WitchLove (6 page)

‘Well, I can see her point, as it would be a little concerning having a bloodthirsty vampire on the loose in their little town. They aren’t going to want to draw attention to themselves and you have to admit to being a bit of a liability,’ Brittany said.

‘Easy for you to say. You don’t have to drink these,’ I retaliated.

‘Come on. Let’s go and get your things before he gets back,’ she said. ‘Are you upset?’

‘Why?’ I said, knowing exactly what she meant, but stalling.

‘You know why Jess, are you?’

‘No, of course not. I said I didn’t want to see him again, and he obviously isn’t that bothered,’ I said, leading the way out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

‘I
am
bothered Jess.’ Daniel was leaning on the doorframe of the front living room, waiting for me and no doubt listening to every word I’d said.

‘Well
I’m
not! And did no one ever teach you that it’s rude to listen in to conversations?’ I said, marching past him to get to the stairs.

‘What is
she
doing here?’ Daniel said, suddenly grabbing my arm and forcing me to stop.

‘She? You mean Brittany, the girl who helped save my life and who has actually stuck by me, rather than betraying me. She’s been a better friend than you or Eva over the past few months.’

‘
She
was the reason you were nearly raped and murdered in the first place. She worked for Cole. She trapped you there,’ he said, his dark pitiless eyes staring at the young girl hovering behind my back.

‘Yes, I know she did, but she also
came back
when she realised what she did was wrong, unlike you!’ I said.

‘I did come back. I’m here now Jess, and
she
is dangerous.’

‘She came back after a couple of hours, you waited three months, and she can protect me better than you can.’

‘Damn right,’ she said.

Daniel didn’t say anything, but his eyes said it all. He took in her young pretty face, her slight frame and decided he’d show me just how much better he could protect me. He attacked her.

Thrusting me aside in one swift move his eyes glinted, steely and dangerous, his hardened muscles contracting, thrusting him forward, fangs bared, straight at the tiny girl. I saw him coming, or rather going, as he flew past me towards the surprised girl’s neck. His hands reached out ready to snap her frail human frame, as all his frustration and pent up disappointment was released in the fraction of a second it took for him to attack.

A nano-second later the murderous look on his face transformed into shock as he fell through the spot where Brittany had been standing and landed with a crash on the parquet floor. By the time he’d picked himself up Brittany was by my side, a shimmering diamond-hard orb projected around us.

‘
You
need counselling,’ she said to him as he took a step back, his shoulders dropping. ‘Come Jess, let’s get you out of here. The guy has issues. What did you see in him?’

‘It’s fine Brittany, you go on up to my room, get our stuff. I’ll be up in a minute,’ I said.

‘Okay, but just shout? Promise?’

I nodded and Daniel and I both watched as she climbed the stairs and disappeared from view.

‘Has she been living here in my house all this time?’ he said.

‘Yeah! Like you just found out, she might be small, but she is pretty damn useful in a fight. Sebastian said she could stay and help protect me until we knew what was going to happen in court, and
you
were supposed to be dead, right, so we couldn’t exactly ask if you minded!’ I said, glaring at him.

He took a step back and slumped against the wall, his head hanging.

‘Jessie, Jess, I’m so sorry. I know I said it before and I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but I am. I was wrong, so very, very wrong.’

‘So where’s Eva? Feeling too guilty to face me?’ I said, sitting on the floor and leaning my back against the wall. Aunt Sarah was right; I was going to have to ask all my questions now, otherwise they’d just keep bugging me for the entire time I was away.

‘No, she wanted to stay; she’s missed you. I asked her to go to the club. I wanted to see you alone.’

‘If she missed me, if she
cared
, she wouldn’t have buggered off, would she? She wouldn’t have put me through absolute hell for the last three months, thinking I was grieving for three people I loved, when really Alex was the only person I needed to mourn.’

I looked up at his face as I spat the words out, like a machine gun firing cold bullets and watched his face sag. He looked down at me and even though I knew that vampires couldn’t cry… only half-vampires like me, I thought for just a split second that I saw his eyes glisten. Then he too let his body slide down the wall and crouched down, facing me.

