Chapter 34 Evan
EVAN
Something warm covers my hand as I stir from sleep, and a strange ultra-clean scent fills my nose, making my head throb.
Or maybe that’s from something else. Because it’s not just my head that hurts.
It’s my entire body. Every bone and muscle aches as if I’ve been run over, shattered, and put back together.
My heart jolts at the thought, and with it, there’s a strange beeping sound.
“Evan?” Jericho’s voice is soothing and familiar.
The pressure around my hand tightens. I squeeze back, still trying to figure out where I am.
“Oh, thank God. You’re awake.”
“Wh—” I rasp, but my throat is too dry to speak.
“Here.” He lets go of my hand, then a few seconds later, there’s a plastic straw at my lips. “This’ll help.”
I swallow slowly, relishing the cold liquid on my parched throat.
“How are you?” he asks, taking my hand again.
I’m about to ask what the hell happened when memories slam into me like a freight train.
The fight in the park.
Foxx… who wasn’t Foxx.
The club.
The mattress.
My stomach twists with revulsion, making me turn away. I feel like I’m going to puke, but when I wretch, nothing comes.
Jericho strokes my hand. “The doctor said you might feel nauseous. They’re pumping you with all kinds of shit.” He lifts my hands to his lips. “God, it’s good to see you moving, though.”
It sounds like he’s crying.
When I finally open my eyes, it takes a few slow blinks to realize I’m in a hospital room, and Jericho is crying. Swells of tears fall down his cheeks before getting lost in his long stubble. He wipes them away, but it’s pointless. More fall anyway.
He looks like hell. I brush the back of my hand against his cheek. How long have I been here?
“You scared me so much,” Jericho murmurs.
I glance around the room, my head groggy. We’re alone, except for a nurse by the door. She must have heard an alarm when my heart rate spiked or something.
“I’ll let the doctor know he’s awake,” she says.
“Thank you,” Jericho replies, without looking away.
I lift a hand to rub my face, which is covered in a short beard just like Jericho’s. “What happened?”
He hesitates. “How much do you remember?”
I turn to face him. “The… vamp,” I say, attempting to point to my neck. “But he wasn’t… It wasn’t him. Wasn’t Foxx.” Every word is difficult, my mind still playing catch up.
“We know,” he says softly. “It was Breck. He made himself look like Foxx to get you off Foxx’s tail. But he’s dead now. Kaine and I killed him.”
Something in his expression darkens his eyes.
“Who’s dead?” I ask, struggling to follow. “Foxx?”
Jericho shakes his head. I still miss the seafoam color his eyes used to be, but this dark green is definitely growing on me. He’s unbelievably beautiful.
“Breck is dead. Foxx got away,” he says softly.
I close my eyes. Fuck.
I thought I would be able to save Jericho. It’s why I went after Foxx. But he’s still out there? Had it all been for nothing?
What about the club? The other vampires? The humans? Shit, what about the pack?
“What about—”
“Shh,” Jericho whispers, kissing my hand again, like he knows how quickly my brain is firing off questions.
“I’ll fill you in on the details later. The important thing is everyone’s safe.
Most of them are at the house, the others are downstairs getting some food.
Kaine and Willow are sitting outside, watching the door. ”
Kaine is here? Seriously? I can’t even begin to process that.
“Everyone’s okay?”
He nods. “Everyone’s fine. Ivy and Taren both got some cuts, and Grant broke a leg. But they all shifted and healed just fine. We’re all okay.”
He still hasn’t stopped crying. It’s so unlike him that it makes my heart ache. I let go of his hand to brush away some more tears. He turns to kiss my palm.
“How long was I…” I try to say.
“Two days,” he says, his voice broken. “You almost died, Ev. I thought… fuck.”
I reach for him, attempting to pull him closer, but Jericho takes the opening and climbs onto the bed next to me, being extra careful of all the wires and cords.
I’m already on the far side, though, making me think this isn’t the first time he’s climbed aboard.
For some reason, that makes me smile, but my head still throbs.
