Letting out an ecstatic yip, she slipped past Katie in a millisecond and clamped onto the dead body with her fangs. She sucked greedily as crimson liquid pooled down her delicate chin.
I clapped my hand over my mouth, releasing a small noise of repulsion. Derek’s hands tightened on me, his vibe swelling protectively. I silently prayed that he would stay in control. Derek turning on me was the last thing we needed now. I would have told him to change and quell the crave, but I was afraid the vampires would kill him if he did.
Katie let her arm droop and looked helplessly at the gory feast going on at her feet. “Wait, she—she wasn’t a vampire?”
The tan-haired vampire chuckled. “Goodness no. Merely a pet. I hadn’t even gotten a taste yet—what a waste.” He sighed, watching as the female vampire sucked the very last drop out of the body and left it curled and vile on the ground. The female wiped her gloved hand along her mouth and rose to stand next to the male. “At least someone got to enjoy her,” he said.
Katie was speechless, staring at the exsanguinated corpse. Police sirens echoed in the background and walkie-talkies crackled with voices. If the police came storming down this alley, I was pretty sure we’d all get pinned as the serial killers. Wouldn’t that be fun.
The tan-haired vampire turned on Derek and said, “Pardon Melissa.” He nodded at the female, still licking her lips. “She’s still young and quite the pig.”
Melissa made an outraged noise.
“Well, you are,” the tan-haired vampire said matter-of-factly. He gave Derek an apologetic face that reeked of fakeness. “This wasn’t at all how we planned to make our first impression. Your human looks ready to faint. We apologize.” He stepped forward and jutted his hand out for Derek. “Calvin Carnelian, at your service. And you are?”
“Derek,” he said, refusing Calvin’s gloved hand.
Calvin let it fall and his eyes locked on mine. Now that the crave had faded from them, they were astonishingly beautiful—he was astonishingly beautiful. Pale, even skin like fluffy marshmallow, blue eyes so saturated they were close to violet, and a dashing, pointed smile that would have melted any girl’s heart.
Except mine.
To me, he was terrifying.
“And this?” Calvin asked with a smooth, saccharine voice.
Derek spoke for me, “Faith.”
Calvin’s pupils dilated slightly at the sound of my name. “A lovely pet,” he said. “I see she is special like mine was. How fortunate.”
Both Derek and I frowned, but neither of us said a word. Katie just continued to stare dejectedly at Paula’s dead body. Calvin hadn’t even bothered to ask about her.
“These are my comrades,” Calvin said, indicating the other two vampires. “Silas Zircon and Melissa Jade.”
They both inclined their perfect heads. Silas looked to be European; he had dark skin—well, dark by vampire standards—humongous brown eyes and a slanted jaw speckled with stubble. Melissa was flawless. She had alabaster skin, black hair like a sheet of obsidian, and a body to die for.
No pun intended.
Calvin stepped closer and leaned in, his hands clasped behind his back. “Again, we offer our apologies for the confusion, but my pet could not help but notice your outburst inside.” He nodded at Derek significantly. “She alerted us and felt we should come and take a look-see. I must say she was correct, for there seems to be something amiss here.” His keen eyes clamped onto Derek like vices. “Although you are clearly undead you reek of something different as well. . . . Something that reminds me very much of werewolf.” His tone had grown dangerous and his voice low. He cut a look at Katie. “My friends and I would be very interested to know why an unregistered vampire would reek of mongrel.”
His smile was gone now, replaced by a cunning gaze that scared all the color out of my face. I caught eyes with Katie, who had finally broken her trance with Paula’s body and gone very still, staring wide-eyed at Derek as though he might explode at any moment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek said evenly.
“Do not lie,” Calvin warned. “I could bring you in right now for a registration violation, but I won’t. All I want to know is why you have been keeping company with the dogs.” He jerked his head at Katie.
“What do you care if I’m with the werewolves?” Derek asked, sounding much braver than I felt.
