Northern Bites (Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, Vol. 2)

by Jefford, Nikki

  “Do you miss it?” Fane asked softly.

  “Why would I?”

  “Someday you might.” He held the steering wheel, even though we were parked. He kept staring straight ahead. Did he want a picture or something? It was a high school, not a castle.

  Finally, he let go of the wheel and leaned back. “Going to school, hanging out with people, it helps me hold onto my humanity. I’ve seen a lot of my kind lose that. I had my life stolen from me, but I won’t give up my humanity.”

  I tried to think of a response worthy of what he’d just said, but none of my thoughts seemed up to the task, so I remained quiet until the silence got the better of me. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Fane turned to me and smiled. “Auto rehabilitation. We covered step one and step two, but we never made it to step three.”

  Speaking of genuine smiles, it had been so long since I’d truly smiled it made my jaw ache. I covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh my gosh.”

  “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?” Fane asked. “You’ve had plenty of time to practice step one.”

  Step one: Get inside the car.

  Fane smiled when he saw my eyes on his lips. I was already thinking of step two: kissing. “The surest way to get over a car phobia is by creating positive associations,” Fane had told me.

  My heart began thumping against my chest. It took all of my willpower not to wet my lips.

  We’d had some epic makeout sessions in this car. I’d wanted more than kisses. Fane wasn’t the only one who felt like he’d lost his chance.

  “What’s step three?” I asked, hoping my breath was steady.

  Fane shot me a sly grin as though he’d known what I was thinking all along.

  “Step three: drive the car.”

  19

  Memory Lane

  I sat up straight in my seat. “Are you crazy?” The thought of driving still terrified me—as in cold sweats and mass panic.

  Fane turned to me, resting an arm on the steering wheel. “Just around the parking lot. No one’s here, Aurora. And you can go as slow as you want. Five miles per hour if that’s what you’re comfortable with.”

  I stared at the steering wheel. He made it sound so easy. Sweat gathered under my arms and I shivered. “I’m not ready.”

  “The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Take the next step. Joss never got over his death and look how he turned out.”

  My head snapped up. “Are you comparing me to Joss?” Fane’s roommate only happened to be the most sullen vampire I’d ever met. He chuckled in reply.

  I surveyed the parking lot through the windshield. Patches of flattened snow gripped the pavement, but I couldn’t make out any ice. “Fine,” I said, unbuckling my belt. “I can drive from one end of the parking lot to the other if it will make you happy.”

  “It’s not for me,” Fane answered with that same infuriating smile.

  I scooted to the middle seat and shot Fane a pointed look. He grinned and opened the driver’s door. As soon as he stepped out, I settled into his place. He walked around the front of the car. Guess he trusted me enough not to run him over.

  After I clicked my seatbelt in, I heard Fane chuckle again. Ignoring him, I pressed my foot down on the brake. I felt proud of the way I put the car in drive without hesitation. But as soon as I had it in drive, I froze. I pressed my foot firmly on the brake, and I jammed down so hard my leg began to tire. As I reached to put the car back into park, Fane touched my shoulder gently. “Aurora, let go.”

  I took in a deep breath and nodded.

  I returned my right hand to the steering wheel and squeezed. Slowly, I lifted my foot off the brake. It stayed in place, and I laughed with relief.

  Fane chuckled. “She’s a tank, remember? You gotta give her gas.”

  “Uh-huh.” I felt much better. I lowered my right foot slowly to the gas pedal, hovering right above. My heel touched the floor. I rested it there. Much more comfortable. Then slowly, I lowered the ball of my foot to the pedal. I barely touched it the first time. The car didn’t move. I laughed again. Nerves.

  Fane said nothing as I hesitated each time I came close to pressing down. That’s the great thing about vampires. They have all the time in the world.

  I took in another breath and straightened in my seat. Eyes on the parking lot. “All clear. All mine. No one but me. No big deal. Not at all. I can do this. I can totally do this.”

