Half Blood (15 page)

He pulled her further into the shadows of the alleyway, the scents and smells of rotting garbage and death stinging her nose. Her muscles ached from fighting so hard against her attacker that her whole body grew slack. Dead weight was not easy to lift, but he lifted her so easily that she began to wonder what kind of drug he was under the influence of.

Her arms and legs were so heavy, her head like a lead weight attached to her neck. Staring down at her idle feet slowly moving away from the safety of the street, she noticed that her right pant leg had ridden up a little, revealing the top of her ankle sheath. Her knife, her salvation, was no more than a few feet away from her fingertips. She had only a heartbeat to decide. She could try and draw the blade now, or she could wait for a better opportunity. If she waited, there was a chance that he would find the blade and take it away, which only left her with one real option.

With lead-weighted arms and legs and dogged determination to get out of there alive, she lunged forward, hoping to grasp that familiar, safe feel of the handle in her palm. Her index finger grazed one of the leather straps before his strong arms found hers, pulling her up and pinning them to her side with a speed she wouldn’t consider to be at all human. With another quick motion, he spun her around so she could see his face.

Her breath left her in a rush. ‘Sam?’ she asked over the pounding of her heart in her ear. She was sure it was him. At least he looked like Sam, except that his eyes were a silver-white colour with a thick rim of black around the outer iris. Those eyes were so empty leaving Indi’s body wracked with a coldness that rivalled the arctic conditions swirling around them now. He shook his head to answer her question and smiled, revealing a pair of fangs two inches long and growing.

‘Not Sam,’ he said in a rumbling, low, bass voice. ‘Nox,’ he corrected.

Indi swallowed down on her pulse. ‘What the fuck are you?’

‘Vampire,’ he said before moving towards her with incredible speed. He rode her body down to the cold ground, putting all the pressure of his body onto her shoulders and legs. She expected to feel those fangs sink into her throat, but somehow she’d ridden his power down, her body shifting innately to avoid an attack on her throat.

She lay there for a moment, stunned and breathing heavily until pain lanced through her left shoulder. She winced and looked down to find his mouth latched onto the mass of muscle over her heart. A pleasant feeling of detachment flooded over her as shock took over her body, protecting her from feeling anything except that lovely, cloud-floating sensation. She heard a snap, and like a light switching on somewhere in her head, the pain came like the floodgates had been opened. She screamed as he tore through her clavicle like it was made of glass not bone.

Nox reared back––his mouth red with her blood––and licked his lips hungrily. ‘You may be a half blood, but you still taste good,’ he growled before striking at her neck. Indi couldn’t move fast enough this time. His fangs slid into her neck, hitting her carotid. He started to bleed her dry. From her shoulder, she could feel her blood running down her skin like warm fingers, pooling in the hollow between her collarbones until sliding down both sides of her neck and dropping onto the cold ground. The feeling of detachment floated back over her.

This is it,
she thought.
This is what death feels like.
It wasn’t so bad. At least she felt relaxed. The gentle sound of suckling was in her ear as a feeling of peace and tranquillity fell over her like a soft blanket. She gave up her fight against him, relaxing completely onto the frozen ground and staring up at the clear night sky. She’d never noticed before how few stars you could see in the city.

With her breath shivering out of her mouth, she felt her body growing colder and colder. She frowned. Something was coming from the sky, floating softly towards her. A snow flake landed on her eyelash. She blinked it away, the flake falling onto her cheek, although she didn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything anymore. She was just … numb.

Indi exhaled her last breath, feeling herself slip away into a cold, dark pool of death.

‘Jerry? … Jerry?’

Jerry’s eyes opened slowly and saw the nine-hundred dollar pair of Ferragamos attached to his ex-partner’s feet from between his knees. With a small grunt, he lifted his head, feeling every single ounce of blood rushing back into his body. The scent of coffee lingered in his nose as he realised there was a Styrofoam cup being held up in front of his face.

‘I thought you could do with some coffee,’ Mark said softly. Looking around the waiting room, Jerry found them alone with the exception of some nurses occasionally wandering back and forth.

‘Yeah, but the doctor said that now they’re just resetting her arm and a plastic surgeon has been called in to deal with the deep cut on her face.’

Jerry’s blue eyes scanned all the empty plastic chairs and his heart stuttered. ‘Have you seen Indi?’ he asked frantically, turning back around to look at Mark.

‘Indi?’ Mark seemed surprised. ‘Why would I have seen Indi?’

‘I called her and asked her to come down here. You haven’t seen her?’

Mark shook his head, and with each shake, panic ratcheted up in his chest. Indi should have been here by now. It had been a little over five hours since he’d called. She should have
been
here by now. His heart began pounding behind his ribs, his mind skittering and coming up with a thousand possibilities.

‘Maybe she went to the café for something to eat? I was asleep just like you. Maybe she didn’t want to disturb you when she got here?’ Mark suggested in his amazingly seductive baritone of a voice. Jerry thought that tie-die coming back into fashion had more of a chance of happening. If Indi had come into the waiting room, she would have woken him up. She would have heard how much he needed her in his voice when he’d called her before. He shook his head and took his phone out of his pocket, bringing up the missed calls menu. Nothing. Redialling her number, he brought his phone up to his ear and waited.

‘
Hi, you’ve reached Indi. You know what to do … BEEEEEEP.’

With a growl, he slammed the phone shut and upped the pacing speed. If she wasn’t at the hospital yet, she was either still back at her apartment or … Jerry paused, refusing to think on what else might have happened to her. She had to be at her apartment. She just had to be.

