Untamed (Vampire Awakenings, Book 3) (22 page)

She'd had a couple more drinks than she was
used to tonight, but she'd been hoping to ease some of her strain
over the awful events of this day. Walking down the beach with
Ethan though, feeling his body against hers, she could almost
forget everything that had happened and the fact that Tristan was
somewhere on this island. It was peaceful here and she felt secure
with him and her friends so nearby.

Jill and Mandy were just ahead of them,
giggling together as Jill ran through the sand and did some strange
dancing motion with her hands and legs that made Emma realize that
she
was actually the sober one.
Though lights from a couple of bars and some homes filtered over
the sand, there were few people on the beach at this time of night.
Emma stifled a yawn as Jill began to twirl in circles that looked
more like a spastic marionette than the ballerina Emma thought she
was trying to emulate.

"She's not going to try out for a beauty
pageant is she?" Ethan inquired dryly.

Emma chuckled. "I hope not."

The gentle sound of the ocean on her right
was almost enough to lull her to sleep on her feet as she stifled
another yawn and snuggled closer to Ethan. Jill began to sing,
which was the one thing that was even worse than her dancing, as
she hopped back to Mandy and slid her arm through hers.

"I think I'm going deaf," Ethan said.

"Can you make me deaf too?"

She'd meant the question to be airy, but he
had become rigid against her and abruptly stopped walking. Emma
frowned as she turned toward him. His eyes were narrowed, his
eyebrows furrowed over the bridge of his nose as he searched the
night around them. His nostrils flared, his head began to turn
slowly back and forth. Apprehension slid down her spine, she'd
never seen him look like this before, never seen such a look come
over
any
one else before.

"Ethan?" she asked. Jill's singing was
growing distant but Ethan remained unmoving upon the sand. "Ethan
what's wrong?"

A shimmer of movement to the left caught her
attention seconds before Ethan pushed her forward. "Run!" he spat
and turned away from her.

"What?" she cried.

"Run Emma! Now!" he shouted. A scream swirled
up and choked in her throat as she swore his eyes flashed red when
he looked at her over his shoulder. That was impossible though,
completely impossible, no one's eyes could do that. He was pushing
her forward before she could even pause to consider what it was
that she might have seen in his eyes. "Go!"

The urgency of his voice, and the look on his
face, caused her to turn and flee toward where Jill and Mandy had
moved further down the beach. Her feet slipped in the sand, her
lungs burned from the exertion, but she continued to race
onward.

Ethan spun to face the threat he had sensed
in the air. The shimmering on his left caused him to move in that
direction. He used the strength that had flowed so freely through
him since he was a child, and that had intensified tenfold upon his
reaching maturity, to hone in on his prey and seize him by the
throat. He lifted the man above his head as if he weighed no more
than twenty pounds and slammed his two hundred pound frame into the
sand. The man landed on his back with an explosive exhale that blew
the hair back from Ethan's face.

Lips skimmed back to reveal the man's fangs
as he released a low hiss and his eyes turned a volatile shade of
red. Ethan had never seen the vamp before, but the aroma of a
landfill radiated from him and caused Ethan's nose to instinctively
wrinkle. "Who are you?" Ethan growled.

He didn't get an answer though as another
flash on his right caught his attention. This one wasn't coming at
him though; it was heading for Jill, Mandy, and
Emma
. Ethan twisted the head of the man beneath
him sharply to the side. The crack of his neck breaking resonated
loudly through the air, it wouldn't kill the vampire but he
wouldn't be able to follow them for a little while.

Launching to his feet, Ethan poured on the
speed as he raced across the beach to where the girls were heading
toward the road. Mandy's gate was the most awkward he'd ever seen
it as she struggled to run through the shifting sand. She stumbled
and nearly fell but Emma and Jill grabbed hold of her arms and kept
hold of her as they helped her forward. The other blur was almost
to them when Ethan lowered his shoulder and smashed into it. Years
of playing football with his family and The Stooges had trained him
on how to take down another vampire, and he did so now with ease.
Satisfaction filled him as he heard a couple of ribs give way from
the impact and he felt the unhinging of the other vampire's
shoulder.

