Untamed (Vampire Awakenings, Book 3) (36 page)

"My decisions didn't result in my death,"
Jill retorted.

"Well some of them almost resulted in me
killing you if that means anything," Mandy said. "Especially the
night you drove home drunk from the club, in your underwear, and
hanging your head out the window like a dog because you were
convinced it would sober you up. I wanted to choke you when you
passed me on my way back from the library."

"Ok that wasn't my finest moment," Jill
admitted. "But I survived."

"And so will I. You heard what Stefan said.
My heart will only stop for a second and then I'll be alive again.
I'll be stronger and I'll be with Ethan, forever. Ugh I sound like
a six year old dreaming of a fairytale, and if you were saying
these things to me I'd lock you away until you came down off of
whatever drugs you were on."

"I'm considering it," Jill said with a
laugh.

Emma squeezed her hand before wandering back
into the bathroom. "Believe me this is one hundred percent a
natural high," she said as she turned the water on and began to
brush her teeth. She spit in the sink and rinsed it out before
returning to the bedroom. "And it's a good..."

Her voice trailed off as she spotted Mandy
lying prone on the floor, with one hand beneath her and the other
stretched out above her head. Blood was already beginning to pool
on the tile beneath her head. Fearing that she had fallen, Emma
broke free of her paralysis. She'd only made it three steps out of
the bathroom when something heavy hit her on the back of the head.
She was unable to get her hands underneath her in time to stop
herself from face planting onto the floor.

Blood burst free of her broken nose, tears
blurred eyes but even as she was trying to figure out what had
happened, hands were grabbing hold of her arms and hauling her to
her feet. She opened her mouth to scream but a rag was shoved into
it. Choking on the cloth, and the blood trickling from her nose,
she found it difficult to see or breathe as she was pulled forward.
She tried to fight against the cruel hands holding her, but
everything was blurring into twos and threes and she was pretty
sure her brain was still jiggling around like Jell-O in her
skull.

Her toes scraped across the ground as her
head lulled forward and she was dragged toward the balcony.

Ethan lifted his head from the young woman
he'd been feeding from. After tasting Emma's blood, the woman's
seemed flat, bland. It wasn't awful, but more like water compared
to champagne. Looking around the small bathroom, he scented the air
as he sensed a strange disturbance in it. The woman swayed on her
feet when he released her and took a step away from her; her glassy
eyes were focused on the curtained window in the corner of the
room. The bite mark on her neck had already healed when he ordered
her out of the room.

He'd fed from four women and one man since
leaving the house, and with Emma's blood coursing through him, he
felt almost lightheaded from the power that pulsed within his
veins. The acrid scent of sweat and sulfur drifted to him, he
recognized the combination as fear but the laughter and music from
the bar continued to flow into this backroom. He realized that the
scent wasn't coming from anyone out there. Unreasonable foreboding
gripped him, as he took another step forward and inhaled deeply.
Where was it coming from?

Grabbing hold of the handle, the door to the
bathroom slammed against the wall as he flung it open and strode
purposely from the restroom. Ian and Brian were standing by the
pool tables, they each held cues in their hands as they talked with
a group of young girls that were eagerly hanging on their every
word. One of the women started to come toward him when he emerged
but he paid her little attention as he walked toward the door of
the bar. His gaze ran across the beach as the sun dipped over the
horizon.

"What are you doing?" Ian asked as he placed
his cue against the wall and hurried to his side.

"Do you smell that?" Ethan inquired.

"I don't smell anything, are you all set for
the night?"

"Yes," he answered absently. "How do you not
smell that?"

"Maybe you've had too much," Brian suggested
as he approached. "How many humans have you fed from at one time
before?"

"Only Emma," Ethan answered absently.

"Wait, what?" Ian blurted as he did a double
take.

A strange, knowing gleam came into Brian's
eyes as his gaze ran over him from head to toe. "I see," Brian
murmured and Ethan got the distinct feeling that he really
did
see. That Brian knew the dirty
secret Ethan had been hiding all of these years. That the person he
least wanted to understand him, was the one who did.

