Page 55 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

"Jesus, I can't believe I have to do this," the man gritted out, and then a sharp pang pinched behind her neck making her squeal, and her vision went black and her body slumped in his grasp.

19

What the hell is the matter with her? Kane thought not for the first time.

First, she plummeted in after him, acting foolish, only for him to have to turn around and feel recalcitrant that she wasn't simply meandering after him for a silly story, but had genuinely been in danger and shoved to her doom.

Now, she was acting like an escapee from an insane asylum and didn't even recognize him.

"Is she going to be okay, mate?" Graham asked, his face contorted with regret. "Something is the matter with this one if this is how she acts after a few sups."

"Nothing is the matter with her," he gritted out in her defense. "Something else happened. Something in that brew."

"I drank a lot more than she did, mate, and I'm seeing everyone straight. Maybe she has some past trauma, light weight and all thought, brought it to the surface and all that?"

No, it wasn't that. It was something deeper. He saw it in the way her eyes had rolled back inside her skull, and them a split moment later she'd bolted from her chair looking around like they were all strangers and she hadn't known him for years. This was a paranoid delusion.

"Let's go, the townsfolk are speaking about us," Alexis whispered from nearby. She was busy mind-probing the masses who had witnessed the deadly interaction.

Kane cradled Tabitha close and made his way out of town to where Seth had secured a creature from the stables to ride. Seth had gifted a book he'd carried in exchange for two of the animals. He'd take one with Tabitha in his lap, and Graham would ride the other. The vampires, being the speediest of them all, would race on foot, although even they looked ragged from lack of blood.

"Want to ride with me, dearest Alexis?" Graham patted the camel-like creature's neck and it mewled in response. "Plenty of room for ye."

"Nay" she said with a glower, once again mocking his Scottish brogue.

He sighed. "One day you'll miss my flirting." Graham shrugged negligently.

"I'd like to see that," she clipped.

Ignoring their bickering, Kane knew something very wrong with Tabitha, he just didn't know what.

"You have any rope?" Kane asked Graham.

The werewolf nodded and handed him a thick tawny length from his satchel.

"Never leave home without it," Graham said with a chuckle.

The rope was far too long and better made for scaling mountains than what he wanted it for, so he pulled out his knife and cut a yard off it before handing the rest back to Graham. He snugly tied the rope around Tabitha's waist to keep her from falling off their ride and attached the other end around his own belt loops.

Maybe she couldn't handle liquor, he wondered. He hoped that's all this was.

"Let's go," Kane announced. "The castle is our next stop, and then we're out of this hellhole."

Alexis and Seth sprinted off in front of them, their feet kicking up sand as went. Meanwhile, Graham and Kane kept up at a decent trod, moving far quicker than they had previously on foot.

Kane kept watch over Tabitha. His arm was slung across her waist and her sweet-smelling head lolling against him. His cheeks burned from where she'd scratched him like a spitting-mad cat. Something had happened in that mere moment her eyes had rolled back in the tavern after taking a hefty swallow. Something strange and unordinary, and he planned to find out what it was, and why she was acting as though she didn't know him.

20

"Get me out of here!" Tabitha wailed.

"Tabitha, calm down, sweetheart," Kane said. "Do you know who I am? Do you recognize me at all, honey?"

"Somebody help me! I must get out of here! You're all going to die!"

"She's damn loony, mate," Graham said. "There's no speaking to her like this."

"Surely the alcohol has worn off by now," Alexis said. "I'm sensing something otherworldly and vitriolic surrounding her, as if she's seen something horrifying and the spirit or entity hasn't left her."

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