Blood and Burning

9

Holy s**t.

No, no, no, this was not happening.

“I should f*****g kill you.”

Oh my God, this was bad. My mind was reeling with discordant feelings of elation and relief, of sheer horror and panic.

It was f*****g Van.

A shrill scream tore from my throat, muffled, and I tried with everything I had in me to break free, but he seemed unfazed.

He leaned in even closer, pressing me harder against the rough brick wall, and when he spoke again, his voice so deep and rumbly and low in my ear, I shuddered.

“Come on, princess, you’ve trained for this.” His grip on my wrists tightened.

Asshole.

In between screams, I heard a sudden shuffling and a short gasp on the other side of the alleyway, and I tried to jerk to the side. I screamed with urgency.

Van leaned away from me. “Stay on the f*****g ground, Erin,” he called out levelly.

“Okay,” she squeaked.

I groaned in frustration, and I struggled to yank my wrists free.

Just then, we heard two more male voices in the distance, casually chatting and laughing. Their footsteps were coming in our direction, coming closer fast.

“Should we sic Erin on them?” Van asked me, and when I only grumbled in response as to not let on that I thought his comment was pretty funny, he said, “I haven’t used a gun in a while.”

The footsteps stopped.

“Woah.”

“What the f**k are you doing?!”

I heard running. Across the alley, Erin was blubbering. Van finally took his hand off my mouth, and I turned my head just in time to watch helplessly as he shot one of the men right between the eyes. The bang! reverberated on the walls all around us and the man collapsed in a heap. Blood began to pool quickly beneath him. The other man skidded to a halt, and he whirled around to gape at his friend.

“Leave him!” I cried desperately. “Run!”

But he was standing much too close to Van and I, and Van released me to lunge at him.

I spun, flattening myself against the bricks, chest heaving. Van tore into the man’s throat—he wasn’t clean or gentle. Despite the terror that gripped me, I physically couldn’t wrench my gaze away.

His victim was making awful, wet gurgling sounds, and his legs had folded beneath him. Van held him up by his shoulders, and blood dripped onto the ground at their feet.

I scrambled to put more space between us, my back still pressed against the wall, but in my panic, I stumbled and fell. I knew I needed to get up and f*****g bolt, but I couldn’t force my legs to move.

“Erin, shoot him!” I blurted out.

“I can’t, Hazel, I can’t!” she sobbed, before I’d even finished my sentence.

“Erin!” I shrieked.

“That’s my gun, he has my gun!” she exclaimed, and simultaneously, I continued, “Shoot him in the f*****g leg or something, just don’t kill him!”

Van dropped his meal on the ground, drained and lifeless, and then he tipped his head back and let out a half-sigh, half-moan that sent a shiver rippling up my spine.

It barely registered that the strangled, horrified sound that escaped me was mine, when he turned to stalk towards me.

“She won’t do s**t,” he scoffed. I felt smaller and smaller the closer he came. “I want to see you get violent, princess! Do your f*****g job!”

I scooted back further in the dirt, as my trembling hands struggled to pull up my skirt enough to fumble with the blade strapped to my thigh. He pulled Erin’s pistol out of the waistband of his jeans and then he crouched down, right over my knees. I inhaled sharply when he slapped my hand away from my blade, and then he roughly grabbed my jaw.

“What the f**k did you do to your eye?” he asked, squinting at me.

My brow furrowed, and I slapped his hand away.

But then my vision clouded with tears—he was so cold.

I couldn’t help myself. I shimmied out from underneath him, and I sat up on my knees. I reached for him, my heart poised to shatter into a million pieces if he pulled away.

He didn’t.

He just stared at me, and while he definitely seemed guarded, I couldn’t quite place whatever it was that swirled in his eyes. It felt discordant to his body language, and to the way rage radiated off of him in waves.

My hands cupped his sharp jaw. That poor man’s blood stained his face. It ran down his chin and his neck and it had spilled onto his gray T-shirt.

I didn’t care.

Same full lips, same straight, strong nose, same shoulder-length black hair. His pale blue eyes were brighter now, a more vibrant shade. I reached up to sweep his hair back, just like I used to, and his dark brows knit together.

My head was spinning. He shouldn’t be alive.

Or, whatever he was now.

I knew what I saw. I knew those vampires weren’t concerned with turning him. I wanted to ask him what the f**k happened, but I couldn’t find my voice. He was upright, he was alert, he was breathing…but it felt like I was was gazing into the eyes of a ghost.

I slipped my hands down the sides of his neck and onto his broad shoulders. The tattoo on his right shoulder peeked out from beneath the neckline of his shirt.

My hands wandered over his chiseled chest, and onto his sculpted biceps. I looked down at his arms—both of them were still covered in tattoos.

Fuck, this really was Van.

He let me turn his left arm over, and there it was: the tattoo that matched mine, a dagger, and his had my initials on the handle.

I looked back up and met his gaze again. “Jesus Christ, Van,” I managed to whisper.

