In the Dark

by Melody Taylor

  “Good evening,” he said, mock pleasantly. I waited. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, watching me, trying to see behind me. I crossed my arms. He sighed. “I’m here to see if you’ve come to your senses. Now that you’ve had a chance to calm down. Maybe think a little.” He said it like he expected to be right.

  “I felt pretty sensible last night, Alec.”

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but just then Josephine and Sebastian’s cars both pulled up, saving me from having to say anything. I smiled. Alec swore and looked like he wanted to run.

  Sebastian got out. I caught myself checking him for injuries, even though I knew better. Anything he’d gotten last night would have healed by now. He looked fine. Well, dark and brooding, but otherwise okay. Josephine matched my smile with one of her own. They walked up calmly, but I could see Sebastian watching Alec.

  I jumped off the steps past Alec, ran down the lawn and threw my arms around Sebastian in a bear hug. It seemed to throw him off at first, but after a second, he returned my hug. I kept it short to keep from completely murdering his dignity. Alec waited on the steps, oozing tension.

  “Hello.” Josephine put one arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek again. I sort of loved that.

  Sebastian’s eyes flicked to Alec once, then back to me. I nodded, feeling what he meant – “is this guy okay?” The moment I nodded Sebastian relaxed. Alec did not follow suit.

  “Why don’t we all party inside?” I suggested. “I have neighbors, after all.”

  Sebastian and Josephine shrugged and went in, past a tense Alec as if he didn’t exist. I waved him inside once. If he wanted to stand out on the doorstep, I wouldn’t try to talk him out of it. He shot me a look but slid inside, back against a wall. Amanda wrung out her sponge, watching us with interest. Josephine found a clean seat. Sebastian stood.

  “This is my older brother Alec.” I gestured at Alec, who had gone stiff enough to be pounded into wood.

  “We’ve met,” Sebastian said politely, referring to last night. I couldn’t help but smile at that. His eyes burned laughter with me.

  “This’s my sister Amanda.” I waved at Amanda, since she’d been comatose when they came over last night. She held up a hand. Josephine and Sebastian nodded. “I’m guessing you didn’t come all the way over to meet my siblings,” I said. “What’s up?”

  Alec and Amanda seemed tense, so I sat, hoping it would help. Amanda relaxed. Alec just gave me a funny look, like he knew what I was trying to do. Sebastian crouched to the floor, balanced on the balls of his feet.

  “I came to check on you,” Sebastian began. He and Josephine exchanged brief looks. “My pack is in Seattle. I consider them to be a threat to you and Amanda.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Alec muttered.

  I shot him a glare and turned back to Sebastian. “Your pack?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. I did not want to hear “I told you so” out of Alec.

  Sebastian nodded. “Specter has made it known to me that he is interested in you. And that he expects my cooperation in finding you. I don’t intend to give it.”

  A sick feeling washed out my hunger. Someone I’d never met expected Sebastian to help kill me.

  “Bullshit!” Alec’s voice startled me. “I can’t believe you’re buying into this,” he sputtered. “He’s still part of that pack he’s talking about; he’s putting on this noble I’m-here-to-protect-you act to lead them to you. If he didn’t kill Kent, one of his pack did –”

  I interrupted him. “You haven’t been here the last few days, Alec, you don’t know what’s been going on –”

  “I don’t need to watch you being taken in to know it’s happening.”

  “I’m not an idiot! Could you give me a little credit?”

  “When I see evidence of your intelligence, then I’ll believe it.”

  “Shut up, Alec!” I shouted, bringing my fist down on the arm of the couch. “Just shut up!”

  To my amazement, he did. I glared at him, slowly realizing my fangs were bared in a snarl, my face pinched in anger. I didn’t try to relax. He’d pissed me off too much to think about relaxing.

  “You don’t have any right to get indignant about murderers,” I snapped, spitting each word around my fangs. “Neither did Kent, for that matter! You cold-hearted, pompous, stuck-up bastard!”

  I shut my eyes and swallowed, because if I didn’t stop looking at Alec, I would jump up and bite him. After I forced my fingers to uncurl from fists, one by one, I opened my eyes and turned to Josephine and Sebastian. “Do you two know anything about this?”

  Josephine shook her head. Sebastian looked curious.

  I took a shaky breath. “Sebastian, Alec knows you from a while ago.” I could feel Alec tense from across the room. “Did you have a problem with members of your pack being lured away and killed, by someone you couldn’t see?”

  Sebastian nodded. Alec froze to a perfect standstill.

  “And you never figured out who it was?”

  Sebastian’s eyes stayed mellow.

  He already knew.

  I didn’t know how that had happened, but I could tell it had. I went on anyway. “Well, it was Kent and Alec.”

  Alec stayed stiff against the wall while Sebastian looked him up and down once. Cold blue eyes found mine, hard. Serious. But not angry.

  “That does explain Specter’s hatred of Kent,” Sebastian said. “But I feel I must be honest, Ian. Specter did reveal my pack’s involvement with Kent’s murder last night. I was unaware until last night, and I do not feel that their involvement must interfere with mine.”

  I blinked.

  “I would like you and your sister and Josephine to stay with me in my home for a while. Alec, you would be welcome as well, if you would like. I do not feel you will be safe on your own until this is taken care of.”

  He waited calmly for my response. I shook my head once, then again, harder. Sebastian’s pack had killed Kent. Alec was right. I looked from him back to Sebastian and felt my jaw tighten.

