Blood Crave 2

by Jennifer Knight

  It was a building, like a skyscraper. Silver and blue paint melded to create the metal structure and what seemed like hundreds of windows. Inside each pane was a picture; it looked like a film strip had been laid down to depict someone’s life. There were people, animals, houses, cars, eyes, and ... was that me? I moved in closer. Yes, I was in some of them. Lucas was in others. I recognized Julian in wolf form and some other werewolves I couldn’t tag. It was really, really cool.

  But I couldn’t truly appreciate the beauty of his work. Mostly because the building which housed these precious scenes was on fire. Yellow, orange, and blue flames licked the building, the colors moving and undulating so flawlessly I could swear the fire was real.

  I felt Lucas come to stand beside me as he looked up and up at the painting. It actually went about halfway up the wall, which made me wonder how he reached so high.

  “When did you do this?” I whispered. I was equal parts amazed and horrified by the piece.

  “Over a couple of nights. While you hung out with Derek.”

  “I thought you watched the news with my mom.”

  “She goes to bed at nine. And you’re out till two or three, usually, so there’s a lot of downtime. It’s a good distraction when I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  I could almost hear the words with him tacked onto the end of that sentence, but he kept it in.

  I turned to look at his profile.

  “So . . . I make you think of a burning building?”

  He half smiled. “At first I didn’t get it either,” he said, still contemplating the wall. “When I paint, whatever I’m feeling just comes pouring out of me, and I don’t necessarily understand it until afterward. But now it all makes sense. The building is my life.” He crouched down and touched the brick at the bottom of the wall, where the building was blackened and smoldering as though the fire had died a long, long time ago. The window panes depicted scenes of a little girl playing on a grassy hill with dark hair and almond eyes like Lucas’s, an older man and woman standing with arms around each other in a small wooden cabin, a handsome boy holding a bow and arrow, who looked suspiciously like a younger version of Vincent. “When I first started painting,” Lucas said softly, “I drew these scenes at the bottom here. Those two are my parents and my sister—what I remember of them anyway.”

  He choked on the word sister and my heart stopped. Lucas never spoke about his sister. And this was the first I’d ever heard him speak about his parents. Or his life in Scotland. I watched him anxiously as his eyes darkened, his vibe becoming so saturated with grief it was like a wall of smog. Suffocating. Even in my semi-inebriated state, it overwhelmed me, and for a moment, I could actually see what Lucas must have: Vincent latched onto his sister’s neck as she screamed his name. I felt the helplessness he felt three hundred years ago as she was killed in front of his eyes. In his mind, the pain was as fresh now as it was then.

  A blast of hatred hit me and then a stark contrast of remorse. Lucas touched the pane with the young boy wielding the bow and arrow. Vincent. The way Lucas probably remembered him. Human. Flushed with warmth and life.

  In the past. I could almost hear his voice as his vibe intensified. Let it go. . . .

  He moved up a level, and the scenes grew more sinister—giant beasts with glowing eyes and a moon looming behind them, bloody battles and, at the very end of the row, a hand coming down on Lucas’s shoulder that looked as though it offered a comforting squeeze. “And then there’s some of my infection,” he said, explaining the panes, “finding my pack, running from Vincent.” He scraped his palm over the one where a werewolf fought a slender, pale figure, their bodies so distorted it was almost impossible to look at it without grimacing. “For so long that was my life,” he murmured. “I was dead inside. Repressing everything, never letting anyone in; like I kept a glass pane between me and the world. One I could never break.”

  He stood and moved his hand up the wall, and I began seeing my face inside the windows. “Then I met you. Suddenly, life became worth enduring the pain of my curse. Because it meant living with you. That’s when I started painting the flames. When I was done, I thought—damn, there’s something wrong with me. Why’d I just set my girlfriend on fire?” He cast a sidelong grin at me. “And then I figured it out.” He stepped closer, taking up my hand. “For so long, I was cold. Lifeless as any vampire. But now I’m alive with loving you.” He looked back at the wall, his gaze sweeping the entire beautiful thing. “You set my life on fire.”

