Ashes (Book 2 The Kindred Series) (4 page)

“I feel fine now,” Cassie interjected
forcefully.

He scanned her beautiful face, noting
the bright gleam in her inquisitive eyes. She had only been awake
for a little bit, but her color had already returned. The severe
blood loss had been traumatic, yet she appeared as if nothing had
happened. Apparently Hunters rebounded quickly when they were
injured.

“You need to rest,” her grandmother
said softly.

“I’m fine grandma, really.” She turned
back to Devon, smiling brightly. “I heal fast.”

“Apparently,” he said softly, his thumb
briefly stroked over her skin as he studied her. She looked as
healthy as if nothing had happened to her. Her brief, intense sleep
seemed to have completely repaired the injuries that she had
sustained. It was amazing.

“Cassie…”

“I’m fine Luther, really. I feel much
better; I just want to get out of here now. I don’t like
hospitals.”

“You’ve never been in one.”

“And now it’s time to go.”

Tossing aside her blankets, she swung
out of the bed. Devon blinked in surprise, startled by the sudden,
graceful movement and the speed in which she had done it. She stood
before him for a moment before her legs began to wobble. He grabbed
swiftly hold of her, swinging her easily up in his arms as if she
weighed no more than a feather. He was once again reminded of how
fragile she was as she stared up at him with wide, surprised eyes.
The beast crawled through him, rippling just beneath the surface as
the urge to make her immortal reared back to fierce
life.

Seeming to sense the tension and need
within him, Cassie reached out and lightly stroked his cheek,
soothing the monster within him once more. He cradled her closer,
refusing to let go of her. “I want to go home,” she said
softly.

In that moment he realized that
whatever she wanted, no matter how absurd or difficult, he would
give it to her. Even if it went against his better judgment. “I’ll
get the doctor.”

Devon reluctantly placed her back on
the bed; loathe to part with her at all. “Devon…”

Luther’s voice broke off at the warning
look that Devon shot him. Cassie was his now, and whatever she
wanted, she would have. They just needed to realize that. Taking a
small step to the side, Luther remained silent as Devon left the
room in search of the doctor. There were still many things to
learn, many obstacles to get through, but for now he was content to
do whatever she wanted.

The questions could be answered later,
the obstacles handled with time. Nothing but Cassie’s health and
happiness mattered now. Nothing mattered but the fact that she
still cared for him, even though she knew that he was a monster.
Nothing mattered except for the fact that he knew he would belong
to her forever, and one day she would belong to him.

For that was one thing he did know for
certain, one day he would possess her completely. One day she would
belong to him, for eternity.

CHAPTER
3

Cassie clung tightly to Devon’s hand,
not wanting to release him, unable to part with him for even a
moment. His hand was strong and calloused, slightly cool and secure
around hers. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at him,
reveling in the splendor of his hard, magnificent face. His strong
jaw was clenched tight, the nostrils of his sculpted nose flared
slightly as he faced the people surrounding him.

Sensing her attention, he turned slowly
toward her, his vivid emerald eyes warming as they met her
fascinated gaze. His full lips twitched, the corners of them
lifting slightly in a small smile. His black hair hung around the
edges of his chiseled face, curling boyishly at the corner of his
right eye.

He was anything but boyish though with
his hard, lean, svelte body, and immortal status. No, Devon was
most certainly not a boy; he was not even a man. He was, in fact,
her worst enemy. He was the one thing that she had hated for the
past four years of her life. The one thing she had despised since
she had discovered what she truly was. She had hated vampires ever
since she’d learned that her parents, and Chris’s father, had not
been killed in a car accident together. In fact, they had been
murdered by a group of Elder vampires that had banded together with
the sole purpose of destroying the Hunter line. A line that she,
and everyone she cared about, was a member of.

If it wasn’t for Chris’s mother Mary
getting Cassie and Chris to safety, they also would have been
slaughtered in the strike. As it was, Mary had barely escaped with
them.

Devon seemed to sense the dark turn
that her thoughts had taken. His small smile faded as his hand
tightened around hers. He took a step closer, the strength of his
body burned against her, heating her suddenly chilled skin. Her
heart thudded harder at the proximity of his body, her toes curled
as she fought the desperate urge to pull him into her embrace. She
held tight to him in the hopes of reburying the past, and blocking
out the awful events of the night. Unfortunately there was still
too much to deal with before she could allow herself to be lost in
the warm comfort of him.

Though she had already told them about
the other vampire that had attacked her tonight, there was still
much more to know. Especially from Devon. Luther shifted his
stance, drawing Cassie’s attention back to the thin man. His
eyebrows were raised slightly as his grey eyes studied Devon
intently over the top of his John Lennon style glasses. His graying
brown hair was uncharacteristically disheveled as he continued to
run his fingers anxiously through it.

“How old are you?”

Cassie felt the loss of Devon’s gaze as
he swung his attention back to Luther. Cassie stiffened slightly,
not sure she wanted to know the answer to that question. She had
dated an older boy once, for about a week, and he had only been a
year and a half older than her. Being the girl with the boyfriend
who could possibly be a couple hundred years older was something
entirely different, and more than a little frightening.

Devon let out a small sigh, his fingers
entwined with hers. “I have been a vampire for seven hundred and
fifty-two years. In total, I’m seven hundred and
seventy-one.”

Cassie’s breath exploded from her. Her
eyes spun wildly to him as her hand clenched tightly upon his.
“Crap,” Chris breathed. Cassie felt that was the understatement of
the year.

