Change of Fate (The Briar Creek Vampires, #4) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (22 page)

Dan braced her shoulders. Even though he was
trying to seem protective, Lexi could see through his act. Dan was
also panicking. It wasn’t like he had a stake this time.

“Who hides there?” Albert asked as he peered
over the bushes. When his face was level with theirs and his eyes
poured into hers, Lexi whispered, “We do.”

“Who is we?” Albert asked.

“I’m Lexi, and this is Dan.” She wasn’t sure
why she told him their names; she just figured that being honest
with him would be the best option right now.

“What makes you hide outside of my home?”
Albert asked, his forehead wrinkled.

“It’s a long story,” Lexi said. “We’re hiding
from someone, though.”

Albert glanced from Lexi to Dan before
turning away from them. The next thing she knew, she heard him
going into the front door of the house.

“Albert!” Belinda’s voice chirped. Glancing
up, Lexi realized that the window must still be open because she
could hear the woman’s voice clearly, as though she were right next
to her. “You have returned! I am so grateful.”

Albert didn’t say anything in response, but
Lexi heard the sound of something breaking.

“Albert? What are you doing?” Belinda asked.
A few moments passed before Lexi heard anything else, but when she
did it was the sound of Belinda moaning. Lexi realized that Albert
must have been bloodthirsty which was, she was pretty sure, typical
of a newborn vampire. She only wished that Belinda could enjoy the
comforting feeling that came with a vampire who she loved feeding
from her without having to worry that her world was about to come
crashing down on her.

Chapter 32

****

Rhonda opened her eyes from the relaxing state that
she had just been in. Vampires couldn’t sleep, but they could relax
more than she had ever been able to as a human. She was constantly
finding herself getting lost in her own relaxation.

She felt for Gabe’s arm, which had been wrapped
around her waist earlier tonight. When she didn’t feel him, she
rolled over onto her side. He was missing.

You want to come back to my bed
, Rhonda
thought in her head, hoping to command Gabe to come back to
her.

She waited a few moments. When Gabe didn’t come
back, she rolled onto her side, trying not to pout.

Her dorm room door clicked open, and Rhonda smiled.
She loved this mind control thing she had going on. It made her
feel really powerful. “Come back to bed, babe,” she murmured, as
she snuggled against the satin sheets on her queen-sized bed.

Rhonda felt a hand being clamped over her mouth.
“You listen to me,” a female voice said.

Rolling over to glance at the face that hovered over
her, Rhonda felt a sense of fear wash over her. The cat green eyes
that stared back into hers belonged to Veronica Hart.

Biting down on Veronica’s hand hard enough for her
to remove it from her mouth, Rhonda asked, “What are you doing
here?”

“I’ve come to give you a warning, if you will,”
Veronica replied in a bored tone of voice, tossing her long red
hair over her shoulder. “I want you to stay the hell away from
Gabe. He’s
my
man.”

“The last time I checked, he fell asleep in my bed,
not yours,” Rhonda shot back. Who did this Veronica person think
she was to come into her dorm room and threaten her like this? If
Gabe really wanted to be with her, he would be. Actually, scratch
that. Rhonda wouldn’t let him be with Veronica; she’d persuade him
to be with her instead. . . . He just wouldn’t know it.

Veronica pulled something from behind her back.
Rhonda couldn’t see what it was in the dark until she saw the spark
that rose to a flame; it was a match.

Rhonda didn’t know much about being a vampire yet,
but she did know one thing: fire could kill vampires. She pressed
her head into her pillow, as Veronica waved the match in front of
her face. “Listen, bitch. You do what I say or next time, you go up
in flames,” Veronica said icily, as she blew out the flame from the
match and tossed it onto Rhonda’s cheek, which she quickly brushed
away.

Just as quickly as Veronica had come into the room,
she was gone.

Rhonda lay in the bed, staring up at the flat
ceiling, when the door opened again. “Leave me the hell alone,
Veronica,” she blurted.

“I’m not Veronica.” Rhonda glanced up to see Gabe
staring back at her, his dark hair illuminated by the glow of the
moonlight that seeped into the window. His eyes sparkled as he came
closer to her, sitting down on the bed. “Veronica was here?”

