Awakened (Vampire Awakenings) (21 page)

Mike closed his eyes and turned away from him. “She knowingly let you feed off her?” Doug asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“Crap,” Jack muttered.

“From the cut on your neck, I’d say you returned the favor,” Mike muttered.

Mike stopped pacing again as the three of them turned to him in disbelief. “Will you change her?” Jack demanded.

Liam closed his eyes. Before the answer would have been a simple no. But now, now, he knew that he couldn’t bear to lose her, and he would, if she remained human. But he couldn’t force it on her; he couldn’t make her do anything that she didn’t want too. He knew he would lose her if he did. “If she asks for it.”

“Crap,” Jack mumbled again as Mike resumed his pacing.

“Do you think she will?” Doug inquired.

“I don’t know.”

“I think she will,” Mike said.

Liam’s eyes snapped to his as he stopped pacing. “Why do you say that?”

Mike seemed to be gazing at something beyond this room. “She loves you Liam. She’s allowed you to feed from her, she has fed from you. You two are growing closer by the minute. It’s only simple logic that she won’t want to lose you either.”

A spark of hope began to bloom inside him, but he quickly shoved it aside. There was no way to know what Sera would decide to do, and he wasn’t going to pressure her. Dwelling on it now wasn’t going to help.

“Jesus,” Doug muttered.

“Well now, this is definitely getting interesting.” Jack climbed to his feet and walked over to join Doug. “Will you at least tell us if it happens?”

“Yes.”

“No more secrets Liam, we’re all in this together. You should have told us about Jacob sooner. We’re at risk too.”

Liam nodded and turned away from them. They were right, but he had been so worried about Sera, and what they might do to her, that he hadn’t spared them more than a thought.

“I think it’s obvious that we can trust her,” Doug said.

“Yes, we can,” Liam insisted.

“We can,” Mike said. “Trust me, I was worried at first, but she won’t do anything to hurt Liam. She’ll die before that happens.”

“Don’t say that!” Liam snapped.

Mike shrugged as he stopped pacing. “It’s true Liam. She isn’t immortal. If things start to go wrong with Jacob, if the hunters realize that we’re here, and they come for us, she is the one most closely linked to Jacob. It’s her they’ll go after.”

Liam’s jaw clenched as his nostrils flared. He hadn’t thought of that. He had been too worried, too concerned about everything else to even think about that. Even if they did find Jacob’s body, he didn’t think the police would put two and two together, but the hunter’s would. They would read about how he had been killed, and they would know. And Sera would be their logical choice.

“Shit!”

They remained silent as Liam began to angrily pace the room and mutter curses under his breath. “You two said not to worry about it, for now,” Doug reminded them. “So don’t.”

“That was before I realized that she was in more danger than we are!” Liam snarled.

“For now, there’s nothing that we can do. Hell, we can’t even leave here. Which brings us to a more pressing problem at the moment,” Mike said. “Food.”

“Well some of us don’t have that problem,” Jack mumbled. Liam’s eyes snapped toward him, but Jack wasn’t being his usual ass self. His face was drawn and pale as he looked at Liam with blank eyes. “Having them trapped in this house with us is not helping.”

“I’m not going to touch her again. It’s too soon.”

“At least you’ve gotten something recently. The rest of us are hungry, and tired, and their presence is killing us.”

“It is,” Mike said. “We didn’t feed yesterday, and it’s starting to get to us now. There’s no way we’re going to last another day, maybe two, if we can’t get out tomorrow. It will start to get to you too.”

“It’s going to be hard to control soon,” Doug said softly. “We have to figure something out.”

Liam looked out the window at the brilliant, white world. “Damn,” he mumbled as he ran his fingers through his hair. He knew they were right. Even though he had fed sooner than them, it would start to get to him too. He didn’t know what he would do when it did. He did know that he wouldn’t be able to go near Sera.

“Animals,” he said, dropping his hand to his side. “We’re going to have to get our hands on some animals.”

“How?” Doug asked. “Go tramping through the woods in search of a rabbit?”

“What’s up Doc?” Jack quipped with a stupid grin on his face.

