by Marian Tee
All three of us girls glanced at Phillip incredulously. “Of course he’d agree,” Sabina growled. “She’s basically offering him free use of her body without anything in exchange. No guy would refuse that.”
“Actually,” Phillip said quietly, “you’d be surprised at how a lot of guys would refuse that.”
The three of us snorted simultaneously in disbelief.
Phillip laughed.
“It’s sweet of you to pretend,” Sabina began teasingly.
Phillip flicked her head, but it was a tender gesture. “You know I’m not pretending. I never do, with you.”
Ever and I exchanged looks once more. One of these days, we really had to give these two some one-on-one time about where their relationship was going – or whatever it was that they had…for years. Neither of us could figure out why Phillip wouldn’t just break his engagement off with Luisa. It was clear for everyone to see that he and Sabina were perfect for each other.
Phillip tucked an errant curl behind Sabina’s ear. “Believe it or not, but I’m very selective with who I make love to.” He glanced at me. “And Luka Georgiades is even more selective.”
“You’re not saying anything I don’t know,” I told him dryly.
“Well, you’re telling me something I never thought of.” That threw me off, but before I could ask what he meant, Phillip added, “You never struck me as Luka’s type.”
My eyes narrowed. “And exactly what do you mean by that?” I asked silkily.
Phillip shrugged. “Let’s just say I know some of the women he has been…intimate with.”
I couldn’t keep myself from flinching at Phillip’s words. I knew Luka wasn’t a virgin. How could he be with how good he was at making me come? And yet knowing was still different from hearing someone actually confirm the truth.
“And your point is?” I snapped.
“You don’t have a thing in common with any of them.”
“And,” I asked, even more edgily this time, “again I ask---your point is?”
An amused smile touched Phillip’s lips. “There is no point and I never meant to offend, Caylie. It was merely an observation, but…” He raised a brow. “Why should you care about whether you have something in common with the women Luka has been known to...see?”
I opened and closed my mouth, not knowing what to answer.
Sabina and Ever were staring at me wide-eyed.
Somehow, I felt defensive all of a sudden. “I was just curious.”
“Caylie,” Ever said slowly. “Please don’t tell me you like him that way?”
I jumped to my feet. “I need to go to the restroom. Catch up with you later.” I nearly ran away from them after speaking, but I had a feeling it was the truth that I couldn’t make myself stand still enough to face.
When I got inside the restroom, I collapsed against the wall, a suffocating sensation wrapped around my heart. I tried imagining Luka with that harlot I once saw him in TV with, and my fists automatically clenched. I tried imagining Luka kissing her like he kissed me, touching her like he touched me---
“Caylie!” someone in front me shrieked.
My head snapped up.
Bernadette Cairns, a dark-haired sophomore, pointed at the mirror shakily as she gazed at me nervously.
When I twisted to look at my reflection, I wanted to scream myself.
Red-rimmed eyes, fangs out---a Caro’s true colors revealed in broad daylight.
If I was anywhere but school, I would have been dead by now. It has always been the Brethren’s policy to eliminate all possible threats that could lead to humans discovering our worlds, even if it meant taking a Caro’s life, no matter how young or old.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped out when I finally got myself in control.
Bernadette nodded, her eyes still wary.
“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” I begged. If word about this was to reach the Brethren, it was all over for me, my rehabilitation cut off, a Brethren sentence inevitable.
Bernadette nodded again, but we both knew it wouldn’t be as easy as that. To protect our race was a duty and a responsibility ingrained in us since childhood. Any threat was to be reported at all costs, and this time I was a possible threat.
Oh God of Caros, what was happening to me?
Unable to bear the wariness and doubt in the other girl’s eyes, I avoided her gaze as I walked past her. I was running again by the time I reached the front doors of the school. Sending a quick text to my friends to tell them I had to go home earlier than planned, I jumped inside the backseat of the limousine that my parents always had on standby when I didn’t want to drive to school.
“Home, please,” I told the driver, my voice stiff with the effort it took not to break down.
When I got home, I went up to my bedroom immediately, needing the privacy and comfort my bed could give me. But when I opened the door, Luka was inside, his violet gaze startled when it met mine. He was impeccably put together as usual, his blond hair shiny, his pinstriped suit without even a smallest crease to ruin its beautiful folds.
Luka immediately came to his feet, his beautiful face becoming tense when I only remained silently staring at him. “What’s wrong?” He was already pulling me inside by the time he finished speaking, kicking the door shut behind him.
I couldn’t speak, not when I knew I couldn’t bear to see the doubt and wariness in Bernadette’s gaze mirrored by Luka’s eyes. All I could do was gaze at Luka in despair as I wondered desperately if I was going insane. This was not normal. This was not fucking normal, but I didn’t know if there was anyone I could turn to for help.
There was only one possible reason for this to happen, and that was the fact that I could be in danger of turning vampire. But why? It made no sense. I hadn’t taken any innocent life so why was I losing control all the time? But if this was true…if I was turning vampire, then I couldn’t burden anyone close to me about it – not if it meant the Brethren would see them as possible accomplices.
