Animals ✔

Chapter 23

Screams echo around the room.

I feel like I'm floating, watching from above as some sort of half-beast, half-man attacks me. His fangs are buried deep in the side of my neck, clamped tightly around the skin.

Briefly, I hope that he'll hit an artery. I won't be any use to him dead. Let him kill me, please.

Then world shifts and I see Tiberius, just staring at me. His green eyes are so sad. I've never seen them look that way before.

I reach out, but my fingers pass right through him. No! Tiberius!

He fades from sight until it's as if he was never there at all.

It's the pain that pulls me back.

My eyes snap open. My throat is raw, but I can't stop screaming.

Agony.

I'm in agony.

Everything hurts. Burns.

I can barely see Ira when he finally pulls away, my vision clouded by tears.

I'm not sure if I've stopped screaming, or if I've just lost my voice entirely. I'm gasping for breath and my head feels light.

He walks away from me and I hear the creak of a door opening.

Then the sound of a running faucet—he must be in the bathroom.

I wish I could move, I wish I could run, but my limbs are still deadweights. Oh, god. What's he going to do to me?

The faucet squeaks off and my entire body goes cold. He's coming back.

My eyes squeeze shut. I don't want to see him. I don't want to watch what he does to me now. I can't. I won't.

A cool, damp cloth brushes gently over the side of my neck, and if I were in control of myself I would have flinched violently. I didn't hear him leave the bathroom.

He swipes it tenderly along my neck for a few seconds before suddenly pushing it hard against the wound.

I groan lowly at the pain, but he doesn't notice, cursing loudly under his breath.

I can feel it throughout my entire body. It feels like my veins are full of acid. It feels like I'm burning alive from the inside out.

It isn't pleasant—not like the fire.

It's killing me.

Ira's hands leave my neck at the same time as my eyes roll back into my head and everything goes dark.

*

When I come to, I'm in his bed.

And I can move. Immediately, I shove myself up into a sitting position and throw the thick blanket off of me.

I'm drenched in sweat and my head is pounding. But I'm alive.

I'm just not sure I want to be.

My hand hovers over the crook of my neck. It's throbbing terribly and I can't help but hope it didn't work. I'd feel different, somehow. Right?

Maybe he sees it's fruitless and he's going to let me and Callum go now?

But the instant the thought crosses my mind, I know it's wrong.

I know it's wrong because as soon as the thought of Ira crosses my mind, I know he's just a few doors down the hall. I can feel him, at the back of my consciousness.