by Raquel Lyon
“I am. Don’t you want to find out how good?”
“Not tonight.”
“Not tonight? Well, that’s progress. I guess I can live with that,” he said, turning off the light.
Sleep did not come easily that night. Suffocating visions of being buried alive, unseen predators chasing me through blackened tunnels, and snarling, salivating wolves snapping at me through iron bars mingled with Sebastian’s and my naked bodies entwined in passionate caresses, right before he grew fur and bit me!
Chapter Ten
I SAT UP SLOWLY and tried to erase the night’s sleep from my eyes with my fingers. Then, blinking rapidly, I focused on the sunbeams streaming through the upper stained-glass section of the window, casting rainbows of light on the pale carpet below, and I remembered where I was.
Sebastian was lying on his side, facing away from me and breathing heavily. I gingerly reached out towards the soft skin that invited me to touch it. Slowly, I stroked my fingers down his side and under the covers, letting feelings of desire wash over me as I traced his curves from the rise of his hips around onto his bottom. This was new territory for me, and I couldn’t resist the urge to give his buttock a gentle squeeze.
A groan escaped from his lips. “Sophie, stop being a tease. I won’t be able to control myself if you carry on much longer, and then you’ll be in trouble.”
I think I already am, I thought silently. But what came out of my mouth was, “What about Lara?”
“Huh? Where did that come from? What about her?” He yawned and turned over to face me. “Don’t tell me we’ve skipped straight from the leave-me-alone phase to the green-eyed monster?” He propped himself up on one arm, removed a strand of hair which had stuck to my face during the night, and began twirling it around his finger.
“She seems to think she has a claim on you.”
“Well, she doesn’t. She’s just trying it on. She’s not my type. She’s a mannequin: perfectly formed, perfectly painted, but nothing inside. Someone has to look out for her, that’s all. Her parents didn’t deserve to die.”
“I heard it was an accident. Didn’t they drive off a cliff?” I asked, puzzled.
“Officially, yes. But the truth is, they were sniffing around some land near Carwick Castle. They wanted to build on it, and they uncovered some information the Reiths didn’t want to make public, so they were permanently silenced.”
“They were murdered? By the Reiths?”
“Yes, but Lara doesn’t know, and she’s better off not knowing, or she might be next.”
“But you know, and now I know. Aren’t we in danger?”
He lowered his head and stared up at me with a look that dismissed my concerns. “They wouldn’t dare. It’s a delicate balance, but there are secrets on both sides. It’s a necessary requirement to keep the peace.”
A moment’s silence grew between us as I digested this recent information. Then Simone’s face flashed before my eyes. “The Reiths were at the Halloween ball, weren’t they?”
“Only Vincent, and he doesn’t really count. The family sent representatives, though. It’s an obligatory courtesy to extend invitations to every other family when one of us hosts an event.”
“I knew those costumes were too good.” I paused to think. “The vampires—they were real, weren’t they? And they killed Simone.”
“Whoa, hold on there, Sherlock. None of Father’s guests wore costumes. They simply dropped their human guises. But the Reiths aren’t vampires; they’re something else. The vamps just work for them. As for Simone, it’s possible. Not usual, but possible.”
I wanted to ask more, but he quickly changed the subject. “My T-shirt looks good on you.”
He was staring at my chest, and I looked down, noticing that the loose neckline was exposing rather more cleavage than I would have liked.
I grabbed the sheet to restore my dignity, but my hands were halted by his, pinning them to my waist. His face was inches away from mine, and his eyes bored into me. He bowed his head slowly, grazing his lips and nose gently against the curves of my chest. Hot breath scorched my skin, and I let my head roll back to expose my neck to his caresses. I let out a moan of pleasure, and he felt my surrender, releasing my hands and reaching up to stroke my face. The tip of his thumb brushed my lips, and they parted in anticipation. He angled his head and moved closer.
This was it. The moment I had to decide. If I let him kiss me, there’d be no turning back. But I couldn’t keep denying it. I’d only be lying to myself. It was time to admit I wanted him. I closed my eyes and waited.
His lips met mine, and a whole new world opened up to me. I reached out, pulling him closer, exploring every contour of his strong back with my hungry hands. His lips were every bit as soft as I’d imagined, and his tongue probed gently until my lips parted and let him in. The hand that had gently caressed my face a moment ago pushed down the covers, searching for the smooth skin of my thighs, then, eager for more, began to lift my T-shirt up.
Our lips parted company, and he kissed a line down to my quivering stomach. I ached for more of his touch and threw my arms back to grab the headboard, arching my back to allow the T-shirt to continue its journey up and over my head. His mouth moved to explore my cleavage, and I entwined my fingers in his blond waves, easing his face back to mine.
“I wanted you the first moment I saw you,” he whispered.
It wasn’t a time for talking. “Kiss me again.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
***
“Earth to Sophie. Come in, Sophie,” Beth shouted later that afternoon.
I was back at the flat, sitting at one of the front windows people-watching, sipping a glass of white wine, and reliving my glorious morning over and over again, when Beth bounced back from the gym.
I’m a big people watcher. They fascinate me. You’d be surprised at what you can learn about people when they think no one’s watching.
