Ben exhaled, and his eyes studied the cobblestone. “Maybe we should go inside.”
“No!” Tracey shouted. “I want an answer, right now! An honest to God, truthful answer. You can’t make me forget stuff anymore. You have to let me in now, and I want to know.” She inhaled a deep breath, then let it out slowly. When she spoke she seemed calmer, but her words trembled. “I want to know what happened to my daughter.”
Olivia raised her hand. “It was my decision, Mom. You can’t be mad at Dad.”
Tracey’s eyes returned to Olivia. “What was your decision?” Her voice was so quiet, I wasn’t sure if she really wanted an answer to that.
Olivia held her head up when she spoke, and she suddenly didn’t seem like a little girl at all. “I chose to be turned into a vampire.”
Tracey took another step back. She ran into Mom, and Mom put a supportive arm around her. “It’s okay, Trace,” she told her. “It’s going to be okay.”
Tracey looked back at Mom with tears in her eyes. “She’s just a little girl, and he made her into a…a…”
She struggled to say the word, so Olivia supplied it for her. Arms crossed over her chest, she snapped, “I’m not a monster, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Tracey returned her gaze to her daughter. “No, of course you’re not, sweetie. You’re fine…we’ll fix this.” She looked over at Ben. “We can fix this, right?”
Ben finally met her eye. “There’s no way to undo vampirism, Tracey. I’m sorry. This is just…the way she is now.”
Tracey became unglued. Breaking free from Mom, she stormed over to her husband. “You promised me she’d be fine here! You swore she’d be safe! She’s just a little girl, and you got her killed!” She shoved against his chest, but Ben didn’t move.
Everyone tensed, ready to spring into action, but Olivia made the first move. Blurring vampire-fast, she stepped between her mother and father, and gently pushed her mom back. Dropping into a protective crouch in front of Ben, she let out a menacing growl. “I’m not dead! Nobody has killed me.”
Tracey staggered back a few feet. When she regained her balance, she looked at her daughter in confusion. “Not dead?”
Olivia shook her head. “No…my heart is still beating, I’m still aging. I won’t always be eleven.” Seeing her mom calmer, she straightened. “I just have these teeth, and crazy-fast speed.” She smiled, like it was all no big deal.
Tracey tried to smile, but it came out forced. “I need a drink,” she muttered, then she turned and walked back into the house. She passed Hunter, who was finished with his blood and coming out to join me, but she didn’t say a word to him.
Olivia looked back at her dad, and Ben sighed. “Is she mad at me, Dad?”
Ben shook his head. “Of course not. She’s just…overwhelmed. We’ll give her a minute, then go talk to her.”
Jake stepped forward. “What we should be doing is formulating a plan for tomorrow night, for getting Simon back.”
My dad clapped him on the back. “He’s safe, and he survived the process. He’s going to be okay for one night, so we should rest up. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”
Jake looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he nodded. “All right, I’m going to my room then.” Once we’d started helping Jake instead of keeping him hostage, he’d started sleeping in the upstairs “daylight” rooms. I think he was more comfortable being above ground. Friendly or not, being around pureblood vampires was still a challenge for him.
Rory and Cleo started to follow him into the house, and frowning, Jake turned to Hunter. “Mind calling off your guard dogs? I’m not going anywhere.”
Hunter turned to Rory and Cleo. “Why don’t you guys take off? Go home for once—rest. You must have lives outside of all of this?” He indicated the family ranch with a sweep of his hand.
Rory and Cleo exchanged a glance, then shrugged. “Not really,” Cleo told him. “We’ve been hunting your kind for so long now that everything else kind of…fell apart. If it’s all the same to you, we’d rather stay here, protecting your family.”
Rory scratched his head. “It’s the closest we’ve had to one in a while.”
Hunter smiled, then shrugged as well. “I can’t compel you anymore. You’re free to do what you like.”
Both hunters gave him a formal, stiff nod. Jake rolled his eyes, then wearily stumbled into the house. Hunter’s bodyguards shuffled after him. Mom and Dad hugged while Ben and Olivia went to go find Tracey. As they entered the house, Julian, Trey, and Arianna exited it.
