Page 49 of Resurrection
In his arms he is holding April’s unconscious body, her hair swaying and limbs loose. Her skin is graying as I stare dumbfounded and she is convulsing in Marcus’s hold, almost dropping on the floor. I have never in all my existence been shocked to the point of standing, not knowing what to do.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Andrei’s panicked shout propels me into action.
“What happened?” I try to snatch her from Marcus, but he snarls like a feral animal ready to bite my hand off. “Let go of her if you value your life. If she dies, you’ll wish you could join her.”
“Marcus, give her to Sebastian. He can help her.” Andrei grips Marcus by the shoulder, his fingers digging at the bunched-up muscles there.
Reluctantly, he unclenches his grasp on her, uncontrolled sounds like whimpers and growls coming from him. To avoid wasting precious time if he changes his mind, and so I don’t have to rip him apart, I snatch her to my chest. Lowering her on one of the sofas against the wall, I glance over my shoulder.
“What happened and speak fast.”
“I found her in the sewer…” Marcus speaks fast, his words a jumble of sounds until he is finished telling me the story to the part where they drained the two vampires working for Kali. “…she was laughing one moment, and the next she coughed, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she started convulsing. I ran here as fast as I could.”
“Could they have done something before they died?” Andrei mumbles but I’m already shaking my head.
“Go. Bring humans. It’s something in the blood she took that did this. We need to drain her, and she’ll need to feed. I’m not going to be enough.”
Having a little taste of April’s blood is one thing. I’m still not sure I can survive to drink from her. I know for sure the rest of them won’t live if they tried. With that in mind, I let my clawsextend, and holding her arm, I rip her brachial artery open. Precious thick blood starts spurting over both of us, soaking the sofa. My fangs throb with the need to sink them in her skin and gulp it all up until she is as tied to me as my own soul. Pulling on all the control I have mastered, I clench my jaw and watch her bleed out in front of me.
Andrei disappears, barking orders before he is even out of the door. Marcus looms over my head, his hunger for the potent blood pounding into me, driving me insane. With a great effort, I block him out, the thought that I hadn’t felt his urgency before he showed up at the door is not lost on me. With April rapidly going as white as a marble statue, I will have to look into it later. If she lives.She will live!Snapping myself out of the frantic thoughts, I continue to keep an eye on the blood flow. I must get her to feed, or she will die within minutes.
I watch the blood pump out of her arm with each heartbeat, like a finger pressed over a running hose, mesmerized. Jabbing an elbow in my back, Marcus jars me out of hunger’s call, and I blink twice, coming out of my daze. The shuffling of feet sounds at the entrance of the penthouse but I ignore it all. The gash on April’s arm is closing, and I tear into my own wrist with my fangs, bringing it to her blue lips.
“Bevi, mia redenzione, prendi ciò che ti offro liberamente!” After saying it for her ears only, I keep repeating it in my mind.Drink, my redemption. Take what I freely offer.I keep saying it over and over like a prayer. The blood fills her mouth and runs out of her lips, coating her jaw, neck, and her spread out hair.
She doesn’t drink.
Panic squeezes my chest like a metal vise, insanity creeping up slowly from the darkest corners of my mind. If I lose her, I will lose myself. I know it as I know my own name. The Council will seem like cute puppies compared to what I will become. That power that kept growing since I took the blood from ourmatron curls up in my chest and purrs like a hungry beast.No! I will not lose April, nor will I lose myself.
“Drink.” Gripping her neck in my hand, I start massaging her throat, hoping it’ll prompt her to swallow.
Something crashes behind me, Marcus cursing in any language he can think of, throwing things around. I can feel Andrei, his fear and pain at the thought of April not surviving this almost bringing him to his knees. I block him as well, unwilling to lose hope.
“Drink, damn you!” Snarling at her, my fingers tighten around her neck.
Her body arches off the sofa, her eyes snapping open. Glowing yellow orbs lock on me, and her arms shoot out, grabbing my wrist. Not losing contact with me she sinks her fangs at my wrist and starts sucking. Gulp after gulp, her eyes glow brighter. Each pull of her mouth feels connected to my groin. My own hunger slams me, not just for blood but for her as well.
Bright spots start dancing at the corners of my eyes, wariness making my body sag next to the sofa where I’m kneeling next to April. Someone, I think Andrei, grabs my shoulders, holding me up when I would’ve toppled over. April doesn’t stop. I watch Marcus jerking my wrist from her mouth, April snarling and lunging at him as she sinks her fangs in his neck, and everything fades. Darkness covers everything around me, and I sleep.
Chapter Forty-Seven
APRIL
“She should wake up any moment now.” I can hear Andrei mumble somewhere in the space I’m in, sounding drunk.
Last time I checked, immortality meant you can’t taste the alcohol. Well, they can’t taste it, I can. So how is he drunk? And what is he doing here in my room? Better yet, why am I in bed instead of being curled up in the closet?
I forget all about that when memories of my dreams come rushing in. So many places, so many countries, they flick behind my closed eyelids like someone is placing slides in my head. Memories of families, all mine yet all of them so different. Lives where I’ve been happy and loved, and others where I’ve been miserable and counted the days until I’m dead. Everything comes one after another, speeding up slowly until I’m sure that I’m about to faint from the onslaught of information. And in each of those memories, I see my face.
“Maybe she needs more blood.” Marcus sounds just as drunk, and his voice pulls me from the spinning in my head.
“Unless one of us is volunteering to die, I don’t think we can feed her, yet.” Sebastian doesn’t sound drunk, just tired, and a soft moan follows his words.
A woman’s moan.
My eyes snap open, and I jolt upright in bed, zeroing in on him. Sebastian is sprawled, very much unlike himself, on a chair next to the bed. His shirt is half unbuttoned, exposing his well-defined chest and the first couple of rows of a six-pack. With his legs spread open, one bent at the knee, he looks so seductive that tingles start at my lower belly when I look him up and down. There is no one around him, and he smirks at me knowingly, pointing his chin on the other side of the large bed.
Turning my head, I see Marcus and Andrei both in similar positions, looking bone wary with dark circles under their eyes. Marcus smiles tiredly at me, while Andrei is staring at me unblinking, his fangs buried in a woman’s neck. She is straddling him, her hips undulating as she grinds herself against him. My face burns in embarrassment, and I avert my eyes, gripping the sheets around my legs.
