Chapter 17 #2
Xander sucks in a breath, shutting his eyes as he scents for Tyler. I hold my breath, hoping to aid in the process, but as Xander opens his eyes, a solemn look crosses his face. “Tyler’s scent is here, but it’s faint.”
Cole swears and rushes for the clearing at the end of the ridge. The world seems to slow as a high pitch ring echoes through my eardrums. Xander looks down at me, his body shakes, and his grip on me tightens. Dipping his head, he buries his face against my hair and chokes back a gasp.
“I can’t lose you. I won’t.” His voice is gravelly and strained as more shivers course through him. My throat tightens and twangs as my vision blurs. Tears threaten to drip down my cheeks as I cup Xander’s jaw and force him to look at me. Sad chrome irises meet mine.
“I’m not going anywhere. We’ll kill the Soultracker and you’ll turn me. Just one step at a time.” I do my best to spread a smile across my lips, but I'm sure it looks more like a frown.
Xander sighs and drops his lips against mine. His warmth seeps into my skin, and the thrum of his heart beats through his chest. “I love you.”
His words run through me like a gentle breeze, washing away the grime of my anxiety, and I lean into the feeling. “I love you, too.”
Stepping forward with the rest of the colony, we reach the clearing. Xander carefully sets me on my feet as he sniffs at the air. His gaze darts around the many caves that litter the rocky wall of the mountain before us.
“I can’t pick Tyler’s scent from the beast’s,” Xander speaks quietly.
Cole clenches his fists and turns to us. He looks worse and worse by the second. His eyes are so dark they are pitch-black voids, and his tattoos seem to gather a darkness around his body. “Then Noah is bait. We draw it out and I find Tyler while you kill it.”
Xander nods, his hand reaching up and grasping the back of my neck. “I’ll be close, little mate.”
Cole runs for higher ground, where the colony turns to me and gives me small morsels of praise and smiles, each passing by quietly as they disappear into the forest. Xander is the last to leave. He wraps me in a hug as I speak reassuringly to him despite the fear that clings to my bones.
Xander’s voice is soft, barely above a whisper, but his words never reach me. All I can hear is the sharp ringing in my ears.
Still, I feel everything he doesn’t say. The love. The heartbreak. The goodbye. He kisses my forehead, then slowly steps away, his eyes locked on mine like he’s trying to carve me into his memory. A second later, the forest closes around him, and he’s gone.
I’m alone. Completely and utterly alone. Crickets chirp in the distance as the wind whispers through the canopy. My heart beats so loudly I’m sure it sounds like a drum compared to the quietness of the mountain.
Swallowing and clutching the doll to my chest, I turn toward the cave. Each step I take has twigs snapping and leaves crunching, and they sound like gunshots bouncing along the smooth rocky walls.
“T-Tyler?” I call out, stuttering as I shake. Every desire within me is screaming at me to run but my feet stay planted. “Tyler, where are you?”
The forest is quiet. Too quiet. The crickets fade into silence, and the breeze holds its breath.
A shiver scratches at my skin, and I fight every instinct to turn and run.
With tense muscles and my breath caught in my throat, I open my mouth to call out again.
But a shadow darts across the nearest cave mouth, and every idea of making a sound dies on my tongue.
It watches me with human eyes. With human intelligence. I’m tiny compared to it, like an ant against a centipede. With a jaw forced open by its long, crooked teeth, saliva drips from its thin lips.
Then I smell it. Like rotten eggs and something acidic, my eyes water and I cough. Taking a step back, I try to hold my breath, but the Soultracker advances. Matching me like a sinister dance. I step backward; it steps forward.
The early rays of sunlight hit its flesh, and I gasp at the sight.
Practically tearing at the seams, its skin shreds and gapes with hundreds of sores and welts.
Thick, yellow pus oozes from angry red wounds and, even from its teeth, as it snaps them in my direction. A deep, primal growl fills its chest.
And that’s when I see its hands. With four fingers and a thumb, its mutilated body is so human. Too human.
“Tyler!” I find my voice as I gasp and cough again at the sliminess of the stench that lingers around the creature.
As if my voice was the switch, the beast launches itself at me. Human hands with sharp nails and a mouth wrenched open, ready to shred into me. I scream, unable to move. I’m frozen in place. Every muscle in my body is too tense to let go.
Cole darts past me, ignoring my cries as he disappears into the cave. My heart jolts as a rush of air blasts around me.
Cassius’s hulking form explodes around me, his fangs snarling, and his fist collides with the creature's face. Like diamonds, his fist is adorned with beautiful gems as he slugs the beast. It’s a blow so heavy it knocks me backwards. The Soultracker cries out, clearly caught off guard.
Xander is picking me up from the dirt and cradling me to his chest as more forms whiz by.
Harlan slashes the beast’s side, tearing flesh and skin as Ambrose spins through the air, landing a solid kick to the creature's back legs. Milo’s form darts between the shadows of the cave, his body moving faster than I can blink as he appears above the beast and clambers on top, sinking sharp talons into its spine.
It’s a dance between the four vampires as they pummel and strike the creature. Each landing a blow and coming back for more.
“Break the doll!” Cassius cries over the beast’s roars.
My hands shake as I hold the doll. Its little face looks up at me with red threading and a tuft of my hair atop its head. Grasping the neck with one hand and the body with another, I began to twist.
Xander’s scent envelopes me as I lean into his embrace. “I’ve got you, little mate. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
A deafening cry explodes from the creature, and movement catches my eye. Cole hauls a small body from the cave. Blood covers Tyler from head to toe as Cole clutches him tightly, his voice echoing over the ridge as he pleads to Tyler.
My grasp tightens on the doll as I suck in a deep breath and snap each twig. The world tilts, and my ears ring with a deafening scream. Like thunder in the distance, my heartbeat pounds against my skull.
Finally, the head of the doll separates from the body, and my limbs grow numb as a strange sense of calm sweeps through my soul. It’s a calm that overrides the terror of the fight before me.
As I suck in a breath, feeling myself grow fainter by the second, a shadow looms over us as Cassius slams into Xander’s side. Both men go flying and Xander’s arms are ripped out from around me.
My body slumps to the ground, and dark spots creep into the corners of my vision as my chest tightens and I watch in horror as the Soultracker slashes at Harlan, catching him with its claws and cutting deep into his shoulder.
Ambrose snarls and throws himself at the beast, only for it to snap in a split second and sink its teeth into his side.
Ambrose’s scream has my blood running cold.
Bucking wildly, the beast throws Milo from its back, and he tumbles over the edge of the ridge, disappearing from sight.
Each vampire lies lifeless on the ground.
Blood seeps from wounds, and fangs flash.
But it’s those humanoid eyes that turn to me that have tears leaking from my eyes. Why isn’t it weakened? The doll is broken, I'm dying, yet this thing isn’t falling! I can’t move, I can’t feel my own body, and each breath grows harder and harder until it feels like I'm breathing through a straw.
Sucking in a gasp, my lungs seize and my heart thunders as I watch the beast stride towards me. Blood drips from its jaw as it rolls its tongue across its teeth.
“Please, no,” I barely manage to whisper as it draws closer, stalking me like a predator would its prey.
I shut my eyes, waiting for the worst. Xander will be left with a mauled body to find, if he survives. “I’m sorry,” I whimper.