I’m not sure how long we stay there with the audience at our backs. The prickle shifts, spreads like a rash, the itch small at first.
Then a rush of sensation I’m physically incapable of ignoring.
Sniffing, I lean back from Grayson only to see the same red scratch lines from his nails all along the sides of his neck, disappearing into his shirt.
His eyes catch mine, glowing with an amber fire. “Yeah. It’s getting worse,” he whispers.
Our time is up. My throat works and head swims. The tears brought on a rush of heat that refuses to budge but I’m cold enough to shiver on his lap.
Slowly Grayson helps us both to our feet and sets me to rights before stepping back, his fingers lingering on my wrist.
“Come on inside. Screw that wolf.” RJ spits in the direction where Jrue took off. “He looks like an absolute jerk. His hair is too perfect. I hate pretty boys like him.”
“We don’t trust anyone with perfect hair,” Aimee agrees.
The witches keep their voices uplifted and calm but the rolling itch beneath my skin fractures my concentration. I scratch lines of fire across my forearm but nothing helps.
“He’s probably running back to my dad to tell him what happened.”
RJ waves me off. “It doesn’t matter. What are they going to do to you?”
A whole lot, and it all depends on my father’s mood. After the attack the other day, and my desertion like a rat on a sinking ship, I’m going out on a limb to say he’s not going to give me any leeway.
More like this will be rope to hang myself with.
“Let’s go inside,” I mutter. “We’ve wasted too much time already.”
“You should rest,” Grayson says.
“I’m not tired.”
I rejected my mate. Officially and in no uncertain terms.
I let Grayson steer me inside the house, the door swinging shut behind us with no one touching it.
It’s easy enough to let hope disintegrate. To feel like nothing we do matters because everything is ruined and it’s too late.
A violent urge toscratchmoves my hands for me, nails dragging along my forearm and brushing up against the raised bumps of the bite marks.
Goosebumps roll across my skin and my head goes light with the beginning of the fever. Every footstep upstairs carries whispers with no origin.
Somehow, Grayson and I do manage to fall asleep, caught in the web of unconsciousness. It feels less like rest than a complete giving in, like our bodies were too tired of carrying the weight of our mental strain.
Shallow sleep carries us to the last rays of golden hour angling through the window.
Twin thumps from upstairs sound the alarm that the vampires are awake and stomping on the floor right above our heads.
Grayson moans, throwing himself onto his back, his skin burning up. I blink the last bits of sleep from my eyes and for the first time, I tune in.
Whispers.
It’s not like the sound of people speaking in another room. More like the wind has solidified into vowels and consonants. I can’t make any of the words out, but they’re present and tangling over themselves.
Grayson shudders through a fever dream as I pull myself free of his weight. My feet touch down on the cool floor but rather than relief, I shiver, dragging a borrowed hoodie over my head.
I fluff my hair out, still tangled with debris from our frantic chase through the woods.
Who needs a shower when you’re waiting for a reaper?