Eternal Kiss

by Trisha Telep

  Moth gave him the benefit of her silver stare. “Sometimes. So, c’mon. Your turn.”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  She wiggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, I love a younger man …”

  “Get off me, freak.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.” Moth dug her knees in. Hard.

  Jace’s eyes rolled with pain and, if it was possible, his face became even paler. “Bitch,” he gasped.

  “Says the guy who drugged me—and I don’t know how the hell you managed that—tied me up in chains and handcuffs made of blessed silver, and then threatened to dust me with Daddy’s crossbow.”

  “So … what? You’re going to bite me now, is that it?”

  “Would you like me to?” Moth could smell his fear. It was intoxicating, and she was already trying to fight the bloodlust rising in her gut. She could feel the panicked drumbeat of his heart as their bodies pressed together. Just because she had an aversion to the taste of blood—especially the fresh stuff—didn’t mean she wouldn’t do what she had to do. Not when it came to survival.

  She studied Jace’s pain-wracked face. This wasn’t survival, it was revenge, but didn’t she deserve a little of that? She wouldn’t drain him, of course. She would only take a little. Just a taste …

  Moth slid her hands down his solid arms and grabbed his wrists, forcing them above his head. He was powerless. He could wriggle beneath her, but with the busted kneecap he only had one leg that was working, and he was probably in too much pain to do too much damage with it.

  His blond spikes had wilted, and sweat ran freely down his neck and onto the carpet. She stared into his dark eyes—his brown eyes—and did something she hadn’t done for a very long time. Oh, the days she’d spent dreaming of Theo and those full lips. But there was something about Jace’s thinner mouth that drew her to him. Even though he was beaten and in pain, the grim determination that pulled it into a tight line spoke of the sort of man he was going to become.

  Moth licked her lips and leaned in close.

  Jace’s eyes widened as she captured him in her gaze, willing him to hold still, just for a moment, while she pressed her lips to his and delivered the softest of kisses. He tasted of fear and rage, desire and pain, and it was truly delicious. Filled with regret and growing bloodlust, Moth pulled away—she had to get out of there. But first she had to find that damn funeral urn.

  Before she could move away, Jace’s uninjured leg suddenly swung around, clamping down on her chained legs and holding her in place as he pushed his lips back against hers.

  Moth’s brain registered a fleeting moment of WTF? as he deepened the kiss. Wasn’t he supposed to be transfixed by her silver eyes? She still hadn’t fully mastered the art of compulsion, but she had some ability. And then she purposely switched off that part of her mind—the part that was afraid—as she enjoyed the moment; it had been too long since she’d been kissed like this. Too long since she had been held and touched.

  Moth finally opened her eyes and pulled away. She looked down into his face and he stared back, a dark challenge hidden in the depths of his eyes. His lips quirked in a half-smile, and the movement sent a drop of blood running down his chin.

  Before she could control the impulse, Moth darted forward and caught the shining crimson bead on the tip of her tongue. It tasted harsh and tangy, and she shuddered with a mixture of desire and disgust as she swallowed it. She licked her lips and tried to push down the wave of guilt that washed over her. Crazy to feel that way, just for nicking him with her teeth. It had been an accident—heat of the moment.

  “If you’d let go of my hands, I could wipe the rest of the blood away.” Jace’s tone was neutral, all signs of pain and panic appeared to have gone. He’d regained his control, just as she had lost hers.

  Moth gazed at the new blood welling from the cut on his bottom lip. She released his arms and pushed away from him, rolling to one side and dragging herself across the room and against the wall nearest the door. Her newly acquired leather jacket was hanging from a hook against the dark wood. She grabbed it and tugged it down, ripping the bronze coat hook from its moorings. Wrapping the material around her hands, she gripped the thick silver chains encasing her legs and pulled.

  The metal was heavy and tough—even without the so-called “blessing” (which Moth was beginning to suspect was actually some kind of magical warding)—but she was fast regaining her strength.

