The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [85]
She sheathed her knife, trying to show that she meant no threat to him. “I’m what?”
“I’ve met a lot of hunters in my time, Sarah …” He raised a hand, gestured vaguely. “You don’t seem like the type.”
Stepping forward, she put her right hand flat-palmed against his chest and her left over his throat, pushing him back into the wall.
Shock filled Christopher’s features, but then he said, “Your knife is still on your back, and if this was a real fight, we both know I could kill you before you could reach it.”
She closed her right fist, drawing Christopher’s attention to its position above his heart, and then moved her hand to the wall.
With her mind she reached out and triggered the spring on the knife she wore on her wrist, and the blade snapped out, slicing two inches into the wood paneling of the wall.
“Don’t underestimate me, Christopher.”
“Are you going to kill me, Sarah?” he asked, but there was no fear in his voice — just an edge of anger. He was getting defensive, trying not to let his hurt show. She recognized the act; anger was much less painful to feel than the sorrow.
“I’m not going to kill you. I don’t want my family to.”
“I can take care of myself.” So fearless. Most vampires were afraid of her kind, but Christopher did not seem the least bit worried.
“Meaning what? If my mother or sister attacks you, you’ll kill her? There is no good situation here, except for you to leave me alone. I’m not right for you.”
“Sarah, I don’t care who you are,” he repeated. “I’ve taken a knife from one of your line before. I have a scar, but I’m still alive. If someone attacks me, I leave. That’s how I’ve survived for more than fifty years.”
She flinched. How had he taken a Vida knife and lived?
That question was shoved from her mind as she processed the comment about “fifty years.” According to the story Nissa had told, he was easily three times that old.
She bit back her questions, and focused on the issue at hand.
“Christopher, maybe you don’t care, but I have to.”
“You’re a teenager — it’s your job to act out against your parents. What’s the worst they could do to you?” The question was shockingly naïve.
“The worst? Christopher, you don’t understand. I am Sarah Tigress Vida, youngest Daughter of Vida. If my mother finds out I have befriended a vampire, she will disown me. I’ll lose my title, my name, my weapons, and even my magic.”
“That could be rough, but you’re strong enough to get through it,” Christopher said, still not understanding.
“I would be defenseless. I’ve killed too many of your kind before. I’ve made a lot of enemies. If I can’t fight back, I’m dead. If my line disowned me, it would be the same as them killing me.”
“That’s why you want me to leave you alone?”
She paused for only a moment. “They’ll kill you, too, if they see you with me again. Maybe you’re willing to risk that, but I’m not. I would hate myself for doing it, but I need to defend myself, so if you come near me again, I will have to act.”
For an instant, some trick of shadow combined with Sarah’s guilt made Christopher look not like a friend who had been betrayed, but like an enemy who had been wronged.
“Fine,” he answered, and now his voice was like a steel door, closing on some of the best times Sarah had ever had.
CHAPTER 11
AS SOON AS Christopher was out of sight, Sarah ran from the school grounds, vaulted into the driver’s seat of her car, and put the key in the ignition. Her hands were trembling; as soon as she noticed, the movement ceased.
Sarah Tigress Vida was not perfect, but she hadn’t lost control since her father had died, and she didn’t intend to now.
But she absolutely could not face her family right now. Dominique and Adianna were the last people she wanted to see. Neither did she care to see the other vampire hunters with whom her family would be celebrating the New Year.
At nearly eleven o’clock, she pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of SingleEarth Haven. The mishmash of brilliant auras seeped out of the magically protected building — vampires, shapeshifters,