Liam laughed as some of the tension drained out of his body. Doug grinned and turned to look out the window again. “Well,” Doug said. “We do have supernatural powers, I guess it’s time to put them to use.”

“A rabbit won’t even be an appetizer right now,” Jack said.

Mike walked over to the window and looked out at the endless snow. “There aren’t any other options.”

“Well men,” Jack said. “It’s time to get in touch with our hunting instincts.”

CHAPTER 14

Liam stepped off the porch and into the blinding snow. He clapped his gloved hands together as he huddled deeper into his coat in an attempt to ward off the chill of the whipping wind. He watched in disbelief as Danielle, Sera, and Kathleen rolled a large ball of snow. They were laughing happily as they shoved and pushed at the huge ball, seemingly oblivious to the blizzard around them.

His gaze settled upon Sera. Her hair had fallen loose from its ponytail to hang in damp curls around her beautiful, reddened face. Her laughter filled the air, and he felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth in response.

“What are you doing?” Mike called to them.

“Building a snowman,” Kathleen yelled back. She laughed loudly as she fell on her ass.

Sera helped her to her feet as the four of them walked over to join them. “Awfully big snowball. How do you plan on getting that one on top of the other one?” Jack asked as he pointed to the larger ball five feet away.

“That’s what we have you big strong men for.” Sera punched him lightly on the arm.

“Good plan,” Doug commented dryly. “Glad we were informed.”

“Well, now you know,” Danielle said as she clapped her snow covered mittens together. “So you can help us.”

Unable to keep his hands off her, Liam reached out and pulled Sera into his arms. Her eyes sparkled brightly as she tilted her reddened face up. “Don’t you think you should go inside?”

“Nope,” she said with a grin. “We’re going to get Frosty together, and you’re going to help.”

“Actually,” Liam said. “We were going to go for a walk.”

Sera’s eyes darkened as her brow furrowed. “In a blizzard?”

“You won’t get far, the snow’s too deep, and it’s really hard to walk through,” Kathleen told them.

“That’s okay, it’ll be good exercise,” Doug said. “Plus, I need to stretch my legs before we can’t go anywhere.”

“That’s not a bad idea; we’ll come with you, right girls?” Kathleen said enthusiastically. “I’ll show you the lookout. You’ll love it. It’s an old tree house where you can see everything for miles around. The mountains will be beautiful with all of this snow.”

“You know, we weren’t planning on going that far,” Mike said.

“The look out’s about a half a mile away. It won’t take us long to get there.”

Liam’s arms tightened around Sera as Mike shot him a look. Sera looked quickly up at him, and then over at the others. Her brow puckered in confusion before her eyes widened in dawning realization. Her hands tightened upon his jacket as she turned toward Kathleen. “I would rather stay here and finish the snowman.”

“We can’t finish it without their help,” Kathleen retorted.

“We can roll the last ball and wait for them to come back,” Sera insisted. “Besides, I’m getting pretty cold. If we walk through those woods just think about how much colder we’ll be.”

Kathleen shrugged and stomped her booted feet. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she relented.

Liam blew out a sigh of relief as Doug and Jack swung shocked and impressed eyes toward Sera. Pride bloomed in his chest as he hugged her tighter. “We’ll let them get cold, and when they get back they can put the snowman together for us.”

“Ouch,” Jack said as he grinned happily. “That’s just wrong.”

Sera grinned as she stood on her toes to kiss Liam. “Right?” she asked sweetly as she batted her eyelashes playfully.

“Blackmail is illegal,” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes,” she murmured softly. “But so is what I am going to do to you later.”

He laughed loudly and kissed her, he was secretly pleased that her shyness seemed to be slipping further away. His dick began to harden as he thought about exactly what he was going to do to her tonight. “I’m going to hold you to that.” He let her go before he decided to forgo the walk and carry her back into the cabin for the rest of the day.

“You’d better. Be careful.”

She tossed an enticing grin over her shoulder before bouncing back over to Danielle and Kathleen. She sat on Frosty’s stomach, a smug look on her beautiful face as snow fell down to coat her hair, and clothes. “Don’t be too long!” Kathleen called after them. “It’s going to get dark fast tonight!”

