The Zoey Chronicles: The Complete Collection (Vol. 1-4)

by Gray, Sophia

  “It’s hard to explain,” he said. He looked past me, over at the trees. “It would be like betraying your father.”

  “No,” I said, kissing his neck. He didn’t push me away, but neither did he respond. He stood as still as a statue. I stopped after only a few kisses, feeling foolish. “It wouldn’t be a betrayal. If we both want to do it, and we both know we’d enjoy it, then what’s the problem? You’re not going to say that you’d hurt me or anything as cheesy as that, are you?”

  He smiled at that. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I can control myself. It’s just . . . oh, screw it.” He lurched forward and kissed me.

  Once again my body filled with warmth and tingled, and I was too caught up in our pleasure to ask him why he had suddenly changed his mind. This time he wasted no time and he undressed me in a matter of seconds.

  I tore his top off and started to kiss his chest. His muscles were hard under my lips and I could taste his sweat, and it’s then that I realised that my teeth were aching almost as strongly as other parts of my body. I looked up at him and bared my teeth, and he nodded eagerly.

  I smiled and sunk them into his flesh. It was hard, because his chest was rock-hard with muscle, but eventually they punctured him. His blood flowed into me instantly. I sucked hard, feeling my body fill with pleasure and desire as his chest hardened in my mouth.

  The blood came in slow pulses and each swallow made me feel strong and brought new waves of pleasure. My breasts were aching and so was the rest of me. After a while he pushed me onto my back and pulled his trousers down. I opened my legs, staring at him. I was a little scared and nervous, but mostly I just wanted it to happen.

  It was my first time, and it was incredible.

  As the weeks turned into months, my life became a blissful dream.

  I spent my days learning how to be a proper vampire. Galahad taught me how to hunt different kinds of animals. He showed me how he climbed the high trees and waited for birds to pass, and then launched himself through the air at them. He showed me how to sneak up on rabbits and squirrels, and how to fight foxes. He even killed a bear.

  We also had restraint lessons. These were because vampires had to limit the number of humans they killed and fed on to one per town per year. When he’d first told me, I’d been disgusted. How could they kill any humans at all? But then he said that if the Council of the Undead didn’t let vampires kill at least some humans, then they’d simply ignore the rules and go on a rampage, and more humans would die as a result.

  When I’d asked him if he killed humans, he’d nodded gravely. “Sometimes the urge is too strong,” he’d said, and left it at that. I knew that I should be angry at him for that. He was killing members of my own species, I thought reflexively. And then I remembered; he was my own species now, and how well had I ever really got on with them anyway? Save for Ben, pretty much every human I’d ever met had hated me. Of course they didn’t deserve to die for that, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to save them.

  And how could I blame him without being a hypocrite? I’d killed a human. I may have been in a blood frenzy, and I may not have been myself, but I’d killed one nonetheless. Plus, if Galahad hadn’t been there, I would’ve killed my bestfriend.

  I was ashamed, but I was thinking about Ben less and less now. In fact, all I really thought about was Galahad and my training.

  He’d put a piece of meat in front of me during restraint lessons, and I had to stop myself from jumping on it. At first it was nearly impossible. My mouth would fill with saliva and my body would start to shake, and then I’d jump on it and suck it dry. The blood put me into an intoxicated state, where everything felt pleasurable and perfect, and all I wanted to do was lie down and stare up at the stars.

  After a few dozen times, it started to get easier until I no longer had an uncontrollable urge to jump on the meat. Galahad was proud of me, but warned me to not get overconfident; he said that the urges are ever-present and should be respected, not ignored. We should give in to our urges when we know it’s safe, he told me, and restrain them when we know it’s not.

  On top of that Galahad also taught me a few vampire magic words. Mostly these were for if I had another vision; he taught me how to get out of them safely, without causing damage to myself. I’d asked him how I’d hurt myself in a dream and he’d smiled and said, “You aren’t dreaming. You are seeing into the past, and sometimes the past doesn’t want to let you go. Sometimes you have to fight the past away, to reach the present.” I’d smiled at that. It was so true.

  So that’s how I spent my days, and as much as I loved them, I looked forward to the nights much, much more.

  My nights were spent with Galahad. Sometimes we’d light a big fire and he’d hold me in his arms, and we’d watched as the fire spit orange into the darkness, and I’d feel the safest I’d ever felt in my entire life. His arms are big and strong, and every second I was within them was perfect. Other nights we’d hardly be able to control ourselves and we’d go at each other with passion, and I’d lose myself in his body and his kisses and his strong yet soft hands.

  Every second I was with him I felt like I was under the effect of a drug. It was like blood, and yet somehow better. Blood gave you pleasure, but it was fleeting, momentary pleasure. Galahad’s company was more than that; it satisfied me to such an extent that everything else, my life before him, ceased to exist.