  Fane played the gentleman and didn’t comment as I spoke aloud.

  I stared at the snow bank at the far end of the parking lot. Even if I somehow panicked and pressed down too hard, there would be a nice white mound at the end to cushion the blow. What was there to be afraid of? “Nothing but fear itself,” I whispered.

  I pressed on the gas pedal gently. The car moved forward. I took my foot off the pedal, and it rolled to a stop. A nervous laugh ripped through my lips. Fane remained silent.

  I pressed down again and again, and the car moved forward. I pressed down harder. It wasn’t fast. My eyes were on the pavement, not the speedometer, but we couldn’t have been going over ten miles an hour.

  A sense of exhilaration built inside my chest. I braked gently in front of the snow bank and put the car in park.

  Fane and I sat staring at the wall of snow. I didn’t care about the big grin on my face.

  “See?” Fane said. “Like riding a bike.”

  “Yeah,” I said, a bit breathless. “Well, if I ever need to get to one end of a parking lot to the other I’ll be fine.”

  Fane laughed. “Now that you’ve made it from one end to the other, how about turning her around and making a full circle?”

  I shook my head.

  “No?” I heard Fane ask beside me.

  “That’s enough auto rehabilitation for today.”

  “Very well,” Fane said. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “No.”

  I was staring straight ahead into the snow bank so I didn’t see Fane’s expression, but I could see that he’d turned his head to look at me.

  “You want to give it another go?”

  If only he knew. “I don’t want you to drive me home.”

  The only sound in the car came through the air vents. I kept my eyes forward, feeling suddenly shy. What happened to badass Aurora? The one who straddled Fane on the public bus? The one who pushed him back on the bench of this car and gyrated against his body while slipping him the tongue?

  And what about Fane? Where was the tough talker now? He had to go and ruin things by being nice.

  The silence was unbearable. The sound of my seatbelt when I unclicked it amplified in the quiet of the car. I paused a moment then scooted toward Fane. No turning back. Someone had to take the reins.

  “Aurora.” His voice stopped me.

  “Yes?” I asked innocently. I turned and faced him.

  “Not a good idea.”

  I frowned. “Why not?”

  “You’re a vampire hunter.”

  “I’m not hunting you.”

  “Do you have your knife on you?”

  Did he really expect me to hang out in a house full of vampires without one? “Of course I have my knife on me.”

  Fane stared out the windshield at Denali High with all its interconnecting hallways. “If you can’t trust me, this can’t work.”

  “I don’t trust anyone right now.” I mean, take Melcher. I didn’t trust him one iota. And he wasn’t even a vampire.

  “All the more reason why this is a bad idea.”

  “Then why did you bring me here?” I asked, waving a hand in the direction of my old high school. “Why are you picking up where we left off?”

  “I’m trying to help you move on.”

  I sucked in a breath. Fane might as well have punched me in the chest.

  “What we had was good,” Fane continued. “Let’s not ruin that.”

  Tears slipped down my cheeks. It happened so fast I never felt the moisture gathering in my eyes.

 
Why did my heart have to get all gushy over a vampire? If it broke apart it was my own damn fault. Vampire hunter, Aurora. Vampire hunter, not lover. God, I felt like such a fool.

  I put my face in my hands.

  “Aurora?”

  “Just take me home.” There was no masking the tears in my voice now.

  I heard Fane move towards me then stop, hesitate, and pull back. The car door opened and closed. I took that opportunity to hurry and move over. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Fane when he opened the driver’s door.

  He got inside the car. “If anything happened between us, you know you’d regret it in the morning.”

  I sucked air in through my nose and blinked rapidly. “You’re the one who would regret it, not me, Fane. I’m not the one hung up on vampires. You’re the one with the hang up!” I felt angrier as the words came out. “The moment you found out what really happened to me after my accident you treated me like I had the plague.”

  His lips twitched slightly.

