Page 101 of A Touch of Crimson
The vampress’s memories hit Lindsay with the force of Niagara Falls—Vash’s history, carried in her Fallen blood. The life force both Sentinels and the Fallen needed to survive.
Lindsay released her in a rush, stumbling backward to sit heavily atop the coffee table. She wiped her bloodied mouth with the back of her hand and felt the room spin from the rush of feeding and the surprise of discovering Vash’s innocence.
“It wasn’t you!” She gripped her pounding skull, feeling dizzy and disoriented by the onslaught of eons of recollections that didn’t include her mother’s death.
Vash regained her footing, one hand pressed to her spurting throat. “That’s your second free pass, you crazy bitch. Next time you come at me, it’ll cost you.”
“Whatever,” Lindsay muttered, crushed by the realization that she was once again facing the task of finding a needle in a haystack. Subsisting on blood for years while she did so held no appeal. She’d become the monster she hunted, and while she searched for her mother’s killer, it would be the sickest hypocrisy to do to others what had been done to her. “Do me a favor and put me out of my misery.”
“Fucking A,” Vash said, just before nailing Lindsay in the head with a roundhouse kick.
Lindsay never saw the carpeted floor rushing up to meet her.
Adrian tossed his duffel bag on his bed and freed his wings, stretching them in an effort to ease the debilitating tension gripping his shoulders. He was heading toward his bathroom for a shower when a knock came to his open bedroom door.
Pausing, he faced Oliver, who looked as grim as every other face he’d seen over the last three days. “Yes?”
“You’re going to want to deal with this, Captain.”
The graveness of Oliver’s tone renewed the painful tautness in Adrian’s spine. “What is it?”
“There are vampires at the gate.”
Seething, Adrian exited onto the deck and flew to the end of the driveway, setting down just in front of the wrought-iron barrier. The guardhouse was empty, his property devoid of lycan presence. His solitary approach was reckless and foolhardy, displaying how little value he placed on his own life at the moment.
A town car with dark window tinting waited out on the main road, its nose already pointed back down the hill. Torque stood on the other side of the gate, along with Raze.
“Where are your dogs, Adrian?” Raze growled. The massive vampire’s lip curled as he surveyed the view from behind dark sunglasses.
“Don’t need them to deal with you.”
Torque rocked back on his heels. “I’ve got a present for you.”
Foreboding spread with icy tendrils across Adrian’s skin, but he affected boredom and said evenly, “Unless it’s Lindsay Gibson, I don’t give a fuck.”
“It is. And she’s dying.”
Adrian’s pulse skipped with life for the first time in days. Torque would not have brought Shadoe here. Only Lindsay—a woman Syre had no real connection to. But still, Adrian had to be sure. “Shadoe?”
Torque shook his head. “She’s gone. And Lindsay won’t feed. Aside from a chunk she tore out of Vash, she hasn’t drunk a drop. Her heartbeat has slowed to the point where I thought she was already dead by the time we got up here.”
Adrian was over the gate and ripping the door off the car before Torque could say more. Lindsay lay across the backseat, her once golden skin now pale as alabaster. He shielded her from the sun with his wings, completely disregarding the easy target he presented with his back to two vampires. She was still as death, her chest barely moving.
“Syre returns her to you in honor of Shadoe,” Torque said quietly. “She carried Shadoe’s soul. We owe her something for that, and you get to collect.”
Reaching in, Adrian shrouded her with the blanket tangled around her limp body and pulled her from the car. He held her close against him, then flew up and over the gate.
“You’re welcome!” Raze yelled after him, but Adrian was already rushing into the house.
He took her to his bedroom and tucked her into the bed, willing the drapes shut to block out the sun. Lindsay was as cold as refrigerated marble, and just as lifeless. He shed their clothes with a thought and crawled in beside her, pulling her close to impart the heat from his body. A violent shiver moved through him as her chilled frame pressed against his.
“Lindsay,” he whispered, burying his lips in her crown. She smelled wonderful, and he breathed her in with a shuddering inhale. Tears wet his face and her hair, the quiet of his room shattered by the serrated noises spilling unchecked from his aching throat.
He pulled back enough to examine her, his shaking hand pushing wayward curls away from her face. Her bloodless lips were slightly parted, revealing the tiniest tip of fang. His heart squeezed in his chest. “Neshama, don’t leave me.”
Adrian pushed his finger into her mouth, slicing the pad with the point of a razor-sharp canine. He slid the bleeding digit deep and stroked it across her tongue. “Feed,” he coaxed. “Feed or you will die, and kill me with you.”
He waited endless moments. When she didn’t move, Adrian withdrew and slit the pad of a second fingertip, pushing both bleeding fingers into the cool recesses of her mouth.
