Velvet

by Temple West

  And there was Adrian, standing in the open front door.

  Oh. Shit.

  One moment Tommie was above me, the next moment he was gone, and there was the sound of something very solid hitting the utility van outside. I blinked, and looked down at myself. My shirt was gone and my jeans were halfway off.

  There was another metallic thunk, and muffled shouting.

  I shoved my jeans back on, threw my shirt over my head and ran to the doorway. Just as I stepped outside, a hand—not Adrian’s, because I could see Adrian picking himself off the ground ten feet in front of me—clamped over my mouth and I screamed. Before I could figure out what the hell was going on, Tommie threw me over his shoulder and dragged me into the trees, his shoulder biting into my stomach with each step. Moments later, we were in a clearing and I was thrown to the ground, my knees crunching in the snow, and then jerked back with a fist wrapped in my hair. Adrian was two seconds behind us and stopped abruptly. We all stood very still.

  “You can’t kill her,” I heard Adrian call from the edge of the clearing, still hidden in the shadows of the trees. “It’s forbidden.”

  “True,” Tommie said in a friendly sort of way. “But killing her isn’t what I had in mind.”

  He was pulling so tightly on my hair I was afraid it would rip right out of my head while my mind was still trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

  “I will kill you if you hurt her.”

  “You need to work on your technique, son—couldn’t even seduce one little human girl. I show up and give her everything she wants—an older, tragic man. She couldn’t keep her hands off me.”

  I let a hard breath escape as it finally dawned on me just exactly who Tommie was.

  “You didn’t try very hard to make her fall in love with you—” he said, then paused, considering Adrian. A slow smile spread over his face. “Which makes me think you don’t know who she is, yet.”

  Adrian didn’t respond for a long moment. “Whatever plans you have for Caitlin, they are done. She is under my protection.”

  “Before you go all white knight, let’s talk.”

  “I’m not interested in talking. Let her go.”

  Tommie suddenly lifted my arms into the air behind my back, pushing my face into my knees and I screamed because if he pulled another fraction of an inch, things in my shoulders would start tearing.

  “Don’t make me rip her arm off,” he said pleasantly. “She’ll be fine without an arm, for my purposes. And I know how thirsty you are.”

  “Caitlin, stay calm,” I heard Adrian call to me. “He’s feeding off your fear. Don’t give him more than you have to.”

  Great, not only was I scared shitless, I was feeding the enemy. And if Tommie—or whatever his real name was—tore my arm off, I would, y’know, bleed profusely. And Adrian was thirsty.

  Which meant if the injury didn’t kill me, Adrian probably would.

  “Son,” Tommie tried again. “Let’s talk.”

  “I’m not your son,” Adrian replied quietly, but I could hear the rage underneath his self-control.

  “No?” Tommie asked, wrenching my arms until I screamed.

  “Stop!” Adrian yelled, panicked. “Just—what do you want?”

  Immediately, Tommie lowered my arms to a bearable height and I sucked in huge gulps of air.

  “So you do have manners; I’m so glad your sister was able to teach you something.”

  Even though my view was limited to my knees, I could just make out Adrian’s shoes moving closer in my peripheral vision. “You’re not worried the Council will destroy you for this?”

  “Not really.” He sounded almost amused. “The Council has failed repeatedly at stopping me.”

  The Council.

  Mariana, Dominic, Julian—where was Julian? New York, where he always was. Where was Adrian’s sister? Couldn’t they feel what was happening? Why was Adrian alone?

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, son. There’s so much that they’ve kept from you.”

  “I am the product of your psychological rape, but I will never be your son,” Adrian replied calmly. “You are incapable of love—you can’t even feed off it.”

  The way he said it was strange, slow and deliberate, like he trying to tell me something. But he took a step toward us and I couldn’t think about it because Adrian’s dad dug his fingers into my arm like a vise and I screamed.