Luka shook me hard, startling me into looking up at him. “Caylie, dammit, tell me what’s wrong!”
All I could do was let out a choking sob.
A wild anxious expression entered Luka’s eyes. “Tell me.” His words were a mixture of pleading and demanding. “Tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it for you.”
I shook my head even as my mind furiously raced for an answer. “I’m…”
“What?”
“I’m…in shock.” I swallowed. “I just suddenly remembered how someone almost killed me last night and I…panicked.”
Luka pulled me in his arms the moment the words left my mouth. “Stop worrying about it, please, mi vavli.”
Those last two words he murmured against my hair killed me, and tears stung my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck tightly. It was the first time I had voluntarily touched him since he came back to my life, and we both knew it. Luka’s entire body shook, his arms tightening around me.
“I swear it, Caylie,” he muttered fiercely. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I nodded against his shirt, not having the heart to tell him that if my worst fears were true, he or anyone else would never be able to protect me from myself if I did turn vampire.
“I had the human’s background checked, Caylie. He was an obsessed fan of yours and a member of some crazy cult-like hate club. But he’s dead now. It’s over.”
Luka’s words did and didn’t make sense at the same time. “But he said there would be others---”
“Delusions,” Luka said flatly. “He was psychotic. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
I pulled away, frowning up at Luka. Something just wasn’t adding up. “But he had a stake---”
Luka’s lips thinned. “Unfortunately, some of their delusions were more spot-on than we’d like it to be. They think we’re vampires.”
And maybe, I thought sickly, they would be right in my case.
Luka gently cupped my face, his thumbs wip
ing away tears I didn’t even realize I had shed. When his violet gaze locked with mine, I could feel him commanding me silently to believe in him, the deliciously magnificent power inside him unleashed in its full glory, Luka’s way of assuring me he had the strength to wipe out an entire army to defend me.
But would Luka be able to kill me if it meant saving our race? Would I want him to?
“There’s nothing for you to worry about, Caylie. I promise you. I’ll always protect you. I won’t ever leave your side again.”
Something inside me shattered at those words.
LIIIIIIIIAAAAAR! It was the last dying scream that something gave as Luka’s words once again worked like a key, but this time it didn’t release memories locked away in the past. This time it freed a rage so black I imploded at its power, like having my soul torn away from my body.
I could literally see my body falling down on the floor while Luka called my name out urgently as he caught me, shouting for help when I didn’t respond.
It was chaos, but it was nothing like where my soul was being taken by a dark invisible force.
I wanted to kick away when I realized what I was going to see.
No. Please God of Caros, please don’t let me see this. I didn’t want to relive this part of my life that I so wanted to bury in my unconsciousness.
STOP THIS, STOP IT WHOEVER YOU ARE! I begged and screamed and cried the words out.
Something in the darkness of my mind laughed in response.
You’re getting pathetic, Caylie. You need to remember what he did so you won’t be fooled again.
The voice sounded…like me.
But there was no time to think about that, not when my past had already come back to destroy me all over again.
“Luka, please answer the phone.”
It was the eve of my sixteenth birthday, and everyone was talking about me behind my back, their taunting smirks and the laughter in their eyes telling me they believed that I deserved not to have Luka come to my ball, not even when I had called and begged him to, not even when he and the whole world knew I had chosen him to be my First Ball Escort.
“Caylie, come back!”
It was Catherine, crying as I tore past her, my skirts hitched up so I could run faster because I felt suffocated by the pain and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to see Luka, needed to know that he was hurting me for a reason. Because there had to be a reason – everything would be fine as long as he had a reason for hurting me. Caros lived for reason and that was all I needed – a reason to prove to me that he wasn’t hurting me out of sheer cruelty.
“Luka, Luka, Luka.”
I was running through the woods, parallel with the cars along the highway but faster even than the most advanced engines. Before a Caro’s sixteenth birthday, we were just a little stronger, faster, and smarter than humans. But the sixteenth moon unleashed the bright powerful darkness inside us, and on that night we claimed our birthright – the gifts that allowed us to always dance one step ahead of humans.
I kept saying Luka’s name as I let my senses guide me to where he was, knowing that sooner or later he would hear me and he would know that I needed him.
“Come out, Luka! Please!”
I crossed the massive stone bridge leading to the Brethren as fast as I could, blind to the harsh beauty of the two cliffs that our ancient stronghold had been built in between. When I reached the giant metal doors that served as a secondary layer of defense, I pounded on it heavily as I cried out Luka’s name over and over.
“Please,” I begged without shame. “Please come out, Luka, please.” The uniformed guards surrounding me couldn’t even bear to gaze at the shameful sight I presented. Caros didn’t beg, but I didn’t care. Caros didn’t show emotions, but I didn’t care about that either.
“There is nothing between us that require an explanation.”
Impatient and cold, that was the only way to describe Luka’s voice when he said those words in front of the Brethren’s own ball which I had barged into.