“Gimme some of your blood,” I say quietly. I hate being so groggy.
Jericho doesn’t hesitate, biting into his wrist and feeding me some of his blood. Within seconds, my head begins to clear.
“Don’t tell the nurses,” he whispers with a small grin, “but I, um, may have given you some a few times already.”
I laugh, then my chest aches. Apparently one of my ribs cracked when Breck knocked the air out of me.
“Have you been here the whole time?”
He feigns a smile. “What do you think?”
Of course he has. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t have left his side either.
I lean in, wanting to kiss him but unable to reach.
“Kiss me,” I breathe, not caring that it’s been days since I brushed my teeth. I fucking need Jericho’s lips against mine.
He kisses me sweetly, cupping my face. I circle a hand around his wrist, holding him.
And that’s when it hits me. With his breath against my skin, his lips on mine, and his body stretched out next to me, I realize just how close I came to never seeing this man again. I reach for him, hugging him as best I can.
“I love you so much,” I say.
Jericho says nothing for a long time, but I can feel his chest shake with quiet sobs. What have these last two days been like for him?
“I love you,” I say again.
He pulls back, his eyes still wet, then he kisses me one more time, salty tears touching my tongue. “I love you too.”
“So, what now?” I ask after a moment.
“Now, we wait until you’re discharged, and then we go back to the house,” he says simply. “Start over. Figure out another plan. Only this time, we don’t know where Foxx is.”
“What about the club?”
“The city closed it down.”
I’m not surprised, considering what was happening right under their noses. “The pack wants us back?”
Jericho’s soft smile speaks volumes. “They’ve pretty much demanded it. They’ve been here just as much as me, in small groups.” He lowers his voice. “Besides, this isn’t over, Ev. Not by a long shot.”
Something in his voice catches my attention, so I shift to see him better.
Jericho hesitates. “I’ll tell you later. You need rest.”
“No. I’m fine now. Tell me.”
He takes a steadying breath. “One of the prisoners was marked by the vampires.”
“What does that mean? What kind of mark?”
“We don’t know, but I can definitely smell that it was put there by a vamp. We think they were going to do that to the other humans, we just don’t know why.”
“Wait. You can smell that it was put there by a vamp?”
His eyes soften as he reaches for my neck, gently brushing a thumb over my collarbone on the right side. “In the same way I can smell myself on you. We all smell different, but vamps almost always have a metallic undertone.”
I shiver from his touch, then sit up as I remember. Reaching up, I feel the other side of my neck, afraid that somehow Breck has marked me when he bit me. My pulse spikes when I feel raised, bumpy flesh covering a large area of my neck.
“Did he do that to me?” I say in a rush, twisting to see him.
Jericho sits up. “No, hon. It isn’t a bite mark on him. It’s…something else.” He considers his words. “It’s like a brand or something.”
I can't stop touching the scar. It must be six inches long at least. “But he did bite me? I remember that.”
His reluctant gaze drops to my neck, right where Breck sank his teeth in.
He jaw ticks. “He didn't just bite you. He ripped a piece of your neck away. I thought I lost you for good, Ev. I thought you…” His eyes close. “There was so much blood. And you were so weak. Your pulse… I didn’t think there was anything I could do. I fed you some of my blood, but it wasn’t working. You weren’t responding.”
“So what did you do?”
As a tear slides down his cheek, it clicks.
“Your tears,” I whisper. “Holy shit, your fucking tears?”
Jericho wipes his face again, eyes still misty. Slowly, he nods. “I still don’t understand it.”
I shake my head, in awe. “That’s amazing. You’re amazing. I bet even when you die…” I trail off, a suffocating, overwhelming ache filling my heart as the truth hits me.
When Jericho dies, he’ll be able to come back to life through his ashes. But what about me? What will happen when I die?
Is there no way we can be together?
“Why didn’t you turn me?” I blurt.
He doesn’t say anything.
“You said when vamps turn someone, they have to be close to death. So why didn’t you?”
