Tainted Blood (47 page)

Amber turned to me after watching them go. “It is the demon. I can smell him.” I just stared at her in response. I had no clue what we were going to do. There was another knock, this one even harder. “Act casual and follow my lead,” she told me and I nodded.

Amber rose gracefully and glided to the entryway. She unlocked the deadbolt then slowly opened the door to reveal a damp but put together Professor Morgan standing on the other side.

“Ambrose,” he addressed her.

“Ezra,” she responded in kind.

Ezra?
I’d never known Professor Morgan’s first name. I kind of assumed he didn’t have one. I guess I just thought his name was Morgan. Plain and simple.

Ezra
looked past Amber at me and I forced a smile like all was perfect with the world. It was probably too much.

“As you can see,” Professor Amber told him with a gesture to me, “I am busy.” His dark eyes shifted to her. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” she asked him, her hand still held firmly to the door like she was prepared to slam it on him at any moment.

“I just stopped by to let you know that I am heading home for the evening.”

“Well, that was very kind of you. Thank you for stopping by. I do wish you a good evening.” She made to close the door and he stopped her. A frantic “Wait!” came out of his mouth, and I don’t think he meant for it to happen. He scrambled to compose himself but he was hanging on the doorframe and looking a bit sinister instead. “Don’t you think it is time for Miss Alexander to head home for the evening?” He said my last name like it tasted bad again.

Without taking her eyes off of him, Amber said, “I invited Miss Alexander over for a cup of tea and to talk about her interest and her future in the study of the paranormal.” Amber over enunciated my last name and Mr. Morgan squirmed like he’d heard nails on a chalkboard. I felt my eyebrow go up and I quickly forced my expression back to a fake smile.

“Well, it’s getting late. How about I walk you to your car, Miss Alexander?”

Thankfully Amber didn’t give me time to screw up her game. “That is quite all right, Ezra. We were still discussing Delaney’s future when you interrupted. I will walk her out once we have finished our tea.” There was a cold-blooded warning creeping into her tone.

His eyes lingered on me, and I stayed silent with that stupid fake smile plastered to my lips. “Very well,” he said and wished us both a good night. I was pretty sure he was wishing us the opposite in his head.

She closed the door while he was still standing on the other side and quickly slipped the deadbolt into place. She took her seat on the couch again, and a few minutes later Carter crept back out into the front room and asked if it was safe for the three of them to return.

“I believe so,” Amber replied.

Once everyone was settled back into their spots, Amber heated more water and refilled our teacups. A heavy pounding resonated from the other side of the door and Amber said, “Felix has arrived.” She stood and smoothed her dress before opening the door.

Felix stood there taking up much of the doorway. He was wet which meant it was raining again. “May I come in?” he asked.

She opened the door wider, propping it open with her slender hip. “Please,” she gestured for him to enter.

As he began to speak, saying that it would seem he would be adding a couple more students to her class—meaning Kiera and Zoey—he did a double take of Amber as she was bolting the door. “Were you expecting company?” he asked her.

She brushed past him, and as she did so I heard her very quietly reply, “I do not see how that is any of your business.” She took her seat on the couch and picked up her tea cup. Her response seemed to take him by surprise. “Tea?” she asked him, as she raised her delicate cup to her lips.

He blinked himself back from his surprise and declined politely.

“I’d offer you a seat,” she told him, “but as you can see, they are all taken.”

I could see more confusion cross Felix’s expression. “That is quite alright,” he told her, and I sensed a bit of apprehension in his tone.

He leaned against the wall near the door with his arms folded over his broad chest and asked us to recount the events of the evening.

After I finished telling him all that we’d seen, his clear, sky blue eyes focused on me. “What were you doing here alone?” I could hear some frustration in his voice.

“She came here to see me,” Amber interjected. His eyes shifted between Amber and me and I could feel the tension in the room.

“You should not have come here on your own,” he continued to tell me sternly. “You should’ve at least informed me that you were heading to the campus.

I didn’t like that he was telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing, and it especially irritated me that he was saying these things when I had tried to call him but he hadn’t answered. “I tried,” I told him. “Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

Unbeknownst to me, I’d just opened a can of worms.

He stood a little straighter. “I was busy!” he snapped, his deep voice bouncing off the walls. In the dim light I could have sworn I saw his pale cheeks turn a light shade of pink.

Amber huffed at his response and muttered something. I was pretty sure her comment was suggesting that he had been busy
with
someone and that she could smell that
someone
all over him.

Felix abruptly returned the subject back to Mr. Morgan. He looked away from Amber while he spoke. “It would appear as though we have a traitor in our midst. I fear that none of us are safe until this issue is resolved. I will put round-the-clock security on the five of you until I can come up with a better solution.”

“I can care for myself, Felix,” Amber told him. “Save your soldiers and use them where they are most needed.”

His eyes met hers for a moment. “As you wish,” he said quietly, but I was sure Amber would have security on her whether she wanted it or not.

I’d never seen them outside of a public place together. She was different, less respectful. But that could have been due to the fact Felix had just come to her place after being with another woman.

Felix, on the other hand, seemed softer with her in a private setting. But again, that could’ve been because he’d just been outted for being with another woman.

My head was beginning to hurt

Felix pushed away from the wall. “We will bother you no further,” he said and requested that the four of us follow him out.

As we filed out the door of Amber’s home she said, “Mr. Thomas, ladies, thank you for stopping by. I imagine we would see a different future ahead of us without the information that you have uncovered this evening. Thank you.” She stood beside the door, regal and proper, with her hands folded in front of her. She was perfection, and Felix was an idiot for not seeing it.

Felix turned back, and as Amber was closing the door, he stopped her. “Lock this door behind us. I could not live with myself if anything were to happen to you,” he told her.