“Please, Luka, I need you. I’ll change. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please come back.”
That was me, debasing myself and becoming everything we hated about humans just to have Luka back in my life.
“Take her away and never let her be in my presence until I say otherwise.”
That was Luka, making the Brethren proud for in that moment he embodied everything a Caro should be, efficient and cold-blooded in the way he removed my presence in his life, no different from a surgeon excising a cancerous cyst.
“I thought you loved me!”
It was what I cried out as I futilely struggled against the Brethren guards dragging me away.
“Stop embarrassing yourself.”
It was Luka’s last words before turning his back on me, the very last time I saw of him until revenge brought him back to my life.
Chapter Six
Hedonism is not a way of life for our race. Rather, it is inherent in us, as essential to our genetics in the same way we cannot live without blood, a skill that we constantly hone by one-upping each other on who has thrown the most lavishly splendid parties for the year.
It is my belief that hedonism is our race’s greatest weakness, just like how we are crippled by our perception of showing our real feelings as taboo. We fail to see that all of these are simply meant to hide the reality that the first ever Caros in earth were slaves.
Yet because of the self-deception we play with ourselves we still end up enslaved, only this time it is our own vices holding the reins to our souls.
Luka Georgiades
A Dissertation on the Role of Pleasure in Caro Lifestyles
Present Time
“I’d rather you not go out with me tonight, Caylie,” Luka said the night after as he stood next to my bedroom door.
I could tell how grim he was by his voice alone, and I tried not to show how affected I was just by having his eyes follow me while I went through my wardrobe. It was unnerving and erotic, which should have been a good thing if it wasn’t Luka involved.
“I know you don’t, but you also know that won’t stop me.” With my academic standing certain to improve, I had been moved to Phase II of my rehabilitation program. It required me to attend major Caro social events in the presence of my rehabilitator and prove once and for all that I would not be a threat or embarrassment to our race.
“Besides, this is part of my rehabilitation, a direct order from the Brethren---”
“Fuck the Brethren.”
Oh God of Caros, why was it that every time Luka said the word fuck, I wished he’d do it to me instead?
My head started to ache, nowadays a common side effect every time I thought about Luka Georgiades. A part of me still wanted revenge, but an increasingly large part of me just wanted him back in my life, in whatever way possible.
Either way, he wasn’t to know that what happened between us in his car just made me more obsessed.
Fingers suddenly settled on my shoulders and I found myself being whirled around to face Luka. “You fainted last night, Caylie. And when you woke up, you were hysterical. You’re obviously still upset---”
“Of course I’m upset,” I cut him off lightly without looking at him directly. I didn’t want to look at him right now, not when he was dressed like this. “You killed someone in front of me, Luka. But I’m not blaming you for it,” I added quickly. “It was either us or him, and I like where our heads are just fine. But you also have to admit that what happened…takes time to get over.”
Luka’s grip on my shoulders tightened. “I know that, Caylie, which is why it’s better if you stay home tonight. I’ll make the necessary excuses---”
And give him the chance to enjoy some alone time with the Moretti princess? My lips curved into a smile that I knew didn’t reach my eyes. “Oh, please,” I drawled. “Don’t do so on my account. I wouldn’t want you to blemish your perfect record with the Brethren for something so trivial.”
; I stepped back, forcing Luka to let go. I turned around instantly, and when I allowed myself to silently expel my breath.
Somehow, in the span of less than 24 hours my life had been turned upside down. Every minute of every day, I was constantly beleaguered by the urge to stake a claim on Luka. It was an intense all-consuming urge, and I just didn’t understand how or why it came to be.
Finally spotting the perfect outfit for a yacht race, I pulled it out and showed it off to Luka. “What do you think?” The dress hugged my body to perfection, the silky white top complimented by the blue-and-white striped skirt.
“I think it’s as beautiful the girl who’s going to wear it,” Luka said quietly.
My cheeks flushed in color at the unexpected words.
“I also think that you’re avoiding looking at me…and that I don’t understand.”
Breathe, Caylie. Don’t take any of this seriously.
But somehow, I still didn’t trust myself to speak, which was why I did the next best thing to remain in control and not let Luka know how much he rattled me these days.
“What. The. Hell.”
The alarm in Luka’s voice made me laugh. “What do you think I’m doing?” I kicked off my Mary Janes, shrugged off my school jacket, and started unbuttoning my blouse. When I was halfway through, I heard Luka distinctly mutter a curse word in our language, making my smile widen.
“Oh, Luka, what’s the Brethren going to think about a rehabilitator cursing in front of a violator on probation?”
He responded with another curse.
This time, I laughed freely. When I started wriggling out of my short school skirt, Luka immediately turned his back. For a moment, I let my eyes feast on him. Even the rear view of Luka’s physique was perfect, his tuxedo clinging to every muscular inch of his body faithfully. I had no doubts that it was custom designed to fit him, as was every piece of clothing in his wardrobe was.
“Are you done now?”
My impish side took over and I padded quietly towards him. “Yes.”