The vampire sprawled across the sand, kicking
it up around him and causing Emma and the others to turn at the
sound of the commotion. "Keep going!" Ethan yelled at her but none
of them was looking at him, their eyes were on the other vampire
that had rolled over and climbed to his feet.

"Tristan!" Jill blurted as the color in
Emma's face faded and Mandy looked tempted to leap on the man. That
would be the biggest mistake she would ever make as Tristan's red
eyes gleamed in the night. "What... what are you
on
?" Jill stammered.

Ethan's heart pounded with excitement and
bloodlust as he focused on the man across from him. Tristan was
about six foot, a little shorter than he was and appeared to be
about twenty pounds lighter. Though Ethan didn't get the impression
that he was dealing with an older vampire, like he had the first
time he'd encountered Stefan, to him Tristan smelled as if he had
been rolling through garbage for a week. Tristan may not be older
but he was feeding on humans, killing them, and gaining strength
from them.

Ethan didn't care what this vampire had been
feeding on, didn't care about the strength that came from the
murder of innocents, he was going to kill him. The fact that
Tristan was a vampire only made it better. He wouldn't have to
murder a human, and he was going to enjoy taking down this
monstrosity across from him, but he couldn't do it now, not in
front of them. This had spiraled into something he had never
expected, but he couldn't allow Emma to see the brutality that
resided so strongly within him right now. He moved to the side,
placing his body in between hers and Tristan's.

Emma's mind spun as she tried to process
exactly what it was that she was seeing. Mandy's hand dug into her
arm with enough force that she knew there would be bruises covering
her skin, but she didn't care. Mandy took a step forward; Emma had
known her long enough to know that it was her inherent curiosity
drawing her closer when she should be running for the hills as fast
as she could. They all should be, but it seemed that the sand had
turned into some kind of concrete around her feet as she found it
impossible to move.

Tristan's eyes were the color of a demon's in
the night. The flash of red she thought she'd seen in Ethan's eyes,
had it really been there? Was he something like Tristan, and just
what
was
Tristan? Her mind spun
frantically as she tried to process everything that was going on.
The two of them looked like they were about to tear into each other
like a T-rex on a triceratops as they continued to stare at each
other with a predatory look that was completely out of place for a
human.

The realization took its time to come but
once it did, she couldn't shake the certainty that she was not
looking at two humans. If she hadn't seen the red in Ethan's eyes
maybe, just
maybe
, she could
convince herself that Tristan was on something, or had bought some
strange contacts. It didn't seem that implausible after all, but
no, there was far more going on here. She had no idea how it was
even remotely possible but there was something entirely inhuman
about the both of them.

Her heart was racing, her palms were damp,
and her throat had gone completely dry as Ethan stood before them.
His frame partially blocked Tristan from her view and she had to
look around him in order to see the strange thing that Tristan had
become. Whatever he was, Ethan wasn't the least bit afraid of him,
which made her head spin even more.

"You have to leave," Ethan grated at Tristan
from between clenched teeth.

Tristan rocked back on his heels and moved to
the side so that he could see around Ethan. Emma's skin crawled as
his hideously creepy eyes focused on her. She knew they weren't,
but she got the sensation that those eyes were almost like laser
beams that were burning through her skin to reveal everything
inside of her.

"I don't think so," Tristan responded.

Ethan took a threatening step toward him, he
was larger than Tristan but Tristan had those freaky eyes and that
look on his face. A look that said he would like nothing more than
to tear her open and rip her to shreds. This was not about love
with Tristan, but then she knew it never had been. She had realized
a long time ago that Tristan had never loved her; he hadn't been
pursuing her because he loved her and wanted her back. He had been
pursuing her for his own perverse reasons, and now those reasons
had become even more warped by something else, something far more
malicious and sinister than anything he'd been before.

