AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No words came to my mind as he went to his knee and slammed the spike into Alex’s chest. His body evaporated into a cloud of dust, I inhaled deeply, drawing Alex into my lungs, into my soul. He would forever be a part of me. My chin dropped to my chest as the heavy weight of failure settled on my shoulders. I would forever bear this weight but swore then that I would protect Kristin with everything that I had in me—forever.
When his men came to me, and began to beat me, kick me, I let them. My time for vengeance would come. I knew that they wouldn’t kill me, they wanted me to take a message back, and I knew that my physical wounds would heal. It was the mental one of watching Alex die that would never do so.
***
Iblinked, and feltpain radiating through every inch of my body. I was in my room, and I felt Kristin near, I turned my head to find her lying on the bed curled toward me. Her eyes closed, but she wasn’t sleeping, her mind was warring over things.
Her blood was still burning through my body, every beat of my heart made it flare within me. Somehow, I had lived. I had survived taking her vein. Was I right? Would I possibly desensitize myself to her blood over time?
Her eyes popped open, the blue so crystal clear I felt I could look straight through it to her mind. “You shouldn’t have done that.” She whispered.
“I needed to.” I said as I rolled to my side, wincing at the burning inside my body. It was worse than when I’d been returned broken and beaten that day eighteen years ago.
“Why?”
“To prove to you that you need me.” A line marred her forehead and I touched her face with a heavy hand. “Do you remember when I returned after Alex was killed?”
“Yes.”
“I told you that Alex made me swear that I would never leave your side. I would protect you with my own life, in a way that I hadn’t for him. You gave me a blood oath that day.”
“Yes, I did.”
The memory of her scoring her wrist and holding it out to me came back to my mind. I had merely licked her wrist, taking in just a few drops of her essence and my insides had burned like I was on fire for two days. I had survived that, and as her essence had drifted through my veins, I vowed that I would never allow anything to happen to her.
“You broke that oath.” I finally replied as I pulled my hand away from her face. She reached for my hand and held it tightly.
“I will never do that again, Joshua, but you must promise me that you will never take my blood again. You lived this time, but next time you might not.”
“I wanted to prove to you that I would die for you.”
“I know you would, but I don’t want you to die for me, Joshua. I want you tolivefor me, to live beside me. I cannot be what you want, but you can be what Ineed—my friend and my protector. Do you swear this? Do you swear this on my blood?”
I squeezed her hand, “I do.”
“May I try something?”
I nodded, unsure of what she wanted to do but mesmerized by her eyes as they turned to silver, and she lifted my hand and brought my wrist to her mouth as her fangs descended. She scored my wrist, pulled deeply from my vein and the pain inside of me began to lessen. The entire time, we stared at one another, and then the pain was almost gone, only a tingling left around my heart.
She removed her fangs, licked my wrist, and then placed a kiss to it. “I need you to live, to protect me, to feed me when I need it, and to be my friend.”
“I will, Kristin,” I paused. “How did you make the pain stop?”
She smiled faintly, “I called my blood back to me, but I left just enough to make our bond stronger.”
“You can do that? You can call your blood back?”
She laughed softly, “I guess I can.” She shrugged as she sat up, “I didn’t know that I could do that until now, but obviously I can.”
I stared at her in amazement. This woman was incredible, absolutely fucking incredible.
