Page 52 of Taming the Beasts (Crooked Point #3)

Saturday

Zoey

The clinging of the sistrum kept going over the speaker system as I ran toward the closest heap of fur. Bennett. He wasn’t moving. Not even a little.

The vampires that had been biting at him had all dispersed, standing in a daze as they looked around at the destroyed wedding ceremony.

The last time I’d seen any of my boyfriends in their werecat form I’d been terrified. But this time all I felt was an ache in my chest as I collapsed on my knees beside him. “Bennett?” I reached out and touched beneath one of the deep gashes in his fur.

“Bennett?” I whispered and tried to nudge his huge shoulder.

But he had no reaction. So much of his coat was matted in blood. There were too many injuries. Bennett was on his side with one of his paws covering the opposite side of his face. Like he’d been trying to protect himself. But it had been no use.

I felt tears spilling down my cheeks. Was he still breathing? I couldn’t tell. It didn’t look like his body was moving at all. How did you check a werecat for a pulse?

A deafening scream of pain made me turn my head.

Titan was changing back! I pushed myself off the ground and ran toward him. I ran past Otto, who looked as still as Bennett, and tried to focus all my attention on Titan. It was hard not to when he was screaming like that.

I’d never heard a more devastating noise in my life. I expected a grunt from Titan, not this. But I understood it when I got closer.

He was back to being Titan. He was holding his stomach and it looked like part of his insides were trying to fall out.

His whole body was covered in deep cuts. The scar on his face that I loved so much looked like a little wound in comparison to the rest of him.

He gasped for air.

“Someone call an ambulance!” I screamed when I reached him.

Titan lifted his head when he heard me. He gasped for air again and fell forward into my arms.

I didn’t understand. There were so many people that had been attacked by vampires. And no one else seemed injured now. They’d all healed. They were all just standing there perfectly fine!

Why were my boyfriends the only ones dying?!

I tried to hold Titan up, but he was so heavy. So I just grabbed his face so I could see him. My fingers slid on the blood on his cheeks.

“Doll,” he whispered.

“Big boy.”

He chuckled and then grimaced in pain.

I tried to stop my tears. I needed to be strong for him. But seeing Titan battered like this? He was the strongest person I knew. And no matter what I tried, my tears kept spilling .

“Please remember,” he said. “You don’t need to hide behind a mask.”

It felt like a goodbye. “Titan, you’re going to be okay. An ambulance is on its way.” I could already see red and blue flashing lights heading toward the town square.

He coughed and blood splattered onto my chest.

I was choking on my tears now. “I love you,” I said. I wasn’t sure he heard me. Because just like the last time I said it to him, he didn’t reply. “Please hold on.”

His head fell onto my shoulder.

“No, Titan!” I tried to grab his face again, but the blood smearing his cheeks was too slippery.

“Zoey, he needs to go to the hospital,” Callum said. “The ambulance is here.”

I knew he needed to go. I was just worried that this was the last time I’d ever see him. I finally managed to lift his head as the paramedics rushed over.

“I love you,” Titan whispered against my lips, just before Callum and the paramedics lifted him up.

I just sat there, staring as they put him into the back of the ambulance. And then they got back to the front like they were about to drive away.

“You need to take the rest of them!” I yelled and pointed to Otto.

The paramedic stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Ma’am, that’s an animal. You’d do better calling a vet.” He climbed inside, slammed the door closed, and then the siren started back up as they drove off.

“Callum,” I said. “Why was Titan the only one that changed back? Are they dead?” My voice cracked.

“I...I don’t know,” he said .

Emma ran toward him and threw herself into his arms. “Are you...you?” she asked and looked up at him.

“If you’re asking me if it’s still taking everything in me to not bite you’re neck? The answer is no. All I smell is your perfume...”

Emma silenced him with a kiss.

I smiled through my tears. I was so happy for them.

Callum was cured.

Everyone was cured.

Except for my boyfriends.

I turned and stared at Huxley and Ace. They’d fallen right next to each other. A pool of blood matted the grass between them. I wasn’t sure which one of them the blood had come from. But I feared it was both. I looked back at Otto and Bennett.

They were all dead, right? That was the reason Titan changed back and the rest of them didn’t? Because Titan was still alive?