  The chains snapped, the miniature padlocks shattering into pieces and scattering around her on the carpet.

  Jace lay exactly where she’d left him. His injured leg was bent at a strange angle and Moth began to wonder if she should leave him there like that. She shook her head. What the hell was she thinking? She was going soft, forgetting what he’d done to her in the first place. One kiss and she’d completely lost her head.

  Flipping onto her feet, she shrugged into the jacket and tried to ignore the faint burning sensation around each wrist. Moth approached the would-be vampire hunter and nudged him with the toe of her boot.

  “Okay, Van Helsing. Where does your father keep his trophies?”

  He coughed and propped himself up on his elbows. He tried to hide a wince as he attempted to lift himself into a sitting position. “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, I don’t have time for this. You cost me …” She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and almost gasped. “Two freaking hours?! What the hell did you plug me with?” She narrowed her eyes. “Forget that. What time will Daddy be home?”

  Jace glared at her. “He’s never home before dawn.”

  Moth felt the tension in her gut ease. “So … The trophy room?”

  “He doesn’t take scalps, if that’s what you mean.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ashes, Jace. Where does he keep the ashes?”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “Yeah, right. Tell me, or I’ll rip the place apart after I take out your other knee.” She gave him an evil grin. “How do you fancy a wheelchair for the next three months?”

  Moth was amazed to see his fingers twitch in the direction of the unloaded crossbow. She brought her heavy boot down on it with a satisfying crunch.

  “Tick-tock, Jace.”

  “Fine. There’s no trophy room.” He raised his hand as he saw Moth about to reply. “There really isn’t. Dad keeps some funeral urns in the kitchen.”

  She frowned. “Um … The kitchen?”

  “Cupboard under the sink.” He lay back against the floor and closed his eyes.

  “Your old man’s a freak, you know that?”

  “Screw you.”

  Moth couldn’t stop the grin that spread across her face. She blew him a kiss and pocketed his cell phone and her shades on her way past the armchair. She left the room and quickly checked all the other doors before finding the kitchen at the far end of the labyrinthine apartment.

  The kitchen was surprisingly large, square and filled with chrome and modern appliances that didn’t look like they saw much use. The small sink and disposal unit shone under the bright lights, and beneath those nestled the sort of cupboard where you’d expect to find cleaning products.

  Except inside this cupboard were at least a dozen funeral urns. Why would a vampire hunter store trophies of his kills under the kitchen sink, of all places? Maybe it was simply because nobody would ever think to look there for his prize stash.

  Or maybe Thomas Murdoch was a crazy bastard. What the hell did it matter, anyway? As long as she grabbed the right one, she was out of here.

  Moth shuddered as she touched the urns at the front. Ugh, creepy. How was she supposed to know which one Theo wanted? She nibbled her lower lip, her mind straying to the kiss with Jace. He may be the son of a killer, with a serious attitude problem to boot, but he was still pretty damn hot. She should really give his phone back when she left—that knee was going to need a lot of medical attention.

  She pushed away thoughts of teen vampire hunters, and instead tried to remember what Theo had t
old her about the master vampire that’d been dusted. She carefully removed each urn, searching for clues, and breathed a sigh of relief when she thought to look underneath. Each one was inscribed with a date—presumably the date of death. Moth knew when Maxim had been killed, so it was only a matter of minutes before she found the right container. At least, she hoped it was the right container.

  Tucking the ceramic urn under her arm, she prayed she wasn’t going to have one of her clumsy nights. She would have to take the stairs, much as she was tempted to climb out of the window and just shimmy down the wall, but carrying ashes that were over five hundred years old while sticking to the wall Spider-Man style probably wasn’t a good plan. Especially as the contents of this funeral urn—no matter how gross—were her ticket back out of Ironbridge for the next two months.