  “You think that’s funny?” I demanded.

  He straightened. Eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing amusing about the plague.”

  Right, probably not the best analogy. It was possible Fane had actually caught the plague and now had to live with it the rest of his life. I wondered what kind of predominant symptoms vampires with the plague displayed. Maybe not the best time to ponder.

  “I’ve never regretted our time together,” I said.

  “Haven’t you?” Fane’s words sounded like ice.

  “When I broke up with you I was confused and scared for your safety.”

  “My safety?” Fane said with disbelief.

  “There’s an entire unit of the government that exists to hunt down and kill people like you.”

  Fane turned to me. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I have someone on the inside to look out for me.”

  I swallowed. “There’s only so much I can do.”

  “At least you don’t want to stake me.” He faced forward again.

  Before I could answer, he put the car in reverse and made a sharp backwards u-turn. We faced the entrance. How many times had I driven out of this lot, happy to have completed another day in so many leading up to graduation?

  The emptiness of the school grounds seeped deep inside me. I would still graduate, only not with my original class. The students at Denali High had felt as familiar to me as family not so long ago. Now I was the new loner girl who had gotten a boy killed. The tears pooled in my eyes again. I blinked rapidly. Better to wait and torture myself with these thoughts later inside my room with a box of tissues by my side. I wasn’t going to humiliate myself in front of Fane twice in one night.

  We drove in silence the rest of the way. As Fane drove up my hill, he half-heartedly asked, “How are things at home?” to be polite. That’s all. I could hear it in his voice.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Good.”

  I figured I’d leap out of the car the moment Fane came to a stop in my driveway, but I didn’t. I sat staring at the dark house the way I’d stared at my old high school. “I asked my mom if I could move into my own apartment.”

  “I can’t imagine she liked that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. In another couple months I can start making my own decisions.” I reached for the door handle.

  Fane stopped me by putting his hand on my thigh. “Aurora.” My heart responded with erratic beats. “It’s not that I don’t want to. Far from it. But deep down I know you’re not ready to cross that line.”

  I pulled my leg away. “Good night, Fane.” I hurried out of the car. I didn’t want to hear another word from his mouth. I focused on reaching the front door.

  Once inside, I went straight to my room, curled into bed fully clothed, and cried myself to sleep.

  20

  Tastings

  Dante finally called late Sunday night. So late I’d already brushed my teeth and gotten into bed to rest up before a full week back at Hell High.

  “Finally,” I said in place of “hello.”

  “I’m back, baby!” Dante said.

  I propped my pillow against the headboard and leaned against it. “Melcher said there was some activity in Fairbanks?”

  “We went panning and came up with gold,” Dante said with barely contained excitement.

  “Did it have anything to do with the death of Crist or Mike?”

  “Melcher said you all solved that,” he said. His voice dropped an octave. “I loved your last text, by the way. Almost as much as the other ones. Humor is highly undervalued in our line of work.”

  So he thought I was joking, did he? “I wasn’t kidding.”

  “Really?” Dante didn’t sound alarmed in the least.

  “Yeah, really. Jared tried to kill Valerie and me, and now she’s taken off.”

  The line was silent a moment before Dante said, “I bet she tries for France. She’s got that French chic thing going on.”

  Not to mention the attitude. “Hopefully when the agents catch up to her they’ll be as lenient as they were with you.”

  Dante had once split for Amsterdam. Lucky for him, the agents gave him a second chance to prove himself, otherwise he might be stuck working in some underground lab. I couldn’t picture Valerie confined like that any more than Dante.

  “So cool, Jared’s a bloodsucker. Must be Melcher’s secret weapon. Did he show you his fangs?”

  I’d almost forgotten how nearly impossible it was to have a serious conversation with Dante.

  “What made him go after you and Red? Did he skip a meal? Get hungry?”

  “I don’t know. He’s denying it, of course.” I sighed. “Things just sorta spiraled out of control.”

