Once they settled somewhere, he’d call, but first, they had to get somewhere safe. He was aware he was putting off the inevitable, but a part of him dreaded the call. He hadn’t become a Savage, but he’d been so close he could still feel that madness seeping through his brain.
And because of that, he wasn’t ready to face his mentor and friends. He would call soon, but first, he would get her somewhere safe.
Chapter Eighteen
Three car changes and a whole lot of driving around between New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania later, Lucien pulled into the parking lot of a small motel outside of the Poconos.
The sun had set behind the mountains hours ago, and the moon was high in the sky when he doused the car’s headlights before shutting off the vehicle. He studied the exterior of the small motel while he listened to the tick of the Jeep’s cooling engine.
Callie leaned forward in her seat to peer up at the vacancy sign. “We don’t have any money.”
“That won’t matter.”
“Oh, yeah,” she muttered, feeling like an idiot as she recalled he could bend others to his will.
Uneasiness churned in her stomach; she was ready to be out of the car and definitely ready for sleep, but she hated the idea of him using that ability. When would he turn it on her?
She gulped as goosebumps broke out on her arms. She supposed it was a good thing she wouldn’t know when it happened… or maybe she would.
She couldn’t say how the ability worked. Maybe the guards recalled everything they’d seen and heard, but they couldn’t do anything about it.
Then she recalled Lucien instructing them to forget everything they witnessed, and she really hoped they did precisely that. The old man shouldn’t have the memory of that fight between Lucien and the Savages. He should be able to sleep at night without recalling the blood and violence that unfolded earlier in the day.
She’d like to do the same, but if it came between a mind erase and the memory, she would choose the memory. She enjoyed her mind the way it was.
Using the heels of her palms, she rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. Dropping her hands, she opened her eyes to study the brick building before them. Fifteen or twenty units branched off the main office to run along the left side of it.
The lit-up, neon sign to her right proclaimed it to be the Mountainside Motel, and beneath it was the vacancy sign. There were a few other cars in the lot, but it was more empty than full.
Despite its nearly empty status, it looked so cozy with the mountains rising behind it and flowers overflowing the containers on either side of the glass office door. She yearned for a hot shower and a comfortable bed. She was certain she’d sleep for three days straight once she had both.
“We’ll be safe here,” Lucien said.
She wanted to believe him and, after the many hours they spent in vehicles, back roads, and different states today, he had to be right, but she was afraid to believe it was true. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He was confident the last time they were on camera was in New York, when they stopped at a convenience store to load up on food and drinks for her, along with other assorted supplies. Unfortunately, the store hadn’t sold any disposable phones. He could have stopped somewhere else, but he’d chosen to stay away from cameras.
The guy he stole this Jeep from wouldn’t report it missing for another three days. He’d taken the guy’s phone only to discover it unlocked by a fingerprint. He’d junked it on some back road in New York.
“Come on,” he said. Her exhaustion and fear beat against him; he would get her settled before he called Ronan. “Let’s go.”
He lifted the pair of sunglasses he’d taken from their second vehicle and slid them into place over his still red eyes. The black lenses blocked the color of his eyes. He was hungry again, and once they got a room, he would feed.
They unbuckled their seat belts and jumped out of the Wrangler. The original owner had removed the doors and the top of the vehicle. A cooler was strapped to the rack attached to the back of the Jeep, but Lucien hadn’t looked inside it yet. Another cooler, the one they purchased at the convenience store, sat on the back seat and was full of Callie’s supplies.
The lights attached to the polls at the edge of the parking lot dimly illuminated the compacted dirt beneath their feet as they strode toward the office. The crickets and frogs broke the hush of the night as they chirruped and sang. The stars and moon were bright in the sky, and Callie tipped back her head to examine the Milky Way as it stretched across the sky.
“I have to feed again,” he said as they walked. “It will be on whoever is inside.”
Callie glanced at him before shifting her attention back to the motel. She bit her lip as she contemplated the awfulness that lay ahead for the unsuspecting person within.
“I….” Her voice trailed off as she tried to figure out what to say. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I thought it was better to prepare you for it.”
“Yes, I suppose that is better.”
Feeling her distress, Lucien rested his hand on her arm; she stopped walking to face him. “They won’t feel it. I won’t let them. What I did to you was a huge mistake, and it should never have happened. I will hate myself for it for the rest of my life.”
The harshness of his tone and the anguish on his face told her that he meant what he said.
“It’s no excuse,” he continued, “but I was out of my mind with starvation when it happened. They brought you there so that I would kill you.”
Callie swallowed the lump in her throat. “Why didn’t you? If they brought me there to feed you and to turn you into them, and if you were so starved, why didn’t you kill me?”
He studied her lovely face as he savored the feel of her silken flesh beneath his palm. His gaze fell to her luscious mouth, and he almost bent his head to taste it. He longed to run his tongue across those lips and discover how she would react to him, but he didn’t think she would be open to that, considering she was staring at him like he was the fox in the hen house.
And she was waiting for an answer to her question. He contemplated how to respond to her, but he wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t killed her either. He’d certainly been ravenous enough and crazed enough to do so, but….
“Because the second I tasted you, I knew I had to protect you,” he admitted.
That was not the response she’d expected. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but it certainly wasn’t those heart-melting words. He’s a vampire. And for the first time, she found she didn’t care. He was also a man, and despite his faults, he was a good one.
“Why?” she whispered.
He didn’t know how to explain that to her when he could barely explain it to himself and he was too damn hungry to think about it. “I’m not sure.”
A twinge of disappointment tugged at her heart, but she still hadn’t known what she’d expected from him.
“I do know that whoever’s in there won’t recall me feeding on them, and it won’t hurt them. I shouldn’t have hurt you either time, but I was so far gone I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry about that, and I hope you can one day forgive me.”