Amaranth (23 page)

“Look, sir. We’re really sick and we need a ride. Can you
please give us a lift to the hospital down the road?”

“Please, sir. He didn’t hurt me. I swear,” I chimed in,
walked closer to stand with them while Gavin waited for the man’s answer,
urgency in his eyes and looking worse by the minute.

I stepped in front of Gavin now, pleading with the man.
“Someone stole our car and we got stuck out here in the rain, with no phone to
call the cops. Please drop us off down the road. We mean you no harm.”

“Fine, miss. If you say so. Best you sit in the middle
though.” He turned and gestured toward the truck. “I’ll be
keepin
’
my eyes on your friend, here.”

“Thank you so much.”

Gavin opened the passenger door and I climbed in, relieved
to be sitting down again.

“Why are you sick, son? What’s happened to
ya
? You look like you got in a bad fight or
somethin
’.” The man made his way to the driver’s door.
Gavin followed.

“It’s just been a rough night, that’s all,” Gavin said.

“Right.” The man pulled the door open and leaned forward to
get in the cab, but Gavin stopped him, then snatched the keys from his hand.

“Hey. Give them back you no good—”

“Gavin,” I said, “what are you doing?”

“Stay put, Camille.” Then, to the man, “Sorry sir. Run. Get
far away from here.”

“What do
ya
mean,
run
? Don’t you dare take my truck, son!” The man
attempted to wrestle with Gavin as he shouted.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Gavin snapped as the man grabbed his
shoulders, showed his fangs. He jumped in front of the man and hopped into the
cab, locked the doors instantly. The man stumbled backward, fear in his eyes,
while Gavin started the engine and sped off.

“I can’t
believe
you!”

“I saved his life, Camille.”

“You
what
? You just scared
the hell out of him and stole his car.”

“He’s safe this way.”

“Safe? No, I’m sorry. I don’t think leaving some poor man on
the side of the road after you stole his car is keeping him
safe
.”

“I couldn’t ride in the truck with him. It would’ve ended
badly.”

“He could’ve just dropped us off and we’d be on our way.
Without
being wanted for grand theft auto.”

“I would’ve killed him, Camille.” He hit the steering wheel.
“I spared him, do you get that? I’m starving and weak. We wouldn’t have made it
more than two minutes down the road.” He glanced in the rearview, squinted from
the sunlight. “You haven’t seen me like this, you haven’t seen me this bad.
I
haven’t seen me this bad since … in a very long
time. I’m sorry, but I need to feed and that guy would be dead right now if I
let him drive us.”

I fought to understand, finally did. “That’s why you look so
sick.”

“I only had enough strength to get us out of there because I
used as much of your energy as I could, as quickly as possible.”

“Well, you pried all that undying-devotion talk out of me up
in the tower and plowed through a stone wall.” I placed my hand over his,
cracked my first smile in a while. “How about taking more of my energy right
now? I’m sure it’d be enough to help you drive to the hospital.”

“You’re still a little dizzy, I can tell,” he shook his
head. “It’s an unfortunate consequence of being drained so fast like that.” He
returned a weak smile. “I won’t ever do that again. You have my word. Besides,
energy won’t make me better right now. I need blood.”

“Well, for the record—whenever we’re in trouble like this,
permission granted.” I squeezed his hand as we pulled off onto the next exit,
rolled to a red light. “How is it that you’re able to be around me? I mean, if
you could’ve killed that man back there.”

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I don’t even want
to talk about it.” He laughed nervously, rolled down the window to let in fresh
air.

“I’m sorry I ruined your plan. You knew what you were doing.
And Joel. I’ll never forgive myself for Joel.” I glared at the light, waited
for it to turn green.

“I told you, don’t you dare blame yourself for this. You’re
the
last
one that should
ever
apologize for this, do you understand? You never
would’ve been in this situation if I hadn’t come into your life in the first
place. It was incredibly stupid and careless of me.”

Someone started to honk as we sat there at the green light.
Gavin ignored it and turned to me. Cars whizzed around us, middle fingers and
curse words flying.

