Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1)

by Leeann M. Shane

  He parked directly out front of Port Inlet High School. The front steps were caked with snow. Walking up them was treacherous. He made it look easy. He’d pulled his hood over his head and his sunglasses were back on. He grabbed hold of the front door and gave the locked handle a hard shove down. Something snapped and the double front doors swung open.

  “We’re breaking in?” I squeaked, wishing I’d known that breaking the law was a part of his plans before I agreed to come along.

  “Think of it as extra credit. I walked these halls. It’s the only place you and I have both existed inside of as humans. It’s the one place in Port Inlet we’ve both stepped foot in with a pulse. Walk the halls with me one more time?”

  “Oh crap,” I moaned, his eyes too sincere for me to argue with. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  He took my hand for a second, giving it a thankful squeeze before letting it go and disappearing inside. I slipped in after him, shutting the door softly behind me.

  Maxell stood in the middle of the hall, his back to me as he stared down the hallway. I remembered my first day at Port Inlet High School. It wasn’t that long ago. The only differences were the Welcome to the New School Year posters had been traded for the upcoming homecoming dance. My feet had touched where his now were. Where his had once been. I tried to picture the halls alive, instead of dark and hauntingly lonely. I imagined the Maxell with flushed cheeks and charm strolling through those same halls.

  I smiled sadly.

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “Would you go with me? To homecoming?”

  “I’ve never been to a dance.”

  He smiled sadly, too, turning back to stare down the hall. “Too cool for homecoming?”

  I snorted. “Oh, yeah. I was literally so cool no one even knew I existed, let alone wanted to take me to a dance. Not that I wanted to go with anyone. Anyway. If anyone had asked.” I sighed. Shut up any time, Emmie.

  Even though he wasn’t looking at me, I could hear a smile in his voice when he answered. “I just did.”

  I went to stand closer to him, wondering what it was about this particular hallway that had him transfixed. “It’s not like we can go. Even if I did say yes.”

  “Are you saying yes?”

  “Hypothetically?”

  He glanced at me, his eyes teeming with sadness and humor at the same time. “Hypothetically.”

  “Then yes. I would hypothetically go to homecoming with you.” Heat bloomed in my cheeks, but I forced myself to hold his eyes. To absorb his sadness and humor. To acknowledge even my own. It was silly to be sad over something that would have never happened to begin with. I’d never gone to homecoming and I probably never would have. But in the face of never being able to go with Maxell, it was a new, acid-inducing kind of sadness. I swallowed it down and grabbed for his hand.

  “Thank you. What happens next would have been so awkward if you’d said no.” He pulled me along after him.

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He led me up to the library on the fourth floor. Only weeks before I’d been there looking him up, only for his existence to be wiped out on the internet forever. His existence was huge to me now. And it made sense, I guessed, for Masters to rid the foot tracks of a boy who would live forever. Funny how he left my foot tracks in place.

  The last time I’d been in the library, it had been a quiet room teeming with books and computers. Maxell flipped on the light switches behind the librarian’s desk. Twinkle lights glowed overhead. They rained down from the ceiling and the bookshelves. The lights were a soft gold. They were just enough to light up the space cleared out in the middle of the room. There was even a punchbowl on a table nearby and Maxell walked over to a stereo system beside it.

  “Call me human, but I’d give just about anything to go to homecoming with you, Emmie. When I’d been before, it was all so dumb. It hadn’t meant anything. Rented tuxes, crappy punch, and lame music. I thought it was fun because that’s what I was supposed to feel. But it’s different for me now. Homecoming didn’t matter to me then because I didn’t go with anyone who mattered.”

  Eighties music blared from the speakers. I gaped at him, at all of it. At the humanness of the moment. He was more human than me right then. It made me think hard about humanity. Whether it was a state of mind or something that went in and out, like an ocean’s wave.

  He held his hands out to me. “Come dance with me.”

  I held my hand up to stave him off. “Maxell. Come on. No way.”

  He smiled at me. “If you’re afraid because you can’t dance, that’s okay. I can’t dance either.”

