Why should I stop now?
“And because it’s the right thing to do. Loyalty matters and family is what you make of it. Sure, we have an uphill battle in front of us, but if we can get back to the witches, and their cure, then you have a shot to get back to the parents who are proud of you. Your scholarship.”
I clutch at him.
We’ll also be better able to handle the hunter if he shows his face again. Or any others like him.
“I wouldn’t ask you to choose me or your family—” Grayson starts.
“You didn’t ask.” And he never would. He’s not that kind of person. “It’s my choice to make and I did it. I choose you. If you don’t choose me, I get it. But this is my stance. It’s mine.”
And I’m selfish. I’m angry. Something hums through my body in resonance with him.
“Mandi.”
Something about the way he says my name has me stiffening in his arms. And those eyes. Those beautiful golden eyes when he angles his head down to me.
I brace for dismissal.
When it comes, it will be worse than a punch in the gut. I’m walking away from my family, I showed Grayson a hint of what he means to me, and as I wait for regret to land, it doesn’t. Only numbness.
“I’d be an idiot not to choose you.” He dips his forehead to mine. “Don’t you get it yet? All of this fighting, this struggle, it’s been for you. Because you deserve to be happy.”
I lift my face to his, mirroring him, lips within kissing distance. He’s right there.
He chose me.
Our mouths brush and the vamps jog to catch up.
“Are we interrupting something?”
Lacey’s voice freezes me but neither of us jump apart. Not when Colt smirks.
Not when Lacey mutters under her breath, “I know how tough it is to go against the tide of your family. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Good for you.”
My ears prick to catch the low syllables and I flash her a grin that’s anything but friendly. “Sometimes life sucks.”
Maybe it won’t soon.
Grayson gave me something to hope for.
I arch into his touch before he frees his hands from me.
Whispers catch on the low hanging boughs of evergreen and maple. A tangle of limbs overhead wait to swallow us up.
“Come on. Let’s go.” He tugs me into motion.
My apprehension grows the closer we get to the tree line and I stop as the first breath of forest reaches me, along with an underlying stench of something else.Rot.
I find myself back in the woods the night I met Grayson, the rot and the roar and not quite remembering how I knew to get to him. He’d been newly bitten, neither of us ready for what would happen.
“Lacey.”
The sound of her name draws the vampires to a stop and my pulse quickens.
“What’s wrong?” Her gaze searches my face.
I’m straining to make sense of more than the whispers of the fever. There’s no cracking limbs or shuffling, no roar or howl to announce them. Only an insidious sensation I can’t shake telling me we’re all about to die.