The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [88]
Of course, if he hadn’t planned to be absent, then she didn’t like to think about why he wasn’t here. While human myth often ascribed to vampires the title “immortal,” Sarah well knew they could be killed.
Sarah’s resolve not to talk to Nissa might have held, had she not run into the girl in the parking lot after school. She was hurrying to meet up with Caryn to have her cast removed when she nearly collided with Nissa.
Jumping back, she asked, “Is Christopher okay?” The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to think them through.
Nissa hesitated, apparently surprised. “I think so. He … was upset after the dance, and went to visit his brother. He came home and crashed a little after sunrise this morning.”
“His brother?” Sarah parroted, her stomach plummeting. She leaned back against a nearby car, running her hands through her hair. They had made it clear earlier that Christopher’s twin had not decided to follow the same peaceful route as his siblings. “Look, Nissa —”
“Excuse me.” The voice was dry, and decidedly unhappy. Sarah turned to see Robert, standing sulkily a few feet back. “That’s my car you’re leaning against.”
Nissa grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her away from the car. Robert went around to the driver’s side and popped the trunk.
“I don’t know what to make of Robert,” Nissa said under her breath, softly so the human would not overhear. “Christopher stumbled across him last night at the bash when he went to help Marguerite.”
After that, Sarah stopped paying attention, because quite suddenly she realized where she had seen Robert before she had joined this school. Her barely healed arm was a testament to the night.
“Excuse me, Nissa.” No matter what happened, she was a hunter first. Robert had been at the bash where Sarah had run into one of Nikolas’s victims, as well as at the bash where Marguerite had been. If he was part of that circuit, then she had a chance to get back to it.
She turned her back on Nissa and hurried to Robert’s car, where he was just opening the driver-side door.
“Robert!” She closed the door with one flat palm, and the human jumped, moving his fingers in just enough time to avoid having them slammed in the door.
He tried to ignore her, reaching for the door handle, but he had not accounted for her strength. She wasn’t as strong as a vampire, but she could easily outmuscle a pureblood human.
“What do you want?” he finally asked.
Sarah glanced back to where Nissa had been, but the girl had disappeared. With no one to overhear, she answered Robert’s question honestly. “I want to know what you were doing at a bash on Halloween night.”
“I was invited,” Robert snapped.
“By who?”
“Can’t you just read my mind or something?” He shouldered her aside, and the mixture of his words and the movement forced her off balance enough that she let him.
He thought she was a vampire. Oh, that was rich. Nearly laughing, she caught the door before he had a chance to get in the car.
“Robert, you have no idea what you’re talking about —”
“Leave me alone.”
“I’m not a vampire.” Her mind was working quickly. He had seen her at the bash, and had made the obvious assumption. What she couldn’t figure out was why if he thought she was a vampire, he had hated her almost on sight. Though there were always plenty of humans who were invited to a bash purely as entrees, most repeat guests attended because they liked being fed on. Robert obviously wasn’t part of the first group, but his aversion to her proved that he wasn’t part of the second, either.
The only other humans who attended bashes were blood bonded, or thought themselves hunters. Sarah would have sensed a blood bond.
“Then what are you?” Robert pressed. “You sure as hell aren’t human.”
“I’m a witch.”
Robert snorted. “And pigs fly.”
He had just begun to slide into the seat when she added, “And I’m a