  “That’s field work for you.” Dante chuckled. “Well, I’m glad you made it back in one piece.”

  I rested my cheek against my shoulder and suppressed a yawn. “Me too. I’m glad you made it back, too. So you struck gold?” I didn’t want to talk about Jared anymore. Not right before bed and not over the phone. This was a conversation Dante and I need to have face-to-face.

  The excitement returned to his voice.

  “If only you’d been there, Sky! We started out taking tabs on this dude, Buck, who was at that party you went to. Melcher’s like ‘This is a stakeout, no engaging with the enemy.’” Dante stopped to chuckle. “Anyway, we accidently bumped into Buck. He and Noel had their “Oh wow, what a coincidence running into you here” moment and next thing you know we’re drinking brewskis together, chilling.”

  So while Valerie and I were being terrorized in Sitka, Noel and Dante were sitting back drinking beers in Fairbanks? Damn, why did I always have to draw the short end of the stick?

  “That’s only the beginning,” Dante said, voice dropping. “So Buck’s this good looking dude with an even better looking girlfriend—human. They start telling us how Nicole, the girlfriend, makes the big bucks working these ritzy vamp parties. Tastings, they call them.”

  I scooted up in my bed. “Tastings?”

  “Tastings,” he repeated. “Upscale shindigs for fancy pants vampires who like their blood laced with fine wine.”

  I shivered and pulled the covers up to my neck. “That sounds fucked up.”

  Dante laughed. “And I didn’t even have on my lucky bear claw. You still have it, right?”

  “Right here in my nightstand.”

  “You should keep it.”

  “What?” I sat up straighter. It wasn’t exactly a sapphire necklace, but it still felt a little too much like a boyfriend gift.

  “I want you to have the claw. I don’t need luck charms. I attract luck all on my own.”

  “Oh boy,” I said, and laughed. “It’s a nice gesture, Dante, but you earned it, not me.” I cleared my throat. “So you were telling me about tastings.”

  “Right, tastings. There’s this master organizer who sets these things up all around the state. It’s more of a winter and fall thing. Buck said we lucked out because it w
as the last one of the season.”

  “Lucky you,” I said, rolling my eyes even though Dante couldn’t see.

  “What did I tell you?”

  “Let me guess? You attended the party.”

  “We did.” His voice was filled with smug satisfaction.

  “Just like that? You show up in town and they roll out the red carpet for a couple of curious humans who just happen to be passing through?”

  “I didn’t go as a human,” Dante said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I went as a vampire.”

  “Say what?”

  “It was Harper’s idea from the very beginning when we first approached Buck. I posed as her vampire boyfriend.”

  A big burst of air rose in my chest. It came out of my mouth as one big gasp of a laugh. Better to laugh myself to sleep tonight than cry. “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Harper ain’t squeamish. I’ll tell you that much.”

  Harper? Dante’s use of Noel’s family name meant she’d earned his respect.

  “And they bought it?” I asked.

  “Well, I mean, I had to do some biting.”

  “Dante!” I gasped.

  “Hey, I was undercover. My hands were tied.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And I’m sure you didn’t enjoy it in the least.”

  “Don’t be jealous, Sky. You know I only have eyes and teeth for you.”

  A chill went through me. “That’s not funny.”

  “Come on, what did I tell you about humor being a key ingredient to this job?”

  Right, humor and blood. Funny how Dante had brushed off my question of blood cravings and here he was biting people.

  “Anyway, we attended the party, and I got on the list.”

  “The list?”

  “I’ll be receiving invites starting this fall to tastings around the state.” Dante pumped his fist in the air. “Can you believe that, Sky? You should have seen Melcher’s eyes light up. Damn! I should have asked for a promotion.”

  “Congratulations,” I said sarcastically. “I’m glad you’ll have something to keep you busy. I plan on starting college this fall.”

  “This won’t get in the way of school,” Dante replied.