Blood Awakening (35 page)

“Drop dead, freak.” I could practically feel the anger coursing through Erik’s veins along with his sweet-smelling blood.

“Now now,” Sebastian said. “Let’s mind our manners, Erik.”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Erik snapped. He kept trying to pull away from me—to attack Sebastian, I was sure—so I wrapped my arms around him to keep him from ultimately getting killed. The fact that I enjoyed it was irrelevant. “Do you two want the information we have or not?”

Sebastian laughed. “Do none of you get it?” he asked.

“Get what?” Kayla said. She was still standing next to me, Lacey lurking behind us, scared. I could smell her blood, mixing in my head with Erik’s and Kayla’s. One look around our twisted group and I knew I wasn’t the only one.

“The information you think you have is of no use to us,” Zyris said. “For it is incorrect.”

I released Erik’s waist and pulled away from him. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Ava!” Kayla smacked my arm.

“There’s no point in lying, Kayla,” I said. “They obviously know.”

“They don’t know anything,” she whispered.

“You claim to know the vampire of which the prophecy speaks.” Zyris honed in on Kayla, who looked like she had just seen a ghost. “No?”

“Yes,” I said, after I realized she expected an answer. “Okay? Yes, we’re lying. We have no idea who this half-vampire hybrid is.”

“Ava,” Erik said, leaning into me, “what the hell are you doing?”

“It’s over, Erik. It was a stupid idea to begin with, trying to trick her. Besides,” I said, looking over at Chance. “He obviously doesn’t wanna leave.” I wanted to break down right then, to cry and run as far away from everything as my vampire speed would take me. I wanted a normal life. Instead, I stood my ground, refusing to even look away from Chance for a second. If he was going to turn on me when I needed him most, I wanted him to do it to my face.

“Screw him,” Erik said. He took me by the arms, his eyes wild with rage. “We need to get out of here, Ava.”

I threw my arms around his neck and squeezed. Erik slid his hands around my waist and drew me in. “I’m not leaving him,” I whispered in his ear. “I can’t.” I pulled away from our hug, instantly missing the warmth of being close to him. “No one’s going anywhere,” I said aloud. “Not until this mess is settled.”

“And what mess might that be?” Sebastian asked. “We’ve already established that you and your friends have nothing to barter. What more is there to discuss?”

I took a deep breath, trying to push out the negative energy mounting inside me. “It’s time I heard the truth,” I said. “The truth about what you and Aldric have been hiding from me all these months.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Sebastian said. “What about you, Aldric?” A tiny smile lifted his lips. “Don’t you think it’s time for Ava to hear the truth?”

“Don’t do this, Sebastian. Not now.” Aldric’s body language was practically screaming at me. He was scared.

But of what?

“Poor Aldric,” Sebastian said, slowly walking toward his friend. “I’m afraid there’s simply no more time to wait.” He patted Aldric on the cheek. “I told you months ago to take care of this, but you chose to keep hiding it from her. Now, it looks as though I must be the one to do it.”

Aldric’s body tensed, his demeanor much closer to the monster I remembered. “I’ll kill you, Sebastian. If you hurt her—”

“—you can’t touch me, Aldric,” Sebastian interrupted. His gentle pat on Aldric’s cheek turned into a rough hand around the throat. “I created you, my son. Do not forget that. I could end you if I so choose.”

Aldric squirmed beneath Sebastian’s grip. “You know you can’t do that, Father. You need me.”

Sebastian laughed, his hand still clutching Aldric’s throat. “Is that what you believe?” More laughter. “Decades trying to live as a human have obviously warped your logic, old friend. Tell me, what could I possibly need with you, when I have her?” Aldric’s face was twisted in pain, but his eyes were wide open—and staring right at me.

“Me?” I said, barely a whisper. A heavy dread fell onto my shoulders, pinning me down. “What do you need with…me?”

“You, my dear Ava,” Sebastian said, finally releasing his death-grip on Aldric, who stumbled backward, coughing and rubbing his throat. “You are the hybrid destined to fulfill the prophecy.”

