moved in the opposite direction. Her skin screamed in pain as she backed up against the trunk. The whine got louder, but the boy didn’t appear to hear it at all.
He lunged again, and the noise grew deafening. Bloodlust ran through her veins like a fever. Without thinking, she grabbed the boy’s wrist and twisted it forcefully, sending the knife to the ground. His eyes grew wide and he tried to get away, but he couldn’t. Jasmine was stronger, and yet she felt completely wild—she had no control over this strength, no idea where it came from.
Her fingers slid around his throat and she started to squeeze.
The hood of his sweatshirt fell back.
A calm deadliness settled over the grove.
The scent of blood filled the small grove. Instinct took over.
The sharp points of her teeth felt unfamiliar against her tongue.
“Jas!” A voice pierced through the high-pitched sound at the edges of her mind.
Jasmine stopped to listen. Luc appeared several feet away, gasping for breath, and stopped when he saw her, his eyes wide with disbelief. Reality seeped into Jas, cooling the bloodlust, and her grip loosened.
What the hell was wrong with her? She let go of the boy and he stumbled back a few feet, where he fell onto his hands and knees, gasping for air.
Luc started toward Jasmine but then stopped and picked something up off the ground. The boy’s knife. He paled and spun around, facing the boy.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Luc demanded.
The boy just stared up at Luc with a mixture of pain and resolve on his face.
Luc stood over him with the knife clenched in his fist. Oh God, was he going to hurt the guy because of her? This was all so wrong. The whining had stopped, and now Jasmine heard the familiar sounds of the city. Her hands still shook, and she could still feel the faint beating of the boy’s pulse under her fingertips. The lust for blood was gone too, and she felt sick, like she’d just ridden a mega roller coaster.
Something horrible had taken over inside her, and the worst part was that it felt so natural.
“Luc?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her.
She saw the hesitation on his face.
The fear.
Was he afraid for her or of her?
“We’re only doing what we must.” The girl stepped hesitantly from behind a tree. Her palms were turned up to show she wasn’t armed. “You of all people must understand that.”
Luc growled at the girl, “Haven’t they taken enough already?”
Jasmine looked from Luc to the girl. Did they know each other?
“We don’t make the rules,” she said with a shrug.
Her casualness seemed to make Luc even madder. “I don’t believe in your rules. That should be clear by now.”
Jasmine watched the exchange, growing more confused by the second.
“You know how this has to end,” the girl said. With a wary eye on Luc, she walked over to the boy and helped him stand.
They disappeared, and Jasmine sagged under the weight of what had happened. Luc wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her against his chest.
“I don’t understand.” Jasmine felt as though she’d stepped out of a nightmare into that place where dreams and reality are still mixed together. “What just happened? Who were those people?”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” She couldn’t help but notice how his voice shook.
Jas wanted to believe him, but it didn’t feel like things were ever going to be okay.
How was this all supposed to end?
Luc paced in the kitchen. Jasmine was taking a shower. It was pure luck he’d seen Jasmine at that park. He saw the boy first, creeping around with what looked like a knife in his hand, and had reacted instinctively. Some loser, he’d thought, out to rob someone, or worse.
And then he’d seen Jas, and the real fear had kicked in. She’d looked too much like how he’d found her in the Forest of the Blood Nymphs: pale and feral and deadly.
But just as quickly, she was his little sister again, scared and confused.
They’d walked to the bus stop after Jasmine insisted she didn’t need to go back to the hospital to have the cut on her arm looked at. The wound stopped bleeding almost immediately, but Luc couldn’t relax. Dread was still a solid mass in his stomach.
Jasmine thought the attack was random, but he knew better. The knife he had found was achingly familiar.
Corinthe had had one exactly like it.
Just thinking Corinthe’s name sent a pang through his chest. He missed her. He