“We won’t!” Mike yelled back.

They trudged through the knee high snow into the woods. “I guess it’s all right that you told her,” Jack said after awhile. “She is pretty cool.”

“She’s more than cool,” Mike joked. “She’s hot.”

“Oh yeah,” Jack said eagerly. “She is definitely hot.”

“Don’t make me have to threaten to kill you again,” Liam replied lightly as some of the tension left his body.

“You might have too,” Doug said as he slapped Jack on the arm. “I think he’s in love.”

They all laughed as they trudged their way up the mountain.

***

Sera clapped the excess snow off her gloves and stepped back to look at their three very large snowballs. The snow was coming down harder, and the wind had risen to a thunderous crescendo. Branches snapped loudly as the trees bent and swayed from the force of the gale.

Her hands and feet had long ago gone numb, and her hair was a tangled, wet mass. Kathleen and Danielle had already gone inside to warm up. Sera knew that she should go too, before her feet froze into the snow, but she couldn’t stop staring into the woods.

With a soft sigh, she turned and headed back to the cabin. She wasn’t going to make them magically reappear by standing there and staring. She wiped the snow out of her eyes as she pushed back an annoying piece of hair that was whipping painfully across her face. “Hello!”

Sera jumped in surprise and almost fell into the snow as she spun awkwardly around. A young girl waved to her from the edge of the forest. Sera waved numbly back as the girl made her way easily forward, the snowshoes strapped to her feet made her journey quick. Sera stared in amazement, and curiosity. She didn’t know what could possibly bring someone out in these conditions. The girl stopped before her, her black hair billowed in the wind like a whipping banner that contrasted sharply with the white surrounding them.

“Hi,” Sera greeted in disbelief.

The tiny girl was amazingly beautiful. She had soft, striking features that were delicate and sweet. Her nose was small, and gently sloping, her lips full and luscious, and a deep blood red. Her eyes were shimmering, blindingly brilliant, emerald orbs. Sera stared at her in amazement, and the girl stared back with a soft smile on her pouting lips. She was small and petite, at most she was five three, and only weighed a hundred pounds with all of her snow gear on.

“What are you doing out here?” Sera asked worriedly. “Is everything all right?”

The girl laughed easily, a sweet, tinkling sound that carried through the air. “Oh yes,” she said happily. “I live in the cabin about a mile down the road. I was going stir crazy so I decided to go for a walk.”

“Well, why don’t you come inside and have some hot chocolate with my friends and I?”

“Oh, who are your friend’s? Maybe I know them.”

“Kathleen’s parents own the cabin, and she’s inside with Danielle now. A few of our other friends went for a walk.”

The girl studied her for a moment before she turned to look at the woods. “A walk huh?” Something flickered over her delicate features that caused a chill ran up Sera’s spine. The girl smiled happily as she shook back her midnight hair. “No, that’s all right. I was heading to my friend’s cabin. They’ll be worried if I don’t show up. Maybe I’ll stop on my way back.”

Sera felt as if there was something wrong with this girl, but she didn’t know what, and she couldn’t just let her walk through a blizzard without trying to help her. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in and warm up for a couple of minutes first?”

“No, I really should be going. My name’s Elizabeth by the way, but everyone calls me Beth,” she said as she extended a small, gloved hand.

“Serendipity, but everyone calls me Sera. It’s nice to meet you.”

“That’s unusual, pretty though. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“Thanks. Have a safe walk.”

“I will. Have a nice day.”

Sera hurried back to the cabin and quickly climbed the steps. She swung the back door open and stomped the snow from her boots as she pulled her gloves off. She stripped her jacket off and hurried into the warm kitchen. Danielle and Kathleen were slowly sipping hot chocolate and bickering over a crossword puzzle as they sat at the island.

“They back yet?” Kathleen asked.

“No, not yet.”

“For not wanting to go very far, they’ve been gone awhile,” Danielle said.

“Well over an hour,” Kathleen muttered.

Sera poured a mug of hot chocolate, and held it in her numbed hands to help warm them up. “They’ll be back soon,” she said as she took a sip.