‘She did miss you Jess, we both did, but I was so stubborn, stupid. Every time she tried to convince me to come back to Manchester I saw images of you in Luke’s arms, your head cradled in his lap.’

‘But you were wrong about that…’ I started.

‘No, I wasn’t. Whatever the reason, I know what I saw,’ he said, his eyes hardening once more.

‘Fine, let me tell you what happened, and then let me ask
you
something,’ I said waiting for his nod before I told my story. ‘Brittany had found me a human feeder willing to let me feed after Cole had drained all but my last drop of blood. I couldn’t even stand I was so weak; so the boy lay down beside me. Cole and his cronies returned and attacked part way through. They killed the boy, they even tried to kill Brittany, but she managed to escape. Cole knew the authorities were onto him and he wanted to dispose of
all
the evidence. So after they secured my ankles and wrists with silver to drain my magic his plan was to rape and then murder me. Using the last bit of magic I had left I attacked the only way I knew, using the combustion spell. It worked. It worked brilliantly apart from the fact that Cole was on top of me, so effectively I set fire to us both. When Luke and Caoimhe found me, I had three burning vampires around me and was awash with flames myself. She dispatched them and he patted out my flames, but it wasn’t good enough.’ I paused for breath and dared myself to look into his eyes. ‘Daniel, I called for
you
. Luke told me to hang on, he told me that you were coming, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it and Caoimhe knew; she knew I was dying. She left Luke to comfort me in peace. I could feel every organ turning black, the pain was unbearable, I begged Luke to kill me. I guess that’s when he realised you wouldn’t be there in time, so instead of letting me die he saved me, again. So yes, if you would have preferred him to
not
hold me as I was dying, if you’d prefer for him to have
not
chosen to let me feed and instead let me die, then maybe, just maybe we betrayed you…’

‘Jessie, it…’

‘No, let me finish. Now I want to ask you a question. You said in the court room that his eyes were
glazed
, as if that was a crime? Or does that prove somehow that there was something else going on?’ I watched as Daniel hung his head and then I carried on. ‘When you fed from those human girls, did you see their faces? Because I
have
now fed from humans as well, and I see their faces and just like you and Eva told me all those months ago, they
do
enjoy it. Can you honestly tell me that directly after a feeding you and those human girl’s faces aren’t a little bit
glazed
?’ I had played my trump card and in return he crumbled.

After a long pause he finally looked up at me again. He reached across and took my hands in his. ‘Jessie, I’ve already told you how sorry I am, and I will continue to tell you until you refuse to listen, but what can I do for your forgiveness?’ he said.

I was surprised. I’d expected more fight, more stubbornness. He’d been so stubborn for so long that I wondered how he had suddenly managed to accept another reality to the one in his head.

‘You believe me?’ I asked.

‘Of course I do.’

‘Then why didn’t you the first time, when I called after you and begged you to come back?

‘Because the adrenaline coursing through my system was guiding me, so I didn’t stop to think. Eva tried to tell me, and I paused for a moment outside the church to check you got out okay, but again you turned up with Luke and I couldn’t handle it,’ he said, his head drooping once more. He dropped my hands, as if instinctively aware I wouldn’t want him holding them. He was right. A dull ache in my left temple nagged as I felt the irritation build up again.

‘What can I do? I can’t lose you Jessie.’

‘I think you already have,’ I whispered.

‘No, I won’t believe that. If we got our bond back, it…’

‘Seriously? You cannot be serious? Like I am about to re-bond with you after all this, just because you think it might help me to forgive you. No way! Apart from anything that would be fake, Daniel. Fake forgiveness!’ I shouted.

‘Okay, fine, but just tell me. What
do
you want me to do?’

I closed my eyes. I was pretty sure there was nothing he could do. Of course I still felt something for him, something made of pure light that felt trapped in my chest and fluttered when I looked back into those dark eyes. That was why I was closing mine, right? I had to shut out the vision of his distraught face. I had to do the right thing, and the right thing was for me to get some distance, some time to think; for me to get my supernatural license which would in turn gain me independence. I had to leave him, leave Manchester, and start afresh.

