Untamed (Vampire Awakenings, Book 3) (26 page)

"How do
I
know that?" she inquired.

"Because I wouldn't be lurking in the shadows
outside your house if I had, I'd be in your bed where I
belong
." He hadn't meant to be
short with her, but the hideous events of the past two nights were
pushing him toward a breaking point he wasn't sure he could
survive. "And they," he thrust his finger at her friends. "Wouldn't
remember any of this. Everything I've done is for
you
, and I will not violate your mind or the mind
of anyone else. Believe whatever else you want about me but
know
that much."

He turned away from her but her tiny hand on
his arm stopped him again. "Thank you," she breathed.

It took everything he had not to seize hold
of her and kiss her, but he forced himself to step away from her.
Getting closer now, when she was still so hesitant about having him
in her life, was a bad idea. "Anything for you Emma."

Her mouth dropped open but she didn't try to
stop him again as he turned away from her. She didn't understand
any of this but his words had left her speechless and her heart
aching even more than it had when she'd first woken up. "What are
we going to do about him?" Isabelle nodded toward the body.

"I don't know," Ethan answered. "Weight him
down and drop him in the sea."

It wasn't a prospect that pleased him, not
even a little bit. The man had injured Emma, he would have taken
her to
Tristan
but he was an
innocent in all of this, one that had probably been corrupted
against his will.

Emma turned toward Stefan and Isabelle. "You
can both come in."

Ethan's head shot up at Emma's words, hope
filled him as she seemed to have decided to give them at least a
little more of her trust. Isabelle and Stefan exchanged a glance
before stepping into her bedroom.

Isabelle gave Emma a small smile before
hurrying to Ethan's side. "You didn't have a choice," she murmured.
"Even if he was under someone else's control, you didn't have a
choice."

He knew she believed her words but this was
something he had always wanted. Guilt was beginning to eat at him
as he stared at the motionless body on the floor. Emma started to
walk toward her friends, without thinking he reached out and
grasped hold of her hand. He needed the connection with her and the
tranquility she brought to the tumultuous seas that ran through
him. He expected her to recoil but her eyes shot to his and her
fingers briefly brushed over his. More of the bloodlust and strain
eased from him as his flesh remained in contact with hers.

"Stay close," he told her.

She bowed her head and pulled her hand away
to wrap it within the sheet. Her eyes were darker due to the
shadows under them, there were lines around her mouth that hadn't
been there yesterday, but she was alive and that was all that
mattered. He watched as she walked over to join her friends, they
enveloped her in a hug and hovered around her.

"He wasn't so innocent." Ethan's attention
was drawn away from Emma by Stefan's words.

"What makes you say that?" Ethan
inquired.

Stefan held up the man's arm to reveal a
trail of faded bite marks from his wrist to his elbow. "There are
enough here to make me think he has been allowing at least some of
the vampires to feed off of him on a daily basis. I don't think he
was under anyone's control, he came here on his own free will as a
way to ingratiate himself further with them."

"Why would he do that?" Emma asked.

"There are some people in this world that
will do anything to be closer to a vampire, who will allow
themselves to be used as food if there is even the slightest hope
that they could one day be made vampire. We call them Feeders,"
Stefan answered.

"Why would anyone allow that?" Jill looked as
if she had just been told to suck on someone's toes as she asked
the question.

"The promise of immortality is extremely
enticing to a lot of people." Stefan dropped the gardener's arm
away in disgust, wiped his hands on his jeans and rose. He pulled
Isabelle away from the man and moved her over toward the bed.

This revelation helped to ease some of his
guilt over killing the man and he found himself no longer disliking
the idea of just tossing his body into the sea. "At least we know
who was leaving you presents during the day," he said. "Though
there could be others." The color faded even further from Emma's
face, her eyes shot to the open French doors and then the hall
behind her. "We will keep all of you safe."

She bowed her head but the anxiety etched
onto her features didn't ease. "We have to get rid of him, now,"
Stefan said stridently.

"The sun has set, Tristan and his friends
will be out again," Isabelle said nervously. "We can't move him
now."

Ethan studied the darkening sky before
turning his attention to Emma. Her eyes were riveted upon the body
beneath the sheet and then she looked at him. "He's going to have
to stay here tonight isn't he?" she asked.

In answer to her question laughter drifted in
from outside and something clattered across the balcony. Ethan
leapt to his feet and hurried toward the doors. "Ethan don't!"
Isabelle cried and scurried over top of the bed toward him.

Without thinking, and driven by concern for
Ethan's safety, Emma left her friends behind and ran toward him.
Stefan made a move to grab her, but when Ethan turned toward him
with a low growl, he dropped his hand down and stepped aside. Emma
glanced between the two of them as confusion rolled through her and
she stopped a few feet away from Ethan. She would like nothing more
than to throw herself into his arms in order to keep him from
stepping outside, but if she threw herself into his arms now she
knew she would never look back.

She could forgive him one day though, she
realized, not everything was black and white in this world,
sometimes the colors were the most frightening part of it. Even
though she realized that now, it still didn't mean they could be
together. There was too much she didn't understand and was scared
of, he was part of a world that she'd never even known existed
yesterday. He belonged to a world that she wasn't a part of.

When he looked at her like he was now, she
found herself not caring about any of those things. He'd risked his
life for her, he had killed for her, and he was staring at her as
if she were the only thing in the world he could see.
No
one had ever looked at her like
that; it was a look that made her feel loved in a way she never had
before.

Then a new sound resonated from outside and
he was turning away from her as more laughter echoed through the
night. "He'll call the police to try and set us up, I know he
will," Emma whispered.