  Tommie was silent a moment. “Then tell me why they haven’t told you who she is. Tell me why she wasn’t better guarded.”

  Adrian didn’t reply.

  “Tell me,” he murmured, “why they assigned a boy to guard this girl’s life. They were hoping you would fail. They were hoping I would kill her—because they know what she is.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Tommie laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “Your Council is so moral, so predictable. If I got her pregnant, if she gave birth to another vampire bastard and died in the process, it would be so convenient for them. Adrian—you were intended to let her die.”

  Tommie suddenly let go of my arms. I fell forward with a cry of pain, the blood draining back down into my limbs. He bent down, wrapped his arm gently around my waist, and pulled me up, holding me pinned against him.

  “She could love you,” he said, staring furiously at Adrian. “You know how to make that happen.” He tilted my head back and breathed in the scent of my neck. “But if you don’t want her—”

  Adrian stepped forward. “I want her.”

  I didn’t understand what was happening anymore. I had no clue what was going on.

  “Take her, then,” he said, lips murmuring over my neck. “If you want her.”

  My head was still tilted back, but out of the corner of my eyes, I watched as Adrian walked slowly in our direction; the silver of his eyes rivaling the stars.

  He stopped a foot away as his father kept a tight grip on my waist. Adrian reached out and touched my cheek, his irises burning like suns. I searched his face desperately, looking for a sign, a clue as to what was really going on, what I was supposed to do.

  Staring me straight in the eye, he was in compulsion mode, I could tell. Jaw set in a hard line, he whispered, “Kiss me.”

  Shit, he was really doing it—he was really forcing me to do this. Immediately, despite the situation, despite everything, I strained forward, unable to resist his command.

  With a delighted laugh his father let me go and I rushed at Adrian, crushed my mouth against his as he pressed his warm body against mine in the cold, dead night, holding me tighter than he’d ever held me before, tangling his hands in my hair, completely unrestrained, and then—

  “Stop,” he ordered, and I froze, because I had to. He slid his lips near my ear and whispered, almost too low for me to hear, “I’m so sorry.”

  But as soon as he said it, he kept moving, lips gliding down my jaw, my throat, across my shoulder, my arm, finally pressing a kiss against my wrist. I winced involuntarily because my arms were a mass of fresh bruises. He held my hand in both of his and turned it, examining my skin in the moonlight.

  “She’s bruised,” he said lightly, like he was commenting on a bad piece of fruit. He looked up calmly at Tommie.

  And then Adrian punched his father in the face.

  His head snapped back, unprepared for the blow. Before I could process this bizarre turn of events, Adrian swung, kicking his father in the face with his motorcycle boot with a sickening crunch.

  Blood sprayed everywhere as Tommie shook his head. Recovering quickly, he feinted, tackling Adrian to the ground. They rolled halfway across the clearing, kicking, cursing, until Tommie lifted Adrian by the shirt and slammed his head back against a tree stump with a sound that made me gag. I was frozen in place, still in shock, or maybe Adrian’s command was keeping me from moving, I wasn’t sure. There was a sudden, intense flash of light coming from Adrian’s eyes—somehow he’d pinned Tommie. But the man only laughed.

  And with that he blasted A
drian twenty feet into the air, though how I couldn’t see. Before Adrian could hit the ground, Tommie made a pushing motion with his hands and smashed Adrian into a tree with a blast of air. He crashed against the trunk, fell to a heap on the ground, and lay still. Tommie advanced slowly, and I knew that unless I did something, Adrian was about to die. I searched the grass around me desperately. Where was a rock when you needed one? No rocks. No rocks?

  Shit.

  Finding my legs again (maybe compulsions didn’t work once he was unconscious?), I ran toward Tommie and screamed, “I want to go with you!”

  Adrian’s father looked up. I knew he could feel my fear, absorb it, but I also knew he could tell I was being honest—at least to a degree. If going with him meant saving Adrian’s life, then yes, I wanted to go with him.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Adrian was still. I wasn’t sure if he’d actually passed out or if he was acting. Either way, I was not going to lose him. Not like this.

