New Blood Read online

  Him being able to hear me from outside.

  Or how he knew about last night.

  Which, apparently, had actually happened.

  Which meant I wasn’t crazy.

  Only I was, because there was no world in which my body would’ve healed perfectly in just a handful of hours.

  “I sense your hesitation,” he continued in the same low, smooth voice. “I sympathize. But there isn’t much time to explain things and I would appreciate if you would let me inside.”

  That much, I could manage. “No fucking way.”

  “I don’t need your permission.” There was a cold, hard edge to this. “But out of respect, I would prefer you open the door.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “Sophie. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you have none.”

  “Don’t call me by my first name like we know each other. I don’t know you. This is my family’s cabin, and you’re not welcome here.”

  “Your family is dead.”

  My mouth fell open. “What? How—”

  “Forgive me, but I had to say something that would allow me to get through to you.”

  Forgive him? Forgive him.

  Forgive him!

  I flung the door open before I even knew what I was doing, then took the bat in both hands and swung for the fences.

  And hit nothing but thin air.

  “What the hell?” I whispered, looking up and down the length of the porch. I was alone.

  “Excuse me.”

  I gasped and spun around, looking inside the cabin where the man in the cloak now stood.

  “How did you do that?” It didn’t even matter so much that he had gone inside without my permission—when I’d pretty clearly told him to get lost, in fact. I was more interested in how the hell he’d gotten past me.

  He didn’t think it was worth answering me, clearly, since all he did was lower his hood before unclasping the dark gray cloak and tossing it over one arm.

  I took him in one bit at a time.

  Tall. Very.

  Broad-shouldered. Muscular build.

  Blond scruff on his cheeks matching thick, wavy hair that flopped over his forehead.

  Ice-blue eyes, the irises ringed in indigo. They stared holes into me.

  “Are you going to come back inside?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Or are we going to remain this way? Insects are entering the cabin, you know.”

  “A stranger already entered the cabin, jerk-off.”

  “This is not the first time I’ve been here. Most recently, in fact, I was here last night.” He looked around the room. “Not a thing has changed in these many hours.”

  Hilarious. I rolled my eyes.

  Before what he said sank in. “You were here last night.”

  “I’ve said that twice now.”

  “Are you… Dominic?” I ventured.

  His generous mouth curved in a smile. “Yes, I am. I wondered if you heard us speaking. Now, please, come inside.”

  When I lowered my brow with a smirk, he added, “If I wished to harm you, it would have been too easy last night, while you were unconscious. Considering you’re in one piece, I don’t think you have much to worry about.”

  He had a point.

  I ventured into the cabin and closed the door, but stood with my back to it just in case I had to make a quick escape. “You wanna tell me how I got hit by a car last night and am in perfect shape this morning? Since you were here and all. I figured you would know.”

  “I can tell you everything, Sophie.”

  A shiver ran down my spine at the way he said my name. It was a simple name, two syllables, but he made it sound like a song.

  “But I need you to come with me.”

  Needle scratch noise.

  “Uh, good luck with that.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You can tell me what I want to know right here and now, in this cabin, and you can do it right now unless you want me to cave your goddamn skull in with this bat.”

  The sonofabitch had the nerve to snicker. “You could try.”

  “Is that an invitation?” I rested the bat against my shoulder.

  “You would regret it.”

  “Hmm, I don’t know. It sounds like something I would enjoy. Why don’t I give it a shot?”

  He held up a hand. I noticed a huge, ornate silver ring on one finger. There was what looked like a ruby roughly as big as my thumbnail set in it. “Spare yourself the effort. It wouldn’t go the way you think it would.”

  “You have to tell me what happened last night,” I insisted. “Here. Please. I’m trying to play nice, okay? It doesn’t exactly come easy to me.”

  “I would never have imagined.” He checked his massive, shiny watch that probably cost more than my car. “We’re running out of time. I will tell you everything you want to know, I swear it. But I need you to come with me first.”

  “No freaking way, dude! What are you not understanding? I’m not going off with some stranger who randomly showed up here—”

  “Not randomly,” he interjected with a sigh.

  “—and didn’t listen when I straight-up told him to get off my property. We’re in my cabin. I pay for it. And when I call the cops, which is gonna happen right about now this very minute, they’ll be on my side. I don’t want you here.”

  “You do not want to call the police.”

  I laughed out loud. “Yeah. I kinda do.”

  “You will not call the police.” His eyes widened. His voice deepened. “You will do no such thing.”

  “Oh, gee,” I sighed, reaching into the pocket of my pajama shorts for my phone. “It looks like I’m gonna do it right now. Here’s my phone. Whoops, I’m gonna dial. 9…”

  “Stop this.”

  “…1…”

  “You will regret this.”

  “1.” I hit the green button to start the call.

  Before the phone fell out of my hand and broke against the wood floor.

  No, it didn’t fall. It jumped out of my hand. It landed halfway across the room. Like I had thrown it, or somebody had smacked it out.

  Considering that the creepy dude in front of me hadn’t moved an inch, that seemed unlikely. Then again, so did getting hit by a car and waking up feeling fine.

