Page 70 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

Tobias was strangely silent, watching us. I could sense a building emotion inside of him, like a storm he was barely keeping at bay. A fierce gladness. Protectiveness. Tenderness. A sense of overwhelming rightness and joy.

And, because that was exactly right, I couldn’t help but feel it, too.

But the doctors said that I wouldn’t wake up.

We’re not angels, but we’re not regular people either, Tobias told her. Bryan healed your body. His blood is magic. When you go back, you’ll be as good as new. I promise.

Annie looked at me for confirmation and I nodded.

Will you come back? I asked, holding out my hand.

You’re safe with us, Tobias added.

Annie hesitated for an instant, looking between Tobias and me. Something she saw on our faces seemed to help her decide, because after a long pause, she took my hand.

Tobias and I guided her back to the hospital room, where she immediately vanished back into her body.

Still in spirit form, Tobias and I grinned at each other, and my chest felt so full that it seemed like it could burst at any moment and turn me into a puddle of sappy love-struck goo.

I’m going to cast a spell to seal her soul into her body so she doesn’t slip back into the spirit world, Tobias told me. Just as a precaution.

Smiling at him, I nodded.

He turned away from me, his expression screwed up with concentration, and began murmuring something under his breath. Annie’s body began to shimmer with each word. I was filled with a sense of immense rightness and satisfaction.

We had given Annie’s life back to her. Maybe, instead of hunting monsters, that’s what we could dedicate ourselves to doing. Maybe, working together, Tobias and I could bring light out of the darkness. It seemed like a far better future than one spent hunting ghosts and other supernatural creatures, even if doing so ultimately meant protecting innocent people. But there were others out there already doing that. Maybe Tobias and I could do something just as good, but different.

Together.

That was when I noticed a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye.

More startled than alarmed, I whirled to face it.

Teresa Dames stood before me. The front of her dress was still stained red with her blood. And the expression clamped across her face was immensely somber. Of course it was somber. She was a spirit now. And she clearly wasn’t at rest.

She reached out a spectral hand.

To grab me, perhaps. Or maybe to tear the life from me, the same way I had done to her.

Horror flooded through me. Guilt was fast on its heels.

Her lips began to move, and I knew she was going to say something I wasn’t ready to hear yet. Like an absolute coward, I staggered back, out of her reach.

Then I turned away from her.

I screwed my eyes shut and a thousand possible words rose to my lips, all of them useless. On some level, I had begun to maybe half believe what Tobias saw when he looked at me: that I was a good person on some level. That I was, after all, worthy of someone like him. But here was incontrovertible evidence that my mere existence had caused so much suffering already.

The rational part of my brain knew that I wasn’t being fair to myself—or Teresa.

I knew that I should turn back and face her. I should try to make her understand. Or maybe I should try to apologize. Or I should at least stand there and let her say whatever she needed to say, so that maybe she could finally rest. After everything these hands had done to her, it was the absolute least I could do. I wanted to give her that much.

And the tiniest voice from deep within me—a voice that sounded an awful lot like Tobias’s—whispered, reminding me that a truly bad person wouldn’t care one way or another about any of this.

But none of that did anything to stop the icy bone-deep fear from seizing every part of me. Even though I wanted to turn and face her, I couldn’t make myself do it. Even after I realized she wasn’t going to grab me, I still couldn’t make myself turn around.

And then, without warning, I slammed back into my body.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO || TOBIAS

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