“Thanks for your help tonight, and for telling us about the party. I think you sort of saved the day,” Julian was telling Trey.
Trey was beaming. Looking over at me, he puffed out his chest. “Hear that, Little A? I’m a hero.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “Yeah, I know.” Trey had been helpful on more than one occasion, he just didn’t remember.
Trey gave me a nod, then Julian a brief guy hug. “See you tomorrow night, dude.”
Julian shook his head. “No, you guys should sit this one out. It might be dangerous.” His eyes flicked to me. “Even more so than tonight was.”
Trey swished his hand. “Playing-with-Fire is my middle name, man. I live for this shit.” Eyeing my parents standing a few feet away, Trey quickly amended with, “Err, stuff…I live for this stuff.”
Dad smirked at Trey, then clasped Mom’s elbow and started walking to the house. Hunter grabbed my hand to lead me away, but I wanted to say goodbye to my best friend first, even if she didn’t remember when we were best friends. Approaching Arianna, I wrapped my arms around her in a quick hug.
Dropping Julian’s hand, she hugged me back. “Goodnight, Arianna. Drive safe.”
“Thank you, Nika.” Her voice was sweet, but there was still some distance there. While Julian had gone to school with her every day, and had been slowly rebuilding some sort of familiarity with her, I hadn’t had as much time with her. We’d eventually rebuild what we’d had though. I was sure of it.
Stepping away so Arianna could say her goodbyes to Julian in peace, I grabbed Hunter’s hand. As Julian and Arianna stared at each other with moons and stars in their eyes, Hunter pulled me back toward the house. “You’ve been through a lot tonight,” he said. “You should rest.”
His eyes were warm, soft, and concerned but shaking my head, I told him, “There’s too much to do. We should talk to Grandma and Gabriel, see if they found anything important, anything we can use tomorrow.”
His smile turned appreciative and amused as he led me through the entryway. “There are a million people in this house, Nika. Or it sure feels that way sometimes. If anything is discovered, they’ll tell us before we go. In the meantime, the best thing we can do for Starla, Jacen, and ourselves, is to rest.”
Even though I didn’t want to agree with his logic, even though I wanted to keep moving, keep pressing forward, keep fighting, I nodded. “Okay…fine. Let’s go hole up somewhere.” By my tone, it was clear I meant for us to go somewhere together. I waited for my father to voice his objections, but surprisingly, he didn’t. Maybe he understood that it was pointless to keep denying the inevitable. Or maybe he was just giving me a free pass tonight…since I had just had my chest cracked open. Or maybe he trusted that Hunter wouldn’t try anything with me under his roof…not until I was eighteen.
Whatever the reason was, no one objected when Hunter and I disappeared into his bedroom together. He closed the door behind us, disconnecting us from the rest of the house, and I was grateful and relieved that we would be in each other’s arms tonight.
Leading me to his bed, Hunter pulled back the covers and murmured, “Lay down, love.”
The term of endearment made me smile. It was similar to something Halina would say, and I wondered if he’d picked it up from her. As I crawled into bed, Hunter walked over to the dresser to take his daily shot. It still hurt him to take it, but he tolerated the pain much better now. It was sort of amazing what th
e body could get used to.
“You could skip a night,” I told him, laying my head down on his pillow.
He looked back at me, and for a moment, he seemed entranced by what he saw. After a silent second, he shook his head like he was trying to regain his focus. “It’s better this way. For now. If I let the bond come back, I don’t think I’d have the strength to shut it off again. Being connected to you is too…intoxicating to resist twice.”
I wanted to remind him that he’d been resisting me for a while now, but I refrained. Now wasn’t the time, we both knew that. With a sympathetic cringe already in place, I watched as he prepared a needle and jabbed himself with it. As soon as the liquid was inside him, he hunched over in pain. Tossing the needle aside, he clamped onto his arm and squeezed his lips together, stopping himself from making a sound. A muffled cry still escaped him though, and it tore my heart to hear it. I pulled back the cover to run to him, but he lifted a finger to stop me. As I hesitated, his expression softened, his body relaxed.
