Page 50 of Addicted in Blood
I vaguely remembered being propped up for the landing, then a car ride wrapped in a blanket and leaning against Sergi.The shivers were back, and no amount of heat warmed me.I was carried upstairs, and then happily wrapped within the covers of my own bed, my body melting into its warmth from a fire blazing in the hearth.
Distant voices woke me.They sounded worried, then angered, then cooing as a warm cloth was settled over my forehead.Then nothing except the faint concern that I was forgetting something.Someone.A man with icy-blue eyes pleading for help.
ChapterTwenty-Five
I stoodnext to a chain-link fence.It was late afternoon, and the shadows lengthened across the sand and rock landscape, framing the empty buildings sprawled like an abandoned city.The place didn’t look familiar, but the complex appeared massive.I could either spend hours walking through the buildings or put my newly acquired skills to work.
I rubbed my necklace, and the construct changed.The buildings towered around me, and I placed myself somewhere in the middle of them.I leaned against a metal railing and waited.
The medallion was warm against my skin.This was the first time I’d put it on since leaving New Orleans, and I was comforted by being aware of what was around me without worrying about some unknown entity taking control.
It was all good—as long as I didn’t focus too closely on the construct.If I did, I sensed something, far off in the distance, hammering to enter my dream.
I pushed the distraction away and focused on the vampire walking across the windswept tarmac.His clothes were ripped and torn, dirt and mud stained the exposed skin, and his long hair was matted.But he was Devon and not the beast.
His eyes glowed icy blue, and his expression wasn’t so much menacing as it was stern.I sighed.He knew why I’d come, and he wasn’t going to agree to my plan.
When he was an arm’s reach away, he stopped and spent the first moments taking me in.His gaze took a slow path up my body, heating every part it touched.I licked my lips, and his eyes instantly locked on them.Then he shook his head.
“Who told you?”I’d wring their neck.But there could only be one.“It was Decker, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t respond.He didn’t have to.Simone didn’t want anyone knowing where Devon was, me included.Which was why it had taken me longer than planned to find him.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”His tone was pleading.“We don’t have much time.”
I took a step, and he raised his hand.I didn’t stop.“I’m not scared of you.Decker says most of the Poppy is out of your system.But you wouldn’t hurt me even if the beast was in control.”
He smiled, and it was so unexpected, so endearing, I almost took a step back.It broke my heart to see it, uncertain if I’d ever see it again if the Eliminators caught up with him.
“You think you can sway the beast as easily as you did me?”
I took a step closer.Then another until only inches separated us.I gave him my best teasing smile.“The beast likes me.”
I was expecting another argument or some flippant comment about how scary vamps were.He would be right, but after seeing Colantha with her loyal vamp guards, some primitive part of me said I was different than a human.That somehow, dreamwalkers and vamps were connected at the root of our being.She hadn’t said anything specific, but she was much older than she appeared.Maybe her youthful appearance was aided with vamp blood.She claimed an herb had been added to the juice.But was something else added she hadn’t mentioned?
Before I could ponder it any further, his lips were on mine as his arms wrapped around me.I melted, hungry for his taste, his strength, the sound of his heartbeat.It seemed like months rather than a week since we’d last touched.Everything around us disappeared until it was just the two of us, but when I attempted to change constructs and take us to the grotto, it didn’t work.
Then fangs were at my neck, and it was no longer Devon but his beast.
I woke, staring at the ceiling with my hand on my neck.When I pulled it away, there was no blood and no pain.And I was more confident than ever in knowing how to fix Devon.
After the dream,I must have fallen asleep.Maybe I’d still been in a construct because whatever energy I’d had was zapped.I could barely open my eyes to the dying fire, which was the only light in the room.My body and head ached, and I was weak as a baby bird.Whatever Colantha put in her special juice packed a wallop.I managed to roll over and let sleep envelope me until I heard a tapping at the door.
This time, the embers were dead, and light peeked around the edges of the drawn drapes.
“Come in,” I called out when the tapping came a second time.It took everything I had to repeat the command again before the door crept open.
“Are you awake?”Ginger whispered, her head poking from around the doorframe.
“Barely.”
She slipped into the room, gently shutting the door behind her.“I didn’t want to bother you, but I also wanted to make sure you were okay.You were pretty out of it last night.”She glanced around and wrung her hands.“Should I start the fire?”
“Why are you walking on eggshells?I’m not broken.It’s just the worst hangover ever.”
She straightened.“Hangover?That’s not what Sergi said.”
I snorted.“He didn’t drink the special juice.”I held a hand to my head and pushed up to a sitting position.If I moved really slowly, the pain was like someone hammering nails into my head.It was a reprieve from the jackhammer.