  I scowled at him. “Don’t come any closer.”

  He disobeyed me. He took both my hands in his and gently tugged me forward. But when you’re a vampire, gentle is about as soft as a hammer. I ended up flush against his chest, my hands wrapped around his waist, and his hands settled on my hips. And then he swayed, dancing to the cheesy music playing around us.

  The twinkle lights watched us.

  I blew out a nervous breath, ducking my face against his neck. The chill of his body embraced me. I wanted to fight him, I really did—I had a reputation to maintain—but his chill was tempting and comforting, and it encompassed me completely. I had never been so encompassed in my entire life. I rested against him.

  He hummed in approval. “You’re absolutely miserable.” He chuckled.

  I glared against his neck, but I tightened my hold around his waist, breathing in his sweet chill until I became lightheaded. “Music from this decade would have been nice.”

  He snorted. “Eighties classics are the only way to dance.”

  The song switched to one even more ridiculous. But he held me tighter and any protest I had got lost in the pressure of his hold. By the fifth song, I wasn’t a willing participant, but I was no longer fighting it.

  The song changed and I pulled back to laugh. “No way.”

  He winked. “I thought it was fitting.” And then he let me go, flailing around like a handsome idiot.

  What kind of pair bond would I be if I didn’t join him? I laughed as I danced around the room with a vampire to Ghostbusters, the both of us singing along, albeit his singing voice was much easier on the ears than my own.

  “Punch break,” I announced, grabbing a paper cup from the stack beside the bowl and pouring me a cup. Before I brought it to my lips, I paused. “You didn’t spike this, did you?”

  He paused the cartwheel he was doing mid-air, his shirt falling down around his head. For a long moment, his body was on display. I spaced out, studying the plains in his pale, taut abdomen.

  “Only with vitamin C,” he answered, completing his cartwheel. He pulled his shirt down and then immediately started doing more, disappearing between the bookshelves.

  “Show off,” I muttered under my breath, taking a drink. I had just finished my cup and was in the middle of tossing it when movement by the door caught my eye.

  I whirled around just in time to find Misty and Samantha poking their heads into the room. I yelped.

  Misty smiled at me and Samantha scowled.

  That was my first clue that they didn’t know Maxell was there. My second clue was the fact that they hadn’t run screaming from the room in complete and utter terror.

  I walked over and turned off the radio, giving them both nervous smiles in return. Please don’t come out, I begged Maxell with my mind, glancing fleetingly where he’d gone. As long as he stayed back there, they’d never know. And as long as he didn’t breathe, everything would be okay.

  Misty skipped over to me. “I’m so happy you’re here. I wasn’t sure if you were coming or not.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” I mumbled, having no idea what she was talking about.

  “Who are you up here with?” Samantha demanded, barging into the room and taking it apart with her eyes. “The principal said the library was off-limits.” She glared at the twinkle lights.

  We
ll, I was up here with your ex-boyfriend who’s now a vampire, paired to me by fate, and expert cart wheeler. Unsure what to say, I looked at Misty, but she was no help, too busy guzzling down punch.

  “You are so going to win the trophy.”

  “How’d you get a head start? We all just got here.” Samantha cut her eyes to meet mine. “I wasn’t aware of there being special favors for the losers.”

  “She isn’t a loser,” Misty bit. “She’s cooler than you and your pom pom toting goons. Smarter too. I want to be on her team.”

  “Oh yeah, because boys just love your big brains. Suit yourself, loser.” Samantha shoved past her sister and then me for the door. “I wonder what the principal will think of Emmie Tealson cheating and breaking into the library.”

  Oh crap. I shot a glare at the bookshelves, where I knew Maxell was watching us.

  “Is this fruit punch?” Misty asked, pouring herself another glass.

  I nodded, feeling so out of place around another human it unnerved me. So much for showing me my humanity. For all his hard work, I was more comfortable around him than people with an actual pulse. Go figure. “With lots of vitamin C.”

