Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I’M PULLED from sleep by a loud knocking. My brain is foggy and I feel slightly panicked. There’s the faint taste of a nightmare on my tongue.
“The Sheriff is here for you, Alivia,” Anna says as she walks into my room just as I’m sitting up and rubbing sleep from my eyes. “He doesn’t look happy.”
My brows furrow and my brain leaps to wakefulness. Without a word, I climb out of bed and head downstairs.
“No one has touched a single person in this town,” Nial tells Luke, his accent strong and calm. “I’ve made sure that everyone has been more than fed.”
“What’s going on?” I demand as I step onto the cold marble floor. Goosebumps instantly flash over my skin. It seems we can never get the house warm enough these days.
“Can you explain why Corbin is claiming his youngest brother Tony was drained by a vampire last night, why he woke back up just a few hours later, and why there’s a trail of blood leading from his house, straight to your front door?
” Luke is seething. “I thought you said you had a handle on your House, Alivia!”
I yank open the front door, and shock pushes me back a step.
First about the sheet of white that covers the ground.
It’s not deep, only an inch or so, but the fact that it’s there is unexpected.
And second, over the few, but very distinct drops of blood that lead from my front door and out toward the gate. They stand out like a harsh beacon.
I turn back to the gathering members of my house, who stand back from the dim light that is pouring in from outside.
“It wasn’t me,” Cameron says, instantly defensive.
“It wasn’t Anna or I either,” Lillian chimes in.
“I made you a promise I have kept,” Markov says as he slips his hands into his pockets and the expression on his face is very angry.
Raheem steps down from the stairs up above, wearing his sunglasses.
“Was this you?” I ask. I make sure to keep all accusations out of my voice.
“Hunting in a town with a House is always frowned upon, threatening too much exposure,” he says as he descends the stairs. “It was not I.”
“That blood looks pretty damn suspicious,” Luke says, his expression angry. “And whoever it was wasn’t near careful enough. Corbin didn’t get a look at who it was that attacked Tony, but he saw his body drop and someone disappear out the window.”
“Can I borrow those for just a second?” Samuel asks, indicating Raheem’s shades. He slips them off and hands them to Samuel, who puts them on and steps outside.
“And who’s this?” Luke asks, looking at Raheem like he’s a dirty sock he found crusted to the bottom of his laundry basket.
“The one who’s been spying on me,” I answer absent-mindedly. I step toward Samuel, watching what he’s doing.
He stands in the snow out in the driveway, sniffing at it. He walks out along the path it creates, stopping here and there to smell. And then he disappears, only to reappear in a blur in the foyer once again. He shuts the door behind him, once again engulfing us in dim light.
“It was Micah,” Samuel says. “I mean, I’ve never met the guy the blood came from, but I can smell Micah all over out there. My guess is he saved some of the blood he drained from Tony and dribbled it all over the place. Jasmine is trying to frame you, Alivia.”
Luke lets out an annoyed breath through his nose and shakes his head. “This is just another move in your sick feud with her. And someone is already dead.”
“I thought we were finished,” I defend myself. “She’s lost. She has to know that. I thought…”
“You thought wrong, Alivia!” Luke yells.
And in a flash, Nial stands between Luke and I. Anna is at my side and every one of them has formed a tight circle around me.
“You better chill out, bro,” Cameron says.
“This is the wrong House to come to and start losing your temper,” Samuel backs him up.
“We will take care of this,” Anna says quietly. She holds Luke’s eyes intensely, and I swear some kind of unspoken conversation happens between them in a total of four seconds.
Interesting.
Luke’s eyes snap back to me. “Do not let this turn into an all-out war.” He’s still breathing hard, his expression angry. “It’s still my job to protect this town.”
“We will handle it,” I say, taking a step forward.
Luke studies me hard, and I think I see something shift behind his eyes. I think his opinion of me has just shifted and it’s something I will never be able to change.
“You know, this isn’t just about you anymore,” Luke says. “The town has turned against the Wards too.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, and everything in me turns to ice.
Luke shakes his head in anger. “Doesn’t matter anymore. I hear Ian’s handling it.”
His eyes dart from mine, meeting all my House members. Finally, he turns for the door. Just before he steps out, he swears and shakes his head.
The second he’s gone, Anna turns back to us. “You do realize what Jasmine is doing, right?”
With Luke gone, the anger is finally allowed to build inside of me. “She’s trying to turn the entire town against me again.”
Anna shakes her head. “Not just that. She’s trying to rebuild her House.”
The Debt. I had almost forgotten about the Bitten and their compulsion to serve those who turned them.
“This could be a problem. One or two isn’t going to do the trick.
This isn’t going to stop with just one Bitten.
” I close my eyes for a second, trying to gather my thoughts.
“I have to ask: do any of you have any Bitten with Debts to you?”
Lillian shakes her head. “Jasmine almost always turned them herself,” she says. “Sometimes Micah did it, or Christian. But no one else. At least not on purpose.”
I nod. I want to give Markov a side-glance, because I’m sure he’s turned a few, and I have to wonder what became of them.
“We’ll go to Jasmine’s House tonight,” Anna says, looking at Samuel who nods that he’s in. And Markov. “We will take care of the problem.”
Take care of it. I have a feeling that means they’ll be walking in with stakes and putting down any Bitten they find.
And I freeze for a moment. They’re talking about killing people who didn’t get any choice in this. They’re the ones who were caught unsuspecting in the crossfire.
But there’s nothing we can do about their unwilling loyalty to Jasmine’s House. She has revenge on her mind. There’s no telling what she will do with them. They won’t have a choice but to do what she says.
“Do what you have to,” I say.
With the nod of her head, she, Samuel, and Markov take off to prepare.
“The creation of more than just a few Bitten is highly frowned upon,” Raheem says.
I turn to him. He’s wearing a stark white tunic today, turban to match.
And he looks stunning. “Really, their entire species existence is unwanted but an unfortunate side effect of our kind’s thirst. This competitor of yours should be dealt with harshly. ”
“We will handle it,” I say with annoyance. I turn and walk back up the stairs to shower and begin plotting once more.