by S. J. Wright
“You would have to stay with me for a while, Alex,” she said. “You can’t leave me until we know for sure that I can control the thirst.”
“I know. I’m okay with that. You’ll need to learn a lot of things. I can teach you what you need to know.”
He smiled slightly, and she watched as one of his dimples appeared.
She moved from the sofa and went to the window, looking out again into the beauty that was summer in Brown County. Green, gold, sweet and real. Would she see it the same way through a vampire’s eyes? Would it still mean as much to her?
“What was the hardest part of changing?” she asked.
“Losing my family.”
That wouldn’t be a problem. The people I love already exist in that dark world. Now I have a chance to join them.
She turned her cool blue eyes back to Alex’s face. She trusted him to do everything right.
“Let’s do this.”
Chapter 10
“I hate getting dressed up.”
Sam was trying on the new formal dress that she would have to wear to the vampire ball that Teddy had been planning. She didn’t want to go to some stupid dance; especially if it was going to be all vampires there. But, as usual, she didn’t have a choice about what she was going to do. Everything was already decided.
“You look great, Sam.”
The little girl looked over at her new friend. When Luna wasn’t in her tiger form, she looked like a regular teenage girl. She had long russet colored hair, which she left loose in gentle waves. Her eyes were very green—almost unnaturally green. She chewed cinnamon gum most of the time and loved to blow bubbles with it. But, she managed to look sophisticated despite her gum habit. She certainly knew more about clothes than Sam did.
“I still can’t believe they won’t let you come to the ball. That sucks.”
Luna shrugged and tossed her thick braid of light brown hair over her shoulder.
“I don’t care. It will give me some time by myself for once.” Her large green eyes admired the ivory chiffon dress Sam wore.
“They’re not going to leave you completely alone, you know.”
Sam examined the dress and frowned.
“They don’t trust you yet.”
“You do,” Luna pointed out.
“Yeah, but we’re family. Sort of.”
Sam pulled the stiff dress bodice down and stepped out of it. Luna rose from her seat in the dressing room and handed over Sam’s plain brown sweatshirt.
“Yes, we are. And I’m glad we are finally getting to hang out together.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen your family?” Sam said.
Luna sighed and sat back down, crossing her slim legs.
“Three years. Edinna and her guards picked me up at my school bus stop three days after I turned fifteen.”
“Must have been hard.”
“I guess. I just feel bad for my mom because for a long time, she had no idea where I was.”
“Now she does? What was her reaction?”
“She was afraid for me, but I don’t think it came as a huge surprise. My dad was a shifter. And my mom wasn’t sure how she was going to deal with that as I got older. I was shifting back and forth without realizing it. It even happened at school one time. Luckily, I was alone in the locker room when it happened.”
“Sounds scary.”
“It was. But Edinna helped me learn how to control it. That’s part of the reason why my mom is okay with Edinna keeping me for now.”
Sam pulled on her faded blue jeans and scuffed up sneakers.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
Luna grinned and put one arm around Sam’s shoulders. She was two feet taller than Sam, but the little girl didn’t mind. It was just very good to have a real friend again.
“Me, too,” Luna said.
“Was Luna good company for you today?”
Michael and Sam were sitting on the ivory leather sofa in Teddy’s apartment, watching the credits roll on an old movie musical on the big-screen television. Michael hadn’t seen it before, but Sam had watched it and talked about it often enough that he felt he could recite the lines himself, sight unseen.
“She was great. I was glad to find out she wasn’t being held against her will. It sounds like Edinna is trying to protect her. Sort of.”
Sam switched off the TV and picked up the book she had been reading before Michael had arrived. She gave Michael a careful look. “Sarah would like Luna.”
Michael sighed.
“I’m sure she would.”
He had yet to really express the depth of his sorrow in front of Sam. But at night, when all the chaotic noise of the city roared in his sensitive ears, he yearned for the deep, dark quiet of the woods of southern Indiana and the sweet curves of Sarah’s body beneath him. He cursed himself for the consequences of the choice he made.
“How long are we staying at the lake house? I need to know how much to pack.”
“A few weeks. I figured you could use some peace and quiet after everything that’s happened. You could take up sailing. You’ve never had a problem with sea sickness, as I recall.”
She nestled up against his arm and rested her blond head there.
“Have you called her?”
He hesitated. Michael had called the cabin twice since he’d left but had only hung up when there was no answer after two rings. It was a constant battle in his head, bringing alternate feelings of shame and longing.
“No. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us,” he said.
He didn’t like lying to Sam, but he couldn’t adequately explain why he’d hung up before the answering machine picked up the call.
The new cell phone vibrated on the coffee table in front of them. Michael groaned and reached for it. He had hoped to avoid any vampire business tonight, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. He glanced at the display. It was an unrecognized number.
“This is Michael.”
The voice that answered was a familiar one.
“Long time, no fight.”
“Alex?”
