The heat from the fire was unbearable. I caught Coby’s hand in my own and led him away from the house. We staggered onto the front street in time to see the back end of my car disappear. Seconds later, two fire engines raced around the corner to battle the flames that ended one of my nightmares while birthing another.
Coby pulled his hand from mine but stayed close. He looked at me with eyes that were all wolf. Shit.
“You’ve got to hold it together,” I said, keenly aware of the neighborhood watching us. “Force the wolf back down. You have to.”
His energy was explosive, alive with fear and pain. “I don’t know how.”
I couldn’t do a damn thing to help calm him; I was a wreck myself. “Try. You can’t let them see you like this.”
The fire engines stopped in front of the house. They were quickly joined by an ambulance and two police cars. A fireman shouted at us, asking if anyone else was inside. I shook my head no. No one was inside except the memory of the girl I used to be.
Paramedics added to the commotion. They headed toward us with shouted questions that I couldn’t process.
All I could think about was the parts of me that would go down in ashes with that house.
The large framed photo of Shaz and me that Kylarai had given me for my birthday was gone. Along with it were my laptop and the cross necklace I’d received from Kale.
The laptop was of little concern. I was no idiot. The files I’d swiped from Veryl had been on the hard drive, but they were also safely stored online just in case of a disaster like this.
The loss of Kale’s cross cut the deepest. It was old – old enough to have belonged to his mother. I should never have had it.
As the paramedics drew near, I glanced frantically at Coby. He stared back at me with human eyes. I was grateful for that small blessing.
The sudden commotion made my head spin. People were on us with questions and first aid gear before I could utter a word. It took a few tries for me to explain clearly that we were fine, just a little banged up. I did all I could to stall when three paramedics ushered us toward a waiting ambulance.
“We’re fine, really. We don’t need to go to the hospital.” I tried, but I knew they weren’t buying it.
A female medic with a gentle smile but serious eyes gripped my arm. “We have to take you in. Just to be safe. If you’re fine, you’ll be released right away. Your friend is looking pretty rough.”
I cursed Falon beneath my breath. It was his fault Coby looked so battered and bruised. At least these people thought all of that came from the fall out of the bedroom window.
Two men waited to assist us along at her command. I had no choice but to go along with this hospital song and dance. The sooner we went, the sooner it would be over.
“Fine,” I relented. “Let’s get this over with. I have shit to do.”
I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the burning house as the ambulance took us from the scene. The flames had reached the top floor. They reached for the sky, hungrily devouring the dwelling.
I did my best to ignore the paramedics as they tended to us. I waved away an oxygen mask as it was thrust at me. I was sore from the fall, sad from the loss of my house and more than a little pissed off.
Three attempts on my life in just a few days. Three failed attempts. I had to find the source of this insanity and make them sorry they’d ever heard my name.
Coby received more attention than I did. He allowed them to tend to his wounds and fit him with an oxygen mask. I wanted to be left alone. I managed to get close enough to Coby to whisper the warning, “Don’t let them take your blood.”
We were fine. Our bodies were already healing whatever injuries we’d sustained. Even Coby’s shiner would be gone in a matter of hours.
The sooner we could bail out of the hospital, the better.
Yet after the ambulance ride, we sat in the ER for two hours waiting for more than a passing nurse to ask how we were. There were several other people waiting, most of them in worse shape than we were. I clutched my bag, finding comfort in the few meager possessions I had inside.
Arys’s touch on my mind was gentle, tentative. I could feel the worry he tried not to convey. I needed to be with him. The safety I felt only in his arms was the only thing that would get me through this nightmare.
“Let’s go,” I said after another thirty minutes had passed. “We’re not close enough to death to be a priority. I doubt they’ll even notice we’re gone.”
Coby said nothing, just nodded, ready to follow my lead. I headed for the door and never looked back. I had a vampire to kill. If one of us had to die, them or me, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.
Chapter Ten
I stepped outside, squinting against the sunlight and reached for my phone to call a cab. A flash of platinum hair caught my eye from across the parking lot. Shaz was moving fast, slipping between vehicles at a near run. For the first time since the fire started, I wanted to cry.