Page 48 of Blood Secret

14

Vale

We had a problem.I debated over how to break it to her. But time was slipping away and with it, the chance to escape alive.

I got up with a wince. I didn’t feel pain for long, no matter the injury, but she was a young vampire. Fresh, new, stronger than she would ever be again. Crisscrossed scratch marks covered my back, chest, and ass. I could feel every one of them and hoped they healed quickly.

“We have to keep you out of the sun,” I explained, peering out the window. It would be dawn soon. “I don’t know if the Ra-Protection extends to only me, or if it’s through the blood of the High Sorceress. If the latter, you should be in decent shape since you fed on her blood.”

“If not?”

“You’ll have to stay here throughout the day. But only this day. We have to move.”

She sat bolt upright. “What?”

“We can’t stay here. You see that, don’t you? Two vampires? What happens if one of Bradley’s minions comes knocking, checking to see what happened to you? If you died down there, or if I saved you?”

“What difference does it make? I’ll kill anybody who comes near me—especially that bastard,” she growled, and her eyes went red.

“Control it. Calm down.” I went to her, kneeling at her feet with her hands in mine. “Janna. Control it.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she gasped, breathing heavy.

Her fangs descended. Her claws dug into my palms.

“You must. You don’t have a choice. Get it under control, damn it. It will pass. I swear it will.”

“I want him dead,” she wailed.

Her body shook with the intensity of her need to see him dead.

“I know. So do I. But we might need to leave before that can happen.”

“Why? Explain it to me. Talk me down from this, please,” she begged, still shaking.

But she didn’t grip my hands with the same desperation as before.

She wouldn’t like hearing it.

“What I did to you went against all our laws. I’m not permitted to create other vampires. The council will find out about this. I’m sure they will. And when they do…”

“What?” she asked, eyes wide. They were back to their normal color, I noticed.

“They might kill me. Which would kill you.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “But… why would you do it, then? If I’ll just die anyway…?”

“We have to get away from them. That’s the point. If we can escape, they don’t have to know, and we can be together somewhere else.”

“Where? What would we live on? How would we feed? I don’t know what the hell you were thinking.”

“Do you think I knew at the time?” I asked, dropping her hands and standing. “I’ve been asking myself all along what the hell I was thinking. The whole time you writhed and begged to die, there on the floor. Every time you threw up more blood, every time you slid in and out of consciousness, I asked myself what I was thinking when I did what I did. And I told you why. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“But you’ll lose me anyway!”

“I know that!” I roared. “And that’s why we have to move!”

“Where? Where can we go?”

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