I knew these seconds belonged to him.
I felt myself becoming hotter, a burning sensation rising from the pit of my stomach. As his lips brushed my cheek, I heard his fangs crack as they fractured into place. They immediately found my neck and proceeded to scrape my soft skin, preparing to burrow their way in.
Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe I had lost myself in the moment, but there was something inside me that yearned for him to stab me with his fangs and consume every inch of me. I could feel my eyes widening in anticipation and my sockets began to itch.
But the sensation was quickly ended by Brooke’s voice yelling urgently from the doorway. “Jonah! What are you doing?”
Brooke caused the taut rope in between us to snap clean.
I began to remember myself. Jonah didn’t flinch; he remained poised at my throat. Brooke was on Jonah’s back within a split second, desperately struggling to pull him off, but he was far stronger than she was. I grabbed his shoulders and thrust my weight into him, and to my surprise he was thrown backward.
Brooke clutched him tightly, shouting for Ruadhan.
“Get off!” Jonah bellowed.
The counter steadied me as my legs wobbled. His eyes had a few remaining flecks of red swirling in them, but he wasn’t lit up the way he had been on the night we met. He was excited, but I could see he was regaining control of himself and I felt relief wash over me.
Jonah shrugged Brooke off easily, tossing her to the side as if she were nothing. She stared at him, crestfallen, as she saw that his eyes were alive for me, not her.
She stiffened and turned her attention to me, enraged.
I made for the double doors leading to the patio area outside, mumbling something about needing some air.
I learned something very useful in the seconds that followed—a lesson once taught to me by Frederic, the first Vampire I’d ever encountered. It had slipped through the net in my panic.
Never turn your back on a murderous Vampire.
TWELVE
AS I REACHED FOR THE HANDLE and pushed it down, the sudden force of a thousand rocks hit my back, sending me sailing through the windowpanes. There was no time to protect my face as the glass shattered, slicing effortlessly into my skin.
Facedown, I slammed against the icy paving stones, and it felt as though I were being stabbed with a thousand knives.
No time to consider my options; she had me by the top of my arm, dragging me up.
My vision was hazy in the night’s blackness, but I could see Brooke’s red eyes glowing, and they widened as she consumed the space around me. I was petrified. She was a girl scorned, and I couldn’t see an escape from this. I didn’t know how badly I was bleeding. Riding on a wave of jealousy, I was sure that her intentions had been to only give me a good beating, but I conceded that the smell of my blood might be too tempting to resist—for any of them. The true danger of this scenario hit me square in the jaw: Gabriel had left me in a house of Vampires.
The bone in my arm crunched as she gripped it tightly. Just as suddenly she released it and I heard her hit the floor hard as Jonah pounced on top of her. Two sturdy arms eased my fall as I crumpled. Ruadhan was behind, steadying me. Brooke screamed and wailed as Jonah pinned her beneath him. The noise whirled around my mind, disorientating me.
Ruadhan left me propped against the garden furniture and helped Jonah calm the sobbing Brooke. My left arm lay heavy at my side; I could tell she hadn’t broken it, but she had at least fractured my bone. I willed it to heal quickly; I needed to protect myself if any more of them turned on me.
My stomach seemed to be pulsating; I placed my hand over it and discovered a large chunk of glass digging deep inside with very little protruding out. My whole body seized up and I was momentarily glad that I had drunk some alcohol; it was helping take the edge off the pain.
I placed my hand across my stomach to conceal the injury and waited. It took some time but eventually Ruadhan and Jonah pacified Brooke to the point where Jonah was able to lift her off the ground. Supporting Brooke’s weight, he positioned her arm around his shoulders. She would heal quickly, from whatever hurt her; that was one thing we had in common. As she cried into his chest like a little girl, he turned back to me. He looked uncomfortable, as though he wanted to check I was okay. He wished he was with me, but he couldn’t be; I could see as much in his strained expression.
As they left, Ruadhan returned to my side and began picking at the loose hairs that were sticking to my cuts and grazes. “I’m so sorry, love! I’m going to get some water—I need to clean you up.” Rising to his feet, he left me.
I tried to lift off the floor with my hands, but subdued a squeal as my arm bowed under my weight. My bone was not healing as fast as I needed it to. I removed my arm from my torso and took a closer look at the sharp piece of glass that was lodged firmly to the left of my belly button. Pulling it out here, with no Gabriel and three Vampires in close proximity, was not a brilliant idea.
Hiding it once more, I began picking out the little shards of shattered glass that had cleanly sliced their way through my jeans and lace blouse. Ruadhan appeared and insisted on plucking a barbed piece from my eyebrow. His face remained composed, almost clinical. He didn’t even wince at the spurts of fresh blood as he pulled out piece after piece. The feeling in my arm was returning and I knew the fracture had almost healed. I allowed Ruadhan to wipe my face clean with a white cloth, and then he started treating me with ointments and creams. It was in vain; the scrapes and cuts would fix themselves, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Ruadhan replied with a quizzical look, scratching at the stubble on his chin with his spare hand.
“It’s my fault. I’ve come here and things have changed for you all. I have made your existence … difficult.” I teetered.
Ruadhan patted my neck lightly and I grimaced as the cloth made contact with a deeper laceration. He moved in closer and took in the state of my skin. “Jonah was about to drink from you, I can see where his fangs dug into your flesh,” he observed.
“But he didn’t, he never pierced my skin. Please don’t say anything to Gabriel—I don’t want to make things worse.”
Ruadhan ignored my plea, shrugging. “Brooke will be very regretful of her actions tomorrow,” Ruadhan said. “The two of them have a, well, complicated relationship, but she would never have killed you. I just think you should know that.”