Lalia looked like the last thing she wanted to do was let go of me, but I detached myself from her, and placed her in the furthest corner of the room on the bench.
I found Joseph pacing up and down in his bedroom, the container of my blood clutched in his hands.
He looked toward me as I entered.
“So… are you ready for what’s next?” he asked, his voice deep.
I didn’t know that I would ever feel ready for what we had planned next. But it was now or never.
“Yes,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster.
“It sounds like the party is dying down up there now,” he said, looking up at the ceiling.
I followed him out of the bedroom toward the front door. He opened it and we both stepped out, looking around. Vampires and half-bloods were descending through The Oasis’ entrance and heading back to their apartments. We remained standing by the doorway for the next fifteen minutes, until the last trickle of revelers seemed to have returned. But strangely, neither of us had spotted Jeramiah, Lucretia or Michael yet.
I looked back at the clock hanging from the hallway. It was already 2:30am.
We were running out of time.
I exchanged glances with Joseph.
“Where do you think they are?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “We just need to keep waiting.”
Ten minutes later, all three of them finally descended. I wondered why they had taken longer than the others. I didn’t give it too much thought though. I was just relieved that they had finally come.
I was expecting the couple to part ways with Michael once they arrived outside Jeramiah’s apartment, but instead they remained standing and talking. Joseph and I looked away as Jeramiah turned, spotting us standing in the doorway.
Joseph’s hands found my waist. He lowered his mouth to my ear. “Put your arms around my neck and pretend that you’re kissing me,” he breathed.
I stared at him, raising a brow.
Then I realized why he was asking this of me. Standing here doing nothing but staring looked odd. We needed to look like we were doing something.
Joseph positioned me in front of him, so that he still had full view of the trio. Slowly, I draped my arms around Joseph’s neck and craned my neck upward. He leaned down until our lips were less than an inch apart. My breathing quickened as his green eyes met mine. He lowered his mouth to my cheek and pressed his lips gently against it, then averted his gaze back toward Jeramiah.
My skin tingled at the touch of his lips, so close to the side of my mouth. I hadn’t expected him to touch me. But now that he was… I couldn’t say that I objected. At all. When his hand rested on the small of my back, pulling me closer still, I felt butterflies in my stomach.
Geez, River. Get a grip.
He’s just an… incredibly handsome guy.
“Are they still there?” I breathed, attempting to distract myself from his touch.
He didn’t respond for almost a minute as his lips continued to graze my cheek. Then he said, “They’re gone now.”
He loosened his hold on me and I took a step back. Our eyes locked before he cleared his throat and looked back through his doorway.
We both knew what had to be done now.
Chapter 21: Ben
I was thinking of River as I left her in the apartment and made my way up to the desert.
When I’d bent down so close to her face, her radiant eyes gazing into mine, I’d found myself drawing closer to her than I had either intended or needed to… without even realizing it.
I shook myself.
Stop being a fool, Novak.
Focus.
Arriving aboveground, I was glad to see that nobody was still up here. Everyone had returned to their rooms. Thank God. It was 2:45am already. That left only fifteen minutes before Jeramiah knocked on our door. Fifteen minutes to get three humans up here undetected. We couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong.
Sure that the area was empty, I ran back down to the atrium and headed back to my apartment. I found River alone in the living room, standing over a basin that she’d placed on a coffee table. She had already cut herself again and was draining more blood. I walked over to help her, slitting my own skin and allowing my blood to flow into the wide container. Both of our bloods mixed and formed a dark red pool at the bottom of it. Once I felt like we had enough, I healed her, then took a mouthful from the small container of River’s blood in my pocket while she hurried toward the sauna to retrieve the humans.
I backed away, watching as she herded them into the living room. Walking to the basin, she dipped a hand in the blood and began to smear it over her sister. She looked toward Morgan and Hassan.
“Cover yourselves with this blood as much as you can.”
The humans had looks of disgust on their faces—especially Lalia.