To Love a Vampire - A.K. Koonce Page 0,63

the climbing fear that’s clawing up my tight throat.

Last night I told her I wanted to take care of her.

I couldn’t even keep her safe for a day…

Anger replaces the dread that consumed my body just moments ago. The hybrid—the traitorous hybrid is hiding something. I didn’t tell Fallon how much it felt like a set up when I was captured. How quickly Declan fled when the guards arrived. How little trust this hybrid holds in my eyes.

The six of us sit at the table just as the sun creeps over the horizon. An hour has been wasted making sure all the important parties are present.

An anxious beat pats against the dry dirt as my boot taps restlessly beneath the table.

Kaino’s stern dark eyes hang on every word I speak, his limited emotions cross his face in a look of worry. Lord Raske’s features are set in edgy lines, Gabriel and Luca sit on either side of me. Luca’s as afraid of losing her friend as much as I am. She hasn’t stopped biting her nails since we sat down.

The only person who doesn’t hold a look of fear or worry or even distress is Declan. The hybrid focuses on the deep etched lines of the heavy wooden table. His eyes dart back and forth against the polished surface as he taps his fingers repetitively against the table top.

“And you said you followed her scent up the coastline?” Lord Raske asks, tilting his head at me, interrupting my thoughts on the suspicious mystic across from me.

“It disappeared where the opening lays, the trail was swept away in the wind.” I pause, the rest of my words falling away in thought. “What do you know?” I ask, my burning gaze settling once again on the hybrid.

His head darts up immediately, his wide eyes hold… regret in them, making them appear full of liquid steel.

“I—Nothing. I don’t know anything.” The look washes away, once again full of hidden secrets.

Why did Fallon trust him? He has mistrust written all over him.

“If you know something about where she is, if you consider yourself a friend—she was a friend to you.” I can’t even bring myself to finish a sentence. My fists clench tightly, my nails biting into my shaking hands.

Gabriel’s blind eyes shoot toward Declan, seemingly trying to gauge his appearance, his demeanor.

“He’s lying,” Gabriel says, his unseeing gaze narrowing on Declan.

Raske and Kaino pin the hybrid with a tense stare, the father and son sharing a mirrored look as they watch him.

“I have no idea what happened. Perhaps she realized the mistake she made.” Declan folds his hands neatly in front of him as he settles his sneering eyes on me.

My jaw tightens until it hurts, my teeth grinding together as I stare at the worthless hybrid across from me.

“You had better be careful. The only thing tying me to this community, to the mock kindness I’ve shown you, went missing this morning. Fallon was the only thing protecting you from me. I won’t play nice without her.”

He swallows visibly, studying me without fear.

“I’ll find her by myself. Your help isn’t needed.” I push my chair back in a rush, not bothering to wait for Gabriel or Luca as I storm out of the tent.

“I know where she is.”

His calm voice trails after me, stopping me dead in my tracks. My back tenses, the muscles there strung tight as I wait for Declan to explain. I can’t look at him. I’ll kill him if his words aren’t meticulously careful.

“She went back to the Red Hills.”

Twenty-Two

Crimson Eyes

Asher

It takes everyone in the room to tear my furious hands away from his throat. He lies pathetically gasping on the floor, his chair knocked over to the ground as I struggle to push Gabriel, Raske, Kaino and Luca off of me.

“Why? Why did you take her there? Why did you take her to them? You knew they would captivate her!”

Sharp and angry questions flow through me one after the other but I already know the answers. Declan wants acceptance. He wants it as much as I want solitude. The vampires of the Red Hills accepted him. They told me so themselves. He was their pet.

And now Fallon is, too.

I thought they hadn’t done it. I thought they had let her go, for whatever reason. That wasn’t it at all, though. They just couldn’t get through to her while she lived within the protected, spell shielded walls of the Wandering community.

A tremor shudders through my body as I