“Hmm? Oh, hiya.”
“Look, I’m gonna grab a shower, and then I’d better be getting all the juicy gossip. Okay?” she said.
Shit. What could I tell her? The world’s full of monsters and my boyfriend’s a werewolf? Did I really just say boyfriend? No, I couldn’t say that. I’d have to tell Beth as little as possible.
A sharp rap on the door interrupted my thoughts, and I looked over to find a rather cute delivery boy peering through the glass, sporting a wide grin on his face and waving furiously with his free hand. In his other hand was a gold, heart-shaped box tied with a huge red bow. I wandered over and opened the door.
“You Sophie Crevan?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, hi.”
“Someone’s popular,” he said, handing the box over.
“Mmm. Thanks.”
I closed the door and gave the box a quick once-over. No card. I had no appetite, so I abandoned the gift on the kitchen counter and returned to my window seat.
A few minutes later, Beth was back, drying her long curls with a fluffy pink towel.
“Wow! Cool chocs. Are they from Sebastian?” she asked, helping herself to a glass of my wine.
“No idea. It doesn’t say,” I said indifferently.
“Oh. So, start at the beginning, and don’t skip the good stuff. What happened last night?”
“We talked.”
“And?” she asked, perching on the windowsill in front of me.
“And I met his grandmother and his sister.”
“Ooo. What’s his sister like?”
“Um, quiet.” How could I tell her the truth?
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “So, what did you do all evening?”
“I told you, we talked, and read books.”
“Jeez, Soph. You know how to have a good time…not. What about the kissing?”
“There wasn’t any.”
“So, no touching, then?”
“Nope.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“In his bed.”
“Aha! I knew it,” she said triumphantly.
“It wasn’t like that. He was the perfect gentleman.”
“Honey, there’s no such thing,” she drawled, laughing. “So, let me get this straight. You spent all afternoon, evening, and night with the cutest guy around, a guy who undeniably has the hots for you, and a guy I caught you in a compromising position with—only yesterday, I might add—and you want me to believe that nothing happened? Yeah, right.”
“Well, you didn’t ask me about this morning,” I said with a self-satisfied smile.
“Sophie Crevan, I swear if you don’t tell me right now what went on, I’ll never speak to you again. Did you do the dirty or not?”
“Not,” I said with a tinge of regret in my voice. “But we kissed…a lot,” I added dreamily, remembering his lips against mine.
“You kissed. Well, that’s a start. Was he good? Did you get nekkid?”
“Nearly. And yes, he was…really good. In fact, it was all going great until we were interrupted by an urgent phone call from his dad, and Seb had to leave immediately for the city, so he just dropped me off home.”
“Bummer. Why did he have to go?”
“No idea. He didn’t say.”
“Do you think you would have…you know?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in a quizzical fashion.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t know if I’m ready. I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to, or that I’m saving myself or anything. I do want to. In fact, I really want to…eventually, but I don’t think that I want to want to. Do you know what I mean?”
Beth giggled. “No, honey. I always want to.”
She didn’t need to tell me that. Beth had lost her virginity at the age of fifteen, to a senior, in the supply cupboard next to the maths classroom. She was almost caught by Mr Percival when she knocked over a stack of textbooks post-passion, but managed to escape just in time. A group of passing first years got the blame instead.
I ignored her attempt at humour and carried on. “I mean, I think I’d enjoy it. I’m sure I’d enjoy it, but it’s a big thing, isn’t it?”
“I dunno. You tell me. Did you cop a feel?” she added, hopeful for some exciting details.
“What? No.” I laughed, smacking her playfully on the arm. “Is that all you think about? You know full well what I meant.”
“I’m sorry. You know me. So, when are you seeing him again?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a wistful look.
***
The new week passed by slowly. Very slowly.
Patches of green started to appear over the hills once more, and the dirty brown slush on the pavements melted into the gutters as if it had never existed.
Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. I tried to concentrate in class, but I was too distracted. Where was he? With his dad. Why hadn’t he phoned? He didn’t have my number. I’d lost my appetite, and I wasn’t sleeping properly. I just wanted him back.
By Friday, Beth was getting agitated. “Soph, I’m sick of those flaming chocolates staring at me. Are you going to eat them, or do you just like to torture me?”
“I don’t fancy them. They’re yours, if you want. Only don’t make yourself sick eating the whole box.”
“You know me so well.” She laughed and settled down on the sofa to lift the lid.
The sickly sweet smell hit me immediately, and I had to go to the kitchen for a drink. By the time I returned, Beth was looking very pale, and her eyes had glazed over.
“Are you okay?” I asked, noting the empty spaces in the black moulded tray.
She didn’t answer, but her head started to quiver.
I gripped her shoulders hard. “Beth? Beth, answer me!”
She didn’t, and the quivers turned to shakes. Desperately, I grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialled 999. The ambulance was quick to arrive, but by then, Beth’s body had grown still.
Chapter Eleven
I HATE HOSPITALS. The overpowering aroma of bleach and antiseptic stinging your nostrils and clinging to the back of your throat and the constant beep beep of the heart monitors always reminds me of the day my Gran died.
