Dark Exodus (The Order of Vampires 2)

“I said get out!” His brother shoved him back and growled.

“Adam, don’t.” Anna’s plea was weak and small. “Cain…” She held out a hand, her eyes hardly open. “It’s okay. Come here.”

Watching Adam through a defensive glare, he dropped to his knees at the side of the bed and pulled Anna’s fingers to his forehead. “Is the baby…?”

“The baby’s fine. What about you?”

He looked at her through glassy eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know how this happened.”

She smiled, but it cost her and she shut her eyes. “I guess we’re more connected than we realized.” She let out a pained breath. “Cain, you need to feed. I think your hunger is what’s slowing me from healing.”

He hadn’t done anything but rush to the farm the moment he learned she was in danger. His eyes pleaded as he looked up at his brother. “Adam, can you…?”

His brother scoffed and left the room. He returned a moment later with a glass of distilled sheep blood. Cain drank it down greedily, and Anna sighed at the same time as him.

The ache in his bones eased and the throbbing in his skull subsided. It was as if they could feel each other getting well, and since they’d never been able to share more than dreams or pain, he found the sense of her relief the closest he’d ever get to knowing her pleasure.

“What did this to you?” Her gaze roamed over the dried blood and fading bruises on his body.

“Something like us but much worse. I don’t have a name for it, but there are more and they’re all dangerous.”

Over the next hour, he told them of what he’d found in the woods and how his suspicions of Isaiah were most likely correct.

“Will you tell The Council?”

He frowned at his dutiful brother. “What for? I already tried and no one believed me.”

“This is different, Cain. One of those things came after you.”

He shook his head, still processing what he found in the woods. “I’ll think about it. Right now, my mind’s on other things.”

He stood, unable to suffer their presence much longer. He loved Anna and his brother, but he could only tolerate their love for each other for so long. He glanced back at Anna, wishing he could hold her for just a moment. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”

“I’m okay, Cain. It wasn’t your fault.”

He nodded, trying hard to swallow her forgiveness but finding it difficult. “I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“You better,” Adam growled.

He didn’t blame him for his protectiveness of his mate. Leaving the bedroom, he grazed a hand over his brother’s tight shoulder. “Take care of her.”

“I always do.”

Cain nodded and left the way he came in.

Chapter 20

Bubbles gathered around Larissa as she sat in the bathtub, her brow wearing a perpetual frown. Her twenty-four hours had expired. Yet, here she sat, in her lovely, modern apartment, the bishop waiting in the wings with not a single idea of what to do.

He was her mate. Not Silus, but Eleazar, the bishop.

When she last walked off the farm, she swore she’d never return. To say this news was unexpected would be the understatement of the century.

If she returned—and that was a big if—she would not return to living out her miserable existence as Silus Hostetler’s obedient wife.

The dreams were clear earlier when she slept. Each time she drifted to sleep the bishop was there. At first, his presence bothered her but now she was growing used to him. So fast.

She hadn’t expected her emotions to invest this quickly and, while her brain warned against falling for yet another immortal more powerful than she, the bishop was always kind in her dreams. When he touched her—a gentle caress here or a trace of his fingers there—it gave her an unexpected thrill. The experience was altogether odd and somewhat unsettling.

Some dreams were sensual, while others were simple comforts in casual settings. The last dream had left her flushed and aching in ways she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. The bishop had trailed a ruby-colored ribbon over her naked breasts until the flesh tightened and goose bumps covered her soft skin.

There was no shame in the dream. She suffered no modesty or instinct to cover herself. She simply allowed his touch as if it were as natural and entitled to her body as her own hands.

When he smiled at her, she smiled back. The expression was new to her, something she’d never seen the bishop do in person, so she liked glimpsing into that softer side of him when she slept. He was quite beautiful when he wasn’t scowling.

A knock on the door had her gasping and jerking her gaze to the lock.

“Larissa?”

“Yes?”

The knob jiggled. “The door’s locked.”

As it should be. “Did you need something?”

A click and the door opened. Panicked, she scooted under the water as far as her long legs would permit. Her knees sloshed above the surface, and she scooted bubbles along the surface to cover the parts she didn’t want him to see.