Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“What the hell are you doing?” came the question that had Ashley looking up from the movie that she couldn’t quite make out through the goggles on her gasmask to find Kale, who looked really pissed, walking into the house and-

“No, wait! I need those!” she said, moving to make a mad grab for the only things that had made the last few weeks bearable only to end up gasping as all the sounds and scents that she’d managed to block out suddenly slammed into her head, instantly bringing the dull headache that she was just starting to get used to back up to migraine level.

Slapping her hands over her ears, Ashley held her breath as she climbed off the couch and quickly made her way to the kitchen, stumbling along the way as she focused on getting to the fridge and forcing herself to drink more blood before it was too late. With that in mind, she took a deep breath and dropped her hands away, opened the refrigerator, grabbed one of the bags of blood that had been delivered last night as she did her best not to think about the thick, gooey substance that tasted like old motor oil. She tried to make her fangs slide down only to give up and settle for cutting the tip of one corner off a few minutes later when nothing happened, placed the tip in her mouth, closed her eyes, and she squeezed the bag, forcing the cold, gooey substance in her mouth, and-

“What the hell is this?” Kale asked as he snatched the only thing that was going to help away from her.

“A late-night snack,” Ashley said absently as she grabbed her headphones from his other hand and placed them back on, making sure the noise cancellation button was still on and sighed when all the noises that felt like they were tearing her head apart were suddenly dulled down to a manageable level.

Releasing a shaky breath, she reached for the bag of blood only to have Kale pull it back. “You were supposed to get shifter blood,” he said, pulling the bag closer to inspect it only to toss it in the kitchen sink with a look of disgust when he caught a whiff of the scent that she’d spent the last month trying to get used to.

“This is shifter blood,” Ashley said on a tired sigh as she grabbed another bag from the fridge and-

Sighed when he grabbed that bag and tossed it in the sink to join the other one.

“This isn’t shifter blood,” Kale said, sounding pissed as he pulled his phone out and started typing something.

“Yes, it is,” Ashley said, grabbing another bag from the fridge. “Shifter blood apparently congeals quickly. We tested it with Jacob’s blood to make sure.”

“That doesn’t smell like shifter blood,” Kale said with a look of disgust that really didn’t help with what she was about to do. So, she focused on the bag of blood in her hand instead, only to regret that decision because it was really disgusting. She didn’t want to drink it, but it was honestly the only thing that helped, so she didn’t have much of a choice.

Hoping to get this over with quickly, she cut the tip off and once again found herself glaring at Kale when he plucked the bag out of her hands and threw it in the sink. “I’m ordering you new blood. It should be here in a few hours,” he said, returning his attention to his phone as she grabbed another bag of blood and with a mumbled, “I can’t wait a few hours,” headed back to the living room.

“Why not?” Kale asked as he followed her.

“Because it hurts,” Ashley said, really hoping that he would take pity on her and leave her alone so that she could focus on not gagging.

“What do you mean it hurts?” Kale demanded as he dropped down on the oversized chair that she’d ordered with him in mind.

“It just hurts,” Ashley said, shrugging it off as she stared down at the bag in her hands, knowing that she needed to do this now before the warm living room air made the blood thicker.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” Kale said, sighing heavily as he rubbed the back of his neck as he took in all the changes she’d made over the past month.

“Well, it does,” Ashley said, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she watched his gaze slowly make its way around the room, pausing on the pictures of Ireland on the walls that she’d ordered after Jacob told her that Kale was born there before he continued taking in the rest of the room.

“You’ve been busy,” Kale drawled as he settled back in his chair and began drumming his fingertips against the armrest as he considered her.

“It gave me something to do,” Ashley admitted, wishing that she’d stretched it out longer since it helped pass the time. Reading helped and so did cooking, but right now, she was too exhausted to do anything more than sit here and stare at the television.

She’d always had problems sleeping at night, but ever since she woke up changed…

Memories that she’d tried to forget kept playing through her head, reminding her of a time that was better forgotten and left her terrified to close her eyes. The fact that she could see everything clearly in the pitch-black should have helped, but it didn’t.

It made everything worse.

There was no escape, no way that she could pretend that she was back in her horrible apartment, squeezing her eyes shut, praying that the noise she heard coming from the other side of her locked apartment door was someone trying to break in and not-

“Where’s Jacob?” Kale asked, drawing her attention to find him watching her closely.

Slowly exhaling, Ashley returned her attention to the bag of blood in her hand as she said, “He’s patrolling the property.”

“You’re not drinking enough blood,” came the announcement that had her nodding absently because she’d figured that out on her own a few weeks ago.

For about a week after Kale gave her blood, she’d felt stronger, her head stopped hurting, she was able to breathe without pain, and eat without a problem, and then…

Everything started getting worse again. The shifter blood that he’d ordered helped dull the pain, but not by much. It didn’t help that she could only manage a few sips at a time. Kale’s blood had been incredibly rich, decadent, and had left her wanting more while the bagged blood left her trying not to vomit. It was disgusting. There really was no other way to describe the thick, gooey, slimy mess that she needed to consume for the rest of her life.

