Page 36 of Love Lives
"I'm fine." I held my hands up because Elle was starting to look concerned again. Apparently though, that wasn't because of me.
"If Vlad's changed sides, we can't fight him. We'd never win."
"True," Puck immediately conceded.
"Maybe we won't have to fight," I said. "If we tell him who he really is, maybe he'll listen. Maybe he'll remember that he wanted the prophecy to be fulfilled. If he's holding on to that stone now, Dad must be right. We do have to talk to Death." A shudder went through me as I said that. I'd never be comfortable with the idea of talking to the God of Death.
I'd do it, though, if that was what I had to do to keep my family safe. To keep the visions I'd seen from coming true.
"It would be a colossally stupid idea to march into a vampire base to chat," Puck pointed out.
I wanted to say something, but my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door flying open.
"Someone get me some blood!" That was Talon's voice.
Dread pooling in my stomach, I jumped from the couch, and raced out into the hallway to see what was going on. The first image that burned itself into my retinas was that of blood. Talon was carrying an ocelot in his arms. A very bloody ocelot. His fur was dyed red with it.
I froze, staring, while my sister sprinted past me and into the kitchen to actually be useful.
"He'll be fine," Talon said, catching my gaze. "Not the first time."
Fine? My eyes stuck to the wounded animal. He didn't look like he was going to be fine. He looked... Oh God, he looked... I squeezed my eyes shut as my mind flashed back to a vision I'd seen in a dream. Back at the hospital. I'd been so drugged up I'd almost forgotten about it, but now it was all coming back to me. Aldrich dying in my dream with blood all over his clothes, his face...
Clasping a hand to my mouth, I turned and ran for the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time to evacuate the contents of my stomach into it.
Christ, I needed to pull myself together. Aldrich wasn't dying. This wasn't my vision coming true. It might not even have been a vision. For all I knew, it was just a fever-induced nightmare.
I wiped my mouth and rinsed it out with water from the tap before stepping out of the bathroom again. Talon had laid Aldrich down. He wasn't in ocelot-form anymore, and he was drinking blood. From a bottle my sister had brought him while I'd been frozen.
Way to go, Remy, I congratulated myself.
Aldrich had taken care of me for weeks, and this was how I repaid him. Suppressing a sigh at my own incompetence, I approached the wounded vampire. Already, the gap in his throat had closed up enough for him to keep the blood he was drinking inside. Most of it, anyway.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He got careless," Talon said, earning himself a glare from his partner. Talon only smiled at Aldrich, though. "I like you when you can't speak. You know it's absolutely true. You could have gotten yourself killed there. Not the first time either. Yes, I do need to mention that again."
Aldrich rolled his eyes.
"Who attacked you?" I asked.
"A vampire from our old coven," Talon explained. "A lot of them hate us for being traitors."
Aldrich set the bottle down and licked his lips as if testing the functionality of his mouth. "They're cooperating with incubi," he managed to say then.
"Incubi? Those are real?"
"That surprises you?"
"Not as much as if you'd told me that Santa was real," I admitted.
"Unsure about that one." Aldrich wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His wound was nearly healed now. "If I ever see a fat man flying through the sky on a sled, I'll be sure to let you know, though."
"Thanks, I guess." My gaze traveled over him once more, from head to toe. "You're really going to be fine?"
"Vamps are tough." He gave a half-shrug, though not without wincing.
I knew that vamps were tough. I also knew that they weren't nearly as immortal as they liked to claim, though. They could be killed.
