It’s him!
“Enoch?” I stepped toward him, my fingers stretching to touch him, yearning to feel him in my arms. But when he turned around, it wasn’t awe or kindness that shone in his eyes. It was hatred. Pure and terrifying. He dropped Edward and turned his attention on me.
“I suppose I am a bit thirsty,” Enoch said to the pirate, who was panting for air and gripping his already-bruising neck, his boots scuffing the deck in his haste to get away from Enoch.
“My debt is paid,” Edward asserted, slowly standing.
“With this thing?” he scoffed, motioning to me. “I could have hunted her down myself.”
“Thing?” My voice sounded as brittle as I felt.
Edward gestured toward me. “Look at her, Enoch. Really look,” he rasped. “She bears no mark.”
Enoch flicked his eyes to me but quickly looked away. The moonlight cast a cool glow over his skin, highlighting his face. His features were contorted into something twisted and damaged. He wasn’t the cruel, confident variation of himself from my time; this man was in pain. Agony was Enoch’s anchor, holding him steady and still in a sea that threatened to take him under.
“Enoch?” I offered tentatively, flinching when his muscles tensed at the sound of my voice. “What happened to you?” I asked, reaching out to him.
He took an aggressive step toward me. His chest heaved with barely restrained fury, but it was his silence that spoke volumes. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I’d done to make him hate me so much. When his lips finally parted, his words were as piercing as shards of broken glass. “You happened to me.”
The sound of slipping shale came from just beyond the ship. Edward was already half-way up the hillside, making a run for it.
Coward.
Enoch cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted a taunt. “Leaving so soon?”
Edward stopped and turned to face the Nephilim. “You’re a fool, Enoch. You fail to see what’s standing right in front of you. She fell from the clear, blue sky, straight into the sea. More than one member of my crew witnessed it. She isn’t marked. She is your Eve, and that means my debt to you is satisfied.” He turned and continued pushing forward, upward and away.
Enoch looked from the harried captain back to me and narrowed his eyes. “Is he being truthful?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
Enoch’s stormy green eyes somehow managed to darken even further. “Prove it.”
His hair was longer now, with dark curls that grazed the tops of his shoulders. He closed the distance between us in one fluid movement. I put my hands out to block him, my palms meeting his chest.
He grabbed my wrists and turned them so that he could see the inside of them. First Edward. Now him. What mark are they talking about?
“It’s me,” I pleaded. “I can understand being leery of him,” I gestured to Edward, who was almost at the top of the slope, “but I’m standing right here in front of you. The dress you had made for me is hanging on your railing, if you want to inspect it. Or would you prefer to taste my blood to be sure? You said it tasted weird.” His brows furrowed as he scrutinized me. “If you think I’m the confounding one, Enoch, you should seriously take a look in the mirror. I literally just jumped out your wind—”
“Could it really be?” he asked no one in particular. His shoulders slumped forward like a deflating sail that lacked the wind to fill it.
“Of course it is,” I growled. “Who else would it be? With the exception of my dress, I can’t look that different. I just left you in thirteen forty-eight.”
He rushed forward and grabbed my right hand, rotating it around. He grabbed my left a second time and rotated it as well. He’d already examined my wrists. There was no mark on me. The moonlight shimmered over the circuits and the containment cell embedded just beneath the thin layer of flesh. I pulled my hand away. “It’s not functioning… again.”
“Good,” he remarked tonelessly.
“Good?” I barely had time to look up at him before he lunged with his teeth bared, ready to tear out my throat like he had Abram’s. I strained to hold him away, pushing at his chest, but his fangs snapped closer and closer until they skimmed my neck, leaving a pair of stinging slices across my skin. “Stop, Enoch!” I pushed harder, but he was stronger than I was. His fangs scraped my cheek and then my ear as we struggled. “Enoch, stop!” I yelled.
“Never!” he screamed, his chest heaving and his eyes wild. “I won’t stop until each and every one of you is dead.”
Dead? A cold sweat beaded on my forehead, spreading quickly over my chest and back. My knees began to quiver, but now was not the time to weaken. I gritted my teeth, finally garnering enough strength to push him off me.
“I skewered you once, Enoch. Don’t think I won’t do it again.”
Chapter Five
Eve
I tore through the gown’s seam to get to my stakes. The smooth wood felt comfortable in my hand, but pointing it at his heart didn’t feel right at all. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t make me use this.”
He gave a daring smile. “It won’t kill me.”
“If it pierces your heart it will,” I argued.
We circled one another slowly on the wooden deck that was as dark as pitch. He met each of my steps with one of his own, the two of us dancing a dangerous waltz, our bodies not touching, but somehow in deadly sync.
Despite the fact that he was trying to kill me, Enoch looked good. Better than good. The sun had bronzed his skin and he looked as young as he did when I left him. He wore a clean white shirt left untied at the neck that exposed a sliver of his chest, a dark pair of trousers, and boots that were just worn enough and stretched to his knee. It was a lot like what Edward was wearing, but Enoch wore it a million times better.
His features darkened as I took him in. He flicked his eyes over me, a look of disgust wrinkling his nose. “Victor Dantone failed to teach your kind one thing.”
My kind? “Oh yeah? What’s that?” I said, stake ready to strike.
“I am not a vampire.”
He blurred to my left, trying to knock the stake away, like his little minion had done in the loading dock…
I held tight.
I would never let anyone disarm me again.
Not. Even. Him.
I ran to the right, putting a mast between us. We circled it, him trying to lunge past to get to me, and me somehow managing to evade him. I exploded, “I don’t understand what’s happening! Abram’s lost his mind… there’s a girl in town who looks like she could be my twin… you hate me for some unfathomable reason, or else you don’t remember me, and I’m starting to wonder if I haven’t fallen into some sort of messed-up, alternate reality.”
Enoch’s upper lip twitched. “I assure you that my memory of you is very much intact.”
“It can’t be! When I left, you were in the process of tearing Abram’s throat out for hurting me. You were protecting me from him.”
“And you saw fit to reward me by flinging yourself from the turret window?”
“Yes! Because I was protecting you, too! You were about to turn him, but I stopped it. He’s not a vampire. I saw him – I think he hit his head or something – but he’s definitely not a vampire. And that means Titus is probably okay, too. He would have died if I hadn’t jumped.” I pushed my scent toward him. “Enoch, it’s me.”