‘Jess?’

‘Okay, there are a couple of things.’

‘What? Anything,’ he said, hope flaring and making his voice crack.

‘You need to apologise to Luke, both officially and unofficially,’ I paused and watched him clenching his teeth, working his jaws, before briefly closing his eyes and nodding his ascent.

‘And the other thing is harder,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ he said, his eyes opening again.

‘You have to let me go. Let me leave you Daniel, go to America and find my way.’

For a second he did nothing, but held my gaze and it was the hardest thing not to fall into his arms and tell him that I’d stay, but I didn’t. Instead a solitary tear tickled my skin as it inched its way down the side of my nose, traced the corner of my lips and was licked away. I watched as he leaned forward and gently brushed his thumb across my damp cheek, removing its trail before swiftly crossing the last foot and kissing my forehead.

‘I’m sorry, Jessie,’ he whispered, and a second later he was gone. The front door shut gently behind him and I was left alone, curled up, leaning against the wall, wondering how I could not jump up and race after him.

‘Jess! Get your butt up here and help me with your stuff, and bring me something to munch on. I’m all out of energy. ’ Brittany’s voice ricocheted down the stairs and broke the spell. I
had
done the right thing. What Daniel had done went way beyond the normal boundaries of jealousy. Brittany was right, the guy had issues.

By four o’clock the next morning, my room in Manchester had been cleared. The stuff from my old life had been boxed up and stored in the witches’ embassy at the manor. Brittany and I each had a simple case packed with clothes and the belongings we wanted to take with us, which didn’t amount to much. The only thing we were both concerned about was passports. I was officially a dead girl, murdered by a girl gang only six months ago and Brittany was a human girl whose passport and birth certificate were still kept by her psycho father somewhere in middle England, yet my aunt had said we were flying from Heathrow with American Airlines.

‘Jess, there’s someone here to see you,’ my aunt called from the lounge, as Brittany and I were preparing to leave our temporary room.

‘Luke maybe?’ Brittany asked.

‘Doubt it. He said he’d see us in a couple of days,’ I replied. We closed the door behind us and dragged our cases down the stairs to the living area.

‘You’ll have to go down to the foyer, Jess.
Her
kind are not admitted here. We leave in five minutes, so don’t go far,’ my aunt said.

It could only be one person, but how had she got here? Why had she come? I didn’t know whether to feel happy or irritated. Why was nothing ever simple?! I opened the door to the foyer and stepped through to see Eva looking incredible. Only she could carry off an ensemble of leather skinny jeans, low-slung studded belt, and a high collared, Victorian-inspired white blouse with a black satin corset over the top. On her head perched a stunning, tiny top hat, with golden cogs set on one side like flowers.

‘Wow!’ I said, quite forgetting my irritation.

‘You like? Steampunk is all the rage in Paris,’ she said.

‘You’ve been in Paris all this time?’ I said.

‘Jess, you know I tried to change his mind.’

‘Well, you should have tried harder. Why did you let him do it? How could you let me go through all that?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry Jess, but I had to support him first. We were both wrong to interpret the situation as we did, but we saw what we saw, we did what we did and there is no turning back time. I’ll say I’m sorry and I am, but I’m not going to grovel. Daniel told me your decision to leave, your request for him to let you go…’ I nodded prompting her to continue. ‘You say I should have been firmer with Daniel, telling him when I thought he was wrong? Well, I’ll tell you now, I think you are wrong to leave. You belong together. You need him just as much as he needs you, Jess.’

‘No, I don’t need him Eva, that’s where you’re wrong. I
did
need him; I needed him three months ago when Alex was murdered. I needed him when I was regaining my strength from being drained by Cole and set alight. I needed him when I was having nightmares about those cells, but he wasn’t there and neither were you. I’ve learned how to survive without you both.’

‘I missed you,’ she said quietly.

‘Not enough though,’ I replied.

‘True, I suppose. We were friends though and I do care Jess.’

‘I know. How did you get here anyway?’ I asked.

‘I drove,’ she said, shrugging.

‘We’re in Scotland,’ I said.