Cross the Line: A Gabriella Cross Paranormal Romance Book 2 by M.J. Lovestone Page A

werewolf,” she said, unable to help a little chuckle.
    Bob glanced over at her as though he had never considered it humorous. “Bob the Mohawk werewolf,” he said in his deep, steady voice.
    She cleared her throat and offered him a smile. “I like that name. It’s a palindrome, you know. A word that can be spelled—”
    “I know what a palindrome is,” said Bob patiently.
    “I’m sorry if I’m being a Chatty Cathy, I’m just nervous about my friend.”
    She put the hook and line out there, but he didn’t bite, just stared at the road ahead.
    “He got shot when we were attacked by vampires on the freeway earlier tonight.”
    Still nothing.
    “Have you ever killed a vampire?” she asked.
    “Every chance I get,” he said, and then turned onto the freeway heading south toward her town.
    “I’ve killed…” Gabby mentally counted them. “Four vampires.”
    He showed no sign that he was impressed by this number.
    “Have you ever regretted killing one?” Gabby asked, suddenly thinking of Victor. “I mean…do you think that there can be some good in there? Can they all really be monsters?”
    He looked at her like he smelled something bad. “They feed off humans, and they enslave people with their blood.”
    Ah, that’s what’s going on here, Gabby thought. He thinks I’m a vamp juice addict.
    You mean he knows you are, said another part of her mind.
    She ignored the allusion and stared out the window. Her eyes suddenly became hot with tears as her mind raced miserably. She didn’t know why, but Victor’s death was weighing heavily on her conscience. Her mother had seen something in him and had tried to help him fight his primal vampire urges. For a time, Gabby liked to think that it had worked.
    He had said that he loved her mother. He had said that he loved Gabby as well.
    She felt a knot tighten in her throat and fought to not make a sound that would cue Bob in to her misery.
    You’re an idiot, Gabby. He never loved you, there was nothing human in him to save.
    She told herself this and many things, and wondered why she was digging up these old bones and lamenting for a monster who had taken her mother and her sister from her.
    The thought of Maggy sent her over the top and she broke down in quiet sobs.
    Bob shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat and feigned attention to the road and traffic ahead. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything. Gabby didn’t want to talk anymore, she just wanted her bed. She knew in the back of her mind that she only felt the way she did because of the vampire blood, but that realization only led her to thoughts of how weak she was for continuing to crave it.
    They pulled into her driveway and Gabby hurriedly opened the door and lurched out.
    “If you need anything, I’m a stone’s throw away,” said Bob from the cab.
    By the discomfort in his voice, she knew that it had been hard for him to form the words, and she was grateful for his effort.
    “Thank you, Bob.”
    As soon as she was inside, she pressed her back against the door and slid down to the floor. She was shaking, and tears were flowing like a river in springtime. Every muscle in her body suddenly ached, her head throbbed, and her stomach began to turn as though she were seasick.
    She had felt this way after the attack on Steele Tower, when she had been locked in a room waiting to see if Michael would survive. Memories of the fight played out even as she fled from them. She sang a song loudly in her mind, but the thoughts barreled through her every feeble attempt to block them out.
    The pain in her gut increased tenfold and she curled up on the floor in a fetal position, wanting nothing more than for it to stop. Depression washed over her like darkening storm clouds, and images flashed like lightning: Maggy falling to her death beside Steele Tower, the moment the mortician pulled back the white sheet to reveal her pale face, Quip unconscious and bleeding, the look on little Sophia’s face when Gabby