Bloodlines (Demons of Oblivion) (32 page)

I crawled between the two front seats so I was sitting in the passenger side. Just that movement left me exhausted and I slumped down, pressed a hand to my left side.
No way am I gonna fight off a warlock
. I eyed him warily; he was stronger than he looked, even without magic. Granted, when I was totally a monster, he’d never fight me off, but I wasn’t there. Yet.

His hair gently touched his shoulders now, about an inch longer than it had been when I saw him last. The beard was thick but not totally wild—kinda sexy.

“You weren’t sporting the Jim Morrison look last I saw. How long have I been gone?”

“Over four months.”

Damn. That was a long time. Not as long as the near decade I spent in my sarcophagus three centuries earlier, but... Fuck, it went by quick. Four months ago, I had been certain Nate might finally be falling for me.

Now he planned to murder me.

“They told me you were dead.”

He glanced my way, a smile touching his lips. “Disappointed?”

My heart hurt. I swallowed dryly and ignored the question. “How did you escape before? Jamie apparently told them we were coming.”

“When I tried to cast a dispel on whatever magical security measures had been taken, I found there were none. I figured it was a set-up, then a number of guards promptly surrounded us, and a helicopter landed on the property, probably to collect you. I did a bit of ‘time freezing’ and got Heaven, Peter, and myself to the car, but I couldn’t do anything to stop them from taking you.”

“You looked for me.”

Moonlight cut through the clouds, shining in the car and scoring lines of white over his profile. He kept his eyes locked on the road, expression neutral. “Of course.”

So they spent four months trying to find and rescue me, only to decide to kill me later. Nice. ’Course, they couldn’t have known what they’d find. Maybe they thought I was already dead. “Where are we going now?”

“A cabin that belonged to a relative of mine.”

Nate avoided my gaze for the rest of the trip and we said little. Perhaps he felt bad about planning to kill me. It couldn’t be that he wanted to merely keep his eyes on the road—not out in the country where there was nothing for miles. No houses, no other cars. We turned onto a bumpy dirt road that led into a dense forest, and I
really
got the point then...

No people. A completely isolated spot in the middle of nowhere. Should he be unable to kill me and I turned into a monster, I couldn’t avoid the sun. That would ensure Peter and Heaven could find me and kill me the next day.

It was a perfect plan and I couldn’t say I blamed him. I sat there next to my would-be assassin feeling quite calm about it. Or numb. I’d seen what Dragomir became. Ilona had been willing to die rather than become that and when it came down to it, frankly, I probably was too.

The dashboard digital clock read after midnight when Nate pulled the car up to the cabin. It wasn’t the big, richy type I’d been expecting; the walls were wood and weathered, porch sagged slightly. Not a family vacation home; a real, actual cabin in the woods. Pity I wasn’t going to die in style.

Nate got out, letting in a breath of fresh, summer air, and went to unlock the front door in silence. I remained in the car. Debating.

I could run. Faster than him, at least. We were far from towns but there
had
to be humans around somewhere. Maybe camping. Humans I could drain until my head stopped hurting and gut stopped twisting. Five to six hours until dawn—that was enough time to find someone.

Never mind that I could barely move without slipping into exhaustion and occasionally burst into seizures. I couldn’t give up so easily, right?

I understood what he planned to do. I agreed with it. But a sliver of me screamed and fought at the idea of giving up so easily. I was a few centuries younger than Ilona and, when the moment happened, I’d probably be a little less quick to accept my death.

I still contemplated my escape options when Nate returned to the car. Perhaps assuming I couldn’t walk, he opened the car door and lifted me into his arms to carry me the short distance to the cabin. Puddles and mud ran alongside the path to the house—suggesting it had rained hard a few hours earlier—and I was barefoot, so I didn’t protest. Instead, I leaned my aching head on his shoulder.

The front door led straight into the main room. A fireplace was on the far wall, with several fluffy floor pillows nearby, and a couch and a loveseat facing one another a couple feet from that. Nate flipped on the floor lamp nearby, bathing the small space in light; to the far left was a hallway leading into the kitchen at the back of the house and to the right were a series of open doors, showing two bedrooms and a bathroom.

