Blood Crave

by Jennifer Knight

  It was a superfun night.

  I’d fallen asleep slumped over on her desk in between helping her keep her hair out of the vomit-filled toilet and trying to get a hold of Lucas on his cell. The reception was garbage in Gould, so it wasn’t surprising that I’d failed, but I missed him and Derek. I didn’t even want to think about tonight.

  Instead, I wanted to . . . I sighed to myself. As much as I loved and cared about what happened to my boys tonight, today, well, today I just wanted to be human. I’d made a promise to myself that I’d take time to do the things that were important to me—like school and running and photography—but I hadn’t held true to that promise. I had good reason, sure, but that didn’t make it right. Today, I had the rare opportunity to do whatever I wanted. And damn it, I was going to do it all.

  Starting with a morning run.

  I sat up from the desk and stretched, heading for the bathroom. Heather looked literally like roadkill, and smelled even worse. I glared down at her prone form, both worried and irritated at the same time. I was about to throw a blanket over her and wait until she woke to deal with her, but then ... I had a better idea.

  It was something my mother had done to me in high school when I’d come home late from a party totally wasted. It was, in fact, how I began running in the first place.

  I dragged Heather into the shower and started it. She woke up immediately, screaming profanities. I slammed the glass door shut and threw my weight against it as she tried to pry it open.

  “Faith, oh my God, have you lost your mind?” she shouted.

  “No, but you seem to have,” I said calmly. “And you smell, seriously, like something dead.”

  “Screw off,” she said, banging on the glass. “Let me out. Come on, my head is killing me. I feel like I’m going to puke again.”

  “Okay, then I’m really not letting you out.”

  “You’re such a bitch!”

  I smiled. “But I love you. Now use that soap until there’s nothing left, and get dressed. I want to go out.”

  She groaned, wiping her hair out of her face. “What time is it?”

  I checked my cell phone. “Six a.m.”

  “You psycho.”

  I grinned devilishly. “You think this is crazy? Wait until you see what we’re doing.”

  Last night’s storm had passed, and left in its wake a layer of snow half a foot thick. The campus workers who cleared the snow away for everyone had yet to get to the Oval, so Heather and I headed for the gym. Heather groaned and muttered at me the entire way over, but I ignored her. If she felt half as bad as she looked—and that was pretty terrible—she’d think twice before smoking pot again.

  I know it worked on me when my mother did this. Only with me, it had been about a hundred degrees outside, and she’d made me run in the sand. Heather had it good by comparison.

  “I hate you so much right now,” she grumbled as we trekked through the snow. The sweatpants she’d leant me were already soaked through, and my shoes felt like ice cubes. Admittedly, I was beginning to rethink my little plan, but there was no going back now.

  “I know,” I said. “But you deserve it.”

  Once at the gym, I did some stretching to warm up my frozen muscles and then ran around the track three times. Heather, on the other hand, made it halfway around and then sprinted to the bathroom to puke some more. Once I’d finished my workout—and wow, it felt amazing to run again—I collected Heather from the bathroom and dragged her downstairs to the café for some sustenance. I treated her to a strong cup of mocha latte and a chocolate croissant as a peace offering and contented myself with a low-fat muffin so I wouldn’t ruin my workout.

  Having sufficiently made my point about the drugs, I decided there was no more need to harp on the subject. Instead, Heather and I talked about normal stuff. Her family, school, this hot guy in my photography class I wanted to set her up with, and a million other things. When it came to this stuff—normal stuff—I felt she was the only one who truly understood me. Lucas tried to, sure, but I think he’d been a werewolf for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to be human. Heather, thankfully, did not have the problem.

  “I get to start my internship next year,” she said. “At Bennett Elementary, you know that one right down the road? I’m teaching first graders to read music.”

  “That’s really amazing,” I said.

  “So you’re still undecided as far as you major goes?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so. I really love the photography thing, but I don’t know how I’d make a living doing it.”

  She chewed on a bite of her croissant. “You could do graphic design. I have a cousin who does custom wedding invitations and stuff. She gets paid a lot of money for it, too.”

  I made a face. Weddings weren’t really my thing. And as I thought about it, I still couldn’t exactly pin down what my thing was. When I thought about the future, it was difficult to imagine a normal life with marriage and a job and kids. What with everything I’d been through, I just felt I’d be lucky to be alive to see my future at all.

  Heck, if the werewolves didn’t stop the vampires from proceeding with the uprising, there might not even be a future.

  After our brunch, Heather and I spent the day studying in the library. I’d been slacking on my human duties (like school), so I had a waist-high pile of homework to get through. By midafternoon, however, my brain was mush. Heather said she had band practice, so I went back to Lucas’s room to finish homework, watch some TV, and call my mom. By dusk, I’d snuggled into Lucas’s bed for some much needed sleep.

  Not that I got any. I spent the night staring out at the luminescent full moon, wondering what Lucas and Derek were getting into, and whether they’d still be civil to one another as wild beasts. I fingered the cold silver at my throat hearing Lucas’s soft, grating voice in my ear saying the words I’ll always come back to you over and over again until finally, sometime around dawn, I fell asleep.