  “So you did get my emails? I thought you were either too sick to get to your computer or you’d left Port Inlet altogether. No one answered your door when I came by. I started to wonder if I made you up. Samantha’s always saying the only way I’ll ever have friends is to make one up.” She scratched her head. “But she only wears pink underwear, so what does she know?”

  “Something about pink underwear that we don’t?”

  She considered it. “Nah, I think that’s just all the cheerleading gumming up her already poor taste. I mean, she’s dating her missing ex-boyfriend’s brother, for craps sake. If that’s not poor taste, then what would you call it?”

  Samantha was dating Daxon, Maxell’s brother? I recalled how pink Misty’s cheeks had gotten when she looked at Daxon and felt a swift and strange burst of sympathy. “Greif?” I suggested.

  Misty sighed. “Whatever. To each their own. My mom has these super insane snow chains on her car. Since you’re already done decorating for the Snow Day Sleep-In, want to go hang out at my place? I can call her to come pick us up and then she can drop us off back here tonight.”

  Snow Day Sleep-In? Only in Port Inlet would that be a thing. “Who came up with this idea again?”

  Misty frowned at me. “We did. We took a vote. After what happened to Maxell, the school’s holding off on any more trips out of town. They have to get creative. Homecoming has been changed to the gym. They’re calling it In-Coming. It’s going to have an alien theme.”

  I gaped at her. Maxell’s idea of homecoming sounded so much better. “Gotcha. Sounds… fun.”

  She giggled. “No it doesn’t. I’m not going. The only reason I came to this was because I couldn’t stay at home another second. I was starting to get cabin fever. There’s so much snow. Even for this time of year.”

  I couldn’t go to her place. I couldn’t hang out with her like normal, not with the threat of ice and fire moving through me constantly. Plus, I had to get Maxell out of there. His insistence was thick in the air.

  “Maybe some other time?” I suggested. “I have some errands to run for my grandmother.” I hated lying. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. But right now her safety and Maxell’s peace of mind were more important to me than my guilt.

  “You’ll be back before they close the doors, right?” She gave the twinkle lights a smile. “You really outdid yourself. It’s actually kind of romantic.”

  On edge, I wanted to scream. She was so bright-eyed and entirely unaware that there was a vampire a few feet away. “That’s me. Super romantic.”

  “Hey, geek!” Samantha’s voice shouted. “You coming, or not?”

  Misty sighed. “See-you later?” she checked.

  “Later,” I lied.

  The moment she was gone, I closed the door after her, sagging against it.

  Maxell emerged from within the bookshelves, his jovial mood evaporated. It was somewhere in the atmosphere now, a part of the stars and clouds. I wanted to bring it back down to earth, to dance one more dance.

  “You should go. Hang out with humans. With friends. Do something fun.”

  His expression unnerved me. It was cold and distant. He had never looked at me that way before. “You want me to leave?” Even to my own ears I sounded confused and hurt—his words were not computing, at least not with what I knew of him, not with what I felt.

  “I want you to live.”

  His answer pissed me off. It was such a cryptic, deflecting answer. I never realized how honest and emotional he was until he turned his emotions off. “That isn’t what I asked.”

  “No, I don’t want you to leave.” He didn’t come closer to me. “I hated the humanity clinging to them. Their easy-goingness. Their life. The ease with which they communicated with you. Completely unafraid that they were going to lose control and hurt someone so important to them. But the hardest part was that your life fit in with theirs so perfectly, how could it ever fit with mine? A life that isn’t even a life at all. Not without you in it.” He finally took a step closer to me.

  The moment he did, I finally took a breath. “Maxell, I know you want that to be true—it comforts you—but my life has never fit with anyone’s, and you know it. You know it because yours fit with everyone’s, and now the only one it fits with is mine. The same way mine only fits with yours. You know what I was thinking the entire time they were in here?” I moved closer to him.

  “What?” he wondered, tone low.

  “I couldn’t wait for them to leave. It felt like there was a foreign substance within our personal bubble, and I love that bubble. In that bubble, I belong. So, stop moping and don’t you ever try to push me away again. It won’t work anyway.” I pressed my palms flat to his chest, peering up at him earnestly.