With a pained smile on his face, he looked back at me and shrugged. “It’s really not so bad.”
Knowing he was full of it, I frowned. With a sigh, he turned off the lights, and then walked over to me. Crawling into the bed beside me, he wrapped his arms and legs around me and whispered in my ear, “It’s ten times better than having something happen to you because I lost control. Although…even in control I still let something happen to you.”
He sighed again and I twisted my body to face him. His eyes shone in the darkness, same as mine, and his face was lit in an almost ethereal glow. “I’m a vampire, and an Adams, and I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need you to be my savior and my protector. I just…need you.”
His eyes searched my face for long seconds, then he whispered, “I need you too. So much…” His mouth lowered to mine and our lips softly searched the other’s. The gentle, tender kisses didn’t last long though and before I knew it, Hunter was leaning over me, and our fangs were down and our kisses were frantic. A fire started burning within me, flaming hotter over the realization that I might have died tonight. I might have died, and all this time we’d been denying ourselves…and why? Because of my age? Because of my parents? In light of a near-death, it all seemed so arbitrary. We loved each other. We should be together. And with the bond gone, this wasn’t some passion-fueled frenzy. This was us: bare, real, raw. It was perfect, we were perfect, and I was wrong before…this was the time.
As Hunter’s mouth moved to my neck, I murmured, “I want you…”
He froze above me, then shifted his head to look at me, his breath heavier. “Nika…” I was positive he was going to start telling me all the reasons we couldn’t be together, all the reasons we had to deny what we both wanted. “I thought I’d lost you tonight. I can’t… I don’t want to…” He paused to swallow a hard lump, then said, “I want you too.”
His tone of voice gave me shivers, while the passion in his eyes burned straight through me. “You’re not going to fight me? Tell me we can’t? That it would be wrong? That it would be disrespectful? That we should keep waiting?”
His hand ran up my shirt as he shook his head. “No. I’m done waiting. And if you think this is wrong, if you think we should stop…then you better stop me…because I can’t anymore.” His hand settled between my breasts, right where the bullet had pierced me. I understood all too well why he wasn’t holding back anymore; it was the same reason I wasn’t holding back anymore.
“I don’t want you to stop.” My voice was so faint, even I could barely hear me.
Hunter’s hand shifted, and began traveling toward my jeans. As his mouth lowered to mine, he muttered, “Good.”
He began undressing me, and for a second, my mind spun. My dad was going to kill me if he ever found out about what we were doing right under his nose. But as more clothes were removed, I cared less and less about what Dad thought. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t kill me, I was already dead. And firmly in the love-of-my-life’s arms. There was nowhere else I’d rather be.
Hunter’s hands moved up and down my body, exploring me, caressing me. Knowing no one could hear me, I reveled in his touch, letting him know exactly how good it felt. My hands moved over the planes and angles of his body, feeling the rigidness of his muscles, the softness of his skin. His breath in my ear ignited me, and I thought I’d never been more ready for him in all my life.
“Please,” I murmured, pressing my lips to the side of his neck. Feeling the blood under the surface only escalated my desire.
A low groan escaped Hunter’s lips, and then he shifted his body so he was on top of me. My breath was a fast pant when I felt him pause, right where I needed him the most. A whimper escaped me, and my fangs crashed down as I lost all control.
“I love you, Nika,” Hunter whispered. I wanted to answer him, but he pushed into me at the same time and all words left me.
Moving together was just as rapturous as our first time. More so, since I was so much more sensitive now. I could feel the grooves in his skin, the stubble along his jaw, the way his body flexed and moved. I could hear the euphoria in his voice as he made soft, erotic noises that were quickly driving me to a breaking point. I wished the moment could last forever, but being so in tune with everything had me on the edge much too soon. Holding Hunter tight, I arched my back as the explosion hit me so hard my head swam. Oh God…
Hunter wasn’t far behind me, and he called out my name as he released. Exhaustion overcame me as my spent body started coming down off my high. And as Hunter lovingly kissed my shoulder and slid to my side, only one thought swam through my head—thank God for vampire-soundproofing.
