AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The urge to gorge on the human blinded her for a second. The intensity of the bloodlust mirrored the one she’d experienced as a newborn vamp. No. She was in control, not the bestial vampire. As she fed, she listened to the human’s heartbeat, reminding herself repeatedly she was taking sustenance from a living, breathing being. But the beast refused to be sated. It had been starving for so long. Allowing herself to be injured so soon after her awakening had been a terrible idea.
More. She wanted more.
Stop.
Strength flooded into her, a hand to lift her out of the drowning thirst. Gabby clung to it like a lifeline and released the human’s wrist when she felt a tug on it. Her bite on the next human’s wrist was gentler as the hunger abated. The red haze in her mind cleared, and she sliced open her healed wrist, using the fresh blood to push out the remaining silver in her body.
This time, Felix didn’t have to force her to release the human. She stopped drinking by herself, licked the wound closed, and slumped back against the wall.
Felix towered over her, guarding her. The raw maleness of him, the dominance he commanded, made her feel safe, protected, even though part of her hated him for it.
He knelt, dipped a finger into the dark gray mixture of silver and her blood, and sniffed, his expression dark.
“Do you recognize it?” Gabby asked.
“No. You said this didn’t come from the Hunters?”
“Not the ones I was fighting.” She thought back to the fight and the second she’d sensed someone else and pointed to her left. “It came from over there.”
“Stay here.”
She was too exhausted to argue. Felix was gone for less than a minute and returned with a deeper scowl than before.
“What did you find?”
“It’s vampires.” The growl rumbling off his chest could scare off a pack of wolves.
“Vampires? But why would vampires—” The answer came to her before she could finish. “Jiaren. Was it him?” Surely the Chinese vampire wouldn’t be so daring?
“No, I didn’t recognize the scent, but it’s definitely a vampire.”
“So, it might not be him.” If it wasn’t Jiaren, did another vampire want her dead? Maybe Malika?
“Regardless, we should get back before any backups arrive.”
“Did Julian retrieve Leah?”
Silence, as Felix reached out to Marek, not including her on the link this time. Gabby had her answer from the narrowing of his eyes and the fury pulsing from him before he even said anything. “No, they got away.”
“Fuck,” she cursed and scowled at Felix’s arched brows. “What? I am six hundred years old. I am not a prude.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Her scowl firmly in place, she climbed to her feet and slapped his hand away when he tried to help, though her legs wobbled. “I’m fine.”
She could make it back to the Central Tower without being carried. This wasn’t her first fight, or the worst one she’d been in.
Felix’s hands clenched, his eyes glowing with the need to overpower her with what he thought was best. For a second Gabby thought she would have to fight him off, but he stepped back. Turning on his heel, he spread his wings, grabbed the two humans, and flew off the building.
As much as she hated to admit it, maybe she was finally getting through to him.
Had he changed? Or was this an elaborate plan to get her to lower her guard?
Alistair had given her until the end of the Gathering to decide. Gabby never thought she would change her mind, yet here she was, wavering.
The agony from the one second of the bond breaking had made her want to carve her heart out, but if Felix was pretending and she made the mistake of choosing him over freedom, she wouldn’t survive that either.
Chapter Fifteen