"You've had human blood before," Ian
insisted.

"Only in bags."

"Ethan..."

"Enough Ian!" Ethan interrupted
brusquely.

"But I thought..."

"There's a lot you thought you knew that you
don't. Now drop it," he snarled as he stepped out the front door.
His head turned as he searched for the scent but there was a hollow
feeling growing within his stomach.

"What does it smell like?" Brian
inquired.

"Fear." And that was when it hit him
who
the smell was coming from.
"It's Emma."

He broke into a run as he fled the bar. It
felt as if his feet weren't even hitting the ground as he raced up
the road toward the house. He'd never moved so fast in his life, he
was nothing more than a blur, one that was barely perceptible to
the human eye and could easily be written off as a fleeting
shadow.

The doorknob never came into play as he
smashed into the door, tearing it clean off its hinges and flinging
it across the room. Isabelle let out a startled shout, Stefan and
Aiden leapt up from the couch. It took him only a second to
ascertain that Emma wasn't with them. He fled down the hall and
burst through the bedroom door with the same recklessness as the
first, but this one stayed on its hinges as it crashed into the
wall.

The scent of blood hung heavily in the room;
he detected the aroma of Emma's blood immediately before the scent
of someone else's filled his nose. His head turned, his nostrils
flared as he spotted Mandy lying on the floor. "What happened?"
Isabelle cried as she ran into the room behind him.

Ethan turned and ran for the bathroom but
even before he made it to the doorway, he knew Emma wasn't there.
Isabelle was kneeling at Mandy's side when he returned; she was
carefully holding her head as she turned Mandy over. "She's alive,"
Isabelle whispered as Aiden knelt by her side. "I don't understand;
we sensed no one else in the house, no other presence. How is this
possible?"

"Aiden give her some of your blood," Stefan
commanded.

Aiden bit into his wrist and pressed it
against Mandy's mouth to help her heal faster. Ethan was drawn by a
small puddle of blood on the floor just outside of the bathroom. He
knew even before he knelt beside it that it was Emma's. A bellow of
fury tore from him, his back hunched up as his muscles constricted.
Stefan grabbed hold of Isabelle and pulled her backward; he pushed
her toward the wall and positioned himself in front of her.

Red suffused Ethan's vision; madness crept
through his system and twisted within his mind. His body began to
pulse with the power of the blood he'd consumed today and the rage
that was tearing through him. Something strange was happening to
him, his hands fisted at his sides causing the veins in his arms to
stand out. At first he thought it was the red hue of fury clouding
his eyes but as he looked closer he began to realize that his veins
were actually standing starkly out from his body and turning red.
The blood pulsing through them was clearly visible, or maybe it was
the blood of those he had drank from today. Either way it didn't
matter as the red seemed to be suffusing him with more power as it
spread through his body. His hearing was more acute as he picked up
on conversations going on outside; the room was etched into vivid
detail, as he was able to pinpoint every particle of dust floating
through the air.

"Ethan!" Isabelle yelped.

Aiden pushed a groggy Mandy toward where
Stefan had Isabelle pinned in the corner. Stefan's eyes were a
fiery red color as he kept his body firmly in front of Isabelle's
but he made no move to come after Ethan. Ian and Brian burst into
the room, both of them were sweating and breathing heavily as they
scanned the room.

"Holy shit!" Ian blurted when his eyes landed
on Ethan.

Brian grabbed hold of Ian's arm and shoved
him toward where the others were gathered. "Ethan you have to calm
down," Stefan said quietly.

"You were supposed to be watching her!" he
snarled as he took a step toward him.

"What is wrong with you?" Isabelle gasped as
her eyes raked Ethan from head to toe.

Ian tried to get past Brian to get at him but
Brian shoved him back again. "You don't want to tangle with him
right now," Brian said in a low whisper that drew Ethan's gaze to
him. Brian held his hands up and took a step back. "Easy."

