An eerie calm washed over me, my eyes fading back to their natural blue, my fangs retracting back to their normal length. Turning on my heels, I opened my hand. The demon didn’t move a muscle, yet his body shot forward, his neck coming right into my grasp.
He snickered. “Time to feed?”
“No. It’s time for you to say your goodbyes.”
He strangled on a cackle as my grip tightened. Placing my other palm on his forehead, the pattern on top of my arm lit up. The demon was no longer laughing. Black smoke began pouring out of his eyes as ear aching screams filled every corner of the house. In a rush of heat, it stopped, and I let Stevens’ body collapsed to the floor. The smoke lingered in the air, slowly settling around my feet. My hands fell to my sides, and the mist dissipated, as if seeping into the cracks of the floorboards. He was gone.
Chapter 38
The Blower’s Daughter
Apparently, Mystic Harbor’s train station wasn’t what you’d call a hotbed of activity at eleven o’clock at night, because the only people to keep me company in the entire terminal were a couple guys from the cleaning crew and Sheila, the barista at the dank little coffee shop inside. Nothing better than the smell of ammonia and dirty mop water to go with some burnt coffee.
Footsteps echoed across the cracked tiled floors, and my body stiffened, feeling the warm flush creep across my chest. A moment later, the individual rounded the corner into the so-called café sporting an unmistakable Victorian militia coat. I hesitated, unsure whether to get up or not. Reese hadn’t said much after I told him about what Blaine had done. Was he afraid of me now, too?
If he was, I didn’t want to make this any harder on him. So I stayed seated, wiping the constant stream of tears from my cheeks.
He gave me a small, close-mouthed smile as he reached my lonely table. “Hey, Princess.”
I tried to return the greeting, but the words got caught in my throat. Reese bent down, pressing his lips to my forehead. His face slowly lowered further until our features were aligned. Our noses brushed one another, but I pulled back as he tilted his head.
“Don’t,” I pleaded.
“Don’t what?” Even now, his voice had that teasing tenor to it. Only, I didn’t laugh.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered.
He knelt down, brushing the mess of hair from my eyes. “Then don’t.” His fingers trailed down one of my strands and froze upon settling on the side of my neck. He could feel it. The puncture marks.
“I wouldn’t, not on purpose,” I murmured. “But after the transformation is complete, I don’t know what I’ll be capable of, or whether I’ll be able to control it. I could end up like Brittany.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you,” he affirmed, his eyes fixed on mine. “And there’s nothing that says the demonic virus will have the same affect on you. Hellhounds are bred for the sole purpose of being ruthless and submissive-”
“But I’ve been sired to…him.” I couldn’t say his name. It felt like trying to swallow battery acid. “If the bond is anything like being sired into a Hellhound, he could make me do anything. Hurt someone…kill them. Kill you.”
“You don’t have to go through with this,” he said, looking around at the pathetic station café. “You can stay with me.”
I shook my head. “He knows about you. Your house is the first place he’ll look. He’s probably there as we speak. And as soon as Nathan realizes Russell’s dead, he’ll come after me as well. Right now it’s best if you don’t know anything. I can’t risk you getting involved any more than you already have. Everyone knows now that…Blaine…is behind all this. A lone-wolf Reaper will be the least of their concerns.”
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he knew I was right. He couldn’t very well leave town. It would only raise suspicion.
At last, Reese nodded pitifully, continuing to look around the empty space. “Where are your parents?”
“Right now they think it’s best to just get out of town, so they concocted a story about having to visit a sick relative. They booked a hotel room in Portland for the night, hence the train ride. But Dad claims there’s some last minute ‘business matters’ he needs to tend to before he can leave, so he’s planning on meeting me in the morning. And Mom didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone in town, you know, as opposed to leaving your only daughter who’s being hunted by everybody alone in a crusty train station.” I rolled my eyes, but it didn’t stop a fresh batch of tears from pouring off my lashes. “Blaine was right, about everything. He said Adam would turn his back on me, that I wouldn’t be able to conceal my abilities… And my parents… They’re terrified of me, just like he said they would be.”