Page 76 of Incipient

I stared at him, my gaze unflinching, my heart not yet fully trusting, and watched as he took another small step forward and then offered me his jacket.

My instinct was to refuse the offering, to refuse anything and everything that came from a fanged creature of the night, but then I remembered that I was practically naked from the waist up.

I snatched the jacket from him and then quickly put it on, my eyes never leaving his in case he decided to pounce on me while I was distracted. Bracing my hands against the tree behind me, I clumsily lifted myself to my feet and then tightened the jacket around myself, holding it closed with one hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice as soft and unarming as it had been the first night I’d met him.

“No, I’m not,” I admitted, my voice quivering just as badly as my legs were. “I just want to get back to my car. I need to get back in my car and I’ll be okay.”

Eyebrows drawn together, he stared at me for a long moment and then nodded. “Come on. This way.”

I stood back for a few seconds to make sure that he was leading me the right way and not trying to take me further into the forest. When I was sure that he was heading in the direction of the main road, I pushed off the tree and followed.

Neither one of us said anything as we walked through the dense forest, crunching leaves beneath our feet as unknown animals called out to each other in the not-too-far distance. Afraid of what else was out there, I shuffled forward and fell into step with Gabriel. Apparently, my nerves andballswere completely frayed.

He gave me a sideways glance but didn’t say anything. Nothing at all. In fact, I wasn’t even sure he was breathing with how quiet he was being. I looked over at him again and tried to gauge whether his chest was rising and falling.

His jaw was clamped down rigidly and his body was perfectly still, save for his moving legs. Hewasn’tbreathing—probably to avoid taking in my scent. I guessed that whatever creature he’d fed on when he came back from the brushwood covered in blood was not enough to fully quench his thirst for Slayer blood.

I wasn’t sure there was anything that could do that.

As unnerving as the thought was, I could only feel gratitude that he had showed up when he did, afraid to know what would’ve happened if he hadn’t. His timing was truly kismet.

Or was it?

“How did you know where we were?” I asked him quietly, the thought having just occurred to me. A part of me already knew the answer but the other part needed to know for sure.

“I was close by,” he answered vaguely and without meeting my eyes.

“Were you following Dominic…or me?”

He didn’t bother supplying an answer. That or he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“Me,” I realized and then lowered my head, unsure how to feel about that. There were so many thoughts and emotions rocketing through me, it was making my head spin a hundred different ways. “Should I be afraid of you now, Gabriel?”

He stopped walking and turned to face me, his eyes filled with so much sadness and regret that it almost hurt to look at them. “I don’t want you to be, Jemma.”

I nodded sadly, because I didn’t want to be afraid of him either, but also because he hadn’t really answered my question.

We continued the rest of the way in silence, neither one of us engaging the each other until we reached the edge of the forest. I could see the faint glimmer of a streetlight in the distance and I knew we were close.

“You know we’re going to have to do something about him soon,” he said as he pulled a tangle of branches back to give me room to pass. Not that it mattered, I was already covered in scrapes and bruises anyway.

“I know,” I said as my wary eyes swept the road to make sure Dominic’s car was nowhere in sight. Breathing in a sigh of relief, I stumbled out of the forest and marched toward my car.

“It doesn’t have to be you,” he continued as he opened my driver’s side door and then helped me climb into the seat. “I can take care of this if you need me to.”

I looked up and met his warm eyes. His nice, normal moss-green eyes. “It has to be me. He’s not going to give up without a fight and I can’t risk anything happening to you.” He’d probably kill his own brother just to spite me.

“And what about you?” he asked, his forearm resting on the frame of my door. “Look at yourself, Jemma. You’re covered in blood and bruises and bite marks,” he said, wincing on the last word probably because he knew one of those marks was his. “How much longer are you supposed to continue living this way?”

I refused to even glance toward the mirror to see what he was talking about. “He can’t kill me.”

“Wake up, Jemma. He alreadyiskilling you.”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I refused to cry. I wasn’t some helpless damsel in distress. I was a Slayer. Granted, I’d just had my ass handed to me by Dominic, but I’d been caught off guard. Not to mention, I was playing with an uneven deck on account of the fact that I still had my damn emotions turned on and he didn’t.

Shaking off his words, I ran my palm against my hair, as though that might help the calamity. “The amulet will protect me from dying. That’s all that matters to me at the end of the day.”

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