Dahlia (Blood Crave Series) (12 page)

She hated to admit it to herself but what Sam said was true. There had been a lot of blood—too much blood for her to be feeling fine after such an accident. Although no one was there with her, she swore she felt an actual hand thrust her roughly down the hill. Dahlia shook herself as she buried her head in her hands. None of this made any sense. She shouldn’t be alive right now.

Her thoughts immediately went to Green Eyes and his comment about being different from others.

What did he really know?

She knew it was outrageous but she needed to prove to herself that she wasn’t going crazy. It had been so long ago and she had told herself time and time again that it was nothing but a dream. But what if it wasn’t? It couldn’t be true.

Could it?

Reaching for the drawer in her nightstand, she opened it up and pulled out a sharp object. It was a letter opener. Deb had gotten it for her as a gift but she had no use for it. It wasn’t as if she received any mail. Holding the cold metal in her hand, Dahlia lightly stroked the ends, testing its sharpness.

It was sharp.

She stretched out her arm in front of her and brought the tip of the letter opener against her forearm. She sunk the tip deep, but not as deep to break the skin. Bracing herself, Dahlia closed her eyes and finally sank the sharp edge into her skin, feeling a sting along her arm as she bit the bottom of her lip in discomfort. She lifted the letter opener away and slowly opened one eye, then the other. A bright, red line of blood oozed out from her wound and she sat on her bed, wordlessly watching.

Only seconds later, she saw again what she had seen years ago when she was a little girl. It wasn’t a dream at all but a real, true memory. Her wound quickly healed right before her eyes, as if the healing process sped up a thousand times faster.

“Holy crap,” she whispered to herself as she continued to look at her arm, the wound completely healed, just blood left over her previously marred skin. She reached out with her other arm for some tissue paper that was on her desk and slowly wiped the blood away, even though she had the strangest notion to lick it off.

Disregarding the thought, she dropped the tissue paper in her garbage basket and lightly grazed her finger against her forearm, amazed that there was no cut and nothing but smooth skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them once more to look from her arm, to the bloody tissue in the garbage. Although she had wanted to forget it for all these years and just blamed it on her wild imagination, she couldn’t deny what she had just seen.

She was some sort of self-healer, her cut healed perfectly as if it had never been there in the first place.

She closed her eyes as she slowly inhaled then exhaled, trying to tame the feeling of alarm that seemed to want to burst from her body. She looked back down at herself, truly believing, for the first time, what was right in front of her.

But if I were really a self-healer then why…

Dahlia’s thought trailed off as she briskly got up from her bed and marched toward her bathroom to gaze at herself in the mirror. Lowering the towel off her skin, she moved her long, damp hair out of the way and turned her body to face away from her reflection as she twisted her head to get a good look at her back.

There, on her back, were two diagonal scars mirror images to each other. They ran from the outer edges of both shoulder blades and spanned all the way down to end at the center of her low back. They were ugly and jagged, screaming at her in anger. She frowned at herself in the mirror, not taking her eyes away from her scars. Because if she could heal herself then why...

...why were
these
scars here?

Chapter 11

I didn’t know where I was.

For some reason I heard the sound of laughing children. Then suddenly enveloped in small hands, I spun around in circles. I saw my hands were even smaller than the person’s I clutched as I realized I was no longer a teenager, but a little child, maybe four or five, my heart glowing in happiness.

Then all the laughter stopped and I looked up to see
him
. And of course there he was, looking down at me with an unsmiling face and daunting eyes, his shadow covering me up in darkness.

Gazing timidly up at him, I knew that whatever happened next would not be a good thing.

***

Dahlia woke up with a sudden jolt. 

Heart hammering in her chest, a sheen of sweat coated her skin. She felt nothing but apprehension as she looked up at the clock on her nightstand. Red numbers gleaming showed that it was four in the morning.

I must have slept through dinner.

Slowly taking deep breaths in and out, she blinked a few times to clear her eyes, not remembering falling asleep. Her mind flashed back to the image of the long-haired man she kept seeing in her dreams.

He was so different from anybody she had ever seen, even more so than Green Eyes and Maddox. He looked young and yet old at the same time, like he had seen everything that life had to offer and still wasn’t impressed by it.

He also looked like he could snap someone’s neck quite easily.

There was something about him in her dreams that Dahlia found quite odd. The dream just seemed too
real
, but she had never felt such immense happiness as a child and didn’t recall anything at all about this man from her past.

Could it possibly be a memory from her past, the ones that had long ago disappeared? Or nothing more than anxiety she was feeling after the fall? After all, her dream of the wolf turned out to be real, so anything was possible.

Perhaps Green Eyes would know something about this. Correction, she
knew
Green Eyes was somehow involved in all this, his appearance coinciding with the strange events occurring in her life.

Why was he here?

Dahlia felt a pang in her stomach, her body alerting her of her hunger. She turned as she opened her nightstand drawer, where she kept her stash of food. Taking out a bag of trail mix, she quickly chowed down until she was satisfied. Then, reaching for a bottle of water, she gulped it down and placed it back on the nightstand. She tossed the empty plastic baggie in her garbage bin.

Slowly removing the rest of the covers from her body, she placed her bare feet on the cold hardwood floors and got up from the bed. Freezing, she realized she still wore her towel so she quickly grabbed a nightgown as she slipped it over her head and put her hair into a high ponytail using a tie. As she set the towel over her bathroom door, she eyed the dirt-stained and bloodied clothes from earlier that lay in a heap on the floor. Walking over to her closet, Dahlia opened it to find a garbage bag and then quickly stuffed the clothes inside, tying the bag tightly. She didn’t want any reminders from the previous night so she decided to throw it out into the garbage downstairs. She had this sudden urge to get out of the house so she quickly moved across the room to her door, her mind racing a mile a minute.

