by Talia Vance
“I should go.” I stand up from the wall. Most of the students have left. Only a few mill around the parking lot, hanging by their shiny BMWs.
I’m a few steps away before Austin stands up. “Forgetting something?” He dangles my bracelet from his fingers.
I almost forgot. I practically run to him. He raises his hand over his head, keeping the bracelet just out of reach. “What do I get if I give this to you?”
“Some self-respect?”
He shakes his head. “You owe me.”
I’m instantly back in the stall with Dart. What had Austin said after he healed him? “For Dart?”
“That, too. For now, I’ll settle for a small recompense for recovering your bracelet.”
“What?” I step back. It can’t be good to owe Austin anything.
His lips curve up. “One kiss.”
“No.”
He twists the bracelet around his fingers. “What are you afraid of Brianna? Afraid you won’t be able to stop at just one?” He doesn’t advance further, a fact for which I’m grateful. “Face it. You weren’t meant for him. You were meant to kill him.”
It’s not like that. Not now. It can’t be. “I wasn’t meant for you either, was I, Romeo? This is a tragedy, remember?”
He laughs. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun in the meantime.” He leans against the wall and folds his arms against his chest.
I move a step closer. “You don’t think it’s sad that the only way you can get a girl to kiss you is to resort to extortion?”
His smile grows. He knows I’ve just caved.
I stand frozen as he closes the last few inches between us. His hand comes to my cheek. My skin is still cold from the trick I used to fend off his power. The heat of his hand sends prickles of pain across my skin. I flinch away from his touch.
His voice is a low growl. “Don’t play with me.”
“Last time I checked, I wasn’t the one blackmailing you into kissing me.” I turn my head away from his hand.
He holds my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Am I so horrible?”
He looks radiant, his brown eyes flecked with gold. And he saved Dart. But he’s not real. I can’t forget it. He leans toward me, and this time, I stay put.
His lips touch mine slowly. So slowly. He pulls away, and I exhale. Okay, that wasn’t so bad. I open my eyes. Austin’s face is too close.
“It doesn’t count if you don’t kiss me back.” He lowers his face to mine. I hold my breath.
“What the hell ?” Haley’s voice is a high screech.
Austin jumps away, bumping into the wall behind him.
Haley’s perfect silhouette is outlined in the sunlight. Christy drops her car keys onto the concrete beside her.
Haley advances on me. “Oh. My. God.”
I want to back up, but there’s nowhere to go unless I want to end up in Austin’s lap. Probably not a good idea under the circumstances.
“I knew it. I knew you couldn’t leave him alone.” Haley’s face is twisted into a venomous scrunch that she obviously hasn’t practiced in the mirror.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Don’t look at me.” Austin holds up his hands in mock surrender. My bracelet still hangs from his fingers.
I spin toward him. “Give it back.”
He closes his fingers, flashing me a crooked grin. It’s all a game to him.
“Now,” I say.
Fire fills me so fast that I have to grab the wall to keep from falling over from the pain. The heat chases away the last remnants of ice in my blood. I face Austin, sending fire to the bracelet still trapped in his fingers. He opens his hand with a start, dropping the glowing blue bracelet on the grass.
Wind whips around us, wildly at first. I focus on the silver chain until the wind catches it and sends it flying toward me. I snatch it out of the air, closing my fingers around it. My internal temperature drops as the bracelet cools in my hand.
Austin blinks. It’s my turn to smile.
“What was that?” Haley looks from Austin to me and back again.
I step around her on my way to the parking lot. “Just getting something that belongs to me.”
I don’t look back.
THIRTY-THREE
I just drive, without conscious thought of a final destination. The pain is worse now. The dull ache is still there, but it’s accented by sharp pangs, like shards of glass swirling inside me.
On some level Blake knew what would happen between us that night on the beach. He knew what it would mean. How it must end.
It’s not so much like a GPS as something more intuitive that sends me to the parking lot near Magic Beans. I only know I need to see Blake, and I move accordingly. When I get out of the car, I head toward the sidewalk that leads to the park. I follow the path as it winds to the fake lake at the center. The park is quiet as the last rays of sunlight reflect off the water.
I don’t see Blake, and for a second I worry that I’ve got it wrong. Then I feel him, a soothing balm that coats and covers the jagged cuts inside. Warmth spreads from my chest, lower and lower, until my whole body is wrapped in it. His footsteps barely register in the soft dirt path, but I’m attuned to every single one. When he steps into the open, it’s all I can do to keep from launching myself at him.
He watches me, his eyes wary, unsure. We just stand staring at each other, and I realize he’s waiting for me to attack him. I can’t stifle a giggle, because I do want to attack him. Badly. Just not in the way he thinks.
“Fancy meeting you here.” I step closer, savoring the electricity that charges the air between us. I feel the change in him, the trepidation replaced by curiosity, then the growing heat that mirrors my own. He starts to reach for me, but puts his hands in his pockets instead.
