Blood Crave

by Jennifer Knight

  “What?” I whispered, aghast.

  “The trigger doesn’t just make me want to change—it makes me want blood, too. And I don’t want to drink blood, but I can’t help what I’m feeling. Sometimes the only way to stop the blood crave from taking over is to change. It’s confusing and annoying to try and figure out which craving to deal with—blood or beast—but, I don’t know, it’s manageable for now. I just hope it doesn’t get worse.”

  “Me, too.”

  Something in my voice must have tipped him off to the upset roiling within me, because his tone lightened significantly when he said, “Anyway, it’s not all bad. The strength and speed—man, I never thought I could be so powerful.” He stretched his arms out in from of him, twisting his wrists around as if he’d just awoken from a long nap. “If only I could play ball like this.” He smiled over at me. “And the wolf thing is sweet, too, once the transformation is done with. Sometimes after you . . . go back, I change and run along the beach or in the desert. It feels good to just run. It’s like a release.”

  I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. It had been so long since I ran, and I suddenly realized how much I’d been missing it. I made a little vow to myself to get back into track during the coming semester.

  I’d realized during this trip to California just how much of myself I’d given up since coming into the underworld. All of my old friends with their happy, carefree faces and stories of frat parties and straight-A’s sent a sliver of jealousy through me. I loved Lucas, yes. And I loved Derek—even if it was platonic—but that didn’t mean I had to let them consume my life the way they had since Derek’s infection.

  I listened to the waves for a little while and then asked, “Are you scared?”

  Derek frowned down at me.

  “Of the full moon, I mean.”

  “Oh . . . that.” He sighed. “Not really scared, just nervous. I can’t remember what it was like last time, so I don’t know what to expect. I don’t want to lose my mind.... Be all crazy like Lucas talks about.”

  “You won’t,” I said surely. More surely than I felt, for certain.

  Derek sighed again. “Hope you’re right.” He reached his long arm out and slung it around my shoulders, pulling me close. We walked in synch, and I felt his fingers flicker up and down my arm. “You’re getting tan again,” he said.

  I shrugged, hoping he didn’t take it as a betrayal of our friendship that I’d been basking in the sun for the past week.

  His fingers continued to stroke my arm in an increasingly sensual manner, and our pace had slowed so much we were barely moving anymore. My heart began to hammer. I worried about his intentions and whether I’d have the strength to hurt him again by refusing his advances. Even though I forgave Derek of his past mistakes—and I truly did forgive him now—that didn’t mean I was willing to let Lucas go for him. I loved Derek. Always would. But our relationship would never be romantic again with Lucas in my life.

  Derek stopped walking and turned to face me, looking down at me with a million different emotions playing across his features. He moved to close the distance between us, and whether he was going for a hug or a kiss, I couldn’t tell, but either way, we couldn’t go there. It was wrong and unfair to . . . well, to everyone.

  So I pulled away, tucking my hair behind my ear as I averted my gaze. I didn’t want to see the look on his face.

  “I wasn’t going to kiss you,” he said.

  I glanced up at him, surprised and a little shaken. “I know,” I lied.

  “I am capable of being your friend, Faith. I’ve been doing it for years.”

  “Yeah, but now . . .”

  “What? What makes now so different that you can’t even hug me?”

  Now there was Lucas. I had a boyfriend. One who was, okay, a smidge possessive and probably wouldn’t appreciate smelling Derek all over me when I went back to him.

  But how did I tell Derek all of that? Especially after their macho-wolf battle tonight?

  And even taking Lucas’s feelings out of the picture, there was still the fact that no matter how much Derek tried to pretend that he held only platonic feelings for me, I knew he was full of garbage. I could feel his emotions, and knew that every touch of my hand on his, every smile, every kind word, translated into hope for him. I had to be more careful than ever to keep our relationship strictly friendly, because Derek—no matter what he said—was still in love with me.

  I opened my mouth to try and—somehow—break this to him, when I was saved by my cell phone. The high-pitched ringing sliced through the night, ripping us apart. I grabbed it from my pocket and held it to my ear.

  “Hello?” I said. I watched Derek throw his hands on his hips and stalk away.

  Way to piss off the newborn viran. Real smart.

  “Hey,” Lucas’s voice came through the receiver.

  “Hey,” I said. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Lucas said tartly.

  “Are you still mad?”

  Silence blared on the other side of the phone. I took that as a yes.

  I lowered my voice and turned away from Derek. Even though he could still hear me—and Lucas through the phone—I hoped he’d take the hint and not listen in.

  “I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “You know—for what happened during the fight?”

  “You promised you’d never do that, Faith.”

  “I know I did, but you would have killed him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I was making a point. I’ve dealt with uncontrolled runts before and I don’t kill them. They just need a firm hand in the beginning. I never would have seriously hurt him.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that, but he had a good point. Maybe I’d overreacted. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I was just afraid one of you’d turn on me.” Partly true.

  “Well, what happened to using it on Derek?” Lucas’s voice was so low I had to strain to hear it.

  I cast a nervous glance at Derek, who was eyeing me interestedly. “I can’t,” I told Lucas.