The blood roared in Ethan's ears, the madness
was taking him over as he moved closer to them. The red in his
veins began to seep out into his skin, turning him the same shade
as dark molten lava. He'd never seen anything like it but it meant
nothing to him as his thoughts remained centered upon Emma.

"What happened here?" he demanded. Mandy's
eyes were wide upon him; her mouth was hanging open as she gaped at
him. She grabbed hold of Aiden's arm as she took an unsteady step
back. "What happened here?"

She began to shake her but then her hand flew
to her forehead as she winced. "I don't know. I was sitting on the
bed and the next thing I knew you were all here. Where is Jill?"
she asked and lifted her head to look around the room with squinted
eyes.

"Not here," Ethan grated.

"You can find Emma," Stefan said in a
reasonable tone that only irritated him more. "If you just calm
down and think, you can find her Ethan."

The scent of her blood filled his nose,
causing his rage to escalate even higher. The veins in his arms
stood out even more; the red suffusing his body deepened as the
entire room began to look like it was covered in blood. Blood, he
wanted it so badly right now that he could taste it, he could feel
it sliding down his throat, and he
would
have it. He would rip off Tristan's head and
gorge himself on his blood.

The people standing across from him all
shrank away. "Ethan," Isabelle breathed.

He turned away from them and raced over to
throw open the doors to the balcony; he didn't look back as he
grabbed hold of the railing and leapt off of it. Though it was a
good fifty-foot drop, he landed silently on his feet.

"What
was
that?" Aiden whispered.

"That was one very pissed off purebred,"
Brian said as he stepped away from the others.

"That was like the fucking Hulk," Ian
said.

"We have to go after him. In the mood he's in
he'll kill anything that gets in his way." Brian strode away from
them to look out over the balcony.

"Are we even going to be able to stop him?"
Ian inquired.

"Probably not, but we have to try." Brian
leapt off of the balcony and followed the blur of Ethan he saw far
ahead of him.

***

The scent of her blood drew Ethan onward,
pushing him faster and faster as he ran up the hillside and past
the homes that lined it. He didn't know if the others were
following him and he didn't care as he weaved his way through the
houses and neighborhoods until he came to a large home nestled in
the hillside. His heart raced, anger and frustration warred through
him as he stood outside of the two story, robin's egg blue home
with three balconies on the front side of it.

Emma was in there, and she was suffering, he
was certain of it as the scent of her blood was even more potent
here. He circled the home but he had no idea how he was going to
get to her. The front door was wide open when he completed his
circle of the house. He could feel his family and Brian coming, but
he wasn't going to wait for them as he approached the door.

He spotted Emma immediately, sitting in a
chair in the middle of the room. His gaze searched the house but he
saw no vampires amid the shadows descending and spreading over the
home as night descended. His attention turned back to Emma, her
hands had been tied behind her back, and her ankles were bound to
the front legs of the chair. Her head was bent forward so that her
thick hair fell forward to shield her face.

The sight of the blood trickling from her
nose rapidly drove him forward. He leapt forward only to be knocked
back by an invisible wall that kept him blocked from entering the
house. Frustration swirled through him, he lifted his hands to
press them against the clear wall but it was impenetrable. The
color suffusing his body became such a dark red that it was nearly
black as the power swirled and pulsed through his body.

On the couch to the right of Emma's chair,
Jill was sitting as rigidly as a board. Her hands were folded in
her lap as she blankly stared at the wall across from her. Ethan
had seen that dazed look on the faces of anyone that didn't have
control over their own minds, and were now under the control of a
vampire.
They'd gotten to her on the bus
ride
, he realized and she was the reason the others
hadn't sensed a different presence in the house. No one else had
entered the house to take Emma out; Jill had done it on her own.
Emma was small enough and light enough that Jill would have been
able to carry her to the balcony. The others had sensed no one else
within the house, but there had been at least one outside of it,
waiting to take Emma and Jill away.