Tainted Blood (40 page)

I wasn’t processing what he was saying, and I really didn’t care, I just didn’t want him to leave me. “Then why can’t you stay?”

“You know why I can’t. I bit you, against your will.” He kissed the top of my head and held me tighter. “It’s against our laws for my kind to bite anyone who is not our mate, without permission.”

“But I am, I am your mate,” I pleaded. I was desperate for him to stay.

“No, Laney, you’re not.” It surprised me how much it hurt when he said it. I started sobbing, deep uncontrollable sobs.

“I need to go, Laney. It will look better if I go willingly and they do not have to remove me with force.”

“I...don’t…care,” I sobbed one word at a time.

Gently grasping my upper arms, he held me back. “I’m doing this for us, Laney. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.” His perfect green eyes pleaded with me. I pulled myself against him again, refusing to let him go. They’d have to pry me off of him to take him away from me.

The front door opened and I heard Felix say, “Oliver, it’s time to go.”

“Yes, sir,” Oliver replied. I realized then, as he addressed Felix formally, that Oliver wasn’t just being taken away from me; he was being taken away from all of us. And I realized that he’d probably just lost everything he had worked so hard for.

Before leaving me, he whispered against the top of my head, “You are my purpose, you always have been. I have thought of you every day for nearly seventeen years. I will not stop now.” He kissed the top of my head once more and then he said, “I love you, Delaney. I will always love you.” And then he was gone.

I don’t know when they showed up but the next thing I was aware of was my friends. Kiera, Carter, and Zoey were there with me. They took care of me for the next several days, because I just shut down.

Chapter
22 - Trouble’s New Best Friends

It was a full three days before I was able to, well, before I was forced to function again. Felix showed up for the first time since he’d taken Oliver away from me. He made me get dressed and go out to lunch with him. Reluctantly, I got ready and followed him out into the autumn afternoon.

There was a chill in the air, and the sun was too bright as I stepped out of my apartment. My eyes watered and I shielded them from the blaring sun as I followed Felix down the steps to the parking area.

Felix was parked in Oliver’s usual spot and that bothered me. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Beside Felix’s large, black SUV was my car, and there was a random guy stepping out of it. The guy closed the driver’s side door and handed Felix my car key with a nod and then he walked away. I didn’t watch where he went because I was too busy questioning Felix about what said guy had been doing with my car.

Felix motioned for me to get into his SUV and I quickly scrambled up into the passenger seat. Before we drove away, Felix told me that Oliver had requested that at his expense, my car be repaired. I stared over at my little, silver Honda Civic as Felix told me that it had a new windshield and rear bumper. He also told me that the airbags had been replaced, as had the radiator, and that the hood had to be replaced. He also mentioned that there had been some fairly large scratches on the front, passenger fender that had to be buffed out. By looking at my car you’d have never known that I had hit my boyfriend with it only a few days ago.

Felix backed out of the parking space and I turned to him. “When is he coming back?” I asked.

“Nothing has been decided as of yet,” he replied in a level tone, his eyes fixed on the road ahead as he pulled out onto University Boulevard.

“He is coming back, right?” I could hear the desperation seeping from my words.

“Delaney, I will do what I can, but you need to understand that it is not my decision when or if Oliver will return.”

“But it wasn’t him!” I argued. “Someone else—” he cut me off before I could argue any farther. Oliver had been drugged through his food source. That was the only information I’d been given.

“As I told you yesterday when we spoke, I have a say and that is it.”

I folded my arms over my chest and bit my lip as the tears crept their way into my eyes. Felix had called me the previous day. I hadn’t wanted to speak to him, but he insisted so Carter had held the phone to my ear, and I glared up at him from my bed while Felix informed me of the current situation. A stupid situation.

“Delaney,” he said firmly. “Oliver’s record is nearly perfect; he has a good chance of this falling in his favor. Please be patient. I will inform you of any status changes as I receive them.”

I turned my attention to Felix. “What do you mean ‘nearly perfect’?”

From behind his sunglasses I saw his eyes shift to me for a quick moment. He exhaled loudly and then said, “Turning Julz got him into a lot of trouble.”

“Why?”

“Mostly because of the relationship she has with Oliver’s brother, but also because he did not have permission to turn her.”

I didn’t say anything. Oliver had jeopardized his career at Brookehaven to save Julz so that Hayden could have a mom. How…noble.

Felix added a final note as we pulled into the staff parking lot of the university to pick up Carter. “Any marks Oliver has ever had against him have always been due to his brother.”

I believed it.

Carter strutted to the car and hopped into the back seat with a, “Hey, guys! What’s for lunch? I’m starving!” Felix laughed a throaty chuckle as we drove away.

Felix took us to the brewery, which happened to be Carter’s favorite restaurant in probably the entire world. The vampire-owned brewery happened to sell that beer—the blood-based one that Oliver had told me about. Would you believe it was called Brookehaven Ale? I was slightly repulsed when both Felix and Carter ordered one and even more repulsed when Carter admitted to having them before and liking them.

I hadn’t had much of an appetite to start with, and what was left of it quickly diminished with this information.

I picked at my salad while the boys devoured their meals. I’d never had the chance to watch Carter and Felix side by side, and I took the opportunity to observe them. Carter had bulked up a bit since the were-incident but his girth was nowhere near that of Felix and it never would be. Although there was an enormous size difference between the two of them, I could see that Carter’s frame came from Felix’s lineage, the Ryant line. Carter’s father was shorter than his son and he was stocky. Carter had always been long and gangly. That is until his vampire lineage was triggered by the were-bite. Carter fit into himself now and he wasn’t so damn gawky anymore.