He doesn’t pull away, like he had been expecting this. “I was too late, Evan. You were already so weak, and there wasn’t enough blood in your system. Your heart wouldn’t have pumped the venom—”
“So you didn’t try?”
He cups my neck, dark eyes searching mine. “As much as I hate what I am, I would still turn you right now if it meant we could be together. You think I like the idea of living longer than you? Fuck no. But if—”
“No if! There has to be a way!”
“If I did,” he continues, “we would both end up in jail, especially with my sire turning people on a whim.” He drops his forehead to mine. “We have to be careful. They’re going to be keeping an eye on all of his creations for a while.”
My heart rate picks up, the monitor beating wildly. “Jericho.”
He kisses me with more meaning, holding my face before sliding it down to my collarbone, right over his bite mark. “Someday, Evan. I promise you, I will turn you,” he says. “Because I can’t go through that again. I won’t.”
My eyes well with tears. He’s right. We have to wait. There are very few—as in very, very few—circumstances where a vampire can turn a human without risk of going to jail.
But it is possible.
“Someday, then.”
He kisses me again. “Someday.”
The doctor chooses that moment to walk in. “Oh, good. You’re sitting up.”
Jericho climbs off the bed, hastily wiping his face while his back is turned before coming to stand beside me.
“How are you feeling, Evan?” the doctor asks, reviewing something on the machine.
“Like I just came back from the dead,” I say. “Groggy, but very alive.”
The older doctor chuckles before squeezing my shoulder. “Let’s not do that again, okay? You gave your family quite a scare.” He reaches for his stethoscope. “Let me do a quick exam. Lie back, please.”
I hold Jericho’s hand while the doctor does his thing, needing his comfort.
After a thorough examination, he lifts his eyes to Jericho, narrowing them with a playful smirk. “I’m onto you.”
Jericho blinks. “What?”
“Mmhmm. Don’t think you’re the first vampire who has snuck a few drops of blood into their mate to speed the healing process,” he says. “We all know the signs.”
Jericho bites his lip to keep from smiling.
“Anyway, you look perfect, Evan. Your heart is strong, your lungs are clear. You appear as if you didn’t just go through hell.” He cracks a smile. “You have a few more doctors to get through, but I’m writing you off for my part. If everyone else agrees, you might be going home tomorrow.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you.”
He squeezes my shoulder again. “Please don’t come back, okay?”
I laugh. “I’ll try not to.”
As soon as he’s gone, I smile at Jericho. “Is this where we get cheesy and confess we don’t really have a home, but that’s okay, because home is wherever I’m with you?”
Jericho sits sideways on the bed. “It’s true though. You are my home. You have no idea how off I felt the entire time we were apart.”
I reach for him. “Yeah, I do, because I felt it too. You’re my person, Jer. You have been from the day we met. Being without you was hell.”
He leans in to kiss me. “Can I say something, though?”
“Hmm?”
“The Clearwater pack is starting to feel like home.”
I smile warmly, but before I can reply, the door opens again and several people stroll in. Jericho winks at me. He must have heard them coming.
Mom gasps when she sees me. “Evan!” She smacks Jericho’s arm on her way by. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Her gentle hug is a balm to my heart.
Jasmine, Rowen, and Ivy all flood around me, each looking relieved and happy to see me. Taren lingers toward the back, little Aster asleep in her arms.
Emotion clogs my throat as they fuss and talk around me, and Jericho’s words echo in my mind.
Two months ago, I had no one. Jericho was missing and my mom was in another state, yet now there is hardly enough room in here for everyone…
and this is only half of the pack. How quickly I found a real support network. People I can call friends. Family.
Jericho’s right. I couldn’t leave them even if I wanted to. I care for them. And with Foxx still on the loose? Fuck no. I’m staying.
But what about my mom? She can’t go back to Spokane. Will she be happy here?
“What’s the verdict? When do we get to bring you home?” Jasmine asks.
“Tomorrow, as long as the other doctors clear me.”
They all cheer.
“Oh, thank goodness. I’ll be so relieved when everyone is back under one roof.”
Jericho and I exchange a look, and his hand closes around mine. So will we.