“Don’t do this, love. What you just did was
brave
. Extremely
reckless
,
but brave.” Exhausted, he smiled faintly and wiped my tears with his
fingertips. “And Joel wanted to help you. I tried talking him out of it the
minute I realized he was in Amaranth. I tried telling him to leave, but he
wouldn’t listen.”

More tears came, blinded me. “Hours ago he was cooking,
dancing in my kitchen to ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’ I would’ve been in this
situation whether you came into my life or not.”

“How in the world do you figure
that
?”

“I would’ve found my way into yours.”

“After all of this, you still want me,” he whispered, kept
his eyes on the steering wheel as he switched gears into park. “Come here.” He
pulled me onto his lap with quaking arms.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Don’t worry. Too many witnesses.” He carefully inched his
mouth closer to mine. As drained as I felt, kissing him was euphoric. I started
to wonder if everything we just escaped was a bad dream. More horns honking
reminded me it was real.

“I’ll say this, and we’ll never mention it again,” he said.
“It’s not your fault. So just
stop
.”

He pulled away from me and sighed, let me crawl back into
the passenger’s seat. As the pickup rolled into motion again, I felt guilty for
being so happy to be with Gavin again, while our friends were still in Amaranth,
still in danger.

“But what about Gabe and Audrey?” I mumbled, heartbroken at
the thought of my best friends. “What happens to them now that we ditched
them?”

“They’re safe for now.”

“How safe? How do you know?”

“They’re inside the exile gates, and they know they have to
be careful.”

“But what about what happened to your parents? They don’t
have the strength to protect themselves now that they’re mortal. Samira can
hurt them regardless.”

“My parents trusted Samira, they let their guard down. Gabe
and Audrey know they’re in danger, and they’ll do what they can to protect
themselves. Gabe’s smart, he can handle himself. Besides, Samira knows I’ll be
back.”

“If she hurts Audrey, I’ll just lose it—”

“She won’t. She’ll want to use her and Gabe for leverage. Keeping
them alive will be more valuable to her. I promise you.” He squeezed my hand.
“We’re going to make this right. I
promise
you.
But right now we have to get off the road,” he hit the accelerator as he
glanced at the clock, “before we get into any more trouble.”

“Are we really going to the hospital?”

“Not quite. To another friend’s house. So I can get my
strength back and pick up some things. We’re almost there.”

What had happened since I parked my Jeep at the bayou’s
shore barely seemed real now, but the exhaustion it had brought did. My eyes
growing heavy, I yawned and rested my head on the seat. I barely felt the truck
rolling to another stoplight, but I opened my eyes long enough to glance out
the window. A cherub of a woman stood near a bus stop bench. She stared back
with curious eyes.

“She reminds me of someone,” I muttered, gave her a good
gander before I let my eyelids fall shut.

“Who does?”

“Never mind,” I murmured back, willingly giving in to a
heavy, dreamless sleep.

“Good to see you,
Gav
. You look
like hell,
ya
know.”

“You too, man.
Thanks
.”

“And who’s this?”

“This is Camille. Camille, this is Josh. We go way back.”

“I’ve heard that one before.” I grinned, leaned forward to
shake Josh’s hand. He led us into the cabin.

“I’ll give you guys a few minutes to get cleaned up,” he
said, handing Gavin a glass of red slush. “Seriously, man. Drink up.” He made
sure Gavin gulfed the fresh sustenance down before retreating to the kitchen.

“Much better,” Gavin said, then led me to a bedroom and shut
the door. “I’m glad you got some sleep. You needed it.”

“Yeah, all twenty minutes of it.”

“You can sleep more soon, once we’re on the plane.”

“We’re getting on a plane?”

“I have a plan.”

“Oh, no.” I stretched out on the rustic, squeaky bed.

“We’re going to Paris, where we first met.”

I lifted up the comforter and wrapped myself in it, hoping I
had some time to relax before we jumped on an airplane. “And what exactly are
we going to do there? Shouldn’t we be hiding out for a while?”