I promptly threw myself at him, knocking him onto his ass as I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and I straddled his lap. I dimly noticed that he tossed Erin’s gun onto the ground. I jolted and gasped slightly at the discovery of the hard bulge in the front of his jeans, firmly pressing against my core, but he hugged me back so tightly, I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

He hugged me so tight, it almost hurt. He planted several eager, cold kisses on my cheek and then he buried his face in my neck.

He exhaled heavily, shakily, and his hold on me tightened even more—now it did hurt.

Fuck, was this it? Was he going to crush me to death?

“Ouch, Jesus Christ, Van,” I gasped. “How are you here?!”

“You f*****g did this to me,” he growled.

I promptly yanked back, as far as he’d let me, and I slapped him across the face, his head jerking to the side and his brow furrowing again.

“Don’t you f*****g dare!” I hissed. “I tried to save you!”

“Hazel, you abandoned me!” he countered.

He lifted me off of him, and put me on the ground on my back. It knocked the wind out of me. I tried to swing a boot at him, but he smacked my foot away and pushed my legs apart. He was on top of me faster than I could’ve stopped him, but we fit together like we were meant to—we always had.

Like muscle memory, I tangled my fingers in his hair, and he leaned in, but he stopped himself mere inches away from my mouth. My lips were parted expectantly, and his cold breath fanned over my face. I willed him to just f*****g do it, to close the small space between us, especially when I felt his hand wrap around my knee, pulling one leg higher on his waist.

Like muscle memory.

He leaned his forehead against mine, and he groaned slightly—he sounded plainly frustrated. I could feel his erection straining against his pants, and goosebumps rose on my skin when he shifted his weight, pressing against me harder.

If this was wrong before he was turned, it was astronomically worse now, and we both knew it.

“You abandoned me,” he repeated, with an all-too-familiar rasp in his voice.

“I didn’t abandon you,” I insisted through gritted teeth, and hot, bitter tears stung my eyes, “I couldn’t get to you.”

He straightened up enough to look at me. “I was alive when you left me, Hazel.”

My heart clenched painfully and I stifled a sob. “I couldn’t get to you! I tried, Van.” I hated how badly my voice was shaking.

“I should kill you.” He slid his hand up my thigh, and his fingers traced the band of the holster that held my blade. “You should’ve f*****g killed me. You should’ve put me out of my misery before it started.”

I sniffled. I took one hand off the back of his head to reach down and retrieve my blade, as he continued to trace the band of the holster. I pressed the blade against his throat, and he tipped his chin up a bit. His hand stilled and gripped my thigh.

“Do your f*****g job, princess.”

I had been so wrapped up in him that I hadn’t even noticed someone else was approaching. It appeared he hadn’t noticed either. Another man came around the corner, and he muttered a cuss word under his breath at the grisly scene he was met with.

Before he could utter another syllable, Van took his hand off my leg to snatch away my blade, nicking his own skin as he did so, and he sat up to hurl it across the alley at the man. Must’ve hit his jugular—blood immediately began to spurt from the wound, and the man choked and fell to his knees as he clutched at the dagger jutting from his flesh.

He looked down at me, my legs still spread and draped over his lap, my crop top hiked up to just beneath my breasts.

“Van,” I warned.

Fuck, this was so much worse than it was before.

He exhaled heavily, a bit shakily, and he ran both hands up my thighs and onto my hips, and he yanked me hard against the enticing bulge in the front of his pants.

But then he leaned to the side to pick up the gun from the ground again. He pointed it straight at Erin.

I hadn’t noticed that she had managed to sneak across the alleyway to where her purse was ripped apart and discarded. She must’ve dragged herself back to her spot up against the opposite wall, and there she sat, staring at Van with eyes the size of saucers, clutching a syringe.

“Don’t f**k with me,” he warned her, his voice dripping with pure venom.

She dropped the syringe and I sighed.

Van glanced down at me one last time. Much to my surprise, he grabbed my wrist, deposited the gun in my hand, and then he stood up to leave.

He turned and strode out of the alleyway, back towards the busy streets of downtown Santa Barbara.

“Van?” I scrambled to my feet and scurried after him. Erin stood, too.

“Van, where are you going?” I asked.

I grabbed his arm and he shook me off.

“Van, please!” My desperation was mounting, and I grabbed his arm again. “We need to talk!”

Again, he shook me off, without a word, but I fisted his shirt. I caught a glimpse of something akin to sadness flashing across his features as he pried my hands off of him once more.

Erin grabbed me by the elbow. “Hazel, he isn’t safe.”

I couldn’t suppress the panicked whimper that escaped my lips as he strode farther and farther away. I was being clumsy. I was panicking—I couldn’t pull myself together just enough to get Erin off of me.

“Van!” I shouted desperately. “Come back here!”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Hazel,” he called over his shoulder. “Go the f**k home.”

I looked away from him for only a second, to shoot Erin a glare.

And he had disappeared.

He was gone.

“Evander!”