  It was my phone that woke me, hours later, from a nightmare involving Lucas eating Heather.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, not bothering with a greeting. I saw Lucas’s name on the caller ID. My heart was already going haywire from the dream, and it only intensified at Lucas’s next words.

  “We have a problem,” he said. “Rolf knows Derek has an in with the vampires.”

  “What?” I blurted, sitting up. “How?”

  “It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Derek reeked of them. I guess I’d just gotten used to it or something, but the others smelled it immediately. And ah . . . there’s another problem.”

  I groaned, throwing my head in my hand.

  “Derek has the blood crave on the full moon. He went nuts last night. It took six of us to corral him up into the mountains, and then five more to keep him from escaping into town.”

  “Christ . . . ,” I whispered. “Is he okay? Did he hurt anyone?”

  “Few bumps and bruises on our end, but he didn’t kill anybody, and that’s the most important thing.” He heaved a sigh. “That’s not even the bad part.”

  “What’s the bad part?”

  “Rolf’s out-of-his-mind pissed. He thinks we knew about this and were keeping it from him. I tried to tell him we had no way of knowing since, this is the first full moon we’ve been with him since he woke up, but he’s such a stubborn bastard. He won’t listen.”

  “What do we do?” I asked. “Where is Derek now?”

  “He’s at the house. In the silver room. The silver didn’t do anything to him, but it kept him inside, anyway.”

  “What are you going to do when he wakes up?” I got out of bed and began getting dressed, already thinking up ways to break into Derek’s room and snag the extra set of keys to his car.

  “Well, see ... that’s the other problem. When everyone smelled the vampires on Derek, they freaked out. And this was before the full moon hit us, mind you. Derek was asleep in the basement while this was going on, so he pretty much has no clue what’s about to
happen.”

  “What’s about to happen?” I began packing an overnight bag, throwing in clothes and toiletries as fast as I could.

  “Rolf wants to use Derek as a spy for the pack.”

  “What?”

  “Thought you’d say that.”

  “How can he do that? He promised he wouldn’t hurt Derek, and this is going to put his life in danger.”

  “Not the way Rolf sees it.”

  “Who cares how he sees it, he’s breaking the Blood Pact!” I slammed the door to Lucas’s room behind me as I jogged toward the stairwell. “You have to stop him.”

  “Well, see,” Lucas said, sounding slightly pained. “That’s the problem. The Council doesn’t see it as a breach of the Pact either, so really, he’s got no choice.”

  I took the stairs two at a time. “That’s bullshit! What about a trial?”

  “He can’t have a trial because he’s not a pack member.”

  “Well, can’t he just leave the mansion and never go back? If he has no allegiance to the pack, how can they force him into this? Wait. Don’t answer yet.” I’d come to Derek’s door and had no way of entering. “Tell me how to pick a lock.”

  He puffed a laugh, and told me how to get in, which was disconcertingly easy to do.

  “Thanks, babe,” I said once inside. “You’re useful for something besides eye candy, after all.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  I went straight to Derek’s desk and found the keys to the Bentley the vampires had just given him as a “gift.”

  “So what do we do?” I asked, going back out of the room at top speed. “We run, right?” Something painful clenched inside me at the thought of leaving CSU and the life I’d built here, especially after yesterday with Heather, but I’d do anything to keep Derek safe.

  “We can’t run,” Lucas said. “Not forever, anyway. And, Faith . . .”

  I halted at the front door of my building, panting. “What?”

  “I’m not sure we shouldn’t go through with Rolf’s plan.”

  “Are you insane, I—”

  “Hear me out,” he said. “You want the pack to accept Derek, right? You want him to be on our side?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly.

  “Well, maybe this is the perfect way for him to prove himself. Maybe if he does this, they’ll forget about the whole blood-crave-on-the-full-moon thing.”

  Something cold slipped through my veins as I caught his tone. “Are you saying they’re going to blackmail him?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “And what if Derek refuses?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I called you. I know you’re gonna hate me for this, but I want you to convince Derek to do it.”

  “No.” Not even a possibility.

  “Faith, it’s better than the alternative.”

  I swept out of the front door, heading for the parking lot. “We don’t even know what the alternative is, yet, so why don’t we just hear Rolf’s proposal first?”

  “He’s going to execute Derek,” Lucas said.

  I stopped short of Derek’s car, frozen. “You don’t know—”

  “Doesn’t take a genius to guess Faith. I can just hear him now, ‘the danger he presents to the human race on the full moon ... he cannot be easily controlled’ ... blah, blah, blah. I know him, and he’ll manipulate the system until he gets what he wants. It’s what he did when he offered the Blood Pact. All he had to do was wait for the right opportunity, and here it is.”

  I unlocked Derek’s car and slowly lowered myself into the seat.

  “Faith, if Derek doesn’t do this, he dies, all right? I don’t like it any better than you but—”

  “Oh, like hell you don’t!” I exploded. “You’re just like Rolf, biding your time until you can get rid of him.”