It felt like my chest was caving into my heart, crushing it. Titan had changed back, but I wasn’t sure he was cured. I wasn’t sure he’d even make it to the hospital.

I should have gone with him.

But I didn’t know how to just walk away from my other four boyfriends. If there was even a small chance that they could still hear me, I needed them to know I was here.

I didn’t want to have to see their injuries up close. But I forced myself to walk over to Huxley and Ace.

One of their faces was smushed into the ground like he’d been trampled. The sides of his face were covered in mud and blood.

I reached out to the other, touching his pointy ear that was covered in blood. I didn’t know which one was which. But it didn’t matter, because I loved them both the same. And I’d never gotten the chance to let either of them know. “I love you,” I said and dropped my hand from his ear.

“I love you so much,” I said and touched the other on the back.

I wished they could hear me. But they were both so still. The image of them hunched over in their own blood like this was never going to leave my mind.

Kebe was still playing the sistrum. But now instead of hopeful, it just sounded haunting.

She’d done this.

She’d turned the whole town into vampires.

And it didn’t matter that she’d finally found a heart. She was too late! I wanted to storm over, grab the sistrum from her hands, and hit her with it.

Instead I pushed myself up and walked over to Otto. God, Otto. He was the first one that had shifted and he looked the worst out of all of them. And I knew in my heart that there was no use in calling a vet. They were all gone.

I dropped to my knees and let myself cry.

I never even got to say goodbye. Or to tell him that I loved him one last time. I’d had a whole speech in my head that I was going to give my boyfriends tonight before they took the cure. It all felt so silly now.

I hadn’t needed them to change for me. I loved them exactly the way they were.

I curled up into Otto’s side. His body was still warm, like always. But I knew that would fade soon. And I was worried that I’d feel cold for the rest of my life without him. Without all of them .

“I love you,” I whispered, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

I was too late. I ran my hand beneath one of the huge gashes in his side. “I love you,” I whispered again. “So much, Otto.”

“Zoey.” Emma put her hand on my shoulder.

I just kept crying as I looked up at her. She was wearing Callum’s tuxedo jacket around her shoulders. She had a very alive, cured husband. And my boyfriends were all dead.

She sat down next to me and hugged me tight.

And I felt...nothing. I kept crying but I was completely numb.

I’d been hiding behind a screen for the past decade.

I hadn’t let myself fall for anyone because I was worried about getting hurt again.

The real world was scary and raw and I hated it.

I hated this feeling in my chest. I just wanted to go back in time and stop Kebe before she unleashed the curse of that coin.

But I didn’t think there was a relic for that.

“Zoey, you’re shivering,” Emma said. “How about we get you home?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t leaving them. I knew that the cool autumn night was descending on us, but I didn’t care.

And I didn’t care that I was getting covered in blood.

I didn’t care about any of it. And where the hell was home without Otto?

Without Bennet, Huxley, Ace, and Titan? They were home to me.

“I’m not leaving him. I’m not leaving any of them. ”

Emma held me tighter. “They’re gone, Zoey.”

I didn’t need to hear her say it out loud. I shook my head. I knew her words were true, but I couldn’t talk about this. It finally felt like I’d gotten everything I’d ever wanted. But I’d only gotten it so briefly. I knew life wasn’t fair. But to cut all their lives so short? It was cruel.

We all should have been dancing at Emma and Callum’s reception right now. Having the time of our lives.

Not this.

And I realized that I’d never get to dance with any of them. Or laugh. Or snuggle. Or anything ever again. I started sobbing harder.

“Let’s get Callum to drive us to the hospital then,” Emma said. “We can check on Titan...”

I shook my head. I pictured the way Titan had been holding his stomach and coughing up blood.

There was no chance in hell he was okay.

I was pretty sure a vampire had ripped out his innards.

And if he did somehow make it, he was going to be in surgery for hours.

I didn’t want to go to the hospital waiting around for him to die too.

“I don’t understand why the cure didn’t work on them,” I said through my tears.

“I think they were already too hurt.” Emma reached out and touched the blood coming out of one of Otto’s ears. It was dry and matted on his fur. Like the blood had stopped spilling a while ago.

Wait. I looked at the gash on Otto’s side that I’d inspected earlier. “Does this look smaller to you?”

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks huge to me.”