by Eva Muñoz
I remained propped up against the wall. If I tried to move, I’d surely melt into a puddle. My knees shook badly while I counted every breath until the air coming in and out of my lungs resembled normal breathing again. He was just a boy, I reminded myself. I ran my tongue over my lips and recalled the sensations he left behind. Who was I kidding? He wasn’t just a boy. No boy could kiss like him.
Troyan faced me with a reconstructed mask of seriousness. He managed to reset himself. I wished I had his ability to calm down in a snap. Sweet tremors still ravaged my body just from me looking at him.
“We should go see Gaige,” he said. “At any rate I think it would be prudent if we leave this room.”
He glanced at the bed, a blatant hint at what he was thinking. Afraid to even consider what would happen if we stayed, I pushed myself off the wall and ran for the door.
Chapter Eight: Transformation
IN MY rush to get away from the feelings Troyan had awakened in me, I didn’t notice the opposite wall of the hallway until I almost plowed into it. I dug in my heels and screeched to a halt just in time and rested my hands on the smooth surface before me. I straightened and tried to get my bearings, gulping in several calming breaths, willing my heart rate to stabilize. I searched for another point of escape.
The white, so bright and blinding, canceled out my depth perception. What I thought was a way out opened to a corridor stretching the length of a football field. No doors marked other rooms, just smooth, white walls from left to right. And above, the illusion of an endless ceiling, stretching to infinity.
Then the scent of something tantalizing hit me like a runaway freight train. I lifted my head and sniffed the air. First to my left then to my right. The smell was stronger coming from my left.
I ran. Uncontrollable hunger urged me to follow the trail like a bloodhound.
In the distance someone called my name. Beyond obeying orders to stop, my feet kept running. Then a powerful arm wrapped around my waist. Again I was slammed against a wall. The jarring force of it woke me from my ravenous haze.
“Camron, listen to me,” Troyan hissed.
“Where am I?” I panted, coming back to myself.
“The palace.”
“The academy?” I hoped.
“Not exactly.” Troyan’s eyes avoided mine.
“That smell.”
“Ignore it.” He turned left and walked without checking if I followed. “Come, Gaige’s lab is this way.”
I stood there in mute disbelief. The sudden detachment he demonstrated confused the hunger out of me. Yes, he normally acted unemotional, but at that moment, he acted as if the passion we had shared not five minutes ago meant nothing. The thought of him having his way with me propelled my legs forward. Anger, the twin sister of betrayal, convinced me to grab Troyan’s collar from behind and push him up against a wall. I clutched fists full of his shirt and lifted my knee onto his midsection, shifting all my weight to keep him in place.
I bared my teeth like an incensed cat. Troyan’s steady gaze punctuated my anger. I wanted him to react to my sudden aggression. I couldn’t comprehend why I suddenly wanted to pick a fight, but I sure as hell wanted one. Yet he remained uncooperative. What did I expect? Did I want him to whirl me around and kiss me into oblivion again? I shook away the image—it caused my insides to become molten.
“I don’t know what’s going on inside me, but I’m not the best person to mess with right now.” I pushed my knee in harder.
“Camron,” he said, not showing any signs of pain.
The way he said my name sent shivers through me so strong, I was sure he felt them too.
“What you are experiencing right now has something to do with biting me. If what I suspect Gaige did to you is right, your bite released chemicals in your body akin to a combination of endorphins and aphrodisiacs. The lust, the wanting, the desire—those are all urges caused by the need to mate with me.”
The heat inside me transformed into ice. “Excuse me? Did I just hear you right? Did you just say I want to mate with you?”
“The bite created a connection between us.” Troyan continued to stare at me stoically. “I feel the same pull you do. From the way you managed to run out of the room, I say you still have some modicum of control over yourself. I suggest you keep it that way because I intend to practice the same restraint. And accomplishing that will be challenging if you do not cooperate and stay away from me.”