  He was silent, and I wished I could see his face to see whether I’d misjudged him or called him out on the truth. Either way, fighting with Lucas wasn’t going to help the situation. Lucas was my only ally in the pack besides Katie and maybe Julian, but neither of them had the power to sway Rolf. Lucas was my only chance at saving Derek, and if anyone could change his mind, it was me.

  Only, it turned out that I didn’t need to convince anyone of anything.

  When I arrived at the werewolf mansion, Derek was already awake and Lucas, probably having foreseen my plan to wheedle him into submission, got the jump on talking to Derek.

  “It’s honestly not such a terrible idea,” Derek said as he stretched out on his cot, looking totally at ease. “The vampires are pretty chill, always sharing their stuff. Heck, Silas gave me a new car.”

  Well, that explained the Bentley.

  “But they’re all really self-absorbed,” Derek continued. “So they probably won’t pay much attention to me prying into their affairs.”

  Lucas looked smugly in my direction, but I ignored him.

  “Don’t you realize what will happen to you if they figure out you’re a spy?” I asked.

  “No worse than what’ll happen to me if I refuse Rolf.”

  I sputtered, appalled that he was taking this all so easily.

  “Look,” Derek said, sitting up and turning to Lucas. “The truth is that I don’t think there is a vampire uprising. I think you werewolves are a bunch of paranoid losers with nothing better to do than pick on vampires for fun. But if ‘spying’ on the vampires is what it takes to convince you that they have nothing planned, then fine. I’m hanging out with them anyway, right? What does it hurt me?”

  I began to protest again, but Derek stood in a superfast motion and towered over me.

  “It’s not your decision, Faith, it’s mine and I’m doing it. I’m telling Rolf now. Deal with it.”

  He strode out of the basement, and I watched him wave Katie—who was lounging on the couch, playing on her phone—over to him. Together, they made a beeline for the backyard.

  For whatever reason, it hurt to watch him go off with her.

  “Probably going to go for a run,” Lucas said.

  I nodded vaguely.

  “You okay?”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I can’t control everything. Or anything.”

  “He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

  I sniffed bitterly.

  “When he comes back, you should all go back to campus. You’ve got class tomorrow and stuff.”

  At first I began nodding, and then gradually realized what he’d said.

  “What, you’re not coming with us?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, clearing his throat. “Rolf’s concerned by the reduced number of murders lately. He thinks it means they’re planning something big. We’ve got a raid planned for tonight. Largest one we’ve ever done. I gotta stay and help.”

  I searched his face as I decided how to react.

  “Shouldn’t Derek stay and help?” I asked. “He might have clues to where the lair is.”

  “He says he doesn’t know anything, and I believe him. The vampires wouldn’t be dumb enough to show an unregistered mutant where their lair is.”

  “Viran,” I corrected.

  He waved me away. “Besides, Derek isn’t a pack member. He’ll only get in the way.”

  I bristled at that, but ignored it. “Can’t I help at all? Like I did when we caught that vampire together?”

  He shook his head with one of those you’re-being-silly looks he often gave me.

  “I appreciate it,” he said and cupped my cheek. “That’s really brave of you, babe, but you’re better off just letting us do our thing.”

  I shook his hand away. “I want to do something. I hate being powerless. Do you understand what that feels like? To constantly be at the mercy of creatures stronger than you?” I curled my lip. “No, I guess you don’t, right?”

  He looked up at the ceiling, dragging his hands down the sides of his face. “Why are you giving me a hard time? You know I have to stay and do this, and you know you can’t help.”
>
  I whirled away from him, folding my arms across my chest.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It just ... kind of hit me yesterday that if we don’t stop the vampires, my entire future will be nonexistent. I mean, why am I even in college? To prepare for something that’s probably not even going to happen anymore? I should just face it: I’m going to be some vampire’s dinner and nothing else.”

  An iron hand clasped my arm and spun me around. Lucas stood over me, shadows masking his face, but with eyes glowing bright silver. “Don’t you ever say that to me again. Don’t say it period. Don’t even think it.” He shook me slightly on the last word, and I jerked my arm away.

  “I want to help stop this,” I whispered fiercely. “It’s my race they’re trying to eliminate. I have a right to help defend it.”

  “We defend you,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “It’s our whole purpose. So just let us do our jobs, okay?”

  “And stand by idly while people are killed night after night.”

  “It’s been slowing.”

  “Only so they can plan some new form of terror against us.”

  He swore and began pacing around the room. When he returned to me, he was calmer, but I could still see something twitching in his temple.

  “I get it,” he said. “If it was me, I’d want to do something, too. But you gotta face the reality, Faith: you’re human. And these are vampires. They will kill you if they get the chance, and the only advantage you have over them is the fact that you know they exist. You can hide.”

  “So that’s all I get to do, hide like a little child?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “I’m not some stupid damsel, Lucas. I don’t need you to save me all the time!” I knew this wasn’t true. And that was the frustrating part. I knew I needed him to save me, I just didn’t want to need him to save me. I wanted to save myself for once.

  To my surprise, Lucas’s face tightened into a small half-concealed smile. He held my face in two hands and said, “Three months ago, I never would have heard those words come out of your mouth. You would have been more than happy to let me save you.”

  “Three months ago, I was powerless.”