  He rumbled a low curse. “Then I guess I get why you did what you did. I might have done the same thing in your position. But, still. You need to trust me more than that, Faith.”

  I was about to argue back that he’d made it difficult for me to trust him by repeatedly telling me what a wild killing machine he was when he changed, but decided against it. I didn’t want to fight. Especially not in front of Derek.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Tell him from me he better stop treating you like shit,” Derek snapped at once.

  I turned on him. “Shut up!”

  “I don’t treat you like shit,” came Lucas’s voice on the phone.

  “Well, you were pretty mean to me tonight,” I said, turning away from Derek again so he’d get the hint. “I know your pride was hurt or whatever, but still. Treating me like that is not okay no matter what mood you’re in.”

  There was a long stretch of silence, during which I wondered if he’d hung up, but finally I heard him sigh. “You’re right.”

  Whoa.

  “But you have to understand, Faith, sometimes I overreact or react wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you or even that I think it’s okay to talk to you the way I did. I just can’t control it. Which isn’t an excuse. I’m just trying to explain that I’m not some chauvinistic jerk. I’m a werewolf. And I’m sorry.”

  I nodded to myself, feeling uncomfortable because Derek was listening. “It’s okay. Just try to tamp it down from now on all right?”

  I rounded on Derek, who straightened suddenly, looking guilty for eavesdropping. “And you said you’d apologize,” I reminded him.

  Derek’s lips thinned. “Sorry.”

  I mouthed thank you at him, and then Lucas spoke up.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “I didn’t call to fight.”

  “Why’d you call then?” I looked out at the ocean, trying to let the rhythm of the waves soothe me.

&nb
sp; “I have bad news.”

  My pulse stuttered, and Derek whipped around.

  “I went back to your mother’s house,” Lucas said. “She was watching the news, and I overheard the headlines. There was another murder in Fort Collins.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  “It was a girl,” he continued. “Same type of thing as before . . .” He paused. “Faith, we gotta go back to Colorado. Rolf’s summoning us again.”

  11

  THE BREAK-UP

  We were back in Colorado before dawn the following day. Julian and Katie were at the airport to pick us up. We all packed our things into the trunk of Julian’s minute car and hopped in. Okay, Derek and Lucas hopped. I shuffled. I had been unable to sleep on the plane ride and was utterly exhausted.

  I sat in the back between Lucas and Derek, leaning into Lucas’s side to keep myself warm. The other side of my body was pressed against Derek’s ice block of a thigh. It was an odd sensation, one I never really wanted to have again.

  “Why’s Dad calling us?” Lucas asked as Julian got on the expressway, heading toward Gould.

  “The murders have started up again,” Julian said.

  “I know, but what’s that got to do with us? We were in California.”

  “Your vampire uprising theory is starting to catch on. Dad wants to ask you about it.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Seriously?”

  Lucas and I exchanged eager glances.

  “Yeah, well, he can’t claim it was just Vincent doing the killing anymore,” Julian said. “He’s still a little iffy about it, but the Council is coming around, especially after the whole vampire-interrogation thing you two did.” He winked at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Is he alerting the other wolf packs?” Lucas asked.

  “Not yet. I don’t think he’s up for that. I’m betting the plan is going to be to eradicate the Denver brood ASAP and hope the whole thing goes away.”

  Well, that was a decent solution anyway. It made me feel better to know that an end to the murders would soon approach.

  “So this has nothing to do with Derek?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Julian said. “Don’t think it does.”

  I glanced at Derek and saw his face smooth in relief. I nudged him with my leg, and he smiled, nudging me back harder.

  Then I felt Lucas’s body sizzle with heat, and I stopped playing with Derek. The car suddenly felt like a grenade. If I made one false move, if I pulled that pin out, I’d set Lucas off and the car would explode with werewolf jaws, leaving me slashed to bits in between them all.

  Not a good thing.

  I snuggled closer to Lucas and closed my eyes.

  “Can Derek and I go back to campus then?” I asked, yawning. “I really don’t want to go up there. We always get stuck staying for way longer than we wanted to.”

  Lucas didn’t answer for a moment, and I felt the heat of his body intensify.

  “If that’s what you want,” Lucas said.

  “We have to get Derek’s room situated anyway,” I said. Then a thought occurred to me, one I hadn’t really considered until now. All these details were such a pain. “What are we going to tell Pete and his other roommates?”

  Lucas’s jaw flexed, but his voice was relatively calm. “We got Derek a single in my building. Already moved his stuff in and blocked out the windows.”

  “Oh . . . ,” I said. “You guys are good at this.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Take Faith and Derek to campus,” he said to Julian. “She’s right. We always end up staying way too long, and we’ve got class on Monday.” He kicked the back of Katie’s seat. “Stay with them till I get back. I know you’re not technically on duty till Monday, but there’s still a vampire killing people out there. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Okay,” Katie said, shooting a shiny white smile back at me.

  The rest of the ride was silent, and I alternated between sleep and watching the streetlamps play along Lucas’s angular profile.

  Once at CSU, I kissed Lucas good-bye and waved as he and Julian headed up to Gould. It was close to dawn already, so we didn’t have time to dawdle. Katie and Derek carried all of our stuff up to the top floor of Lucas’s building. Derek shoved the key into his new room and let us girls in before him.

