“I went and got a book Griffin wanted.” It seemed an easy enough explanation.
Ace stopped walking on his way into the living room, his eyes flushing garnet. “A book he didn’t want us to know he sent you for or he would’ve told us about it. Why? Was it dangerous?”
His voice lowered to the point that I shivered from the intonation of darkness in it, and I wasn’t even the one Ace was mad at right that second. I thought of his point, too, though, and preferred not to again. “It’s fine. I’m here. Nothing happened, other than me getting the book.” I pointed to it on the counter. “It’s there.”
Overwhelming pain struck me, and I fell backwards off the stool where I’d perched. Strong arms caught me before I could hit the floor. “Whoa, Tanner, what did you do to her?” I threw my arm around Caesar’s neck, since he was the one to catch me, and tried to hold on through the waves of pain.
“Someone is angry with me.” I could barely speak through the chattering of my teeth.
He whirled around, pointing his finger at Ace. “Knock itoff.”
“I’m not mad at her,” he yelled before he rounded on Griffin. “I’m ticked at him. This is not on her.”
“Not him.” I shook. The sensation was external to us, like Ace with his hunger. Whoever’s emotions I picked up was hungry, yes, but that wasn’t his primary complaint right then.
“It’s Rowan.” Tanner spoke in a low voice, placing his hand on my leg. “I can feel him, like I could you. He’s here.”
As if he’d conjured him, the door flung open and Rowan stared at us. Caesar squeezed me tighter for a second before he set me down on the ground. “Stay there. This is going to get ugly.”
“You’re damned right it’s going to get ugly.” Rowan spoke through clenched teeth, stepping inside. The door slammed behind him, but he never touched it. For about three seconds, I didn’t understand before it occurred to me Rowan had closed that door with his mind.What the fuck was that?
I pulled myself to my feet. He could be angry with me and direct it straight at me if he wanted, but I wasn’t going to face him from the floor. Caesar moved until he stood directly in front of me and in a blink Tanner was to Rowan’s right. I didn’t see where Ace had gone until he stood directly in Rowan’s face.
I didn’t see Griffin anywhere, but I could feel him nearby in the room. Why couldn’t I find him?
Ace wasn’t in Rowan’s face very long. After a long stare, Ace was thrown to the side and then through the window, where he must have crashed outside. Again, Rowan hadn’t touched him.
I wondered why they all followed him, and there was my answer. When the universe doled out vamp gifts, Rowan apparently got more than his fair share of them.
Caesar darted forward only to be slammed back into the wall for his trouble. Pinned there, a roar sounded from his thoughts, more animal than human right then. It was like I could hear his monster directly.
“Tanner, Griffin, don’t move.” I had no idea if Ace was okay, but Caesar clearly wasn’t. Rowan’s fury seemed clearly focused on me, and I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt on my behalf.
I held up my hands in what I hoped he still understood as the universal sign for surrender. “No one has to get hurt.”
I no more than blinked before Rowan moved into my personal space, staring down at me. “They’re betrayers. They are going to get more than hurt.”
His words struck and I shivered, swallowing away my fear. Vampires got off on terror, or at least the ones who hurt me had. At the moment, Rowan was in league with them. He’d stay that way until I moved his category in my mind.
“They’dneverbetray you. They hid me to keep me safe. I was dying. But no one betrayed you, Rowan.”
“Leave her alone,” Ace shouted from the doorway as Griffin appeared behind Rowan. He grabbed their leader’s arm for one second before he ended up pinned next to Caesar on the wall. I breathed hard, but Rowan remained so still, I’d think him a statue… if his anger wasn’t surging at me like a palpable entity in the room with us.
Tanner hadn’t moved, but I had no expectation he’d stay that way very long.
“How did they betray you?” If I could get him talking it might help.
He didn’t answer, so I just let myself stare at him. If I took the power out of this, the discrepancy between us, and the fact that he might tear out my throat before I could convince him to think differently—then it was just me staring at Rowan, the boy who made sure I had lunch to eat. The boy who stopped me from vanishing in the woods. The boy who had held a gun to his head and told his father to not kill me or he’d shoot himself. They’d all done that for me, but it had been Rowan who spoke the words.It had been Rowan, but now he is this other being.An angry creature who could pin my guys to the walls with his thoughts and throw them through windows.
“Do you know how hard it was to keep my promise to you? A promise that I never should have made in the first place, because there wasn’t a chance in hell I should’ve been able to keep it as a vampire? We die as a human, and I had to carry part of that with me to keep my promise to you. And I did it. Despite that, you’ve all betrayed me. I let her go, and you’re all here with her when it was expressly forbidden.”
With a shaking hand that absolutely betrayed the image of bravery I tried to project, I touched the side of his cheek. He didn’t stop me. He was angry but there was something else that he was trying to keep from me—pain.
But not from hunger.From loss.
“They saved me. You didn’t know it, but the other vampires bit me while you slept. Bit and bit and bit me.” I turned my wrist over so he could see. “Sometimes up to ten times a day. I was dying. Slowly. Painfully. You wanted me to live a life. That’s why you made that promise when you were a human. Maybe it feels foreign to you, but I remember you said you wanted me to be safe and happy. You protected me.”
His gaze dropped to my wrist, and he stared at it like he’d never seen one before. Was he counting the scars? Imagining just how many teeth bit into me without closing the wounds to make it look like that?