T
RUE CALLING

W
hat?” I was barely able to push the word past the lump caught in my throat. I would have fallen backward if Erik hadn’t stepped in to hold me up. My entire world was spinning out of control with each passing second, and I could do nothing to stop it. Chance had basically shunned me, choosing Zyris and her clan of undead bloodsuckers over me and a life of semi-normalcy, and now Sebastian had just dropped one hell of a claim into my lap. The added stress was overwhelming, practically sucking the air from my lungs.

“What crap are you trying to pull now, Sebastian?” Erik was still holding me up. “That doesn’t make any sense. She can’t be the hybrid.”

Sebastian had walked away from Aldric—who was still rubbing his throat, but seemed more himself—and was hovering like the leech he was next to Zyris. “Believe me,” he said, “she is.”

“He’s lying,” Kayla said, her face as shocked as I’m sure mine was. “Don’t believe him, Ava. He’s trying to get under your skin, that’s all.” I wished she were right; somehow, I knew she wasn’t.

“I assure you,” Zyris said, flashing that evil grin she seemed to enjoy so much, “he is telling the truth.” She took a few steps toward me. “Ava, you are the one we have all been waiting so long for.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” I pulled away from the safety of Erik’s arms and began pacing for the third time tonight, watching in horror as the fragile pieces of my unlife came crashing down around me. I had to grasp quickly to save what shards I could. “This isn’t possible,” I finally said to Sebastian. “It just isn’t.”

“Unfortunately,” he said “things are not determined simply by saying them aloud.” I wanted to tear his throat out. “This is very possible, Ava. And very true.”

“But how?” I asked, switching between a paralyzing fear over what was going on and an overpowering anger to rip his heart out through his eyes.

Sebastian smiled again. “Why don’t we let Aldric explain that one to you, shall we?”

I had all but forgotten about Aldric. I caught sight of him in my peripheral, looking almost as scared as I felt. “Aldric?” I said to him.

He wouldn’t look at me, his gold eyes landing everywhere but on my face. I could practically smell his anxiety and nerves. If he still had the ability to sweat, he would’ve been drenched. “Ava,” he finally said, his timid voice the polar opposite of its normal confident tenor. “I’m sorry.”

Those last few shards of my life, the ones I had been desperately grasping at earlier, shredded me as they exploded. It could not be true, it just couldn’t. I couldn’t be the hybrid that the who-knows-how-ancient prophecy spoke of. “How is this even possible?” I said, on the verge of completely freaking out.

I could see the pain on Aldric’s face, the fear over revealing this horrible truth to me. A tiny part of me felt pity and sadness for him, for feeling he had to keep this from me all this time. The rest of me hated him more than ever.

“Ava, you have to know that I only kept this from you to protect you. I never intended for you to learn of this prophecy, or of your role in it.”

“Just tell me, Aldric.” It was the truth I had wanted since the night I woke up in that cemetery. The truth I had been begging him to give. Now that it was about to be told, I was terrified.

Aldric took a deep breath. “I lied to you, Ava. Since the night you woke, I’ve been lying to you.” He took a pause, long enough for me to think he had changed his mind about being so forthcoming. “I did not turn you, as I said.”

“What?” My heart began skipping beats. “What are you saying, Aldric?” Blood rushed to my head. “How…How did you do it, then?”

He was looking at me, really looking at me, his eyes filled with regret. “I didn’t,” he finally said. “You were born this way.”

I was so grateful for Erik’s steady hand, because for the second time tonight, I fell into him as the world around me collapsed, breaking away, revealing lies and pain and heartache beneath. “No.” I closed my eyes, desperate to block out Aldric and Sebastian and the misery engulfing me. “No.”

“Oh God.” I could hear Kayla’s voice in my ear, her words full of shock and disbelief. Kayla was always the strong one of our group, the one who never seemed affected by things. Now, she was freaking out. That made two of us.

“You’re lying,” Erik said. I could feel the thrum of his words in his chest, the vibration keeping me from losing what was left of my mind. “He’s lying, Ava. This is a lie.” He was panicking, the warm blood coursing through his veins giving away his true feelings.

“Of course it is. No way it’s true, Ava.” Kayla again, sounding more like herself, like my best friend. Just knowing Strong Kayla was back eased my nerves a bit. “They’re all just a bunch of liars.”

“Ava, I truly am so sorry.” Aldric’s voice was so real, so emotional, I knew what he was saying had to be true. All of it was painfully, undeniably true.

