of knowing him, he was usually so unemotional. There were times that I knew I’d infuriated him. There were times I’d been intimidated by him. I’d felt what it was like to be inside his arms, but I’d never seen this from him.

He was haunted.

“Were you tortured?” I don’t know why I asked.

“I did the torture, Davy.”

~‘It’s about us not forgetting what we used to be. We used to be human.’~

“That must’ve been….” I wasn’t sure what to say. That must’ve been ~hard~ for him? He did the torture and I’d been tortured. I was suddenly angry, really angry at him even though he hadn’t been my torturer. Not to mention that I wasn’t human anymore. Would I turn into the same monster?

“That’s not…” Roane stopped and turned away, but paused before he had completely turned his back. He raised a hand and ran it over his head.

I drew my knees to my chest and hugged them. I could see he was upset, but so was I. “I’m not human anymore, Roane. You can’t—” He couldn’t understand. He’d been a vampire for so long.

“What? I can’t understand? I have no idea what it’s like to suddenly wake up and not be human, with powers that don’t make sense. You’re right, Davy. I have absolutely no idea.”

I shrunk back from his stinging words.

Roane pressed, “I know more about you than you do right now, Davy. I know what the Immortal is. I know that you’re empathic and you’re still human. You’ve just got other juices flowing in your blood.”

“Can I get rid of them?” I kneeled on his bed. A part of me was desperate. I didn’t want this.

Roane sucked in his breath, but didn’t move away. He didn’t move closer either, but he couldn’t look away. I felt my power over him. It was blinding and I knew that he couldn’t turn away. He wanted to. A part of him really wanted to turn and walk away. He didn’t.

I moved closer, just close enough without touching him. If either of us moved an inch, we would’ve felt the other.... I wanted to feel him. I needed it. It was the same hunger that I’d felt in that professor’s office. Something inside of me—or maybe it was me—needed him. It was like I was starving for him.

Roane searched my face, but his eyes flickered and held on my lips. He wrung out, “You don’t know yourself right now. This isn’t what you want.”

“This isn’t what happened in the office? That was both of us.”

“You were starting to change. You weren’t yourself. You won’t be, not for a long time.”

“Are you trying to save me, Roane? Is that what this is? You’re trying to be compassionate? Maybe feeling your human self right now?”

I felt the whiplash from his eyes. He was furious, but he clenched his jaw tight. “You don’t want me to save you or you don’t want to be saved? You want me to be a vampire, Davy? Is that what you want? Maybe you want me to drink your blood? Davina.”

Davina.

Vampire.

I lifted stormy eyes to his. “You have this decree to stop yourselves from being what you are. It’s the same thing as Kates. She’s meant to be a slayer and that decree says she can’t be herself. You’re evil. Be evil and she can do what she’s supposed to do. She gets to kill you.”

His lip curled upwards, mocking and lethal. “And that’s what pisses you off, because you don’t know where you fit in. You’ve never known, have you? You’re a human. You’re not supposed to know about us, but you do. You’re empathic and that made you a freak. You found out things you weren’t supposed to and now what are you? You’re more of a freak than Kates or I will ever be. Only one can exist and you’re all alone.”

Those words hit me, but he was right. “I am alone and I don’t know who I am—what I am.”

“Davy…”

“Kates said that you want my blood? I have life in me and you want that life?” Everything was blaring inside of me. “You…”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Then make it simple!” I cried out, infuriated. There was something inside of me, something that I didn’t understand. I wanted it out. I wanted it gone because it didn’t belong there. It wasn’t me and I only wanted to be me. “I don’t want this, Roane! I don’t want this thing inside of me. Take it out. Drink it out. Drain me—do whatever you need to do. I want it gone!”

~‘Welcome to the Land of Never Death.’~

“Get it out of me!” I grasped Roane’s shoulders and pressed myself against him. I felt him stiffen. He was so rigid…. “Please, Roane.”

He sighed in surrender and wrapped both arms around me.

Just then, we heard a cough and I nearly wept, but I couldn’t name from what emotion. Roane lifted his head and I felt the coldness where he had rested his cheek against mine. He turned towards the intruder. “What is it, Gregory?”

“The Family is here. They need to know about her.”

Her—me. I felt the reluctance in Roane and though he didn’t move I still felt a part of him tear away from me. I almost gasped from the pain. “They can’t know, Gregory. No one can know.” It was like he’d spoken about death, about his death.

“Raitscliff and Lucan both think the new Immortal is a different girl.”

“Do you know this girl?”

“Yes.”

“Then go and get her. They can’t hurt her if we have her.”

“You’ll bring war to this household,” Gregory warned.

I glanced towards the Viking vampire and was surprised to see the gravity in his eyes.

Roane wrapped his arms tighter around me. I closed my eyes as his cheek brushed against mine and felt his words against my shoulder. “Find the other girl. Bring her here.”

When Gregory left, I looked up. “What’ll happen to the other girl?”

Something broke inside of Roane at my question. A part of me realized that I was in there because I felt it break. I hadn’t purposely gone into him, but I was. He either didn’t care or didn’t know. “They’ll drain her. They’ll kill her thinking she can’t die. But even if she was the Immortal, I would still need to stop them.”

“Why?”

“No vampire can drink the Immortal’s blood. It can’t be allowed to happen.”

I lifted my head and searched his eyes with mine. ‘~How?’~

“I’ll fight them.”

I pulled away and out of him at the same time. Everything was too much. “This is all too overwhelming.”

“It’s going to get more overwhelming.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should sit down, Davy.”

That didn’t sound ominous at all. “Okay…” I sat slowly and took a breath. I knew I’d need to ready myself for whatever was coming my way.

He stepped back and leaned against the wall “In all my life, no Immortal has been known.”