she had opened and attack her, and she would have no defenses.
But Christopher had not fed on humans for too long. He was powerless against the deadliest of her attacks.
Nikolas froze when he heard his brother scream. Sarah saw him hesitate as he tried to figure out what she had done.
“Let me go, Nikolas,” Sarah demanded. “Call that girl back down and tell her to get my knives
“You wouldn’t,” Nikolas answered softly, a small amount of fear in his voice.
“He just licked blood off my hand,” she growled. “That gives me the motivation to cause some exceptional
Nikolas stepped forward and she once again reached into Christopher’s power and
He shouted out in pain and Nikolas winced, stopping.
“I can kill him in less than a second if you make another move toward me,” she warned, and it was true. As entrenched in Christopher’s power as she was, she could tear, tangle, or destroy with a thought.
“Marguerite, get the knives,” Nikolas whispered, and the human who had been watching from the doorway ran upstairs. Sarah had seen the fear on the girl’s face—fear for Christopher’s life, for the vampire who had fed on her years ago when she wanted to die, and then given her this life in exchange for the one she had abandoned.
Nikolas took a step back, but Sarah could see pure hatred smoldering in his eyes as he did so.
Marguerite returned and held Sarah’s knives out to her. Keeping her right hand over Christopher’s throat, she returned all the knives to their rightful places with her left. Still holding Christopher by the throat, she stood.
“I am going to let him go, and you are going to leave me alone. Do we have a deal, Nikolas?”
“I’m going to kill you the first chance I get,” he growled back, and Christopher once again shouted out in pain.
“For tonight, I will let you leave safely,” he answered.
“Agreed,” she said, as she relaxed her hold on Christopher, who collapsed to the floor. “He’s going to die if he doesn’t feed soon, Nikolas,” she warned before he had a chance to make a move.
Without hesitation Nikolas drew Christopher to his own throat.
CHAPTER 21
“WHAT IN THE WORLDdid you think you were doing?” Adianna demanded the instant Sarah entered the house.
Sarah pushed past her sister without answering. She was too tired to deal with questions tonight.
Adianna followed in silence, waiting to speak until they were almost in Sarah’s room. “You aren’t invincible, Sarah, and you well know it. Yet you’re always throwing yourself into these situations, going alone where no hunter in her right mind would—”
“I couldn’t bring you,” Sarah interrupted tiredly. “I can’t explain, but it wasn’t just because I like doing things alone.”
“You don’t have to protect me,” Adianna stated.
“This time I did. This is something between Nikolas and me.”
“No, it’s
“I’ve heard the lecture before,” Sarah snapped, her frayed nerves ruining the last of her patience. “Now, please, leave me alone.”
“You’re acting suicidal, Sarah.”
“Good night, Adianna.” Sarah slipped into her room and closed the door on her sister. Adianna knocked a couple of times, but finally gave up and let Sarah alone.
Nissa was the one she was worried about. The girl didn’t take human blood meals, but if the other hunters learned Nikolas was her relation, she would never be able to rest safely. The last thing Sarah wanted was for hunters to push Nissa into killing to defend herself.
Christopher . . . what was she going to do about Christopher? She might have just helped Nikolas convince his brother to start killing again, but it was what she had needed to do to survive.
All she could think was that she was marked, that Nikolas had signed his name on her skin as if she were some kind of object, and now he was hunting her. All to defend his brother. Wouldn’t she have done the same— worse, actually—to someone who had hurt Adianna?
She shook her head violently, trying to let go of these dangerous thoughts, and threw herself down on the bed, hoping for a sleep that eluded her.
She would kill him.
If she could.
If she could turn her heart into stone and make her knife her only morals, if she could stand to kill Christopher and Nissa when they came to avenge Nikolas’s death, if she could stand living after killing her friends, then she would kill Nikolas.
CHAPTER 22
SARAH INTERCEPTEDROBERTby his car at the end of the next school day.
“What’s up?”
She was aware that she looked very different than when they had last spoken. Her black jeans and white shirt were plain, not exactly her style, but she wore them because she planned on visiting someone who wasn’t fond of colors. Her leather jacket covered her arms. She had not bothered to replace the bandages after last night. Her blond hair was down, slightly wild, stirred up by her running to the parking lot. Her eyes smoldered with intensity and purpose.
“I need to talk to your sister.”
“Not likely. I told you already, Kristin doesn’t talk to anyone. She barely even
Sarah leaned back against his car door, and repeated herself. “I need to talk to Kristin, and I’m pretty sure she’ll talk to me.”
He snorted. “I’m not bringing you to her. If she notices you at all, she’ll just freak out.”
“Robert—”
“Leave me alone, okay?” he snapped. “I get it. I’m not as . . . important . . . as you are. I’m human, yeah, fine. I talked to your mother, and she made that quite clear. Now leave me alone.”
“No,” she answered calmly. She felt a little guilty about sending this human to her mother, but he had received no colder welcome than any other hunter had. “I need to talk to Kristin, and I thought it would be more polite to ask than to break into your house.”
This time he tried to muscle past her, pushing her to the side. He was bigger than she was, but he hadn’t
