A/N: Hi, everyone! Welcome back! I hope you're all doing well. :) Thanks as always to all you wonderful people who are reading this, with bonus thanks to everyone who reviewed last time: Elejah88, SphereShadow, Savage Kill, Fictional Boys Are Better, ixistargirl89ixi, DreamonAlina, Raven Okumura, willdawg992003, Lavendor Queen, CarlyLynn, gameofassbutts, kineret, that one Guest, and Kourtney Najjar. You guys are so amazing. :) Sorry for not responding personally to all your lovely reviews yet; I had a busy week at work, and working on my Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V fanfic Infinitas has been occupying a pretty substantial chunk of my time, too. XD I'm going to go back and answer all your reviews really soon, though! Probably not long after posting this chapter, actually. ;)
Anyway, about this chapter: it's a bit shorter than the last one; sorry! But! In celebration of my birthday this weekend, I'm going to post a bonus chapter sometime tomorrow! So you'll be getting a second update very, very soon! Hopefully that makes up for a slightly shorter chapter today. ;)
Chapter 55
"You define what is important to you by what you dedicate your time to. "
Ezra could tell immediately when Papa Tunde's connection to Rebekah was broken; the warlock's power level dropped drastically and he staggered like he'd taken a blow. Ezra wasting no time in seizing the opening such a moment provided; he lunged forward and sank his teeth into the warlock's arm, yanking him away from Marcel with a snarl.
Papa Tunde swiped his free hand at Ezra's snout, his fingers sparking with black fire.
Ezra released his grip on Tunde and bounded back, relieved to see that Klaus had grabbed up Marcel and was hustling his friend towards the exit.
Ezra wasn't going to follow after them at first. He would have much rather remained behind to tear Tunde in little bloody pieces. But then Klaus was telling him not to be stupid, shouting over his shoulder that they could come back and deal with Tunde later.
Ezra didn't want to go, didn't want to listen. Didn't want to let his target get away.
But then he remembered the reason he was there in the first place. Who he was there for.
He snarled at Papa Tunde one final time, then whirled around and ran after Klaus, bursting out of the door like he had hellhounds on his tail.
He caught up with the others just in time to see Elijah load Rebekah into the back seat of a car Zoe seemed to have appropriated from a nearby parking lot. Ezra probably should have let Rebekah's brothers sit with her. It would have been the proper gentlemanly thing to do, letting her brothers sit with her and look after her while she was so weak.
But both the wolf in him and the man in him couldn't stand to stay away; he needed to be close to her.
He briefly considered shifting back to human form, since his wolf form was so ridiculously huge, but he figured Klaus and Elijah probably wouldn't appreciate him being right next to their precious baby sister while wearing no clothes; unlike Zoe who could sometimes, somehow, get her clothes back after shifting, he had spectacularly rotten luck with it.
Besides, Rebekah was trembling and shivering like it was below zero outside and snowing; he figured maybe he could put his shaggy fur coat to some sort of use.
So he hopped into the backseat and snuggled around her as best he could, resting his head on the the seat not far from where her gold hair was splayed across the fabric of the seat. To his immense surprise, Rebekah turned her head to the side so she could see him, her cracked lips curving into a faint smile.
"Ezra," she said, and even though her voice was shaking and weak it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.
He nuzzled his snout against her cheek for a moment, then lowered his head back down onto the seat again. A moment later, he felt Rebekah twin her hands into the thick fur around his neck, her grip surprisingly strong despite the tremors wracking her body. And instead of finding the grip on his fur annoying or constricting, it felt like the most natural thing in the world, as if Rebekah had buried her hands in his fur a thousand times before.
Elijah watched them with pursed lips and a contemplative expression for a moment, but then Zoe snapped at him to get his ass into the shotgun seat and hurry the hell up about it, and Elijah obeyed without argument, pausing only to glance around and made sure that Klaus had Marcel and that they were making a similar getaway.
And sure enough, the Original hybrid had managed to acquire a vehicle of his own and had tucked Marcel into the backseat, along with Thierry, who Klaus had apparently gone back inside to retrieve. Klaus himself paused only long enough to nod at his brother, and then he was hopping into the driver's seat of his borrowed Cadillac and blasting away from the warehouse and down the street with a screech of tires.
And then Elijah was sliding into the rusted out Chevy, and Zoe was following Klaus's example by ignoring all the posted speed limits and paying only the minimum amount of required attention to the various other traffic laws.