It looked better on the inside than the outside. No thrift store furniture here, no hand-me-downs from when someone’s house was upgraded. The barebones of the cabin were old; the other additions looked and smelled new.

The air had a mugginess to it, damp with summer heat. Nate shivered with me in his arms; no blood flow had likely left me like a block of ice, and he’d been carting me around awhile. With a few muttered words from him, a fire flared up in the hearth. He set me down there, kicked off his boots, then disappeared into the kitchen.

I got as close to the flames as I could, but they did nothing to warm me. The fire just reminded me that I was cold, which reminded me of blood, and that made my stomach convulse with hunger.

Please let it be quick. Please
. God, I didn’t think I could take the whole night waiting. Not this cold, this hungry. With one of the pillows beneath my head, I curled up next to the fire and just prayed it would all end soon.

Those prayers were met with a stab of pain through my back, which wound around my spine and throughout my muscles. I arched. Screamed. Flailed. This time when I heard a crack, I knew without a doubt it was my bones breaking to make room for the new ones I felt growing.

Nate was over me in seconds, hand on my forehead, brushing my hair away from my face. “You’re okay.”

I focused on his touch, let my mind narrow on that gentle contact warming my skin. Pain subsided, shifting to the background—ever present, but dull enough that my vision remained clear.

“Just hold on a bit longer.”

Right. Hold on to what? I sat up as Nate moved away. This just...just didn’t seem
right
. Didn’t seem real. I could kid myself and pretend I pictured my death being in a blaze of glory, fighting a Hunter or something, but the truth was that I had never actually considered dying. In so many ways I was already dead, and yet I also just assumed I would somehow always exist.

I said goodbye to Ana. Became Zara. Zara saved me, with her strength and her confidence and her self-preservation. Zara was invincible, but I couldn’t will away the parasite changing my body, ripping me apart to create a monster.

My vision narrowed on the hunting knife sitting on the coffee table. The blade glinted in the firelight, both ugly and beautiful. I didn’t remember seeing it when we entered the cabin and Nate set me on the floor. It was probably all he had to saw my head off with after he impaled my heart with the poker I noticed resting by the fireplace.

Oh god, I don’t want to die.

I drew my knees up, wrapped my arms around my legs, and curled my spine.

Nate sat a foot away and slipped off his black sweatshirt. I glanced up, watched him cast it aside, then he moved on to unbutton the first four buttons of the white shirt he wore beneath.

Worry stopped up my throat and soured the atmosphere around us. Something was
off
. He didn’t need to be partially undressed to kill me. “What are you doing?”

He pulled back the collar of his shirt, exposing the pale flesh of his throat, and pierced my gaze with his intense stare. “Feed.”

My eyes widened in understanding. He didn’t want to kill me...

But what he was asking me to do would kill him.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Dinner’s On Me

Oh no. No.

My gaze darted around the room in search of escape. “No way. No.”

Hunger gnawed at my gut, body screaming. I didn’t need to look at his neck to be reminded of the veins beneath his flesh, rushing with blood and warmth. His heartbeat thrummed erratically, pumping life through his body, and my gums ached as my fangs cried out to be released.

But I wouldn’t.
Wouldn’t
. Because I wasn’t a monster yet and I could control myself.

“You have to,” Nate said.

“No.” I started to rise.

His fingers locked on my wrist—my bloodless, bony wrist—and drew me back down. “Zara, you’ll die.”

“I won’t.” I wrenched from his grasp and scrambled backward until I pressed right up against the side of the couch. Heart hammering, fingers twitching, I made myself as small as I could, begging the hunger to go away—praying he’d get the fuck away from me
now
.

“Peter says—”

I met his eyes, leveled him with my coldest stare. “I
know
what Peter told you.”

He stared at me, breathing deeply, crouched. Poised, like a wild animal about to pounce, yet watched
me
as if
I
was the cornered beast. If we collided in this moment, there would be blood. “If what Peter said is true...you don’t have time. You feed or you become something else. And they’ll kill you.”

