Аманда Хокинг - Wisdom

Violet pointed to the door. “And he’s open to… feeding you, I guess.”

“Olivia, you really must get better help,” Rebekah said as she walked around the couch, the hem of her skirt sliding across the floor. “One must have a reasonable chef on hand to prepare the food.”

“Violet isn’t help, Rebekah,” Olivia said, watching her as she disappeared into the guestroom. “Rebekah doesn’t understand that everyone in the world isn’t her servant.

Despite that, she does know what she’s talking about, and she can help you, Alice.”

“How do you prepare a human?” Violet interjected, staring warily at the bedroom door even after Rebekah had shut it behind her. “Am I supposed to salt them or something?”

“Rebekah prefers it when someone else opens them first,” Olivia explained and pointed to her own neck. “Make an incision in the throat to get the blood flowing. Rebekah claims they bleed faster that way.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“I was gonna go with disturbing,” Bobby said.

“What the hell happened to your face?” Violet asked, referring the icepack Bobby had clamped to his eye.

“Got punched,” Bobby shrugged.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

I hadn’t actually been able to see what happened to him because he’d been covering it since it happened. All I knew is that Jonathan had hit him, and he’d bled.

“Not that bad.” He took off his icepack. “It wouldn’t have been bad at all if it weren’t for his ring, but at least his ring missed my actual eyeball.”

He moved his hand, and I finally saw his injury. Bobby kept talking, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of my own heart, and the blood rushing through my veins.

His eye looked swollen and red, but the bloody shape on his temple was unmistakable, even at an angle. I’d seen that mark before, looking nearly identical to this one. Though the mark I’d seen had been made with heat and not force. It looked like a U, but the scales had even left an imprint in Bobby’s skin.

It was a dragon, the symbol for Dracula. The symbol for vampires. That ring had been used to brand the dead girls.

I stood up, but it felt like I was under water. Everyone’s voice came out muffled, and I could barely stand up straight.

Every time I’d been around Jonathan, my blood burned. It was because I’d bitten Jane, and the blood left in my system reacted with the blood in his. It was like Jane had been trying to tell me he’d killed her, but I hadn’t known to listen.

“He fucking killed her,” I breathed, and my vision blurred red. I was getting hazy, like when bloodlust took over and I blacked out, but this was different. This was pure rage.

“Alice?” Milo’s face appeared in front of mine, and he put his hands on my shoulders.

“What are you talking about?”

“Jonathan killed Jane,” I said. “I have to find him.”

“What?” Milo blanched and tightened his grip on me.

“He did do it?” Bobby jumped off the couch and hurried over to us. “How do you know?

”

“That mark-” I pointed to his temple. “That’s the brand.”

Olivia and Violet both chimed in to say things about Jonathan and serial killers and demanding to know what was going on, but I couldn’t answer them. I could only feel what Jane had felt. Her terror and panic took hold of me again, and I pushed Milo’s arms off me and staggered back.

“Alice, where are you going?” Milo asked, trying to follow me.

“I have to….” I shook my head. I had to find him.

“You smashed his face, Alice,” Bobby reminded me. “He probably went home.”

“No,” I said. “No. He’s hurt. He has to heal. He’s feeding.”

When Milo had been hurt, Jack had given him his blood to speed up the process.

Vampire blood was more potent than human blood, but fresh blood would do the trick if he needed it to. And after what I’d done to him, he definitely needed it to.

I couldn’t wait for the elevator, so I ran to the stairwell in the center of the penthouse.

I’m sure someone tried to stop me, Milo had to have, but I didn’t hear him and didn’t slow down. I raced down the steps, leaping over several at a time, but I was still taking too long.

I looked over the banister, staring down the hole in the center of the stairs. The bottom floor plummeted twenty stories below me, but I couldn’t wait.

I propelled myself over the railing, and my feet slammed into the concrete. One of my ankles snapped, hard. Part of the bone stuck out, so I pushed it in. I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming, and I focused on Jonathan and what he’d done. That made it much easier to forget the pain.

The back rooms of the club were an interconnected labyrinth where vampires fed. It could take me hours to find him, but it wouldn’t. I stood by the entrance of the halls and closed my eyes, concentrating on his blood. I carried his blood with me, staining my pants, and I could track his scent.

I hurried down the halls, and my ankle threatened to give out, but I forced it on. I ended up running down three different corridors before I found him.

When I pushed open the door to the room, the first thing I saw was Jonathan slumped against the wall. His jaw still looked mangled, but it was clearly healing. Blood covered his face and chest, and his heart beat loud and strong. He was full.

The girl on the bed got my attention next. Her body lay at an odd angle, her spine bent awkwardly back, and her head twisted around. Blood from her neck dripped onto the mattress, but only because gravity made it. Her blood no longer pumped through her veins. Jonathan had his fill of her, and he’d finished her off completely.

“You son of a bitch!” I roared and flew at him. I grabbed him by his jacket and picked him up, then I slammed him into the wall so hard, his skull cracked on the concrete.

“Why are you always bothering me when I eat?” Jonathan asked, his swollen mouth attempting a smirk. “You’re a very rude girl.”

“You’re going to die,” I whispered, my face right in front of his.

“You can’t save them, you know,” Jonathan said wearily. “The humans. They will all die.

You’re not doing them any favors.”

I pulled him back from the wall and threw him, so he landed hard against the opposite wall. His body clattered to the floor, and he laughed. He didn’t even bother trying to pull himself up. He slumped against the wall and cackled at me, spraying blood as he did.

“Why Jane?” I asked. “Why her?”

“Because she was mine,” he growled, pausing his maniacal laughter. “She was a piece of meat. And she thought she could decide when she left, that she was done, but that’s not how this works. Humans think they can do anything they want.

“But Jane learned,” he said, his smile twisting up. “I even got her to leave that place for me. All I had to do was call her and reminder her who I was and what I did for her. By the time she came back to me, she was begging for me to bite her. The way all humans should. We’re the top of the food chain, and it’s time they learned that!”

“But they won’t,” I said and it was my turn to smile at him. “I’m going to kill you, here, tonight, and everybody will think that a human killed those girls. A stupid, weak human will get the credit for your work. No one will ever even know that you existed.”

That got him. He jumped up and charged at me, slamming me back into the wall. I kicked him off me, and my broken ankle hurt like hell. He tried to punch me, but I dodged, and his hand collided with the cement wall. I stepped back away from him, towards the bed.

“You know, I’m stronger than you think I am,” Jonathan grinned. “I’ve killed stronger bitches than you.”