Page 82 of Fanged Embrace
40
Laurie
Vampires, I was quickly learning, do not sleep flat on their backs, arms crossed, corpse-style. Not even in their own beds.
River lay beside me, one arm propped under my head and the other splayed across the mattress—and she looked blazingly alive. The vamp was twitching in her sleep, frowning with a wrinkle in her brow like whatever she was dreaming about was thoroughly pissing her off.
I, on the other hand, was wide awake and coming to terms with the fact that I’d just had sex for the first time. With a woman. Who was also a vampire. Scratch that—withRiver. Granted, it didn’t go very far, butdamn—it had been the best, most mind-bending experience since… well, I’d only very recently tried sliced bread served warm and buttered, but if that’s the benchmark, this surpassed it by leaps and bounds.
I was also, however, plunged headfirst into both an identity crisis and a moral crisis that kept my eyes wide open even as the sky turned rosy pink with the approach of dawn. It seemedthe spectrum of sexuality had more gradients than ‘too busy/revenge-driven to consider that I might be into women.’
Well…I glanced over at River, sleeping with her lips slightly parted, long lashes fluttering on her cheeks when she grumbled something under her breath.One woman in particular.
My previous assumption that attraction was a theoretical myth had just been obliterated by one very patient vampire and her ridiculously talented fingers. But alongside the thrill of this newfound discovery was another problem, a tugging guilt that tainted the elation of the experience. The problem, looming and unavoidable, was this:
River was not part of the plan.
The plan used to be simple, a three step process with a clean ending. Find the people who hurt me, end them, and then end myself. Easy arithmetic. No outlying variables. Then River showed up, shifting the equation into calculus I’d never learned. The plan had gotten so convoluted since River came along, I wasn’t even sure where the whole ‘ending myself’ fit into the picture anymore.
I ran a hand over my face, sighing quietly into my palm. River’s presence in my life—and in my heart—complicated everything. I bit down on my lip, swallowing back the tide of emotion that swelled without warning. Somewhere inside of me a steady panic was simmering, rising slowly to the surface.
As if she could sense it, River rolled onto her side and pulled me closer, crushing me to her chest. I let her handle me like a ragdoll, let her bury her face in my tousled hair. It was pleasantly warm in the alcove of her arms. When she coiled tighter around me, murmuring softly in her sleep, the idea of vanishing—gun, bullet, and probably no good-bye—suddenly felt impossibly cruel. It brought a painful ache to the back of my throat.
I didn’t want to hurt her, but I’d set up everything to do justthat. I’d let her in and now we were here and all I could do was feel guilty about it.
I lay there for hours, counting each slow rise of River’s chest. Every so often she murmured something unintelligible and her hand smoothed unconsciously along my spine. It was good, it was so good. It was so much more than I deserved. Even as I relaxed in her arms, I couldn’t shake the excessive guilt, couldn’t quell the voice in my head screaming that this was going to end in disaster.
Sometime after dawn, the horizon brightened beyond the drawn curtains and my thoughts looped back to the same conclusion: the old plan was broken. Maybe it had been the moment I met River. The second our eyes locked, on that very first night, everything changed.
I should have seen it sooner. I should have pulled away when I had the chance. But if she was willing to keep fighting for my future, the least I could do was consider the possibility of one.
I closed my eyes, lining my body alongside hers, savoring every inch of bare skin that brushed hot against mine. I wasn’t cured, or complete. Far from it. The dark pit still gaped, whispering its seductions, but I could give her time. I could hold out hope and hang onto her just a little bit longer.
It wasallI could do.
Because it was far too late to distance myself now.
When I surfaced from a surprisingly dreamless sleep, the sun was up and streaming through the windows and a pestilent buzzing was happening somewhere to the left.
I heard River groan as she untangled herself from me, and felt her roll over to the edge of the bed, fumbling on the nightstand until her fingers found her vibrating cell phone. “Yeah?” She hauled herself upright, pressing the cell to her ear and running a hand through the chaotic cluster of curls on her head.
I watched her expression morph from drowsy confusion to sudden alertness and she twisted away to growl into the phone. “When—how?How did they even know we were planning an attack?”
I perked up at the panic in her voice and inched closer to hear the tinny response crackling through the speaker. It sounded like Jordan, the head vampire lady I’d met previously, and the urgency in her tone was apparent even through the muffled line.
“—hit the witches first,” I heard her say, voice clipped and controlled but rife with underlying tension. “Then they went after the shifters. They’ve targeted all our allies—left them all with a warning to back off before things get ugly.”
“Shit.” River sat up straighter, sheet pooling around her waist. “Casualties?”
“A few.” Jordan’s response was grim, and River bowed her head when she continued, “Everyone’s afraid and that’s a problem.”
I watched River’s jaw tighten, fingers fisting around the cell in her hand. “They’re trying to scare us off the strike.”
“River, what’s going on?” I pushed myself upright and reached for her shoulder, instantly wide awake once I realized what Jordan was implying.
The organization must have been active last night, orchestrating an attack on the Leyore coven’s allies. From the sound of things, the impact had been devastating. River twitched at my touch and shot a sidelong glance at me, mouth morphing into a grimace when she met my eyes.
Jordan’s voice rattled through the line again. “I’m calling an emergency meeting at Leyore headquarters. Bring theeyewitness and keep her close. The organization knows more than we gave them credit for—Laurie might not be safe there.”