I don’t think Carter had ever been as blonde as Felix, but his hair also wasn’t as dark as it used to be, either. That silvery, gray-blue color now accented his messy mop, and as I watched them simultaneously wipe their mouths in exactly the same way, I could see that Carter’s arm hair had kept that same hue. They both focused on me, their blue eyes very different shades from one another.

Over a mouthful of food, an area he and Felix differed greatly, Carter asked, “What?”

“Nothing,” I said with the first hint of a smile since Oliver had left.

They exchanged a glance and then Carter went back to his food. Felix was about to take a bite of his gigantic burger when he paused and set it back down.

“Oh, Delaney, I almost forgot. Oliver requested that I give you this.”

He wiped his hands on his fabric napkin, and my heart leaped as Felix dipped his fingers into the chest pocket of his button front shirt. I was hoping for a letter or something very personal like that, but when he handed me a newer version of my phone I felt my broken heart sink.

“He said to tell you that your number has not changed and that he transferred everything over.” Felix returned to his food.

I examined the phone, pressing the button to turn the on screen, and tears filled my eyes as the picture I’d taken of Oliver and me on our first date popped up. I turned the screen off and shoved the phone into my pocket. I was tired of crying.

Once lunch was over and Felix had paid, we were heading out to the SUV, when Felix told us that he’d found information on another vampire-werewolf survivor. Carter shot me a hopeful look.

“You did?” he asked excitedly.

Felix nodded and he slipped his sunglasses into place. “I’ll tell you about it on the way to the hospital,” he told us.

“The hospital?” we both questioned. “Why?”

“I think it’s time to check your arm,” he said with a grin and then he slid into his vehicle. We rushed around to the passenger side and fought over the front seat for a moment until Carter huffed and crawled into the back, yet again.

On the drive to the hospital Felix told us that he had in fact found coded documentation of a vampire-werewolf hybrid. It had apparently been a very long time ago and the poor person had been treated as an experiment. They did many terrible tests, and in the end, the hybrid died.

“The cause of death was vague. I do not believe that it had anything to do with the mixing of the species. I’m certain that the cause of death was due to these tests and experimentations that had been administered,” Felix explained. “I will continue with my research. There must be other accounts. I am sure of it.”

We pulled up to a dilapidated fence with a small, one man booth set to the side. The booth had heavily tinted windows on all sides, including the single door. The door opened and someone dressed in a worn T-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap trotted over to Felix’s window. The two shared a quick acknowledgement then the guy wearing the ball cap trotted to the rundown fence, removed the lock and chain that was holding it together then opened one side so we could pass through. I watched in my mirror as the guy closed the fence behind us, replaced the chain and the lock, then trot out of my sight.

We followed a dirt path through a large open field that was covered by low weeds. The path wound down a hill and into an underground parking structure where the entrance was manned by another small booth. Same story here but the fence was made of tall iron bars and opened electronically.

We walked that same freshly paved cement sidewalk again to the sliding doors of vampire hospital, where vampire guard were stationed both inside and out.

Felix and the receptionist exchanged nods then he led us down the same hallway we’d gone down the night those jerks had jumped us.

Felix led us into an empty patient room and took his seat on that tiny rolling stool again. Carter hopped up onto the bed and the paper made a loud, crinkling sound under him. I took a seat in a chair against the wall.

Felix first checked the stitches on Carter’s head. He carefully snipped them away and tossed them into the trash. “Too bad you can’t see this one,” Felix said to Carter. “It’s a match to the scar over your eye.” Felix chuckled and Carter rolled his eyes. I felt myself almost smile. Almost.

Next, Felix gently unwrapped Carter’s arm and examined every inch of it, moving Carter’s wrist and fingers. “Does it hurt?” Felix asked him.

“Not at all,” Carter replied.

“Well, then I’d say it’s healed,” Felix diagnosed with a grin.

“Already?” Carter asked in surprise.

“Let’s do a quick x-ray to be sure, but yes, you heal quickly—quicker than most.”

Carter grinned from ear to ear and exclaimed, “Awesome!”

Felix chuckled, and as the two of them left the room for an x-ray, he requested that I stay put just as he had the last time we were there. I did.

As it would turn out, it wasn’t just Carter whom Felix needed to examine. When they returned to the room, Felix gathered a few items from a drawer including a needle that made Carter cringe. Then he took his seat on the stool again.

“Delaney,” he said then gestured for me to take a seat on the table. I raised an eyebrow at him.

It turned out that sneaky devil wanted some of my blood!

I protested at first, I don’t know why, probably because I was annoyed that he’d sprung it on me like that or maybe because I was feeling rather irritable. Either way it didn’t matter; I gave in, of course. I plopped onto the crinkly paper and he went to work drawing blood from a vein in my arm. He tied a band around my upper arm and then the needle slid in with short, sharp pain.

As Felix extracted my blood, he explained that he wanted to test it to see if Oliver biting me had caused a blood-bond. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I could have a blood-bond connection with Oliver. I didn’t feel any different toward him. I still loved him, but I didn’t feel desperate for him like he had told me those who are blood-bonded feel. I just wanted him back; that was all.

Felix taped a cotton ball to my arm and rolled across the room to perform whatever tests he needed to do on my blood. Carter, who had ducked out of the room as soon as the needle threatened to pierce my skin, poked his head around the doorframe.

“Is it safe?” he asked, and I showed him my cotton ball bandage as an answer.

Felix and his sweet tooth happened to have suckers in his old-school, doctor’s bag. He gave me one as I sat there, swinging my legs, waiting for him to tell me if I was addicted to my boyfriend or not.

Carter was looming in the doorway when I began mentioning
to Felix my concerns about Kiera moving out. I started to ask if he could maybe help me talk to my dad again when he cut me off before I could say the word “dad.”