Skye Morrison Vampire 2 Sins of the Father (29 page)

Archer’s body shook as he urgently tried to
breathe. Blood was gurgling in his airway and I stared in horror,
not knowing what to do. After he coughed the blood up, he swallowed
thickly a few times and slowly lifted his hand up to cup my cheek.
“I’m dying, Skye,” he said as he looked at me calmly, love painting
his beautiful arctic blue eyes.

“No you’re not,” I shook my head, sobbing as
the tears started to fall faster down my face. “You can’t die on
me, Archer. Don’t you die on me, baby. Just hold on for me,
please…just hold on dammit.”

“Kiss me one last time, Skye…before I die,”
he whispered weakly as he gently stroked my cheek. “I want to…enter
heaven…with the taste of you on my lips.”

I didn’t hesitate as I leaned down and
passionately, desperately kissed him as my tears rained down upon
him. Archer ran both of his hands up my neck and fisted my hair as
he met my kiss with his own passion and desperation. Suddenly, he
exhaled one last time into my mouth as his arms went limp and fell
down to his chest.

I pulled back and stared at his empty eyes.
“Archer? Archer? Nooooo!” I sobbed as I grabbed his shoulders and
shook him hard. “Don’t you leave me, dammit! Please!”

I shoved my wrist into his mouth, but he just
laid there. “Feed, damn you!” I screamed as I slapped him as hard
as I could. His eyes fluttered open for a second and closed again.
He’s alive?
I shoved my wrist into his mouth again and
roughly closed his bottom jaw, deeply sinking his fangs into my
skin. I watched as my blood filled his mouth and poured down the
sides of his face.

“Please, Archer…just swallow. Please,
baby…fight! Fight!” I sobbed as I swept his blood soaked hair out
of his face with my free hand. I cried harder as I realized that I
was probably too late and that he was most likely already dead.

A heartbroken wail exploded from me as I
collapsed on his chest. I was absolutely devastated. Archer, my
boss, my crush, the man I secretly, intensely cared for, was dead.
I screamed as violent, soul-crushing sobs wracked my weak body.

A small gurgle unexpectedly emanated from
Archer and I shot up off his chest. I watched with wide, amazed
eyes as he swallowed the mouthful of blood.

“Oh my God! Yes…that’s it baby,” I cried out
encouragingly. “Swallow again.”

Slowly, he sucked on my wrist, pulling more
blood into his mouth, and swallowed again. I laughed through my
tears, overjoyed that he was still alive. I soothingly brushed the
hair on his forehead as he pulled on my wrist again, taking in
another mouthful.

“Thank you, God,” I said, relieved, as I
collapsed next to him on the old, dirty hardwood floor and allowed
him to drink his fill. As his pulls on my wrist become stronger,
and his swallows more frequent, I start to feel the telltale signs
of the chemicals in his fangs; the warm, safe, happy feeling
overtook me and I sighed.
He’s safe
, I silently reassured
myself.
He’s going to be just fine.

I noticed the room begin to spin as black
spots dotted my vision once again. The cold pinpricks in my face
resumed full force, but I couldn’t have cared less. Archer was
alive; I had him back. I closed my eyes and gave myself to the
darkness.

“Skye?” I heard Jameson call out to me from
far away. I felt someone’s hands cupping my face as my wrist was
taken out of Archer’s mouth.

“Tend to Archer,” I barely heard Aoife say to
Jameson as I opened my eyes to see her above me, cradling my head
in her lap. “Stay with us, Skye.”

I turned my head and weakly looked over at
Jameson and Archer. Jameson was working on him and I smiled as I
let the darkness carry me away.

I slowly opened my eyes and blinked a few
times. I looked around the room and realized I was back in the
guest room at Archer’s house on the lake. I glanced over to my left
and saw Jameson sprawled out on the white chaise lounge by the
window, softly snoring. His face was ghostly pale and his normally
clean shaven face was sporting rugged, days old stubble. I smiled
when I realized that he was safe and I tried to swallow. My mouth
was incredibly dry and tasted absolutely horrible.

I turned over and saw that someone had
thoughtfully left a bottle of water on the bedside table and I
eagerly reached over and unscrewed the lid, taking deep mouthfuls
of the cool liquid. It soothed my parched throat as I sucked it
down.

