Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (60 page)

Oliver told me Carter’s phone was in the pocket of a pair of jeans on the floor in Carter’s room. I grabbed the jeans and a T-shirt and hurried back out to the table.

Oliver called Felix, putting him on speaker and setting the phone on the table while I helped him get the jeans pulled on and the tee over his head. All the while, he held the towel to the gash in his head. When he pulled the towel away for a moment, so I could pull his shirt over his head, blood dripped onto the back of Carter’s tee. A lot of blood…

As soon as Felix answered his phone, Oliver replayed what had just happened, and he
let Felix know that he needed stitches right away.

Felix’s voice was grave as he responded. “He is badly hurt.”

Oliver and I looked at each other, both a little confused. “No, I’m fine. I just need some stitches, and we need to get someone after Oscar. He couldn’t have gotten far,” Oliver said.

Felix didn’t respond right away. We could hear his footsteps though, they echoed like he was in an empty room or hallway. Then we heard a door close. “He needs her,” Felix said.

My eyes connected with Carter’s, but I knew it was Oliver behind them . Both of us were concerned and confused.

“What are you talking about?” I hesitantly asked.

“It’s Carter, or rather, Oliver, his body. He has been injured. I can do no more for him. He needs you, Delaney.”

It felt like someone was squeezing my heart and had knocked the air out of me. I couldn’t speak. This was the call I feared receiving every single time Oliver left for work. But this wasn’t Oliver, it was his body, with my friend inside.

Carter’s body straightened and visibly tensed. “No,” Oliver said, either in denial or stubbornness. I wasn’t sure.

“You must let this happen or your body will die,” Felix abruptly said, and then he ended the call.

Oliver said nothing for a moment. Then he stood. “We’ve got to go.” He was still holding the towel to his head. “He needs you,” he said, not looking at me as he took my hand and pulled me to the front door.

I stopped, making him stop too. “What do you mean by that?” I asked, my chest still tight.

He sighed and Carter’s blue eyes met mine. “He has to feed from you in order to heal.”

“But…” I trailed off. Too many things popped into my head. Oliver’s body needed to feed from me. I got that. I understood that, kind of. But it wasn’t actually Oliver inside his body. Oliver knew when to stop feeding from me. He instinctively knew how much was safe to take. Would Carter?

But I had another concern. Although he knew when to stop taking my blood, when the actual Oliver fed from me, he had a hard time preventing it from leading to something more…

He watched me as my brain tried to process my thoughts. He squeezed my hand. “I’m concerned too, Laney. But if we lose my body, we lose Carter, or me. I have no idea what will happen. I
don’t want to find out.”

“Me either,” I said, a sudden burst of fear coursing through me. I grabbed my keys from the kitchen bar.

“I will be right there with you, okay?” Oliver said as he opened the front door.

I nodded to him and then let out a terrible scream as I
was about to step out the door.

Oliver was on his knees in the next moment, checking the vitals of the man lying in front of our doorway.

“Is he dead?” I questioned, swallowing a huge lump that had formed in my throat.

“He’s alive,” he responded, looking up at me. “But we
don’t have time to deal with him. We need to go, now.” There was an urgency in his tone.

I quickly stepped over the man lying in front of the door, and the two of us raced to my car.

I sped toward the old theater where the vampire hospital was located. On the way, Oliver called Felix and informed him of the unconscious vampire on our doorstep. Felix was sending someone to retrieve the guy.

Oliver knew the unconscious guy. He explained that the guy, Erik, was a rookie and one of Felix’s new favorites. Erik was also a distant relative to the SaVan family. Perhaps this was why Felix favored the guy—because of his relation to Ambrose and Levi.

Felix was waiting for us in front of the old theater when I pulled my car into a spot. I hardly even thought to turn the car off, let alone pull the key out of the ignition. Oliver reached over and turned the key and jerked it out as I was scrambling out of my car.

My heart was pounding out of my chest as we hurried across the parking lot to where Felix stood. Quickly, he led us through the old portion of the theater, and then he hurried us through the hospital to a room where several vampires lingered outside the open door. They parted to let us through when they saw us coming. There were even more of them inside the room.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Oliver’s unconscious body lying in the hospital bed.

He was still wearing jeans and his shoes, but his torso was bare, except for the bandages across his chest, shoulder, and one on his right hand. The bandages were soaking up fresh blood, absorbing more and more as I stood there.

With Felix’s encouragement, I moved closer. I was shaking.

Oliver spoke first. “What happened?” he questioned, crossing the room for a closer look at his own body. I
couldn’t even imagine what it was like to see your own body lying there like that: pale, injured, and unconscious. Dying…

While Felix explained what had happened, another vampire, one
I’d never seen before, filled in the holes for him. The other vamp, the one filling in the gaps of the story, was standing near Amber while she checked Oliver’s (Carter’s) vitals from the other side of the bed.

Amber’s
eyes lifted and met mine for a moment. She was visibly concerned. So was I.

I
also didn’t know what to do. Should I rush forward, throw myself on Oliver’s body like I probably would have done if it was really him in there?

With tears in my eyes, I glanced around the room
at the faces that filled it, wondering if they thought I should be responding differently.

What I found surprised me. Each one of them smiled at me the way eve
ryone had done at Lilly’s funeral. They pitied me.

This terrified me even more.

My attention snapped back to Oliver’s body. Fear consumed me.

Feeling helpless, I just stood there, not knowing what to do.

Moments later Felix requested that everyone leave the room. Minus “Carter,” Amber, and me.

Once the room was clear of all others, Felix closed the door. Then, very gently taking my arm, he pulled me closer to “Oliver’s” hospital bed.

From across the bed, Amber took a small scalpel from the tray beside her and handed it to Felix.