Rhonda nodded. “She told me to leave you alone or .
. .” She trailed off.

“Or what?” Gabe asked.

You want to hold my hand
, Rhonda commanded in
her mind. Sure enough, Gabe reached for her hand, weaving his
fingers in between hers. “Or she’ll kill me,” Rhonda whispered.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Gabe replied.
“I’ll admit it. Veronica is kinda crazy. Hell, if she wasn’t crazy,
I probably wouldn’t be a vampire in the first place.”

Rhonda raised her eyebrows at him. “What do you
mean?”

“She pretty much tricked me into becoming a
vampire,” Gabe said distantly, as though he were remembering back
to when it had happened. “It doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say
is, even though she’s crazy, I doubt she’d actually hurt you.”

“It seems like a big risk to take,” Rhonda said,
shaking her head. “This is my life we’re talking about.” She closed
her eyes, thinking to herself. Did she really want to live if her
life meant that she wouldn’t have Gabe in it, though? Not really.
He was the only thing she knew that she really wanted in her life
right now. Without him, she would be better off as dead. She had
nothing else. No family. No friends she could call her own. The
only thing she probably
did
have was an arrest warrant and
police looking for her in Long Island.

As much as Rhonda hated to rely on someone else, the
truth was that she needed Gabe in her life right now.
Tell me
that you’ll keep me safe
, she commanded.

“I’ll protect you from Veronica. You’ll be safe. I
won’t let her hurt you,” Gabe told her. Even though Rhonda would
expect for Gabe’s voice to sound like he were in some sort of
trance or like he were a robot when she fed him these lines to say
back to her, his voice actually sounded honest and true. Rhonda
knew that she was telling him what to say, but when it came down to
it, she actually believed him.

Rhonda stared into his steel blue eyes. They looked
so innocent and, for a minute, Rhonda convinced herself that he
actually had feelings for her. She had gotten so good at the mind
control that she had over him that she didn’t even have to command
him to kiss her when he leaned into her and pressed his lips
lightly against hers.

*

The next morning, there was a loud knock at Rhonda’s
door. Climbing over Gabe and out of bed, Rhonda answered it. Anna
stood staring back at her. She was wearing a hot pink and black
striped sweater, a short lime green skirt, and black leggings with
pink sparkly ballet flats. Her pink highlighted hair was pulled
into a high ponytail on top of her head.

“Do you happen to know where Gabe might be?” Anna
asked. “We’ve looked everywhere for him. He’s not in his dorm
room.”

Rhonda turned back to the bed. “Gabe?”

He sat up in bed and looked over at Anna. “What’s
going on?”

Rhonda felt Anna’s eyes on her. They were full of
surprise – and another emotion that she couldn’t seem to identify.
It looked like Anna was angry or upset to find that Gabe had spent
the night in Rhonda’s dorm room.

Anna stood awkwardly before telling Gabe, “Ben said
he wants to see us. He said he found something in the book that
might be helpful.”

“Okay,” Gabe said quietly. He waited for Anna to
leave before turning to Rhonda. “I need to go see what’s going on.
If you want to come, you can.”

“Of course I’m coming,” Rhonda said, as she pulled
her pajamas off. She rummaged through her drawers and pulled out a
low-cut V-neck red sweater and skinny jeans. Stepping into a pair
of high heels, she added, “There’s no way you’re leaving me alone.
You know, with Veronica wanting to kill me and all.”

Gabe nodded understandingly. “Come on then.”

*

Ben was sitting in the lounge waiting for
them. As Gabe and Rhonda sat down on a loveseat across from him,
Gabe could feel him giving him a funny look. Gabe knew exactly what
Ben was thinking; he was supposed to be in love with Lexi, but he
seemed a little too close to Rhonda lately.

The truth was, it didn’t even make sense to
Gabe. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Rhonda. There was no denying
that she was hot – really hot, in fact. Normally, he didn’t go for
girls with the Jessica Rabbit look. Veronica was the only other
girl who he had been interested in when they were younger who had
that same appeal. There was just something about Rhonda that drew
him to her, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. . . .

