Page 50 of Bewitched By a Vampire

Thank the gods.

“Alex… Polly… the car,” she croaked.

Night squeezed her hand. “There was nothing you could do, Lilian.”

She swallowed thickly and shook her head again. “I… the others. I tried to help them. I tried…”

Tears slipped down her cheeks and she lifted her hands, raising his left one up with them, and pressed her face to the back of his hand. Her hair tumbled forwards, brushing his arm and stealing her face from view, and he wanted to growl and turn back around to butcher the demons as she broke down.

Each sob that wracked her tore at him, slashing deep into his heart.

He couldn’t bear it.

Night pulled his hand from hers, placed it on the back of her head and pulled her to him, so she was leaning across the centre console with her head against his chest. He held her as he drove, slowing his speed so he didn’t have to let her go. She fisted his shirt and buried her face in his chest, the salty scent of her tears growing stronger as she cried harder rather than calmed down.

“I have you,” he whispered and kept one eye on the road as he angled his head towards her and pressed a kiss to her hair. He murmured against it, “I have you. Not going to let anyone hurt you.”

Never.

His heart continued to pound, replays of Lilian on the ground before that demon filling his mind and shaking him. If he had been any later, even a few seconds, she wouldn’t have been alive.

He tightened his grip on her, unable to hold back the need to clutch her to him, to feel her in his arms and reassure himself that she was safe. The demons hadn’t taken her from him and they wouldn’t.

His brother was a different matter though.

He needed to get her to safety and the safest place he knew was in Norway.

Where Bastian was waiting.

Chapter 13

Lilian listened to the engines whirring, her thoughts a thousand miles away from the small private jet she was sitting in. Or at least a few hundred miles away. She didn’t remember much about the last few hours other than the fact Night had somehow saved her. Facing that demon and knowing that he was going to do terrible things to her and there was nothing she could do to stop him, and watching all those people die in front of her, had shaken her.

Numbed her.

She vaguely remembered Night driving her to an airport, and him telling her that they would wait out the day there.

And that she was safe.

He had told her that so many times, whenever she had been slipping away from him, into dark thoughts that had continued events from the moment when the demon had reached for her and she had realised she was defenceless. Rather than Night saving her, the demon got his hands on her.

Lilian squeezed her eyes shut.

She was safe.

She wanted to hear Night tell her that again, she needed him to drive it home and chase the demon from her mind.

She opened her eyes and looked at him where he sat on the plump black seat opposite her, his head resting on his bent arm against the wall of the jet. Fast asleep.

He hadn’t slept all day. She remembered that much despite her shock. He had helped her wash off in the hangar bathroom and had moved her to a comfortable couch, and then he had stayed awake and watched over her. And when dusk had fallen and someone had come to announce the jet was ready, he had wrapped his arm around her and helped her stand, and ushered her out onto the tarmac.

Lilian pressed her hand to her chest as her heart warmed.

It chilled a moment later, when she recalled the response she had received soon after she had sent a message to her coven. She had kept it brief, worrying that Night would wake and find her with a phone. She had told them about the demon attack and the developments that had happened, and the fact she was en route to Tromsø with Night and that Bastian was waiting for them there.

She had asked what she should do.

The answer had come back the same.