I heard Jameson stir a second before I heard
his voice. “
A luaidh
. You’re awake,” he said groggily. “How
long have you been up?”

I finished the contents of the small bottle
and put the cap back on as I turned over to face him. “About a
minute or so,” I said tiredly. “What happened? How did I get
here?”

Jameson slowly got up off the chaise lounge
and came to sit next to me on the bed. He reached over and softly
brushed the hair back from my eyes. “We brought you back early
yesterday morning,” he said gently, a small, relieved smile on his
lips. “You’ve been sleeping for almost 36 hours. How do you
feel?”

I stretched gingerly, testing out my legs,
arms, shoulders and back. I was a little stiff from lying in bed so
long, but other than that, I was perfect. “I feel fine,” I said,
surprised. After what Amun and Martin put me through, and with
giving Aoife, Jameson, and Archer my blood, I expected to feel a
lot worse. “How are you doing, honey? Are you okay?”

Jameson tiredly rubbed the scruff on his
face. “I’m doing better than I was,” he said honestly. “Healing all
three of you almost killed me, I think. When we got back home, I
had to feed several times to get my strength back up. It was rough
at first; I’m not going to lie.”

“I thought you were going to die after Martin
attacked you,” my voice trembled softly as I remembered the sight
of his throat half torn out. Tears swam in my eyes and Jameson
pulled me to his chest, hugging me tightly.

“Shhh,” he whispered as he stroked my long
red hair. “I’ll never leave you, Skye. You saved me, you know that?
I would have died if you hadn’t given me your blood. You saved
Aoife and Archer, too. We almost lost you in the process, though. I
wasn’t strong enough to heal you at first, so we had to rush you to
the closest place we could, The Mausoleum, to give you a blood
transfusion. Thank God we had a bag of your blood type there. You
wouldn’t have made it back to the house otherwise.”

“Oh, Jameson,” I cried as I clung tighter to
him. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Is…is Archer okay? Did he make
it?”

“Yes, baby,” he said, kissing the top of my
head. “He’s all healed up now. I don’t know how you had enough
blood in you to feed the three of us, but you did. You are the
bravest woman I’ve ever met, Skye. I saw the determination in your
eyes as you fed me. I knew you’d die for me.” He pulled me away
from his chest and looked me deep in the eyes. “Don’t ever…EVER do
that again, do you hear me? You are much more important than I am.
I’ve lived my life, Skye…you haven’t. Don’t you dare sacrifice
yourself to save me again. If you had died…if you had died, Skye…I
couldn’t live with myself.”

I reached up and cupped his cheek. “If you
had died, I couldn’t live with MY self. You mean so much to me,
Jameson. When I saw you…with your throat torn out…I…I lost it.”

He pulled me back to his chest and held me
firmly against him. I buried my face in his neck and took a deep
breath in, smelling the familiar and calming scent that was
Jameson; leather, and a hint of cool, crisp aftershave.

“What happened to Amun?” I whispered.

“Who is Amun?” Jameson asked me as he slowly
stroked my hair.

I leaned back and looked up at him, confused.
“He’s the guy who kidnapped me.”

Jameson growled as his eyes began to drain of
their beautiful light green color. “We didn’t know his name. He got
away,” he growled deeply.

Rage and anger poured off of him in waves and
I tentatively reached up and cupped his cheek. “Tell me what
happened,” I said gently.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a
moment, attempting to calm himself, before opening them and
speaking. “He escaped us somehow,” Jameson said, more calm than he
had been a second ago, but still incredibly angry. “But, not before
he killed Marcán.”

I gasped as my hand flew to my mouth in
shock. “Marcán is dead?”

“Aye,” he sighed and explained. “When Dean’s
wolves busted down the door, Marcán was the first one in. The man
you call Amun decapitated him instantly.”

“Dean was there?” I asked, confused and still
reeling from the horrible news of Marcán’s death.

“Aye,” he said as he roughly ran his fingers
through his soft brown shoulder length hair. “Maybe I should start
at the beginning.”

“Please, because I’m a little overwhelmed
right now,” I whispered as I wiped the fresh tears from my eyes. My
heart broke for Marcán and I wondered how his brothers in The
Faithful were taking his tragic death. “I’m having a little trouble
following along.”

