B00AO57VOY EBOK (3 page)

And all because of his mark. 

Though he promised he never
would—a promise he’d already broken once—he could control me through the
pearlescent trinity and heart shaped knot on my neck, the mark he had given me
the night he bit me.  If he wanted me to do something, I would do it.  If he
wanted me to see or hear or think whatever he wanted, I would.  And if he
wanted me to love him, I wouldn’t have a choice.  Knowing he had that power
over me, that potential to take away my free will, kept me from being able to
truly give him the two things he claimed to want most. 

My trust…and my heart.

“Kim, me and Nathan…we’re—”

“Complicated.  Yeah, you’ve
said that,” Kim said angrily, getting up and starting to cram her things back
into her backpack.  “You know what, Em?  I’m done.  When you’re ready to tell
me the truth, you know where to find me.”

“Kim!”

“No, Ember,” she said,
slinging her bag over her shoulder and tossing her hair long dark hair back
before leveling a cold look right at me.  “I don’t want to hear it.  When the
Ember I know and love comes back, tell her to give me a call. 
That
Ember didn’t lie to me every time she opened her mouth.”

With that, she turned on her
heel and stomped out of the library, the sound of the last bell of the day
serenading her departure.  I sat there, watching her go, knowing there wasn’t
anything I could do to make things better.  Even after the last of my fellow
seniors had followed her out, I continued to sit there, wondering how my life
had gotten so crazy.  It was the thought of Nathan waiting in the parking
lot—and the thought of Kim getting to him before I did—that finally pushed me
into motion.  Gathering up my own crap, I headed for my locker.

I stopped halfway down the
hall and stared at Jack’s locker for a long minute, Kim’s words echoing in my
head.  There were cards and pictures taped all over the front of it, a tribute
to the football star and friend we’d all lost.  Since Jack had disappeared
without a trace, taking nothing with him, it was widely believed he was dead. 

Only, I knew it was true.  If
I had any doubts about that, the memory of his screams as I shoved him into the
void was all the proof I needed.  There was also the fact that he hadn’t been
seen or heard from since.  His parents were offering a
huge
reward for
any information, but no one had come to collect.  There had been no activity on
his credit cards, and his cell phone hadn’t been used since the day before I
banished him—a fact we had learned from the local PD thanks to Nathan’s vampy
compulsion skills. 

Besides, Grams had been
doing daily demon searches and hadn’t come up with anything.  Mrs. Amelia had
been casting daily wards over Moonlight too, promising me that if anything even
remotely demonic entered the city limits, she would know.  It was like he had
dropped off the face of the planet.  Which I guess, in a way, he had. 

 “I’m sorry,” I whispered as
my eyes fastened on a picture of Jack the way I had once known him, smiling
into the camera with all the charm that had made him so irresistible to most
girls.  “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

And I was.  I was sorry I’d
been forced to send the body of one of my oldest friends to the lost plane with
a demon inside it.  I was sorry I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened to him. 
But most of all, I was just sorry he was gone.  I was sorry I would never get
to see him smile at me again, or listen to his vulgar jokes, or tease him about
his string of girlfriends.  I was sorry I had lost him.  So very sorry.

With tears in my eyes, I
turned and ran the other direction, away from the memories of my friend, away
from my locker, and toward the door and the man waiting for me outside whose
comfort I needed so badly. 

I had just cleared the front
steps when I felt a chill sweep through me that had nothing to do with the icy
winter wind blowing across the lawn.  My head snapped up, and I found myself
searching the trees that bordered the property, looking for something I
couldn’t even name.

And then I saw him.   Slouched
against a tree directly across from me, his muscular arms crossed over his
broad chest, was Jack.  I stopped right where I was, everything inside me from
my blood to my heart freezing up like I’d been encased in ice.

He’s not real, he’s not
real,
I chanted to myself, staring at the apparition in front of me. 
He’s
on the lost plane now.  He’s not really there.

I closed my eyes, forcing
myself to breathe, and counted to ten.  And, sure enough, when I opened them
again, he was gone.  Though I scanned the trees around where I had seen him,
there was no sign of him.  And yet, he had seemed so real, so solid. 

“You need to get a grip,” I
muttered under my breath, shaking my head.  “Just let it go.”

But, as I threaded my way
between the parked cars and packs of students in the parking lot, not even the
sight of Nathan waiting for me, propped against the hood of his Aston Martin,
was enough to make that image go away.  All I could think about was that empty,
photo-plastered locker…

And Jack leaning against a
tree, looking smug and very,
very
much alive.

Ever have one of those
moments when you really feel like homicide is the only option?  Well, about the
time I reached Nathan’s car and saw the biggest skank at Oakhurst Academy
batting her ridiculously long—and obviously fake—eyelashes at him, I
experienced one of those moments firsthand.

“It’s just going to be a few
of us,” Stacy Martin was saying as I came to a stop a few feet away.  “You
should definitely come.  You know, get to know some new people, that kind of
thing.”

I suddenly wished one of my
powers was laser vision.  That way, I could have killed her and said it was an accident. 
Hell, I wouldn’t have even felt bad about it.

Of all the people at
Oakhurst, I honestly think Stacy Martin was the only one I’d ever truly
hated
. 
From her long blonde hair to her too-tight clothes, she was the ultimate Barbie
clone.  Even her vapid smile and empty head screamed Barbie.  And there she
was, getting closer and closer to my boyfriend like she was considering making
him her new Ken.

Over my dead body.

“I’ll think about it,”
Nathan said shrugging.  I
really
wished he hadn’t done that.  The way
his muscles rippled beneath his black, long-sleeved t-shirt nearly had Stacy
drooling on his shoes. 

Like I said.  She’s.  A. 
Skank
. 

