Lynsay Sands - The Reluctant Vampire

Anders’s words the night before had shaken Harper sufficiently to send him back to his room and into bed, where he’d lain contemplating the possibility of losing Drina to death. He’d been so wrapped up in his own emotional struggles, he hadn’t even considered how it might affect her. Oh, certainly, she’d made him consider that if he didn’t claim her, he might lose her to some possible alternate life mate, but that had seemed a far-off thing. Harper supposed, in his arrogance, he’d also imagined that he would have a chance to win her back in that distant future if his actions drove her away now.

But Anders’s words had made him worry about her actually dying, killed as a direct result of her emotional upheaval and distraction. The possibility had scared the crap out of him and made him face what was important here. Jenny was dead, and while he felt responsible, there was nothing he could do to bring her back or rewrite what had happened. He had grieved and been wracked by guilt for a year and a half now. How much longer would his conscience demand he suffer for a death he never imagined, let alone intended? Did he really feel he needed to lose Drina, even temporarily, to make up for the loss of Jenny? And did he really want to risk losing her permanently to death just to satisfy that conscience?

The answer had been no, and Harper had finally gone to sleep around dawn having decided he wasn’t going to avoid her anymore. It was time to put his guilt aside and embrace his good fortune, because he was definitely one lucky son of a bitch to be given a second chance at the brass ring of happiness with a life mate, especially so soon after receiving it the last time.

Harper wasn’t foolish enough to think it would be easy. Deciding not to feel guilty was a first step, but he knew he would have to fight on occasion to keep to that decision. However, he was determined and felt sure he could do it. . for Drina.

“Hurry up you two. Gawd, you’re as slow as snails,” Stephanie complained, shifting restlessly beside the car.

Harper heard Drina sigh with exasperation at the teen’s moodiness and briefly tightened his arm around her waist in sympathy. He then dug his keys out of his pocket.

“You two get in. I’ll get the cooler,” Harper said, moving toward the back of the vehicle.

It was Drina who’d thought to bring blood along. Which was another reason he felt sure she’d be a good mother. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Stephanie needed to feed more often than they did. As he lifted the cooler out of the trunk, he smiled at the thought of Drina with a little Drina in her arms. Or a little Harper, he thought as he closed the trunk and moved around to open the back passenger door and set it on the seat behind his own. Or both even. He grinned as he closed the back door and moved to open the driver’s door.

“How am I supposed to feed? I don’t have any straws,” Stephanie snapped, as he slid behind the steering wheel.

“We’ll stop at a drive-thru and buy a couple of drinks. You can use the straws,” Harper said calmly, starting the engine.

Stephanie muttered under her breath, but didn’t comment otherwise and Harper shifted the car into gear, then reached out to place his hand on Drina’s leg as he steered them out of the parking lot. Her thigh was as hard as steel at first, telling him Stephanie’s behavior had put her on edge as he’d suspected, but some of that tension left under his massaging fingers, and by the time he steered the car into the line at a fast-food drive-thru, she had relaxed considerably.

“What do you want?” Harper asked as he nosed up to the speaker. “Coke?”

“Whatever,” Stephanie muttered.

“Coke it is,” he said cheerfully, and quickly ordered three.

The moment Harper received and passed over the drinks, Drina passed Stephanie hers along with the straw from a second one. She then set the third drink in the holder for him, and took the lid off her glass to drink from the cup itself.

They were silent for a bit, Harper glancing in the rearview mirror occasionally to see that Stephanie actually was feeding. The fact that she went through three bags one after the other, stabbing the straws viciously into them and then grimly and steadily sucking back the thick red liquid, told him how badly she’d needed the blood.

They were nearly to Port Henry by the time she’d finished the third one, and Stephanie heaved an audible sigh as she scrunched up the empty bag and tossed it back into the still nearly full cooler.

“Feel better?” Drina asked, turning in her seat to smile tentatively at the girl.

“Yeah,” Stephanie admitted, sinking back in her seat with a sigh, and then, sounding embarrassed, she muttered, “Sorry if I was cranky.”

Drina shook her head. “I should have kept better track of the time and thought to feed you sooner.”

Stephanie smiled wryly. “Well, it’s not like you’re used to having kids around. Everyone in your family is old.”

Harper glanced to Drina to see a cloud of worry cross her face and guessed this wasn’t something she’d told the girl but another sign of Stephanie’s skill at pulling information from their minds. It was growing increasingly obvious that Stephanie had some mad skills, beyond anything he’d encountered before.

Turning back to the road, he saw that they were approaching the first set of stoplights on the way into Port Henry. He eased his foot down on the brakes. . and then applied more force when nothing happened.

“What’s wrong with the brakes?” Stephanie popped into view in the rearview mirror as she abruptly sat up. He had no idea how she knew, probably a stray thought from his mind, he supposed, but didn’t have time to work it out.

“The brakes?” Drina asked with confusion.

“Hold on,” Harper ground out, reaching for the emergency brakes and cursing when that had no effect. He tried to shut off the engine then, but knew it was too late; they were already flying into the intersection on a red light. . and a semi was roaring toward them from their right, unaware of their problem and rushing to make his green.

The next moment seemed to pass both with the speed of a heartbeat, and crawl by like a slow-motion hour for Harper. He was vaguely aware of the girls’ shouting, of roaring Drina’s name himself and reaching desperately for her, and then the truck barreled into the passenger side and the scream of tearing metal joined the chaos. Blood, pop, and glass exploded through the interior of the car, and they were slammed about, and then moving sideways, screeching up the road on burning rubber and then rims, propelled by the semi. That seemed to last forever, though it was probably only a minute or two before the semi driver managed to stop his vehicle, and consequently the car as well, and then everything went silent and still.

Harper opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling over his bed, then a vision of Drina covered in blood filled his mind, and he sat up abruptly.

“Settle down, boy. You’re safe,” Teddy Brunswick said, hefting himself out of a chair beside the bed.

Harper stared at the man blankly, the crash replaying in his head; blood splashing, glass flying, and the smoke from burning rubber all filled his vision, accompanied by the sound track from hell. Shouts, screams, screeching metal, shrieking brakes, and then dead silence and stillness.

He recalled being dizzy from hitting his head. Barely holding on to consciousness, Harper had turned instinctively to Drina and moaned at what he’d found. Her bloodied body had appeared partially encased in metal, and what wasn’t-including her face-had been shredded by the flying glass.

“Drina?” he growled, shoving aside the memory along with the blankets that had been covering him, and shifting to get up.