Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (38 page)

I spin around, breaking the hold, my hand going to my absent Sheriff knife before I realize it’s not an enemy.

“Raoul?” I stand, trying to get a fix on what has caused the twisting of Raoul’s features. All the queen’s guard are dead. It’s still night. And I sense nothing but our three heartbeats anywhere nearby.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, sniffing the air.

“Are you okay?”

I blink, taking stock. One broken arm, mending, check. One stinging gash well on its way to scarring over, check. A throbbing head. And aching breast.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

He closes his eyes, taking a steadying breath, his hands fisting and uncurling at his sides. “God, when I realized that you were missing, and that so were a handful of my mother’s best warriors…” his voice cracks, but then he squares his shoulders, swiping the worry from his face. “But you’re safe.”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I’m also feeling like a broken record, but can’t seem to come up with anything else. I mean, I’m glad Raoul came to the rescue and all, but… I glance down at John. He’s made it to his feet, and though he’s swaying, the raised hackles and intense focus of his gaze—on Raoul—make it evident he’s ready to defend me if need be.

“Is this your were?” Raoul asks.

I nod. This is also really… awkward.

Raoul inclines his head toward John. “I thank you, then. For coming to Eva’s aid.”

John curls his lips back, exposing fang. Raoul ignores this, closing his hand over my arm. “Come, Eva.”

I almost do. Something about the soothing tone of his words, the warmth of his hand on my arm, the utter exhaustion of both my body and mind. But then John growls, snapping me out of it.

I jerk my arm free, scuttling back a good five feet. “Wait. No. I mean, come where?”

Raoul, as if sensing that closing the distance could be a bad thing, stays where I’d broken free of him, letting his hand drop to his side. “Anywhere you’d like, Eva. It doesn’t matter where, so long as we’re together.”

Not this again. “Raoul…”

He lifts his hand. “No, hear me out. You want your freedom, you shall have that. We will go wherever you desire. No lambs, no queens. It will be just you and me. The land. The hunt…Just, come with me, Eva. Please?”

I sway. Exhaustion. Not his plea. I’d denied the queen, overpowered one of her best warriors. I am stronger than any please. Even his.

Raoul’s brow furrows, his hand running through his hair before dropping to his side. “You said you needed a purpose... Let
me
be your purpose.” He holds his hand out imploringly. “I
need
you, Eva.”

Need. Turns out his need is more of a barrier than a hundred of the queen’s guard to my freedom. It crashes down on me with the power of an avalanche. I gasp; a thousand could have beens sparking in my mind. Another life, another time, another meeting of our souls. Raoul and I could have been happy. I know it in my heart, in the essence of my being. If only there had been no apocalypse. If only Raoul and I had met before he’d been turned. If only, if only…

I find myself falling into an endless spiral of ifs.

A growl, a warm body shoves me back. I blink down at John, then look up to see that I’ve taken a step toward Raoul.

Raoul’s lips curl back. His sword, still dripping with the blood of the two master vamps, sings through the air until it stops, the point pricking against John’s chest. “Back off, Doggie. This is Eva’s decision, not yours.”

The sight of his sword, posed and ready to take John’s life has me seeing red. “Leave him alone!”

I leap forward, whack Raoul’s blade aside, and grab John’s scruff, pulling him back as he tries to place himself between me and Raoul once more. Something twists beneath my breastbone. I can’t let John fight Raoul. John is tired, injured, and despite his bravado, no match for another master vampire. And Raoul is a master of masters. Only one stronger is his mother, and of that I’m unsure.

I grab John by his jowls, twisting his head up. He growls at me, but keeps his fangs hidden. Yeah, I’m not pleased with the situation either.

“Shh. It’s okay. Just give me a moment, okay?” I whisper into his ear.

John settles onto his haunches but remains tense, ready to spring. It’s the best I’m going to get. I stand, turning around.

Raoul gives me an encouraging smile. “Come with me, Eva.”

I take a step forward. John growls again but I ignore him. Raoul’s smile warms, dimples flashing. I approach cautiously, stopping a good length away. It’s hard. His hope is trying to swallow me like a drug.

