Her heart raced as she ran up the stairs and reached for the door bell.
But she didn’t ring it. She didn’t have to. The front door was ajar.
Even though the neighborhood was a safe and quiet one, nobody ever left their door open. Nobody. Certainly not Paulette.
She pushed the door fully open. A bout of nausea overwhelmed her as she inhaled.
“Oh God, no,” she whispered to herself.
The scent stinging her nostrils and assaulting her sensitive stomach grew more intense as she stepped into the house. The lights were on in the living room, but it was empty.
Maya’s vocal cords clamped up. She was unable to call out to her friend, because deep down she already knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The house was quiet. There wasn’t a single sound except for the dripping faucet in the bathroom.
Her soft-soled shoes made barely a sound as she slid down the corridor to the bedrooms like a thief. The light drifting into the hallway came from underneath a bedroom door. Paulette’s bedroom.
Maya steeled herself against what she already knew she would find and turned the knob. She pushed the door open, finding it uncharacteristically heavy. It creaked, but she barely heard the sound because the scene in the bedroom made her heart drum so loud it drowned out any sound.
The bed was a pool of blood – dried, but still fresh enough for her stomach to turn. Had she had any contents in it, she would have lost them now, but it appeared vampires couldn’t throw up. Even though she wanted to, needed to, to curb the nausea.
The sheets were tangled as if there’d been a struggle. Paulette hadn’t died easily, but Maya knew she was dead, even though there was no body. She raised her eyes to the wall behind the bed and hugged her arms around her torso.
Scrawled in blood was a message, and it was meant for her.
It’s your fault, Maya.
A sound finally left her throat, but it amounted to nothing more than a helpless gurgle. Her friend had died because of her. He’d done it. She knew it. The man who’d attacked her, he’d killed her friend to cover his tracks.
All because Maya had told Paulette about him, even though she didn’t remember doing so. Paulette had to have known about him for him to attack her. Maybe she’d even known his name and what he looked like. It had cost her her life.
She felt numb all over her body. It was all her fault. She should have taken care of her friend. She should have known he’d come after her.
Why hadn’t she thought about it? Why?
The door fell shut behind her and made her spin around in vampire speed.
A scream left her throat.
Paulette!
She hung there, on the back of the door, her limp body bloodied, her pajamas shredded by claws. No heartbeat – Maya would have heard it from where she stood. But she was gone. Long gone.
Twenty-one
“I couldn’t reach Thomas,” Yvette said as she flipped her cell phone shut and looked at Gabriel, who was driving while dialing a number on his own cell phone.
Gabriel listened to the voice on the other line and cursed. “Zane’s not answering either.”
“We’re almost there,” Yvette tried to calm him.
He gave her a sideways glance. At least now that the air had been cleared between them, Yvette was a hundred percent behind him. And he needed all the help he could get. Maya was out there on her own –
and so was the rogue. The bastard would find her and Gabriel would lose her forever. He couldn’t allow it. He needed to protect her.
“Zane. Maya’s gone. Search for her. This is first priority.” Gabriel flipped the cell shut.
Moments later, he pulled up in front of Maya’s apartment and jumped out of the car. He ran up the stairs, Yvette close behind him.
The door was locked, but Gabriel didn’t care. With barely any effort he kicked against the lock and the wood splintered. He jerked the door open and ran upstairs.
At Maya’s apartment he did the same thing – if she was there, she wouldn’t respond to a polite knock anyway. She was too pissed at him.
For now, he didn’t care. All he needed was to get her back to the house where she would be safe. Then he’d explain things to her.
How could she have possibly thought he was getting head from the witch? Sure, the situation had looked a little odd, but had she only waited, she would have realized that there was nothing sexual about any of it. The witch had merely examined him like a doctor would a patient, and then tried a little herbal concoction on him to test how the damn thing reacted.
Of course, the useless piece of flesh hadn’t reacted to anything at all until – Gabriel stopped in his tracks and let the realization sink in. His additional piece of flesh had stirred the moment Maya had entered the room. And when she’d run out on him, it had faltered again and shrunken back to its original state. The witch had given him an odd look, now that he thought of it, but he’d been too panicked about Maya’s misinterpretation of things to give it much consideration until now. Now he was wondering if –
“Are we going in?” Yvette asked behind him.
Gabriel pushed aside thoughts about his deformity and stepped inside the apartment. He sniffed, trying to ascertain if Maya had been here. His gaze swept through the place. It still looked the way they’d left it only two nights earlier. Nothing had changed. And there was no fresh scent of Maya. She hadn’t been here.
“Where else would she go?” Gabriel asked and ran his hands through his hair.
Yvette opened her mouth, but then her cell phone rang. She picked it up. “Thomas? Did you get my message?”
Gabriel could hear Thomas’ reply. “Yes, the
