Bad Taste (Part II) // Colby Brock

229 - Tara

I launched my phone across the room knowing it'd land on my bed in frustration.

"JAKE!"

My boyfriend appeared at the door in half a second with a frightened expression on his face, his head lowered and hands resting on the doorframe, no doubt so he could propel himself backwards and run off when I got even more pissed at him.

"What the hell? We said ten, and you just... don't show up? You think that's cool? Gonna fly? You're fucking dead. Give me a good reason not to kill you right now," I ranted, moving a step closer with every angry word.

Jake just stared at me like a puppy, which didn't work on me anymore. It was hard not to fall into his arms as though standing me up when we were years into a very serious relationship was okay, but I resisted because I was wound the hell up. Had been for the past couple of weeks.

"Well?" I growled at him. "Come on, give me an explanation."

Jake sighed softly. "I'm sorry, Tara, I don't have a good explanation. I just... lost track of time."

I felt my eyes changing colour in anger as I snarled at Jake, lowering into a crouched position. But before I could attack him—actually attack him, he zipped into the room, slamming the door as he did. His hands were on my biceps in the blink of a vampire's eye, and his lips were barely an inch from mine.

"Tara," he whispered, searching my eyes. "Please, I didn't mean to leave you hanging and I've been so good for years. Cut me a little slack this one time?"

Those fucking puppy eyes, the tingles on my skin, the tone of his voice...

I loved him too much to keep being mad when he begged me like this. There was no reason to get mad over being stood up by my serious boyfriend. At least, not this mad. I had to chill.

"I'm sorry," I muttered in embarrassment. "I'm just so... wound up lately, I don't know."

"I know something that might help." Jake gave me a small grin, slowly backing me up toward our bed. I just stared into his eyes, which were slowly turning red like mine still were. "Let me loosen you up a bit, babe."

I let him kiss me hard on the lips, my eyes closing automatically. He was always almost aggressive with his kisses when he wanted me in bed, there was no in-between from this and the soft kisses we usually exchanged.

He was just about to lower me to the bed when there was a loud knock at the door, and we both growled as we pulled apart.

"What is it?" Jake asked quietly. His voice was annoyed, about as riled up as I felt.

"Sorry," Sam said sincerely. "We're all going out now, remember? Taking down that vamp?"

Right, I thought. Fucking Elliott and his millions of Crows. We'd been picking them off one by one ever since Colby killed him, and it didn't seem like there'd be any shortage of them any time soon.

Colby should've tried to get Elliott back on our side, but I understood that he was part of the reason Rebecca was thrown out of a building and almost killed.

I placed a soft kiss on Jake's lips as my face turned human. "Let's just go, we'll do this later."

"Dammit, just as it was getting good," he grumbled back. I smiled but didn't reply.

We walked together downstairs with everyone else. It still felt extremely weird not having Colby standing around looking intimidating when it'd been the same for years, and I didn't like not being able to see Rebecca hanging around.

Fuck, I missed that woman.

But we all understood she needed her time, as did Colby. We couldn't expect them to recover in the matter of a couple of days after all that'd happened during their relationship, some of which was still unresolved. Though, we had someone close to us working on that.

Sam gave us a rundown of the rules even though we knew them well by then before clicking his fingers, setting us into motion.

The Crows had never liked us and since Colby killed Elliott, they seemed only more fuelled to get rid of us. So when we arrived at one of their safe houses, there were far more than we expected loaded with all kinds of weapons. Lucky we'd been training a lot in Colby's absence.

Although we ploughed through most of the crowd, there were a few that were simply too strong for us. I got pinned against a wall for a moment before Jake came over to save me and then I had to save him from an incoming lunger. We didn't have a moment of peace from the second the Crows realised we were there.

I started doubting us, thinking this never-ending crowd might just pick someone off, but there was one moment that defined everything.

Kevin finished with his vampire, Aryia finished with his, I'd finished with mine, Jake was free, Mike was free—everyone was free except for Sam, who was fighting with a vampire clearly closer to Colby's strength than his. And I saw a few of us getting ready to help him when the vampire started to throw a punch that'd be lethal for a human.

For that split second, I thought Sam was about to get knocked out and maybe staked if we didn't do something in time. I panicked, thinking of what we'd have to tell Katrina when we got back to the house.

But before anything could happen, a shadow flew through the building faster than any of us could react and got in the way of the punch. Simply by standing there and raising a fist, the figure stopped the assault, then grabbed the vampire by the shirt and threw him across the room.

Another shadow dropped from the upper floor of the building, landing just beside the vampire. He started to get up but the second figure grabbed him by the hair and shoved his head to the wall before pulling a stake I hadn't noticed before out and plunging it into his chest.

The shadows remained still for a moment, then the second one flicked up their head, causing the hood concealing their identity to fall down, and my jaw fell to the floor.

A beautiful face looked across the room at me, brown eyes bright and still very human.

The first shadow zipped over to her, turning just enough that we could see his bright blue eyes under his hood, too.

My hand clutched to Jake's in shock, not that he was any saner than me.

Everyone just stared at them for a moment, which was a second too long as the woman flicked her hood back up and the man grabbed her, and they disappeared. Just like that, as if they weren't supposed to be somewhere else.

"D-Did I hallucinate that?" I asked with a shaky voice.

"No... I don't think so..." Sam replied slowly, entranced by the wall they'd been next to just a second ago. "Since when... Did any of you know they were coming back?"

"No fucking clue," I breathed.

"But that was definitely them," Jake added. I gave him a look and he took my hand in his, squeezing it comfortingly. His almost frightened expression wasn't particularly relaxing, though.

"Why didn't they stay?" I asked. "It doesn't make sense why they didn't stay."

"I don't know. Let's just get back to the house," Sam suggested. "I need to call my best friend and find out what the hell just happened."