Bound by Sin: The Beginning of a Prophecy (Prophecy #3) (17 page)

Another scream boomed down the street, followed by several others
, and then came the sound of feet stampeding down the sidewalk.

“Gavin,” I pleaded, knowing he couldn’t do anything to make this nightmare end, but I was desperate.

His head slowly turned to look behind him. I watched his face, waiting for a clue to what was going on because I was too afraid to turn and look for myself. His nostrils flared, his eyes pulsed into a widened stare momentarily, and his fingers squeezed my hand. Without looking at me he said, “Run. We must run,” in such a calm tone that it sent chills ripping through my spine.

The noise of screams and people scattering in an effort to escape whatever horro
r had just unleashed itself bounced from the concrete building, trapping itself in between walls and rising to a deafening level. The sound of glass shattering splintered through the air, the metal of bistro chairs clanked against the concrete, and tires screeched to a halt. Cars crashed, the metal crumpling like a piece of paper in someone’s fist.

We ran furiously down the sidewalk, snakin
g between people, passing others fleeing the terrified mob coming our way. A man in front of us scaled a tree growing from the sidewalk, branches snapping under his weight. Horrified foreign yells escaped him as he stared, eyes wide and bulging, his jaw quaking from whatever sight he was witnessing. No longer able to restrain myself, I spun around. All I saw were people running, crying, yelling.

Gavin yanked my arm.
“Stop trying to see.”

He was literally dragging me, my feet unable to keep up with him. He was running so fast, flying by people, by buildings
, and suddenly, he stopped. We ran to the doors of a hotel. A man stood behind the door, wearing a horrified expression. Gavin pushed the door and it didn’t budge. “Open the damned door!” Gavin demanded.

The man behind the door took several faltering steps backwards before scurrying off into the lobby and disappearing down a hallway.

Gavin shook the handle and the noise from the screaming mob grew closer. He drew his arm back to punch through the glass and then stopped.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

“That’ll do no good anyway…” he mumbled to himself. Stepping out from the awning, he stared up.

“Gavin! What are you doing?”
I screeched. Pulling on his arm to continue running, my arm caught slack. He wasn’t moving.

“Get on my back,” he said, still staring up.

Without question, I scrambled onto his back, latched my legs around his waist, and locked my arms around his neck. My fingers clenched into the flesh of his chest as the venom of fear coursed through my body.

Adjusting me on his back
, he said, “Don’t let go.”

Reaching up, he jumped, his hands catching hold of the wrought iron railing of the balcony above us. He pulled us both up and over onto the concrete patio. Through the window I saw a woman staring out at us. The color fled from her face and she gripped the curtains hanging to the side of the French door just before she collapsed onto the floor.

Leaping again, Gavin pulled us up onto the second balcony. He continued to effortlessly scale the balconies until we’d reached the roof. He sat down and scooted us both back from the edge of the building. The wind howled around the corner and the screams from the crowd below were almost silenced by it. Staring down, I finally saw what the people were running from.

There were several very large, statuesque men combing through the crowd. They
selectively yanked up people fleeing past them. They’d pull them close to their face, almost as if they were inhaling and savoring the delicate fragrance of a rose. Moments later they’d snap their necks to the side and, if that violent motion hadn’t stilled them, these men would bite them, sucking all life from them. The scream from the person trapped in their grip would rise shrilly above the hundreds of other panicked cries. Their body would flail, twitching, trying to free themselves from the hold of these demons. These men were moving with a swiftness that made me certain that whoever they were searching for would never be able to escape them. Impossible speed, a speed that seemed to almost pause the movement of everything else around them. The same speed Gavin had been moving with. Inhuman.

“Stop watching them!”
Gavin demanded.

Unable to tear my gaze away from the mayhem unfolding below us, I realized that every person they were grabbing was a woman. A dark-haired woman.

I fell back, my feet pushing against the roof to get me away from the edge. My mouth was dry. Trying to form words, my tongue whipped around the inside of my mouth to wet it. I could feel the blood draining out of my face, my fingers were tingling and I fought to catch my breath. “Me,” I managed to whisper. “They’re looking for me… aren’t they?” My stare was frozen to the edge of the roof, the despairing cries from below ringing in my ears. “That’s what they’re going to do to me – that’s me –
my
fate. Me.” Without being aware of it, I had stood up and was screaming.

