Reborn Yesterday - Tessa Bailey Page 0,45

see if Jonas approached—not to mention where he’d been, but she forced her hands to remain at her side.

In the blink of an eye, the energy in the car shifted.

Ginny felt it and sat forward.

“What the hell is going on?” Elias growled.

She ripped off the blindfold, blinking twice into the glare of a streetlamp, before clawing her way toward the door Jonas had exited, pressing her forehead to the cold glass.

There in a moonlit alleyway stood Jonas.

Another vampire joined him. At least, that was one way of putting it.

Was she dreaming? She had to be. No way one of the most terrifying beings Ginny had ever seen was floating down from the rooftop of the building. As if he were strapped into an invisible harness. The skin of his throat and hands was bluish white and streaked with veins, though most of him was hidden beneath a wide brimmed hat and raincoat. A gray braid of hair ticked side to side on his back, reminding Ginny of a metronome. He moved at a sedate pace, expression smug.

Jonas remained entirely still and watched him land.

“Ever the unfazed prince,” Tucker muttered. “We should get out there.”

“Wait,” Elias said. “We wait. It could be a move to draw us away from her.”

A shiver passed down Ginny’s spine. “You think that’s the powerful vampire who’s been moving me in my sleep.”

“The question is, why?” Tucker asked. “Just to enforce the rule about vampire-human relationships or is there another reason? Anything is possible.”

Tucker could say that again. There were so many more possibilities in this world she lived in now. She was ducked down in the back of a car, good vampires protecting her from other evil vampires. And why? She had no clue. But the life she’d once known seemed like nothing more than an uninformed prologue.

“Get all the way down, Ginny,” Tucker instructed.

She complied, but slowly crept back up to watch the action, Jonas’s voice reaching her ears through the window, muffled, yet sharp. Royal.

“I’m assuming this isn’t an accidental meeting. What do you want from me?”

The vampire smiled to reveal a row of long, sharp teeth. “Seymour Blithe at your service.” He tilted his head to the right. “Have you enjoyed having the loss of a loved one dangled in front of you like a carrot?”

To say Jonas bristled would be an understatement. His muscles seemed to expand and cast larger shadows, and even through the car window, Ginny could hear the slice of his fangs descending. “You tried to kill Ginny,” he rasped, his voice nothing more than a rippling ribbon of violence.

“I merely pointed the expendable human in the direction of her demise.”

“Why?” Jonas shouted.

“We really need to get out there and help,” Tucker snapped.

Elias made a sound of disagreement. “He’ll have no chance of defeating a being that powerful unless he’s protecting her. We stay.”

“I’m motivation?” Ginny pressed her hands to the glass, aching to fling open the door and scream at Jonas to get back inside. “Fine. Good. I wouldn’t leave anyway, just please go help—”

Before she could finish, Seymour flicked a wrist and sent Jonas catapulting to the opposite end of the alley. Ginny swallowed a scream at the sight of his strong body plowing into a row of trashcans. Before she could take her next breath, he was up, a darker shade of green than usual pinwheeling in his eyes. His jaw was tight enough to break—and it almost did when Seymour slashed a hand through the air and Jonas’s head went snapping back like he’d been punched, making him stumble.

“Do something,” Ginny pleaded.

Elias leaned forward in the passenger seat. “Wait for it.”

Indeed, there appeared to be a change overcoming Jonas. The malice in his eyes alone transformed him, and Ginny recalled what he’d said to her in the office of the funeral home earlier that night. These abilities are usually triggered in a vampire when he or she undergoes something harrowing. More and more every time. And you, love, most definitely fit that description.

In a blur of movement, Jonas whipped off his coat, leaving him in dress pants, suspenders and a dove gray button-down. Déjà vu nipped at her conscious, but she was too focused on praying for Jonas’s survival, that she could only disregard it and whisper a rush of words against the glass, fogging it slightly.

“Please, please, please…”

Time seemed to slow as she locked eyes with Jonas through the glass. The slightest downward flicker of his irises sent Ginny into a duck without