Torn Asunder

Chapter 7 Valentine

Andros, Ixchel, Luka and I stared after him, but not a single one of us moved to follow him. I was too surprised to hear the raw emotion in his voice as he stormed off, Andros didn't like the guy, Luka was no fan right now either and Ixchel... I think she was the most familiar with Caleb and just knew he'd be back.

"Ixchel?" Andros looked at the woman from an ancient culture. "Do you care to fill us in on what you know?"

I'd stopped looking at Ixchel as a stranger, hell I'd lapped up her blood in a fit of maddness, but every now and again she does something that reminds me that she is still strange. This time I watched as her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and then she shuddered and her eyes rolled back to normal. I leaned into the comforting warmth of my best friend, glad that he still loved me despite the Caleb situation.

"When I got involved, Caleb was already on his way to being Turned." Ixchel started calmly, as if her eye thing had simply been a strange tic. "There was only his first Feeding left to complete and he would have become one of the night bloods." Well, that would explain the heavy scarring I'd seen all over my lover. And I do mean all over. There was a cluster of scars in a very specific place that ensured I'd never have to worry about Caleb getting me pregnant. He couldn't, not anymore. Sex yes, offspring no. Thank god.

"The Mercy had been following the corpse trail of this small Family Caleb found himself in, and he wasn't the only human they'd ensnared. He was, however, the only one to survive the transformation back to human." she finished up the unsatisfying explanation. There were still far too many details I didn't know yet.

"How did you get involved? And how do you turn someone back?" I demanded, trying to squash the hope in my gut that I could return my twin to the living. I had to sheild that fragile hope, as I think it was the only thing holding my sanity together after I ran from Dante. I know now that he had been reacting to the blood but.... it had weirded me out. I had run from my twin and it terrified me that he would lose hope without me around to hold him up.

Luka held me tighter against his side, shifting positions a little so I ended up partially on his lap. Caleb would object when he came back, but this was a position I'd been in many, many times with my best friend before, so it felt natural now. I tried to ignore the weight of Andros' eyes as he watched my best friend comfort me with physical closeness, a question in the voodoo man's eyes that I didn't have an honest answer for yet. So instead I played ignorant and prodded Ixchel to go on with her story.

"I was brought in to save as many as I could." Ixhcel shrugged, not elaborating. "To return to human, you have to WANT that change to occur. Then you need to kill the whole bloodline involved until the Head of the Family is eliminated. And then there is a ritual." she stared to explain.

Which is of course when Caleb picked to return from his tension relieving walk. His eyes landed on me, sitting on Luka, and I could see the promise of violence in them. Not directed at me, but at every man in this cabin. For the first time I started to wonder what it was that made Caleb choose me, be so protective over me. Now don't get me wrong, I think I'm kind of stellar, but why is he interested in me at all? Without understanding why I did it, I held my hand out to him, let him grip me and pull me smoothly off Luka's lap so he could hold me tightly. Caleb tilted my chin up and kissed me as if he could borrow some of my internal calm. For the first time since my Hunger gave away my virginity, I got a sense of the man for myself. Those things that had appealed to me before were still there, the fierce loyalty to his bikers, the smoldering intensity in his eyes, the patient predator gleam to his smile. I had lost the fight against the Hunger but I could still care for the man it had given me. So I kissed Caleb back as if I could share my inner peace with him while he told a painful personal history.