  As she finally left the apartment, wondering how many invisible alarms she’d tripped in the kitchen, Moth dropped Jace’s cell phone outside the bedroom door. Maybe he’d find it before his dad got home. She didn’t have time to do more for him. Theo would be waiting for the urn, and was no doubt wondering where the hell she was.

  Moth rolled her eyes. Let him wait—like he’d even care that she had almost been killed tonight.

  Except Theo had cared. He had seemed to care a great deal, which left Moth confused and vulnerable when she faced her father the next day.

  “I don’t know what kind of deal you made with the Devil, Marie O’Neal, but do you honestly believe I haven’t noticed you’ve not aged a day since your eighteenth birthday?”

  Moth—still known as Marie to her family—stared at her father in shock. She wanted to say something sensible; something that would convince him that he was talking crap. Anything that might make him believe she wasn’t the monster he suspected her of being. But the O’Neals were a superstitious bunch, and her father was the worst of them.

  “Dad—”

  “Get out of my house. Your mother’s been in her grave this past year, so you’ve no business here anymore.”

  “You can’t stop me from seeing Caitlín!” Her younger sister would be devastated when she heard what was happening. How could Moth explain this to her without revealing the truth?

  Coming home had probably been a mistake, but Moth refused to miss her mother’s memorial service. Apart from the fact that she wanted to be here for that, not putting in an appearance would’ve caused even more questions. She hadn’t been home since Mom died last year, and even back then her father had been insistent that his middle daughter was now living a life of drugs and “God-knows what else.” However, the look of distaste on his lined face—the shadow of fear that lingered in his pale blue eyes—said that he now believed something else entirely.

  Rory O’Neal had always been a God-fearing man, thanks to his strict Catholic upbringing by elderly immigrant parents, but he was looking at Moth as though she were the devil incarnate.

  He scowled at her. “Caitlín’s old enough to see you on her own time, away from here, and Sinéad feels the same way as I do.”

  She couldn’t resist sneering at that. “Of course she does.” Moth and her older sister had never been close.

  “Don’t speak about your sister in that tone. At least she didn’t run away after your mother passed.”

  Moth ignored him and watched the family’s arthritic dog shuffle around the untidy backyard. She tried not to think about her older sister’s smug expression as she had watched their father lead Moth out onto the porch after the last guest had left. At least Dad had waited until people had properly paid their respects, before disowning her and telling her she was something other than human.

  Much as she wanted to hate him, how could she truly blame her father?

  Swallowing unshed tears, she shivered in the rapidly cooling shade. She couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to have the sun warming her face. As usual, she sat under cover of the wooden porch as the bright spring day came to a close.

  “Do you even hear what I’m saying to you, Marie?” Her father’s voice broke into her scattered thoughts. “You’re not welcome here. Leave us in peace.”

  Tears burned in her eyes—the eyes her father had insisted she uncover after the service commemorating Mom’s life and death—and the blue contacts caused her eyes to ache more than ever. Moth clutched her sunglasses between stiff fingers, and resisted the temptation to crush them into dust. She suddenly wished she’d left them back in that room with the wannabe vampire hunter.

  A picture of Jace suddenly flashed in her mind, as bright and clear as a newly developed photograph. She gritted her teeth and pushed the image away. He was human, and not only that, he was her enemy.

  Moth’s voice was husky. “I understand what you’re saying, Dad. I just don’t know how you can say it to me. I’m your daughter.”

  His eyes were blank. “No, you’re not. Not anymore.”

  Marie “Moth” O’Neal gazed at her father for a long moment. His face was set in cold, hard lines that she knew would never again melt into a smile—not for her.

  Caitlín was the only human being that she could rely on now. She had to learn to accept her new “family;” a family that worshipped the moon rather than the sun, and who didn’t look at her as though she were a monster.

  When she had returned to Theo with barely-healed scars on her arms—and the silver handcuffs causing fresh burns every moment—her sire had been furious. Not with her, as she’d feared, but with the young human who had dared to attack his “little Moth.” He had ripped the blessed metal from her wrists without flinching, the mysterious urn seemingly forgotten as he held her in his arms and stroked her hair.

