Page 46 of Until Forever Comes
“What?” Ted was halfway out the door, but he stopped and looked back at us when he heard Ralph’s accusation.
Ralph darted his gaze all over my body and furrowed his brow. “I thought we couldn’t do that. You’re a shifter.” He tipped his head forward and sniffed a few times. “Yeah, I can smell it. You’re carrying Miguel’s scent, but there’s that rotten shifter scent there too. So how is it that he can feed from you?”
Like the other questions the vampire had thrown my way, I didn’t reckon that one required a response. Besides, I didn’t have one, or at least not one he’d have been able to understand. I somehow doubted we had enough time before the imminently scheduled killing to discuss true mates and the fact that I wasn’t so much carrying Miguel’s scent as it was now braided with mine.
“It’s all a lie, isn’t it?” he said excitedly, sounding like he’d solved some great mystery. “I bet shifters aren’t poisonous at all. He made it all up to keep the rest of us on human blood so he could have the shifter blood to himself, didn’t he?”
Honestly, there was a tree stump in a Louisiana swamp with a higher IQ.
“Why would Miguel do that, Ralph?” Ted snapped. “Listen to yourself! You’re not making any sense.”
Ted was right. Ralph wasn’t making sense. I mean, sure Miguel had told me he’d felt stronger, warmer, better after drinking from me, but that was because we were true mates. I knew it. And, besides, I’d heard many a tale of pack members who’d been in fights with vampires and gotten out alive only because the vampires ingested their blood and died. The idea that one lone vampire could perpetuate a lie that big and get away with it only made sense in Ralph’s miniature world of logic.
Unfortunately for Ralph, and fortunately for me, Ted’s accusation seemed to inflame Ralph further rather than calm him down.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “I’ll prove it to you.” He jumped forward and pinned me to the wall. I tried to wiggle free, but he shoved his knee into my groin and clasped my hands in his. “Quit moving!” he shouted as he tried to wedge my head back and get at my throat.
“What are you doing?” Ted asked. “Are you… you’re not going to feed from him, are you?” Ralph couldn’t answer because he was too busy wrestling with me. “You know what?” Ted finally said in frustration. “Go ahead.” He let go of Pedro’s still unconscious body, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at us.
I was surprised enough by that permission to snap my focus to Ted, which moved my attention away from Ralph for just a second. That was all he needed to strike. He rushed forward and clamped his jaw on my neck, breaking the skin with his fangs and releasing a current of blood into his mouth.
That felt nothing like Miguel’s bite. It made my skin crawl and it hurt like all get-out. I was ready to kick and claw my way out of that mess, but then Ralph pulled his head back and looked at me wide-eyed before he started convulsing madly. He collapsed to the floor within seconds, shaking and wetting himself, and then he let out a final, pained wail and went limp.
I pressed my hand up against my bleeding neck and applied pressure, trying to speed up my already fast clotting process. A few seconds ticked by and Ralph didn’t move so much as an inch, so I reached my foot out and poked his body. He didn’t budge, just lay there in his own filth. Well, his own and that of the other two vampires who’d bled all over the floor. Dirt on the mattress or no, I wasn’t sleeping in that room ever again.
“Well, there you have it,” Ted said. I tore my gaze over to him. “Seems he proved a point after all.” He shook his head. “Some people really are too stupid to live.”
We stood in silence for a few minutes, both of us looking at Ralph’s body. Then Ted sighed, heaved Pedro back into his arms, and continued dragging him out of the room, and I moved my hand from my no-longer-bleeding neck.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “That’d be great. He’s heavy as hell, and after carrying Anthony out of here, I’m worn out.”
Ted had his arms curled under Pedro’s armpits and he was supporting Pedro’s back on his chest. I stepped between the vampire’s legs, squatted down, and put his knees over my elbows before standing back up.
“You got him?” Ted asked.
I nodded and we slowly made our way out of the room.
“Where are we taking him?” I asked.
“Uh, so far my plan was just to get as far away as possible from Miguel’s sleeping quarters so he doesn’t finish what he started with these two when he comes back.”
I growled deep in my chest and bared my teeth at the vampire. “Miguel didn’t start nothing!” I barked. “He was defending himself.”
Ted jerked his head up and looked taken aback by my reaction. Fair enough. I supposed I hadn’t been all that angry about Ralph’s shenanigans, but then again, he hadn’t been insulting my mate. To his credit, though, Ted recovered quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a poor choice of words. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that they attacked him and got away. That’s not the kind of thing Miguel is going to let pass easily, and finding them in his space is just going to make it worse.”
I grunted as an acceptance of his apology, and we kept walking until we reached the stairs. Anthony was sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall next to the staircase and dragging what looked to be painful breaths into his lungs. We propped Pedro up next to him.
“Are they going to be okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ted said. “I did the best I could for them, but I’m not a healer.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing I’m here,” a female voice said from the top of the staircase.
Ted and I both jerked our heads up. “Katherine?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Get out of my way, Katie, or you’re going to need a healer yourself.” Oh, Lord, Miguel. The sound of my mate’s voice made my knees go weak. His rapid footsteps sounded on the steps. “Ethan!” he shouted. “Ethan!”