HUNTER AND I woke up completely bare the next evening. We’d fallen asleep immediately after exploring each other. Memories of the moment flashed through my mind, making me smile. It had been just as amazing as I’d hoped it would be. And even though we had things to do, very important things to do, I kind of wanted to skip it all and stay naked in his arms all night.
“And what are you smiling about?” Hunter’s deep voice said, breaking the stillness.
“Just…reminiscing. And wishing we had time to do that again.”
And just like that, our door was opened. I clutched the covers to my chest as my idiotic brother stepped into the room. “Hey, guys, we’re gonna head out in—” Julian cut off what he was saying the instant he realized what he’d walked into. Spinning around, he exclaimed, “Jesus, Nika! A warning would be nice! I’m so tired of seeing crap I shouldn’t see!”
Making sure the sheet was tight around me, I blurred to the door and shut it before Julian could inadvertently spill all my secrets to the entire house. Great. If Dad had any worries about last night, Julian had just confirmed them all. Guess we should have found a way to lock the door.
When the door was firmly closed, I screeched, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Julian had slapped his hand over his eyes. He peeked between them, like somehow looking through his fingers would magically protect him from seeing too much. “I came to wake your lazy ass up, so I could let you know what was going on. And you should be grateful it was me, not Dad. And trust me, he wanted to come down a couple of hours ago, but Mom convinced him you needed your rest after your ordeal.” He snickered and shook his head. “Rest,” he muttered.
God, it was a really good thing he’d waken us up and not Dad. I’d never see Hunter again if that were the case, although that might still be up in the air since Julian’s greeting had most likely clued Dad into the fact that his daughter wasn’t entirely innocent anymore. Damn it, of all the times for Hunter and I to oversleep.
Hunter had dressed while Julian had been explaining. Approaching him, he calmly changed the subject, “What time are we leaving?”
Julian peeked at him, saw that he was dressed, and dropped his hand. “Dad wants to get to Howard’s Market before Simon does, so we’re leaving soon. Can you guys handle not having sex for five seconds s
o we can rescue Starla and Jacen?”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed, but I was the one who smacked Julian. Rubbing his arm, he muttered, “Ow! Damn it, Nika. That really freaking hurts.”
“Well, stop being an idiot and I’ll stop doing it.” While he sulked, I blurred on my clothes from last night.
Julian sighed while I was dressed. “Sorry. I think I’m just jealous. You guys are free to…” he indicated Hunter’s messy bed, then frowned, “…while Arianna and I are just barely getting back on track. We kissed again last night, but I wanted…more.”
He sounded so dejected, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Tenderly rubbing the spot I’d just bruised, I gave him a sympathetic smile. “Hey, at least she can’t be made to forget again. What you’re building with her now will stick, and you’ll get there, I promise.” I exaggerated a disgruntled exhale. “I remember how the two of you were before she was wiped.”
Julian nodded, then laughed. “I’m just glad our bond is gone, because…you know.” His cheeks flushed with color.
Laughing, I heartily agreed. Things were awkward enough without Julian and I still feeling each other’s emotions.
I cracked open Hunter’s door, hoping beyond hope that somehow everyone had missed the sound of Julian walking in on us. The hallway was empty and everyone that I could feel through the family bond was upstairs in the kitchen. Good. This level and all the rooms on it were soundproof, so as long as no one had opened the main doors right when Julian had said that, chances were good nobody had heard his exclamation. Crossing my fingers that they all had bigger fish to fry than what my boyfriend and I might or might not have been doing, and also feeling a little guilty for betraying my father’s trust, I headed upstairs with Julian and Hunter in tow.
As we walked through the entrance into the living room, I noticed that the sky outside was completely dark; we’d slept all the way through sunset. Typically, we were awake an hour or two beforehand, waiting in our downstairs rooms for the rays to fade away or taking a few minutes to enjoy the view through Gabriel’s miraculous vampire-strength windows.