Page 25 of To Save a Vampire
“Do you think that’ll work? Is there anything else I should do?” I say, trying to sound polite, reaching for the medical professionalism I know I have somewhere.
He smiles with hooded eyes, and I notice he is also breathing heavy. Did I affect him? Surely not. It must be an exhausting source of power he just shed to help me.
“No, that should be enough,” he says huskily, right before he pops a berry into his mouth.
He watches me with a growing smile as he chews exceptionally slow. Though I’m always intrigued when he eats anything, my eyebrows pull together in confusion.
“Don’t eat those,” I say trying to push the second berry from his hand, but I fail and he throws it into the air, making a show of catching the red fruit in his mouth like a trained dog. Again, his smile widens even further, exposing nearly every perfect tooth in his gorgeous mouth. He gives a small chuckle as I look at him with worry.
“Those might kill you. I have no idea what the limits of your immortality are but it’d be kind of embarrassing if you died from a berry, don’t you think?”
“They’re just Tayberries. Perfectly safe to eat. My grandmother's favorite actually,” he says with a laugh before walking away from me.
I stomp after him through the trees, kicking up dry leaves and dirt with each angry step. “You knew the whole—’’ My yelling voice is muffled as he pushes his palm against my mouth and pulls me behind a tree. My anger cools as I see how alert he is. His eyes shift slowly through our surroundings like he’s taking an inventory of every twig in the forest and something isn’t adding up.
He stands in front of me. He raises a finger to his lips to silence anything I might say before lowering his palm from my mouth. His body nearly covers mine, just as it did a few moments earlier, but this time he’s deadly tense. His hand rests on the hilt of the Crimson Sword at his waist.
His jaw tics as he listens for something my human ears are oblivious to. Looking at him now, at his stance, at the aggression he’s harboring, it’s clear to me that the birds were wise to fear him. Maybe I too should have taken notes from the prey within the woods.
I take his free hand in mine, but his eyes never stop calculating, even as I trace against his palm.
What is it?
He glances down at me. His eyes boring into mine.
Don’t show fear.
My palm tingles at his words, and I take them in slowly. He could have given me any advice. He could have told me to run. To hide. But whatever’s out there, I can’t escape. I can’t outrun it, and I can’t hide. I can just raise my head and swallow down the alarms that are firing through my nervous system.
He grips my hand in his, lacing our fingers with a squeeze, before he jerks away from me. I’m barely able to register his movements as his body collides with someone.
He holds the familiar looking person by his throat against a neighboring tree. Each muscle in his arm and back constricts as he lifts the hybrid off the ground. I stare into the gray eyes of the red-headed hybrid from the compound. He sees me, his silver, dilated eyes trying to focus on me before his head unsteadily sways back to Asher. He doesn’t look afraid as they assess each other.
The hybrid doesn’t struggle or gasp for air against Asher’s strength. His heaving chest is the only indication that his current state, pinned to an old oak tree by his throat, might be slightly uncomfortable.
“What the hell are you doing out here, Gabriel?” Asher asks as casually as if they were drinking and catching up on old times at the compound.
The hybrid lifts his arm slowly and signs something. Asher lowers him back to the ground. He signs something faster now. Whatever Gabriel is saying causes Asher to look to our left. His gaze lingers there like he might be able to see something in the distance that I can’t make out.
“He said he’s part of the search party Shaw sent out for me. Shaw’s given him and a few other hybrids their sedatives and sent them out to their deaths to find me. They’re to search for days and then return to the compound before their shift ends or the new chip he’s inserted into their palms will detonate. A sort of lethal tracking device. Shaw’s never lost a hybrid before and it must be killing him that it was me who got away.” Asher pauses at these words and swallows hard.
He’s still watching Gabriel speak through sign language. They’re friends? Shaw sent Asher’s friends out to bring him back? “Any tampering or tardiness will set the chip off. The hybrids aren’t all that Shaw has released into the woods.” His last few words are quieter.
A chill wanders down my spine, but I stiffen my posture against the fear his words try to push into me.
I wonder what else Shaw might have at the compound that could cause the look on Asher’s face, but I don’t ask.
“We need to leave. Now. It’s close,” Asher says, still nodding to Gabriel before pointing and signing something quickly to his friend. “He sent them out here under so much sedation something as simple as a bear could kill them. It’d take a few of them to even attempt to capture us,” he says through clenched teeth when he turns to me.
Asher takes my hand in his as he leads me further into the forest. Away from the river. Away from Ky and my mother. Gabriel follows unsteadily behind us. I glance at him and he gives me a drowsy smile in return.
I stagger up the towering hill, trying to keep up with Asher’s hurried speed. He’s not moving in his usual blur of swiftness that I know he’s capable of, but he’s running at a pace I can almost keep up with. Even Gabriel in his drugged state is more graceful than I am.
“The veil is coming,” Asher says once we’ve reached the top of the hill. I don’t ask what the veil is. A twist turns in my stomach at the cryptic name.
He pulls me along the side of a crumbling rock wall and finds a crevice within the cliff. Hurriedly, he smears dirt, crumpled leaves and debris from the ground all over my shirt before he pushes me against the gap, I wiggle until my body is flush within the shadowed, jagged wall. I’m not concealed by any means. In fact, I feel like a child hiding in the corner of a well-lit room.
Asher stands directly in front of me. Pushing his body against mine into the rocks. His face is shadowed within the walls of the cliff, and I can see where the rock cuts into his arms as he covers my body with his. Behind him, I see Gabriel standing back to back with Asher, his red hair mingling with Asher’s brown hair.