"You weren't expecting me," Tristan continued
in a lilting voice that seemed like it would be far more
appropriate for a kindergarten teacher.

"You weren't expecting me either," Ethan
sneered.

Ethan took another step toward Tristan as he
struggled with the urge to launch himself at the man and sink his
fangs into his throat. There would be power in his blood; it was
how Stefan had gotten so powerful before he had stopped killing
their own kind. He would relish in the power that Tristan gave to
him, delight in feasting upon the blood that he would spill.

"Emma I need you to go," he said in a low
voice.

"Ethan..."

"You and your friends have to get out of here
Emma, now. Run!"

She was almost as frightened of him as she
was of Tristan but the idea of leaving him here nearly tore her to
shreds. There was no way that she could do that, if something were
to happen to him she would never forgive herself. "I can't leave
you here."

His shoulders hunched forward a little, the
veins in his arms stood out as his hands fisted even more
forcefully. He turned to look her in the eye. Like a blown tire all
of the air rushed out of her lungs as eyes the color of burning
coals looked back at her. A startled squeak escaped Jill and she
jumped backwards, dragging Mandy with her a little bit.

"Go!" he roared.

Emma's legs were wobbly as she took a few
more steps back. It was Mandy that recovered the fastest though.
She took a hasty step back, tugged on the arms still holding her
and jerked them both forward. Ethan's eyes continued to burn into
Emma's; she couldn't tear herself away from the sight of them. This
couldn't be real, it simply couldn't be, and yet she knew it was as
real as the ocean's continuous ebb and flow.

What
was he
? She wondered frantically as
her gaze searched the fierce contours of his set jaw and
cheekbones. He was whatever Tristan was; something lethal and
something far beyond the mortal realm that she had always been a
part of, and had always been so certain of. The whole world seemed
to blur and shift before her but she had no time to wrap her mind
around it as Jill and Mandy were propelling her across the
sand.

Mandy leaned heavily against her side, her
extra weight was a strain on Emma's shoulders but Emma refused to
release her. She was having a difficult time trying to run through
the sand with her prosthetic leg, but she was keeping up with them.
The shock of what they had just witnessed made Emma's legs feel
like she was trying to walk with her ankles tied together. She
couldn't quite get her feet to work in a cohesive way but she still
managed to get them to move enough to get off the beach and onto
the pavement of the road.

Ethan turned his attention back to Tristan; a
malevolent smile twisted his mouth as he was finally given a chance
to get him alone. He'd seen the look on Emma's face, the revulsion
and terror that had radiated from her eyes. She wasn't supposed to
have found out like this, there was no easy way to break this news
to anyone but this was a complete disaster. It was something he
wasn't sure he would ever be able to fix, but he could make sure
this monstrosity never went near her again.

"She really was a good piece of ass," Tristan
said in a taunting tone of voice. Ethan had never experienced such
a burst of rage in his life as he did at Tristan's words. With a
ferocious snarl, he lunged forward. He almost had his hands on
Tristan when a scream reached his ears. The sound of it was
diminished by the nearby restaurants and bars but he was able to
detect it. Tristan grinned at him as he danced backward across the
sand. "By the way, I have more friends."

Those words weren't like a cold glass of
water in the face; they were more like being dunked into Niagara
Falls in the middle of January. He didn't hesitate, didn't think
twice about Tristan as he spun toward where he had last seen Emma
and her friends. Thoughts of Emma pushed him over the sand faster
than he'd ever moved in his life. It almost felt like he was
flying, his feet barely touched the ground as he covered the beach
in bounds that would have surpassed a Cheetah as the world rushed
past him in a blur.

The only thing he saw were the three people
ahead of him and the vampire pursing them. There was no way the
three of them were going to be able to escape the woman honing in
on them, even as the thought crossed his mind Mandy stumbled and
went down. From the shadows, another vampire emerged.