Like a Band-Aid. Make if fast. “You don’t need me, Raoul. You just think you do.”

His smile falters. “Eva…”

“Besides, they need me more.”

His eyes flash. Hurt, anger, barely muffled rage. “Who are
they
?” He spits the pronoun out like a vile pill.

Who are they? John, Juanita, Marine, yup, even Convict, Herbie and Roy—though that boy is going to need some serious training before I pair up with him again. Regardless, they are my pack. It’s as simple and complex as that. Raoul wouldn’t understand this though. He’s never had a pack. Only one very domineering mother. And me.

I realize in that moment that it’s not that I don’t care for him, it’s not even that I don’t love him. I do, a little. I think there will always be a part of me that does. My first love. The first guy to treat me like a queen, smile at my stupid jokes, hold me tight when the world was spinning out of control.

No, it’s not that I don’t care for him. It’s just that I pity him more.

This Raoul, the one who stands before me now, can never be my partner. He thinks to own me like a treasured pet, a prize mare. Or a trophy wife. I can’t be that. To truly be with someone, I need them to be my equal. Someone I can both believe in enough to follow and someone who’s similarly ready to stand at my six. There is only one guy that I know who can, and is willing, to be both.

Raoul is still waiting for an answer. So I give him the truth. “
They
are anyone who fights for humanity.”

He shakes his head. “Eva, you’re not human anymore.”

“I am where it counts.” I lift my hand, placing it over my beating heart. Yes I’d died that day over a year and half ago, but I’d also been reborn. Now I just have to make the most of this life.

I reach over, laying my hand on Raoul’s chest, his heart thudding an uneven rhythm beneath my palm. Hope, frustration, confusion, pain. It is all there in those erratic beats. “I wish you all the luck in finding yours.”

I lift up onto my toes, leaning forward to lay a chaste kiss beside his mouth. Right in the places his dimples would form if he had been smiling. I realize I’m going to actually miss those dimples. He is my could-have-been. “I forgive you for turning me.”

And then I step away. His hand reaches out, then curls into a fist and drops back to his side. “There’s nothing I can say now that will convince you to come with me, is there?”

I shake my head.

There is a gut piercing slice of agony. So much that I feel as if my insides are being dug out, and then all of a sudden… nothing. It’s like he’s gone hollow. And I realize in that moment that perhaps Raoul is more lost than I ever was.

I’m so sorry, Raoul. So sorry I can’t be what you need.

He turns, takes a step away, then stops. He doesn’t face me again, but I can hear what he says, the whispered words floating back on the slight breeze. “I’ll be waiting, Eva. If ever you need…or want me.”

And then he is gone, slipping into the shadows of the cliffs.

I stare after him, wondering where he will go. Not back to his mother, certainly. The attack on her personal guard is a blatant insubordination. Of course, she
is
his mother. Maybe all his defiance will get him is a slap on his wrist. My pity, combined with my worry, is almost enough to have me calling him back. I can’t be what he needs, but maybe I can save him.

“Eva?” A voice croaks behind me.

I spin around to see John crouched on the ground, his shoulders slick with sweat, his forearms shaking as he struggles to hold himself up.

Everything shifts. The world around me becomes crystal clear.

I smile. “Wow, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

He chokes out a laugh. “More like the sight of me right now makes your eyes sore.”

I dash across the expanse, barely checking myself before I crash into him. Instead I slide to my knees, my hands wavering at my sides. I don’t see any major wounds, just the one gash on his hip but that seems to be half-way knit already. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, help me up. I left my clothes and the pack a bit up the trail.”

I link my arm around his waist, pulling his arm over my shoulder. He’s heavy, but I manage to get him up and moving down the trail. It’s not far, just around the bend, before he grunts, jutting his chin to a set of scrubby bushes that are a couple yards off the side of the trail.

I help him over. He disentangles his arm, stumbling the last few feet behind them where he plops down on the ground.

“Do you, uh, need help?” I ask, watching him struggle to untangle a pant leg that has gotten caught in the bush.

“I got it.” He yanks the pant leg free, branch and all, and starts stuffing his leg into it.