It took a few moments for Michael to grasp the idea that he was actually speaking to someone who might have been in recent contact with Sarah.
“Where are you?”
“Brown County,” Alex said slowly.
A chill went through Michael, flowing through him like a blizzard’s gust. He hadn’t considered the possibility that Sarah might turn to Alex in her time of need. A fiery spark of anger burst to life in his chest.
“What are you doing there?”
“She wasn’t doing very well. Nelly called me because she was worried. You should have seen this place. It looked like hell. So did she.”
“I don’t expect you to understand what’s happened, but there’s no need to throw a cloak of guilt over me. I’m already carrying enough,” Michael said.
Alex cleared his throat.
“I’m sure you are. Is it possible to set up a meeting? Between you and me?”
Michael sighed and covered up the phone as he turned to Sam.
“Go ahead and get ready for bed. I’ll be in there in a few minutes to say goodnight.”
The child frowned at him, but headed off to do as he said.
“Is that Sam? Is she okay?”
“Of course she’s okay. When do you want to meet? We’re leaving New York soon.”
“Two weeks from tonight. I’ll text you. Where are you going?”
“Teddy’s beach house on Lake Michigan. I’ll send you directions.”
Michael paused for a half second and asked the question he didn’t have the right to ask anymore.
“How is she now?”
“She’s adjusting. I’m keeping an eye on her.”
“Just an eye?”
“Sarah just lost almost everything she ever really cared about, you dick. Believe me, that’s the last thing she wants right now.”
Alex huffed a sigh.
“And I w
ouldn’t even try it. We’re friends, okay?”
“Right. I’ll be in touch.”
Michael pressed the button to end the call and dropped the phone back onto the coffee table. His cool blue eyes began their slow change in color, paling to a distinct gray and then to silver. It happened every time his emotions ran high. Only a few of his close friends had witnessed such a thing.
“Oh, Sarah. I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Seven hundred fifty miles to the west, in the basement of Sarah’s quiet cabin, a great metamorphosis was occurring. If Michael had known the action Alex had taken in order to save Sarah from her enforced misery, he would have wanted to kill Alex, tearing him apart piece by piece. Such a thing wasn’t possible with a creature like Alex. He was virtually indestructible.
“Just try to relax,” he said quietly to Sarah.
She was lying on a folded up blanket in the middle of the concrete floor, her body curved into the position of a sleeping child. Her golden brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. The telling bite mark on her neck still looked raw, but Alex knew the blood he was about to give her would make that disappear quickly.
The small knife he held against his left wrist would be used several times before the deed was done. His wounds healed so quickly that there was hardly time to give Sarah enough blood to change. He thought of all this as he watched her for any sign of resistance.
“Are you ready?” he asked her in the still, damp darkness of the basement gloom. “I know I’ve already said this a hundred times today, but you can still change your mind.”
She rolled over onto her back and looked at him, kneeling there beside her like some golden-haired prince in a fairytale. A tentative smile briefly moved her lips. “A thousand times is more like it. I’m not going to back out.”
“This changes everything, Sarah,” he said quietly. “You will never be the same again. Even if you become human again with magic, the things you go through as a vampire will stick with you.”
“Alex, I know.”
She touched his arm with two of her fingers.
“I’m ready to be one of you. It’s what I need.”
“It’s going to hurt like hell.”
“I know.”
When he looked into her eyes and saw the lack of fear, the anticipation of it all—he knew. She was ready. He held his wrist above her with the little knife poised to make the cut that would alter her forever.
Chapter 11
“It’s been over a year, Marco. I’m ready for the test.”
Katherine Wood, sister to Sarah and daughter of Robert Wood, was sitting with her recovery mentor, Marco DeBlaine in a little local bar on the south side of Paraty. It was a tourist town about 125 miles south of Rio. Kate and Marco had been there for two weeks.
Unlike the first month of rehab, Kate was not locked up. She had been given a travel pass on the condition that Marco would constantly be next to her. He was good at sensing her moods, which could fluctuate wildly depending on her hunger level.
Across the table from her, he shook his head with a bright smile, displaying his perfectly white teeth.
“No way. You know the rules.”
Kate tried to give him her best impression of a sad face, which wasn’t as easy as it had been a year before. Learning to control her urges had brought a shade of peace to her life. The dimples in her cheeks grew deeper. The sarcasm that fell so freely from her every word when she first arrived at the clinic in Rio had altered into a mild attempt at humor. From the tips of her pink-painted toenails to the calm sea of her ebony eyes, Kate had changed.
There was no Katie anymore. The bitchy Indiana farm girl turned murdering vicious vampire was no longer present. Marco would have preferred that she hold onto some of that previous attitude, but she no longer found it necessary.
“I’ve been on the wagon for a long time. Strictly sangue de porco.”
Marco’s dark eyebrows rose.
“Pig blood is different everywhere. What if you get a batch in the states that doesn’t take your fancy?”
She grinned at him slyly.