They did have to slow down once they entered the city proper though, which was annoying. Ezra wanted to get back t the safety and security of the Abattoir as soon as possible, and he could tell that Zoe and Elijah felt the same. It was clear in the way Zoe drummed her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, and in the way Elijah's hands were gripping the armrests of his seat just a little more tightly than was necessary.
Ezra just gave a low whine and pressed closer to Rebekah, the knot of tension inside his chest loosening ever so slightly as she tightened her grip on him and buried her face in his fur.
As long as he was with her and she was safe, nothing else mattered.
After navigating a particularly aggravating patch of traffic on the edge of the Quarter, we finally managed to make it back to the Abattoir. And if someone had told me six months ago that I'd be overwhelmingly relieved to return to a place named the Abattoir, I'd have laughed in their faces. But life was funny like that sometimes, wasn't it? Because there was nowhere else in the city I would've rather been right then than back safe in that compound.
In any case, I parked behind Klaus and unlocked the Chevy's doors so that Elijah could retrieve his siter form the backseat. Ezra followed after them, of course; if Ezra let Rebekah out of his sight for more than thirty consecutive seconds in the immediate future, I would be very surprised. Her capture and weakening at Tunde's hands had triggered something inside of my brother, and I had a nagging feeling that I knew what was going on. I did my best not to think about it though, which turned out to be not so hard since I began to grow extremely dizzy and thinking about anything at all suddenly became excruciatingly difficult.
It wasn't until I reached to open my car door and a sharp stabbing pain pulsed through my wrist that I remembered Elijah's bite, and the fact that, oh yeah, I was still bleeding out.
Yes, I know, I'm an idiot.
Elijah tucked Rebekah into her bed with a level of care he hadn't needed to use since they were children, a time so far gone that it was a wonder he could even recall it.
A notable difference between now and then was that his sister was no longer a child. No, she was a grown woman now, beautiful and bold. And so, so precious.
The massive hulking wolf who was curled up on the floor by Rebekah's bed clearly felt the same; Elijah had wondered at Ezra's single-minded determination to find and save Rebekah, but now he was beginning to feel as if he understood. That same desperate need had possessed Elijah as well, after all, when Zoe had been in danger. And that same feeling had kept him at her bedside almost constantly until she'd finally awoken.
So he let Ezra remain in Rebekah's room, because he knew that Zoe's brother would look after her. Elijah closed his sister's door softly behind him and went downstairs, intending to track down Klaus and make sure that his wayward brother was actually looking after Marcel as he'd said he would, rather than rushing back to the warehouse to exact vengeance upon Tunde. Again.
His quick steps came to a sudden halt when he passed by a smaller den-type room and saw Zoe half-unconscious on the floor in front of the little fireplace, huddled underneath a fluffy little blanket that had previously been draped over the back of an armchair.
"Zoe?" he said questioningly, taking a hesitant step inside the room. Then he smelled the blood, her blood, and that single step turned into a sprint. "Zoe!"
She blinked up at him sleepily, the glow from the fireplace making her look younger and softer. "Hmm?"
"Are you hurt?" he demanded, worry making his voice come out sharper than he'd intended.
Zoe just gave a little shrug and snuggled deeper into her blanket, not seeming to care about the fact that she was curled up on a cold stone floor. "Not really," she told him. "Dizzy." She gave a wide yawn. "And sleepy."
"I smell blood," he countered.
"You bit me," she replied, "remember?"
As if he could forget. "It hasn't healed yet? With your recovery speed in the past, I assumed..."
"That the bite would have healed by now?" She gave another unconcerned shrug. "I thought so, too, but I guess my healing abilities are lagging behind a little bit right now. It's fine," she assured him. "It'll heal up by tomorrow or the next day. No big deal."
Elijah couldn't believe her own lack of care over her own condition. "It is a big deal," he told her, frowning. "Did you even bandage it?"
Another infuriating shrug. "I wanted to sit by the fire," she said, as if that explained everything.
He blinked at her, momentarily thrown for a loop. Then, realizing that Zoe might not be firing on all cylinders at the moment, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He went upstairs, retrieved a first aid kit from a guest bathroom, then retraced his steps back to Zoe. She grumbled at him when he took her arm and started tending to the puncture wounds on her wrist, but offered no real resistance to his ministrations. He took that as a win, since an acquiescence of any kind from Zoe was so damnably rare.