"We can take care of the police," Stefan
said. "They'll never even remember they were here when we're done
with them. He won't call them though; he's here to torment you and
to taunt Ethan into responding. They have to be taken care of
before anyone else dies."

Isabelle grabbed hold of Stefan's arm,
stopping him before he could leave the house. "There's more of them
than you think," she hissed. "I can smell them."

Well that was the oddest statement Emma had
ever heard but she wasn't about to question them on it. For now,
there were some things she would prefer not to have elaborated on.
"How many are there?" Stefan asked.

"More than last night," Ethan murmured. "At
least eight, maybe more."

Stefan's forehead furrowed as he frowned and
looked toward the doors. "Eight? Why are there eight of them
together?"

Emma pulled the sheet closer around her when
Ethan stepped in front of her and pushed her back a step. "Is that
unusual?" she inquired.

"That many together, yes. What they're doing,
and why, is something I don't understand," Stefan answered.

"The ones last night were young, and judging
by the smell of them and the way they're moving, these ones are
young too." Ethan's nostrils flared as he scented the night.
"Tristan created them."

"What?" Emma blurted out.

"These vampires are Tristan's creations."

"Of course they are," Stefan said with a note
of realization in his voice. "Young, impetuous, and eager to please
the one that made them."

"But where is
his
creator?" Isabelle asked.

"Not all of those created are willing to stay
with their creator, I certainly wasn't," Stefan said bitterly.

Isabelle wrapped her hand around his arm and
stepped closer to him. Emma glanced at Isabelle and Ethan as a new
thought occurred to her, how were they both vampires? Had the same
person changed them at the same time, or around the same time? But
he'd talked about his parents and his numerous siblings; were they
all vampires too? It was just more questions to add to the growing
heap of them, but the heap was going to have to wait until later as
laughter drifted in from outside again.

"We need to think about this before engaging
with them," Isabelle said and stepped forward to close the doors.
"But neither of you are going out there without me..."

"You're not going out there," Stefan said
briskly.

"So it's settled that we're not engaging with
them tonight," she said with a falsely sweet smile.

Emma's gaze drifted back to the man lying
next to the bureau. Her stomach twisted, she had to look away
before she spilled what little contents she had in her belly as the
eerie laughter continued to drift in from outside. "They'll stay
out there all night," she whispered.

Ethan stepped closer to her; he went to rest
his hands on her shoulders but dropped them down before he could.
"I think you should get dressed." She frowned up at him and then at
the sheet wrapped around her. "Please Emma."

She gathered the clothes she'd set out on the
bureau before getting into the shower and stepped into the bathroom
to change. When she came out of the bathroom, she immediately
noticed the room had been straightened and the body had been
removed. Emma frowned at the bare spot where the man had been. A
life had been lost there, and yet there was nothing to mark that
fact, not even a drop of blood.

"Where is he?" she asked.

Ethan turned away from the doors and folded
his hands behind his back as he studied her. Even with clothes on,
she was still the most enticing female he'd ever laid eyes on and
she was the only one that could save him. She was also the only one
that could completely drive him over the edge.

"Stefan moved him into the bathroom down the
hall," he told her.

"How are we going to get a body out of here
in the daylight?"

"We'll figure out a way to take care of it,
don't worry about that."

Emma fiddled with the frayed edges of her cut
off shorts. "I feel like there's far too much for me to worry about
lately."

"I'm sorry Emma, I..."

"Don't apologize Ethan, please. There's
nothing that can be done to change it, and I'm not sure I'd even
want to."

"Really?"

She hated the hope in his eyes. "It's not
like that, I'm not ready to sit and talk about us. I'm not ready to
continue this relationship. We've known each other for two weeks
and you've already met my crazy ex and killed someone. It might
just be me but I'm pretty sure that's a bad omen. Like even worse
than the groom seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the
ceremony, or a black cat crossing your path kind of bad omen. I'm
not one for superstition but this goes
beyond
that."

He moved away from the doors. "I'll kill
anyone that tries to come after you again.
Any
one."

Emma swallowed at his words and her gaze
drifted to the curtains he'd pulled over the doors. She could hear
the other vampires out there, still running around and laughing
like a group of patients that had just escaped the asylum. He took
a step closer to her and despite all the words she had just
uttered, she found herself instinctively swaying toward him and her
skin came alive at the prospect of being able to touch him
again.

What was this influence this man had over
her? She fisted her hands at her sides in order to resist touching
him. "I can't stay in this room, not anymore," she said as a way to
distract herself.

A jolt of electricity shot through her as he
rested his hand on her elbow. "Understandable. The others are in
the living room."

She couldn't help but move closer to him as
he led her from the room and down the hall. "He was human when I
knew him. Tristan was," she clarified at his questioning look.
Ethan frowned as he thought over her words. "I mean I realize I
didn't know what you were, I thought you were human too, but he
had
to have been human."

"I'm sure he was," Ethan assured her.

"If he wasn't," she stopped abruptly and
tugged on his arm. "Do you think he twisted my mind, or changed my
memories in some way?"

Ethan pulled her a step closer to him. "I
think he
was
human when you knew
him Emma, if he hadn't been I don't think you would be here. When
you first walked out of his life there was nothing he could do to
try and get you back but harass you. He would have changed your
mind then, if he had been a vampire. I think he disappeared from
your life because he was changed and he was with the creature that
made him. He's returned now because he's stronger and he has a way
that he
can
get you back by bending
your mind to his will."

Cold horror spread through her at his words,
there was nothing in the world she could think of that would be any
worse than what Ethan had just described. "That
is
why he's here isn't it? To change my memories
and make me do what he wants me to do."