Page 57 of Newly Undead in Dark River

I raised my hand, poising the stake above his chest. I begged any deity who would listen to smite me down and stop me from what was about to happen.

The door to my apartment flung open, and Judge strode in, the answer to every prayer I’d ever whispered. He took in the room in an instant, crash tackling me to the floor, tearing my lips from Walker’s skin.

I still didn’t release the stake, physically unable to loosen my grip, and the pointed tip tore across my chest.

“Alice. It’s Alice. She’s my maker. She wants me to sta–”

“Raine, I command you to stop speaking,” Alice screeched as an absolute mountain of a vamp I’d never met barrelled into her, spinning her and pinning her to the ground in a movement so fluid and swift that I could barely follow it with my Vamp sight.

I opened my mouth to tell Judge that Walker was dying, but nothing came at. I opened my mouth in a silent scream and pointed at Walker, hoping Judge would know.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. I’ve got him,” Judged soothed, prying the stake from my hand.

I scrambled across the floor like a crab, getting as far away from Walker as I could, the compulsion to break the leg from the chair and drive it through his chest riding me hard. Judge slashed his wrist and was feeding his blood back to Walker, who was so close to death he couldn’t even suction his lips around Judge’s wrist.

I sobbed in the corner. I cried and cried silently, even my anguish was subjected to Alice’s compulsion not to speak. The big blonde vampire had Alice on her feet, a contraption that looked a little like a ball-gag in her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and when Angeline burst into the room, I didn’t think my heart could possibly break anymore. But when she took in the room, her eyes flicking between a near-dead Walker, me sobbing in the corner and Alice looking defeated, bound in cuffs, she sunk to her knees.

“No,” she whispered, her face so pale I thought she’d pass out. Alice was trying to talk to her lover from behind the gag, but only garbled words came out. I dropped my head into my hands and wished the whole world would go away just so I couldn’t hear Angeline’s heart-wrenching sobs or Judge trying to coax a dying Walker to drink.

Who did we call? What did we do? Normally, we’d call Doc Alice and the Sheriff. But who do you call when the Doctor tries to kill the Sheriff?

When I heard shouting, I realized that the Council had arrived, but were still barred from my apartment, which only made me stare at the giant blonde man standing in the middle of my living room as if my ward meant nothing.

He caught me staring, and gave me a soft smile that looked totally foreign on his scarred, battered face. More yelling drew my eye to Caroline and Nico, who were standing at the threshold demanding answers. Nico’s eyes were deadly. The absolute lack of humanity in his face when he looked at Alice chilled me to the bone. “We found the progeny’s maker trying to compel her to drain your Sheriff.” The big guy had a rough English accent. The kind of accent that was found in fight clubs and gutters.

“And you are?” Caroline said, her tone precariously balanced between haughty and hysterical.

“Oh, where are my manners?” the giant said in a tone that suggested he’d take his manners and shove them somewhere really uncomfortable. “My name is X. Collector of china teacups, savior of damsels in distress, and Vamp Nation Enforcer.”

Well. Mic drop.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“X, stop being a prick and take her to the lock-up,” Judge growled, drawing my attention back to them. I wanted to edge closer, to see if Walker was okay. I stood, but before I registered my body had even moved, I’d grabbed a knife from the butcher’s block on my bench and was flashing toward him. Luckily, X was there even quicker, pressing my wrist until the knife fell to the floor, crushing me tight to his body until I was so immobile, I may as well have been in chains.

I screamed silently, as the tears slid down my face in hot, angry drops. “She’s been compelled to stake him in the heart too,” X murmured to Judge, who looked at me with more pity on his face than I’d ever seen. Even more than the night, he’d found me punching trees near the ‘Welcome to Dark River’ sign.

“It’s all good, Sweetcheeks. I won’t let you get all stabby on your boyfriend,” X said in a low voice. He looked past me at Judge and Walker. “He looks better already. How about we get you out of here and let Judge finish what he’s doing without worrying about you going all bunny-boiler on his ass?”

I nodded and shuffled toward my door. I needed out of this apartment. I didn’t care if I never came back.

As soon as I stepped over the threshold, Nico pulled me to his side. “Are you okay? What happened?” He was using his compulsion, but I was unable to speak. I just shook my head uselessly. I wanted to go home. Back to my parents, and my boring life, where nothing was life and death. Where no one was more than they seemed.

“She’s been compelled not to speak. Also, I’d keep her away from the Sheriff for a while,” X said, returning to where he’d left Alice bound on the floor. “If someone will point the way to the police station, Judge suggested you guys like to do trials or some shit? I’m more than happy to end this right now if you like?”

And just like that, everyone in the room remembered that this guy said he was an Enforcer for the Vampire Nation.

I’d almost forgotten Angeline crying softly on my Persian rug. A Persian rug now stained with Walker’s blood. “No,” she said, leaping to her feet. “She deserves a trial. That’s how we do things. That’s why we made this town.”

Neither Nico or X seemed particularly moved by her declaration, but I forced myself to look at my friend. I never wanted to look at her again, knowing her pain was in part my fault. When she met my gaze, I nodded. Alice deserved a trial, even if it was just as closure for Angeline.

Caroline sighed. “Of course. Alice will get a trial and a sentence.”

Nico looked at Alice. “It would go a long way to your defense if you removed the geas on your progeny.” The or else was barely veiled. When Alice just shook her head, I thought he was going to strangle her on the spot. “Do you have no remorse? You have been here for a century, and this is the legacy you wish to leave? You said you understood what we had created here, but you still flaunt the very rules we have lived by.” His voice dropped to an octave so low that the primordial part of me, the part that had been born human and therefore prey, wanted to run and hide. “It is only because I believe in what you so cavalierly flaunt that I don’t reach into your chest and remove your heart.”

Alice wailed around her gag, but X dragged her down the back stairs of the building, Caroline trailing after him. Angeline was a terrible sight. Guilt, pain, fear, and even hatred burned in her eyes when she looked back at me. I took it all. I deserved it a little. Without me, her happy Stepford life would have continued, unmarred by this ugliness. But still, I lifted my chin. I didn’t ask to be kidnapped, used as a blood bank until I was accidentally murdered, and then unwillingly turned into a vampire.

Angeline was in shock. I got that. But I wasn’t going to roll over like a kicked dog, especially when her lover had almost killed mine.

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