  My insecurities, my mother, my father, and Ben all disappeared from my mind completely for those few precious months. I sometimes felt guilty when I thought of Ben, of how I’d left him, but then Galahad would hug me from behind or smile at me or touch my hand and I would instantly forget.

  Is this love? I thought. It was a constant thought in my mind. I’d never known love before, not even the love of a parent. It must be love, mustn’t it? I thought. Every time I looked at him I filled with warmth, and in his eyes I saw my future; his eyes were not like windows into his own soul, as some people say of their lovers, but were windows into my soul. In him I saw everything that I’d ever wanted to be.

  No longer was I a plain girl with no one to love her; I was a lover, a woman with a man to call her own. It was thrilling, and I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else other than Galahad. I wanted to tell him how I felt, but I was scared that I’d gotten everything horribly wrong and he’d laugh at me. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle that.

  No, I thought. Just keep everything the same and then you won’t ruin it. But what if he loved me too? How sweet would it be to hear him utter those wonderful words in my ear at night whilst he held me? Would it make our relationship better, more perfect? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to risk it. I wished that he’d tell me he loved me, and then everything would be simple.

  I thought he was going to say it one day after we’d made love. It was strange, how quickly I got used to making love. At first it had hurt a little, but after that it felt incredible; pure pleasure pulsed through me as we did it, and as soon as it was over I was always hungry for more. It was perfect. I could hardly believe how lucky I was to have had someone as perfect as Galahad as my first.

  I’d asked him why he had suddenly changed his mind about it a couple of times, and he’d just shrugged and said, “Because you are too beautiful.” I knew that that was probably a lie, and that he was concealing the true reason, but I was too caught up in love to care. So what if he kept a few secrets from me? I was the happiest I’d ever been. I wasn’t about to spoil it by pushing him to share things that he didn’t want to.

  He’d looked up at me that day with a smile on his lips. The sun had just been setting, and his yellow haired was tinged with orange. Birds tweeted beautifully in the sky and a squirrel watched us with big eyes from a tree, nibbling on a nut. “I . . .” he’d said, but then trailed off.

  I’d stared at him eagerly, my chest aching. I’d wanted him to say it so much. But then he looked away and stayed silent. “What were you going to say?” I’d said
.

  He’d looked up at me and smiled. “I want to be with you for as long as I am able.”

  That’d both thrilled and confused me. What did he mean, for as long as he was able? I was about to ask him what he meant, but then I’d saw my father’s war-medal glinting from a pile of our supplies. I was going to ask him what he had won that for, I’d recalled, and ventured the question. “What did my father do to win his war-medal?”

  Galahad had looked away and shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he’d said, and his voice had been distant. That’d hurt me more than I could say. It was the first and only time he’d been his old cold self with me since we’d made love, and I didn’t understand why. But I’d left it alone. I didn’t want to anger him. I didn’t want to ruin it.

  Apart from that, everything was perfect, and I floated in a sea of happiness. My shock at becoming a vampire quickly went away. I didn’t particular care if I was one of the undead. As long as I had Galahad I didn’t care what I was.

  One day after I’d killed a deer he looked at me and smiled. “I think you’re ready,” he said.

  “Ready for what?” I said.

  “Ready to go to the Council of the Undead.”

  My heart fluttered. So our time of solitude and happiness was over. It was time to meet the Council. I was a proper vampire now. I smiled at that, but I was also a little sad. I’d never again be Galahad’s student. “Are you looking forward to going home?” I said.

  “Oh, of course,” he said, but we were too close, and I could tell that he was lying.

  The deer’s scent flowed across the river and drifted up my nose and down my throat. I breathed deeply. No matter how many times I saw a deer, no matter how good I had become at restraining myself, I still loved the smell of deer’s blood.

  The river was white and frothy, and flowed with an aggression that made it seem alive. Galahad had his hand on my arm, and it was hard to concentrate on the task at hand. I reached up and grabbed it, and turned to him.

  We’d been travelling for a few days. The Council of the Undead gathered in the side of a mountain a few hundred miles away. We jogged around fifty miles a day and rested and had fun for the rest of the time. I got the sense that we could have moved much quicker; we were vampires, after all. But I was enjoying our time together

  In a day we’d be at the Council, and I didn’t know what that meant.

  I’d had another vision a few days ago. The woman with the sword had been in it. She’d stood in the middle of a room, surrounded on all sides by flickering torches and hooded men. A man had stepped out. “What say you?” he’d said.

  “I am not sorry,” she’d said, but she’d stared at the ground and I could see tears in her eyes. Her face had been battered and scarred, and her clothes were tattered like she’d been in a battle. Once again I’d found myself wondering who she was, and once again towards the end of the vision pain had started to pulse through me. I hadn’t panicked this time, though, because I knew the words.

  “Vuulish crishnuú kra!” I’d said, and in my dream I heard my own voice, bouncing around the forest. I awoke in a cold sweat.