“Good,” Stacy purred, laying
her hand on his arm, a coy smile on her lips.  I honestly thought about
removing her entire arm from her body.  “I’ll hold you to that.”

I cleared my throat,
loudly
,
and Nathan looked over at me and gave me one of those tingle-inducing smiles of
his.  When he saw I was about one touch away from dismembering his new friend,
he winked.  Turning to see what had drawn his attention away from her, Stacy
sneered.  

“Oh,” she said, giving me a
once-over that made it clear she was insulted that
I
was her competition
for Nathan’s attention.  “Hi, Ember.”

“Stacy, do you
like
your hand?”

“Well, that’s a stupid
question,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “Of course I like my hand, Ember.”

“I was just wondering,” I
told her, taking another step in their direction, “because if you don’t get it
off my boyfriend, I’m going to remove it for you.”

“He didn’t seem to mind,”
Stacy said with a shrug and an almost vicious smile, sliding her hand up
Nathan’s arm just to piss me off.

“No, he’s just too
polite
to come right out and tell you he’s not into skanks,” I told her, smiling back
when she glared at me.  “I, on the other hand, don’t have any problem letting
you know.”

She opened her mouth to
respond, but seemed to think better of it at the last minute.  Apparently she
was smarter than she looked—something I
seriously
doubted since I knew
the girl who did her homework.  With an offended huff and a look that should
have had me writhing in agony, she turned on her heel and flounced off.  I
watched her go with a smirk before turning back to look at Nathan. He was
watching me with an amused grin, and I rolled my eyes before heading for the
passenger side of the car.  He caught me around the waist as I tried to pass
him and pulled me between his knees, holding me close.

“You’re really beautiful
when you’re jealous,” he breathed in my ear, causing a delicious shiver to slip
down my spine and radiate throughout my body.

“
You
shouldn’t
encourage her,” I told him, then gasped as he caught my earlobe between his
teeth and gave it a playful nibble.

“She’s scared of you, did
you know that?” he asked, leaning back just enough to look down at me.  When I giggled
at that, he just arched an eyebrow at me.  “I take it you two have some kind of
history?”

“Yeah, you could say that,”
I told him, nodding.  “I broke her jaw in the sixth grade when she wouldn’t stop
picking on me.  We’ve made a point to stay out of each other’s way since then. 
Guess she thought you were worth chancing a repeat performance.”

“Am I?” he asked, grinning
devilishly. 

“Oh, I won’t break her jaw
over you,” I told him, returning that grin as I slid my hands up his chest. 
“Her neck maybe, but not her jaw.”

He was still laughing softly
when his lips closed over mine and I felt my body light up like I’d just been
plugged directly into a nuclear power plant.  While Nathan was holding me,
kissing me, I could forget everything else.  I could forget that I was slowly
but surely losing my best friend.  I could forget Jack and my nightmares.  All
there was in those moments was the feel of his touch and the heady scent of his
skin and the silky smoothness of his lips.  The rest of the world ceased to
exist.

Which is why it took me by
complete surprise when my body tensed against his and I felt a sinking
sensation in the pit of my stomach.  Suddenly, I felt like my skin was crawling
and all I wanted in the world was to get away from the man holding me.  It was
totally bizarre, and I fought the urge with every ounce of willpower I
possessed.  Sensing my sudden unease, Nathan pulled back and looked down at me
in confusion. 

“Em, you okay?”  He frowned. 
When he saw how close I was to bolting, his frown turned to downright concern. 
“Em?  What’s wrong, baby?”

“I don’t know,” I told him
honestly.  “I just feel…all weird.”

For some reason, my eyes
darted to the other side of the lawn, to the place where I had seen the
apparition of Jack.  I felt a sick sense of foreboding when I thought I saw
something slithering into the shadows of the trees, but it was gone before I
could be sure. 

“Did you see…?”  I looked up
to find Nathan staring across the lawn as well, his face a whiter shade of pale
than usual.  “You saw that, too, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, not
quite meeting my eyes.  “I don’t know what I saw.”

With a hand at the small of
my back, he practically propelled me around the car and threw the passenger
side door open, his eyes still trained on the distant trees across the lawn. 
Rather than get in, I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to decipher his
expression.  There was something off about it.  There was plenty of dread to be
seen, true, but there was something missing.  Surprise. 

Nathan, it seemed, had been
holding out on me.

“Why are you looking at me
like that, Em?” he asked, finally looking me in the eye again.

“Because, I get this funny
feeling you know something you haven’t bothered to tell me.”  When he winced, I
knew I was right. 

“This isn’t the place,” he
said quickly when I let out an angry hiss between my teeth.  “I need you to
trust me on this, Em.  Just get in the car and lock the doors.”

“Uh-huh, because locking the
doors will keep me safe from demons,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. 

“It will if the car is
warded,” he said with a grin.  “Now, please don’t be difficult.  I’ll only be a
minute.”

“And where are
you
going?”
I demanded, stubbornly propping my hands on my hips and planting my feet right
where I was rather than follow his order to get in the car.

“To investigate.”

Before I could stop him, my
feet flew out from under me and I fell into my seat.  The door slammed between
us before I had time to yell at him for treating me like a child.  I knew there
was no way I would catch up with him if he didn’t want me to though, so I sat
back in my seat and planned the ass-chewing he was going to get when he got
back.

Fifteen minutes later, I was
just wishing he would hurry the hell up and
come
back.  The parking lot
had slowly emptied around me, leaving me sitting alone in the shadows of the
hulking monstrosity that was Oakhurst Academy.  Oakhurst had been built as a
boarding school in the 1800s, but Moonlight didn’t exactly scream Ivy League. 
Most of the school was unused with wings completely blocked off as safety
hazards.  Those unused wings suddenly looked sinister and unnatural.  Anything
could be hiding in there.