“I can’t drink any more,” Ashley said because she would probably vomit if she tried. Then again, since the blood began congealing once air touched it, she really didn’t have a choice. She normally managed to squeeze a few mouthfuls before the blood took on the consistency of day-old oatmeal and she was forced to grab another bag.

She’d considered asking Jacob for some of his blood, but…

She didn’t think that was a good idea.

Right now, she was here at the whim of a mate that she’d never met, which, unfortunately for her, was her best option at the moment. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to worry about someone finding her and finishing what had been started over thirty years ago. She knew that she couldn’t stay here forever and that she’d have to eventually go back into the real world and start over again, but for right now, she was going to continue pretending that this wasn’t an incredibly stupid idea and stay.

She was going to-

“Come here.”

-panic when Kale bit into his wrist and reached for her.

* * *

“What the hell are you doing?”Kale found himself asking as he watched the woman that was making his life more difficult than it needed to be, grab the bag of blood that he’d wasted his money on and-

Gagged when the first drop hit her tongue only to squeeze her eyes shut, tighten her hold around the bag and-

Gagged again.

That was followed by Ashley pulling the bag away, taking a deep breath before she brought the bag back towards her mouth before she rethought that decision, took a shaky breath, nodded to herself, winced, whimpered, and groaned as she brought that bag closer to her mouth and-

Gagged again.

“I can’t do this with you watching me,” Ashley said as her shoulders slumped in defeat right around the time that Kale decided that he’d wasted enough time with this bullshit.

Without a word, Kale plucked the bag of blood out of her hand and brought it into the kitchen, where he tossed it in the sink to join the others and-

Sighed, just fucking sighed when she headed back to the fridge to grab another bag.

“How long did it take Jacob’s blood to start to congeal?” Kale asked, plucking the bag of blood out of her hands and tossing it in the sink with the others as he debated the best way to handle this. She couldn’t drink bagged human blood and the shifter blood that he’d paid a fortune for was useless. For a moment, he considered ordering demon blood, but he didn’t want to take the chance of drawing any more unwanted attention, so they were going to have to try doing this a different way.

“A few hours,” she said as he absently nodded, realizing that’s why Jacob hadn’t mentioned anything off about his blood the first time he gave it to Ashley since he’d drawn it that morning.

It made sense that their blood quickly deteriorated, Kale thought as he grabbed a coffee mug and set it down on the counter. Humans had hunted his species for hundreds of years, some of them hoping to wipe them off the face of the planet while others hoped to get their hands on their blood for a chance at immortality.

The problem was the blood had to come directly from the source and even then, there were no guarantees that it would work. So many things could go wrong, leaving the human praying for a quick death, but the ones that tried stealing shifter blood…

They didn’t stand a chance.

Kale could still remember the English villagers’ excitement when they’d spotted the massacred bodies of what remained of his Pack. They were the reason why the villagers had been willing to pay twice the tax to live on that land. They’d been a rich Englishman’s guard dogs, ensuring that no one, not even the invaders that had terrorized the rest of England for hundreds of years, bothered them. Conn and the English bastard had made sure that the villagers knew exactly what they were from the start. They’d waited until the harvest festival, making sure that it fell on the first night of the full moon when the Pack could shift before they’d made their presence known. They’d invited neighboring villages, men who were a threat to their Master’s rule, and the local Sentinel couple.

They’d killed the Sentinel couple before they’d reached the castle and once they were out of the way, they’d made sure that it was a festival that no one ever forgot what they could do. They’d torn men, women, and children apart until the screams for mercy had turned into bloodcurdling screams and Kale had been helpless to do anything but watch from the gallery above as his Pack sealed its fate.

Once they’d shown the villagers what they could do and made sure that tales of that night would spread across England, the Pack had stepped back and waited while their new Master made his demands, letting everyone know the price for walking out of there alive. They’d all happily paid. The villagers had celebrated their new protectors while the survivors from the other villages had struggled to hold it together, promising everything they had and more.

It hadn’t taken the villagers long to figure out that they were immortal. Kale had seen it in their eyes whenever they watched them, saw the way fathers and husbands encouraged their women to whore themselves for a chance to be one of them. The villagers had been more than willing to sell their souls for immortality, so when they’d spotted the Pack helpless to do anything more than struggle to take their next breaths, they’d attacked.

They’d grabbed bowls, cups, and buckets, anything that they could get their greedy hands on and collected as much spilled blood as they could and when that wasn’t enough, they began draining bodies, slitting throats of those who were dying and hanging the dead, determined to get every last drop of shifter blood until even that wasn’t enough, and then, they came for him.

They’d torn Aine from his arms and carried her to join the others hanging from the trees before they’d grabbed him and-

“Are you okay?” came the softly spoken words that tore him from a memory better left forgotten to find Ashley watching him through green eyes full of warmth that almost made him forget what she was.