Death Wish (13 page)

Throwing myself through the kitchen into the front room, I reached the door in time to find it engulfed in flames. They’d covered the entire perimeter. Coby and I were trapped inside.

“Coby!” I screamed his name as I ran down a floor to the living room to check the north facing windows, finding a haze of orange.

I snatched Arys’s journal from where it had fallen and shoved it into my bag with my phone and car keys. If I wanted to make it out, that would be all I could take with me.

Again, I screamed for Coby. I was frantically searching for a way out. It didn’t take long for the fire to find its way inside. Smoke filled my lungs and burned my eyes as the shriek of the smoke detectors assaulted my ears.

I slung the strap of my bag across my chest and ran for the upper floor. I crashed into Coby on his way down. He reached out to steady me on the stairs as I lost my balance.

“We have to get out.” I coughed as the smoke rolled in thicker. My eyes burned and watered, blurring my vision.

Flames crawled through the kitchen toward us, trapping us near the front door, which was already a mass of crackling fire. There was nowhere to go but up.

Without a word, Coby pulled me along behind him, back up the stairs to the master bedroom. He slammed the door shut behind us while I ran to open the window. I gulped the burst of outside air into my burning lungs. Before long, the fire would reach us; it was moving fast.

A cold spark deep in my core informed me that Arys was near. I would have wept with relief, but we still had a fire to escape. Coby joined me at the window, surveying our only option.

“We have to jump,” he declared. “And, we have to do it before that reaches us.”

I followed his gaze to the wall of flames eating their way through the main floor of the house and climbing toward us fast. The heat was already scorching us where we stood. We were high enough for the fall to be risky, but we didn’t have another alternative.

I felt Arys’s touch on my mind. His worry was as strong as his rage. I had no time to engage with him.

Not if I wanted to live.

Briefly, I considered the shift to wolf. We’d be stronger that way, but Coby was too new. I couldn’t know how he would act as a wolf. Besides, the neighbors would have called 911 by now. We would have to jump, now. 

“You first.” Coby’s hand was firm on my back, urging me to go for it.

I hesitated for just a moment. Casting one last look back around the bedroom, where I’d spent so many nights back when the wolf was new, I saw Raoul’s house for the last time. It had never really felt like mine. Why should it now?

It was the home of many memories, both good and bad. Friendships had formed inside that house. Hearts had broken. Hell, I lost my virginity in the office downstairs. But, I had no time for nostalgia. My time in Raoul’s house was finally done.

I took one last look into Coby’s hazel eyes, wild with panic. He was new. He didn’t belong here. For some reason, that made it easier to let go. I climbed up into the window frame, steadied myself the best I could, and jumped.

For that one heart stopping second I was airborne, all I felt was relief. Relief that my entanglement with Raoul was over. The house and everything it represented had reached its final end.

However, pain quickly followed as I hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. I followed the momentum and rolled away from the house.

Coby was right behind me; an anguished cry escaped him as he landed. I took a moment to clear my head and assess my injuries. I seemed to be ok other than my aching lungs and a twisted ankle.

I was barely on my feet when Arys materialized from the darkness beyond the glow of the flames.

 Blood spatters decorated his pale face. His eyes were pure wolf. He ran his hands over me, searching for wounds I didn’t have. The fire was reflected in his eyes, flickering amid the terror in those icy blue depths.

“Are you alright? Did he hurt you?” Arys’s voice was rough, laced with the growl of the wolf.

“Who?” I gasped, turning to check on Coby who stood stiffly, pain contorting his features. “Who did this?”

“Vampire.” Arys confirmed. “I tangled with him out front, but the neighbors came out. I had to let him go.”

Sirens shrieked in the distance. They would arrive in time to contain the fire to my property. They may even save the garage where Raoul’s Jaguar was housed. However, they could do nothing to save his home.

With shaky hands, I pulled my keys from my purse. “Please, get my car out of here before it’s ruined. Go before the cops get here.”

Arys’s gaze flicked from me to Coby. I couldn’t answer his unspoken question. Not yet. So, I shook my head and pressed the keys into his hand.

“I can’t leave you.” He shook his head, his face masked with stubborn refusal.

“It will be sunrise soon. You don’t have a choice.” I kissed him quickly and then shoved him away. “Go.”

He slipped away as stealthily as he’d appeared.

The heat from the fire was unbearable. I caught Coby’s hand in my own and led him away from the house. We staggered onto the front street in time to see the back end of my car disappear. Seconds later, two fire engines raced around the corner to battle the flames that ended one of my nightmares while birthing another.

Coby pulled his hand from mine but stayed close. He looked at me with eyes that were all wolf.
Shit.

“You’ve got to hold it together,” I said, keenly aware of the neighborhood watching us. “Force the wolf back down. You have to.”

His energy was explosive, alive with fear and pain. “I don’t know how.”

I couldn’t do a damn thing to help calm him; I was a wreck myself. “Try. You can’t let them see you like this.”

The fire engines stopped in front of the house. They were quickly joined by an ambulance and two police cars. A fireman shouted at us, asking if anyone else was inside. I shook my head no. No one was inside except the memory of the girl I used to be.

Paramedics added to the commotion. They headed toward us with shouted questions that I couldn’t process.

All I could think about was the parts of me that would go down in ashes with that house.

The large framed photo of Shaz and me that Kylarai had given me for my birthday was gone. Along with it were my laptop and the cross necklace I’d received from Kale.

The laptop was of little concern. I was no idiot. The files I’d swiped from Veryl had been on the hard drive, but they were also safely stored online just in case of a disaster like this.