Gavin grabbed me, jerking me back down. My head slammed against the cold concrete and he push
ed his entire body on top of me, his chest heaving, his warm breath flowing over my face as he pressed his forehead to mine. He had pinned my arms above my head, his legs straddling my pelvis, keeping me from leaping back to my feet as panic pulsed through me.

“
Shhh! You’ve got to be quiet. They can hear things.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “They can hear your damned heart beating! You’ve
got
to be silent.”

I lay there, looking up int
o Gavin’s eyes. Listening to the breath rushing from his lungs. The chilled breeze screaming around the corners, carrying dried leaves across the deserted rooftop. Gavin’s hair caught, serving as a golden contrast to the blue night sky. Closing my eyes, I consciously tried to slow my heart beat for fear that the drumming percussions would draw the attention of death to us. After the pandemonium below had traveled far away from us, we still lay in complete silence for what seemed like hours before Gavin rose from me.

A yellow and orange glow was beginning to find its way to the bottom of the horizon as dawn crept in.
That sunrise should have been breathtaking – Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower in the distance – but all it served as was a form of relief because it was sweeping the darkness away.

Gavin stood in front of a
weathered metal door leading into the hotel. He jiggled the handle and the door didn’t budge.

“Fuck,” he said
, and drew in a large breath. Raising his hands back, he banged them against the door and it broke free from its hinges, the steel bending, screws stripping themselves from their hold and flying through the air. The door creaked as it held on by one remaining hinge. Gavin stretched his arm out to keep the door against the wall. “Come on then, love. Let’s go get a room and get you some rest.”

Brooke

Chapter Twenty

September 22, 2014

Turning the television off,
I lay in the bed, picking at my cuticles and biting at the loose skin on my chapped lips, just thinking about everything. All of the stations were reporting the same thing. What happened last night hadn’t been isolated to Paris. These men, these monsters, had been prowling each country, crawling through just about every city looking for me. Thousands of people had been murdered, their bodies tossed carelessly to the side of the streets when the men realized the woman they were holding wasn’t me.

I was dizzy, disoriented
, and utterly sick to my stomach with guilt. Turning my head away from the television, I watched Gavin sleeping. One hand held his pendant, which I now assumed had something to do with his being immortal, and the other arm was wrapped around me. Slowly, I worked myself out from underneath his hold and delicately draped his arm over the pillow I’d been lying on.

That man was my sin, my fault, and absolutely everything to me. The notion that all of this was because of me
snuck back into my mind and the bitter taste of acid rose in my throat. I quickly made my way into the bathroom.

Staring into the toilet, I realized that maybe I could stop this.
By running I was only prolonging the inevitable, and how selfish would it be if I continued to allow this to go on? All for what? For one more day of life? One more day of constant worrying, of fearing each noise I heard?

I ran cold water into the sink. Dipping my hands beneath the surface, I brought some to
my face and rubbed it over my eyes hoping that the shock of the temperature would help clear my head. I stared at my reflection in the beveled mirror before hanging my head to my chest. I watched the drops of water splash onto the black countertop, unable to shake the guilt I felt from running for the short amount of time I had.

Flipping
off the light, I tiptoed back into the small bedroom. Gavin rolled onto his side, turning his back to me and the door that I was making my way toward.

My heart
skipped a few beats, jumping up into my throat when the smooth metal doorknob twisted beneath my hand. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the door, pausing before I carefully pushed it open. A cold sweat formed on my brow as I silently prayed that the hinges wouldn’t creak and wake Gavin up. Stepping into the hallway I whispered, “I’m sorry” as I let the door close behind me. An overwhelming sense of loss filled me as I thought of what I’d just done.

The further down the hallway I got, the faster I walked until I was at a full sprint. Opening the door to the stairwell, I ran down the stair
s, my hand gripping the metal railing, my footsteps clanging against the steps as I descended. I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I knew I had to get far away from him. If he found me he’d never let me out of his sight again and I was determined that I had to stop this, now. Tears flowed freely from my eyes because I knew that what I was doing would hurt him, and I couldn’t stand the thought that the last emotion I would bring him would be sadness.

