Page 67 of Claim the Twilight
I lifted my gaze to hers, and her eyes flared. “Fuck. You’re a?—”
“Vampire now, and Ezekiel is the vampire king.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Did he turn you? Did he force?—”
“No! He saved my life. It’s a long story. Not for now.” I looked back toward the bedroom.
She exhaled sharply. “Fine. So we’re good? This Loviator chick didn’t get your guy.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook my head. “She didn’t get this one, but she got Hemlock.”
“Why? What does she want with one guy when there are a bunch of supes in the south wing for her to feed off?” Nyx asked.
The answer was something we should have considered sooner. Something that was now so obvious I wanted to kick myself.
“Hemlock’s power is the only sure way to stopping Loviator, and clearly she knows that, and now…now we’re royally fucked.”
Once Loviator hadwhat she wanted, her beasts vanished. We moved Ezekiel to one of the first floor sitting rooms, and while we waited for him to regain consciousness, Lorenzo and Ordell did their best to fill Nyx, her companion Sin, and the Faoladh inon the situation in Dracul. Kaster had already briefed them on the breaches.
I listened without hearing anything, words buried beneath the buzz in my head.
Hemlock was gone.
Loviator had him.
I needed him back.
“It will be all right.” Ordell put his arm around me. “We’ll get him back.”
“She could be hurting him.” I touched my mouth because I couldn’t feel my lips. I needed to pull it together. “How? How can we get him back?” I looked up at him, needing an anchor in this fresh storm that raged inside me.
His eyes dimmed. “I…I don’t know. Yet. But we will figure it out.”
“You said that this Hemlock person was a key to stopping her?” Sin said. “You didn’t explain how.”
All the talking and speculation. We were wasting time when we should have been taking action. But what action could we take? Voices droned around me, a backdrop to my tumultuous thoughts. My lungs shrank, pressure building beneath my skin.
I pushed away from Ordell and hurried for the door.
I needed air.
I needed Hemlock back.
The corridors blurred as I ran, and then the world slowed, passing by me in a leisurely fashion even though I knew I was moving too fast for that to be happening. I didn’t understand the science of this. Didn’t care. I wanted only to escape the pain that was choking me.
When I stopped outside in the courtyard, speckled and smeared with black gloop, I took a deep breath and screamed.
Arms wrapped around my waist, the familiar scent of evergreen filling my senses, urging me to calm. To breathe.
“I’ve got you,” Ordell said, his lips against the top of my head. “I’ve got you, and I swear to you that I’ll do whatever it takes to get Hemlock back. She can’t kill him. It would release the power he keeps locked up.”
“But she can hurt him.”
“Hemlock is no stranger to pain, Orina. You know that.”
I closed my eyes, releasing the hot tears that had gathered there. “I love him, Ordell. I love him so fucking much.”
“I know.”