His leg. I look up at the sky. Still dark. Nowhere near dawn. In fact the moon is barely at the half-full mark of its cycle.

“You changed. And it’s not the full moon.”

He shrugs, grabbing his shirt from where it was piled on the ground. “I had a pretty heavy incentive.”

That incentive being me, I wonder?

Be happy for what you already have, Eva girl.

“Here, I got you something.” John leans over, pulling the pack closer to him. The buckles clink as he opens it and fumbles around inside. He pulls something out, offering it to me. “I thought you might want this.”

I stare at the black and white cover of my father’s journal. My hand shakes as I reach out to take it from him. “How did you find it?”

“Your scent was all over this one. I figured it must have been important, especially since you hid it.”

I slide to the ground, hugging the journal to my chest, closing my eyes. The cool feel of the cardboard cover makes it all worthwhile. The queen, almost dying, the lamb, the zombie, Raoul. If these pages contain what I think they do…

I open my eyes to look at John, tears threatening to drip from my moisture heavy lids and a thank you on my tongue. He’s trying to lace up his boots but can’t, his hands are shaking so bad.

“John?” I set the journal down, reaching out to wrap my hand around his wrist. His entire body shudders. I feel a sharp ache in my chest. He lied. He is not okay. “Where are you hurt?” I demand, my hands racing over his ribs. Maybe when the vampire kicked him…

His hands close over mine, bringing them to rest on his knee. I look up, meet his gaze.

“I thought you were going to go with him. When he commanded you to his side and you went… I thought that was it.”

“Is that it? Is that what has you…” I’m going to say in pain, but think better of it. “… upset?”

He doesn’t respond, but I see the uncertainty that haunts his eyes. No, not uncertainty…insecurity. Wow. That’s just wow. When did I, underdeveloped klutz that I am, turn into a man magnet? Not that that matters. Doesn’t John know there is only one guy for me?

And when did you figure that one out, Eva girl?

Now. Just now.

I scoff, handling this new revelation the only way I know how: Make a joke. “I don’t know what you were worried about. I mean, Raoul is
not
my alpha.”

“No? Who is?” I can tell he’s going for light too, but sensing his emotions as I do, I also know that he’s holding his breath for my answer.

I squirm, but manage to tip my chin up defiantly. “Me, of course.”

His brow raises, but then he chuckles, running a hand over his face. I think he might laugh but then he shakes his head, his eyes meeting mine as he delivers in an even deadpan, “You
are
one tough bitch.”

“But I’m your bitch, right?” Whoops, so much for hiding behind jokes. Guess I’m a bit insecure too.

“Oh, yeah. You’re most definitely my alpha-girl.” He smiles, pulling me firmly between his bent legs. I snuggle in, drawing in the manly scent of sweat, forest, and yup, wet dog. It feels good being held like this. Simple. Who knew that is what I really wanted?

“John?”

“Hmm.”

“I think I’d like to go home now.”

I feel his Adam’s apple bob against my temple. “And, uh, can I ask where this home is that you want to go to?”

“It’s not exactly a place,” I hedge.

“No?”

“Nope.” I tip my head back, looking up into his face. “It’s with you…
and
the rest of our pack.”

“That sounds good then.” He kisses my forehead, and then sets me on my feet. He doesn’t let go of me completely, but takes my hand and links his fingers through mine as he stands up beside me.

“Ready?” he asks.

I smile. “Ready.”

With a smile in return, he grabs the pack. And then we are off. And as we walk through the gorge, heading west, I swear I hear my dad’s voice whispering on the wind.

“Watch her, Jen. There our girl goes, again. Off on her next crusade to save the world.”

That day I’d saved a dog named Shaggy that had been about to be put down after biting his abusive owner. My dad had known what I was doing, and still smiled as he returned to his paper. What would my dad think of me and my cause now? What would he think of the guy I’d partnered with to do it?

A vamp and a were. What an unlikely pair of saviors we make. Still, I think my dad would be pleased.

I smile, tightening my grip on John’s hand as my father’s words drift back to where they belong: Into my memories.

Read on for a sneak peak at

Fifteen Forever