  His voice cracked at the end, and I felt my heart fill with emotion. The strength of his vibe all but capsized me so that I had to clutch his arm to keep steady.

  “This is really amazing,” I said softly, meaning both the painting and what he’d said about it. The way my heart was overflowing with love.

  Lucas shrugged, back to his old gruff self. I wished he’d remained open just a little longer.

  “I was gonna paint over it,” he said. “So you or your mom wouldn’t see it and think I was a psycho. But then, in the car you had all that dried paint all over your face and it reminded me of this. And I just wanted you to see it first.”

  “I’m glad,” I said, though I was secretly scrubbing paint flecks off my face behind his back.

  “You’re not afraid I’m a pyromaniac?” He smiled back at me, stopping me from scrubbing my face.

  “Believe me, that’s the least of my worries.” I walked up and touched one of the panes where Lucas and I were embracing. “But you’re right. We can’t leave it up here. My mom might get in trouble with the building’s owners. I hate the idea of getting rid of it, though.”

  “No biggie.”

  Then I had an idea.

  “Wait a minute,” I said and flew in the apartment through the back door to grab my camera from my room. I returned and said, “We’ll photograph it. That way we’ll still be able to remember it, and you can just stick the photos in a scrapbook.”

  He walked over and cupped my cheek. “How’d I get such a smart girlfriend? I’m pretty damn lucky.”

  I shrugged, feeling all proud of myself—which was rare around creatures that were naturally better than me. “We’re both lucky.”

  9

  EXPERIMENTATION

  The following night, Lucas and I drove to the fallout shelter to let Derek out. Lucas usually let me do this little chore alone, preferring to watch the news with my mom—or graffiti her building, apparently. And since I got to spend the days with Lucas, the least I could do was give my nights to Derek. But tonight was different. Tonight we were going to begin our “experimentations” with Derek.

  When we reached the fallout shelter, I jumped out of my mom’s rusted Cadillac and fumbled around in the darkness, looking for the correct key. I found it, thrust it into the fancy lock on the door, and punched in the twelve-digit key code when it started beeping at me. Once the door unlocked, I hefted it open and found Derek standing on the first step smiling up at me.

  “Hey,” he said. “Took you long enough.”

  I blushed. “Sorry. Traffic.”

  There was no traffic. Lucas and I had been tangled up in my bed the whole afternoon while I practiced suppressing his trigger. We’d yet to do anything too exciting because of the distraction issue, but it was heavenly nonetheless.

  Derek leaped out into the night and stretched a little. He didn’t bother to greet Lucas, who hadn’t even gotten out of the car.

  “How’d you sleep?” I asked Derek.

  His eyes glinted. “Like the dead.”

  I cut him a disgusted look. “Are you ready for tonight?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that—are you really sure you want to come? It might not be safe.”

  “I’m going,” I said firmly. “Lucas and I already discussed it.” Fought about it, was more the way the conversation had gone, but Derek didn’t need to know that. I’d finally convinced Lucas that I could use my power on either of them if they lost control. Granted, I wasn’t comp
letely sure I could use my power on Derek since he was part vampire, but still. It won me the argument.

  Derek shrugged and bent to open the car door for me.

  “It’s your funeral,” he said as I passed him into the backseat of the car.

  We set off into the night. Lucas drove farther and farther into the desert along a lonely highway that curved through the sea of sand like a ribbon blowing in the wind. No one spoke, though I tried several times to initiate friendly conversation. After my third attempt, and an exasperated glare from Derek, I fell silent and contented myself with watching the empty land roll by my window.

  Twenty minutes later, Lucas stopped the car at a seemingly indistinct point in the middle of the desert. I got out and let the crisp, dry wind fly through my hair. God, I’ve missed this place. I looked across the hood of the car at Derek. He, too, seemed to enjoy being home. We exchanged grins and an electric current passed through my body—Derek’s vibe. Strong, too. Not enough to pick out an exact thought, but he was nervous and excited at the thought of what we were about to do. It wasn’t such a far cry from my own emotions.

