Eric joined me. “Who was it?”
I didn’t answer for a long moment and kept walking down the hall, but suddenly the tremendous need to tell someone, to unload the awful guilt that had suddenly dropped on my shoulders, took hold of me.
“It was a vampire. I...” I paused, wanting to omit the details, but I pressed forward. “I snapped his head off with my bare teeth.”
“You what?!”
Bile rose up my throat as I remembered the bitter taste of the creature’s blood in my mouth.
“Two vamps had cornered Jake,” I said. “They were going to kill him. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to help him. He was already injured and—”
“It sounds like you had no other choice,” he cut me off. “But you don’t have to explain yourself to me. If you killed a vampire, all I can say is good riddance.”
I whirled on him, anger fizzing up like a chemical reaction. “How can you be so callous? Just because you can go about eradicating entire packs doesn’t mean that others have no scruples.” Too late I realized what I was saying and snapped my mouth shut.
Eric’s eyes narrowed, and his upper lip twitched. His blue gaze grew colder than I’d ever seen it. For a second, he struggled to restrain himself, clenching his fists and quaking on the spot. But then he lost it, and in a flash, he was on me, his hands around my neck as he pushed me against the wall.
He spoke between gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare talk about things you don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry,” I said in a raspy voice.
Sheesh! Did I have a death wish? Yeah, go ahead and piss off the vengeful wolf. Very smart, Toni.
He released his hold a tiny bit, enough for me to catch my breath.
“I was out of place,” I managed to say.
Disgusted, he let me go and stormed away.
“Wait,” I called out, panicking. “Can I come back tomorrow?”
He grunted and kept going, which I assumed meant “yes” since he hadn’t responded with an angry roar. Now that I knew what I was capable of, I needed to learn how to control myself more than ever.
Then, I remembered I was supposed to ask him more questions about rhabo, but I’d totally forgotten, and now he was mad at me. Way to go, Toni.
Chapter 27
MY MIND HEAVY WITH remorse after having lied to Rosalina about tracking Blake, I keyed the lock to her condo and walked in. My heart jumped in my throat as she stormed in my direction and wrapped me in her arms.
“Oh, thank the witchlights you’re okay!” Her hold on me lasted for only a second, though, and in the same breath, she pulled away and demanded, “Where the hell have you been?!”
“Uh, at Eric’s.”
She scowled. “Before that. The rest of the night, I mean.”
I winced. Lying never paid off. Sooner or later you got caught.
“I was at the office, um...”
“Don’t you dare try to come up with a lie.” She pointed a finger straight at my nose. “Never mind, I know what you were doing.” She whirled and headed into the kitchen.
I scrubbed at my face, feeling terrible. I followed after her and stood by the kitchen table, watching her set the coffee maker.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” I said.
She huffed, her expression telling me she had worried anyway.
“I had to do it. I had to find out.” I waited for her curiosity to get the best of her and ask me if I’d found Blake, if he was still alive, but she walked toward the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs and a container of Greek yogurt without as much as a peek in my direction.
“Ulfen was telling the truth,” I blurted out, hoping the shock would undo her anger.
It didn’t.
She had never been mad at me. Never. I didn’t know what to do. I pulled a chair out and sat, burying my face in my hands and feeling exhausted. The last twelve hours had been an all-around nightmare, and now the only person I trusted one hundred percent was mad at me.
“Um, Jake came over after the trance,” I said, trying a different angle. “He caught me in the worst of it and learned about the side effects.”
I peered at her face expectantly. Still nothing.
She came to the table and sat across from me. The coffee pot gurgled and that unique aroma filled the air. I uncovered my face and met her green eyes, which were filled with disappointment. My heart twitched. I could handle her anger much better than this.
I had never lied to her, and I would never do it again.
“I can tell you’re disappointed as you should be,” I said. “I fucked up. Lying to the only person who always has my back was stupid, but I didn’t do it out of malice. I just didn’t want to ruin your date night.”
She said nothing to that. Instead, she set her hand on the table, palm down, and pushed something in my direction. When she removed her hand, a small baggie filled with glittery powder was left behind. An image representing a bleeding heart was imprinted in one corner of the bag.
“That’s rhabo,” she said.
“What? How? I’m confused. That powder is rhabo?” I babbled, eyes wide in surprise.
“I got it at Damien’s.” Her face crumpled, more disappointment washing over her. “We went to his house after our date. Things had... progressed, and he invited me over to spend the night.”
Holy crap! Rosalina went out a lot, but she was extremely picky about who she let into her bed. She must really like Damien if she’d decided to take that step.
She heaved a sigh. “There were hundreds, if not thousands of those bags stacked on top of a table inside a room that looked like a mad scientist’s lair.”
Shit!
“When we got there,” she forced a