“Urges? Is that what you call me flinging myself at you? Huh.” I clucked my tongue. The red mist of anger receded from my vision. “And you promise to stay away from me too?”
“Yes.”
I quickly let go of his shirt, lowered my knee, and stepped away. I was absolutely going to kill Gaige. After he reversed whatever he had done, of course. I couldn’t be 100 percent sure of keeping my raging desires in check. I hadn’t signed up for finding myself in bed with Troyan after Gaige drugged me.
“Let’s get going,” I said.
Troyan motioned for me to follow.
Gaige’s lab disappointed me in that it looked exactly like the Braylin Chem lab.
“I thought it would be more… well, just more,” I said when the sliding door whooshed open.
“Bigger than it looks,” Troyan whispered as an aside while Gaige hurried toward us, an excited gleam in his eyes.
“You’re awake,” he said in greeting. “I was getting worried. In fact, I was just about to pay you a visit.”
Of its own volition, my fist connected with Gaige’s jaw. He flew across the room, colliding with a table laden with an array of test tubes and knocking everything over. Tubes shattered. Gaige moaned. For a second, Troyan’s face showed awe before he covered it up with indifference. I stared at my fist and grinned.
Then I sobered, realizing what I’d done. I wasn’t generally a violent person, but Gaige had it coming, with or without my crazy mood swings. As soon as I found out what it was and made him reverse it, I was walking out.
Carefully, Gaige picked himself up off the floor. Viscous liquid stained his lab coat green.
“I think I deserved that,” he said, looking regretfully at the destroyed setup. “I’ll clean that up later. You’re lucky it wasn’t anything explosive.”
“That’s for stabbing me with a needle,” I said.
“Camron.” He faced me with pleading eyes. “You agreed to this.”
“You could have at least told me what I was signing up for. I want out. Now.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not possible.”
He reminded me of Riya when she came close to a breakthrough. She remained relentless from beginning to end, a crazy look of determination on her face. No matter what, results outweighed all other considerations. Gaige’s expression changed from one of pleading to one of complete resolve. I swallowed, losing all my previous fight. I was trapped. Whether I liked it or not, he was right.
“Come. Sit.” Gaige pointed at a table with a blood pressure kit, tongue depressors, and other medical paraphernalia. “I need to take a blood sample.”
Unable to think of a reason to say no, I took a seat on a metal stool. “Just so we’re clear, what did you do to me, exactly?”
Gaige sat on an identical stool in front of me and proceeded to draw blood from my arm. I ignored the initial needle prick by watching his face grow shades paler. He pulled out the needle and pressed a cotton ball on the wound.
“Apply pressure to that,” he instructed.
I bent my arm, squeezing my finger over the cotton ball in the crook of my elbow, waiting for him to answer my question.
“What I did wasn’t that bad, when you think about it.”
“That’s complete bull—” I reined in the rising fury by biting down hard. I thought I’d break my teeth if I kept at it. After a few calming breaths, I said, “Before I start ripping heads off, please answer my questions. You turned me into one of you. Why can’t you just turn me back?”
“Don’t answer that yet,” Troya
n said to Gaige. “I want an explanation. What did you give him?”
Gaige rested his hands on his knees and sucked in a lungful of air. Some color returned to his ashen features. “I’m working on a formula with the ability to transfigure the physiology—”
“In layman’s terms—”
“Give me a break.” I interrupted Troyan’s interruption. “Like you said, I’m not in Braylin for nothing. I understand what he’s saying. Speaking of which… school? Kiev must be freaking out by now.”
“I took care of it,” Troyan replied simply. “You can’t be in class in your condition.”
“Or you’ll eat the students,” Gaige joked.
I suppressed a gag. “That smell a while ago that I was running toward?”
Troyan nodded.
“How dare you—” I rushed him, but Gaige wrapped his arms around my waist in time.
“Camron, calm down,” he said. “Troyan just needs to be in control of things. It’s for your own safety too.”