Calvin’s eyes glittered. “The monarch does not think much of race traitors. She would be quite put out if we let one slip by our notice.”
Derek was silent, staring back into Calvin’s eyes. He seemed to realize that they weren’t going to let us go without explaining ourselves.
Katie was shaking her head frantically behind Calvin, eyes pleading. I could feel her vibe screaming no, no, no!
Derek ignored her. I heard him breathe deeply and then say, “I hang around them because I’m part werewolf.”
Calvin straightened. His eyes flared with something dangerously close to rage. “What do you mean you are part werewolf?” he spat. “You are either a mongrel or you are not.”
“I’m both werewolf and vampire. I’ve been infected by both races.”
Now the other two vampires started forward. I began to scream, but Calvin threw his arms out, stopping his friends from attacking.
“He lies!” Silas hissed. “What he says is impossible.”
“It’s not,” Derek said calmly. “I can change.”
Silence bit through the night, punctuated only by the sounds of the police sirens fading into the night. I guess we were off the hook there.
“Prove it,” Calvin said.
Derek shifted his weight. “Not here.”
“We will ensure that your pet is safe whilst your mind is wild,” Calvin said, leering at me. “Now, prove yourself.”
Katie was shaking her head again.
“No,” I whispered to Derek. “Don’t leave us with them.”
Calvin’s violet eyes hit mine. “Then we’ll take him with us. He can prove himself to us in the safety of our lair.”
“No!” I yelled before I could stop myself. “You’re not taking Derek anywhere!”
Melissa giggled behind her gloved hand. “Come on, Cal,” she said, sounding bored. “Let’s just kill the little liar and have his pet for lunch. I’m starved.”
“Shut up,” Calvin spat. “Christ, you just ate!”
She sulked.
“If what he says is true,” Calvin said, “he will have no issue proving himself.” Then he began speaking what sounded like Russian, and Melissa and Silas’s eyebrows twitched up as they surveyed Derek with renewed interest.
“Okay, fine,” Melissa said. “But let’s get out of here. All of these warm bodies are making my tummy hurt.”
Silas rounded on her. “How can you still be hungry?”
“Shut up the both of you,” Calvin said. He turned to face Derek.
“Come with us to our lair and prove what you claim. If we are satisfied, we will allow you to register with our brood and then leave. If not, well . . .” He licked his lips. “We will just have to find something to do with you.”
“And you’ll let Faith go?” Derek asked.
“Indeed,” Calvin said. “We do not prey on pets that are not our own ... often.”
“And Katie?”
Calvin waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever.”
For a moment Derek didn’t say anything. Then he turned and pried me from his shirt. He held my hand open and pressed his car keys into it, closing my fingers over them.
“I have to go with them,” he said softly.
“No!” I screamed and Melissa snickered again. “No, Derek,” I said softer, but still firmly. “They’ll kill you.”
“I don’t have a choice. We can’t fight them all. Not with you here.”
“Yes, we can,” Katie spoke up. “Come on, Derek, we can take them.”
The tension in the air ratcheted up a notch, and the vampires closed their ranks; Silas let o
ut a low hiss.
“No,” Derek said loudly, warding them off. “I’ll go peacefully.”
I started to protest again, but Derek shushed me, sweeping his frozen hand across my cheek. “I’ll change for them, show them what I am, and then I’ll see you tomorrow night. It’ll be fine.” He pushed my hand against my chest. “But you have to go. I can’t have you getting hurt. I don’t want to give Lassie a reason to kill me.” He grinned ruefully at me, but his jokes were wasted. I couldn’t even berate him for calling Lucas names.
“No,” I said desperately. “Please don’t do this.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said, embedding his wintry eyes into mine. He took my face and kissed me softly, his lips just barely touching mine on the way to my cheek. “I love you.” He said it so whisper-soft I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard it.
He let go of me and turned toward the vampires. Calvin slung his arm around Derek’s shoulders and gestured to the opening of the alley where a sleek silver car had pulled up. “Your chariot,” he said. He turned and regarded Katie coldly, nodding at the body lying mummified at her feet. “Take care of that, would you, doggie?”
