Cassie Alexander: Bloodshifted

Her breathing was still distracted, and I heard the sound of her skin rubbing on her silk sheets as she turned, waiting for me to sleep first.

Maybe you can sleep for the both of us, baby, because I don’t know how I’m going to.

It was going to be a really long eight months. I didn’t have to enjoy it or make any friends—it would be like biding my time at any other shitty job, and it wouldn’t be the first one I’d had. But I could do it. For the baby, and for Asher.

I concentrated on the thought of seeing him, trying to conjure him up out of the darkness in my mind. I thought about the house we shared and how my things seemed to fit just right after I moved in, and how much happier Minnie was with all the windowsills and sun.

If I thought hard enough on it I could imagine walking up to the door knowing Asher was already home, the fireplace roaring, see him sitting on the couch, reading a book, looking up as I walked in—

“Edie?”

He put the book down and stood up like he always did when I came home. I stopped in the doorway and covered my mouth with one hand.

Was this a dream? Or had everything that happened before just been a nightmare?

“Is it you?” I whispered, scared I’d break the bubble of this fragile reality.

A familiar smile creased his lips. “Who else would it be?”

I ran across the room to hug him, almost tackling him in the process.

“Hey now—” he began, defending himself while hugging me back.

I knew it couldn’t be all the way real. But it was real enough. I could feel the muscles of his back, the heat of his body, smell the scent of his skin.

My hands ran up into his hair, pulling his face down so I could see him more clearly. He beamed down at me. If I wished and hoped and clicked my heels three times—I leaned up to kiss him and closed my eyes and—

Maybe if I hadn’t had Raven’s blood I wouldn’t have noticed it. But the moment before our lips touched, after my eyes shut, when I was already replaying what was about to happen in my own mind to milk its full sweetness, because knowing what’s about to come is almost as good as when it actually happens—I realized his eyes weren’t right.

I pulled my head back, still holding his in place with my hands. He was beaming down at me, and the fireplace was reflected in his eyes, but there wasn’t any of Asher’s own light.

I shoved him away, and the thing that looked like Asher but wasn’t released me. “Who are you?”

He tilted his head to the side. The gesture was still Asher’s, but the longer I looked into the eyes the more wrong they became.

“How did you know?” he asked, taking a step toward me.

“Stop that.” I gestured wildly at him, and around the room we were in. “Stop all of this. If it isn’t real—or at least really from me—stop pretending.”

“I thought you would appreciate the familiar surroundings.”

I did. Oh, God, I did. “This place is mine. You have no right to be here. Stop it.”

Asher’s living room shimmered and blurred, as if I were looking at it from a great height. “What would you like to see instead?” he asked.

I shook my head strongly. “Nothing. No more games. Who are you? And why did you try to trick me?”

“I thought it would be easier to talk to you if I appeared like this.” He gestured to himself, Asher’s form that he wore like a suit.

My eyes narrowed, even in my dream. “What are you?”

“A vampire.”

“How are you awake during the day?”

“I’m not awake. When I sleep, I can walk from dream to dream.”

“Which one of them are you?”

“No one that you’ve met yet.” He took a step toward me. “I am a prisoner here, just like you.”

“Why?” I demanded.

He grinned just like Asher did, a little rogue. “Why were you imprisoned here? Bad luck, cruel whimsy? It doesn’t matter why—only that we both long to be free.” He reached a hand out. “If you can find me, I can free us both.”

I crossed my arms. Whatever he was, he was dangerous. I already had a plan; all I had to do was stay alive.

“Do you really think it will be that simple?” he asked, which was when I realized he was in my head. It made sense, all the familiarity and the dreams, but it made his intrusion more violating. I took another step away from him, nearer the blurry glow of the fireplace. “I can only read surface thoughts—only what you’re thinking now.”

“I’m thinking I don’t need your help—”

“But you do. And I need you—to find me and free me,” he said, with Asher’s face, even as his voice was changing to someone else’s. “I’m the only one who can get you out of here alive.”

I shook my head, refusing him—whatever he was—when his face became stern and frightening. A shock of cold fear raced through me as he lunged in and I screamed, diving backward into the fireplace’s imaginary flames.

I went rolling across the cold rugless ground in Celine’s room. Only we weren’t alone anymore and there was a sharp metallic sound as something hard hit the cot I’d been sleeping on. I heard the metal of the cot’s frame bend and break, and even in the dark I had no doubt if I’d still been in it, I would have died.

Celine had to know she’d missed. I crouched down, trying to make myself a smaller target, reacting on instinct. Everything in my body narrowed, condensing, focused—maybe the blackness helped—and I calmed down until I couldn’t even hear myself breathe.

I heard Celine take a step and there was no time for thought. If I waited, I might lose her in the darkness. I took a hunched leap to where I’d heard her and then swept up to standing, hopefully inside the range of any weapon she had. I grabbed her bodily and took her to the floor, and heard her weapon clatter away, part of my mind registering where it landed for later—when I realized I wasn’t fighting a she; there were huge muscles underneath the cotton in my hands. The man I was wrestling with took advantage of my half second of surprise and grabbed me, whirling me down, and I knew he was trying to hold me against the stone while reaching out for the weapon he’d dropped.

I punched him with my free hand, in the chest exposed below his reaching arm, and was horrified to feel ribs break. The man groaned but didn’t stop reaching. I knew I couldn’t take the chance of him grabbing it, whatever it was—I punched again, and the same ribs that I’d just broken cracked fresh under my fist.

I wasn’t the only one who was at least a little invulnerable. I punched again, and again in the same spot, remembering when I’d watched Lucas’s hand pierce a werewolf’s chest with his own supernatural strength. With each blow I could feel the man shudder over me as if he’d been shot, but he didn’t let go of me or guard himself; he just kept straining out. It made me even more afraid of him reaching the weapon—whatever it was had to be bad.

Our stalemate couldn’t last forever—and I’d rather it ended on my terms than his. I used the force of one more punch and the leveraging of a leg to get him up and hurl him away from me, and from the thing he was reaching for, and then I went for it. I grabbed a handle, snatched it up, and fell into another soundless crouch. My feet were on top of the zebra skin now. I instantly knew where in the room I was, and from the feel of the handle and the weight of one end, the thing I was holding was a hammer.

My eyes widened in the dark. A hammer wasn’t a joke. Whoever I was fighting had meant to kill me. And if I died, so would my baby. My first instinct was to scream, and I bit my lips to keep it back. I was supposed to have eight months and then get home safe, not be murdered on my first day here. It wasn’t fair—but nothing had been fair for a while now, had it? My baby and I still weren’t safe.