“We’re going to. But we’re going to hide out around
people
. Lots and lots of people.” He tossed some
clothes from the dresser drawers into a suitcase. “We’re going to see my
sister, she can help us. We can crash there for a while and figure out our next
move.”

“Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”

His movements slowed, but only for an instant. “Yeah, she
was the one I was visiting the day I met you in Paris. She knows about the
plan. You’ll see.”

“Why can’t we just go back to my place? You said the portal
was closed for a while.”

“It is. But we’re not sure who, if anyone, came out after
us. We still have to be careful until the next cycle.”

“Okay, whatever you say. I guess I’m in no huge rush to get
back anyway. It’s not like I have a
job
waiting
for me anymore, or fall classes I have to go to.…” I thought of Carol, how
worried she must’ve been when I never returned from my break. She probably
called the cops, reported me as a missing person. Though there were more
troubling things to think about right now.

“This has gotten
so
out of
hand.” He sat next to me, dropped his head in his hands.

I sat up and scooted next to him, wrapped my arms around his
neck from behind. “It’s not the end of the world. I’ll deal with it
after
I stop worrying about an evil vampire queen
hunting us down. Besides, right now I’d much rather focus on celebrating.”

“This is
hardly
a
celebration.”

“Well, excuse me for being happy to be with you again.”

He swung me around to pull me close, wrung my still-wet hair
with his hands. “You know I’m thrilled to be with you again, even if I look
miserable and decrepit at the moment.” Pushing the hair away from my eyes, he
leaned over and kissed my neck, then peered down at my clothes. “
Here.
” He stood up, and a moment later handed me a dry
shirt and some sweatpants from the suitcase, then took clothes for himself.

“I just thought for sure you’d move on with your life,” he
said. “Maybe wait for me, if I got lucky. I never thought it would come to
this.”

“Neither one of us did.” I started changing, held back a
smile as I watched him struggle to look away. “I had a say in this too,
remember?”

“I should’ve stayed away. Period.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

“And you’re not?” He flashed a smile, stopped fighting the
urge to look and reached out, pulled me closer to kiss me. My pulse thrummed in
my chest. “You need a shower. You smell like swamp.” Smirking, he looked down
at my arms, all splotchy from the mud and dirt.

“And you don’t? You smell like a sewer,” I nudged him,
chuckling. He held up one of my arms and started kissing it, his laugh and warm
breath tickling my skin. Making his way up to my collarbone, his mouth’s trail
made me weak in the knees again. “Gavin …”

“Yes, Camille?” he muttered, shuffled me backward toward the
side of the bed, that irresistible, sly smile still on his face, notorious for
making me lose control. “Is there a problem?”

Giving in, I dropped the extra clothes on the floor, kissed
him fervently, my face flushed. “Josh is in the next room, and we haven’t
talked about this,” I whispered, sneaking words in between breaths. “So yeah,
there’s a
prob
—”

“Don’t worry about him,” he laid me down as we hit the edge,
where he hovered over me. I reached up, slipped his shirt off before I pulled
him down to my level. He scooted my arms above my head and held them in place,
went to work on my neck. His lips cool and breath hot, I entered my favorite
paradise, the one most mortals knew nothing of. Sliding my hands down to his
belt buckle, his hands met mine, but stopped them. “I’m sorry,” he said, out of
breath. “Not yet.”

He slipped off of me and grabbed the dry shirt, put it on
while I lay there, speechless.

“Right.” I shook my head, slowly sat up. “Our friends are in
danger and a lot of pissed-off vampires are after us. I get it.”
Shot down.
“I’m sorry—”

“No,
I’m
sorry. There’s more
to it,” he picked the clothes up from the floor, “I shouldn’t have started
that. You just looked so amazing, and I’m so happy to have you back.…” He ran
his hands through his hair, knelt next to me. “You look good enough to eat,” he
whispered, kissed my neck once more before he stood. “Any chance we can we talk
more about it later?”

“Sure … I guess.”

“Are we good?”

“Of course.” I sent him a smile of assurance, although I
knew I wouldn’t be satisfied until I knew what had stopped him. “I’m holding
you to that talk, though.”