Shaz’s voice followed me. “Be careful, Lex.”
The scent of coffee and werewolf hit me when I stepped inside. Shaz remained on the deck, staring out at the night. After wishing the wolves at the table a nice night, I headed for the front door with Kylarai hot on my heels.
“Are you ok?” She asked in a soft whisper when we stood alone on the front step. “The tension between the two of you is suffocating.”
“I’m fine. I just wish I could stay.”
“Liar.”
“Ok, I’m lying.” Trying to hide anything from the mother hen of the group was hopeless. She knew both Shaz and me well. She was the big sister neither of us ever had. “I’m not fine. I’m coming apart inside and doing my damnedest to hide it.”
The confession felt good. Keeping everything buried was hurting me, not helping.
“You’ve never been very good at hiding your feelings. It’s one of the things I love most about you.” Kylarai’s grey eyes shone with warmth. She gave me a tight hug that crushed the breath from me. “We need to have some quality girl time. You don’t have to bear every burden alone.”
I nodded and bit my lip, trying to hold back my next words. “Shaz is leaving town, Ky. I don’t know how I’m going to survive without him.”
Her smile faded, and she gave a solemn nod. “I know. He told me. I’m so sorry, Lex. Maybe it will be for the best. Give you both a chance to sort things out.”
“I know,” I sniffled, cursing the few stray tears that had escaped. Clear and human, they mocked me in ways blood tears did not.
“He’s leaving because he loves you, Alexa. Because he wants to be the link to the light that you need to battle Arys’s darkness. He knows now what that means.”
“How is that possible when I don’t even know?”
Ky shrugged and pushed a blonde lock out of my eyes. “He has faith. And, so should you. Everything happens for a reason. Your link to Arys, your love for Shaz, it all has to mean something. Remember that.”
She was right. Staying strong would carry me through. That’s what I needed now. “Take care of each other tonight, ok? I’ve got to go.”
Arys was waiting in my car. I got in, started the engine and backed out of Kylarai’s driveway without a glance in his direction. I didn’t want him to see the pain I fought down inside. I had to change my focus. Tonight’s rendezvous permitted no room for crippling emotion.
I could feel the weight of his gaze as I drove. The vampire was a clever creature though, and he knew better than to ask whatever questions were dancing on the tip of his tongue. He allowed me to pretend everything was fine and dandy until we reached the outskirts of the city.
“Might as well head down to the Avenue. It’s still early but hunting down a snack shouldn’t be too hard.” Arys sounded uninterested. Bored.
The Avenue was a strip just off the downtown core, known for being a fast paced, highly frequented red light district. It was my hunting ground of choice when the demands of the bloodlust became too much. I wasn’t proud of the things I’d done there, but it was my best alternative to mindlessly slaughtering innocents. I just didn’t feel quite so bad about spilling the blood of a man that used and abused fifteen-year-old girls.
“That’s not what you really want though, is it?” I eased the Charger to a stop at a red light and glanced his way. “You like them with enough innocence to make it wrong. Don’t you?”
A wicked smile tugged at his lips. “You’ve seen my memories. You tell me.”
“If I wasn’t here, you’d be hunting one of the prostitutes. Or, maybe some random passerby that captures your attention. Someone that you can play the game with. Someone you can draw in, work into a frenzy, and devour.”
I wasn’t wrong. His silence confirmed that. The differences between the two of us were becoming more apparent all the time. Since I’d learned we were twin flames, I had been looking harder at each of us, seeking evidence of the light and dark we were both said to possess, and I was finding it. True to the yin-yang description, we each held a little of the other inside.
“Ladies choice tonight,” Arys said with a wink. “How’s that sound?”
“Fantastic,” I replied, my tone thick with sarcasm.
I pulled the car into the parking lot of a small, vacant church. We quickly joined the rest of the creatures of the night, prowling the streets for the perfect victim. The Avenue was not where I wanted to be. The stink of car exhaust and the filthy city streets made me long that much more for the clean earthy scent of the forest and the wolves that should be running at my side. Not being there with them, it felt so wrong.