  “What the fuck?” I would’ve backed away, but I was already up against the door.

  “I warned you.”

  I looked from the mess of broken glass and plastic on the floor back to him. “Don’t even pretend you had anything to do with that, you weirdo. Knock it off. You’re fucking with my head. What, did you drug me last night?”

  He didn’t flinch, which for some reason convinced me I was right. “You did, didn’t you? What, did I imagine the whole car thing? That’s it. I was never hurt in the first place.”

  “You were gravely injured, Sophie.”

  I shook my head. “Stop calling me that.”

  “What would you prefer I call you?”

  “Nothing. I want you to get out of here and call me nothing.” I was starting to lose my grip on what was real and what wasn’t, and he wasn’t helping with the weird stuff coming out of his mouth.

  “I can’t do that. I cannot leave without you.”

  Which was when he made a mistake.

  He reached for me, taking a few steps my way with his hands outstretched.

  The bat swung before I knew what I was doing, just like when I’d opened the door. I heard wood strike metal, and it was an intensely satisfying sound. Knowing I could hit him and make sure he knew I wasn’t screwing around.

  Even if I’d only hit his ring.

  He growled and reached for the bat. One quick motion and he yanked it from my hands. I might as well have not been holding onto it at all.

  Now he was holding it.

  And he was deeply, deeply furious. His face had completely changed into a total rage mask. And what the fuck was up with his eyes? The pupils had expanded to the point wh
ere all I could see was black blankness.

  “Now you’ve crossed the line,” he snarled, teeth clenched, before taking a step toward me.

  Six

  SOPHIE

  I was dead.

  For real this time.

  It was over.

  This psycho was about to kill me.

  Just like my—

  “Dominic? What’s taking so long?”

  The voice rang out right behind me, on the other side of the door, and I jumped at its sudden presence.

  Dominic, the psycho freak in front of me, stopped in his tracks. His creepy dead eyes moved from my face to the door. I caught his hand tightening around the bat and the soft growl from the back of his throat.

  Was it my imagination, or did I hear wood splintering?

  What the hell had I gotten myself into? And how close had I just come to dying?

  “He’s coming at me with a bat,” I reported, sliding away from the door and along the wall until I was in the corner. “You might wanna come in here and get your boy.”

  The door opened, and in stepped a man wearing the same sort of cloak Dominic carried over his arm. He lowered the hood and looked at Dominic, then at me. “You’ve frightened her half out of her wits.”

  Before Dominic could defend himself, the new guy turned his back on him and faced me. “Forgive me. My cousin isn’t what you would call skilled in the art of negotiation. I knew I should have come in rather than him, but he insisted.”

  “You were waiting outside this whole time?” I glanced toward the window. “Who else did you bring? Your entire family? Is this a party? I would’ve made sure I had more ice in the freezer.”

  He surprised me by laughing. The sound helped me breathe a little easier, which in itself was a fucking miracle considering everything I was going through.

  “I like her,” he decided, looking over his shoulder to his cousin who he looked nothing like. Dominic had the whole blond-hair-blue-eyes thing happening, while Kristoff’s curls were a deep auburn that set off his gray eyes. His features were broader, while Dominic’s were sharp.

  They were both gorgeous. Even in my half-insane-with-panic state of mind, I knew that much.

  Not that it mattered. “I don’t care if you like me. If either of you do.”

  “Good thing,” Dominic muttered.

  “I’m about sick to death of you,” I snapped back, looking around Kristoff’s wide frame.

  “Enough.” Kristoff went to Dominic and took him by the arm. “Come. There is still time before the Summit, but there is no time left before we meet with him. You know he’s expecting us both, and you know what happens when he’s disappointed.”

  “Yeah, listen to your cousin,” I whispered. My teeth were chattering in spite of the burning rage flowing through my veins.

  And the thing was? I wasn’t ragey toward them. Not really.

  I was enraged at myself. My weakness. How the fuck had I let this guy get past me? Then, he had the nerve to take my bat and threaten me? I had let that happen, too.

  Was I losing my edge?

  “Wait a second.” I glanced at the wreck of what used to be my phone, still on the floor. “You owe me a phone, Dom.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Yet you got real comfy, real fast calling me Sophie,” I pointed out.

  “Now you see what Jessa was talking about.” He jerked his sharp chin in my direction. “She is all but impossible. How she managed to avoid being killed by now is beyond my comprehension.”

  “All right, very well.” Kristoff shoved Dominic toward the open door. “Go. Before you make things worse.”

  I wasn’t sorry to see him go. Not even a little bit. He grumbled something to himself as he was leaving, but I couldn’t pick it up. It was the sort of thing I had to ignore, or else he’d never get out of there and I’d never be rid of him.

  A brief smirk crossed Kristoff’s face, which made me wonder if he had much better hearing than I did—which also made me remember Dominic saying he’d been able to hear me talking to myself upstairs. That had to be a bunch of bullshit.

  But he took the bat from you without hardly trying, didn’t he?