Jameson gently laid us down on the bed and
pulled me to his chest. He sighed contentedly as I curled up in the
crook of his arm and he told me the story.

“After you argued with Archer and Dean and
walked away, they got into it. From what I hear, Dean is quite fond
of you and it pissed Archer off to no end. Vampires and werewolves
do not normally associate and Archer felt like you belonged to us,
so you were off limits. For the record, I didn’t agree with you
having dinner with him either when I first found out.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Jameson
shushed me with a quick kiss on the lips. “Let me finish, okay?” I
nodded my head, a bit unhappy, but allowed him to continue.

“Anyway, after Trey calmed everyone down,
Dean said he was going to go follow your trail to make sure you
were okay. Of course, Archer wasn’t about to let him go alone, so
he and Dean went after you. They were almost to the end of the
alley when they heard you scream. By the time they came across your
blood, you were gone and your scent trail had vanished.” He
swallowed hard and continued. “I didn’t see your blood on the
sidewalk, but from what I was told, it was enough that they thought
you couldn’t possibly have survived losing that much.”

“I almost didn’t,” I whispered against his
chest.

“Archer and Dean rushed back to The Mausoleum
and Archer immediately called
An Dílis
while Dean called a
few of his wolves. They fought over Dean wanting to help, but in
the end Aoife, Trey, and Hunter convinced him that the wolves could
be of some use in tracking you. Dean, Archer, Hagan, Marcán, and
two from Dean’s pack scoured the city looking for you as everyone
else ran the club and waited for
An Dílis
to arrive. I
didn’t know what was going on until I got to the club after my
show, mind you, but I blew up. I completely lost my shit, Skye. I
was furious that no one had told me you, my girlfriend, were
missing, but Aoife assured me that Archer was going to find you. I
didn’t care, though. I met up with Archer and the group and laid
into Archer as soon as I saw him. I’ve never struck my brother
before, but I did when I saw him that night. He apologized of
course, tried to explain, but I wasn’t having any of it. I just
wanted you back and would stop at nothing to find you.

“We searched for hours, never picking up your
trail. Archer listened into the thoughts of those around him and no
one had seen you. We were panicked at this point. Archer got a call
from
An Dílis
and we went to the club to meet with them.
They told Archer to stay at the club in case whoever took you
called while they set up a search grid. Dean and his wolves
reluctantly went home and most of us slept at the club that night,
feeling helpless and waiting on a call that would never come. Night
turned into day, day turned into night and still
An Dílis
had no clue where you were. They were certain that whoever took you
was the man they were looking for based on the blood message left
outside of the parking garage.”

“Blood message?”

“The pool of your blood,” Jameson explained
gently. “No one else would have had a reason to almost drain you
out on the street. It was a perfect pool of blood as there were no
signs of a struggle in the way the blood landed.” I looked at him
confused, but he just shook his head. “Vampire stuff, love. We can
read between the lines where blood is concerned.”

I shook my head, still not understanding, but
allowed him to continue. “
An Dílis
got a tip from a Dark One
claiming that he had seen you with a man in Dallas the day before,
so they loaded up the van, leaving Marcán, Pádraig, and Hagan with
us, as they went after you. Of course they were sent on a wild
goose chase, but we didn’t know that at the time. About three hours
after they left, one of the dancers arriving for work found a
package by the back door. She brought it to Hunter who was setting
up the downstairs bar and he brought it to Archer’s office. Archer
opened it and found your ripped and bloody t-shirt and a bag with a
large chunk of your hair and part of your scalp still attached to
it.”

I quickly reached up and felt the spot where
Amun had ripped my hair out. The hair was still missing, but the
skin there was smooth once again.

“I healed you, love,” Jameson said as he took
my hand from my head and kissed the back of my knuckles. “It will
grow back eventually. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you your hair
back.”

I took a deep breath and swallowed hard,
stuffing my emotions back down. I didn’t want to cry over something
as trivial as hair when so much had happened to all of us. In the
scope of things, hair should be the least of my worries. I was damn
lucky to be alive. “I know,” I said with a small smile. “It’s not a
big deal. I’ll just have to wear extensions there until it
does.”