AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shook her head mutely, but her posture—and that whole cradling her head thing—spoke volumes. His instinct to comfort arose immediately, but he stifled it before she could growl and bite. This wasn’t a normal woman with normal urges. This was Emily Yost. From what he’d seen, she got more excited over new book shipments at the library than she did over red-blooded males.
Unless they had fangs. He ran his tongue over his own, still hooded in his mouth. Fangs they hadn’t lied to her about having.
“I need to go to him,” he said gently, wondering if she could even hear him over Kellan’s enraged shouts.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of Kellan? No.” He covered her hands with his and drew them away from her ears. “It would probably be best if you went back to the library without me.”
As if she cared. She hadn’t wanted him to walk her back any more than she’d wanted to walk with him to the house he shared with Kellan. The only reason she had agreed to it was curiosity, plain and simple. Vampires fascinated her, and she seemed willing to tolerate Lucas’s lowly presence as long as she got the opportunity to study one first hand.
Little did she know she was getting two-for-one out of the deal.
A rare flash of uncertainty crossed her lush features. She wasn’t traditionally beautiful. Her mouth was too wide, her eyes too far apart. But the intelligence in them combined with the fleeting smiles he’d glimpsed once or twice—he lived for those smiles—granted her unspeakable beauty.
To him, she was the most gorgeous creature that had ever existed.
“Maybe you shouldn’t go in there alone. Unarmed.”
“I’ll be fine.” With effort, he released her hands at her sides. That she hadn’t yanked them free shocked him, but right then, he couldn’t concentrate on anything but his best friend.
Not even Emily.
She gripped his wrist as he turned to go, her eyes sleet gray and imploring. “Wait.” She dug into her purse and came up with a small can of pepper spray, which she pressed into his palm. “It should slow him down long enough for you to escape. Aim directly for the eyes.”
It was silly to be touched, but he was. And he also felt guilty as hell he’d lied to her about his true identity. That had been before he’d guessed the level of her interest in vamps. Now he was beginning to think his telling her he wasn’t a bloodsucker had been a mistake, and not just because it didn’t bode well for their future relationship. Not that he had any way of knowing that they would even have a future relationship.
Something crashed through a side window, which finally dislodged him from his thoughts. “I gotta go.”
He gazed down at her and followed impulse once more. Before she had time to protest, he laid his lips on her forehead. The contact lasted seconds. Long enough for her to stiffen and her eyes to widen like twin searchlights.
The last thing he heard as he strode toward the front door was her whispered, “Be careful.”
Chapter Ten
Sydney stared straight ahead while Tate maneuvered through the twisty streets that surrounded Kellan and Lucas’s place. She could’ve sworn she still heard the inhuman sound he’d made at her leaving.
Inhuman. Of course. Kellan was nothing more than a wild animal, and he’d tried to make her into one, too. Did he think she hadn’t heard him plotting to change her on the other side of that closed bathroom door? And for what? Just so he could more easily manipulate her feelings for his own ends.
She wouldn’t stand for it. He wasn’t her “sire”. She hadn’t been turned, and she would figure out a way to forget she’d ever known Kellan Barstow and Lucas Phillips.
Somehow, she would wipe them from her mind. And divest herself of the aching hunger that already shredded her stomach with iron claws.
“Did he rape you?” Tate kept his voice carefully neutral. “Or force you to do something you weren’t comfortable doing?”
Oh, I was very comfortable. That was part of the problem.
She didn’t answer. She honestly didn’t know if she could speak without bawling. How positively mortifying. She’d never been a weepy girl, but she’d lost all control.
&nbs
p; “You have blood on the hem of your nightgown,” he continued in that same flat tone. “Streaks on your thighs. I saw it when you got into the car.”
“Let it go.”
“No, I won’t let it go. I feel responsible, Syd. It’s my fault you turned to that animal after you found Jed and I in—” He stopped, shook himself. “I just want you to know that’s over. It won’t happen again.”
She hadn’t asked. His relationship with her closest friend simply didn’t matter anymore. “Why?”