  Lucas, who had been rustling around in the trunk, came around and handed me an armful of supplies.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  Derek leaned against the hood of the car and listened in.

  “The stopwatch is so we can time him,” Lucas said. “Pen and paper to record everything—for Rolf. And the camera because I have a feeling Rolf’s gonna want to see it for himself once he sees the numbers.”

  “And the flashlight?” I asked as Lucas set up the tripod on the roof of the car.

  Lucas gave me a withering glance and said, “So you can see us. Or have you gained the ability to see in the dark?”

  Well, he was in a mood tonight. I narrowed my eyes at him and tried to push myself onto the hood of the car. Unfortunately, my hand slipped and I ended up in the dirt, cursing and rubbing my elbows. I heard Lucas snickering, but Derek squatted down and helped me up.

  “Klutz,” he accused, his tone playful in my ear.

  “Mutant,” I snapped back vindictively. I started to push myself onto the hood again, but Derek took my waist and placed me on it before I could protest. The skin on my hips burned where his clammy hands had touched it, but it was nothing compared to the scalding look Lucas threw us as he stomped off into the desert.

  “Better follow him,” I told Derek. I avoided his eyes by turning the flashlight on and arranging my recording tools.

  I shined the beam of the flashlight on the faraway forms of Derek and Lucas, standing together among the cacti and brambles. They seemed ghostly under the dull glow of the half moon and the harsh white beam from my flashlight. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Lucas looked sullen and Derek, nervous.

  Then, with a final jerky nod from Derek, Lucas started back to me, arriving more quickly than I could blink. My hair blew into my mouth as he came to a stop next to me.

  “What did you tell him?” I asked, watching Derek take off his T-shirt.

  “I told him to change,” Lucas said nonchalantly.

  “What?” I choked. Despite my insisting on coming tonight, the reality of the situation hit me like a truck. A vampire-werewolf hybrid was about to transform mere feet from me. Why hadn’t that scared me earlier when I could have opted out and spent the night watching movies with my mom? “Why—are you sure it’s safe, I mean ... what if he—?”

  “What? Attacks you?” Lucas peered at me through slatted eyes. “What do you think I’m here for? Decoration?”

  “Well, no, I just—”

  “Besides, you said you could control him if he loses it, right?”

  “I think so—I mean, yes. Of course I can.”

  He looked about to say something, when Derek called, “You ready over there?”

  I looked around and started at the sight of him standing underneath the beam of the flashlight, clad in only his underwear. He was unnaturally pale, but God, was he ripped. I hoped I hadn’t gawked too much and shot a hasty glance at Lucas. Thankfully, he was switching on the video camera and didn’t notice my blush.

  “Go ahead,” Lucas called back. Then he said, softer to me, “You sure you’re good with the connection thing?”

  I nodded, too afraid to speak. As eager as I was to be involved in all of this, I couldn’t help but feel just a smidge terrified at the thought of what might happen. Fangs and blood and lots of screaming were a potential future for tonight’s events. Hopefully it wouldn’t happen and I’d be able to connect to Derek if it came down to it.

  Lucas took my hand. “I’m right here,” he said, sensing my nerves.

  Then, without warning, Derek changed. After several long, agonizing moments on Derek’s part, my best friend was gone and in his place was a stunning, dangerous white wolf.

  Dangerous, in theory, however, because all he did was sit calmly in the sand, panting and swishing his tail gently. His eyes were white now save the slate gray pupils and ebony rings around the irises; he watched us with unnatural intelligence and serenity. It was a human’s gaze, completely different than when Lucas changed. When Lucas changed, he was wild.

  “I don’t think he’ll hurt me,” I murmured. “He seems tame.”

  “Let’s find out,” Lucas said, starting forward. “Come on.”

  Lucas towed me over to Derek while I mumbled things like, “I’m not sure this is safe, maybe I should wait by the car, Lucas I don’t want to . . .” Ignoring my ramblings, Lucas bent down a little to Derek’s eye level. I had no need to bend over—Derek was taller than I was, even as a wolf. Standing there in front of him, even with Lucas, was totally petrifying.