Katie’s lip curled.
Melissa and Silas laughed as they slipped into the car. Calvin escorted Derek to the passenger’s side and pushed him inside. He blurred to the driver seat, threw me and Katie a sardonic salute, and skidded away on the wet street.
They were gone.
It was a long time before either Katie or I spoke. We stood there quietly, listening to the thud, thud, thud of the club music and the beat of my heart dwindling. Tears flowed fast and hot down my frozen face, and the bitter metal of Derek’s keys cut into my clenched fist as a silent reminder of his departure. At last, Katie turned to me and said, “I have to take care of this.” She indicated the dried-up body of Paula Tourmaline.
I cringed, feeling a few more tears escape. “How long will it take?”
Katie shrugged vacantly. “Hour. Two tops. I have to ah . . . call someone to help. I don’t really know . . .” She trailed off, staring at the body with something close to horror.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “You were acting on instinct. He used her as a shield for God sakes.”
Katie nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced. After a while she said, “I’ll walk you to the car.”
She saw me to the parking lot and kept an eye out as I unlocked Derek’s frosty car with shaking hands. I sat in the driver’s seat and realized, “Heather’s still inside. We can’t leave her.”
“I’ll get her on the way back,” Katie said.
I let out a relieved breath. “Thank you. You’ll come back to my room after ... ?”
“Yeah.” She shifted her weight as she stuck her hand into her pockets. “You’d better call Lucas.”
I felt a stab of dread hit my gut like a sucker punch. “’Kay,” I croaked. “Bye.”
Katie gave me a silent, melancholy wave and watched as I shut the car door and started the ignition. I pulled out of the parking lot, feeling like every inch I drove was one inch farther from Derek. He’d just sacrificed himself to keep me safe. Again.
And, once more, I’d done nothing to stop it.
Dawn took millennia to arrive. I’d called Lucas and told him what happened. He’d offered to alert the pack, but since there was nothing they could do to find Derek without any leads on where the lair might be, I declined. And I’d rather the pack didn’t know Derek was with the vampires. As much as I hated to admit it, their fears about Derek threatening the pack were warranted. He was unimaginably strong, and if he was wooed to the wrong side of the upcoming war, he could potentially tip the scales in favor of the vampires. The werewolves deemed the uprising an impossibility as of now, but throw Derek into the equation? They might take a second look at the situation and realize they weren’t the biggest kids on the block anymore. Derek was. And if he began helping the vampires, we were all screwed.
Katie drifted off to sleep somewhere around four in the morning (she got back well after curfew, and I’d had to sneak downstairs to let her in), so I’d braved the night, and ran across the courtyard to Derek’s room to wait for him in case he came home.
He didn’t.
I sat on the floor next to his door, watching the sunlight from the window near his room creep along the dirty brown carpet. When the light hit my feet, I knew Derek would be gone until nighttime. I stood and went downstairs to Lucas’s room. Lucas wasn’t there yet, so I cuddled into his bed and attempted sleep.
Just as I was beginning to succumb to my eyelids, the door banged open and Lucas came in. I bolted upright, blinking groggily.
He strode across the room and pulled me to him with a rough jerk.
“You okay?” he asked.
I managed to nod.
“Remind me never to leave you alone again,” he said. “That was a dumb thing to do, Faith. Taking a runt around all those people? Knowing there were vampires in the area?”
“I know,” I said. “I screwed up, okay? Again. Big surprise.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just don’t want you getting hurt. I’m just frustrated that you were so careless with your life, when I’m always trying to be so careful with it.”
I couldn’t help but smile at him in thanks. For caring so much. Even if it was in his backward pain-in-the-ass way. Lucas drew back and thumped down on the couch.
“So I guess he didn’t come back?” he asked.
“No. I waited up all night.” I ran my hands through my hair. “If he’s with the vampires now, the pack is going to kill him.”
