Chapter 16 #2
“Spencer, wait. This is the hunger talking. Your system isn’t functioning properly because you need blood.” She pushed the glass toward him. “Please drink.”
“No. Leave me alone. I can’t even look at you right now.” He strode for the door, slamming it behind him harder than he’d planned, but fuck it. His very being had been altered. He was allowed to act pissy.
He paced through Lilith’s front yard, past her flower garden, filled with colorful daisies and lilacs, and stepped through the picket fence onto the sidewalk.
A silver moon hung against a midnight backdrop, with sparkling stars splayed all around, but it couldn’t be real.
They were in the bowels of The Underworld; there was no sky in Hell.
The Underworld looked nothing like he’d imagined, and if he were in a better mindset, he might have stopped to take it all in.
Instead, he wandered up and down the streets, barely making eye contact with the people he passed.
He had no idea where he was going or how to get back to Lilith’s, but he didn’t care.
The walls of his throat seemed to be melded together, and every time he swallowed, it felt like the flesh was being ripped apart.
Well, what now, Spence? He found a stone bench at the entrance to a small park, and he sank onto it, holding his pounding head in his hands.
A sob bubbled up from deep in his chest, and he squeezed his eyes shut, willing the tears to stay in his body where they belonged.
An image of Lilith’s crumpled expression as he spewed his toxic words at her appeared in his mind.
The hurt in her eyes had been palpable. She really thought she’d done him a favor by turning him.
And, hell, maybe she had. Maybe… But his owl… A fist of pain clenched in his stomach, making him double over. His head throbbed, and his throat was officially sealed shut. He couldn’t swallow, and the simple act of breathing felt like he was sucking in fire.
Oh, wait. He didn’t have to breathe anymore because he was dead. No better than the corpse that ripped out his throat.
He groaned. That wasn’t true. Lilith had been a vampire for millennia, and she felt plenty alive to him. He pictured her face again and added heartache to the plethora of pain. He’d been an ass. No one deserved to be spoken to like that, especially not his fated mate.
But without his owl, had his fate changed? Would he even feel the same intense connection to her? Fuck. Right now, all he felt was anguish.
“Spencer? Is that you, hon?” A woman sat beside him, and he glanced at her through slitted eyes. Venus.
“Where’s Lilith?” A vampire with long, brown hair sat on his other side.
“She killed my owl.” The words felt like razor blades in his throat.
The vampire typed something on her phone and let out a long sigh. “Come on. Up you go.” She grabbed his arm and tugged him to his feet. “You’re coming to The Fang and Flask.”
“Eve, dear, care to fill me in?” Venus snaked her arm around his bicep, helping to move him along. “I read hearts, not minds.”
“He just woke up. There was an argument, and he left without taking any blood.”
Spencer’s head spun, and his vision wavered. If not for the women keeping him on his feet, he’d have faceplanted on the sidewalk. The scenery barely registered. He closed his eyes for a long blink, and when he opened them, Eve was guiding him into a booth in the bar.
Venus set a glass in front of him, and both women slid onto the bench across from him. “Drink,” they said in unison.
Eve reached across the table to pat his hand. “The longer you avoid it, the worse you’ll feel.”
She was right. He was a vampire now, so he had no choice but to act like one.
Picking up the glass, he brought it to his lips and instinctively inhaled.
Warm, with notes of cloves and coriander, the simple scent of the blood eased the pain in his head, and the first sip was like heaven had opened shop on his tastebuds.
Glorious. He tipped his head back, chugging the contents and tapping the bottom of the glass to get every last drop.
The desert in his throat turned to an oasis, and his cells hummed with energy. He set the glass down and ran a hand through his hair. “Thank you. I should have accepted the blood when Lilith offered it.”
“She told us what happened,” Venus said. “That must have been frightening.”
“It all happened so fast, I…” He played the memory over in his mind. “Yeah, it was terrifying.”
“What were you and Lilith arguing about?” Eve asked.
“My owl is dead. I know she was trying to save my life, but I’m not me without my owl. I don’t know how to exist. And now I can’t go out in the daylight. How will I do my job? How will I pay my bills if I can’t work? I’m not…” He shook his head. It was too much to think about.
“You know you’re not a normal vampire, right?” Eve frowned at her phone before slipping it into her pocket. “When Lilith turns someone, their magic is—”
“I know. The less diluted the magic, the stronger the vampire.”
“And you were turned by the source, same as me,” Eve said. “It will take a few days for your power to build, and your owl isn’t dead. He’s still inside you.”
Yeah, right. “Then how do you explain the hole in my soul? When I try to call him, I can’t find him.”
Eve pressed her lips together and glanced at Venus. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” She rose and strode to the exit.
“You will find your owl again.” Venus gave him a sympathetic look.
“What if I don’t? Are we even still soulmates? My owl had claimed her, but if he’s gone…” An ache spread through his chest.
“I believe you know the answer to that.”
He wrung his hands on the table. He did know the answer, and he was an idiot for even posing the question. He loved Lilith with every piece of his soul that was left. If she had been the one lying on the ground, dying, and he’d had the power to save her, he’d have done it in a heartbeat.
And he’d told her he couldn’t stand to look at her. “What have I done?”
“Nothing that’s irreparable. You and Lilith are soulmates now and forever.”
Eve approached the table, flanked by a wolf with sleek black fur and icy blue eyes. “Spencer, you know Andrei, right?”
He narrowed his eyes at the wolf. “Yeah.”
Eve tapped the wolf on the shoulder before sliding into the booth. Magic shimmered around the animal, its fur dissolving as its body transformed into a man. Andrei bowed and pulled up a chair to the end of the table.
“You’re a shifter?” A spark of hope ignited in his chest.
“Indeed, I am. A shifter and a vampire, as are you.”
He shook his head, unable to wrap his mind around it all. “But I can’t feel my owl.”
Andrei chuckled. “If you had allowed her to explain rather than storming out in a huff, you would understand.”
Spencer’s ears burned. He’d acted like a dick.
“When Lilith turns a shifter,” Andrei said, “she binds the animal until the person has control of his urges. I too believed my wolf had died when I first awoke into this life.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because the shifter she turned before me—I believe she said he was a panther—went on a murderous rampage the moment he awoke. He shifted immediately and could not contain his beast. Have your owl instincts never overridden your control?”
A tingle swept up the back of his neck to spread across his cheeks, and he lowered his gaze. There was the ferret incident… “A time or two.”
Andrei nodded. “When Lilith sees that you are not in a state of bloodlust like the unfortunate soul you unearthed, she will unbind your magic and you will feel whole once more.”
His stomach soured. “She did it to protect me.” And he’d accused her of murder.
“Lilith would never hurt you,” Eve said. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Andrei. Do you want me to walk you back to the portal?”
“Happy to be of service to you, old friend. I can find my own way.” He winked at Eve before looking at Spencer. “Please, tell your friend Rebecca she is welcome in Romania any time.”
As Andrei walked away, Spencer dragged his hands down his face. “Holy fuck, I screwed up. I was awful to her.”
“She’ll forgive you,” Venus said.
“Yeah, but you’ve got some groveling to do.” Eve crossed her arms.
“There you are!” A blonde vampire in a hot pink corset hurried toward their table. “Something’s wrong with Lilith.”
“She has a broken heart, but Spencer is about to mend it.” Eve gave him a pointed look.
“It’s worse than that. I found her in bed with Esther. The snake has turned white again, and she’s as limp as a wet noodle. And Lilith is unresponsive. I think that broken heart might have killed her.”