Page 47 of Wicked Bite
Her heart. I need to get her heart beating. I folded my hands over her chest and started pushing down, forcing her heart to beat. “Beat, just beat. Live! Damn it!”
“She’s gone, Gray.” Sav dropped down on his knees on the other side of her body. “Piper is gone.”
“Don’t say that! She’s here! She’s with me.” I pressed down harder, willing her heart to beat and her blood to move. I called upon the blood magic I never use, the kind that controlled things it wasn’t supposed to. LIVE, LIVE, LIVE! I forced everything I had into her ever-cooling body.
He shook his head and placed his hand over mine. “No, she’s not here anymore.”
I pumped her heart more and looked down at her beautiful face. I couldn’t give up and just leave her here. She was everything. “She has to be good. Do you hear me! Stay, Piper, stay.”
Sav grabbed my hands harder, forcing me to stop. “It’s too far gone. There’s nothing more you can do. Newborns don’t survive this amount of devastation.”
He wasn’t wrong. I knew he wasn’t. The transition was hard even for those who were healthy. But I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe that no one would see her fiery eyes and playful smile.
“She was waiting for me . . .” My throat tightened “And I wasn’t here for her.”
“Death comes for us all.” He met my eye. “And it has for her on this night.”
How? How could he be so calm when the most magnificent thing in the world had left it so suddenly? I can’t just let this light leave. I reached up, checking between her lips for my own blood. I sucked in a sharp breath. It was gone. There was a chance. She might come back, if only as a newly made vampire. My hands shook as I pulled her broken little body back into my arms.
“She drank it.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Good girl, you can do this.”
“Gray, it’s too far gone. She will not rise.” Sav’s shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t know that!” All my anger roared at him.
I would have Piper back. This wasn’t the end of the story. I refused to believe that it was. She was so strong, so fierce, nothing could stop my Little Creature. I’d seen others come back and she would, too. I had to believe that. I just had to. If I didn’t believe it, I might break and fall into a madness that would rival the curse.
“And when she doesn’t rise in twenty-four hours?” He motioned to her lying so still in my arms.
I ground my teeth together. “She will. Now, either help me, or you can fuck right off.”
Sav sighed then rose to his feet looking down on me. “Fine. Where do you want to bury her?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GRAYSON
“Are you sure you want to do it here?” Sav dug his hands into the ground, pulling up chunks of frozen earth and tossing them into a pile on the side.
No, of course, I didn’t want to do this. But I was out of time and options. I had to save her. I needed to believe that my blood was in her veins, and she would come back. I held Piper in my arms rocking her and praying to whatever deity would listen. Tears leaked from my eyes and my throat had gone raw.
“Just keep digging.”
He didn’t look up at me just slammed his hands deeper into the ground. “I bloody well know how deep it needs to be.”
“Then keep going.” I’d picked this place intentionally. There were trees for cover, and it wasn’t as visited as the other more famous cemeteries in Salem. I could stay, I could watch, I could wait for her. I had to wait for her. A large brick building with a rounded old bell tower stood beside it and would cast a shadow over a freshly dug grave. I swallowed around the word grave. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and it was my fault. Piper wouldn’t be cold and dead in my arms if I had been the man she’d hoped I would be.
“I should’ve been there.”
If it wasn’t for the bloody curse, I would’ve been tucked into bed next to her keeping her warm. I was meant to be there, not running away from the purest thing in my life.
“Fate claims what it must.”
Sav kept digging, using his vampire strength to get to the right depth. Dirt covered him from head to toe, but I didn’t care. I needed Piper to come back to me. There was no other option. Because a world without Piper wasn’t a world worth having. I looked down at her and my heart ripped from my chest. She was too pale, her lips too blue, her wild hair too still. My body shook around hers, and all I could do was hold her and protect her in death. I didn’t want the cold to touch her. I should’ve been there for her. I could’ve stopped the car with one hand. But my delicate Little Creature wasn’t made that way. But she should be. Damn it, she would be.
“Dig faster.”
Sav paused and swiped his hand over his forehead. His chest heaved with deep breaths that fogged the cold air. He was soaked through with the sleet, yet he didn’t care. He shoved his hair out of his face and threw his head back. “We’re there.”