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were gleaming. He took hold of my wrists and pulled me against him, cradling my head against his chest. I didn’t hear his heartbeat. There was a hollow pause where his heart should be, but the quietness of his missing heartbeat was loud. I listened to it as long as I could as my own pulse pounded in my ears.

  “You’re right. A warning would have been nice.”

  “Before what?”

  He nuzzled his nose in my hair, moving his lips so they were mere inches from my ear. “Before you took my breath away like that.”

  I smiled proudly against his chest. It felt like I was the only one with uncontrollable reactions. It was severely satisfying and comforting to know that even a vampire couldn’t control his feelings. For me.

  “Okay, that’s enough contact for one day.” He stepped away. “You’re going to have to leave by yourself.” He tucked his keys in my hand. “Can you drive my car out of the parking lot? I’ll be waiting near the woods.”

  I gave my first homecoming a glum look, missing it even though I could still see the twinkle lights and smell the fruit punch. “How will you get out?”

  When he didn’t answer, I turned around to find that he was already gone. That he could do so without me even knowing it made my stomach queasy. I shook the feeling off and ducked out of the library, giving the room one last look before I took the long way to the main staircase. I heard voices traveling from within the cafeteria and quickened my pace, running from the humans.

  To my vampire.

  The parking lot was half full and the snow was still falling when I raced down the steps and got into Maxell’s car. I’d never gotten my license, but my dad had given me driving lessons for years before things… exploded, leaving me with nothing but nostalgic, empty memories and a nagging little voice in the back of my head who couldn’t help whispering that I was to blame.

  I carefully maneuvered the car on the slick roads, aware that Maxell didn’t have that hard of a time as I had. The roads felt like they were slabs of ice, smooth and dangerous. I got as far as the fence rig
ht before the woods when I had to stop.

  A dark figure emerged from the woods and instead of getting in the driver’s seat like I was anticipating, he slipped into the passenger seat.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to drive,” he greeted.

  I jutted my chin out. “I know how to drive in normal conditions. Who can drive in this ice age?”

  “Been driving in the snow since I was thirteen. Turn around and get on North Crystal Road. We’re teaching you how to drive and then you’re getting your license. It’s your human right.”

  I gaped at him. “Is this another humanity check off the list?”

  He thought about it. “Yes. In fact, what other things would you like to do?”

  Kiss you, I thought, for the thousandth time. Blushing, I took the chance to hide my thoughts by guiding the car around the end of the street so I could get on the same road Maxell had first chased me on. “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it. There’s so many things I wished I could have done that you can still do.”

  “Like what?” I asked, both curious and afraid of his answer. I was not signing up for the football team and wearing a jock strap. No matter how badly he missed it.

  “Go to college. Skydive—p.s., you’re not doing that, but I always wanted to—play for the NFL, make my parents proud. I didn’t always do that. I mean it looked like I did, but I was almost always a letdown. Daxon was their favorite. Smart, well-behaved, never gave them lip. I was trouble from the start.”

  I kept my eyes on the road, but it was torture. I wanted to look at him, to comfort him because even though I couldn’t see his sadness, I heard it. “What do you think about him dating Samantha?”

  When he spoke next, I heard a smile in his voice. “Besides you, second best thing I’ve heard all day.”

  I laughed, not expecting that. “Why?”

  “Daxon was always into her. He was obsessed with her. I used to think it was funny. Now I’m just glad he can be happy.”

  “You think he’s happy right now? Without you?”

  He paused before answering. “No. I visited him once. My parents, too. It was right after I was turned. I never told Masters, but I had to see them. In retrospect, it was a disaster. That was the night I learned to hold my breath. That the memory of the scent of blood was much easier to deal with than inhaling it over and over again. I took my breath near him, and I wanted to kill him. My own brother. My parents had been sleeping. I wanted so badly to wake them up and tell them that I was okay, but I knew if I did that I’d risk too much. You think they’re okay?” he asked me softly.