Carter and I exchanged a glance. Maybe Felix did see Amber the way she saw him. Maybe he wasn’t a total idiot.

Amber softened at his words and then caught herself. “Thank you for your concern, but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she responded.

He hesitated for a moment, like there was something on the tip of his tongue, something more he wanted to say, and he seemed to be debating whether or not to spit it out. Finally he nodded at her, and she closed the door. We heard the lock latch as we followed Felix down the long corridor.

Chapter
25 - Spartan Warrior

Nervous about heading out into the open with the possibility of Professor Morgan and his followers still lingering about, the four of us huddled close to each other as we followed on Felix’s heels.

“Where are you parked?” Felix asked, his deep voice filling the narrow corridor. We told him that we were parked in two different places. He didn’t like the idea of trying to get all of us to either place so he told us he’d take us home, and we could come for our cars in the morning. That was, if it was safe to do so then.

As we stepped out into the night, Felix stayed in the lead and told Carter to cover us from behind. Then he told us to stay close and keep moving. The sky had opened up again and rain was pouring off of the roofs in great sheets. It made it hard to see or hear if anyone was close by, or if anyone was watching us as we made our way down the hallway toward the faculty lot where Felix had parked. There was another problem, the amount of rain coming down washed away any scent of others lingering nearby which meant Felix was without that superpower.

Kiera wrapped her arm around mine and pulled herself close to my side as we walked. “Remember,” she said as she pulled Zoey close to her other side, “the elbow is your strongest point of defense.” It was hard not to be a bit envious of Kiera’s naivety. She had no clue what we were up against: well, she may have thought she did, but she had no idea what they were capable of.

A
sliver
of light stretched across the path in front of us as lightning stuck overhead, and in its wake, thunder cracked so loud and hard it shook the ground beneath us. At least that’s what we thought had shaken the ground. But seconds later, no one was sure.

One moment Felix was right in front of us and in the next, he wasn’t. I felt a scream rip from me as I saw Felix, who was built like a boulder, rolling onto his knees as his attackers, who had sideswiped him, turned on us. Carter was in front of us in a protective stance, but he was outnumbered without our help. Felix was slowly getting to his feet, but with more arriving, I didn’t know if he would recover in time.

Marcus stood before us with one of the guys I’d seen with him in Professor Morgan’s class. Their eyes appeared to glow as another streak of lightning lit up the sky.

“Where’s your precious Knight now?” Marcus taunted.

More thunder rumbled around us, and I reminded myself that panic was not my friend in this situation. In that streak of light, it wasn’t just the hint of a glow in their eyes that had me at a standstill. The extended, razor sharp fangs, the blood dripping from their lips, and streaks of deep, dark red across their clothes had me frozen in place.

Felix was slow to protect us because they hadn’t just knocked him off his feet—they’d bitten him. I wasn’t sure how bad it was, but by the amount of blood mixed with the rain covering the two in front of us, he was going to need a minute.

A minute is what my friend gave us. Kiera pulled a small canister of pepper spray from her front pocket and hit Marcus first and then his buddy. It gave us enough time to hurry to Felix’s side and attempt to protect him as he healed. There were three unfortunate outcomes to this plan. Well, I can’t really call it a plan; it was more like the four of us working on instinct. Number one, we were now standing out in the downpour of rain. Number two, Kiera’s pepper spray had only given us a second. Mostly it just pissed the vamps off more than it had protected us. Number three, it also allowed time for more attackers to arrive and surround us.

I don’t know how many of them there were. They were fast and it was dark and pouring. One moment I would see them advance like they were going to attack us, and then they’d disappear into the shadows of the night once again. But Marcus and his buddy were constant in their attempt to get to Felix. They circled us like animals stalking their prey, and it reminded me very much of the first night I’d met Felix. The same night I’d met Oscar and his pacing minions.

Rain soaked us as we stood around a slowly healing Felix. What I could see of him as the sky lit up with another streak of lightning was lots of blood, so much that his light colored T-shirt was almost totally pink from the mixture of blood and rain. It looked like they’d sliced his neck open, no, ripped it open with their teeth and from both sides.

As the circling vampires came at us again I heard a very low rumble roll out of Felix. Then, in a low voice, he said, “Keep your wits about you and fight, my friends.” And we did. Felix busted free of us and took out several of our attackers in one swift movement.

Marcus came at me and Carter tackled him to the ground, then he immediately bounced to his feet and went after the next guy threatening to come at us girls. Kiera, Zoey, and I stayed close to each other, our backs together as Carter kept the attackers at bay. Carter was probably never more than ten feet away from us. He took down every single one of those guys who got close to us, and he did it with impressive ease.

Felix was doing the same except he ventured a little farther away, but we could see him at all times. That is until they were overwhelmed, and through the downpour of rain, we saw Carter hit the ground. Kiera screamed and ran for him. Zoey and I tried to hold her back, but between the slipperiness of our rain-covered bodies and Kiera’s determination to get to Carter, she got away. I didn’t have time to see what happened next because in that moment Marcus tackled me to the ground and I heard Zoey screaming as she was knocked away from me.

Rain blurred my vision as I lay on the pavement trying to catch my breath so I didn’t quite see how she did it, but Kiera had somehow knocked Marcus away from me.

I scrambled to my feet, slipping and cracking my knee on the concrete as I did so. Marcus had Kiera pinned to the ground. She was struggling and screeching as he tried to hold her still enough to bite her. I could see his sharp, fully extended fangs in another flash of light. I could hear Carter shouting for her over the downpour of rain, but I didn’t know where he was, I didn’t know where anyone but Kiera and Marcus were at that moment.