Taste For Blood: Pour (Nephil-Vamp Series Book 2)

by Jenna Bernel

  "Can I make you some tea?" he offered, and I nodded absentmindedly. I was still in shock as I stared at the flickering light in the fire, while thinking of the dark power I saw in Roman, my maker's eyes.

  Alec disappeared into the kitchen, and the sound of porcelain cups clacking together were the only evidence that he was preparing the tea. I thought of how it felt to be with him in the dream. It was just as powerful and passionate as our first kiss, but something even deeper began growing after our embrace. Now sitting here, I felt the same walls building between us again. I still couldn't understand why I only felt like myself when I was sleeping.

  Alec returned, holding a small, antique teacup with matching saucer and carefully handed it to me. I unburied my arms from the blankets encasing me and accepted the tea. The cup shook on its little saucer as I held it, since I could not control the tremor in my hands, which I doubted was coming from the cold. I took a sip of the liquid warmth, which smelled of soothing lavender. It lubricated my dry throat just enough to give me the strength to speak.

  "What's going on? What was that?" I asked. Alec cautiously sat down beside me as he formulated an answer.

  "That was technically your dream," Alec said, hesitantly.

  "But it felt so real." I shook my head trying to comprehend, and opened my mouth to speak, but stopped short when I noticed the curve of his lips. It wasn't a dream. Those lips were pressed on mine, and I knew it. I felt slightly resentful, and suddenly angry that we shared a kiss, many in fact, which was something I swore we'd never do again.

  "It was real, Dani. In every way, but physically, it was real," Alec explained with a small smile. He was having difficulty masking his delight over our unexpected embrace.

  "How?" I asked, taking another sip of the warm tea and ignoring the heat growing between us. I set the cup down on the coffee table and turned on the couch to face Alec, eyeing him seriously.

  "It's one of our Gifts," Alec continued. His smile all but vanished, and he rested his hand on my knee. Even though there were inches of blanket between my knee and his hand, I still looked at his hand like he'd better move it before I chopped it off. He retracted it, and I was able to think clearly again about what he just said.

  "Entering people's dreams is a vamp Gift? I've never heard of it. And why is it just surfacing now?" I said, the confusion returning to my face.

  "That's because it's not a vamp Gift, Dani, and you don't know how to Cloud Crash yet, so there's no way that you could know you have it. If Roman hadn't kept showing up in your dreams, I wouldn't have invaded your privacy like that," Alec said, biting his lip like he doubted whether he should have elaborated.

  I squinted at him like he was crazy, "What? It even has a name? Cloud Crash? What other Gift could it be, if not vamp?"

  "I'm feeling torn. I want to tell you, but at the same time, that would go against your wishes of revealing information you don't want to hear until we get Eli back," Alec said, combing his fingers through his hair.

  "I'll never sleep again if I don't know what this Cloud Crashing Gift is, so you might as well say it," I grumbled.

  "Dani, entering the subconscious of someone else’s dream and turning the dream into a conscious exchange is a special Gift. We can talk and touch, even feel the sensations of what is happening as if you were wide awake. Cloud Crashing is a Gift that Nephilim are born with, and barring the exception of Roman, it’s a Gift that can only be used with other Nephilim," Alec swallowed, nervously awaiting my reaction.

  "Wait! Nephilim, as in angel?" I asked, thinking I must have heard him wrong.

  "Yes…" Alec said slowly, darting his eyes over my face as he waited for it to sink in.

  "What are you saying?" I couldn't wrap my brain around it; Nephilim weren't real. I would have heard about them in The Basement. I would have known if half-angels were walking around Earth!

  "I'm saying that you are a Nephil-vamp, Dani. The perfect equilibrium of the light and dark species who exist on Earth to keep the Balance of the spiritual realms," Alec said gently; and suddenly, I couldn't breathe.

  "But… it's not… no," I said, standing up to leave. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be true.

