Page 61 of Undying
“What the hell happened?” Stanton demands again, his hands on his hip, not venturing into the room. His accent makes him sound harsh, like a schoolteacher taking his students to task, and I don’t know if I’m annoyed at the tone or slightly turned on by it.
I scrunch up my face as I think over what happened. “I…uh…think that I just startled Tobias?”
Tobias growls, his arms tightening around me like a boa constrictor. He lifts his head, his beard brushing along my jaw, his body practically vibrating beneath mine as he struggles against his need to shift. When he speaks, his voice is nothing but a growl. “She was standing in the sun.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t stop running my hands over his skin. “You’re being a little overdramatic, don’t you think? I’m new to this vampire thing, and I needed to know how dangerous the sunlight is to me now. There are rumors on the streets that some vampires can walk through daylight, and I needed to know how much I could withstand so I’m not taken by surprise.”
It’s all very logical, if you ask me.
But when I look at the rest of the men, they only stare at me in horror.
“What?” I reach up and touch my face, wondering, with my ability to withstand pain, if I somehow misjudged the intensity of the sunlight and melted my face off or something. Smooth skin meets my fingertips, and I scowl at the men. “Didn’t anyone teach you that staring is rude?”
* * *
STANTON
Holy motherfucking hell!
I’m so horrified she would even attempt to step into the sun that I’m fucking paralyzed, unable to fucking move for a full second as I try to get my brain to process the fact that she’s still alive.
My eyes skim over every inch of her still visible under Tobias’ hold, then I sag in relief when I don’t see a single mark on her.
Tobias got to her in time.
I’m fucking pissed that no one thought to warn her about the dangers, more so at myself than anyone else, and curse myself for being an idiot. Who would’ve told her? Her maker? The rest of her clan?
A muscle ticks in my jaw, and I march forward, stopping just outside of the rays of light. “Watch.” I infuse a command in my tone, though I’m not sure how well it will work on her.
I slowly sink my hand into the light, then grit my teeth as pain sears along my skin like I dipped it in a deep vat of hot grease. Most humans think we don’t feel pain, but the opposite is true—we feel everything almost too deeply. It’s just what hurts humans aren’t necessarily the same things that hurt vampires.
The sun sears across the back of my hand. In less than ten minutes, my skin turns red, nothing more than a nasty sunburn. Another fifteen minutes, and my skin actually sizzles and starts to bubble. Jolie gasps, reaching forward to yank me out of the sun, but Tobias holds her fast.
Forty minutes into the experiment, flames lick across my skin, and I yank my hand out of the sun. I shake my hand, extinguishing the flames quickly, but my hand looks like raw, seared meat. Jolie struggles against Tobias in earnest, elbowing him in the face hard enough that his hold loosens, and she wiggles free.
In seconds, she’s standing before me, gripping my wrists tightly in her hand. “What a stupid, idiotic—”
“Never go into the sun.” I ignore the sting of pain and grab her chin, lifting her face up to mine to make sure she hears me. “I’m old. I can last maybe an hour in the sun with protection. Even standing in the shadows can burn someone as young as you.”
I shake off her hold, then evade her touch when she reaches for me again, ignoring the way my insides leap in excitement at her concern. I grab her shoulders, then shake her hard. “Say that you understand.”
She glares up at me in defiance, her beauty brilliant as the sunlight streaming from the window haloes her body. I swallow hard at how close I came to losing her. I never created my own progeny for a reason, not wanting to be responsible for their lives. They’re nothing like human children. Fledgling vampires are mindless killing machines when first turned, their only concern for their next meal.
It takes years of practice for them to learn restraint. Some become so twisted and lost to bloodlust that they have to be put down.
Jolie is like no other.
It made me careless with her safety.
I won’t make that mistake again.
Jolie is slow to reply, a slight tremble to her voice before she steadies it. “The sun always kills?”
My shoulders relax slightly that she’s finally understanding the seriousness of the situation. At how close she came to dying. “Always. It can take as little as a few seconds to an hour or two for vampires to turn to ash, depending on their age and protection.”
“I don’t understand.” Jolie takes a step away from me, her dark eyes troubled.
I cross my arms and scowl down at her. “What don’t you understand?”
