“Let’s get to the car. My vampires will bring the young woman,” Alexis said flatly.

Katie followed, and Alexis could hear Katie’s heart beating so rapidly. Once they got into the car and shut the doors, Alexis turned to Katie and said with fury, “Once again you didn’t listen to me and put yourself in a dangerous position. She could have attacked you, fed on you, killed you.”

“I had no choice. I can’t walk away when someone is injured,” Katie said defensively.

“I’m not asking you to. You go and get Otto—he would have handled the situation—or you call me, and I’d be here as quickly as possible.”

Katie pointed her finger at Alexis. “You always act like I’m a naughty ten-year-old. I can do what I want. I wanted to help a person in trouble. It’s my decision how I do that, and it’s none of yours.”

Katie turned away from her quickly, but Alexis caught her arm and Katie hissed in pain.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Alexis didn’t think she had grasped hard enough to hurt Katie.

Katie said coldly, “Just leave me alone.”

Alexis sighed. If only she could tell Katie that she was angry because she was terrified of losing her. They rode back to the house in silence. Katie ran straight upstairs to her room, and Alexis could hear her bedroom door being slammed shut.

She and her guards took the new vampire down to the blood room where she would be fed and monitored until she was stable. Alexis rubbed her forehead. How different this night could have gone. She could have been carrying Katie’s body back here, and she knew it would have destroyed her.

Alexis had to be tougher on Katie to keep her safe, and if that meant Katie hated her, then so be it.

* * *

As soon as Katie got through her bedroom door, she tore off her coat to inspect her wound. Her wrist was a mess. This wasn’t like in the blood room, where the Debrek clan vampires fed with respect and care. Josie had torn at her wrist in the frenzy of her need for her first blood.

The blood was seeping rapidly from her wound, so she hurried over to get the first aid box from her dressing table drawer. She quickly cleaned her wrist and bandaged it up tightly to stem the flow of blood.

She looked into the mirror—she looked pale. It must have been the blood loss and the stress of the incident. She had to hide the fact that Josie had fed from her, or Alexis would go crazy, and she’d never hear the end of it. Plus, Alexis would tell Byron, and then her parents would know. It would just be a big fuss over nothing.

Hopefully Josie would be happy with the blood available downstairs, and nobody need know.

* * *

Alexis paced backwards and forwards in front of Byron’s desk. She’d reported what happened to Byron when she got back, and Byron had dressed quickly and met Alexis downstairs.