I sat in the visitors’ room, a tiny blank box with no windows, staring at the circle of uncomfortable plastic chairs around the circumference and a square table fully laden with last year’s magazines for nearly three hours.
Frustratingly, no one had deigned to come and speak to me since the policewoman who’d interviewed me earlier. She’d wanted to know who’d delivered the chocolates, and if I knew who they were from, or had any inkling of someone wanting me dead. A strange look had crossed her face when I mentioned Vincent’s name.
There was a small glimmer of hope about two hours later when a nurse peered around the door, but she merely gave me a sympathetic smile and disappeared again.
I must have flicked through every tatty, coverless magazine and read every wall poster repeatedly until I knew them off by heart. Did I know the symptoms of meningitis? Was I eligible for the flu jab? Had I used the gel provided to prevent the spread of MRSA? I was bored out of my tree and fraught with worry.
Finally, another nurse arrived, and I followed her bright pink plastic sandals through to the single room where Beth was hooked up through a spaghetti of wires and tubes to a variety of monitoring machines.
The doctor was waiting. “She’s stable for now, but we haven’t been able to fully flush the toxin, and unless we discover what it is and neutralise it, we could still lose her.” He hooked a clipboard back onto the end of Beth’s bed. “We’ve been in touch with her father. He’s on his way.” The doctor passed by me, about to leave, but then turned at the last minute. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I made myself comfortable in the bedside chair and curled up waiting for sleep to claim me. It didn’t come soon. My head was whirring. I couldn’t lose Beth. She’d been my best friend for, like, ever. No, she was going to pull through this. She had to. She was too full of life not to. And I couldn’t shake the thought that the chocolates had been meant for me. Me. Why? Why would anybody want to kill me?
I awoke to the sound of voices outside, seconds before they burst through the door.
“We’re doing all we can. Only we’ve never come across anything quite like this before,” the doctor said.
“Mr Morrison. I-I’m so sorry,” I heard myself say.
His head whipped around and he glared at me, unspeaking, before focusing on the doctor again. I got the message. Mr Morrison blamed me. I had to get out of there. He paid me no attention as I exited and fled down the corridor.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi I’d flagged down pulled up outside our flat. I ran around the corner and down the alley. A figure was sitting on the top step, hands hugging his head, which he lifted upon hearing my approach.
“Sebastian?” I shouted, bounding up the stairs to greet him with a sudden burst of energy.
“Seb. I told you.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I’m just so pleased to see you.” I threw myself into his comforting arms. “You’ve no idea.”
“Actually, I think I do. I heard what happened and came straight home. How’s Beth?” I didn’t get a chance to answer before he continued, “Don’t worry. My father’s people are on it. They’re very good at fixing things. What’s more worrying for me is that those chocolates were sent to you. It doesn’t bear thinking about. You’re coming to my place for a while. It’s the only way I can protect you.”
“But—”
“No arguments. Go pack a bag.”
***
“You’ll be safe here,” Sebastian said when we arrived at Lovell Towers a little while later. “I’ve had a room prepared that I think will please you. It was my mother’s room when she first came to live here.”
“Oh. I thought…”
“No. Better not to have too many distractions until we get to the bottom of all of this.”
The room was gorgeous, almost identical to Sebastian’s in style and décor but coloured a
beautiful creamy yellow instead of his pale blue. Where the desk stood in Sebastian’s room, a beautiful dressing table was placed in this one. It had an oval mirror at the back and an assortment of silver-topped, cut-glass scent bottles next to an intricately inlaid wooden box on the top. I couldn’t resist running my finger across the box’s shiny surface.
“My mother had good taste,” he reflected.
“Do you miss having a mother?”
“You can’t really miss what you’ve never had.”
“I miss my dad,” I mused. “I can’t lose Beth too.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist. I leant back, snuggling against his chest, and took in the view from the window.
The room looked out over the front grounds and down towards the pond, a scene I knew well. The melting snow had fuelled the waterfall, now gushing gloriously down the cliff face, and if I craned my neck far enough, I could even see across to the mine entrance on the left.
“Father says Mum loved this view, particularly the waterfall.”
“Your mum and I have a lot in common.”
“Speaking of my father, he’s asked Mathanway to place a protection charm on all the Lovell land, which should keep us safe for a while. If any foe attempts to break it, we’ll know.”
“Mathanway?”
“She’s a very wise and powerful sorceress, stemming from old magic. She lives in the Alician realm and is an old family friend. We call upon her often for assistance and blessings. She’s repaid with items that she may otherwise find hard to source.”
He released his hold on me and went to light the fire. “While you’re here, I want you to treat this place as your home. Feel free to explore as much as you like. The house has many secrets, but it won’t keep them from you. I’ll answer any of your questions when I get back.”
“Back? Where are you going?”
Sebastian replaced the coal shovel in the scuttle and stood up. “I have to return to the city. My father still needs me, but I’ll be back as soon as I can, and Connor will be here to look after you. Oh, and I’ve been in touch with uni. I told them you’re ill. You’re not expected in class next week.” He opened the door. “I need to inform Grandmother you’re here. Why don’t you settle in? I’ll be back in a minute.”