3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
D espite the sense of familiarity about her, Finn was certain he’d never met this woman before that moment. She sure seemed to know him, though.
Leaning into him, she rested her hand on his chest, her slender fingers splayed over his heart. “I knew you’d wait for me.”
“Not to be rude, but I don’t even know who you are.”
He covered her hand with his own, gripping it gently as he tried to remove it. Rather than recognizing it as a boundary, however, she smiled brightly and flipped her hand over to link their fingers together as if she thought that had been his intention.
Finn grunted, taken off balance by the strength and desperation in her grip. He cleared his throat, determined to reestablish some semblance of sanity in the night’s sudden detour.
“I’m pretty sure you’re confusing me with someone else,” he said, his voice gentle but firm.
“You really don’t remember me?” she whispered, her eyes wide and searching, as though the truth would materialize if she only willed it hard enough. “The pond, the full moon—”
He shook his head slowly. “Sorry, but I think you have the wrong guy.”
She huffed and stamped her foot, her bottom lip sliding out into a pronounced pout. Then almost as quickly, the irritation vanished, and that wild, frantic energy returned, now dialed up to an eleven.
“That’s okay. I know you haven’t really forgotten me. Not deep down.”
He shot a glance over the top of her head, hoping for clarity, or maybe just backup, but Noah didn’t seem to know what to make of her behavior either. Instead, he shook his head, and while he didn’t say anything, the concern in his hazel eyes spoke volumes.
Their silent communication didn’t go unnoticed, nor did it appear to be appreciated.
“Who are you?” the vampire demanded, her babyish tone from moments before replaced by pure ice as her grip tightened painfully on Finn’s hand.
“Who are you ?” Noah shot back, his usual patience lacking from both his voice and his body language.
“This is Noah,” Finn interjected, stepping in before things went from heated to nuclear. “You already seem to know who I am.”
He raised an eyebrow and waited for her to fill in the missing pieces.
Her smile returned, a flash of pointed canines that barely extended past her other teeth. “I’m Karleigh.” She tilted her chin up and stretched her neck, her eyes wide and beseeching. “You really don’t remember me?”
Finn winced, his hand throbbing from her tight grip. Every time he tried to pry it away, however, she only squeezed harder.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I really don’t know who you are.”
Her nose scrunched, and her lips pursed, but she recovered quickly with a gentle pat to his forearm. “You will. Everything is going to be perfect this time. You’ll see.”
“Wait,” Noah said. “What do you mean this time ?”
Karleigh ignored him as she stared out toward the river and shook her head slowly. “I’ll be more careful this time,” she muttered, speaking more to herself than to him or Noah. “No more mistakes. I can’t make any mistakes.”
“What mistakes?” Noah demanded. He took another step toward her, only to stop short when she snapped her head up and growled. To his credit, however, he didn’t retreat. “What mistakes?” he repeated. “What did you do?”
Just to be safe, however, Finn sidestepped, placing himself between Noah and the vampire.
“Nothing,” she said a little too innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Finn winced, his eyes squinting against a non-existent glare as sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his temples. Pressure built in his head, his gaze sliding in and out of focus as something from his past pressed against him.
A flash of strawberry blonde hair. Delicate but inflexible fingers gripped around his jaw. A wispy, high-pitched voice whispering into his ear.
“You’re his sire,” Noah said. It wasn’t a question. “You’re the one who turned him.”
Karleigh glared at him, every muscle in her body rigid with defiance, but she didn’t deny it. “Yes.”
Finn supposed that explained why he had been drawn to her, despite all the neon warning signs telling him to run in the opposite direction.
“You killed me.”
He figured he should probably feel some kind of way about that, and maybe it would come later. Right then, he was just relieved to finally be getting some answers after months of dark spots and hazy recollections.
“Oh, it didn’t hurt,” she assured him, stroking her fingers up and down his forearm. “I made sure of it.”
Since he didn’t remember, he’d have to take her word for it. “Why?”
“Well, it’s kind of necessary to becoming a vampire.” Outwardly, she appeared friendly and patient, but with the type of saccharine sweetness that left a bad aftertaste.
“No shit,” Noah snorted. “I think he wants to know why you turned him in the first place.”
Her eyes cut to the side and pulled together at the corners. “So we can be together, of course.”
For the first time since the conversation had started, Finn felt a flicker of irritation. “And you didn’t think I should have a say in that?”
Karleigh’s lips curled into something that could have resembled a smile if not for the frantic intensity behind her eyes—a hunger, proprietary and unsettling.
“I didn’t need to ask,” she replied, her voice low and unwavering. “I chose you.”
He finally wrested his arm from her grasp and took a step back, holding his hand out to stop her when she tried to follow. “I don’t even know you.”