  "Yes, Daniella. You don't turn vampires back to human with your blood. You turn them into Nephilim. You give the Gift of life, and I give the Gift of light. We were born to restore the Balance," Alec stood up, about to continue his speech, and I stepped back.

  "I don't want to hear this. You're lying!" I was shaking again, retreating further from him until my back hit the wall.

  "I can't keep protecting you from the truth. You heard Roman. He is going to make you face the music one way or another. Please sit down." Alec gestured to the couch, talking to me like I was a jumper standing on the roof of a skyscraper. I closed my eyes and vigorously shook my head as my denial took over. I tried to slow my heart rate, and turn vamp, but I felt the warmth of Alec's body radiating over me when he approached, sending it into warp speed.

  "Dani, stop! Roman is right. You have been spending too much time in your vamp form. Look at me!" Alec pleaded, but I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter. Finally, slowing my breathing, I called on my blood.

  "Dani, no!" Alec shouted, grabbing my arms, but it was too late. I whipped my eyes open the moment my heart ticked to a stop, and shoved Alec clear across the room.

  "Get away from me!" I hissed, running for the door. I slowly turned to face him in the entry hall. He followed right behind me, disobeying my command. He looked angry and fed up, but so was I.

  "And I better not see you in my dreams," I warned him as I threw the door open, bolting down the steps and back to my house.

  I quickly reached my backyard and climbed up the lattice beside the balcony, finally feeling safe again when I entered my room. I leaned up against the cold glass of the French door and closed my eyes. Sliding down to the ground, I cradled my head in my hands as I tried to understand what was happening.

  I couldn't hold on. The panic was sweeping over me as I recapped the details of what Alec revealed. I stopped trying to hold back. Letting my emotions go, a shockwave restarted my heart, and I sucked in a sharp breath when it pounded back to life. With my hands out in front of me, I saw that the cuts from the tree branches were already healed on my arms. I examined them as if they didn't belong to me, circling my finger over the invisible dots where Roman's venomous bite would have been.

  What I thought was my human state was just another lie! I was Nephilim? I could turn vamps into Nephilim? That was what a mere taste of my blood could do? I shook my head in disbelief. It couldn’t be possible.

  The memory of Henry suddenly popped into my head, watching him run the track at a car's speed, leaping over the fence that no human could possibly clear. After I turned them back, they could still run fast, heal almost instantly, easily read a small sign from blocks away, catch a hundred-mile-an-hour fast ball with their bare hands, and some, like Eli, retained specialty Gifts, like Trancing. None of those things were very human, but I always just assumed it was residual power from being vampire. Why me? I was born to restore whatever Alec called “the Balance?” What the hell was that?

  I tilted my head against the door, watching the light from the moon cast shadows on my bedroom ceiling. I was right. I wasn’t ready to hear the answers to my questions.

  It was too much to endure. I could tell Alec had so much more to say, but I didn't want to know. The news was already distracting me, and all of my focus had to remain on Eli's rescue. I shuddered, knowing I probably just barely scratched the surface of the truth. I clung to the human part of me, thinking it was the only thing that retained my connection to my family and friends. Now I was a Nephil-vamp, with no place to call home. I crawled across the floor and back into bed, burrowing deeply under the covers, but I already knew sleep would elude me tonight. Just the knowledge of who might find me in my dreams made me sure I'd probably never sleep well again.

  Chapter 8: In the Glimmer

  I buttoned
my wool coat when I exited the train, although the wind still cut through me with forcible vengeance. I grabbed a cab and instructed the driver to take me somewhere I hadn't gone since Eli left. I decided to skip school, texting Kate that I planned to go dress shopping for Homecoming in the city instead.

  I called Grandma Ulla this morning and asked her to call me in, so I wouldn't catch hell from my dad or Missy-Bitchy when I got home. She was obviously hesitant, but after some begging, and convincing her I needed some time to myself to think things through, as she suggested, she agreed to do it. I didn't tell her what Alec said, and the new Nephilim revelation, or the Cloud Crashing Gift. She was already on his side and would probably have personally driven me to his house and dragged me in there, handcuffing me to a chair until Alec could tell me the entire story of my life. I remained quite skeptical that it was a predestined script that was never under my own control.