Slamming into the
door, I left the safety of the building. The sunlight stung my eyes. I shielded the harsh rays from my face and frantically looked around the empty city. I took off running down the street, my hard steps pounding the tears from my eyes. The farther I ran, the harder I cried until my sobs were finally audible. The tortured sound of my loss crumbled from my mouth, my body trembling from the emotion.

Damn him for having this effect on me. Emotions this raw shouldn’t be possible.
Not humanly possible.

Through my blurry eyes I could see the few people brave enough to come outside after the preceding night staring at
me, turning to watch as I sped past them. I didn’t stop running until I reached the bank of the river. Collapsing, I sat, my breathing labored and the tears still streaming down my cheeks. I balled my fists up and punched the damp ground. A loud scream broke the silence and carried across the river. Raising my hand again, I pounded it against the ground over and over until I felt my knuckles split. My fingers grasped at the grass, digging into the cold soil, its gritty texture collecting underneath my nails. I tore the grass up, wadding it up in my fists before I allowed my body to collapse into a weeping heap on the ground. I didn’t care what attention I brought to myself, I no longer cared what creature found me. I welcomed death, I
longed
for something that would close my eyes and tear this pain away from me. I couldn’t live without him – I didn’t
want
to live without him, and I refused to be so selfish as to try and escape with him. I couldn’t damn the rest of the world just to keep his touch, to enjoy the peace that I’d found only in his embrace.

Opening my eyes, I looked up into the
pale blue sky dotted with heavy grey clouds. The silhouette of several birds made their way through the air. The silence was unnerving. Few vehicles were out and when I finally took a moment to glance around, I noticed that the bodies of the women were still strewn everywhere. The world was breaking to pieces, all the rules, all the order that man had struggled to create were faltering. Cleaning up death from the streets was no longer a priority when the world was in a state of panic, under attack by forces man could never hope to control.

I stared at o
ne corpse that lay several feet away from me. Flipping over on my stomach, I pushed myself up and crawled toward her body. Her eyes were open, her pupils fixed and wide; they looked like glass, like they belonged to a porcelain doll. Her face had twisted and frozen into an expression of absolute horror, her jaw gaping open, her tongue pushed to the roof of her mouth. The collar of her lavender shirt was stained with blood and the strands of her dark hair, having been wet by the ruby liquid, were now stiff and stuck to the material.

My body tensed up before I rose to my knees.
Looking around, there was no one. Nothing except empty space.

“Come take me!” I shouted. “I’m right here. Come take me. I’m yours.” My voice strained as I called out.

Standing, I searched the streets for movement. “Come on. What are you waiting for? Come get me.”

Several crows fluttered into the air as my scream rose into the sky and disappeared. I stood panting, realizing that I was terrified, that I’d made too rash of a decision. Just when I was about to sprint at full force back toward the hotel
, the hair on my arms stood on end. My skin crawled as goose bumps rose over it. A twig snapped behind me. I closed my eyes; my feet were planted firmly in place, and I couldn’t manage to make them bend so I could run away. Heavy breathing filled the air and a deep, animal-like growl wrapped itself around my ears. Large hands gripped my shoulders and violently jerked me around. My eyes closed tighter and my heart stalled.

“Sacrificing yourself?” the creature hissed out, anger dripping from his tone.

Without another sound from this man, I was picked up and flung over his shoulder, his fingers sinking into the meat of my thigh, clawing at me with a possessive hold.

“What the fuck are you thin
king?” Gavin growled, taking long strides back in the direction of the hotel. “Damn it, Brooke. Have you lost your mind? What the hell do you think martyring yourself will accomplish?”

He quickly carried me back to the hotel, setting me down in front of the entrance. He gripped my chin in his hand and glared at me. “Don’t you do this to
me. If your life means nothing to you, don’t assume it doesn’t to me. I told you to trust me. I
will
find a way out of this.”

Pulling my lip underneath my teeth, I held my breath. My eyes watered and my throat stun
g as I tried to control the relief that was crashing over me like a tidal wave.

