Page 62 of Secret of the Vampire
I moaned as it filled me, healed me, made me feel like the strongest man alive.
All except my head.
“Keep drinking,” she whispered.
“Kenya,” the first woman I’d heard spoke again. “He’s taking too much.”
“It’s fine,” she told her, but her voice sounded weak. Thready. “He can take whatever he needs.”
Was I drinking too much? I tried to slow down, to take it easy, but it was like a heroin addict trying to stop pushing the plunger after only getting a drop. Like an alcoholic trying to put down the bottle after only having one shot.
Gradually, I realized the lights in my head had dimmed, the pain in my body little more than a dull throb.
The hands that were holding my head lifted away.
“Grace? Here, let me help you, love.” The British voice again.
“Alex?”
I blinked my eyes open to find Kenya’s lovely face above me, her hair blocking the dark sky behind her and her wrist still pressed to my mouth. A tear fell, hitting me on the forehead.
“You need to stop drinking, Alex,” the first female voice said. I shifted my eyes slightly to the right to see a pretty woman with pale skin and dark hair. “I know she tastes great and all that, but you’re taking too much.”
Immediately, I released her arm from my grip. I didn’t even realize I was still holding it.
She lifted her wrist to her mouth, licking the wound closed. Now that I could see her clearly, she did look a bit woozy.
I sat up so fast she didn’t have time to get out of the way, taking her in my arms. “Take some of it back,” I demanded.
But she just shook her head, her soft curls brushing my face. “I’m okay. You need it more than I do right now.” Then she wiggled her arms out from between our bodies and wrapped them around my neck, squeezing tight as a deep sob shook her. “I thought I’d lost you,” she told me. “I thought he’d killed you.”
I held her tight and let her cry. Over her shoulder, I eyed up the crowd that stood around us, including the creature with the glowing yellow eyes.
As I watched, it pushed the hood back off its head, and I saw that it was not a creature at all, but a man. He gave me a nod when he saw me staring at him.
I turned my face into Kenya’s neck. “Who are all these people?” I asked her.
“I have no idea,” she told me. “But they saved you.”
Chapter 24
Kenya
Killian shook hands with Luukas, the master vampire from Seattle, Washington. Apparently, while Alex and I were trapped at the swamp house, he had called Killian and gotten permission to bring his vampires and their mates into our territory. Once here, the scary one in the black robe—the warlock—had asked that he call the witch coven and invite them to The Purple Fang. Killian had closed the club, and once everyone was there and introduced, the warlock had explained why they’d all made the trip.
The witches had been especially thrilled to find out they had more family just a short plane ride away.
Imagine their surprise when they found out the djinn was not only here, but that he’d taken me, and Alex had gone missing when he’d tried to find me. It didn’t help that I’d stepped on his phone.
Jamal had filled them all in with anything they didn’t know, and Killian was furious with me for not telling him about Alex’s involvement. But I didn’t care. All I cared about right now was that the djinn was gone, and Alex and I were both alive and safe.
The scary one, Jesse, was furious Marcus had escaped him. That flash of light Shea and I had seen was a spell thrown by the djinn, one Jesse couldn’t track or counter, enabling him to get away. The raven had flown around, covering a good mile radius or more around the swamp house, but when she’d come back, the warlock told us she’d seen nothing. He’d walked away, stroking her feathers and whispering words of assurance that she had done well. I’d never seen such a relationship between a warlock and a bird before.
“You get used to her,” Shea had told me. “Although she does hog a lot of his attention.”
Now we were all gathered in the kitchen of the house and I’d just finished telling Killian what the djinn had told me about myself. Alex sat next to me at the small kitchen table, holding my hand and refusing to leave my side.
Killian stared down at the table. “When I found you as a human, you’d already bled out so much you were on death’s door.”