Gabe wondered if Veronica felt so threatened
by Rhonda because she reminded her so much of herself. Veronica had
seemed to feel threatened by Lexi, but she hadn’t gone to the
extent of threatening to kill her – at least, Lexi hadn’t told him
if she had. But he had the feeling that Veronica knew that Rhonda
wasn’t going to just give up on Gabe or move onto someone else if
she suspected that he was cheating on her like Lexi had.

Where did his feelings for Rhonda leave Lexi?
Did he still love her? If he did, he wouldn’t even have to ask
himself that question, would he? No, that wasn’t true. Gabe
did
love Lexi. He just wasn’t sure where they stood right
now. For all he knew, she had already moved onto Craig . . . or
someone else, for that matter. Wherever Lexi was, she might not
even be thinking about him right now. In fact, she might not have
thought about him the whole time she’d been gone.

Gabe knew that he did love Lexi. There was a
bigger question that he didn’t really know the answer to. Was he
in love
with Lexi? All of the signs had been there from the
get-go. She was the one person who he thought of in the morning,
and the one person who he thought of late at night. He had been
willing to try to have visions that could potentially save her from
her enemies, even if it meant that he was going to be sacrificing
his own health.

But he was beginning to feel different now.
When he tried to think about Lexi, his mind filled with Rhonda’s
face. Gabe suddenly felt compelled to touch Rhonda or kiss Rhonda.
He even found himself thinking about making love to Rhonda. Even
though it hadn’t happened yet and he wasn’t sure if it ever would,
the point was that he found himself thinking about it. He shouldn’t
be imagining these things or doing these things if he truly were in
love with
Lexi
.

“Ahem.” Ben cleared his throat, interrupting
Gabe’s thoughts. “Now that we’re all here, we can talk about what I
found in the book.”

Gabe glanced next to him, realizing that
Austin and Anna had taken seats on the other couch while he had
been busy thinking about Rhonda and Lexi. Out of the corner of his
eye, he glanced over at Rhonda. She caught his gaze and placed her
hand on his thigh. Gabe felt shivers run down his spine at her
touch.

“What did you find?” Austin asked.

Gabe turned his attention back to Ben, who
flipped through the book. “Except for the very top of page ninety,
it’s missing – so I can’t see what was written on page ninety-one.
When you go to page ninety-two, though, it says, ‘possible for
those who time travel to be returned to the future. The person or
persons who have time traveled must wish to be returned to their
home at the same exact moment in time someone from their home
wishes for their return.’” Ben closed the book and glanced at each
of them. “Understand?”

Anna nodded. “We have to wish for them to
come back.”

“And hope that they wish the same thing at
the same exact time,” Austin added. He let out a loud sigh. “It
seems pretty hopeless if you ask me. What if they don’t even know
that’s what needs to happen in order for them to get back?”

“The most we can do is hope. Even if they
don’t know about it, they still might wish to come back home,” Ben
said. He glanced over at Gabe. “I might not have seen my daughter
in years, but if Lexi is exactly as you and Austin have been
describing her, she’ll be wishing to come back so that she can be
with you.”

Gabe felt Rhonda’s grasp on his thigh
tighten. Was she angry by the idea that Lexi might be wishing to
come back to him? If Rhonda was angry, he would understand. If one
of her ex boyfriends tried to come here to be with her, he would be
a little jealous himself.

Gabe closed his eyes. He shouldn’t feel this
way. It wasn’t fair to Lexi. How could he convince her that he
hadn’t cheated on her with Veronica when he found himself wanting
to cheat on her – if it was even cheating, at this point – with
Rhonda?

“So, what do we do now? Just sit around
hoping all day?” Austin asked.

Ben nodded. “Yes, I want all of us to be
hoping for Lexi to return. And hope for Dan, too. He might wish to
come home even before Lexi does for all we know.”

Gabe scoffed. “I am not wishing for Dan to
come home. I can’t stand the guy. He can stay wherever they are for
all I care.”

“Dude, cut Dan some slack,” Austin shot back
at him. “He’s probably helping Lexi right now as we speak.”

“Maybe. Or he might be trying to kill her,”
Gabe muttered. Or even worse, Lexi might be falling for Dan
wherever they were. Even if Gabe wasn’t in love with Lexi – if he
really wanted to be with Rhonda – the last person he would ever
want her to be with was Dan.