Gavin’s hands stroked through my hair and rested at the base of my skull. Pulling my face to him, he stopped just as his lips brushed against mine. I saw tears threatening his eyes
before he closed them and almost silently whispered, “I need you. Mine. Remember you
are
mine. Please, love. I need the salvation you give me. Don’t –” His lips pressed heavily against mine and he held me there in a hard embrace. His mouth trembled against mine and his grip on my head tightened. Inhaling, he pulled away from me. “Promise me…” He stared at me and the rest of the world faded, all motion around me blurred to colors, I was unable to focus on anything other than him. “Promise me you’re mine,” he said, needing that reassurance.

This man stood before me beg
ging, completely vulnerable, and terrified to lose me.

“I am. All
yours. I’m so sorry. I – I just – I just want this to stop,” I cried, and collapsed into him. His arms flew around my frame and held me.

“I know, love. I know. I swe
ar to you, it will. It will,” Gavin whispered, the uncertainty of his words evident.

I followed him back into the hotel room. My conscience wanted to
right this, but my heart wouldn’t allow me to. As selfish as it sounds, this man was all I cared about.

September
26, 2014

It had been days since I’d tried leaving him
, and madness had erupted everywhere. Every natural disaster imaginable had reared its hideous face. Just the day before, a volcano miles away from the city had erupted. The ash that filled the sky blocked the sun and we were in a state of endless darkness. Light grey soot resembling snow wafted through the air like feathers.

Riots were b
reaking out all over the globe. The vampires were now not only killing women, but anyone. With each passing day their rage at not finding me grew and their retaliation worsened. The television stations had all gone off air. Everything had shut down, with the exception of the hospitals. People were desperate for some type of sanctuary, but nowhere was safe.

The words from the radio announcer sent chills through me and struck fear I never knew was possible. Over the static a man said, “The government advises that people stay inside, this
– epidemic, if you will – is suffocating the major cities. I – I can’t believe I’m about to say this but – vam…” the announcer’s voice trailed off, you could hear things toppling over as he fumbled to bring the microphone back to his mouth. He came back on the air and the tremble behind his voice was unmistakably riddled with fear. “It seems as though actual vampires have infiltrated our world. Evil,
unprecedented
evil is preying upon us. Please...” the announcer stopped to draw in several calming breaths, “…please, do not flee to the churches – these creatures are waiting in places of haven and feeding upon the people who enter. All the myths, they hold little truth. These monsters – they aren’t phased by holy things, stakes to the heart… crucifixes… that can’t help us now. The military is withdrawing, the hospitals have announced that they are all closed.” Silence fell over the radio for a brief moment. “You should all pray that whatever God you believe in will have mercy on us. That when death finds us, we’ll be accepted into something better than this.” 

White noise
came over the station and I turned the volume down. I glanced up at Gavin. His eyes were fixated out the window. He walked over to it and pulled the curtain away. His head shook furiously from side to side. I watched as his fingers gathered the fabric in his hands. A primitive growl escaped him and he pulled the curtain, ripping the rod from the wall. He tossed the material down to the floor and steadily walked toward me.

“You’re not safe here. You’re
not
safe here!” He yelled as he paced beside the bed. His fingers combed through his hair. His hand fell to his chest and held his pendant between his fingers, gliding them back and forth over the smooth metal.

“I’ve got to get you – I’ve got to find somewhere no one will find you.” Gavin pulled in a long
breath. “They’ll not stop…they will kill every last person on this godforsaken earth if they must to find you, and I’ll be fucking damned if they will
ever
find you. You belong to me, to me! Do you hear me? No one will take you from me – not even the goddamn devil himself!” he yelled.

The vein in Gavin’s neck and temple bulge
d and his jaw tightened. His nostrils flared with each breath he drew in. Lunging back toward the window, he stared out. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his firm midsection. The warmth of his skin brought comfort to me, until I glanced over his shoulder and through the glass of the window. Motionless bodies covered the ground, almost like a blanket of death. Blood was running down into the gutters like rain water. Turning my head away, I stared down at my feet to rid my sight of the massacre. Gavin’s arm encircled me as he turned to face me.