CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Valdez
I hobbled back to Kenai’s truck, clutching my bleeding arm, barely able to see straight. I needed stitches. I needed to get the vampire blood off me. I stopped dead in my tracks at the redhead sitting on the tailgate of my brother’s truck.
“What? No warm greeting like the other night, Val?” she crooned, twitching her foot.
I met her newly blue eyes in the moonlight. Ellie hadn’t lied to me. The other night hadn’t been a dream.
“Red.” My voice was barely a whisper in of acknowledgment.
Thinking Willow had been a dream was one thing. Seeing her now, flesh and blood before me, made my heart skip a beat. I didn’t need this tonight. I didn’t need her craziness. Not with the street lights already swirling like Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
“I told you if I ever saw you again, I’d kill you, Red.”
“You didn't tell me that the other night,” she purred. “You didn't say that when I partially shifted for you.”
“You have my knife, Willow.”
I did my best to hold my voice steady, but it was quickly becoming a lost cause.
“Y’all seem to lose them pretty easily.” She casually picked at her nails, foot still tapping to some unheard beat.
“Stolen is not the same as lost.”
“You didn't complain when I used it on Mr. Romans.”
I shook my head as I clutched my bleeding arm to my chest. Zom stood behind me, suspiciously silent. She probably smelled like Rhen, and Zom, for some reason, liked him. “I should have never let you swim out in to the ocean that night. You know that, Willow.”
Her apathetic shrug made me see red. The anger helped me fight the swirling colors.
“Where's the kid, Will?”
“Please,” she scoffed. “Like I'd tell you. You'd kill him on the spot.”
She giggled at the growl that fought its way past my attempt at calm. “Oh, how I miss that, Val. Getting me all tingly like the other night.”
“Where's my nephew?” I pressed again.
“He's not your sister’s. He's not my brother's.” Her voice was hollow as the wind kicked up, a growl rolling around the edges of her words. She wasn't anything like her brother when it came to affecting the weather, but the wind did shift with her mood. “He’s not ours.”
I stared at her as she sat up straighter. Those sea blue eyes of hers were threatening to consume me like deep water.
“Say it. I want to hear you say it.” There was so much pain in her voice, I expected matching tears in her eyes. I drew a shuddering breath as I shook my head.
“You can't do this, Red.” My own voice was strained. I couldn't hide it as that day flooded back. We'd never talked about it before she left Alaska.
“I don't know. I was doing a fairly good job until you brought my brother back to Cordova. No one would have even known about Rook.”
I couldn't bring myself to say the words she wanted to hear. I felt the shame and regret of what I’d done.
That day we were fighting and rolled the Jeep, it wasn’t just my body that had been broken in that accident. My soul had broken, too. She’d confessed she was pregnant, and I’d started the fight that led to the accident.
I hated myself every moment for how I'd handled it. It was the beginning of the descent in to madness for both of us. Our hearts had been broken when they told her she'd lost the babies. I’d lost more in vehicle accidents than anyone ever should have.
“He’s the same age as they would have been, Val. And he’s mine. She gave him up without even telling my brother.”
“Your brother almost died because of me.”
Willow rolled her eyes in disgust at the thought and hopped down off the tailgate.
“So come on, Val. Kill me already. I can't take the happy couple’s sappiness.”
The icy gravel crunched beneath her riding boots as she sashayed over to me, one foot carefully placed in front of the other, ever the picture of grace as her ruby hair billowed out behind her in the cold breeze.
“That's right. You don’t have your knife,” her sing song tone teased as she slowly closed the gap between us.
My gun was empty. My arm was a bloody mess. I wasn’t sure I could even put her in a choke hold. Willow stopped in front of me, extending her hand to touch my cheek.
Years ago, I would have nuzzled her hand and tasted her skin. Tonight, I stared her square in the face as I fought not to jerk my head away from her touch. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing she still held any power over me.
“You look good covered in blood.”
“No.” The word was so dark I expected it to be a growl. “I don’t.”
“I'd offer to lick you clean,” a smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she sniffed me, “but I can smell her on you.”
“Don’t touch her.”
My words were raw and harsh. I was too tired to play my cards close to my chest.
Willow’s eyebrow rose as she stood a bit straighter, that seductive smile faltering. I’d given her a reaction, but not what she had expected.
“She means something to you.” Her words were plain and simple.
I grabbed her wrist as she trailed her finger across my lips. Willow lost the last grip she had on that smile as she tried to burn a hole through me. My grip tightened around her wrist at the thought of her doing something to Ellie. I wasn’t backing down.
“I mean it, Willow. Don’t fucking touch her.”
“I love how protective you are. I used to mean something to you, too.”
“A lifetime ago.” I caught the tiniest shimmer of silver sheen along her neck in the lamp light. “Don't think for a moment that you're getting away with what you did.”
“You gonna put my hide on the wall, Valdez?” She tugged hard against my hold. “Make me into a pair of boots? Maybe skin Rhen, too, and make us into a coat.”
The condensation from my breath swirled around her, giving her an angelic halo. But angelic was something Willow had never been. She'd been my high, my drug of choice when I needed release. And I'd been hers. Now, I didn't even want a taste.
She'd purposely put my family in jeopardy, and she stood before me as if nothing had happened.
“Promises, promises.” She sneered at me. “All talk, no bite.”
With a rough jerk, I spun her by her wrist so her back was against my chest, red hair in my face. The smell of lavender engulfed my senses, overriding the metallic odor of the vampire blood. My wounded arm burned as I pulled my father’s knife.
Willow stiffened at the cold touch of the blade on her throat, but her heart thundered on. I’d threatened her before, but I’d never actually pulled a knife on her. My own pulse pounded in my ears. My breathing slowed as the tension in my muscles readied for the stroke across her throat.
Her free hand came up to grab my arm as I held her pinned, her nails biting in to my flesh like Ellie’s had last night.
“Do it.” Her voice was so soft I had strained to hear the words. “End the madness.”
My eyes closed as I breathed in deep the scent of her hair, committing her to memory. My muscles started to tremble from the exertion, the bite from the vampire oozing blood as I fought to hold the knife.
Her eyes were blue. Just like her brother’s.
“Go. Walk away, Willow.” My voice wasn't my own as I released my grasp on her.
She tilted her head and kissed my lips. I refused to watch as she walked away in to the shadows