Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)(37)
The skinwalker groaned unintelligibly.
“Who?” Warin snapped, and even from my spot behind him, I could sense the darkness welling up around him, demanding obedience. He was Compelling him, I realized.
The skinwalker only gargled in response.
“Maybe you need to give him air,” I suggested, casting a worried look at Warin’s shoe planted firmly against the other man’s windpipe.
Warin growled, but eased his weight off the skinwalker’s throat just a bit. “Tell. Me. Who!” The air of command around him was so strong, it seemed to wrap around every part of the small clearing, making even my knees buckle from the raw power of his Compulsion.
The skinwalker gaped, but still no words came up. Then he convulsed once, twice—and fell limply back down, staring blindly up into the night. Blood trickled in a fine stream from both his nostrils.
Warin stepped off his neck and turned to me, a dark look on his face.
“W-what the hell just happened?” I stuttered. “Did you… did you kill him with your… mind?”
“No. He was either bewitched not to speak of who sent him, or…” His face darkened further.
“Or?” I prompted.
“Or he was Compelled by another vampire.”
12
“Another vampire?” I asked, not entirely sure I was following. “I don’t understand. First it was witches, then these… these skinwalkers, and now you’re saying it might be another vampire? Is this still related to the slaughterhouse and the blood contamination? Why would another vampire wish to harm your kind? Or attack me, for that matter?”
Warin shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’ve never seen a spell like that before. It looked… too much vampire Compulsion.” Then he looked at me, his expression softening. “We need to get you home, Liv.”
I nodded, too wobbly to argue. As much as I wanted to make sense of what’d just happened to me, what I needed most right about then was to get away from the stench of dead in the small clearing where I’d nearly lost my life. I took Warin’s offered hand and clutched his neck when he lifted me into his arms once more.
The trees and bushes blurred past us, only to be replaced with roads and houses, and soon he stopped in front of my apartment block.
That was when I realized I’d dropped my keys, along with my bag, during the attack.
“Oh, shit. Warin, we’ve got to go back—I don’t have my keys, or—“ I quieted when he pulled a key out of his pocket, shoved it into the lock, and let us into the stairway.
“I picked your key up from the clearing,” he said easily as he swooshed us up the stairs and let us into my condo.
“Oh. Thank you,” I said, wishing he’d also picked up my beloved leather bag, but not being enough of an ungrateful brat to mention it.
He didn’t answer as he carried me to the couch and gently lowered me onto the soft cushions. Then he fished out his phone from his pocket and typed on the keypad so quickly my eyes could hardly follow the movements of his fingers. Finally, he returned his attention to me. His gaze swept over my disheveled figure, the same worried frown he’d looked at me with in the clearing marring his pale features. “Will you still not accept my blood? It would heal your injuries.”
I grimaced. “I know. And thanks for offering, but…” An unpleasant flash of the vertebrae sticking out of the neck hole of one of the wolfmen made my stomach threaten to roil again. “I think I’m on iodine and Band-Aids today. Would you mind getting the First Aid kit, please? It’s in the bathroom cupboard above the sink.”
He shook his head and sat down next to me. “That won’t be necessary. Take off your top.”
I hesitated for a second, my general anxiety over nearly getting eaten alive soothed enough by his presence and the comfort of my own home that modesty managed to rear its head. But it was ridiculous, of course—my clothes were already shredded so badly I was flashing all kinds of skin, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen plenty more of me the time he saved me from the creepy basement.
Moving slowly, because everything hurt, I shrugged out of the leftovers of my winter coat and pulled my almost equally demolished top over my head, discarding both items on the floor. At least my bra had remained intact during this week’s near-death experience.
Warin’s fangs descended with a snick that made me jolt a little. “Sit still—it won’t hurt,” he murmured. And then he flicked his tongue out, catching it on one pointy tip.
I frowned as blood dripped from his tongue, but the next second, Warin bent over my shoulder and put his lips on my skin, and my thoughts got well and truly sidetracked.
I stared wide-eyed at the vampire’s bent head as he let his tongue swipe up along the deep bite on my shoulder, and then—ever-so-gently—brushed across the wound itself.
If someone had asked me what it’d feel like to have a fresh wound licked clean, I’d have guessed something in the region of “painful and unhygienic.” The truth was something else entirely.
Heat bloomed from Warin’s cool lips against my skin and spread down across my chest and up my neck, until I felt like my entire body would have to be the same color as my Aunt Edna’s favorite pants.
Seemingly oblivious to my full-body blush, Warin continued lapping at my shoulder, making small noises of pleasure—presumably at the taste of my blood— that did nothing to keep my thoughts purely medical.