Survivor - By Kaye Draper Page 0,50

move for one person like this, even when I knew his flaws?

Peter took a deep breath, still not looking at me. “Leah took in another five.” He let out a sigh and turned to face me. “I don’t know that you’ve done them a favor. Their lives will be hell now. They will have to prove themselves to the entire coven. Everyone will be watching them, expecting them to do something wrong.” And if one of them betrayed Leah, or hurt one of the coven, I would be even more guilty since it was my voice that had stayed their execution. By asking that they be spared, had I just signed a death warrant for someone I knew- Leah, Peter…myself?

“Are we okay now?” My voice was flat. I couldn’t sit here and doubt myself anymore. Whatever happened, happened. I was not responsible for a bunch of vampires.

Peter shrugged and gave me a lost look. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I thought that when the time came you would just let me go.”

I looked at him. “You were trying to walk away just to spare me.”

He gave me a sheepish look, completely ruining his assassin image. “I hadn’t expected you to be so fierce about it. I should have known better.”

I turned to him angrily. “And now?” He really thought so little of me? That I could turn off my feelings for him just like that?

He grinned. “I apologize for trying to leave. I honestly thought this would be when my nature and yours parted ways.”

He was baiting me, and I rose to it. “So you expected it to end and you weren’t bothered when it did?” I had to check the urge to slap him.

He stopped grinning and gave me an honest look. “Didn’t you?”

I took a breath to argue, but I realized he was right. I was always telling myself that he would leave me some day because I wasn’t good enough for him. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t really accept it after all. “Only at first,” I said finally, reluctantly.

“And now?” He was mocking my earlier question, turning my reasons back on me. I was being selfish again. Staying with me would only complicate his life. But even knowing that, I couldn’t help myself.

He took my hands, giving me a rueful look. “If you stay by my side, I will do ugly things to protect you.” I knew it was the truth, but it didn’t bother me as much as it should have. Was I selfish enough to accept that?

I shrugged and looked into his mesmerizing eyes, something still not sitting right in my mind. “If Leah told you to kill me,” I said quietly, “would you?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “She already did. Months ago.”

I sucked in a startled breath. “Why?”

He shrugged and looked away, his voice petulant. “She wants me to turn you. The whole damned coven does. They cannot be content to let you be who you are.”

I frowned. “They don’t care that I might not, you know, turn out right?”

He sighed and shook his head. “What do the others care? To them it’s of no consequence.” It wouldn’t matter to them if the turn didn’t work out for me and I had to be scrapped- oh well, better luck next time.

I pressed my forehead to his and closed my eyes. “Thanks for caring enough to say no.”

Chapter 13

Haine let himself into his little house. He tossed his keys on the counter. Closing his silvery blue eyes, he ran a pale hand through his glossy silver hair. He felt strange. The woman he had picked up at the bar hadn’t smelled stoned, but maybe he had missed something. Designer drugs were sometimes a little harder to sniff out than the usual ones. He swayed, leaning against the wall.

A sharp pain stabbed through his head, and his eyes flew open, flashing to liquid silver, then a murky, blood red. The room shifted, going in and out of focus around the searing pain in his head. His breath came in a pant, then stopped altogether as he struggled for control.

Something cold and evil touched the recesses of his mind, calling his name. The presence in his brain was an ancient evil, and it was pissed that he’d gotten away from its clutches. It twisted through him, like dust, and mold, and things that skittered unseen in the darkness. He put his hands to his temples and squeezed. Bruises blossomed under his hands, but