All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [22]
Christine took a breath and dropped her gaze before saying, “Yeah, like I didn’t see your face when I first asked. And you’re right. Robert thinks your family is the good guys. I want to talk to him, but it would only get him into trouble. After this is sorted out, I’ll call him, but until then I need to do something. C’mon. What else do you have to do tonight?”
Christine’s heartbeat had already been fast because of her anxiety, but now her scent changed. Sarah wasn’t sure how she recognized the difference, using a sense so new, but she could tell that Christine’s fear dropped. The tangy spice of adrenaline filled the air. Her face flushed.
“What?” Christine asked.
“Hmm?”
Christine frowned. “Never mind, I guess. You looked like you were going to say something.”
Sarah nodded, but she realized she could barely hear the words Christine was saying. The sound rising above all others in her ears was the whoosh-whoosh of blood racing through a hundred thousand miles of arteries, veins and capillaries. She realized that if she looked closely enough, she could see the beat not just at the pulse points, but across the surface of Christine’s skin. It flickered like a fluorescent light.
And now there was fear in the air.
“Sarah?” Christine asked nervously.
The word—a name, so powerful that many ancient peoples had kept theirs forever secret from all but those closest to them—was just enough to let Sarah pull back a little and realize the tone her thoughts had taken.
Even once she was aware of it, she couldn’t stop looking. She fought the instinct to move closer. She forced herself to take a step backward instead, but hellishly, contrary to any common sense, Christine responded by moving closer and reaching out as if she intended to touch Sarah, possibly to offer comfort but … insanity!
She had to get out of there.
She had been so confident about her self-control, so arrogant, she had forgotten something she had learned every day of her life: how “good” a person a vampire was, or tried to be, ceased to matter when the vampiric blood took over. There was a monster inside, and it would use the body it inhabited to do what it wanted. Sarah might think she was in control at that moment, but the blood inside her now would be with her the rest of her existence, just waiting for her to slip up.
Eventually, inevitably, she would. A moment would come when she was too weak to stop herself, and when that moment was done, she would be left with an innocent corpse in her arms.
She pulled away from Christine. She had to get somewhere safe … where she was safe … no, where she would be made safe. Her self-control would only get worse from here on out.
She had to do this while she still could, before she did something terrible.
She went home.
CHAPTER 7
SATURDAY, 7:05 A.M.
ZACHARY WOKE SHAKING, sweating and scared. He didn’t remember the dreams that had forced him from sleep with his heart pounding and the sharp tang of adrenaline on his tongue, and for that he was grateful. Sometimes he did remember, and those mornings were never easy.
He didn’t get up immediately, didn’t even open his eyes. Instead, he lay perfectly still, barely breathing, until the flush of fight-or-flight passed. He realized his jaw was clenched, as if he had been bracing against pain and struggling not to scream.
He tossed onto his stomach, curling his arms under his head until his right hand found the hilt of his knife sheathed on his left wrist, like a child grasping a teddy bear for comfort. He wished he could sleep for another hour. Maybe he would have a good dream.
Or maybe another nightmare.
What dragged him up was not fear of sleeping demons, but the knowledge that Dominique wouldn’t approve of his oversleeping when there was work to do.
By the time he opened his eyes, he was perfectly composed, enough that even Dominique wouldn’t have recognized the terror that had filled him only a minute before.
He glanced at the clock; he had slept for twenty-four minutes, just enough to revive him and get rid of