Alana gave a quiet little clap, and Ryan turned his head to wink at me.
I bowed. I knew Mike well enough to know exactly how to push his buttons. My plan was brilliant.
“I’ve been a dick,” Mike said as he stood back.
“Yes.” Emily smiled, wiping her face. “You really have.”
“How can I ever make it up to you?”
She shook her head. “Just treat me like a human being.”
Mike nodded. “Consider it done.”
Emily and Mike melted together then, and it seemed they stayed that way for the entire night.
The hours of dancing and laughing, playing piano versions of songs we all enjoyed in the soft light of nearly a hundred candles passed quickly, and after saying goodbye to Ryan and Alana, David and I laid on my bed, still fully clothed, our eyes on the roof, absently running circles over each other’s palms. When David stopped humming the tunes of the night, I took over, offering a sweet song that popped into my head.
“Where did you hear that?” I couldn’t see his face, but the tone of his voice held utter confusion.
“In a dream, I think.”
“Do you know what that song is?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes. It’s a vampire song. One written a long time ago.”
“Where did I hear it, then?”
“I don’t know,” David mused in a deliberately dull tone.
With a stretch and a slight yawn, I rolled onto my stomach. He was an expert at displaying indifference; the only real way to tell if something troubled him was to look at his morbidly furrowed brow—that’s where the truth sat. But his gaze was on the ceiling, his face giving no clues.
I studied the curve of his jaw, the way it held strongly under his golden skin, with a certain set that always made him look slightly amused, even when he was angry. Until a pair of shocking green eyes suddenly focused on me, making my heart skip.
“What?” he asked, leaning up on his elbow.
I caught my breath, smiling. “You’re beautiful, David.”
He laughed, relaxing back. “As are you, my love.”
“And…” I watched his eyes carefully. “Emily looked nice tonight, didn’t she?”
He shrugged noncommittally.
“Didn’t you think so?” I pressed.
He sighed and turned his head, an accusatory glare hiding in his eyes. “Get to the point.”
“What point?” I laid on my back and released his hand.
He groaned. “I don’t have feelings for her, Ara.”
“Coulda fooled me. You hold her like you do, talk to her like you do, laugh with her, have fun with her—”
“Ara. Stop this. It’s ridiculous.” He sat up a little.
“What is?”
“This jealousy. Emily’s my friend, okay. She always has been, always will be.”
“Yeah, for eternity now.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. So you can’t be mad at me for it.” He flopped back, his tone dry and flat.
I toyed with the frill on my pillowcase, keeping my gaze on the roof. “Will you take her with you when you go?”
“No. She has no choice, Ara. She has to join a Set, or risk being hunted down.”
“What?” I sat up on my elbows.
“You know that. It’s the law.”
“Can’t she stay with you?”
He shook his head. “I won’t allow it. Due to my choices, I face prison and torture if they catch me. I won’t commit Emily to that. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.”
“But they don’t know she exists. Can’t she just keep it that way?”
“Jason knows.”
“Will he tell?”
David shrugged. “If he does, she will automatically be imprisoned for not reporting.”
“Well, can’t you ask him not to tell?”
“And how am I going to do that, Ara?” he said in a short tone. “Waltz into vampire headquarters and say Hey, bro, got a sec?. You don’t think before you speak, do you?”
I glared at him. “What is your problem tonight?”
His jaw stiffened. “I just. You make me mad with all this Emily business. Don’t you get it? She means nothing to me—not in that way. Never has. Never will.”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll drop the Emily thing.” I fisted the mattress once then plonked down on my side, my elbow under my face. “But does she really have to go away—to be with the vamps?”
“This is the way of things, Ara. You just have to live with it.”
“When are you going to tell her?”
“When I leave.”
“She won’t like it.”
“And yet she will go, because it’s the law.”
“You don’t follow the law.”
“I—” I bet he wanted to say I always do, but that was no longer true. “I’m not having this discussion tonight,” he finished.
I smiled widely, unable to hold it back.
“What?” he said.
“You’re grumpy when you’re tired.”
He rolled over to face me, smiling. “And you, my girl, are annoying all the time.”
“But you still love me, right?”
He grunted, rolling onto his back.
“David?”
“What?” he said with a hint of lingering impatience.
“I love you.”
He just breathed out and said nothing else.
* * *
My computer screen flashed a reminder of a date I’d pinned in last week: the imaginary make-David-jealous one I was supposed to have with Eric. I grabbed my phone, texted him—Hey, Eric. Wanna catch up tonight—and waltzed out to tell David I’d be leaving in ten minutes.
“Hey, Ara.” Emily passed me in the hall as I came out from my bedroom.
“Hey, where’re you off to?” I asked.
She scratched her nose and motioned down at her black attire.
“Em, you don’t need to dress like a thug to go hunting.”
“I know, I just… I feel like a criminal.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are.”
She walked off in a huff and slammed the front door behind her. I wandered into the music room and found my vampire sitting alone, watching the evening sky with a thoughtful gaze, his ankle over his knee, his skin glowing in the golden light.