  Turning away from the home she had grown up in, Moth tasted bitter ashes on her tongue. Her old life was crumbling around her, but she pinned a fierce smile on her lips as she headed out of the city. She tucked her sunglasses in place, hoisted her backpack higher on her shoulder, and wondered how long it would take her to hitchhike back to Boston.

  She had earned her last two months of freedom, and she damn well intended to make the most of them.

  IT WAS THE light that started it. Hannah woke up at three o’clock in the morning one cold February day and noticed that one of the old copper sconces along the wall was turned on, emitting a dim, barely perceptible halo. It flickered at first, then died, then abruptly came back to life again. At first she chalked it up to a faulty wire, or carelessness on her part—had she turned off the lights before bed? But when it happened again the next evening, and again two days later, she began to pay attention.

  The fourth time, she was already awake when it happened. She felt around the nightstand for her glasses, put them on, then stared at the glowing bulb and frowned. She definitely remembered turning off the switch before going to bed. She watched as it slowly burned out, leaving the room dark once more. Then she went back to sleep.

  Another girl would have been scared, maybe a bit frightened, but this was Hannah’s third winter on Shelter Island and she was used to its “house noises” and assorted eccentricities. In the summer, the back screen door would never stay closed, it would bang over and over with the wind, or when someone walked in and out of the house—her mother’s boyfriend, a neighbor, Hannah’s friends whose parents had houses on the island and spent their summers there. No one ever locked their doors on Shelter Island. There was no crime (unless bike-stealing was considered a crime, and if your bike was gone, most likely someone just borrowed it to pedal down to the local market and you would find it on your front doorstep the next day) and the last murder was recorded sometime in the 1700s.

  Hannah was fifteen years old, and her mother was a bartender at The Good Shop, a crunchy, all-organic café, restaurant and bar that was only open three months out of the year, during the high season, when the island was infested (her mother’s word) with cityfolk on vacation. The summer people (also her mother’s words) and their money made living on the island possible for year-rounders like them. During the off-season, in the
winter, there were so few people on the island it was akin to living in a ghost town.

  But Hannah liked the winters, liked watching the ferry cross the icy river, how the quiet snow covered everything like a fairy blanket. She would walk alone on the windswept beach where the slushy sound of her boots scuffing the damp sand was the only sound for miles. People always threatened to quit the island during the winter. They had enough of the brutal snowstorms that raged in the night, the wind howling like a crazed banshee against the windows. They complained of the loneliness, the isolation. Some people didn’t like the sound of quiet, but Hannah reveled in it. Only then could she hear herself think.

  Hannah and her mother had started out as summer people. Once upon a time, when her parents were still together, the family would vacation in one of the big, colonial mansions by the beach, near where the yachts docked by the Sunset Beach hotel. But things were different after the divorce. Hannah understood that their lives had been lessened by the split, that she and her mother were lesser people now in some way. Objects of pity ever since her dad ran off with his art dealer.

  Not that Hannah cared very much what other people thought. She liked the house they lived in, a comfortable, ram-shackle Cape Cod with a wrap-around porch and six bedrooms tucked away in its corners—one up on the attic, three on the ground floor, and two in the basement. There were antique nautical prints of the island and its surrounding waters framed in the wood-paneled living room. The house belonged to a family who never used it, and the caretaker didn’t mind renting it to a single mother.

  At first, they moved around the vast spaces like two marbles lost in a pinball table. But over time they adjusted and the house felt cozy and warm. Hannah never felt lonely or scared in the house. She always felt safe.

  Still, the next night, at three o’clock in the morning, when the lights blinked on, and the door whooshed open with a bang, it startled Hannah and she sat up immediately, looking around. Where had the wind come from? The windows were all storm-proofed and she hadn’t felt a draft. With a start, she noticed a shadow lingering by the doorway.