Heir of Night (The Thorne Hill)

“I’m not drinking your blood,” he says firmly. “I’ll be fine if I sleep for a few hours.”

“You lost a lot of blood, Lucas. Sleep isn’t going to replenish that.”

“I can manage. Vampires can go days or weeks without eating.”

“You need to eat,” I press. “We escaped last night, but the Horsemen and Paimon are still out there. This wasn’t a win for us, Lucas.”

He picks up a glass of orange juice but trades it for water, remembering I’m not a big orange juice fan. My mouth is dry, and my body begs for water. I down the whole glass at once and put it back on the tray.

“I still have you,” Lucas says.

“And I have you.” I pick up a blueberry muffin. Survivor’s guilt is a real thing, and paired with my heart being ripped right out of my chest and crushed into a million pieces, I don’t feel like I deserve anything right now. I force myself to take a bite of the muffin, doing it for my baby, not for me.

“Where do we go from here?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Lucas tries to assure me. “We always do.”

“And we always get out alive, but we didn’t this time.”

Lucas’s face tenses, and he sighs, getting up and taking the empty water glass into the bathroom to fill it up. I make myself eat the rest of the muffin and then lie back down, hugging a pillow to my chest. I don’t cry this time, and the numbness I was feeling earlier starts to eat away at me, making room for guilt.

“It should have been me,” I rasp.

“I will selfishly say I’m glad it wasn’t. And Julian felt the same. He loved you, Callie, and he believed in you. Before he even met you, he believed your life was worth living.”

My throat tightens, and just when I thought I had no tears left to cry, more spring to my eyes. Pressing my face into the pillow, I muffle my sobs. Lucas’s large hand lands on my back, lifting up the t-shirt so he can rub my back.

Binx shadows into the room and curls up with me. I wrap an arm around him, and my tears wet his sleek back fur. And I cry myself to sleep once again.

“Callie?”

A soft knock comes from the door. I sit up, and Lucas’s hand slides off of me. He’s dead asleep, not even stirring from whoever is knocking on the door. He says he’s fine, but I know better. He hadn’t had a lot of blood to drink before he got attacked, and he nearly bled out from being stabbed to the ground by War.

Binx is still wrapped in my arms, and he lazily rolls off my pillow, staying on the bed when I get up, quietly padding to the door. I twist the lock and open the door. Kristy stands in the hall, and her brows push together as soon as she sees me.

“Evander told me what happened,” she squeaks out. I step into the hall and close the door. “I’m so sorry.” Her arms wrap around me, and I lean into her embrace, silently sobbing as I hug my best friend.

“It should have been me,” I croak.

“Don’t say that, Callie.” She pulls away but keeps a hold on her hands. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through last night, but don’t say that. You’re my best friend, and that little girl needs you.”

“She needs to hurry up and be born.” I shakily inhale. “Paimon was going to use the little divinity she has to rule both Heaven and Hell.”

“What?” Kristy’s sky-blue eyes widen. “Would that even work?”

“From what he said.” I put my hand on my stomach, feeling the baby flip-flop around. “Oh, and that same old-as-fuck vampire who showed up that night Ruby was over helping me with demon research invited us to a swanky VC party last night. We were a no-show, of course.”

Kristy gapes at me, not sure what to say. “The one who wants you to join in on a war against humans?”

“Yeah. That’s the one. Oh, and it turns out he and Lucas have history. Lucas was friends with Eamon’s brother, who was killed when a British Army dude organized a daylight attack. That’s why he turned Eliza. To avenge this friend.”

Kristy just blinks, at a loss for words. “M-maybe the demons got him.”

I let out a strangled snort of laughter that turns into a sob. “Maybe. If we’re lucky.”

“Hey. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“Everyone keeps telling me that. How can I not? I got away, Kristy, but that’s all. We didn’t win. We didn’t stop Paimon or cause the slightest injury to the Horsemen. Julian burned through the ritual, and Lucas is fast. That’s all. We lost. Julian lost.”

“I know it feels that way right now, and I don’t want to try and convince you otherwise. What happened sucks so much, and I’m not here to tell you it’ll be okay and things happen for a reason. I’m just here for you. I love you, Cal.”