Replica(48)

His head slowly turned back to me, blood trickling down his lip. “Past tense.”

“What?” I scooted back, needing room. His proximity made me forget too much. Like his deception, his lies, and the shame that grew in me as he spoke.

“You said you loved me. Past tense. No more? Did you find some other human to latch onto? Or maybe you’re fucking that pretty blonde, Rachel. I know I would have liked to.” He stood, but I beat him to it.

I launched myself at him, but I was so weak from not feeding, from sharing my blood with both Rachel and Ivan. Calvin dodged me—barely—and was disappearing into the night before I could get to my feet.

“Only one of us will survive this, Lea,” he called, his voice fading. I took a step, knowing I could catch him. Kill him. End whatever was left between us. I swayed where I stood from a wash of fatigue so strong it dropped me to one knee. If I didn’t feed, I would be of no use to anyone.

The crunch of a footstep and the soft sound of whistling snapped my head around. I moved without thought, without really seeing. I tackled the man to the ground as I’d done to Calvin, only this time I bit into his neck and drew his blood into me as if I were dying of thirst and he was an oasis of water.

His memories flowed over me as I drained him. His life alone as a shepherd, his desire for the woman who’d married his best friend, his sense of honor for doing the right thing. Guilt and shame flooded me as his life slipped from him. I couldn’t stop myself. My hunger and anger were too intense, and the shepherd’s life slid away.

He lay limp in my arms as I swallowed the last of his life down. “Damn,” I whispered. I pulled my stake out from my boot and slid it through the shepherd’s chest, piercing his heart, just to be safe. There would be no coming back for him. I laid him on the ground, rolling him so he looked as though he were sleeping.

Anger, shame, guilt, love, pain. The emotions, most of which I’d pushed away for the last several hundred years, roared through me with the force of a hurricane. Like unstopping a dam. I stood, trembling as I struggled with myself, wondering how the hell I was going to deal with this new reality.

There was no going back to Rachel and Ivan in my current state. They knew me too well. Ivan would smell Calvin on me and ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Rachel would see the pain in my eyes and probably guess. She knew the only one who could push me like this was Calvin.

I bolted into the darkness, not after Calvin, but in the opposite direction. I would circle the village and keep watch from there. It was all I could do now.

Give myself some time and hope to hell I could get myself under control before dawn broke.





CHAPTER 22





RACHEL



Lea took off into the night and my stomach immediately churned with anxiety, which was ridiculous. She’d survived hundreds of years without me, and it was likely she’d survive a few hundred more. The thought of her life going on so far beyond my own left me strangely unsettled. That I would just be a whisper of her past one day and she’d likely forget me.

Siyad seemed deeply uncomfortable with the whole situation. “The big one is injured and needs sleep,” I said to him in soothing Arabic. “We will be gone at first light.” I hoped. Baran had promised he’d have a truck at the edge of the village before dawn, along with weapons. The sooner, the better, as far as I was concerned.

Siyad set up two pallets on the floor of the main living area, apologizing profusely that he only had bedding for two. He continued to shoot worried glances toward Antonio, the person he obviously saw as the most immediate threat. Antonio paced the small room, sending off anxious vibes that it didn’t take a vampire to pick up on.

“You’re freaking him out, Antonio,” I growled. “Tone it down a couple hundred notches.”

He gave me a look that let me know he didn’t like the reprimand, then shot out the front door without a word.

I would have said good riddance, but he knew too much about us and posed a direct threat to Lea, who was God knew where. I would get Ivan situated and then track him down.

Siyad cast a nervous glance at the door.

“He has gone after our other friend,” I said in Arabic. “Thank you for the hospitality you have shown us. We’ve put you to enough trouble. Please go to bed.”

He nodded, then left the room, slipping into what was probably his bedroom and shutting the door behind him.

I turned back to Ivan, who had sat in a kitchen chair the entire time, watching everything without speaking. After everything we’d been through, I’d come to realize he put off a laid-back, clueless vibe, but he was anything but. He saw everything and filed it away for future reference.