She needed some fresh air.

Discreetly opening her door, Dahlia paused when it suddenly squeaked, praying no one heard her. Listening carefully, all she heard was the usual stillness of the house. She opened the door all the way and shut it quickly, tip toeing her way down the curved staircase, staying as silent as possible. Reaching the kitchen, she tossed her bag of clothes into the garbage bin then stared out into the backyard before her.

The Cahill’s house was vast with many rooms and sometimes Dahlia felt a little undeserving of all they had to offer her. It was modernly upgraded to have all the new bells and whistles with shiny stainless steel appliances and dark, mahogany floors. But there was still this old-fashion flair to it with all of its finishings.

The backyard itself was like an amusement park. There was a patio with chairs and a table with a canopy to cover the harsh sunlight that Cedar Oaks was often privy to.

That wasn’t what caught Dahlia’s attention. It was the vastly spaced swimming pool, whose water seemed to stretch on forever in the rectangular-shaped pool, beckoning her. The clear water rippled as the wind blew, the only disturbance at present. Impulsively, Dahlia strolled over to the glass sliding doors and unlocked it as she walked out onto the patio, barefoot. Going down the steps, Dahlia’s feet then sunk into soft grass that tickled the underside of her feet. She made her way to the pool and just stood out on the edge. She watched as the water pulsated against the wind, her white nightgown fluttering in the cool breeze, like a caress.

Her restlessness due to her dreams was becoming more and more frequent. They were trying to tell her something but she didn’t know what. She smirked to herself. Well, they did remind her of the abilities she possessed.

She was curious to what the man represented. She kept envisioning him all in black saying nothing to her, only staring back with black, charcoal eyes.

Dahlia’s nightgown and hair began to blow strongly against the breeze. She was glad she tied her hair up, but at the thought, it unraveled and flew out of her hair, the wind taking its claim. Reaching an outstretched hand hoping she could grasp it, the red tie fleetingly caressed her fingertips before it drifted off into the wind.

Disappointed, she watched it land gently into the pool. Bending to her knees, Dahlia stretched a hand toward the water but was unable to get a hold of it. She watched as the hair tie floated away, finally settling across on the other side. She sighed, her hair heavy on her shoulders as she sat down in front of the pool, sinking her feet into the shallow water as she closed her eyes.

She stayed like that for a moment, trying to silence her mind. While in this position, she suddenly felt a prickly sensation at the base of her neck and felt a catch in her throat as she realized all the hairs on her skin were again standing on end.

She wasn’t alone.

Dahlia inhaled, opened her eyes, and instantly locked gazes with him.

Green Eyes.

He stood across the pool from her, just staring. He was dressed in a dark brown leather jacket over a black t-shirt. He wore deep blue jeans that hugged powerful thighs and she knew she’d never be able to outrun him. His green eyes stood out against his tan skin, a color closer to golden caramel, rather than mocha. Dahlia continued to look at him in apprehension, not knowing what to do.

She should have been frightened of him but she wasn’t. Her heart slowly calmed down after the initial presence of him. She watched him as he slowly bent down and dipped a large hand into the water in front of him, retrieving the hair tie that had floated to the other side.

Dahlia looked up from the hand to an arm covered by his leather jacket. Looking further, she still couldn’t believe the face that she’d been visualizing in her mind on numerous occasions was right before her. Even from across the pool, his eyes pulled her in.

Not knowing what to say, she just watched him. She slowly rose from the pool, legs cold, as her feet made wet footprints on the ground. Her nightgown blowing in the wind, Dahlia stood ever so still as she saw him walk around the pool and toward her, almost leisurely, like a cat. He continued to approach her until he was only inches away from her. Dahlia looked up, needing to see him.

Still, neither uttered a word.

Hair tumbling around her face, curly tendrils flowed against her skin. Dahlia saw him slowly draw up a hand and caress her cheek, before tucking a strand behind her ear. She silently watched, rendered speechless, as he then took her right hand into his. He uncurled her fingers, and only then did Dahlia realize her hand was tightly curled into a fist. He placed the hair tie into her palm, closing it back up again.

“I think this belongs to you,” his voice murmured.

Dahlia, not knowing what to say, just stared at him, wondering how he was in her backyard standing before her.

I don’t even know his name.

“Greyson.”

At hearing his low voice, Dahlia realized her small hand still tucked into his larger one. Reluctantly detaching herself from his grasp, she blinked then looked away from him as she tried to compose herself.

Her hand suddenly felt cold.

He seemed to enjoy her internal battle with herself as he smirked. He slowly eyed her up and down, tugging the side of her nightgown. “I didn’t peg you for the nightie-wearing type.”

Dahlia immediately moved away from his touch as she pursed her lips together into a frown. She wanted nothing more than to smack him on the side of his head. She didn’t even know this man and he so easily pushed her buttons. Her emotions flipped the switch in mere seconds.

“What are you doing here? And how did you get into my backyard?” Dahlia whispered the words as not to wake anyone up, considering both Sam and his parents’ rooms had windows facing the back. She looked up quickly, eyes wide, hoping not to suddenly see lights flickering on in any of the rooms.

“I’ve been thinking about you just a little too much,” he said bluntly. Then he paused, eyeing her almost skeptically as he spoke again, “Although I shouldn’t be.”

Dahlia stepped away from him to compose herself. It was as if he were sucking the oxygen out of the air around them with his words. Again, her emotions switched and she felt like her heart was running a marathon and hated that her body refused to control herself around him.