37. For Grace #2
Because he was carrying my mother’s laptop.
And his eyes—his eyes—were blood-red. Not rimmed. Not tinged. Full-on crimson, glowing like something pulled straight from a nightmare.
They locked on me instantly.
A cold wave washed over me. That color meant he’d just fed. Recently. Probably violently.
On whom?
Family?
Friends?
Cyrus, whom I’d been counting on to come help?
Someone who’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time?
And the worst part—the part that made my knees wobble—was that he had no burns. No blistered skin. And . . . no signs of plasma treatment.
Which meant he’d been outside. In daylight.
And he was completely unharmed.
Julian moved in front of me. No hesitation.
No question. Just pure instinct. There was going to be a fight—I could feel it in the air, thick and undeniable.
Every cell in my body shook, and nausea clawed up my throat.
I tried not to think about dead friends or family, but tears welled anyway.
About what might be Julian’s and my demise.
Simone gazed at her lover adoringly. “Luc,” she whispered, intimate and breathless.
His eyes barely flicked her way.
But Delia finally spoke, her voice cracking. “It’s you,” she cried. “You did this to me.”
What?
I had not seen that plot twist coming. Judging by the blank stares around the room, neither had anyone else.
Luc looked Delia over and scoffed, like granting someone immortality meant nothing to him. “Huh. Did I? You’re welcome. Now . . . who dies first?”
Simone opened her mouth—probably to tell him the laptop was a decoy—but she never got the chance.
Delia exploded out of Simone’s grip with a feral scream and launched herself at Luc.
“You ruined my life! You killed my best friend!” she raged, her fangs bared, her voice raw with agony.
I peeked over Julian’s shoulder, unable to look away.
Luc laughed—a low, delighted sound—as he reached out and caught Delia by the throat before she even knew what hit her.
I wanted to beg Julian to save her, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me unprotected. Not for Delia. Not for anyone.
So I had to watch in horror as Luc lifted her off the ground with one hand, still clutching my mother’s laptop in the other. Delia kicked and clawed, but it was useless. He was going to crush every vertebra in her neck. Her hyoid bone would snap like a twig.
“The laptop is a decoy!” I shouted.
“Bloody hell,” Julian groaned under his breath.
Luc dropped Delia, letting her crumple to the floor gasping for air, and jerked his head toward me. “Well,” he purred, “I suppose I’ll just have to teach you a lesson like I did your mother. We’ll see how long you endure the torture. And I have wanted a taste of your blood. You smell divine.”
And that’s when it hit me.
Maybe I could save us.
My blood . . . was . . . a weapon.
“No,” Julian growled—so low, so primal, it vibrated through me.
“Let him,” I whispered in his ear. “Kill Simone.”
Luc and Simone laughed as if I’d told a joke.
Julian didn’t get the chance to tell me no.
Faster than I’d ever seen anyone move, Luc and Simone were suddenly upon us—and Luc ripped me from Julian’s side.
For a moment I didn’t care about my own life as I watched Julian and Simone circle each other for one second and then collide with a force that shattered the desk.
I caught flashes more than movement—Julian’s hand locked around Simone’s wrist, Simone twisting with boneless grace, the blur of black hair.
And then a pain like nothing I’d ever felt ripped through me.
Luc’s teeth sank into my neck.
My body seized. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t even fall. I was frozen in a cage of agony while the world continued in horrifying clarity around me.
Julian drove Simone’s wrist back so violently, I heard bone snap, but she only hissed—a sound too animal to be human—and sank her teeth into his forearm. Blood hit the air, hot and metallic, and the scent of it flooded the room, thick and suffocating.
Luc finally pulled back, my blood dripping from his lips.
I bent over, trying to catch my breath. Blood soaked my blouse, warm and sticky. My knees threatened to give out, but I forced them to hold. I couldn’t collapse. Not now.
“Tell me where your mother’s files are,” Luc said, voice low and delighted, “and I’ll make your death quick and painless.”
“You can go to hell,” I stuttered through the pain.
He laughed and grabbed me for round two. “I like it there.”
I braced for the agony—but it didn’t come.
I turned my head just enough to see Luc blinking, confused . . . and enraged. His eyes, once full crimson, were now threaded with a hint of azure.
“What have you done to me?”
That seemed to be Julian’s cue.
He seized Simone’s head and twisted with such violence, the snap echoed through the room.
Then he sank his teeth into her neck, and I had to look away.
In that moment, he wasn’t my Julian. He was everything he feared becoming—everything he’d fought against for centuries.
The least I could do was not see him like that.
I refused to answer Luc. His fear and fury twisted together, and his hands curled around my neck—but before he could crush anything, Delia slammed into him from the side and hurled me out of his reach.
“For Grace!” she roared, a lioness protecting her cub.
For one beautiful, impossible moment, I believed we might all survive.
Cyrus and Amos burst into the suite. Amos rushed to me, steadying me, while Cyrus went straight for Julian. Simone lay limp on the floor—I was almost certain she was dead.
Delia, fueled by rage and desperation, sank her teeth into Luc’s shoulder. I thought she had a fighting chance now that he’d ingested my blood.
But Luc moved with a speed and brutality I’d never seen.
He grabbed her and tore into her flesh with his fangs before hurling her with monstrous force into the exposed brick wall.
“Delia!” I screamed as I ran to her.
Julian, Cyrus, and Amos tackled Luc, doing whatever they had to do to bring him down.
I took Delia’s limp hand, trying to drown out the sickening sounds behind me. Every bone in her body seemed broken. She looked more like a rag doll than a person.
“Delia,” I cried. Tears poured fast and furious. Her last act had been to save my life. Just like my mother’s had been. And right then, I vowed I wouldn’t let their deaths be in vain. I wouldn’t let the Lucs and Simones of this world win.
Then suddenly I was wrapped in the arms I’d been longing for. I turned into Julian and sobbed into his bloodied shirt—relieved he was alive, devastated that Delia wasn’t.
Julian held me tightly, his hands moving over me as if to make sure every part of me was still whole. “It’s over, love. It’s over,” he murmured, trying to comfort me.
But I knew it wasn’t over.
It was just beginning.