Chapter 48
“Oh my God,” I said incredulously when I walked into the kitchen and found the table and chairs tossed about the room. “Why would Zane do this? If he only wanted my aunt, he could have simply thrown her under his arm and walked right on out. Why trash the house?”
I didn’t think much about it when I picked up the chairs with ease, but when I realized I had flipped the table upright with one arm, I really freaked. By the look on William’s face, I’d say he did, too.
“Where is your aunt’s room?” William asked, after closing all the cabinet doors.
“Um.” I was so shook up I had trouble concentrating. “Oh. Right down the hall.” I pointed William in the right direction before I headed toward the stairs. “Wait,” I shouted, and tried to run, but instead, I stumbled around the corner.
When I spotted William almost to Aunt Bev’s door, I grabbed onto the end of the hallway wall and smiled innocently, trying to hide the fact that, again, I had almost fallen on my face. “What exactly are we looking for?”
William shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure. Anything that doesn’t seem right, I guess,” William said, and paused before adding, “Should we change your name to Grace?” He had seen me almost fall after all, and thought it was cute teasing me.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” I said sarcastically, and stuck out my tongue before disappearing around the corner.
When I pushed open my bedroom door, I expected to find my room trashed like the rooms downstairs. It wasn’t though. Only one thing was out of place. A framed picture of my mom and me that I always kept on my nightstand. The frame was broken, and the glass had been stomped and ground into the picture on the floor. I wanted to cry after I bent down and carefully tried to wipe the glass away from my mom’s face.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind it had been Zane that took her. I remembered his scent and could smell him everywhere. I figured it was a personal note from Zane. He was taunting me into coming to rescue my mom and now Aunt Bev, too. He would get his wish, but he would be expecting Gen the Adlet wolf, not Gen the vampire. Hopefully that would work to my advantage. The chief told me I would have to outsmart Zane…and I would.
William found me standing in the middle of my floor holding the scratched up picture in my hand. He crossed the room and stopped next to me, reaching down, gently prying my fingers from the picture. “This isn’t good.” William stared into space, rubbing his chin. “He’s made this personal. He doesn’t just want the throne, for some reason he wants to make you suffer in the process.”
“Why? I don’t even know this guy.” I took back the picture and flopped onto the edge of my bed.
“I’m not sure, but something has definitely changed.” He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tightly. Even after everything that had happened William still made me feel completely safe.
He kissed the top of my head. “I know it hurts, but we’ll find them.”
“I’m not so sure that we will. Now that he has Bev he’s probably moved them from the place I saw.” I buried my face in his chest and wrapped my arms even tighter around him.
He tensed, and pushed me back enough to look at me. “Wait…what do you mean “the place you saw?””
“When Zane tossed me my mom’s necklace, the second I closed my hand around it I had a vision. I saw her and she showed me flashes of where she was. When I got home, I told my aunt and she researched the landmarks and found the only possible town the landmark could have been.” I pulled away and paced the floor. “Don’t you see? I shouldn’t have involved Aunt Bev. It was my fault Zane took my mom and now it’s my fault that he took my aunt.”
William grabbed my arms and shook me. “None of this is your fault!”
I furrowed my brow. “If he’s moved mom and Aunt Bev I’ll never find them! I don’t have a clue where else to even start looking.”
“I think I do,” William said, lowering his voice. He released his grip and shoved his hands inside his front pockets. He lowered his head, and started pushing glass around the floor with the toe of his shoe.
“Where?” I asked earnestly. When he didn’t answer right away, I grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him to me. “Where damn it!”
William’s eyes locked onto mine. “The Adlet burial ground. It’s a cave across the lake from the reservation.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he go there?” I rolled my eyes.
“He’s not actually going to the burial cave. HHH e’s going under it. There’s a bunch of tunnels running under Haven. They were dug out hundreds of years ago. There is an entrance through the burial ground.”
“How do you know about the tunnels? Have you been there before?” I asked skeptically.
“Everybody knows about them, but, they don’t actually know how to get to them.”
“Okay. So how in the hell do you know?” I was beginning to get pissed. William loved playing little guessing games, but I wasn’t in the mood for guessing. I needed facts and I needed them fast.
“The Amalric.” He said, like it should have been obvious. “I’m not sure how they know, they just do.”
“How are we going to find him once we get down there?” I asked, but before William could answer, the doorbell rang. William and I looked at each other for a moment before hurrying to the window.
Before I even pulled back the curtain I heard Luna’s heart beating excitedly. She wasn’t alone either. There were multiple heartbeats—four to be exact—and I knew she’d brought her brothers.
My eyes closed and my head tilted back. I smelled the delectable scent of their blood and I forgot about everything except the wonderful warming effect that spread throughout my body when William had given me that first bag of blood after I had awakened.
“Genevieve,” William whispered harshly, pulling me away from the window. “You’ve got to get control over your bloodlust. I know you don’t want to hurt your friends.”
It was like I was in a trance and no matter how hard I fought I couldn’t break free. My hunger was just too great. “I don’t want to hurt them, I just want to feed from them.” My eyes were still closed, and my heart had sped up to match theirs.
I was just about to give in and jump out the window to get to them when I smelled a much sweeter blood scent, and it was close by. I opened my eyes just as William finished tearing open the vein along his arm.
Even though I knew what he was doing would feel almost as amazing for him as it would for me, it was dangerous. He was already in a weakened state from turning me. If he let me drink too much, he would grow too weak to stop me and I would drink all the life from him.
I stuck my mouth against the blood pouring from his arm and sunk my teeth into him, pulling him on top of me and his arm over my face. His blood tasted even better than I had remembered it tasting the first time. It slid down my throat like thick, sweetened nectar, and pleasure instantly surged through me.
William felt the passion too. He moaned and started grinding his body against me, his free hand caressing my thigh. I dug my nails into his back, trying to force him closer, but I knew nothing I could do would get him close enough. I would never be satisfied until I had all of him, and even then I didn’t know if that would be enough.
A sudden shock rippled through me, and I realized William had pulled his arm away. At first I had this awful feeling of separation, but after a moment I began thinking clearly again and I lay back against him, smiling, completely satisfied.
I heard a pounding noise and I thought it was coming from inside my head, but then when I heard Joseph shouting, I remembered Luna and her brothers were outside. I was so weak I could hardly move, and so sated I didn’t want to.
“Oh my God,” I moaned. “You definitely made me forgot all about them.” I smiled and started to move when my strength began coming back.
“That was the whole point. If you wouldn’t have fed from me, you probably would have killed at least one of them.” William sat up an
d straightened his clothes.
“I would never hurt them,” I said, shocked he would even say that to me.
“Not intentionally. But trust me, until you can get your bloodlust under control, no one is safe around you. Especially not a human.
I knew William was referring to my mom but I refused to believe I would ever hurt her.
“Coming,” I called out after Joseph threatened to break down the door.