Bite Me (Vampire Wardens Resurrection 1)

My teeth retract, and I turn to her, grabbing her arms. “Are you okay?”

“You need help,” she gasps. “You need help. My phone. I need my phone.” She tries to turn away from me, and I hold onto her. “I have to call for help. Jacob—Jacob is dead and you need help.”

The help I need is her blood before that wolf returns. I don’t hesitate. There isn’t time, not when I have to be right and strong to protect her. Not when I know Marcus was here to tell me it’s now or never with Ivy. Maybe she won’t come back again, after this lifetime. I pull her to me and look down at her. “You won’t feel this,” I say, and when she blinks, I lean in, biting her neck and drinking.

She sucks in a breath and sinks against me. The sweetness of her blood pours through me, and I growl with the intensity of my wounds healing, but I only take just enough, and no more. I pull back and seal the wound without offering her the bond of my blood, pull back and order, “I need you to look at me, Ivy.”

Her hand is on her neck, her eyes wide as they meet mine, and she looks at her palm. “What did you do? I know you did something.” She tries to push away from me.

I hold onto her.

“Ivy,” I say, knowing now is the time to pull her out of the darkness of ignorance. Ignorance is no longer safe for her.

“I need to call for help,” she says, her voice quaking. “I need—”

“Look at me,” I demand, a mental push in the command.

Her gaze collides with mine and I add, “There are monsters in the world, Ivy, and you know this more than you realize. That’s why you write about monsters. That’s why you write them well.”

She shakes her head. “No. No. This can’t be real.”

“We both know you know, that you’ve always known, it’s true.”

“We have to get help,” she whispers. “Jacob—”

“Is dead. There’s no saving him. His throat is ripped out. What matters is me getting you to safety so I can go hunt that wolf.”

“You can go hunt it?”

“I could wipe your memory and you wouldn’t know to feel the fear I know you feel right now, but that doesn’t keep you safe. I need you to understand that you’re in danger and I can protect you.”

“And who protects me from you?” she asks. “Because I know you bit me. I know you’re a monster, too.”

“You don’t need protection from me.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers.

Those words bite and it would be so easy to use our connection and show her the past, but saving her doesn’t mean she’s forced to live a life with me. And I won’t take her choice from her. I won’t force myself on her. “I swear to you, Ivy, I will never hurt you. I will only protect you.”

Rocco and Cam are suddenly on the scene on either side of us.

“Holy mother of Jesus,” Rocco growls. “Tell me the wolf is dead.”

“He’s not,” I say and when I would add to that, there’s a shift in the air.

Aware that there is another vampire in our presence, my eyes meet Ivy’s. “Stay behind me. Do not move if you want to live.” I release her and turn to find Elijah Gatlin standing a few feet away.

Elijah is an ancient vampire, equal to Marcus, a force to be reckoned with at six-foot-five with long, flowing dark hair. His eyes are the blue eyes of the ancients that he, unlike Marcus, doesn’t bother to mask.

He’s also Marcus’s enemy, which makes him our enemy. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” I demand while Rocco and Cam fall into place on either side of me.

“I’m not here for you,” he says. “I’m here for Grayson.”

Grayson being his right hand, his closest follower. With Grayson by his side, Elijah led a rebel attempt to take over the council that failed. That was when I was a young vampire, only ten years turned.

“Why hunt Grayson?” Rocco asks.

“Exactly,” Cam says. “I thought he was your follower.”

“He was,” he says. “Until he betrayed me. And I’m not hunting him,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “You are.”

“Why am I hunting him?” I ask.

“Because he’s ridiculously prone to the foolish need for revenge. Me now, but first, it was you.”

Unease slides down my spine. “What does that mean?”

“It means, that when you were human, you beat him at a card game, and made him a fool in town. So, when I turned him, he came for you. And he came for your pretty little birthday girl, Ivy. And he came for Cam because he was your friend. None of you were supposed to live.”

My spine is stiff and what blood is in my body is boiling. “How do I know that’s the truth?”