He was nearly a millennium older than
her! Seven hundred and fifty four years to be exact! No wonder he
seemed so much older than all of the students around him, even if
he had been alive he would have been out of high school by now. It
was far more of an age difference than she ever could have
imagined, ever would have wanted to imagine! Nearly eight hundred
years was a long time to have been alive. It was a very long time
to have wandered the earth, living amongst humans and monsters. She
didn’t even want to think about the number of women he had known
over the years. She knew how the girls at school flocked to him,
wanted him, and threw themselves at him. All women did. Over seven
hundred years of women falling all over him was more than she could
bear to consider at the moment.

She found herself barely able to
breathe through the tight knot of jealousy and disbelief that stuck
in her throat. His gaze swung back to her, his emerald eyes
piercing. They swirled with worry and a desperate need for her to
understand, for her not to turn against him. It was that fervent
need that finally allowed the air to filter back into her
brutalized lungs.

Jealousy had no place here. Nor did
confusion and hurt. He needed her now, and no matter how
frightened, lost, and envious she was, she could not turn against
him. She had to live in the present; she had to stay grounded here.
She would go crazy if she didn’t. His past was his past, and no
matter how scared she was of it, she could not let it destroy their
present. For no matter how many women he had known in his past, she
knew she was his everything now.

Biting nervously on her bottom lip,
Cassie managed a small nod. His shoulders relaxed visibly, his eyes
sparkled with love. Even though he had never told her that he loved
her, she knew that he did. She knew it with absolute certainty. He
would die for her; she felt that with every fiber of her being,
with every cell that fired within her. They had been empty and
incomplete without each other, but somehow destiny had brought them
together. And they fit seamlessly with each other.

“You must be very powerful,” Melissa
said softly.

Devon nodded, his eyes tenderly
scanning Cassie once more. “Yes,” he said simply,
flatly.

“What can you do?” Melissa prodded when
Devon didn’t say anymore.

With a small sigh he focused on the
other four people in the room. Melissa’s exotically slanted onyx
eyes were intent upon Devon, narrowed with curiosity. Her hair,
free from its customary French braid, fell around her shoulders in
thick black waves that ended just beneath her shoulder blades. Her
slender, graceful body was seemingly at ease as she leaned against
the fireplace, but tension hummed just beneath her outwardly calm
surface.

Devon shrugged absently. “I am stronger
and faster than a human.”

“So aren’t all vampires. So aren’t we,”
Chris retorted.

Devon lifted an eyebrow at Chris,
amusement crossed his magnificent face. “But I’m even stronger than
most, far more in fact. My senses are keener than theirs. My
hearing is better, my eyesight better. Most would not survive a
fight with me.”

Chris’s sapphire eyes narrowed
doubtfully as he gazed fiercely at Devon. Hostility hummed through
his large, football players build. Despite his size, Chris moved
with a grace and agility that were surprising and impressive. That
was one of the reasons he was the star on the football team. His
sandy blond hair was a mess from tugging on it as he paced
restlessly back and forth, only pausing once in awhile to pierce
Devon with a fierce, accusatory glare.

Chris was angry; it would not take much
for him to attack Devon. That was something that Cassie could not
let happen, for although she didn’t think Devon would hurt Chris,
she knew that Chris would not take losing the fight well. Nor did
she want to see a fight between two of the people she loved most in
the world.

“Except for the one you ran into last
night,” Chris grumbled.

Devon bristled, his shoulders stiffened
angrily. “I can defeat Julian,” he growled.

Chris took an angry step forward. “Then
why didn’t you?”

Devon glanced down at her, his emerald
eyes darkening to a deep shade of jade. It was because of her that
Devon had abandoned the fight. Because of her that he had not
hunted Julian down and destroyed the monster that plagued their
area, murdering innocents, and destroying lives. If she hadn’t been
so distracted, and horrified to realize that her suspicions about
Devon being a vampire were true, Julian never would have gotten
hold of her. Julian never would have had the opportunity to nearly
kill her.

Cassie shuddered at the reminder of her
near death experience. She had come close to losing her life
tonight, had come close to losing everything, and everyone, that
she loved. Closing her eyes, she tried to suppress the disgust and
fear that the memory aroused. Luther was constantly lecturing her
to pay attention at all times; she never listened to him. Because
of that, it had almost ended her life far earlier than she would
have liked.

Sensing her distress, Devon lightly
stroked his fingers over her cheek, easing the lingering torment in
her. She opened her eyes, comforted by his reassuring presence and
touch. “What else are you capable of?” Chris asked softly,
apparently deciding to let the fight go.

Devon sighed impatiently as he was once
again pulled away from her. “I have the ability for mind control,
and…”

“Excuse me,” Cassie interrupted
sharply, startled by his revelation. “Mind control?”

“Yes. I am able to sort through
people’s minds, I cannot read them, but I can pick out a certain
mind amongst the crowd. Or I can pick out a few minds, even a
crowd’s mind, if I need to. When I latch onto a mind, I can bend it
to my will, inserting memories or altering time.” Cassie gaped at
him, horror curdled through her belly. He could control her mind?
“I have never done it to you, any of you,” he continued, seeming to
sense her train of thought. “I would never do that to you Cassie,
don’t fear that I would.”

“That’s how you were able to get into
the school,” Luther guessed, his eyes widening in surprise as
realization dawned on him. “I’m assuming that you don’t have
transcripts.”

Devon grinned, his eyes twinkling with
amusement. “No, I don’t.”

Cassie couldn’t help but chuckle softly
as she shook her head in disbelief. This was her life, as strange
and odd and fantastic as it was. It was far more overwhelming than
she had thought it would be at thirteen, but it was hers, and she
still had it, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. Just a few
weeks ago there had been many things that she would have changed,
but then Devon had walked into her world and completely turned it
upside down. She wouldn’t even change the Hunter heritage that she
had resented for the past four years. For to alter one thing might
mean that she may never have met Devon, and that was a chance she
was not willing to take.