“Hey,” I said, sliding over the edge of the sofa and into David’s lap. “Why don’t you hunt with Emily anymore?”
“Because you asked me not to.”
“I only asked if you could just not kill, David. I didn’t say you couldn’t go with her, keep an eye on her. And I didn’t say you couldn’t—”
“It’s too hard for me to resist.” He swallowed hard.
“Oh. Do you need some blood now? I got spare.” I held up my wrist, but he knocked it away, rising to his feet and leaving me falling onto the couch where his lap had been. “Whoa.” I sat up. “David, what’s wrong?”
He inhaled sharply, shaking his head. “I’m not coping, Ara.”
“Not coping with what?”
“I love you, you know I love you, and I love your blood, but it’s”—his fist tightened—“it’s not enough. I need the kill. I need the bite.”
I jumped up and placed a reassuring hand to his arm. “But you bite me, I—”
“Not with my fangs, and I can’t kill you.”
“David?” I darted away from him, stealing the edge of the piano as a perch to lean on. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Why not, Ara?” He thrust his hands out defensively. “I’m a vampire, and so far, with all this human company I’m keeping, I haven’t been acting like one.”
“You drink blood.”
He stepped closer, holding me in place with a firm grasp on my arms. “It’s not the blood I need, Ara, it’s the kill, the bite. I crave it—”
“David stop!” I looked away from him, brushing my bangs from my lip. “I can’t listen to you talk like that.”
A s
udden, unnerving silence forced me to look back up. His eyes became dark and intense, his jaw stiff. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re never going to get it.”
“Get what? That you enjoy murder, that you enjoy taking lives?”
“Yes!” he said. “That’s exactly what I enjoy, Ara, and do you know why?”
I didn’t answer.
“Because I’m a vampire.” His eyes widened, sarcasm festering in the fake smile. “I need the kill. I need the bite.”
“Stop saying that!” I pushed his hands off me and took a step back. “If that’s how you feel, then—”
“Then what, Ara?” He rolled his shoulders back, making his spine straight. “What? You want me to leave? You want me to choose between you and my nature? I can’t do that. I shouldn’t have to do that.”
“I’m not asking you to, I—”
“You accepted me. You wanted me to stay, now you want me to change?”
“No. I accepted you as a murderer because there was no other way. But there is now. You can survive on this.” I held my wrist out. “You don’t need to kill.”
“Yes. I do, Ara. Don’t you see?” He pushed my wrist down. “It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. The urge, it gets stronger every minute. I can’t fight it. It’s taking over.”
The world became winter all around—the floor, the air, my lips—everything grew cold. David stood before me, the two of us trapped in a moment of awareness.
“I don’t want you to kill, David. I couldn’t take it if you were to go out there right now and… I don’t want to look at you when you get home, knowing you just took a life.” I sat on the couch, staring into the emptiness of my own fears. “I can’t do that.”
“Then you can’t be with a vampire.”
My head fell in my hands. How had it come to this? I thought we were past this. “I’m sorry, David, but I—” When I looked up, he was gone. “David!” I got to my feet quickly, panic rising in me like vomit. “David!”
The sudden emptiness in the room felt like the death of a friend. I sunk down to the floor, hugging my knees. What have I done?
“Ara?” Mike knelt beside me. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“He… he left. He just left me here.”
“Who?”
“David.” I felt the anger rise then. “How could he just leave like that? I didn’t even get to finish what I was saying.”
“What happened, did you have a fight?”
“He’s gone to kill. I can’t bear it. I just can’t bear it that he’s out there right now taking a life, for the thrill, for the goddamn lust.” My shoulders hunched and I lost my voice to tears. “He was so cold to me…”
“Amara?” Eric appeared out of nowhere, pulling me in my ball-sized heap onto his lap. “What happened, beautiful girl?”
Mike stood up and said “This is your field, mate” then walked away.
Eric looked down at me, smoothing the tears that had fallen onto my thighs and slipped down just past the rim of my jeans skirt. “Tell me why you’re crying. I’ll make it all better.”
“It’s Da—” I sobbed. “David. He’s…”
“He’s what? What did he do?”
“He’s gone to kill. He—we had a fight. He left—he’s gone to kill.”
“Amara?” Eric laughed once, his brow pinching in the middle. “What’s wrong with that? He’s a vampire.”
“He’s been drinking my blood. I thought the killing was over, that maybe he could—”
“Oh, no, no, no, Princess.” He tucked me into his chest, resting his cheek to my brow. “Amara, it’s never over. Never. It’s what he is, girl. He has to kill. You know that.”
“No, he’s been fine. He hasn’t needed it.”
“Ha! I’m telling you now, there is no way he’s been fine. Trust me.” He wiped another trail of tears from my leg. “If he’s been fine, it’s because he’s been pretending, for you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Amara, he’ll never be free of it. It’s a curse. You can’t just turn it off. It’s not like a drink of water, where it quenches your thirst if you buy the bottled stuff. He would’ve been in agony, agitated, probably moody and disconnected, just trying to control the desire.”