  I'm sure there are worse things in the world than being told you are part angel, but I just couldn't believe it. Nothing about me seemed angelic. I couldn't fly. I talked back to my parents, and seemed incapable of forgiveness. That, in a nutshell, was the opposite of what I imagined a true Nephilim would be. But what really bothered me was the idea that I never had any control over my own life. That's the worst thing you could tell to a control freak: that every moment since the day I was born was all a part of some mystical plan, which I would not be privy to until it all came crashing down around me.

  The driver pulled up to the building, and I paid him in cash, to avoid leaving a trail. I quickly ran into the Post Office, escaping the whipping wind, and picked up the mail from the anonymous box Eli and I previously set up. I hadn't been back there since everything went down. When I turned the key, a catalog popped out of its crumpled position, falling to the ground. I tucked it under my arm, along with the rest of the junk mail to throw away.

  I saw the familiar envelope with a gold seal sitting toward the back. There were two of them in there, since I missed last week at The Basement. I tucked the envelopes in my purse and trashed the rest on my way out to Eli's place, which was just down the block.

  When I reached the building, I looked up at the high-rise and cinched my coat further around my neck, since I was still not completely thawed out from standing in the glacial water of Lake Michigan last night. I wanted to be in vamp form before going inside, but it seemed like the darkness was also making it harder to control my natural vamp instincts. At home, in my room, was one thing, but I didn't know if I trusted myself in the middle of the bustling city anymore. I might actually be tempted to lure a stranger into a deserted alley. My stomach turned at the thought, and I wondered if it was too late to be the person I once was, or at least, a better one than this.

  When I looked up at the sky, there was a distinct blanket of gloom stifling the sun's light, making it feel much later in the day than it actually was. My eyes traveled down the side of the building until they landed on the window I pushed Alec out of, now fully repaired. After that night, the last night I was in Eli's apartment, and frantically searching for him in vain, Alec Tranced a cover story, and the whole thing was staged as a robbery. Alec said that he was Eli's assistant and would take care of everything since his "boss" was out of the country on business. Oh, how I wished that were true.

  I plucked out the first key on the ring of many that it took to enter Eli's luxury building. Three keys and a pin pad access code later, I arrived inside his apartment. Before going to the lab, which I knew would be difficult, I felt compelled to soak up the warmth of his faint presence that still lingered here. I clung to it, needing him more than ever in the midst of all this confusion, which felt like I was about to completely slip over the edge.

  I walked to the window that I shattered, and ran my hand over the cold pane of glass overlooking the city. I sat down on the couch. The whole place had a masculine, but neutral décor, that was so Eli. Hugging a charcoal suede pillow into my chest, I took some deep breaths of his scent: cherries and blood oranges, which had all but evaporated from the air.

  I thought about what he said when we met in The Basement over a year ago. He told me he was searching for me. I always thought that it was just vamp chat, but now, I wasn't so sure. I wondered how Eli fitted into all of this, and if he knew all along what I was. Had he purposefully sought me out, knowing I could turn him Nephilim? I didn't believe he would keep something like that from me; but now, there was a sense of self-doubt and distrust in everything around me. I stood up, adamantly refusing to go down that road, and even consider that possibility about my own partner.

  I went to the lab, and hesitated a moment before turning the knob. I sighed sadly when I finally stepped inside. It was practically empty, just a small desk with no more files, and a stainless steel table with no vamps to save. I went to the desk and started rifling through the drawers, searching for the black light pen. I clicked off the light when I found it and dug out the envelopes with the gold seals. After a number of times at The Basement, you could set up a sort of account whereby they sent you the tokens directly.