“This is going to hurt,” Felix said, dipping his head so his sky-blue eyes were level with mine. He too was concerned. I could see it in his eyes.

I sat down on the edge of the bed beside Oliver’s unconscious and very pale body.

Felix held my arm with my wrist facing up. I couldn’t watch. I turned away to find Oliver (in Carter’s body) right beside me. He took my other hand and held it tight as the scalpel cut into my wrist. I whimpered.

Felix then placed my wrist to Oliver’s lips. Nothing happened.

Concerned, I turned to watch, waiting to see if Oliver’s body would react to the blood dripping from my wrist to his lips. Nothing.

“What happened?” Oliver asked once again, his hand tightening on mine.

“Dragon’s claw,” Felix said,
keeping his attention on my wrist in his hand, making sure my blood was dripping right into Oliver’s mouth. “It was poisoned. We cleaned the wounds, administered a tonic, and even gave him blood. But…”

“But what? What does all of that mean?” I asked, my voice shaking along with the rest of me.

“It means, if your blood doesn’t work, nothing will,” Oliver said, still holding my hand and the towel to his head.

“
Carter’s” unexpected knowledge on the subject clued Amber in to something being off. She paused for only a second before continuing to check “Oliver’s” vitals.

Felix noticed. He kept an eye on Amber.

My attention returned to Oliver’s body. Tears were spilling over as I stared at him. If Oliver’s body didn’t survive, did that mean Carter would die with it, or would that be the trigger to send them back? Did this mean Oliver would actually die with his own body? Either way, I was terrified I would soon lose one of them.

Understandably, the thought of losing Oliver tore at my heart more.

In Carter’s body, Oliver squeezed my free hand even tighter, then he released it and moved so he could take a tissue from the box on the nightstand beside Felix. He returned with the tissue, sat beside me, and tucked it into my hand.

I wiped at my tears as a steady stream of them fell. I wondered if he was having the same worry—if he
also feared we would soon have to say goodbye.

I couldn’t bear it. I started sobbing.

Oliver scooted closer, wrapped his free arm around me, and held me against his side while we waited for my blood to do its magic. This part I really didn’t understand. Why was my blood the answer? Again. Was it because we were bonded? Was it because I truly was the daughter of their pureblood coven leader? If it was pureblood vampire blood they needed, why wasn’t Felix’s or Amber’s good enough?

Amber stepped out for a moment. While she was gone, Oliver took that opportunity to quietly question Felix. “What was he doing out in the field?”

“We had a run, and you were requested,” Felix said, without taking his eyes off of Oliver’s body.

“By who?”

Felix eyes lifted from where he was still holding my wrist to Oliver’s lips, and he turned his head so that his eyes met Carter’s. “Everyone. You are one of our best field agents. Everyone knows this. They questioned why you were not joining our team. I explained that you were on probation, but they demanded you be there. What could I do?”

They argued quietly while I watched, through tear-filled eyes, as a steady stream of my blood pooled into Oliver’s mouth and out the side, dribbling down to his neck, and
onto the white pillowcase. He swallowed. My eyes widened. I gripped Carter’s (Oliver’s) hand.

Oliver’s body stirred, and the guys fell silent.

He swallowed again. And again. Then his eyes flickered. His uninjured left hand lifted and grabbed my forearm, pulling my wrist to his mouth. Felix released his grip on my arm.

Filling with relief, I scooted closer as Carter drank from me. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair. I wanted to tell him everything was going to be okay. It just all seemed too…personal, too sensual. I stayed silent and watched.

Gorgeous green eyes focused, settling on mine. I was both relieved and uncomfortable. He moaned quietly as he drank.

His bandaged right hand lifted and touched my hair, brushing it behind my ear. I smiled, sadly, but I was thankful he would be okay.

Then things took a freaky turn. His hand slipped to my shoulder and his grip tightened on me. Painfully, his fingers dug into my flesh. He tried pulling me closer, but I resisted. A second later, his eyes went completely dark and his fangs sank into my wrist. I screamed. Loud, because it freaking hurt!

Felix and Oliver jumped into action. Felix restrained Oliver’s body, while Oliver struggled to pull me free of Carter’s grip and off of the bed.

We fell to the floor just as Amber came back into the room.

Amber stopped, her eyes wide. She looked from the bed to us on the floor. “What is going on?” she questioned, her accent more apparent than usual.

“He is awake,” Felix growled, still trying to restrain Oliver’s body.

Carter was trying to get to me, fighting Felix, baring his fangs and struggling under Felix’s grip. But he wasn’t really there. It was like his instincts had taken over, and since it wasn’t Oliver in there to control them, he was actually more like a vampire who was starving, hurt, and craving
…me. No biggie, right?

Scooting us across the hospital room floor together, Oliver pinned me against the far wall while Felix and Amber struggled to hold Oliver’s body down on the hospital bed.
While Amber attempted to get some restraints in place, Oliver’s body growled and bucked, making the task nearly impossible.

Fearing he would not return, they were afraid to give him anything to knock him out or mellow him. Instead, Felix placed his massive hand on Oliver’s forehead, and after a moment, Oliver’s body calmed, his focus settled on the ceiling overhead.

Amber quickly restrained Oliver’s body, strapping down his wrists, ankles, and even his chest, doing her best to avoid the injured area.

From where Oliver had me pressed against the wall, Felix set to work taking some of my blood. He crouched beside us and extracted a large quantity—large enough to make me woozy. He was quick to feed the blood to Carter, rather than letting him feed directly from me. It seemed to work, and soon, our friend returned to us, still in Oliver’s body, but he returned, and that’s what was important. He was going to be fine, and I could not help sobbing, once again. This time in relief.