  “Adrian,” Tommie called. “It appears your human doesn’t want you.” He turned his back on his son and smiled. “But she’s going to have to convince me.”

  I was kind of amazed at myself in that moment. Amazed that I wasn’t crying. Amazed that I wasn’t shaking. Honestly, I was amazed that I was even standing.

  I put my hand on his neck and whispered, “Come here.” He searched my eyes, was satisfied with whatever he saw there, and inclined his face so I could reach him. I closed my eyes. I was calm. I could do this. Adrian was going to die; I could do this.

  I brushed my lips against the corner of his mouth.

  And then I stabbed him.

  I pulled the pencil out of his neck and stabbed him again. I put every ounce of terrified adrenaline I had into it, pushing it halfway through his throat. I’d felt the pencil poking me in the back of the neck where I’d stuck it in my hair after I got out of the shower, as Tommie carried me through the trees. Now, blood dribbled and then spurted from the wounds, and I’d bet money I’d hit an artery.

  Furious, he slapped me. I flew three feet and crumpled to the ground, the world going in and out of focus as I struggled to remain conscious.

  Gasping in air, I looked up and saw that Adrian, far from being knocked out, had hooked his fingernails into the punctures I’d made in his father’s neck. I looked down again just as he jerked his hand, but I couldn’t stop myself from hearing the skin rip away in a flopping, juicy mass. Terror made me open my eyes again and watch. Neck half gone, his father still managed to grab Adrian by the throat and lift him off the ground.

  “Idiot child,” Tommie roared. “You don’t even know what you’re fighting for.”

  He held his hand out and Adrian flew into the air. The trees whipped into a frenzy and I felt a massive wind pulling at my hair, tearing at my clothes. It shrieked toward Tommie, diverting at the last second to push up against Adrian, to hold him in the air.

  Tommie looked up at his son, expressionless. “I suppose you won’t know what you’re dying for, either.”

  My mind was perfectly blank—I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. I had no idea Adrian’s father was capable of these kinds of things—I had no idea that any of this was possible.

  My brain sputtered into action, sluggishly sorting through options. If I threw anything at Tommie, it would just get sucked up into the vortex and hit Adrian. If I stayed still, eventually Adrian would be killed. If I got too close, I would get swept up into the same weird wind tunnel that was holding Adrian immobile in the air. There was nothing I could do. As always, there was absolutely nothing I could do.

  And that seriously pissed me off.

  I was sick of being helpless. Sick of watching the people I loved die quickly or slowly but always painfully. Sick of standing by.

  I was enraged—familiar, beautiful rage.

  But then Adrian’s voice came back to me, dancing in the back of my mind—something important, something crucial. What had he said, about Tommie? It was only a few minutes ago. What had he said?

  Something about love. Tommie …

  Tommie couldn’t feed off love. He wouldn’t use it.

  But Adrian could.

  Rage was useful, rage had seen me through a lot, but at the moment, it was literally fueling the psychopath who was hurting one of the only people I really cared about.

  So I let it go.

  And instead, I remembered.

  I remembered my mom, and how much she’d given up for me. I remembered how happy my dad had been; how full his life was. And I remembered Adrian. I remembered meeting him, in the library. I remembered when he brought me home and made me toast and tucked me into bed. I remembered night after night sleeping next to him, feeling for the first time in my life that I was completely and utterly safe.

  Adrian’s eyes, flickering dimly, suddenly flared back into life.

  “I love you,” I whispered, looking straight at him, forgetting about Tommie altogether. He was forty feet away, he couldn’t possibly hear me, but he looked at me as if my voice was as clear as day.

  The silver blossomed into a flood of light so bright that everything faded and lost color. I continued to stare at Adrian suspended in midair and whispered again, “I love you.”

