The Frenzy Series (Book 2): Frantic by Casey L. Bond

breathed into our faces. “Do it and die, Roman. I will kill you.”
    “You aren’t strong enough to kill me,” he smirked.
    Tage never wavered. “End her and find out exactly how strong I am.”
    Strong. Weak.
    Crushing fingers.
    Stretching skin and sinew.
    “Please! Please, don’t,” Saul said from two steps down. “Porschia, there are other options. This isn’t it.”
    “No there aren’t.”
    I couldn’t do this. I was weak. Weak . I wasn’t strong. Undead, but not strong. Only the strong survived. The weak begged for death, unable to give it to themselves.
    “Please,” I whimpered. Roman pulled my face toward his, only a hair’s breadth apart, he bared his fangs. He would drain me.
    Drained.
    Empty.
    Nothing.
    Tage fumed. “Enough!”
    Roman looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time, I saw fear. But it wasn’t in my eyes. It was in Roman’s.
    He loosened his grasp, ghosting his fingers over the slender column of my throat. Up and down. Up. Down. Smoothing the shards. Calming me. Easing the fear. Removing the mania.
    Slowly, I sank to the floor. My legs wouldn’t hold me.
    “She needs sleep,” Roman announced nonchalantly. “Deal with her,” he ordered Tage.
    Saul and Ford both released a pent-up breath.
    Roman continued, “She isn’t going anywhere tonight. Go home.”
    Hesitation. They paused. Tage reassured them. “I’ll watch over her. I swear it.”
    Saul nodded with warning in his eyes.
    Tage met them head-on.
    Tension.
    Longing.
    Anger.
    Ford tugged Saul away. I slumped. Bereft. I missed them already. I missed Saul. I missed Ford. I missed life.
    Real life. Living with the possibility of dying.
    I, too, could die. I could never live again.
    Hopeless.
    Strong arms lifted me. Legs strode toward my room. My mattress and blankets cradled me. I shivered.
    Cold.
    So cold.
    I lay awake, shivering. Staring at the window. I couldn’t see the moon.
    The sky was desolate.
    Closing my eyes, I willed sleep to come.
    It had abandoned me as well.
     

     
    Morning came with no fanfare. The sun rose, the cocks crowed, but no one stirred inside Roman’s home. Tage’s shallow breathing came from behind me. His arm rested on my waist. He held me all night. I let him.
    “Are you warm? Your teeth aren’t chattering anymore.” His voice was raspy in the morning.
    “I’m comfortable now. Not too warm and not too cold.”
    “Goldilocks.”
    “Hmm?”
    He smiled. I could hear it. “It’s an old story about when something is just right.”
    “Yeah, I’m just right.” Why is your arm around me?
    As if sensing my unspoken question, he eased it away. I breathed and relaxed the muscles that had been stiffer than wooden planks. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
    “You didn’t.”
    He grinned and rolled onto his back, folding his hands behind his head. “Liar.”
    “I’m not lying. I was comfortable.”
    “Pants on fire,” he said. I looked down.
    “They are not.”
    He chuckled.

 
     

     
    Tage suddenly growled and leapt from the bed, tugging a sweater over his bare chest. “You stay in this room, understood? Stay until I come for you.”
    I didn’t hear anything, but Tage’s reaction meant someone was here. Sniffing the air, I sat upright.
    “Promise me,” he demanded.
    I crossed my arms. “Fine, but you should hurry. I’m not very patient right now.”
    He nodded and ducked outside my room, pulling the door closed behind him.
    I stayed in the room for a long time, longer than I thought I had the willpower to. I heard voices. Sometimes I could pick out Tage or Roman’s, although Dara’s was easiest to discern. But one was deeper than the others. Foreign.
    I pulled on my coat with quivering fingers; Goldilocks no more. I was freezing. And hungry. Always hungry.
    Easing the door open, I listened.
    “You can’t stay here, Julian.” Roman .
    Julian?
    “There are plenty of people from which to feed,” he replied haughtily. His accent was