Nadia lifts Ashe onto the dining table with ease and my insides twist as the redhead lets out a sharp hiss. The vibrant glow beneath her skin simmers as the silver poisoning crawls its way over her body, snuffing out her flame as it spreads its inky black tendrils through her veins, and my heart sinks.
“We need to get her to a hospital!”
“Nonsense,” Catalina says as she emerges from the other room. “Your medicine can't help her and the risk of exposure is too great in her current state.”
“Her current state?” I narrow my eyes. “You shot her. Her current state is that she's dying and all you're worried about is people seeing what she is?”
“Our kind are not as feable as you. There has never been an injury that we can't recover from with proper rest and a steady diet.” The vampire clucks her tongue against her teeth and I seethe. “Don't be so melodramatic. It's irritating.”
I can't believe this. “She needs surgery. By professionals who have trained for this!” Well, maybe not specifically for this, but hospitals had the proper equipment for successfully removing a bullet, let alone bullet fragments! What were they expecting to dig it out with here, a freaking dinner fork? And that's not even accounting for the silver sulfide poisoning her blood!
“What she needs is . . . is, w-whiskey,” Ashe coughs from the table and as Nadia moves to the liquor cabinet in the corner of the room I shake my head.
“You need a doctor, Ashe.”
I whip out my phone and unlock the screen with one hand as I place the other over her own. Her skin is on fire and as her blood—thick and tainted by the poisonous chemical reaction occurring inside her body—oozes between her fingers and slicks over mine, I swallow back the memory of my dream from three nights ago.
The blackened blood. The flaming heart. The demon goddess with gold in her veins and an unquenchable thirst in her fiery eyes. Was that a premonition of her death? If she succumbed to this poison right now, is that what she would turn into?
“Just keep applying pressure to slow the bleeding. I'll call an ambulance and—”
My phone is yanked from my fingers and tossed across the room before I can even finish my sentence. Wisps of hair swirl back over my shoulders and tickle my cheeks from the sudden move and involuntarily I flinch. Hoping to recover from my initial shock, I snap my head up to meet two orbs of crackling white light.
“That would be foolish,” Nadia says, her tone still eerily calm despite the panic that's welling up in my chest. If her eyes were like lightning, then my heart was undoubtedly booming like rolls of thunder in a chaotic storm. “Your doctors are not equipped to treat a demon.”
Ashe coughs again, a sick gurgling sound that jolts me from my fear and my resolve hardens. Dammit, we don't have time to argue about this!
“She's still human. She needs help!”
“We've been in similar situations before.” Catalina takes the bottle of whiskey from Nadia's outstretched hand and walks to the other side, her chocolate brown eyes narrowing to match my glare. “We have always handled our own. I wouldn't expect an outsider like you to understand the importance of that.”
It takes everything I have not to reach across the table and try to punch some sense into her. I wasn't ever a violent person and normally I would prefer to bottle up my feelings rather than lash out or confront my problems, but I'll be damned if Catalina didn't get under my skin. If it wasn't for my hand pressed against Ashe's wound, it almost scares me to think that I would probably act on my anger.
YOU ARE READING
Soulbound
Paranormal"Would it kill you to let yourself open up?" "No," I sigh, tilting my chin and fixing my gaze to the ceiling. I clench my fists, nails digging into my palms as I fight to stay grounded. "But it might kill you." ************* One is a half-demon with...