  It was pitch dark inside. I couldn’t see my hand if I put it in front of my face, but I heard Derek and Katie walking around.

  “The human needs light,” I said, stumbling over something on the floor.

  Katie giggled and I heard Derek’s hand scrape against the wall as he hit the light switch. Then the florescent lights flickered on and the room was illuminated. The shape of the room was identical to Lucas’s, but that was where the similarities ended. Lucas’s room was dim, red and black, and papered with disturbed art that made you feel like you were in a macabre cave of sorts.

  Derek’s room was filled with sports stuff and posters of cars and a calendar with sexy girls on it. He was such a boy. Whoever had set up Derek’s room had done a great job. Everything was in place, down to his blue toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet and his Rams helmet hanging on the bedpost.

  “We even got you a new car,” Katie said from behind. She tossed a pair of car keys onto his desk. “You know—because the last one got squashed.”

  I smiled over at Derek, but found that he was standing stock still in the middle of the room with this haunted, zombie-like look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Derek dropped the bags and shook his head, closing his eyes. “We gotta take this stuff down.”

  “Why?” I asked and put my hand on his arm. “This isn’t how you want it?”

  “I can’t look at this stuff,” he said, face burning with pain. “This life doesn’t exist anymore!” He spread his arms around the room, gesturing to the green and gold Rams paraphernalia and the pictures of the beach and his family. “This isn’t me. This life is gone!” His eyes met mine, stabbing me with intensity. They were almost white. “All I have left is you.” His voice broke. Then he winced and dragged his hands over his face. “But I don’t even have you anymore, do I?” He smiled bitterly. “All I’ve got is myself and this sick blood crave I have to deal with.”

  I was so stunned by the suddenness of his outburst that I couldn’t speak.

  “I can’t look at this stuff anymore,” Derek said again, quietly this time. “It’s not me.” He crumpled to the floor, shoving his face in his hands. I knelt beside him and heard Katie leave the room.

  As soon as the door closed, Derek threw his arms around me, pulling me against his body. He shook with sobs; his tears were like ice water against my cheek. I felt the corner of his lips brush mine.

  I felt so incredibly sorry for him, for what I’d done to him. I wanted to make him feel better—to help him in some way, but that didn’t mean I could kiss him. I pulled away from his searching lips and put my hands over his cheeks.

  “You always have me,” I said firmly. “Whether or not I’m with Lucas, I’ll always be here when you need me. Remember that, okay?”

  “Sorry,” he rasped. “I guess, seeing my old life all laid out in front of me was kind of a shock. It’s just luck that I didn’t change. I got close.”

  “We’ll take it all down,” I said, trying to sound comforting. “Get you some new stuff this weekend.”

  Katie popped her head back in, seemingly relieved that the crying was done with.

  “Sorry,” Derek said, looking embarrassed.

  Katie just shrugged. “I’ll help you take the posters down,” she offered.

  Derek cracked a grateful smile. “Yeah, thanks.”

  We set out removing anything that would remind Derek of his past life. When we were done, all that was left was the calendar of sexy girls, some pictures of me and him in high school, and the blank wall. Katie went down to the Dumpster and trashed everything else. When she returned, it was minutes to dawn and Derek was fading fast.

&
nbsp; “Me and Katie will go to my room,” I said as Derek climbed into his bed, eyes drooping closed.

  His face wrinkled into a frown, and he held his arms out for me.

  I went and hugged him. “See you tonight,” I whispered. “Come to my room when you’re up, okay? We’ll hang out.”

  “No,” he said. “Stay here.”

  I cast a look at Katie.

  “I can’t,” I said. “We don’t have a place to sleep.”

  Derek tugged me onto the bed with him and held me in a vice. “Sleep with me. . . .”

  Trapped in his arms, I looked up at Katie pleadingly.

  “Help?” I asked, still trying to escape.

  Katie giggled and watched me squirm.

  Derek squeezed me tighter. “I love you,” he breathed in my ear. “I’ll always love you.”

  My heart wrenched, and I stopped struggling. I watched his face settle into stillness and his body grew even heavier. He was asleep. Dead.

  “Love you back, idiot.” I turned to Katie, snickering in the doorway. “Get him off of me.”

  She came over and lifted Derek’s arms as if they were nothing, and I escaped, rubbing my ribs.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I feel like I’m in a crypt.”

  Katie giggled. “We kind of are.”

  In the morning, I was awakened by the screeching sound of my cell phone . I flung my arm out and accidentally smacked my lamp. It hit the floor and landed on Katie, who let out a funny woof-like sound.

  “Sorry,” I grumbled, reaching for my phone.

  I heard Katie groan and saw her hand put the lamp back where it was supposed to be.

  I dragged the phone to my ear and glanced at the time. It was eight o’clock in the morning. I’d only been asleep two hours. Why in God’s name would Lucas call me at eight o’clock? There was either something wrong or Lucas was becoming a sadist.

  “Hello?” I croaked into the receiver.

  I heard sniffling from the other end of the phone and I sat up. Something was definitely wrong.