Come to think of it, he had been a little distant and snappy lately. “But he had blood, so…”
Eric shook his head. “It’s not the blood; it’s the bite, the death. We crave that too, kiddo.”
“But?”
“But what? You thought we were all good—deep inside.” He rolled his head back and laughed. “No such thing. He’s as much a vampire as any bloodsucker. You’re being unfair by placing that pressure on him.”
“Pressure? To stop murdering people?”
Eric just shook his head and stood us both up, taking my hand. “Come on, you need to see something.”
* * *
I was accustomed to Eric taking me to tremendously unsuitable places, but this was going a little too far. I tucked my hands under my elbows and wandered behind him through the thick crowd of sweaty bodies, all layered in skimpy, glittery fabrics—arms raised as if to hold the roof up, their glossy skin turning white and blue intermittently under the strobe.
The room was so packed I felt like a sock in a washing machine, shoved and tossed about, jostled by ribs and elbows and other body parts I’d never planned to have touch me.
“C’mon.” Eric reached back, impatient, and grabbed my hand.
“Why did you bring me here?” I had to shout over the impossibly loud music, causing an artificial beat in my heart. “What is this place, anyway?”
“A vampire hang-out.”
“But they’re all human.” The sweat and smudged mascara was a dead giveaway.
“Precisely. It’s a blood rave,” he called over his shoulder, our arms working as a chain to keep us together. We weaved through the middle of the dance floor—not the route I’d have taken— and came out on the edge.
“What the hell is a blood rave?”
With his arms folded, his eyes on the mass of dancing bodies, he smiled. “It’s where vampires go to feed.”
I felt cold then, despite the heat rising up from the humans and settling in a thick, moist cloud all around the edge of the room. “Is it like Karnivale, where they just attack at midnight?”
“No. And that’s why I brought you here.” Eric looked annoyingly perfect, even under the strobe that made me pale. He didn’t even have one drop of sweat on him. I was sure half mine belonged to other people.
“Okay, so why do I need to come to a club where they don’t kill people at midnight?”
“I want you to see what it looks like.”
“Well, it’s very…” I considered the space: square, with a balcony wrapping all the way around, seedy things happening in the darkness beneath, ignorance occurring on the packed floor at the center. “It’s very nice. Now, can we go?”
“It’s not the club I wanted you to see, Amara.” He took my wrist. “It’s the kill.”
“What?” I stood a little taller, looking around with wide eyes.
“You saw that girl at Karnivale, right?”
“Yes, and I don’t need to see any more.”
“But you didn’t see her die.”
“I don’t need to.” My voice shook, arms flooding with lead.
“It’s not so much the death I want you to see.” He looked up at the balcony. “Come on, we can see better up there.”
“No!” I drove the force of my wrist down and slipped it out between his thumb and finger, breaking free. “I don’t want to see this, Eric.”
“You need to, kiddo. You need to see what it does to us—how the kill affects us.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“I promise, just watch for one minute, then I’ll take you home—or maybe on a real date, like a movie or something.”
“No, Eric. Please. Humans aren’t like vampires. This stuff causes psychological damage, and I’m alr
eady pretty mess—”
“You’re fine, Amara.” He grabbed my wrist again. “You’ll be fine.”
I tugged, trying to break loose again, but he was all-too conscious of my methods now, and merely held tighter. “Please let me go.”
“No. If you want to hang out with us, you need to understand us,” he stated calmly, talking loud enough for my human ears to hear him over the electronic music.
“Eric. Please. I don’t want to see this.” My panicked voice broke against the tears, but he dragged me along through the mess of heated bodies and barely-covered limbs until we reached the top of the stairs. No one even looked up to the fact that I was crying and struggling against this man who was bigger and stronger than me.
“Sit.” He pushed me into a chair and sat beside me.
“Why are we sitting here?”
“Just watch.” He dropped his hands into his lap and sat back, smiling.
The balcony had cleared, the people rallying in the slums below, almost as if they knew something we didn’t. I felt out of place, like I’d entered the wrong room, and a wave of fear rose in me then, settling in my feet as determination.
“No—I’m outta here.”
Eric grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the chair. “Sit,” he ordered in the harshest tone ever.
Swallowing, I folded my arms, making myself smaller.
“I don’t mean to be cruel, Amara, but I’m tired of playing these games with you.” He nodded to the dance floor. “It’s time you got a reality check.”
“Okay. It’s real. I get it.”
“Just humor me, please? Just stay for five minutes, then I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“No deal. Take me home now,” I demanded. He went to shake his head at me, looking up quickly when I added, “Jerk.”
“You can say what you want about me, Amara. But I’m trying to save the last few weeks of your relationship with my Council leader. If you keep this up, he will have to leave.”
“You think he’d really leave because I won’t let him kill?”
“Yes. If you think for a second that anything outranks our primal needs, you’re delusional, girl. It’ll start with lies, then he’ll just start coming back from ‘walks’ a little later than usual. Eventually, the pain of being without the bite, the kill, will be worse than being without you, and he’ll leave.”
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 102