He lifts his chin. A current of energy flows around us. He shifts from one foot to the other, but doesn’t move closer.
“Are we okay?” I blurt.
He rubs the back of his neck and looks past me to the lake. “Define okay.”
“I’m sorry for what I said last night.” I take a tentative step closer. He doesn’t back away. “It’s just all happening so fast. And it’s hard to remember that I’m not that girl you would never look at. Because, well, I am.”
His eyes travel to my wrist. “You got your bracelet back.”
“Austin had it.”
The flash of silver in his eyes is all the warning I need. I can feel his anger too, and the double impact makes me back up again. “You saw him again?”
“What to do you mean, again? I went to get my bracelet.” And there’s the part where I let Austin kiss me. It’s not like I kissed him back.
“He’s dangerous, Brianna, don’t you get it? You can’t trust him.”
“Like I can trust you?”
“It won’t be me that ends this.”
“Why not? Because you’ll let Jonah do your dirty work for you? Or is it the older Sons who will be the ones to take me out? You know there’s only one way for this to end, and something tells me that you’re not going to make some noble sacrifice so I can live.”
He finally moves toward me, breaking the tension. He puts a hand on each shoulder and his eyes find mine, searching. “Is that what you want? For me to fall on my sword for you? Prove my love like some crazy martyr?” His eyes sparkle with silver. And then he’s gone. Vanished.
“Blake?” I spin around, but he’s nowhere. “Blake!” I shout at the air. I run up the path, frantic to find him before he does something supremely stupid. I stop halfway to the parking lot, aware that I’m not running toward anything. He’s not here. He’s not anywhere that I can follow.
I wait to feel something, any inkling of where he’s gone. My built-in GPS is on the fritz, which
means he hasn’t come back. Only the pain in my gut tells me he’s still alive and breathing. I turn back down the path. My steps are slow, in no hurry now. When I get to the lake, I sit on the grass and wait.
It’s not until the sun disappears completely and the big dipper is fully visible in the sky that I feel him again, just before he materializes in the grass next to me. He sits down beside me and stares out at the lake.
“I can’t do it,” he says quietly, like he’s almost sad.
“Thank God.” I lace my words with a touch of sarcasm, doing my best to mask the desperation I’d felt waiting for him. It’s not like he can’t feel it now that he’s here, but that doesn’t mean I have to acknowledge it. “I would never ask you to do something like that. Never.”
“You’d sooner kill me yourself?”
“I’m not a killer.” I hope it’s true.
He barks out a laugh. “You shouldn’t bother lying to me. I can tell what you’re feeling.”
Fine. If he wants the truth, I’ll give it to him. “I don’t know what I am. What I’m becoming. But I do know I want to live. And I’ll fight if I have to.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second. And though I’ve never given it much thought before tonight, it turns out I want to live too.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“We’re both alive at the moment.” He takes my hand in his, sending shivers along my skin.
“There’s that.”
He waits for me to look at him. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“You’re sorry … ”
“That I didn’t see you sooner. I wish I could take back all those times I didn’t. I feel like I’ve wasted the last year. All those times when you were right there in front of me. If I’d just bothered to look.”
My heart skips and races at an unhealthy pace. “You weren’t exactly lonely.”
He laughs at that. “You have no idea.”
“All those girls?”
“All those prospects. For the breeding program. It’s my role in the Circle. I’m a prospector.”
“Prospector?”
“There aren’t many breeders, but they’re out there, and it’s my job to find them.”
“How?”
“We look for certain traits. Those girls you saw me with were potential breeders. I only had to get close enough to get a few strands of hair for DNA testing. Then I moved on.”
“So it wasn’t that you liked all those girls?”
“I didn’t say that. Some more than others. But it wasn’t like I could stick around to see where it went. Less than one percent of them have anything we can use, and I have to keep moving. It’s too risky to bring pure humans into our Circle. I’m not even supposed to have a girlfriend until I settle on one of the breeders.”
“What does that make me?”
“You do have a hell of a gene pool.”
“So you’re just using me for my DNA?”
He laughs. “I wish it were that simple. Brianna, I haven’t worked for the Circle since I saw you at the party. You’re all I think about. Even before the bond.”
“You knew the bond could happen.” Finally, I say what I’ve come here to say. “You knew what it would mean.”
“I didn’t believe it. Even if I did, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. I just knew I wanted you. More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. And when we kissed … I don’t think I could have stopped it.”
I’m desperate to believe him. Every part of me wants to believe that he wants me. That there’s nothing else. I press forward anyway. “When you saw me, at Austin’s party, you planned to kill me. You claimed the right.”
His face pales. “Who told you that?”
“It’s true?” My heart plummets to the fiery pits of hell. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want his admission after all.