  I sliced open the first one, shining the black light over the back of the maroon token with our signature, ten-pointed black star on the other side. The date that went with the address was for last weekend, so I tossed it aside and ripped open the second envelope. I smiled when I shined the black light over the token with the glowing ink, illuminating a location for this weekend's Basement gathering.

  I wasn't going to sit back and wait for Alec to do something, I was sick of waiting. I planned to take matters into my own hands. I popped the token into my purse and exited the lab, taking one last look around before I left. I may have been shutting the door, but I never gave up hope that Eli and I would be in this room together again.

  *****

  Mindlessly thumbing through the clothing racks, I formulated a plan in my head. I couldn't just go to The Basement and start asking vamps if they knew anything about Nephilim, or where I could find Stella. I walked out of the store, having little luck finding a dress for Homecoming. I continued down the street when a bridal shop caught my eye. The dresses in the display window were unusual, but stunning, and I wondered if they had other formal wear just as unique.

  "Hello, how are you this afternoon?" a woman at a small desk, which doubled as a counter, came around and greeted me.

  "Hello, I'm fine, thank you," I replied. She looked very sophisticated and put together, which normally wouldn't bother me, but I felt like a bit of a mess since I was sure the cold wind must have done a number on my hair. She eyed me hesitantly, like I didn't quite belong in here, which only fueled my self-consciousness, although it was something I wasn't used to. Maybe I was just carrying myself differently now too, a lone Nephilim by day, who felt like an invader of the humans and their turf by stepping foot in here. Now that I thought of it, however, Alec made it seem like there were more Nephilim roaming the Earth than just us halfsies.

  "Is there something I can help you find?" the woman asked as she approached. Her voice was slightly cold like she wanted me out of here. Clearly, I was too young to be wedding dress-shopping and she didn't want me touching her haute couture gowns just for fun.

  "Maybe, I'm looking for a Homecoming dress, and your beautiful wedding gowns caught my eye. Do you carry other formal wear?" I asked, seeing nothing but white gowns on every wall. She laughed with a light playfulness at my question.

  "Skipping school to dress shop. You remind me of myself at your age," she said sweetly, warming up to me now that she knew I was a legitimate customer. I smiled with a small innocent shrug, and she gestured for me to follow her.

  "What school do you go to?" she asked as I walked behind her, up a narrow staircase that showed the historic age of the small building.

  "Mapleton Prep," I answered, and she stopped on the steps with her hand on the knob of the door.

  "Well, then, we're really going to have some fun," she said, pushing the door open for dramatic effect. I smiled, trying t
o pretend her comment didn't bother me, and hoped she wouldn't try to sell me half her store now that she knew I went to an overpriced private school in the most expensive suburb of Chicago. Maybe I should've lied.

  The room was just as small as the downstairs, but it was like standing in a rainbow, instead of a wedding cake. The gowns all looked like they each had a unique personality, with all sorts of different beading and dying techniques in an array of colors. They were stunning.

  "These are gorgeous. Did you design them yourself?" I asked, since they were all clearly couture.

  "Designed, and sewn all by hand, and all by me," she said proudly, dusting her hand over one of the dresses.

  "They're all so amazing. I don't know where to start," I said, turning in a circle.

  "When is the dance?" she asked.

  "Saturday," I said, bringing my eyes back to hers in time to see her face scrunch up.

  "Oooh, that won't leave any time for alterations. Stick to this wall. They're all size four," she said, gesturing to the back wall, more like it was a statement of my size, not a guess.

  "You're good," I complimented her, since she was exactly right, and she winked at me.

  "Here, this one's lovely. Why don't you start with this?" she suggested, pulling a light pink gown from the hanger. Pretty, but still, it was pink. Apparently, despite how good she was at guessing your size, matching your personality to the dress was something she definitely hadn't mastered yet. I took it anyway since they were her creations, and I didn't want to offend her. It would’ve been like someone sending back a plate of my food, not cool.

  I tried to look excited when I went into the dressing room, but this was all just for show. I zipped up and stepped out and onto the little stand with the three-sided mirror.