If I wasn’t in a hopeless situation, I would have followed through with my attack. Troyan had it coming too, but the steam from my initial emotional outburst dissipated. To avoid transforming into a homicidal maniac, I needed to make the best out of the lemons life had given me, and all because I fell asleep in the library. I stood limp in Gaige’s arms until he let me go.
“Where’s my phone?” I asked.
He handed me it to me. “Not that you’ll get cell service here.”
I tapped the screen. The missed call icon blinked. I clicked on it. Riya’s number showed up. She said she’d come get me at the end of the day. What must she be thinking by now? I slumped down on the stool. How was I going to lie away all this to her?
“Can we continue our previous conversation now?” Troyan inquired.
I sighed and nodded.
“I injected Camron with a formula that basically allows his body to become like ours,” Gaige said. “Changing his DNA sequence.”
Troyan cursed under his breath. “That explains much. He has the strength, the hunger, the urges.”
Gaige rubbed his chin. “Has he eaten the yusha?” He watched Troyan dip his head once before he faced me. “Did it help with the hunger? Are you sated?”
“You mean the white cube thing that tastes like yogurt? Yes.” I moistened my tongue. “I’m full, but not satisfied.”
“That’s to be expected.” He smiled. “The hunger can only be truly satisfied by real flesh. Yusha is only an approximation of the nutrients flesh provides. It’s synthetic.”
My stomach clenched. “When you say flesh, you mean….”
“Human flesh, yes.”
“Oh God.” Images of Troyan’s exposed skin and my biting him flashed before me. I gagged again.
“But not anymore,” Troyan said.
Gaige nodded matter-of-factly. “It’s been forbidden to taste human flesh for over six hundred years. I’m surprised you didn’t take a bite out of Troyan.”
“Actually—” I began, but stopped when Troyan raised a finger to his lips and shook his head at me. Not really knowing what he meant for me to do, I scrambled for a lie. “As if I’d want to take a bite out of him.”
“Odd.” Gaige tilted his head to the side and clutched his elbows.
A worrying question occurred to me. “Does this mean I’m not human anymore?”
“The formula is far from perfect.” Gaige shook his head. “You’re still fundamentally human, only with more perks. You’re faster, stronger, and you can heal. Think of it as an upgrade.”
I removed the cotton from my arm and not a trace of the puncture wound remained. Put that way, it didn’t sound so bad. Well, besides the weird hunger. And the increased libido. I cringed, then remembered the superhuman strength. I thought of Beatrix and grinned. The idea of a smackdown between her and me made up for the fact that I had to be careful around Troyan.
“So, whatever this is will wear off?”
“Yes. Although, I cannot say when, exactly.”
“You just had to conduct this experiment before the Winter Solstice Festival,” Troyan interjected, revulsion in his tone.
Gaige’s expression hardened. “I had no choice.”
“We always have a choice, brother!”
“Whoa!” I raised my hands. “Back up a sec! Brothers? As in, we share the same mother, brothers?”
No one paid attention to me. They stared at each other like two dogs about to fight. I thought the lab would explode from all the testosterone in the air. I leaned against the table and let the stare-down play out.
“Not the point,” Gaige said. “I needed a test subject. I didn’t want to waste—”
I blinked and Troyan had Gaige by the lapels of his lab coat. Impressive, since Troyan had been standing all the way across the room. He shoved Gaige so hard I suspected they would have gone through the opposite wall if Gaige hadn’t planted his feet.
“Brother.” Gaige switched to a beseeching tone. “It’s for the good of our people. You have to trust me on this.”
A rich, throaty growl reverberated from Troyan before he said, “Your little experiment can jeopardize everything. I have worked too damned hard to have you derail my plans.”
Gaige stood firm when he said, “It won’t. Camron’s contribution to this experiment will help us take steps forward. I’m on the verge of something important here.”
“Know that if anything happens that I cannot control, I will hold you responsible. And you know what we do to those found wanting,” Troyan threatened through his teeth. He let go of his brother’s lapels, shoving Gaige in the process.