  I’d told Galahad what I’d seen. He nodded. “It was the Room of Judgement,” he’d said. “That was the day that the last of Mordrain’s disciples had lost, and had to answer for their crimes. They’d attacked a small town and murdered all the humans, and the Council had been forced to go to battle with them. We’d won, but they had to be punished. We executed them all, except the woman that you saw. She was bonded to one of the Council as a truce.”

  “Bonded?” I’d said, confused.

  “Married,” he’d said. “Except that in a bonding divorce is not an option.”

  “Who did she bond with?”

  Galahad had shrugged, and a strange look had come across his face before he said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  I’d shrugged and pulled him close to me, and we’d made love under the stars. It was odd. We were more in love than ever in some ways; he held me tighter than he ever had before, made love to me with more passion, laughed more often, kissed me all the time, told me how beautiful I was, and a hundred other things that filled my heart with joy. But he also sometimes came across as distant and cold. Every now and again he would stare off towards the mountain, which loomed in the distance now, and his lip would quiver or his hand would shake. When I asked him what was wrong he just smiled a fake smile and changed the subject. It would worry me for a time, but then he’d turn back to his old self and I’d forget all about it.

  “Zoey,” Galahad said, bringing me back to the present. “Quickly.”

  I smiled and bounced on the spot. I actually enjoyed hunting now. It had become so much easier over the past few weeks that it was impossible not to. The river was wide and the current was high, and I could smell salt in the air, so we must’ve been near the sea.

  I thought about taking a run up, but decided that it would be unnecessary. I took another second to judge the distance and aim at the deer. Its neck was stretched as it bent around to graze. That’s what I will get, I thought, smiling, and then leaped through the air.

  I was airborne for less than a second and then I collided with the deer. I tore out its throat and immediately it slumped to the ground, dead, and blood poured from the gaping wound in its neck. I looked at Galahad and he nodded. I smiled and bared my teeth, and bent down to feed. He hopped across the clearing with an ease than made me embarrassed, and then bent down to feed with me. When we finished we were covered in blood, and so intoxicated that we fell back and stared up at the clouds.

  After a while he edged closer to me and held me in his arms, and I nestled into him, instantly feeler warmer and more secure. His arms were so big and strong that I felt invincible when I was in them. I bit into them playfully, and felt his arm tense. I looked up at him and he nodded. Smiling, I bit hard and punctured his skin, and drank deeply.

  He shuddered as I sucked on his arm, his blood flowing down my throat. My whole body tingled. A thought came to me then. What was better, this or making love? It was a hard choice. This was incredible; I felt connected to him, like we were part of one being, but I also felt like that when we made love. I drank more eagerly and felt the beginnings of a blood frenzy coming on.

  I grabbed his arm with both of my hands and pulled on it hard, savouring the blood. His moans of pleasure intensified, and I found myself wondering why he enjoyed this so much. What was in it for him? I got the pleasure of his blood, but what did he get? He’d tried to do it to me couple of times before, and I’d let him, out of curiosity. It’d been painful and unpleasurable, and I’d asked him to stop.

  I was drowning in his blood, and every second I felt like I was getting stronger. He was moaning. His moans filled my ears as his blood filled my mouth, and both were sweet. His voice was deep, like the boom of a heavy drum. After a long while my vision started to go hazy and my heart started to slow down.

  No, I thought. Not a blood frenzy. But then he pushed me away. “Zoey,” he said. “Drink some water. Clear the blood out of you, now.”

  I looked at him for a few seconds. His eyelids were drooping and his head rocked back and forth like it wasn’t connected to his neck. Something deep inside me was screaming out to pounce on him and carry on feeding, but I was no longer a base vampire who couldn’t control her urges. With an effort I bent down and drank from the river, swilling the water around my mouth and spitting it out.

  It took a while for my body to go back to normal, and when it did I felt foolish for letting myself get so close to a blood frenzy.

  I walked over and fell into him, and his arms opened to hug me. His body was warm and I could hear the deep monotone of his beating heart through his muscular chest. He stroked his fingers through my hair, and each finger sent shivers of pleasure all over me.

  He lifted my chin and stared down at me, and to my astonishment his eyes were filled with tears. “What is it?” I said.

  “It’s just,” he said. “I don’t know
if I should say this, but I love you, Zoey. I love you so much.”

  “I love you too,” I said, without having to think. Warm tears of happiness streamed down my cheek as I allowed him to wrap his big arms around me. He was crying too, although not as much as me. This is perfect, I thought. This is perfect.

  One thing niggled at me as we went to bed that night, falling exhausted into our bedroll after making love; why had he been unsure if he should tell me? It didn’t make any sense. If he loved me, why would he be unsure if he wanted to tell me? I turned it over in my mind, and I couldn’t think of any possible reason. I thought for a second that it might’ve been shyness, but dismissed it instantly. He wasn’t exactly shy!

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said to myself.

  “What doesn’t matter?” Galahad said, spooning me.