Karleigh continued to smile, unfazed. “You will,” she promised, as if the future was already written. “We’re connected. Now and forever.”
Noah barked out a sharp laugh, a sound filled with disgust rather than humor. “So, you what? Picked him out of the crowd and decided to add custom upgrades like some kind of Build-A-Beau?”
Sucking in a breath through her teeth, she spared Noah a short, dismissive glance. “He was perfect. I watched him for weeks. His habits, the way he moved, the things he didn’t even know about himself.” One side of her nose curled, and her lips pulled back in a sneer. “You wouldn’t understand.”
With every word, Finn’s irritation deepened into something darker, colder. “You didn’t give me a choice.”
Karleigh leaned in, eyes soft and persuasive. “Some things are too important to risk. I couldn’t let you slip away, not when you were meant to be mine.”
The silence that followed felt charged, crackling with the uncomfortable, yet undeniable, truth. He was bound to this stranger, his fate rewritten by her obsession, and nothing in her expression hinted at regret.
“He’s not yours,” Noah snapped. “And this isn’t a fucking petting zoo,” he added, batting her hand away when she reached for Finn again. “We don’t touch things that don’t belong to us.”
“He does belong to me! I love him!”
“That’s not love.” Folding his arms across his chest, Noah cocked an eyebrow at her. “It’s called stalking. And murder. Both are illegal in all fifty states.”
“I didn’t murder him,” she argued. “I gave him a better life.”
“Then how did he end up here?”
Karleigh gritted her teeth and huffed out a breath through her nose. “That was an accident.”
Finn took another step away from her, a warning growl building in his chest when she tried to follow. “You accidentally killed me.”
“It was taking so long for you to wake up.” She sounded quite put out about that, as if Finn had done it purposely to annoy her. “I couldn’t stay, but I hid you really well,” she continued, her body language stressing how much she needed him to believe her. “In the barn under some hay.”
Noah looked more than a little incredulous at the details. “Then how did he die?”
“Because it’s not a barn,” Finn answered, the pieces falling into place, even if the bigger picture still looked a little messy. “It’s a stable.”
He had finished construction on it a few weeks before his death, and the skylights had been one of his favorite features. He’d also been just months away from the grand opening of his new riding center.
“I burned, didn’t I? Under the skylights.”
“I tried to make it back before sunrise,” Karleigh insisted. “It really was an accident.”
“Was there anything left?”
“I…I don’t know.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and glanced at the ground. “I couldn’t go back once the sun came up.”
Finn sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. In a lot of ways, it would be better if he had been reduced to ashes. At least then his ranch hands wouldn’t stumble across his charred remains.
He just hoped the stable hadn’t caught fire.
“Hold up.” Noah lifted a hand and waved it back and forth in front of him. “You hid a newly turned vampire under a glass ceiling? And it never occurred to you that it was a bad idea?” He looked at the female like she was something he’d found growing in the fridge. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I was coming back for him!”
“And how did that work out?”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Enough!” Finn barked, tired of their bickering.
Noah’s anger on his behalf felt good, and it would be all too easy to wallow in self-pity. He couldn’t change what had been done, though, and grieving for the past wouldn’t help him now.
“How did you get here?”
Karleigh blinked up at him, her brow knitted in confusion. “I died.”
“I understand that, and I’m sorry to hear it.” Whatever damage she had caused, at some point, she had been a victim as well. “How did you die?”
“Enforcers.”
Unfamiliar with the term, he looked to Noah for answers.
“They work for the Ministry of Otherling Affairs. They’re like the Navy SEALs of the paranormal world.”
He nodded, both in understanding and gratitude, then turned back to Karleigh. “What did you do?”
“Me?” She reeled back as if he’d slapped her. “Nothing! I didn’t do anything!”
Granted, he didn’t know a whole lot about the paranormal world, but he liked to think himself fairly logical. And common sense told him highly trained elite soldiers didn’t hunt down baby vamps for no reason.
“Try again,” he told her. “The truth this time.”
“It really was an Enforcer!” she insisted. “He tracked me to the ranch, and that’s why I had to leave you.”
“What else?” Noah asked. “There’s something you’re not telling us.”
“That’s all. I swear it.”
Finn didn’t believe her, but he’d had about all the revelations he could handle for the time being. Besides, the fake tremble of Karleigh’s bottom lip combined with the calculation in her narrowed gaze said he wouldn’t be getting the truth from her any time soon.
“Come with me.”
“Of course,” she agreed easily as she pressed against his side. “Where are we going?”
Finn sidestepped away from her and shoved his hand into his pocket when she reached for it. “There’s someone you should meet.”