chapter 18
IT WAS THE TASTE that woke her: sweet and rich and…to freaking die for. It gushed over Lucy’s tongue and down her throat in greedy droughts. Better than ice cream, better than chocolate, better than a caramel mocha latte made with whole milk—even better than the cake her grandmother had baked special for her birthday.
As if the scrumptious liquid was a magical cure-all for everything that had ever gone wrong in your life, or had ever laid a finger on you, Lucy felt the panacea rush through her veins, warm and pulsating with life, making every molecule in her body sing with joy, all her pain vanishing as her heart thrummed in her chest.
Strong arms held her, cradled her as she drank from—her lips were latched tight to flesh—someone’s wrist.
“That’s enough,” a man’s voice Lucy knew she should recognize said. “Any more and she might…” He didn’t finish. He pulled his wrist from her grasp, eliciting a whimper from Lucy’s lips. He gathered her up in his strong arms and moved them both effortlessly through the ruins of the room, through the gaping hole in the wall, and out into the cool night.
*****
Time flickered by and Lucy now felt warm all over, the wondrous taste still in her mouth, and everything that had hurt wasn’t hurting anymore. She realized she was so warm because she was pressed against Gabriel’s naked chest, his strong arms wrapped protectively around her. She sighed as she indulged in the thought that she’d died and gone to heaven, and in heaven Gabriel was naked, at least from the waist up.
Lucy opened her eyes a little more and saw they were riding in the back of car, a sedan with tinted windows. Delia’s brother, Vin, was driving. Lucy felt the car sway as Vin zigzagged through traffic, making her hold tighter to Gabriel’s bare torso. Glancing up to the driver’s seat again, Lucy suddenly felt a jolt of astonishment. Vin had a white linen handkerchief wrapped around his wrist. Lucy’s stomach lurched with revulsion as she realized what had happened.
It hadn’t been some dream, or a trick of the mind. Vin had fed her his own blood, probably saving her life…but was she really alive anymore?
“Am I a vampire now?” Her stomach did another flip, and her heart started really thumping. She didn’t care that one of them had saved her life or not, becoming fangy and dead and—well, she just couldn’t get past the whole dead thing—just wasn’t in her life plan.
Delia’s brother finally spoke, his voice silky and smooth, and irritatingly calm. “It takes far more than drinking a little blood to make the change.” He gave her a wink as he gazed at her through the rear view mirror. His eyes were the same blue as Delia’s, yet they were not cold as ice. No, they were liquid blue heat, smoldering as he gazed at her. “So, do not worry.”
“You’ll be fine,” Gabriel said, holding her closer. Lucy took a deep breath and snuggled into his bare, ever so warm flesh. But then she saw Delia lying in the front passenger seat beside Vin.
“What the hell is she doing here?” Lucy blurted out, an edge of hysteria to her voice. Her entire body jerked as her eyes snapped open and her heartbeat began to race again.
“I think she’s asleep,” Vin said neutrally.
“And I so was hoping for ‘she’s dead’ to pop out of your mouth.” All of a sudden Lucy felt like an ungrateful child, talking to Vin like that. After all, he’d literally saved her life.
He acted as if he hadn’t heard her, saying: “Would this be your doing?”
Gabriel turned and looked to Lucy with a confused expression on his gorgeous face.
“Yeah,” Lucy mumbled, “I’m surprised it stuck.”
Out of nowhere Lucy felt something cool and silky move over her, slipping effortlessly into her consciousness. It was lust and wanting, and an acute hunger. And it wasn’t hers. Instantly she knew she was feeling Vin’s emotions, and no sooner did she try to recoil from them than she heard the vampire’s thoughts, as clear as if he’d whispered them in her ear.
Her power is extraordinary. I’ll have to keep an eye on her. Then, with a frantic flash of images, all of them of her, reflected through the yearning of his mind, he thought: Would I kill to be with her?
Lucy’s entire body tightened until she was sure she’d break apart in Gabriel’s arms. She’d seen in his thoughts that he wanted to bed her, and he wanted to eat her—drink her, whatever—quite literally. She knew without knowing that his thirst for her blood, and his attraction to her and to her very scent, was overwhelming—just being in the confined space of the car with her, even with Gabriel there, was almost unbearable.
He’d kill me in an instant…or worse…
Lucy was hyperventilating and trembling when Gabriel pulled her closer, pressing his soft, warm lips to her forehead. “I won’t let anything hurt you,” he whispered, his breath warm and tickling against the flesh of her ear and neck. “I promise.”
Lucy snuggled deeply into Gabriel’s naked flesh, the thick slabs of super-heated muscle. She wanted to be home. She wanted to see her grandmother and her mother…hell, she even wanted to see Seth…
But most of all Lucy wanted for what she felt right then—in Gabriel’s arms—to be real.
She caught Vin looking back at her again through the rearview mirror. Just keep your eyes on the road, and on your comatose psychopath of a sister.
Lucy already knew Delia wouldn’t stay asleep forever.
***End***