High Noon - Casey Bond Page 0,19

he’d once forced me into.

Hotah met me half-way down the hill. “Eve,” he breathes, relieved. “You’ve returned.”

“Where is Enoch?”

His brow furrows. “He hasn’t been here in years.”

“I don’t believe you. Tell me where he is, or you will die like your brother,” I warn, every word trembling with the rage bubbling up from the darkness.

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Kohana?” He screams his name and attempts to run around me, but I catch him by the hair and tear out his throat in one fluid movement. Blood spurts and gurgles from the wound as he gasps for air that won’t save him.

“Where is he?” I whisper as his lashes flutter closed.

The flow of blood stops, along with his heart.

But I can’t stop. Not until Enoch is dead.

This can’t be real. This can’t happen! Panic set in and something clawed at me, something sharp and deadly. I struggled against it, blind to what I struck out at.

“Eve!” Maru screamed. My arm felt like it was being wrenched from its socket. I blinked the water from my eyes and my vision cleared immediately. Maru was dragging me out of the mystical pool.

Kohana was on the other side, draped over a boulder with one leg drawn into his chest. The other was still in the spring. We were all drenched, hair hanging in wet ribbons, water sluicing off our skin.

“What happened to you? I couldn’t get you out of there!” Maru yelled, still saturated with adrenaline.

“I saw it,” I exclaimed, my words rushing out in spurts. “Kohana, I saw it. I saw what you described in your vision!”

He struck the surface of the water, agitated. “Now do you understand why I’m frightened? Why I’m wary of you?”

I nodded fast. “I get it. I’m sorry. But I still don’t understand.” I reached up and felt my upper teeth. There were no fangs. No sharp tips to be found.

Maru stilled. “In your vision, had you been turned?”

“She was more than a vampire, but she had fangs,” Kohana explained.

“What does that mean? ‘More than a vampire’?”

Kohana shook his head but remained silent. I was thankful he didn’t elaborate. Maru was already shocked enough.

Maru took a deep breath. “Let’s get out of this thing,” he said, scowling toward the water. I vowed for the second time never to go in the spring again, no matter what questions arose. The answers it gave were terrifying.

The sky had lightened while I was in the spring. “How long was I under the water?” I asked, looking up at the sky.

Maru hesitated. “Easily more than five minutes.”

“How is that possible?” I breathed.

“The Great Spirit chose to give you this warning,” Kohana answered cryptically. “It kept you alive, preserved you when you could have drowned. The question is, will you heed it?”

“I think the question is, how do I prevent it?” I amended.

He inclined his head. The leather bracelet he’d given me was soaked against my wrist, even as my suit dried me.

“My brother will be back soon with the horses. I now know how fast you are on land, Eve, but my brother and I, and even your friend Maru, are not. You need to stay with us. Not only do we know the way to Kangi, we know the dangers along the path.”

What if I was the danger they should be avoiding?

Was I destined to become a monster, hell-bent on traveling through time to tear the world to shreds until I found my target? How could I possibly hate Enoch so much? None of this made sense.

Maru walked down the hill with me. “What did you see?”

I began haltingly, “I’d been turned, but then I came back here, to this time. I killed them – Kohana and then Hotah – because they wouldn’t tell me where to find Enoch. The only thing I could feel was hurt and rage, Maru. I was completely out of control. Bloodthirsty. A monster. I was darkness incarnate.” I wrung my hands, remembering the feel of their blood, slick and hot and thick on my skin.

I was evil.

Tears fell from my eyes as we walked back into camp. Maru didn’t offer any words of comfort, though his hand clamped onto mine and didn’t let go. He didn’t lie and say that what I saw was impossible. That it wouldn’t and couldn’t happen.

That was the most upsetting thing at all.

Maru didn’t lie to me.

He never had.

Never would.

That meant he thought it was entirely possible.

Deep down, so did I.

At first, I thought I was seeing a