Crave - Teresa Mummert Page 0,77

through my heart. “Wake up, Eva.”

I struggled to scream back and let him know I would be okay. I wasn’t going to a better place, but I was going… fading… making peace with what my fate had turned out to be.

The flicker, the spark inside of me began to dwindle.

“Eva, It was you all along,” he pleaded.

The sharp thud of my heart caused my eyes to shoot open and I sucked in a ragged breath, burning my lungs as they struggled to take in more air.

“It’s you,” he pleaded and my skin began to cool where the sun had warmed it only moments before. My hands unclenched and blades of grass fell from my grip, pulled from my twisted imagination. Grayson laid only a few feet from me, his eyes still open and looking at nothing, the light behind them gone. Grayson was dead.

I was on the floor of the club, chaos surrounding me. My eyes locked with Elijah’s briefly and I felt my heart surge. He was coated in crimson and I hoped, in a moment of selfishness that it belonged to someone else, that it wasn’t his own blood. I looked off to the small group of vampires gathered just a few feet away from him, waiting for their chance to be able to get their shot at him. He was hunched in a defensive crouch, his hands extended in front of him, ready to grab and rip apart anyone who tried to advance. I gripped my hand over my mouth and let out a devastating cry as Olivie took her shot, jumping on him from behind.

Elijah’s growl was so intense and full of agony it felt like it had vibrated through my bones. I shoved to my feet, wobbling before I grabbed the broken leg of a chair, charging toward him.

He was on his back and Olivie had sunk her fangs into his throat, ripping and tearing the flesh from his body.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Be Still My Heart

Closing my eyes when I leaped, it felt almost like I was flying. But I didn’t disappear into oblivion. Instead, I was knocked from the air when my body collided with another. I screamed, when my hand slid down the length of the chair leg, lodging a large splinter into the palm of my hand.

The other end slid effortlessly into Olivie’s back, missing her heart, so the blow was nothing more than an irritation, a bug bite to someone of her strength. But I knew all too well what a mere bug bite can turn into. Death.

That simple distraction was enough to take her attention away from Elijah, who grabbed a small knife from his belt, shoving it into her stomach and upward, lodging it under her ribcage.

She sputtered, blood pouring from her lips that quirked up into a smirk. “You think if you kill me this will end?” she asked, struggling to laugh and spraying a few drops of blood onto Elijah’s face. “The Elders will come for her. They won’t stop until they have her. Until Moses has her.”

“Moses,” he whispered, his face going white.

“You can’t save her.”

“I won’t let that happen,” he growled, his anger so intense and thick in the air around me I could barely breathe in his crippling rage.

He grunted as his hand followed into the wound. I covered my mouth, gagging but thankful I couldn’t see him reaching inside of her stomach and sliding under her ribcage, clutching her heart in the palm of his fist and ripping it from her chest.

Her back bowed as she let out a blood-curdling scream. The other vampires froze and I seized their moment of uncertainty as they watched one of their Elders being eviscerated.

I stumbled to Elijah, pressing my hand over the wound on his neck, struggling to keep the life from draining from him. He growled, fangs extended.

“You’re bleeding. I can’t be near you. Go! You have to go!”

I shook my head, struggling to keep myself from crying as I held my aching palm against him until his blood caused my wound to fade away.

“You said we’d walk out of this together. I won’t leave you.”

“I need to feed so I can heal,” he groaned. “It’s too deep.”

“Feed from me,” I pleaded, although I was still lightheaded from Grayson’s attack.

“No. I’ll kill you.”

“You didn’t kill me last time. You stopped. I know you can stop.”

“Eva, I was only able to stop because Olivie pulled me off you.”

“They are going to kill you if you don’t heal!” I