‘The surgery was a success. We located the source of the bleeding and repaired the puncture. We’ll need to keep her in for observation though as the first three days after surgery are the most dangerous. We’ve reset her arm, putting plates into both her radius and ulna as they had both been shattered in the accident. The plastic surgeon also took a look at her face while she was under to reduce the chances of permanent disfiguring scars.’

A weight felt as if it had just lifted off Jerry’s chest. ‘Can I go see her?’

‘She is still unconscious, but you can see her, though only for a few moments. If you’d like to come with me?’ the doctor suggested.

Mark asked, ‘Can I see her as well?’

Jerry’s eyes darted to Mark. He hadn’t thought of it before, but Mark had been hanging around a lot longer than he needed to. At the notion, his heart warmed a little. Mark must have been here to support him, to help him through this awful event.

*

Nox looked over the half blood’s body. Her clavicle was shattered, the bone splintered and protruding from the skin that had been covering it. He’d intended on tearing out her heart with his teeth, but somehow she’d shifted her body. His eyes drifted up. Her neck was unrecognisable, just a mass of red gore. He studied her still form, unable to hear her pulse and sensing that her essence was gone.

Taking his dagger from the shoulder harness beneath his leather jacket, he cut the half blood’s sweater down the middle of her chest, opening up the cut sides like a present. Visually measuring the length of her chest to find her heart, he positioned his knife to make the first cut. The knife slid into her skin, offering no resistance. On the verge of making the downward slice, he stopped. A vibration down his spine triggered all his survival instincts. Without having to look up, he knew there was a wolf standing in the mouth of the alleyway. With a snarl in his throat, he looked up at the black mass with glowing eyes, growling at him with just as much animosity. He laughed humourlessly. So she did have a Guardian after all.

‘You’re too late,’ he said in a rumbling bass. ‘She’s dead.’

The wolf growled even louder, padding closer and closer to him. He stood up, grasping his knife lightly in his palm. When he was at his strongest, he could fight the wolf—no problem at all—but his months of forced abstinence from feeding properly had left him weak. The only guaranteed way of killing it would be to attack first and hope to get the kill shot before it did.

‘She is mine,’ he growled, gritting his teeth and refusing to back away from his kill.

The wolf kept coming at him, its blue and green eyes burning with rage. Its upper lip peeled away from its menacing teeth, saliva dripping slowly from its muzzle. A growl was building down low in his chest, travelling up his throat and coming out as a snarl.

‘Mine!’ he snapped, taking half a step closer. It was a stupid move, but he had to protect what was his. He’d been hunting this half blood for too long, and he wasn’t going to give her up so easily. He gripped the handle of his knife, ready to throw it at the throat of the wolf, but movement at the mouth of the alley stopped him.

Icy-blue eyes stared at him from a huge white frame. Nox laughed humourlessly. He should have known. They always travel in packs. The new wolf started trotting down through the shadows, coming to a stop a full head’s length ahead of the black one. Nox licked his lips and looked down at the half blood. He spat a curse at the wolves and stepped into the closest shadow.

*

Rhett’s body was wracked by pain. Along with the pounding in his head, he felt as if the marrow in his bones had been doused in petrol and set on fire while his bones were being reset courtesy of a pneumatic drill. He shook from the shock of changing too quickly and he’d be paying for it for at least another hour. The wind whipped past him, a rash of goose bumps breaking out over his bare skin.

He crouched down next to Indi’s body, his muscles and tendons still knitting back together to fit his human form. Her skin was ashen, her body already cold from the lack of a heartbeat and the ten pints that had just been sucked out of her. He couldn’t believe that he had failed her. He was supposed to be her Guardian and he’d let her get attacked. Marcus’ words crashed into him.
“You think you can take care of her properly?”
Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There was a grunt, and when Rhett looked up, Vaile was stalking towards him with menace rolling off his naked body.

‘Have you got a damn death wish or something?’ he snarled, hauling Rhett up by the back of his neck. His wolf wanted out; his body shaking so violently with the effort to keep it contained.

‘He was killing her,’ Rhett replied, his words were slow and crawling with danger. Vaile’s eyes were icy-blue as he glared back at him. Vaile growled and threw him, cutting up Rhett’s palms and knees as he slid along the frozen ground.

‘You ignorant fucker! You have no idea who that was, do you?’

Rhett kept his eyes glued to Vaile’s. ‘You think I give a shit about who he was?’ he snapped. All this posturing could wait. Indi was dying at his feet.

Vaile’s head swung around, pinning Rhett with a burning gaze. ‘You just challenged Nox; the leader of the Sicarii and Eirawen’s one and only vampire lover. Didn’t you see the tattoo on his neck? The snake is her symbol. Her blood has made him stronger than you can ever imagine.’

‘I could have taken him,’ Rhett growled.

Vaile barked a laugh. ‘Sure you could have kid,’ he replied sarcastically. ‘He would have ripped you to shreds in the time it took you to blink once. He’s stronger than me or you. He’s stronger than the whole goddamned pack!’ he said, kneeling down above Indi’s head. He slid two fingers along the side of her throat that hadn’t been torn open and left leaking, feeling for a pulse although Rhett wasn’t expecting him to find one. ‘Goddamnit,’ he growled.

Vaile shrugged. ‘See for yourself,’ he replied, standing up and stalking around to the shadow that Nox had melted away into. Rhett pushed himself off the ground, his body protesting with every movement. Pressing his fingers to the side of her neck, he felt for her pulse, tears pricking his eyes when he felt nothing there but the tremble of his own fingers.