“I hope so, it will be dark soon.”

Sera moved over to the island and stared unseeingly at the crossword. The heat was rapidly sinking into her as shooting pains lanced through her numbed fingers. “I just met a neighbor of yours,” she said to Kathleen.

Kathleen frowned as she lifted her head from the puzzle. “A neighbor?” she asked. “Where?”

“Out back, after you guys came inside. She was walking through the woods.”

Kathleen plopped her pen on the counter as her gaze darted to the windows. “We don’t have any neighbors, Sera.”

Sera frowned as she took a sip of her hot chocolate. “She said she was from a cabin about a mile down the road.”

Kathleen chewed on her bottom lip as she glanced back at Sera. “That’s funny.”

“Why?”

“Well that would be the old McDonald place. His wife died last year, and Mr. McDonald died last month. As far as I know, no one has bought the place.”

“Maybe she was a grandkid or something?”

Kathleen shrugged as she picked her pen up. “Yeah, maybe.”

“She said she was going to a friend’s cabin.”

Kathleen glanced sharply at her as she lowered her pen again. “Sera, were you hallucinating or something?”

“No, I swear! Her name was Beth.”

“The closest cabin is five miles away. Unless she was planning on spending all night walking I doubt that’s where she was going.”

“I’m just telling you what she said.”

“Maybe you misunderstood her.”

“No, I understood her just fine.”

“Then she must have been lying.”

Sera shrugged as she glanced back out the window. She couldn’t see anything through the snow blasting against the pane. Worry was beginning to gnaw at her stomach as she noticed that the sky was darkening. She took another sip of hot chocolate and placed the cup down. “Maybe,” she replied. “But why would she?”

Kathleen shrugged as she quickly wrote down an answer. “Are you sure that’s right?” Danielle demanded.

“It fits, doesn’t it? She may have been too shy to come inside.”

She didn’t seem at all shy to Sera, but she couldn’t think of any other reason. “Maybe,” she agreed absently. “Do you think they’re all right?”

“I’m sure they’re fine, stop worrying about it. Why don’t you go take a shower before the electric goes out? I’m sure they’ll be back by the time you’re done.”

The idea of a shower was very tempting. She was exceptionally numb and she needed a distraction from her worry. “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“The towels are in the hall closet!” Kathleen called after her.

Sera quickly gathered dry clothes and practically leapt up the stairs as the warm shower beckoned to her. Stripping out of her wet clothes, she adjusted the shower to the hottest temperature she could stand and stepped inside. The driving needles, and the fiery warmth, helped to melt some of the tension from her body. Once the pain of her frozen extremities began to fade, she savored the warmth of the water, and the steam rising around her while she leisurely washed her hair.

The shower curtain suddenly ripped open. She cried out in surprise, and fear, as she instinctively covered her naked body. Liam grinned at her as he stepped into the large tub. “Jesus!” she gasped, her hand flying to her heart. “Don’t do that! Didn’t you ever see Psycho!?”

He laughed softly as he wound his hands into her wet hair and pulled her closer to him. She scowled fiercely at him, not ready to forgive him for scaring the hell out of her. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he dropped a light kiss on her mouth. “But the idea of sharing a shower with you was too tempting to resist.”

Her anger began to melt as he nibbled gently on her lower lip. Her hands fluttered to his chest. “You’re freezing!” she gasped as she dropped her hands.

He grinned at her as he stepped under the warm water. “Come here and warm me up.”

She raised an eyebrow haughtily at him. “You come in here, scare me to death, take over my hot water and expect me to be accommodating?”

The sensual grin he shot her warmed her more than all the hot water in the world could have. “Yes.”

She couldn’t stop the small smile that played at the corner of her mouth. He tipped his head back to let the water run down his face and plaster his hair back. Sera’s mouth went dry as her heart began to pound rapidly in her chest. He was absolutely magnificent. Water slid over his bronzed skin, ran over his broad shoulders and hard chest in tantalizing rivulets that made her wish her hands were the water. He was already hard, and the throbbing tip of his shaft glistened with beads of water.