“Then I’ll have Norma send me some from down here.”
“Wrong answer, Kate,” Marco said quietly. “Once you leave these shores, you will be wholly independent. You will never return to Brazil. If you lose your way, if you get into any further trouble, the clinic will not host you a second time.”
It was enough to put a damper on her lighthearted mood. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. The moment she’d arrived in Brazil, the damned rules started.
No blood of any kind for a month. That first one was the hardest. They put her in a cell made of stone, furnished with only a simple uncomfortable cot with no pillow or blanket. The door was constructed of steel five inches thick with only a tiny round pane of glass in the center. No handle on the inside. On the outside, in the depths of the clinic’s quiet hallways, there was a computer desk. That computer controlled the door. Essentially, only the computer could unlock the door once those thirty days had passed. The system was programmed that way for several reasons.
Norma, the plain-appearing female vampire with the bright pink purse had picked her up from the airport in Rio and had explained on the way to the clinic as Kate stared at the sights of Rio.
“It’s not meant to be cruel. Before you go inside, you have to understand that. The system is set up in a way that prevents anyone from opening that door until the time has run out.”
“Compulsion is avoided with this in place. When the clinic opened its doors in 1944, none of that was possible. There were many who escaped by using supernatural powers. Gradually, the technology began to offer us safer options.”
“Workers at the clinic… “
“Some were killed violently. Vampires and humans alike.”
“You have humans that work there?”
Norma smiled.
“Of course. They are an essential part of our recovery program. We also have some very gifted vampires as well. After being converted, they chose to stay and lend us their talents so that they might bring peace to others.”
“Peace?”
Kate’s eyes had rolled at that line, but Norma’s bright blue gaze remained passively friendly.
“You will discover that peace. Theodora was quite clear that you were to receive the full clinical treatment.”
Those words continued to play in Kate’s head. Even when the heavy metal door swung closed, beginning her thirty days of fasting, she could hear those promising and yet frightful words. Peace. Full clinical treatment.
She had been allowed to bring one personal item into the cell with her. Marco told her that most patients brought a photo. He was surprised to see a dirty, half burned journal in her hands when she submitted herself for the fasting period.
“What do you have there?”
“A family journal.”
Before he started the program that would lock her in her cell, he hesitated. “When your treatment is complete, would you allow me to read it?”
Her smile was wicked.
“It’s a pretty scary story. Are you sure?”
“Very sure.”
“Alright.”
The second rule was less dreadful than the first. No contact with anyone on the outside for the first three months of treatment. When she arrived in Rio, she wasn’t on friendly terms with anyone but her sister and the family’s longtime housekeeper, Nelly. Of course, Alex could be included in that short list but she tried not to think about him.
Rule number three: Each patient was required to undergo psychological testing and therapy. She wasn’t happy about that one at all. She didn’t see how it was anyone’s business. There was hardly any trace left of the human she had been. Why should they want to dig into her past? But, dig they did. They questioned her about her mother, her relationship with her father, the kidnapping that had changed her whole world and everything that had ever hurt her. She wasn’t as cooperative as they
might have liked.
The fourth rule became more frightening than the fasting. If the patient is released into the general population and takes a human life in order to drink blood, the patient will not be readmitted to the clinic for any reason. The significance of that rule became clearer as she learned the necessary techniques to quench her thirst. It loomed up before her like some nightmarish prediction. She knew that temptation would be lurking everywhere once she was free. She knew that she was not perfect. Her control was not completely developed. Failing wasn’t an option at the clinic. If you fucked up, you were banned for life.
During her long days of isolation and starvation, Kate suffered. She slept very little. Sometimes she paced, her fists clenched tightly by her sides, determined not to scream out in agony. The thirst began as a long, slow burn in her chest. It grew from that into a trail of fire igniting in her veins, sometimes leaving her gasping and writhing on the floor of her cell with her eyes closed and her fists beating against the stone floor. Her fingertips and palms would be slick with blood for a while afterwards, not that she knew or cared when it happened for the first time. But, the scent of that blood stayed with her, and she resorted to licking it from her fingers while she slowly healed.
Occasionally, the tortuous pain would capsize whatever sane notions normally ruled inside her stubborn head. She had always hated crying. It made her feel weak and Kate could not abide anyone seeing her in that state. But, the agony of her hunger pushed her into an altered reality. The tears fell freely.
Unlike other rogues before her, she did not cry out in the midst of her pain. In the deepest pits of that hunger, two weeks after she’d entered the cell, she reached the pinnacle. She refused to scream or sob. With the passing of time, she grew weaker. Eventually, the thirst was only a mild burning in her throat that was somewhat tolerable.
Kate finally slept. She didn’t have the strength to do anything else. So she slept for ten days. When the thirtieth day arrived, the door swung open automatically and Marco woke her. He carried her from the cell to another room without a locked door. It was a room with a soft bed and a window that provided a view of the walled garden outside.