  “Can you understand me?” Lucas asked Derek.

  Derek released a little yip that quite obviously meant yes.

  “Then sit,” Lucas commanded.

  Derek’s throat bubbled with a growl, but he sat down with a thump.

  I giggled nervously.

  “Well, this makes things easier,” Lucas said. “If he can understand us, that’ll save him the trouble of changing back and forth.”

  “Good,” I said. “It seemed to hurt him. Changing, I mean.”

  “That’s probably because it did hurt him.”

  I looked up at Lucas, concerned. “It hurts you?”

  “Not anymore. I’m sure it’s still hard for him now.” He jerked his head at Derek, who had wandered off to root around a deep hole in the sand. “The more times you change the more your body and mind grow used to it. The first time is unimaginable pain.”

  My heart ached for him, for his pain—his curse. His body could never be at peace.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “You don’t deserve this life,” I murmured. “I can try to numb your triggers more often. Not just when we . . . you know, fool around. It’ll take some time to work up my strength, but I can try.” If there was anything I could do to make this easier on him, I wanted to do it.

  He placed a slow kiss on my lips, but Derek barked viciously and I drew back. Lucas scowled and his body quaked slightly.

  “Okay, stop it both of you,” I said, taking a few steps away from Lucas and gathering my scattered emotions. “I’m sorry I kissed him in front of you,” I said to Derek. “It was insensitive.”

  Lucas looked as if he wanted to tell me off for apologizing, but he clamped his mouth shut. A deadly silence penetrated the night and I felt my pulse quicken. How quickly the mood had changed.

  “Let’s keep going,” I said. “What else do we need to test?”

  Lucas ran his hand through his hair. “Well, I think it’s pretty clear already, but I guess we gotta be sure.” Lucas turned to Derek, who had come to stand right beside me. “Do you still have the blood crave?”

  Derek looked up at me balefully, and I knew it was a no.

  “He doesn’t,” I said for him. “Look.” I held my hand out to Derek’s muzzle, and he sniffed it vigorously, tickling my palm with his whiskers. I laughed and Derek licke
d me. “Ew . . .” I rubbed his saliva off on his fur.

  Derek didn’t look pleased.

  “He’s like a really smart dog,” I said, smiling over at Lucas. “Not like you at all. When you change, you’re scary and wild. Derek’s still Derek underneath all that fur.” I reached out with my power to feel him relaxed and excited to start experimenting, but as I looked into his eyes, trying to ignite the connection, I felt a wall. It was impassable. Derek didn’t seem to notice a thing as I centered my gaze on his white eyes.

  At last, Derek whined impatiently and I stopped, frowning. There must be too much vampire in him. Not good.

  “He’s right,” Lucas said. “We’d better get on with this. I think we should try running first. That’s safest.” He glanced around and pointed to a peculiarly shaped cactus about a hundred yards in front of us. “Run there,” he said to Derek, “And when I say go, run back as fast as you can. Stop before you hit the car, though, all right?”

  Derek sniffed as though this last statement was obvious and trotted off to the wonky cactus in the distance.

  “To the car,” Lucas said, setting off.

  We both leaned on the hood, and I held the stopwatch in my hand, poised to click it once Derek passed the rock I thought was shaped like Courtney’s head.

  “Ready?” Lucas asked me. “This is gonna be fast.”

  “Ready when you are.”

  “On three, all right, Derek?” Lucas yelled. “One ... two ... three!”

  Instantly, there was a blur of white, and wind whipped by me so strong it blew my hair straight back. Derek stood before us, windblown and yapping happily. It was a few seconds before I realized I hadn’t clicked the stopwatch.

  “Holy crap,” I murmured.

  “You didn’t time him,” Lucas said irritably.

  “That was ... really fast.”

  Lucas’s lip curled. “I’ll have to do it. My reflexes are faster.” He held out his hand for the stopwatch.

  Derek paced restlessly, tongue lolling out. He seemed all too proud of himself.

  “You like to run, huh?” I asked. Derek let out a short howl. “It must be a wolf thing.”