Caleb by Sarah McCarty Read Free Book Online Page B

us did, but it didn’t make a difference to you before,” Jared inserted, his
bitterness undiminished.
    And
it wasn’t going to make a difference now, Caleb knew. Two hundred and fifty
years ago he couldn’t face eternity without his brothers, and today he couldn’t
face this. He slid down to the floor beside Allie, pulling her into his arms.
She flopped like a rag doll against him.
    “Goddamn
you all to hell.”
    “We’re
already there.”
    The
rage swirled again, primitive and nearly out of control as Caleb tilted Allie’s
head back. She was almost gone, the flicker of life in her barely detectable.
All he had to do to let her pass over was to delay just a little longer, let
the lack of blood starve her body of the oxygen it needed and she’d pass
cleanly to the other side, untainted. The vampire in him howled at the thought,
raged at the concept of losing his mate—primitive as always, thinking in terms
of possession—while the human part of him, the part he struggled to keep alive,
knew it was the right thing to do.
    He
positioned her body, placing her mouth against his chest. He whispered into her
mind, to that small, terrified, huddled bundle of light that harbored her soul,
“It’ll be all right, Allie girl. I’ll make it all right.”
    Slade
came forward, reaching for her, “We’ll feed her, Caleb. You’re too weak.”
    For
the first time in centuries, Caleb bared his fangs at his middle brother, ready
to rip his throat out if he came an inch closer. “Don’t touch her.”
    Jace
caught Slade’s arm and pulled him back. “Leave him be, Slade.”
    Slade
jerked his arm free. “He can’t afford the blood loss.”
    “We’ll
replace it,” Jared said, as calmly confident as always.
    “What
if he refuses to take from us, like before? Caleb can be a damn stubborn
bastard when he gets the bit between his teeth.”
    “Before
he was protecting her.”
    “And
now?”
    “He’ll
feed.”
    “What
makes you so sure?”
    Jared’s
gaze stroked over Allie with something akin to satisfaction. “He won’t leave her .”
    Jared
was right, Caleb knew. As long as Allie lived, he’d stay in this world, doing
what he had to in order to insure her happiness.
    He
elongated his pinkie nail to a razor sharp talon and slashed his chest. Blood
gushed. He pressed Allie’s mouth to it, blending his mind with hers, soothing
her horror with calm, changing the scenario to one of a first date, changing
the taste of blood to the effervescent bubble of champagne, ignoring the
clenching in his body as her soft mouth moved erotically on him, each brush of
her lips whipping through his body on a swelling wave of white-hot pleasure.
    He
looked at his brothers across the room as Allie fed, loving them, understanding
their motivation. It had always been the Johnson brothers against the world.
But no more. It had been their choice to change things. He stroked Allie’s soft
hair, better positioning her mouth against him, quelling her struggle for
control with another touch of his mind to hers, biting back a moan as her lush
hips shifted on his hungry cock. She was everything to him now. Joined to him
forevermore. His hope and his reason for being.
    He
locked his mind to theirs and spoke very clearly so there would be no
misunderstanding of Allie’s importance to him. “If you ever endanger her again,
brothers or not, I’ll rip your throats out and leave you in the sun to burn.”
4
    ALLIE awoke to darkness, a scream tearing from her throat.
One certainty beating at her mind. She had to get away. Now. Before they got
her.
    She
couldn’t remember who they were, but she knew they were bad. Very, very
bad. She didn’t need to know any more than that. She worked her elbows beneath
her, trying to find up in the inky darkness.
    A heavy
weight settled over her, rupturing her scream into a gasp. She pushed off the
mattress, twisting with the wild cadence inside her, but there was no moving
the heavy mass. Pressure countered her