Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Skarde chewed on one hell of a flared-up temper with an itch to kill the vampire who’d stolen Gemma. He didn’t care if it was his brother. He planned to disarticulate every joint on Cade’s body and ram his fist into his chest to remove his heart.
Random thoughts fired through his brain. What if she was dead? What if Cade bit her? The ferocity induced by the thought drove him to push his horse to a brutal pace the poor animal couldn’t hold for long.
The lack of answers might make him crazy.
But then he laughed. He could handle the anxiety.
Until he found her body or whatever remained of her, he would survive.
Thanks to years of careful training under the cruelty of his father’s singular drive to create the best warriors in the world out of his three sons, there was no level of shit he hadn’t already survived.
Starvation, hopelessness, helplessness, humiliation… been there and done that.
His mind wouldn’t stop.
What if Gemma preferred Cade over him?
He pushed that warped thought right out of his mind.
The answer took him to a dark place he knew existed but didn’t often visit.
He barely understood why he was twisted up over the woman.
Sure, she’d helped him twice. She was also beautiful with a sense of humor he appreciated.
But she represented everything dangerous foretold by the prophecy.
He was less worried about his soul burning in hell—it was already damned to end up there in the end—than the part about evil will spill.
He’d always thought it meant whomever he turned would end up evil, maybe even becoming a new monster that he’d have to kill.
He didn’t want to kill Gemma.
He was pretty sure he wouldn’t do it. By default, that would make him complicit in her evil.
You’d think Fontaine hadn’t given him a skein of blood when he woke because he was rapidly becoming both weak and delusional.
The cryptic dwarf had pointed him in the direction Cade had taken Gemma, and damn if the little guy didn’t seem to have a small crush on her as he gushed about how she’d bandaged his hand.
Miles later, maybe an hour, he picked up the smell of human blood. Her blood.
Lust and blood hunger coalesced. Shit, this fire of want and need refused to be ignored. He wanted to bite and imagined being deep inside her at that moment—ready to take and take.
The horse slammed to a halt. Had he signaled the horse to stop? He didn’t even know as the scent of her swirled in his nose and clouded his mind with dangerous hunger.
Gemma sat huddled on the side of the road, in the shelter of an overhanging branch. She cradled a bandaged arm and called out without moving, “I almost believed you might not show up.”
He wasn’t sure he could control himself near her, not with her actively bleeding. His panic over the need to ignore the urge to taste her was running so high that his hands shook.
He jumped off the horse.
“Where are ye bleeding?” The words came out strangled. He itched to reach to examine her neck and wrist. If Cade had bitten her, he’d kill him. At least he knew Cade hadn’t turned her—if he had, she wouldn’t smell human.
“I got shot by an arrow. Cade pulled it out and wrapped me up before dumping me here. Since it was VanFliet attacking, he figured it was smarter to leave me for you to find rather than run the risk of VanFliet overpowering us.” She stood and wavered as if about to fall over.
He caught her and picked her up. His heart hammered when he pulled her into his chest. There was relief in holding her against him, but it was almost outweighed by the drive to taste her.
Focus! Get her to safety.
“Dizzy,” she whispered. “Love to say it was a reaction to being around you, but I think I’m anemic. And cold.”
“What’s anemic?”
“Lost too much blood.”
He lifted her onto the horse in front of him.
It would be a couple of hours before they could make it back to his home.
“Cade left you here, bleeding? He goes to all the trouble to take you and then abandons you? Was he dying?” Nothing else made sense.
Once Cade set out on a mission, nothing dissuaded him.
“The last I saw he was alive and leading the army of vampires in the opposite direction. I think my blood scared him. I also made him see the reason in letting me go. We chatted, there was a kiss, I punched him in the nuts, and then he left.”
“You punched him in the… He didn’t kill you after that?” Bloody hell, this woman had guts. Even he wouldn’t dare land a direct hit to Cade’s baws.
“Pretty sure he wasn’t expecting it. I barely grazed the boys, but he deserved it.
He could’ve killed me, but he didn’t. I’m decently sure he was having second thoughts about taking me by that point.
It could’ve been the chuck to the balls or the fact I can be a major pain in the ass when I want to be.
” Her head dropped back against chest. “You smell so much better than him.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. Blood roared through his head.
“Seems like you’re better…healed. Did you get something to drink so you’re not going to drain me into a prune?”
“What’s a prune?”
“Dried fruit.” She added, “A fruit without water. “
“Fontaine provided.”
“You can drink from dwarves? Seems like they don’t have much to sustain someone like you. I like that little guy. You better have left him in one piece.”
“Little guy? He’s the bloody king of all of them. He wields all kinds of magic I don’t understand. No, I didn’t drink from him. He gave me a container of blood.”
Her head tilted to stare up at him. “That’s kind of weird for him to have that sitting around, don’t you think?”
“He’s a strange devil. How do you know him? What exactly happened while I slept?”
“We chatted together while sitting in the rain. He shared my umbrella.” She shrugged.
What’s an umbrella?
“I feel strangely weak, but for the record, I’m not one of those wimpy girls who needs someone like you to rescue me all the time.
I swear this isn’t like me.” She relaxed against him and tucked her head beneath his coat, against his chest. “I’m glad you’re here.
You’re a lot less prickly than Cade. That doesn’t mean you’re prickle-free, but at least you’re tolerable. ”
His body lit up like the lightning in the far-off sky, energy zipping through his veins and setting him into a frenzy.
“You require rescuing too often,” he grumbled.
“You too,” she volleyed back. “This is the first time I’ve been shot by an arrow. This kind of thing doesn’t happen where I’m from.” Her good arm wrapped around him in a half hug. “Please don’t let me die here. Not before you…”
He glanced down, waiting for her to finish. Her voice had grown hoarse. Her full bottom lip parted from her equally full top lip. Those soulful eyes searched his before settling on his lips. No need to clarify what she meant.
His mind rewound her summary of her time with Cade. He’d kissed her. His damned brother had kissed her. Yet, what tumbled out of him was asinine. “Before what?”
She grunted. “Throw me through the doorway when we get back to your place. I’ll call 911 and get an ambulance to pick me up and take care of this arrow wound. Make sure it’s the right doorway, though. I don’t want to end up in Siberia. Just…don’t bite me without telling me.”
“I’ll take you back to the castle and see if one of the mirrors works.”