“It wasn’t something I could control,” he says quickly. “When you walked into the room, I didn’t even see you at first. Then there was this weird flash of light and everything went black. When the room came back into focus—”
“Everything was frozen.”
He stares at me. “You saw that?”
“Nobody moved, and then you turned your head and looked at me.”
He shakes his head. “You looked at me, and that’s when I knew. I knew that you were the bandia, the one we were looking for.”
“And you claimed the right to kill me?”
“I claimed you, but I didn’t kill you. I already told you, I won’t. Not unless you come after me first.”
“But you set us on this path, knowing how it had to end. What are we supposed to do? What if I end up killing you?”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
Sparks of silver illuminate the green in his eyes. “I know you, Brianna. Not just what you are. Who you are. If you come after me, you’ll have a damn good reason for it.”
“I hope you’re right.” My birthday is now just four days away and I have no idea what to expect. “I torched Jonah’s truck today.”
“Thank you. I hated that truck.” He laughs. “You don’t have to convince me that you’re dangerous. I get it. And it’s not like I’m going to go down without a fight. I just won’t be the one to start it.”
I lean into him, letting my shoulder touch his. His arm comes around me, pulling me closer. I close my eyes. “I hate this.”
“Really?” His hand rubs light circles along my back. “Because I kind of love this part.”
I smile into his shirt.
His lips press light kisses along my neck. Lower. He watches me as he unbuttons the top button of my shirt. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.” His smile is almost sad, like he knows that our time is short, that we have to make the most of the moments we still have.
His finger trails down the opening in my shirt, between my breasts, underneath them, then back up to my neck. Everywhere but where I want them. I twist my fingers in the hair at the back of his head as his lips follow the path of his finger. My skin is on fire, only briefly cooled where his tongue licks.
I lie back in the grass and he rolls on top of me. He kisses his way to my ear, his labored breaths fueling me. Then his lips cover mine the same way his body does. And when I kiss him, it is with everything that I am, good and bad, human and goddess, friend and enemy. It’s somehow perfect.
THIRTY-FOUR
I sit in the back room at Hunter’s, waiting for Blake to finish up a poker game. Fishnet, who is apparently Sierra, sits with Jonah two tables away. They make no effort to include me. Every now and then Sierra makes a point of looking in my direction just before she whispers something in Jonah’s ear and laughs. It’s all very mature.
Portia serves drinks to the poker players, but I have to get mine directly from the bartender, an old guy who makes a face every time I ask for refill on my Diet Coke. I try to ignore the way Portia touches Blake when she gets near him. A hand on his back, his shoulder, his arm, so casual I can almost believe she’s just being friendly or supportive.
If Blake notices, he doesn’t react. At the card table he has a singular focus. His attention never wavers. It’s easy to see the predator in him as he watches his three remaining opponents.
Mr. Stevenson pushes a large stack of chips toward Blake. Colonel Lydon and Mr. Basker fold.
My role here is simple. I’m a living mood regulator, close enough to ease the ever-present ache when we’re apart, far enough away to avoid the distracting hum of pleasure while Blake works. It’s Thursday night, but Blake promised to have me home well before midnight. I don’t plan to be anywhere near this place when my birthday rolls around. Like Cinderella in reverse, at midnight I’ll go from humble servant girl to belle of the ball, no faerie godmother
required. Of course, there’s always the risk I’ll turn the handsome prince into a pumpkin. And that would be letting him off easy.
Joe ambles into the room in a black leather bomber jacket. He nods at Jonah but keeps walking, sliding into the seat across from me.
“How’s he doing?” Joe nods in the general direction of the game.
“He has the second highest chip count, and Mr. Stevenson is on tilt, so he’ll probably be out soon.”
“You follow poker?”
“My dad watches it when there’s no golf on.” I don’t tell him how I used to make a game of calculating the odds of each player winning the hand before they showed the numbers on the screen. True geek confessions will have to wait another day.
Joe still watches the poker table, but his words are only for me. “You know it’s not too late to get away from here.”
It’s not like I haven’t given it some serious thought. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” I ask.
“Nah. It’s been a long time since things were even halfway interesting.” Joe pulls out a pack of cigarettes and sets it on the table.
Something about the distant look in his eyes triggers a thought. “How long have you been with the Sons?”
“A generation or two.” We both know he’s lying. “You lose count after a while.”
So I’m guessing the giolla aren’t historians because of their scholarly pursuits—they live the history they report. No wonder Joe is behind the times. I feel a little sorry for him. It can’t be easy staying the same while the rest of the world grows up around you.
“Have you known others?” I ask. “Bandia, I mean.”
“Goes with the territory. Last time was nearly eighty years ago. She wasn’t around long, mind you, but she killed three Sons before they got her. Regular bitch on wheels, that one.”
“What happened to her?”
“Same as always.” Joe pulls a cigarette from the pack and rolls the filtered tip between his thumb and forefinger. “Knife to the heart.”
