Free Heavy Metal Heartbeat by Ambear Shellea Page A

be a vampire. She’s a weretiger and she can’t become a vampire. If she is bitten, she will die. Sebastian threatened to bite her, that’s why I attacked him. I don’t understand. I can’t explain it.”
    “ I can. Sit very still.”
    The glimmer from the knife caught his attention first, followed by her hand moving toward his chest. He fought his instinct to move away from the blade.
    “You are part of a hunter bloodline. Here is where your journey began.”
    He cried out and closed his eyes against the bright sizzle of the braided circle she etched into his chest.
    “You are part of an old ancient Irish clan that formed the hunter brotherhood.”
    He clenched his hands and his teeth as she scrawled the knotted clover inside the inner circle permanently into his skin. His breath came in deep, ragged pulls.
    “You were bitten by a vampire. Even though you gave in and embraced your inner vampire, you overcame blood lust and kept your hunter instinct intact. Therefore, you overcame vampirism.”
    Her hands were precise and moved without hesitation, this time drawing fangs in the top center of the middle circle. Something she had said struck a chord with him. He opened his eyes and looked to her, halting her movements.
    “Wait. You said embrace …that is the same word Perry used when we fought. He said to embrace who I am and accept it.”
    “ Yes, he did. You killed him. Did you embrace anything when you killed him?”
    He thought about the fight with the wolf and the words that were spoken. He remembered being snapped in two , and he remembered his discussion with Jaxson and how it had healed him and unlocked the secret, or so he assumed.
    “I don’t know if I embraced anything. I guess you could say I accepted the wolf form. I tried to fight like a human, but it wasn’t working.”
    “ So you accepted that form in order to kill him?”
    “ Yes, I had to. Paige was dying, plus I didn’t want her to endure what Perry had in store for her.”
    The knife dug into his chest once more, outlining the eyes of a wolf on the bottom of the middle circle. He concentrated on her words to ease the searing pain.
    “You accepted the strength the mighty wolf has to offer and its ability to adapt to its surroundings in order to survive.”
    Breathing hard, he watched her eyes light up with another question.
    “What else happened? What happened before you killed that wolf?”
    “ I was paralyzed and couldn’t move.”
    “ Nonsense, how did that happen? You just said you killed Perry.”
    His scalp was wet from perspiration. The sweat coated his hands as he ran them through his hair in frustration.
    “Jaxson showed up. He told me I could do it. It was weird. He began to fade and I got stronger . By the time I could get to my feet, he was gone.”
    Her shiny , sharp scalpel pierced his skin, sketching five small stars on the left side of the middle circle.
    “You have been healed and touched by witchcraft.”
    Waving his hands in front of him, he protested her wild accusation.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait . Are you trying to say Jaxson is a witch?”
    “ One might say yes...” She shrugged. “While others may say no.”
    Furrowing his brow, he asked, “What does that mean?”
    “That answer is for another time. You found yourself on a hospital table dying . What did you do?”
    He thought about it for a minute. His phantom injuries ached but gave no indication as to how he ended up with his chest ripped open. He fell back and rested his butt on his heels, thinking. He recalled Anna’s voice and the sensation of falling. His eyes bulged as big as half dollars and his mouth hung open as the puzzle finally made sense.
    “No! She didn’t…she wouldn’t…she promised me!”
    The scorching hot pain as she dug into his skin was nothing to the pain of Anna’s betrayal.
    “You have been visited by the ghost of your former life, and you did not cross over, but fought to stay in the world of the living. You rejected the