Page 74 of Firedrake Betrayal
ISAIAH
My hunger is growing.
Feeding on Patten barely sated me. It also re-awakened a hunger for fresh, not microwave warmed bagged blood.
Hot, straight from the vein, pulsing with life, and…
Stop, I warn myself as my mouth waters and my fangs drop.You will lose control, and it was hard enough to stop feeding on Patten.
I can’t risk doing it again. Even if it wasn’t enough to fully satisfy me. I don’t trust myself to drink more.
It takes a minute, but my fangs return to their sheaths, and I refocus on the present.
It’s late evening, nearly 6 p.m., and Jade is sitting with Shep at the dining table, looking over a map of Wilkerson’s mountains. She came downstairs with Patten an hour ago. Both had a lazy, satisfied look about them. It was clear what they’d been up to.
To me and to Dominik, who has had a dark look stamped on his face ever since. Surprisingly, he hasn’t set Patten on fire.
Yet.
It took me a while to wonder why that was. Jade wants nothing to do with Dominik. She couldn’t have been any clearer if she tried. After what she did to Almeth with her new emerging power, there’s every chance she’d use that new power on Dominik.
I wonder if he knows it.
Dominik is standing beside the couch, hands stuffed in his pockets, bright green eyes fixed on Jade. She must feel his attention, but seems determined to ignore him.
My gaze moves on.
Patten must have noticed Jade is ignoring Dominik for him to be smirking as he chomps through a bag of chips.
Outside, the sky is darker, and we’re no closer to finding and killing the collector. The longer we don’t find him, the more chance we give him to come after us.
Conscious I’m being observed, I turn from the backyard window, toward the kitchen.
Patten is studying me, still loudly chomping.
When he says nothing, I lift my brow. “Problem?”
“Not yet,” he responds mysteriously as he seals the chip bag and stuffs it back in the open cupboard beside him.
I refocus on the window, no longer distracted by thoughts of Amelie, but about this collector and where he might be hiding. “Could he have a secret bunker?”
“Maybe,” Shep says. “But finding it is going to be harder if that’s the case. The only way we’ll know is if we go into those mountains and there’s no telling what’s waiting for us out there. He’d see us coming from a mile away.”
We all fall silent.
The obvious thing would be to pile into the car and drive out there. Deal with this thing here and now.
I’m not the only one who is trying not to look at Jade.
The collector grabbed her, and he would grab her again. None of us wants to go into that mountain, and none of us wants to leave an enemy at our back.
As I think of a way we can get to the collector without Jade winding up in one of his cells, my mind inevitably returns to my hunger.
Patten suddenly grips my arm, startling me more than it should have. My eyes narrow with suspicion. “What are you doing?”
Patten pulls me toward the front door. “Need a drink. You’re coming with me.”
Shep whips his head our way, frowning as he rises. “That is not?—”