I was a monster.

No matter how much I fought against it, how much I wanted to be normal, this was the harsh reality I was dealt.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Aldric went on. “I never wanted you involved. In any of this.”

“Just shut up, Aldric.” Erik again, his voice strong and unwavering despite the nervous energy still radiating throughout his body. “Just shut the hell up.”

Aldric ignored him, his voice the polar opposite of Erik’s. I had never heard such emotion from him, ever. It just made my anger toward him even stronger. “Ava, please. Say something.”

I wanted to speak, even tried to force out words, but my voice was gone. Lost behind lies and truths and pain. In the world where I had been living since waking up, Aldric was the one I counted on to guide me and teach me how to exist. And now, after I had finally begun to trust that he was genuine in his offer to help, the revelation that everything had been a lie was too much to bear.

So I cried.

Tears welled up inside me and sprung forth with vigor, carrying with them the pain I was too weak to destroy. Erik drew me even closer as I cried, and I held on to him, a life preserver in the raging ocean threatening to consume me. Through it all, he had been the only constant, the only thing I could truly depend on as all others fell away. It was then that I realized how much I cared for him, how much I loved him. I think I always had.

“Ava?”

Aldric’s voice was the tether to my life preserver, slowly pulling me over the waves and back to shore. I wanted to sever the tie he had on me and stay wrapped up in Erik forever.

“Ava, please.”

But each time he spoke, my mind was pulled further and further from the deadly water.

“Please, speak to me.”

Until I was once again on dry land.

“I can’t believe you did this to me.” The words didn’t feel like my own. It was as if my voice had a mind of its own, saying what I had yet to even think.

“Please try to understand why,” Aldric said. “It was to protect you, Ava.”

“Protect me…from what?” I spoke through the tears. “What did you think I needed protecting from?”

“From this. From all of this.” He took a step toward me and my entire body tensed. He must have noticed, because he stopped. “I didn’t want you involved in any of this.”

“Looks like you failed.” I saw my words cut into him, like knives flying through the air and piercing the darkness where his soul once lived. Each sharp word took with it some of my pain, leaving pieces of renewed strength in their wake.

“I know,” he said, fighting to recover from the wounds. “In so many ways, I know.”

“That doesn’t make up for anything.”

“I know that, too.”

The unexplainable—but undeniable—connection between us suddenly felt stronger somehow, like his admission brought us closer. I couldn’t understand it, seeing as how he was the reason why what little bit of life I had left was crumbling beneath me.

“I do hope you can forgive me one day, Ava.”

My first reaction was to tell him to drop dead. Well, again. But then I looked at him, really looked, past the pristine exterior he used to fool the rest of the world, to the man beneath the monster. The fact that he thought to try and protect me—that he thought of me at all—showed he still had some humanity; it resided behind centuries of murder and deceit, but it was there. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Aldric. I just…don’t know yet.”

He looked defeated. “I understand.”

“I wouldn’t be quite so optimistic, Ava,” Sebastian said. “I’m afraid the revelations are far from over.”

My heart sank. “What else could you possibly have to tell me, Sebastian? You pretty much just ruined my life. Are you trying to kill me?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Not yet.”

I would’ve rolled my eyes if I’d had the strength. “Just get on with it already.”

“Ava, don’t do this.” Erik’s eyes echoed the pleading in his voice, and it hurt me almost as much as Aldric’s bombshell to know that I was hurting him.

“I have to, Erik. I can’t go through this pain over and over. Better to go through it all at once, right?” I tried to smile. Judging by the pained expression on his face, I failed miserably. I leaned into him again and wrapped my arms around his neck, taking in his heady scent. “Please don’t look at me like that.” I stood on the tips of my toes and whispered in his ear. “I can’t take it if you hate me, too.”

He tucked his face into my neck. “Never.” His whisper set my skin on fire, hot tendrils of flame licking at my face and back.

I reluctantly pulled away from him. “Thank you. For everything.” He flashed that way-too-sexy half grin and, even in my current state of total destruction, it made me smile.

“That’s adorable,” Sebastian said, obliterating the moment. “But we really don’t have time to stand around while you two maul each other.”

“Thank you!” Lacey practically shouted from the safety of her cowering position behind us.