Gaige took a moment to smooth out the wrinkles of his coat before he spoke again. “He needs constant supervision.”
“I know,” Troyan grumbled.
“I need to see him every five hours for tests.” Gaige moved toward me. “I’m not sorry for putting you through this, Camron. I hope you understand.”
“I understand,” I said, then punched him again. My stinging knuckles made me feel a whole lot better.
“Is this something I can expect from you every time we see each other?” Gaige rubbed his jaw and grumbled. “Just let me know so I can prepare myself for future abuse.”
“Don’t tempt me.” I crossed my arms. “If I’m already like you, what are you?”
“We are called Inshari, but the term you’re more familiar with is vampire.”
My eyes bulged. “As in ‘I vant to suck your blood’ vampires? But you eat flesh.”
“That’s the myth,” Troyan said.
“If you think about it, blood is sexier than eating flesh,” Gaige added as if he was being helpful. “But if you really look at it, there are hardly any nutrients in blood. It’s the consumption of flesh that really feeds. That’s why humans have livestock.”
“But Dracula—”
“A character,” Troyan said in exasperation.
I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what they were saying. “By definition a vampire is a corpse that rises from its grave and drinks the blood of the living.”
Gaige shook his head. “You’re clinging to the myth and human standards.”
“I’m human,” I protested.
“Not right now.” Gaige looked me in the eye. “A real vampire is one who lives by preying on others. Since longer than human memory can articulate, we have been preying on humans. Consuming their flesh like—”
“Cattle,” I blurted out.
“Yes. Until recently, you were our main source of food.”
“What changed?” I asked. “The group with Eli said it was forbidden.”
“Are you done with him, Gaige?” Troyan asked.
Gaige looked me over. “For now, but if there are any changes, rush him back here.”
Troyan came to my side, and a prickling blush bloomed on my cheeks. My heartbeat jumped a couple of notches higher than normal. And my mouth went dry.
“Oh, before I forget,” Gaige said. “Take this.” He placed t
he same white pill Troyan had asked for the other day into my palm. “It’ll help control the urges and mood swings. Wouldn’t want you humping anything on two legs, now would we?”
I cringed, reminded of what almost happened with Troyan. Then I twisted the pearl-like ball between my fingers before popping it into my mouth. “Peppermint?”
“Close enough.” He grinned, looking too proud of himself for my comfort.
“Come along,” Troyan said as he led the way out of the lab.
I scrambled to follow before Gaige decided he had other tests he wanted to perform on me.
“Sooo,” I said as we walked side by side along the ultrawhite hallway.
“So,” he echoed.
“You’re a vampire.”
“Were you hoping for fangs and a cape?”
“Sarcasm? Huh. Imagine that.”
Troyan gave me a sidelong glance. “I’m sensing animosity from you.”
“It’s just… you’re so stiff sometimes. You need to loosen up a little. When you grabbed Gaige at the lab, that was the most emotion I’ve seen out of you. Except for that impromptu make-out session, of course.”
“I have emotions.”
“Could have fooled me.” I went back to my earlier thought, figuring I’d get nowhere with Troyan when it came to talking about feelings. “What about Vlad the Impaler? Wasn’t he called the real-life Dracula?”
“He is a man. A genius of the most unstable kind.”
“Bram Stoker seemed to think so.”
“On the contrary, if you’re going for the definitive vampire novel you need to read The Vampyre by John Polidori. Stoker’s book was the ramblings of a feral Inshari masked as fiction.” His gaze took on a faraway quality.
“Stoker was one of you?”
“There are many of my kind that resent the fact that feeding on flesh has been forbidden. They insist on outing us, yet you humans keep romanticizing their stories instead of recognizing them for their monstrous brutality.”
“You just admitted to being a monster.”
“We are all somebody’s monster.”
I tapped my chin. “The headmaster knows.”
“He does, as do several others. Aleksander comes from one of a few families that have kept our secret for generations.”