The loss of Kale’s cross cut the deepest. It was old – old enough to have belonged to his mother. I should never have had it.

As the paramedics drew near, I glanced frantically at Coby. He stared back at me with human eyes. I was grateful for that small blessing.

The sudden commotion made my head spin. People were on us with questions and first aid gear before I could utter a word. It took a few tries for me to explain clearly that we were fine, just a little banged up. I did all I could to stall when three paramedics ushered us toward a waiting ambulance.

“We’re fine, really. We don’t need to go to the hospital.” I tried, but I knew they weren’t buying it.

A female medic with a gentle smile but serious eyes gripped my arm. “We have to take you in. Just to be safe. If you’re fine, you’ll be released right away. Your friend is looking pretty rough.”

I cursed Falon beneath my breath. It was his fault Coby looked so battered and bruised.  At least these people thought all of that came from the fall out of the bedroom window.

Two men waited to assist us along at her command. I had no choice but to go along with this hospital song and dance. The sooner we went, the sooner it would be over.

“Fine,” I relented. “Let’s get this over with. I have shit to do.”

I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the burning house as the ambulance took us from the scene. The flames had reached the top floor. They reached for the sky, hungrily devouring the dwelling.

I did my best to ignore the paramedics as they tended to us. I waved away an oxygen mask as it was thrust at me. I was sore from the fall, sad from the loss of my house and more than a little pissed off.

Three attempts on my life in just a few days. Three failed attempts. I had to find the source of this insanity and make them sorry they’d ever heard my name.

Coby received more attention than I did. He allowed them to tend to his wounds and fit him with an oxygen mask. I wanted to be left alone. I managed to get close enough to Coby to whisper the warning, “Don’t let them take your blood.”

We were fine. Our bodies were already healing whatever injuries we’d sustained. Even Coby’s shiner would be gone in a matter of hours.

The sooner we could bail out of the hospital, the better.

Yet after the ambulance ride, we sat in the ER for two hours waiting for more than a passing nurse to ask how we were. There were several other people waiting, most of them in worse shape than we were. I clutched my bag, finding comfort in the few meager possessions I had inside.

Arys’s touch on my mind was gentle, tentative. I could feel the worry he tried not to convey. I needed to be with him. The safety I felt only in his arms was the only thing that would get me through this nightmare.

“Let’s go,” I said after another thirty minutes had passed. “We’re not close enough to death to be a priority. I doubt they’ll even notice we’re gone.”

Coby said nothing, just nodded, ready to follow my lead. I headed for the door and never looked back. I had a vampire to kill. If one of us had to die, them or me, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.

Chapter Ten

I stepped outside, squinting against the sunlight and reached for my phone to call a cab. A flash of platinum hair caught my eye from across the parking lot. Shaz was moving fast, slipping between vehicles at a near run. For the first time since the fire started, I wanted to cry.

His jade eyes burned with worry. I fell into his arms, and he lifted me off my feet, hugging me close. He rubbed his cheek along mine, a gesture filled with affection. A few hot tears rolled down my face.

“Are you ok, Lex?” He spoke softly. “No, of course you’re not. I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe it’s gone.”

“Did you see it?” I buried my face in his neck, breathing deeply of his scent. God how I’d missed this, just being with him without feeling the wall that had been built between us.

“Yeah, I saw it. It’s just rubble. Only the basement is left. They were still hosing it down when I drove by.”

His scent was soothing, calming the wolf inside. His presence meant the world to me. But, I never would have expected any less from him.

Eventually I had to pull back enough to gesture to Coby and make the necessary introductions. After what had just occurred, the news that I had turned Coby in a fit of bloodlust really didn’t sound so shocking. Shaz took it in stride like he did everything else. Offering a friendly hand to our new wolf, he played the Alpha role to perfection, even going so far as to invite Coby to stay at his place.

It went without saying that I would stay with Arys. It was the safest place for me to be. Having Coby with me was an unfair risk to him. He would be better off with Shaz.

By the time we got to Arys’s house, I was in dire need of a shower and sleep. I left Shaz to handle introducing Coby to Arys and headed for the bathroom. Through the living room and down the hall, their voices followed me as I went. Arys didn’t sound nearly surprised enough to learn that I’d turned Coby.

I closed the bathroom door on their conversation and peeled off my soot-stained clothing. The heavy scent of smoke clung to my hair and skin. My face was smudged with soot. A brief glimpse in the mirror revealed heavy circles beneath my eyes. I looked pretty rough, and I wasn’t feeling so hot either.

Arys’s bathroom became a sanctuary. The oversized tub with jets was perfect for two. He had a bigger selection of shampoo and conditioner than any woman I’d ever known. I turned on the water and stepped into the hot shower spray with a sigh. The tears burst forth, rolling down my face to mix with the water that cascaded over me. I let them come. Alone, I had no need to put up a front. I was hurting. And, where the hurt ended, the craving for vengeance began.

After scrubbing myself clean, I stood there with the water as hot as I could stand it. I must have been in there for a long time because the door opened and Shaz slipped inside.

“Lex? Are you ok in here? You’ve been in here for almost an hour.”

The hot water was beginning to cool anyway so I turned it off and stepped out to find Shaz holding a large fluffy towel. He wrapped it around me before pulling me tight against him. I would have sobbed if I hadn’t just cried myself out. Instead, I closed my eyes and drank in the comforting sensation of being in his arms.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I whispered, my throat raw and sore.

He smoothed a hand over my wet, tangled hair. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t there with you when it happened.”

For a long time, we just stood there holding one another. Shaz pulled back before I was ready to let go. He grabbed a hairbrush off the counter and began to pull it gently through my tangled mess of hair.