Lucas nodded slowly.
“He could be murdering girls right now for all I know.”
“Well, not right now,” Lucas drawled. “Right now he’s asleep.”
I threw him a look, to which he crooked a grin.
“What did Rolf say about the uprising?” I asked. “You didn’t tell him Derek might have switched sides, right?”
“Nah.” He propped his legs up on a stack of books. “But he thinks we might be right. Finally. He’s not going public with it, yet, but he’s opening fire on the vampires, like Julian said. And if Derek registers with the vampires, the werewolves will kill him on sight. No questions asked.”
“But—that’s not fair. We don’t know for sure that he switched. What if he’s neutral?”
“Nobody’s neutral. Least of all Derek. If you want me to keep him safe from the pack, then you gotta convince him to stay with us. I can’t do a damn thing if he sides with the leeches.”
“I’ll talk to him if he comes back tonight. I’m sure I’m just overreacting.”
I sighed and joined Lucas on the couch. Just as one problem had been lifted from my shoulders—convincing Rolf to believe us about the uprising—another had been dumped on me. Now I had to keep Derek away from the vampires so the pack wouldn’t “accidentally” murder him.
“The vampires were talking about registering last night,” I said. “What is it?”
Lucas leaned back against the couch, looking exhausted. “Vampires are real formal about things. And the monarchs are the worst.”
“Monarchs?”
“That’s what they call the leader of a brood. They’re basically just the biggest pansies of the group.”
I snorted.
“Anyway,” Lucas said, crooking a grin, too. “A vampire that travels into another’s territory is supposed to greet the monarch of that area and request permission to stay in their lair or whatever. It’s all a bunch of political crap. The monarchs only enforce it so that they can keep track of who they have around to manipulate.”
“Great,” I said. “So now Derek’s going to be on that list?”
“Hopefully he’ll know better than to register.”
I shook my head, staring across the room at one of Lucas’s artworks. The twisted, tortured form of a human body screamed in silent agony, skin wrinkling and folding like a balled-up piece of paper. Blood po
ured over everything. I closed my eyes from the gore, praying silently that Derek came back safe tonight.
14
REPAIR
Unable to sleep, Lucas and I shuffled over to Spoons for breakfast and then met Katie to help her settle into her new apartment just across campus. Afterward, Lucas said he had to meet up with some pack member to discuss “wolf business,” so I decided it was time for me to really try and make amends with Heather since last night had, admittedly, been a complete disaster.
After calling three times, she finally picked up and agreed to meet me in the Oval, which was basically a glorified front lawn with an oval walkway encasing it and gorgeous old elm trees speckling the perimeter. In the fall, the Oval had been colorful and vibrant as the leaves changed to brilliant ambers and rusts, but now the lawn was frozen and barren. The trees were leafless, and the ground—snowless at the moment—was a sad shade of brown. Still, the sun was out and the sky was a spectacular shade of blue, so it was a perfect day for hot lattes on one of the many wooden benches. As I waited for Heather to, hopefully, show up, I watched a couple jogging together along the walkway. It made me miss running, so I decided to drag Lucas out with me later on, no matter how tired I was.
A few minutes passed before I spotted Heather coming toward me from the library, books in her hands and a scowl on her face. When she approached, I stood and offered her the latte from Spoons as though it was a peace offering. She stared at it for a moment and then sighed, placing her books on the bench. She took the cup and sat down.
Score. She was at least going to hear me out.
Not that I knew what to say.
“So what did you want to talk about?” Heather asked, testing the coffee.
“Well, ah . . . first I wanted to apologize for being MIA for the past few weeks. I had some ... family issues going on and I . . .” Derek was pretty much family, so I didn’t consider this a lie.
“Stuff with your dad?” she asked quietly.
I swallowed hard. “No,” I said, keeping my voice measured. I never even spoke to my dad. I’d almost forgotten I’d told Heather about him. It was a testament to how much I trusted her that I ever did.
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