All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [15]
“And her opinion matters so much to you,” the human spat.
“Do you think, little girl, that the fact that she has been my enemy negates the fact that she has my blood?”
“Doesn’t it?” Christine said challengingly, but more softly now.
The reminder that Sarah was in any way related to Kaleo was not welcome to her. Yes, he had changed Nissa, who had changed Nikolas, who had changed Kristopher, and so it was—distantly—his blood that now made Sarah a vampire. But she wasn’t going to call him family.
Sarah was about to protest Kaleo’s claiming her as anything, but he turned from her to Nikolas to say, “And speaking of blood, Sarah needs to feed.”
The words jolted Sarah into immediacy.
“I’m fine,” she said. She could function fine for now. Her eating habits were not the immediate issue.
“You are not fine.” While Kaleo argued with her, she could tell that Nikolas and Kristopher were examining her closely. “I can see the bloodlust in your eyes.”
“I fed a few hours ago.”
“On Kristopher, I know,” Kaleo replied dismissively. “It was enough to keep you alive, but it won’t be enough to hold you long, not when you’re this young and under stress. You need live blood to sustain you.”
Sarah knew she was in trouble when Kristopher agreed, saying, “If you don’t feed soon, willingly, then you’ll feed in a frenzy, and you’ll probably kill someone. You don’t want that.”
She wasn’t ready. There was too much else going on. She hadn’t had time to take in any of it or figure out what she wanted or needed to do. She was supposed to have been at SingleEarth, where they could teach her how vampires survived without hurting anyone, not with Nikolas and Kristopher, who for all their protectiveness were admitted killers. Kristopher hadn’t killed for the past fifty years, but he had stopped in an effort to support Nissa, not because he’d had a change of heart. Sarah doubted he would keep to his new ways now that he was back with his brother.
And she really didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Kaleo, who she still very much wanted to kill. Maybe the vampire blood didn’t make a person evil, but it obviously hadn’t made him good.
“The longer we bicker here, the more trouble we court,” Kaleo said. “Sarah, deal with your own needs. We can’t hold your hand right now. Nikolas, Kristopher, I advise you to warn your people. If Heather is a valid target, then any human who attends our circuits is probably in danger. There is no point in rescuing one while others are picked off. Once our people are safe, we can decide how to remove the threat itself.”
He disappeared, leaving them with yet another subject she wasn’t ready for. Nikolas and Kristopher turned to her, but what was she supposed to say? The threat Kaleo had referred to was Sarah’s family and oldest friends. Her mother, her sister and her cousin Zachary were the last of the Vida witches. They would be joined by hunters from other lines, like Michael, who had been Sarah’s best friend before Dominique had decided they were getting too close and put her foot down.
Sarah would have to be a monster to fight them—no, not just fight, but kill, since that was the only way to stop them.
Or was it? There had to be another way. She just didn’t know what it was.
CHAPTER 5
SATURDAY, 6:37 A.M.
ZACHARY PUT HIS head down while Adia drove. His power had been wrapped up in the vampire’s when the bloodbond had jumped at him, so it had been much harder to incapacitate the girl now in their backseat. He had done what was necessary, but was paying for it with a pounding head and a rolling stomach.
He looked up long enough to assure himself that she was completely out. Trapped in a moving vehicle with someone whose strength, speed and healing might be almost vampiric, and who probably wouldn’t hesitate to leap out a door or fight for the steering wheel at eighty miles an hour, would be a bad time to make a mistake. It had been stupid of him not to track her as a threat in the first place.
When they got home, he could tell that Adia was trying to