Paragon

⊰❉⊱ 56 ⊰❉⊱

There was an unmarked package waiting at the foot of the door.

I ignored it entirely and carried Quinn into the living room. I carefully placed her on the large L sofa before going back for all the medical supplies in the car. An IV line for a few hours with solution would balance what she'd lost. Whatever the hell Paragon had left at my door could go to hell tonight.

It took me only a few minutes to get the line into her arm and leave her dreaming on the sofa.

I paced silently. When that wasn't enough I stormed to the front of the house and tore open the package. A phone slid into my hand reminding me of how my time was borrowed. I took a fair share of my control not to shatter it in my hand. They would only send me another less politely.

I decided on throwing it onto the kitchen counter and taking watch over Quinn in the corner of the room. The moonlight hit the sand outside us brightly. Her slow breathing kept me sane and her steady pulse kept me from breaking something.

In many ways it was like the first time.

Everything was so red. Nothing held its colour and every pulse was prey. I didn't know how I survived my wounds from that shell–yet here I was. Painted in blood and standing over a dozen of the mortals in the medical wing of a war that was over. They cheered beyond the tents completely oblivious. The noise meant little to me.

The pure desire for the rich lifeblood was the only thing.

I wasn't even wounded. Every sip from their necks made everything sharper, clearer–better. I inhaled deeply and the burning was no longer as bad. The red in my vision was fading. A voice spoke calmly above everything else invading my senses.

I snarled and whirled on it ready to defend my bounty.

"Now, now Stella... That's no way to address your elder."

I crouched low over the nearest body and dragged it behind me. The dark eyed man chuckled once without bothering to note the carnage around me.

"Believe me. I have no interest in that."

I made to swipe at the well dressed man but he moved faster than I could even form the next reaction. He was behind me. I swiped again and he was in front of me.

"I'm losing patience, Ms Matthews."

Another unintelligible sound left me before he tucked his hands behind him and glanced at his pocket watch.

"Meet me in London when you have control over yourself and you want to make sense of the world. I shall be at Bank station every day when the sun is highest."

That was the last thing my mentor had spoken to me for many months before I did indeed control myself. In those times deaths were not noted well after the war. News traveled slowly and blending in was a far simpler affair. He was much more pleased to note that it did not take me too long to find my senses again and return to London months after.

But as I would come to realise from his tutelage. I was a quick study.

He was an unforgiving bastard. But to this day I was glad it was him and not any other that had turned me. The man did not grant you an easy path into immortality–but that is why his immortals were the sharpest and the best. Only a few that I know of from his linage had fallen. Now that he himself had chosen to leave the world I felt at a loss sitting here in the dark.

I felt like I had betrayed his name by giving in so completely.

"Again!"

I gasped and fell to my knees shaking my head.