Immortal Souls (The Immortal Souls: Magic & Chaos)

Chapter 26

Jamie watched as Sam drove away, not moving until her car was out of sight.

Usually he couldn't bear the sight of blood. The smell was something he was able to force himself to ignore, but the sight of it was a completely different matter.

Sam's blood had scared him.

The sight of it caused his pulse to quicken, his muscles to shake, his teeth to ache with a familiar craving. And in that moment he'd known it was only a matter of time before his predatory nature would overtake his composure.

That realisation had caused him to feel dread, an emotion uncommon to him in this situation.

And once the dread had gotten a hold of his consciousness he'd been able to react. Pushing himself away from her, inflicting physical pain on himself in order to keep his mind distracted, hoping that the stinging in his palms would help deter from what his instincts demanded.

But his efforts only worked for a brief moment. The urge quickly became too much and he felt his defences crumble as his instincts obliterated his inhibition. He breathed in the scent of her blood which still lingered in the air surrounding him, hoping as he did that the urge would dissipate before he managed to catch up to her.

He wouldn't kill her, it wasn't as though he hadn't fed in days, but the idea of using Sam to sate his hunger, to cause her that kind of distress, filled him with concern. He planned to see her again, and didn't want to feel guilty every time he laid eyes upon her.

Jamie felt a brief stab of panic . . . before he finally realised the urge was no longer there.

In fact when he'd breathed in her scent it helped to calm him rather than incite him.

Jamie blinked, totally dumbfounded.

When he breathed in, it wasn't the scent of blood, it was simply the scent of Sam. And Sam's general scent didn't fill him with a bloodlust, it filled him with an entirely different kind of lust.

With a sigh, he walked over to the wall where they'd been standing and slowly he let himself sink down, until he was sitting on the cold concrete ground.

He didn't really know this girl, but he'd seen enough for him to learn that she didn't make sense. She worked a human job. Lived in a human house. She had human friends. And today he was pretty sure she'd been shopping for school supplies.

Everything she did screamed human.

But everything else about her . . .

She was attacked by a man with a crossbow! Jamie couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anyone use a crossbow. And not only that but he seemed to conjure the weapon from nothing. One minute his hand was empty, the next he had a crossbow.

He couldn't make sense of it.

Everything was just . . . things just weren't right.

Somewhere in his mind he knew that Claudio wasn't just a paranoid, superstitious fool. He knew that he should back off, he should leave Sam alone.

But he couldn't.

He had tried.

For a whole week he'd left her alone, not bothered her at all, he tried to forget about all of the things that didn't make sense.

But he couldn't.

The curiosity was keeping him awake every day. And the longing for her, someone he didn't even know, it filled him with the urge to see her. To be near her. Even if she couldn't see him, he needed to know that she was okay.