He rubbed some ointment on the wounds, and the comfortable silence was broken only by an incredulous remark from the woman in front of him.
"You're putting Neosporin on it?" she asked, looking delighted. "That's adorable."
He chuckled, his heart warming at the teasing light in her eyes. "Well, you said yourself that the wounds won't heal for another day or two. What a shame it would be," he went on lightly, "if you were to succumb to infection during that time."
Zoe snorted in amusement, a smile quirking up the corners of her mouth. "I don't succumb to anything," she replied. "Except maybe food poisoning," she added thoughtfully. "That's miserable. Especially when it's from something with dairy."
Elijah laughed at the expression on her face, and Zoe matched his mirth with a wide grin that made his heart trip all over itself trying to remember how to beat steady. He focused his attention on gently wrapping Zoe's wrist in gauze. "You say the most interesting things, Zoe Storme."
She just smiled at him, a slight flush creeping across her cheeks.
But then her playful expression dropped, her face going carefully blank as she glanced over his shoulder. Concerned by the sudden shift in her mood, he twisted around to see what was making her look that way. To his dismay, Hayley was standing in the doorway, wearing a look on her face like she'd bitten into a lemon.
"Hello, Hayley," Elijah told her politely and gave her a thin smile; once upon a time the smile would have been wider and more sincere, but after Hayley's confession regarding Celeste's remains, Elijah had found it harder and harder to be friendly to the young pregnant werewolf. "Is there something you needed?"
"Uh..." Hayley tore her gaze away from Elijah holding Zoe's wrist and fixed her stare on his face instead. "Yeah, actually." She swallowed hard and seemed to visibly steel herself. "Can we talk?"
Elijah waved at her to speak. "Go ahead."
"In private," Hayley amended, shooting a pointed look in Zoe's direction.
Elijah opened his mouth to reply that Hayley could say whatever she wanted to right then and there or not at all, but before he could deliver his ultimatum, Zoe bolted to her feet. She wobbled a bit but then steadied, and the look on her face was so icy and remote it was almost like looking at a stranger.
"I'm feeling pretty worn out," she said flatly, her voice slightly strained but otherwise emotionless. "I'm going to go rest in my room."
Elijah wanted to protest her sudden departure, or at least offer to carry her up the stairs since the blood loss has clearly left her a little unsteady, but she was pulling away and heading for the door before he could say even a single word.
I tried not to be mad at Hayley.
Really, I did.
I also failed spectacularly at it, because no matter how many deep breaths I took or how many times I counted to ten, I couldn't get my ire to subside. Even the wooziness from the blood loss wasn't distracting me from my fury.
It had been an almost perfect moment. Me and Elijah, in front of a cozy little fireplace, poking fun at each other as he fussed over my injured wrist.
I'd been about to kiss him.
It had taken me some time to work up the courage for it, but I'd finally decided to take the jump and go for it.
And of course Hayley had chosen that specific moment to track down Elijah for a heart-to-heart. And Elijah, gentleman that he was, seemed to have forgiven Hayley for her betrayal already; he'd even smiled at her a little when she came into the room! And he obviously hadn't been about to send her away, either.
So I left.
I strode from the room on legs that were shakier than I would have liked but still reliable. Those legs carried me up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom, growing steadier with every step.
By the time I reached my room and darted inside, I was feeling more like myself again. My wrist itched underneath the wrapping Elijah had placed on it, but I ignored the sensation; the less I thought about Elijah in any capacity right now, the better it would be for my emotional health and mental stability.
So I went and parked myself at my desk, powering on my laptop and throwing myself once more into the mystery of the beheaded motel clerk.
A/N: So yeah, that was their first almost-kiss. XD I know, I know, I'm mean. Don't worry, though, their first real kiss is coming up soon. And by "soon" I mean "within the next ten chapters"...What? I told you, I'm mean. ;D In all seriousness, though, there is some actual plot stuff we need to churn through first before we get to the highly anticipated first kiss of Zolijah. I know it's frustrating, but bear with me. It'll be worth it, I promise. :)
Also, as previously mentioned, there will be another chapter posted sometime on Saturday, in celebration of my birthday! I know it's a bit backwards, me giving out something on my birthday, but I just wanted to use the chance as a way to show my appreciation and gratitude for all of you who are reading this; hearing from you guys after updates truly is one of the highlights of my week and the only way I can really say 'thank you' is to post more of the story. So...yeah, bonus update on Saturday! Woohoo! :D
