Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) Read Online Free PDF

there’d been a tremendous explosion that
rocked the castle. Then the ceiling had caved in, bringing with it brick, wood,
and heavy slate tiles.
    Scarlet looked
around and found that she was in a cocoon of rubble. It was so dark she could
hardly see. Thick dust clogged her lungs, make it difficult to breathe.
    “Sage?” Scarlet
cried into the darkness.
    Something
stirred beside her.
    “Scarlet?” came
Sage’s voice. “Is that you?”
    Scarlet’s heart
leapt as she realized her beloved was still alive. She scrambled over boulders
and debris toward the hunched shape of Sage. Once she reached him, she pressed
her lips against his.
    “I’ve got you,”
she whispered.
    “Scarlet, it’s
too late,” he countered.
    But Scarlet
wasn’t listening. She slipped her arms around his naked torso and pulled him to
sitting. He slumped, weak, barely able to hold his body up.
    “What happened?”
he said, surveying the damage, his voice little more than a croak.
    “I have no
idea,” Scarlet replied.
    She looked
around again and this time started to notice the tangle of Immortalists
sprawled across the floor, or trapped beneath ceiling beams and clumps of brick
and stone. Flames rose from several different areas like strange orange
shrubbery.
    Octal lay
motionless on the floor. His staff lay beside him, snapped clean in half, and the
cross on the tip that had been used to pierce Sage was aflame. Scarlet couldn’t
tell whether Octal was dead or not but he certainly looked like he wasn’t going
to be doing any harm for the time being.
    Then Scarlet
recognized the twisted metal fuselage of a military plane amongst the rubble.
She gasped.
    “It was a
plane,” she said. “A military plane crashed into the castle.”
    Sage shook his
head, confusion across his brow.
    “There’d be no
reason for a plane to be here,” he replied. “The castle is in the middle of
nowhere.”
    “Unless they
were looking for it,” Scarlet finished for him, as it dawned on her. “Unless
they were looking for me .”
    Just then, a
mound of brick shifted and Sage winced as it slammed into his leg.
    “We have to
move,” Scarlet replied.
    It wasn’t just
danger from the damaged building she was worried about—it was the Immortalists.
They had to escape before anyone came to their senses.
    She turned to
Sage.
    “Can you run?”
    He looked up at
her with weary eyes. “Scarlet. It’s too late. I’m dying.”
    She gritted her
teeth. “It’s not too late.”
    He grabbed her
hands in his and stared deeply into her eyes. “Listen to me. I love you. But
you have to let me die. It’s over.”
    Scarlet turned
her face away from him and wiped away the single tear that fell from her eye.
When she turned back she reached out and hauled Sage’s arm across her shoulder,
wrenching him to a standing position. He cried out in pain and sunk into her.
As she began to lead him across the rubble and through the plumes of acrid
smoke, she said:
    “It’s not over
until I say it is.”
     
    *
     
    The castle was
in disarray. Though the plane that had crashed into it had been small, the
damage to the ancient building had been colossal___.
    Scarlet weaved
through the corridors as the walls crumbled around her. She held Sage tightly
to her side and he slumped into her, groaning with pain. He was so weak and
feeble it made Scarlet’s heart ache. All she wanted was to get him to safety.
    Just then, she
heard shouting coming from behind.
    “They’re getting
away!”
    Scarlet realized
with a sinking sensation that they were coming back to their senses, that
despite their castle being destroyed and many of their brethren lying hurt and
dying around them, their desire for vengeance was going to drive them on.
    “Sage,” Scarlet
said, “they’re coming for us. We need to go faster.”
    Sage gulped and
grimaced.
    “I’m going as
fast as I can.”
    Scarlet tried to
hasten her pace but Sage’s weakness was slowing them down. He had to stop
running. She had to find