  There were no shadows. Everything was white. I couldn’t see the stars or the grass or my hand in front of my face, even though my eyes were wide-open.

  “I love you so much, you stupid boy.”

  The roar of the wind faded until it was completely silent, with nothing but the ringing in my ears and the cold sting of the snow beneath my hands and knees to remind me we were still on earth.

  And then—abruptly—it was dark.

  I felt someone rush past into the forest, the stench of burning flesh trailing after them. My eyesight lagged, strobing under the disorienting glare of the stars overhead. I looked toward where I’d last seen Adrian, but white dots took up most of my vision, and for a panicked second, I couldn’t find him.

  Then my vision cleared, finally, and landed on a dark, motionless figure in the grass. I ran, but it felt like a dream, like the distance between us could never be crossed.

  But I did reach him. He was facedown in the snow, completely still. The back of his skull was sticky with congealing blood. Shaking uncontrollably, I grabbed his shoulders and rolled him over. His eyes were closed, his face was drenched in blood; more was trickling out of his mouth, and his black shirt was wet.

  Trembling, I gently pulled it up.

  And then I turned my head and threw up.

  His torso looked like ground meat.

  Dozens of jagged wounds littered his chest, ranging from pinpricks to holes an inch wide. Rocks, or debris of some kind, must have gotten caught up in the wind tunnel and shot at him so quickly they’d gone straight through his body, like tornadoes that drive flimsy pieces of straw straight through tree trunks. Vampire or not, there was no way someone could survive these kinds of injuries. Adrian had said he wouldn’t die, and I realized now he meant he wouldn’t die of natural causes, of old age or sickness. He was hard to kill—but he could be killed.

  “Adrian?” I whispered. He didn’t so much as twitch. “Adrian, please.” But he remained silent, still.

  My fingers hovered over his chest. I could feel heat seeping from the jagged wounds like it was his life itself floating away.

  I kept expecting him to wake up, to open his eyes. I kept waiting for him grin and give me a lecture on antibodies and how awesome his immune system was and that he’d be fine, just give him a minute.

  But he didn’t—he just lay there.

  Because he was gone.

  I let out a sob, then slapped my hands over my mouth. I fisted my hands in my hair and sat back on my heels. The stars burned on above us, silent. Feeling like I might puke again, I stood and walked in a short circle, then collapsed, digging my fingers into the snow. I was afraid, though, that he would disappear, if I couldn’t see him. Panicked, I crawled back and cradled Adrian’s body against my chest,
finally letting loose the scream I’d held in for so many months.

  What did it matter now? No one was listening, anyway.

  20

  IT IS FINISHED

  His body wasn’t just cold, it was frozen. When I touched his skin, it seemed to suck the warmth out of my fingertips.

  My jaw hurt, not just because I’d been slapped, but because I’d spent the last two hours gritting my teeth in shock—the hour before that had been spent crying uncontrollably, and now my throat was raw and I’d lost my voice. The snow around us was picturesque, the sky above was clear as glass, and I’d long ago become dangerously numb.

  Alone in the clearing, I felt once again like I had when Adrian stripped away my sense of self, to hide me from his father during the storm. I felt like nothing. I felt like I had never been.

  Congratulations, God, universe, demons, Council, whatever. You won.

  They would all pay. Mariana, Dominic, Julian, Tommie—they would all pay for this.

  I tore my gaze away from the empty sky and down to Adrian again. He was so beautiful, even now, blown halfway to hell. I’d scrubbed the blood off his face while it was still fresh, but there wasn’t anything else I could do. I couldn’t lift him, couldn’t carry him, couldn’t call for help; didn’t even know which way led back to the house. But it didn’t matter.

  I had loved him. That still amazed me. I’d gotten the chance, however briefly, to love someone.

  There weren’t any clouds. Brilliant stars, though. I wondered if Adrian was up there. Was he looking down? Was he in heaven? Was he in hell, because of what he was? Or did he just not exist anymore?