They’ll
kill me
.
Not Nate
. He dragged me all the way out into the woods not to murder me, but force me to feed—if I refused, if I became a monster, I’d kill him anyway, and the others would have to put me down.

Something broke in me. Shattered. My eyes burned, my heart hurt, because
he wasn’t going to kill me
. He just wanted to save me. Save
me
—why would he do that? Why would anyone do that? Like he said, I was self-absorbed, arrogant, and childish. What had I ever done that made me worth saving?

I eyed his neck, then looked away. Shook my head. God, I was so hungry...perhaps if I only had a little...

An image of myself slashing open his throat and consuming his very last drop of blood entered my mind unbidden, and as horrific as it was...god, it would be
glorious
.

And someone with those kinds of thoughts about a friend clearly wasn’t worth saving.

Tears streaked down my cheeks. “It’ll kill you. I can’t.”

“Then don’t take it all,” he said, as if I really had a choice in the matter when I was starving.

“You fucking moron—I won’t be able to stop and I’ll drain you!”

“Zar—”

“No—” Agony burned, shooting through me, spiraling and twisting over every muscle. Bones cracked, thundering in my ears. I arched back, grabbing the arm of the couch to steady myself.

Nate caught me around the waist. Pulled me close—too close. I shut my eyes and focused on the pain this time, on anything but his beating heart—

The coppery scent of blood filled the air.

My eyes opened to see a spot of blood on the hunting knife resting on the table, and a crimson well forming on the tip of Nate’s finger.

No no no no NONONO
—not good. Fuck,
not good
. I twisted, fought him with weakening limbs, tried to tear from his hold, but in seconds he had pressed his finger to my lips. A growl sounded from my throat; the taste of blood intensified my hunger, which was likely his intent. My head whirled. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t remember why I’d been fighting him. Just a few drops of blood had sent me spinning into oblivion and all I knew was that I needed more.

He pulled his hand away. My face was inches from his throat. Gums pinched, fangs elongated to touch my bottom lip—longer than they’d been before, needle sharp at the bottom. And I couldn’t do it. Refused. I wasn’t some hopeless monster without free will—starving or not, I wouldn’t kill this man. I was better than that.

“I’ll kill you,” I mumbled around my stupid, useless fangs, shaking my head as if it could somehow strengthen my resolve.

His fingers smoothed my hair, breath touched my temple as he spoke. “I trust you.”

Then you’re an idiot
. I concentrated on my fangs, forced them back. “You don’t understand—”

“You have to.”

Struggling again did me no good, strength drained. “No, you heard what Peter said! It probably doesn’t matter whether or not I feed—it’s probably too late!”

“We’re going to try—”

I punched. Hard. Hit him square in the chest; the force sent tremors up my arm and I lost my balance, fell back on my elbows. “No!”

He snatched the hunting knife from the table and held it to his throat. “Don’t think I won’t. Either you feed and try not to drain me, or I do this for you.”

“I can’t—”

Blade bit into flesh—not enough to draw blood, but denting skin. “A quick slash’ll do it.”

My gut knotted, eyes closed. “You’d be trading your life for mine. I’m not worth it.”

“Zara, look at me.” His warm voice drew my eyes open again. Determination waited for me, gaze quietly fierce. Stubborn. He got something in his head and that was that with Nate. He’d win or die trying. “You are to me. You refuse, either we’ll sit here ’til you go mad and kill me yourself, or I cut my throat. If you try feeding, I have a chance.”

“Nate—”

“I’m
not
letting you die.”

No, he wouldn’t. So I stopped reasoning with myself right then. Gave in to the pull that drew me forward. Pushed his hand away from his neck and he returned the blade to the table. Crawled onto his lap, planting a knee on either side of his hips, my eyes fixed on his throat.

His heart beat harder. Throat swallowed. But fear just gave him a candy coating I couldn’t wait to bite into.

My hands moved without thought; one pushed back the collar of his shirt, the other ran through his hair and procured a firm grip on the back of his skull. I breathed in—a very human gesture, but it filled me with the scent of his skin, of blood lingering in the air. My nose touched his throat, then my tongue darted out, taking in the taste of his flesh; he shuddered, heart thundered against his ribcage. But he didn’t back out.