  Kristoff reached into a pocket and pulled out an ornate money clip. It had to be platinum, embedded with tiny sapphires and diamonds. “Here. Let me take care of your phone problem. I’ll add the sum to the amount my cousin owes me.”

  I snorted. “How much does he owe you?”

  “Oh, I lost track ages ago. Decades, even.”

  Another memory sparked in the back of my mind. Jessabelle, that snarky bitch, saying something about missing time with people she hadn’t seen in decades. I touched my fingers to my temples. What was happening in my head?

  “The sooner you come to accept reality, the better.” Kristoff held out a hand stuffed with bills. Hundred dollar bills, to be exact. Plenty of them.

  “What’s that mean?”

  A look of frustration crossed his face, lowering his brows and creasing his otherwise unlined forehead. “You have a great many questions, Sophie Strickland. We could answer them, if you would allow us, but this is not the place and you will soon have to come with us. There isn’t much time, as I’m certain my cousin made a point of conveying.”

  He held the hand holding the money higher. “For now, take this. It’s the least we can do.”

  I had the sense of accepting blood money or even a bribe, but then a girl needed a phone and like Kristoff said, it was the least they could do. I took the money, noticing the ring he wore. It was just like Dominic’s, right down to the red stone nestled in what I could now see were silver… claws? Interesting choice.

  A smile washed across his face. “You are beautiful.”

  Awkward. “Um, thank you? You’re pretty good looking, too.”

  “Our blood suits you.”

  My eyes popped open wide. “Your what?”

  The next thing I knew, Kristoff reached out with his free hand and touched my cheek.

  * * *

  KRISTOFF

  It was regrettable, but certain things had to be done.

  “Forgive me, Sophie.” I took one last look for the time being at her now unconscious body, her face relaxed in sleep. “You’re a great deal easier to manage when you aren’t conscious.”

  Dominic waited for me on the porch. “Is she well?”

  “What do you think I would do to her?” I had to laugh at my cousin’s misgivings. “You’ve known me long enough. She’ll awaken in due time. My, she’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

  “That’s one word for it. I can think of several more.”

  “I have no doubt. You were always so much smarter than me.” I lifted my hand, the ruby embedded in my ring shining in the early morning sun. “Ready?”

  He wasn’t, his gaze shifting toward the window.

  “Dominic. She is fine there. We can return later if you wish, but for now, we must meet with him. Before he decides to come for us.”

  I jerked my head toward the window. “How do you think that would go for her? Do you think he would be gentle and understanding in the face of her sarcasm and argumentative nature?”

  “He would tear her apart.”

  “He would want to,” I agreed. “Though he would know better. But she would certainly be scarred by him. Emotionally, mentally. She isn’t ready for all of it. Not by miles.”

  “I realize that.” He didn’t wait for me to join him, closing his eyes and blinking out of existence before I could do the same. I almost didn’t expect him to have transported himself to the manse, yet he was there when I arrived an instant later.

  “Come. As you said, he’ll be waiting. And he won’t be happy.” Dominic’s fair brows drew together in a solid line over his nose.

  “We’ll have her by the end of the day,” I assured him. “She will be here with us, and he’ll have nothing to worry about. None of us will.”

  If only I could believe myself.

  If only I could fo
rce myself to forget the scent of her. The way her mouth glistened, the snapping and shining of her emerald eyes when she was thoroughly worked up.

  How I wished to get her worked up. To bring her considerable passion to the surface and revel in it when she exploded.

  In time, I would have my chance.

  So long as she stopped fighting against what was so clear.

  She belonged with us and always had.

  Always would.

  Seven

  SOPHIE

  I woke up on the floor. On my back, staring up at the ceiling, surrounded by hundred dollar bills I must’ve dropped when I… what? Passed out? Fainted?

  I felt okay when I sat up. No soreness in my arms or legs. Nothing between my thighs that hadn’t been there before. When a girl wakes up on her back after an encounter with a strange man, she has to check these things.

  Whatever Kristoff had done to me, it hadn’t extended to anything sexual. Under other circumstances, that would’ve been a shame. He was a smoke show. So was his cousin when he wasn’t being a total dick.

  These were not those circumstances. Not by a long shot.

  What the hell happened to me? What was still happening? Why was everything such a damn mess all of a sudden?

  * * *

  I slid sunglasses over my eyes on stepping out of the store with my new phone. It wasn’t easy, finding a place to pick up an actual phone I could use on my plan. It took driving forty-five minutes to a strip mall in the middle of nowhere, in fact.

  But I had my new phone and all the contacts imported, so I couldn’t complain.

  Oh. Wait. Yes, I could. Because if my phone hadn’t magically broken, none of this would’ve needed to happen. Even if Kristoff had given me enough to buy two top-of-the-line phones, it didn’t matter.

  Leave it to me to draw a bunch of weirdos and freaks into my life.

  The first thing I did on getting in the car was pull up the internet and research any summits in the area. That stood out to me, what Kristoff said to Dominic about a summit coming up soon.

  Nothing. I didn’t know why that should come as a surprise. Why should anything surprise me at this point?