  It doesn’t change anything.

  I opened my mouth, but didn’t have a chance to speak. Alec snorted and walked out, slamming the door behind him. I thought about giving him the finger, but tucked my hands under my legs instead.

  Sebastian watched after him a moment. Then he half-shrugged and turned back to me. “Specter knows where you live. We should go.”

  I rubbed at my face. “Yeah. Just let me grab some stuff.” I turned to Amanda. “Grab your bag. We’re moving for a while.”

  IAN

  Gypsy hunkered low on my lap, trying to disappear into me. I rubbed the top of her head and wished I could tell her we weren’t going to the vet.

  This whole thing had turned into a soap-opera. Every day – hell, every hour – revealed another convoluted plot twist. I half-expected to find out that Kent had an evil twin. I glanced at Sebastian, wondering how this new piece of the puzzle affected him. His face was calm, as usual. Eyes focused, but not dark or crackling.

  I stared out the window and sank my teeth into my lip. Whatever had happened years ago, between Kent and the pack, between the shape-changer and Sebastian, it had led up to this. Sebastian had taken my side. And however Alec felt, I couldn’t feel scared. I trusted Sebastian. I knew he’d help me.

  My stomach chose that time to interrupt with a growl. Without wanting to, I thought of what had made me so hungry. My gut twisted up and I started breathing. Having a little panic attack as quietly as I could.

  One thing at a time, I told myself. You’re hungry, Amanda’s hungry. Eat, then worry about this pack thing.

  “I’m hungry,” I said once I could take in a slow, normal breath to speak.

  Sebastian raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment and continued watching the road. The tires hissed on the wet pavement.

  I cleared my throat. “So’s Amanda.”

  He nodded once, still quiet.

&
nbsp; “So I’d like to drop her off and go out,” I went on. “If you don’t mind making the trip.”

  Sebastian glanced at me. “If she is hungry as well, why leave her behind?”

  I blinked a couple times, thinking of the nights Kent had opened his wrist for me. He hadn’t even let me bite him myself for months – something I appreciated. Even with razor sharp canines, you have to bite hard to get a mouthful of blood. Not the kind of thing you get used to real quick.

  “She just got turned last night,” I said, even though he’d been there. I expected a nod, some sign of agreement.

  His eyes stayed on the road, his mouth shut.

  “So I don’t think she’s ready to try going out on her own,” I elaborated, in case he didn’t get that part.

  “How else do you mean for her to get her food?” he asked.

  How else . . . ? How had he been taught?

  “Well,” I said, frowning, “me.”

  Sebastian’s eyes flashed my way. Curious. “You mean to nurse her like an infant?” he said, like he couldn’t believe it. Apparently he had not been taught the way I had.

  “Isn’t that what she is? An infant vampire?”

  Made sense to me. I waited for him to answer, wondering about his infancy. I decided I wouldn’t like it.

  “And if something happens to you, Ian?” he asked. “If you do not show her what she needs to survive you risk her life. As Kent risked yours.”

  I snapped my mouth shut.

  Kent had left me extremely uneducated, true. But still – feeding was intense. I didn’t think rushing anyone into it could possibly help their transition to being a vampire. Besides, Amanda could figure out how to feed on her own if she really needed to. It was intense but it wasn’t complicated.

  “I don’t want to scare her,” I said. “And besides, if anything happens, she’ll have you and Josephine.”

  “You would force her care on us with your death?” he asked relentlessly.

  This was getting silly. I braced myself, trying to take a stand – seat. Gypsy dug her claws into my leg when she felt me tense. “I’m not going out on any suicide missions,” I said, gently unhooking claws from my leg. “I’m going to be careful.”

  “Do you suppose Kent thought anything would happen on the night he died?”

  “Hey,” I said, pushing back surprised anger. Gypsy dug in again.

  “I am sorry, Ian, but Kent did leave you unprepared. I am trying to warn you against doing the same thing to your sister. Your new daughter.”

  I sat still, letting the anger bleed off, reminding myself that he cared and only wanted to look out for Amanda. Even if that meant playing the asshole.

  “You have a point. I’m not going to leave her as far in the dark as Kent left me. But I’m not going to scare her out of her mind, either. I want her to wait while I eat and feed her when we come back.”

  Sebastian shrugged like a man frustrated. Short, harsh. “As you will, Ian.”

  “Thanks,” I said, just as short, and let the argument go at that. I pet my cat and didn’t speak again until we reached the parking garage. Josephine’s Porsche pulled into the slot next to the Vector and cut the engine. I got out with Gypsy curled tight against my chest, Sebastian behind me. Josephine and Amanda took their time, chatting and not looking at us. I cleared my throat to get their attention.

  “I need to eat,” I said when they both looked at me. Neither one said anything.

  “I still say this is unwise,” Sebastian said quietly. “She will not thank you.”

  “I already said I’m not going to keep her in the dark the way Kent kept me,” I said back. “What else do you want?”

  “Teach your sister what she needs to know about herself. Take her with you.”

  “I’m not interested in having her watch me suck blood from strangers,” I hissed. “I think she’ll have plenty of time to learn later on.”

  “As long as nothing happens to you.”

  “Excuse me,” Amanda said.

  We looked up.

  She crossed her arms expectantly. “Did anyone plan on asking me how I felt?”

  “No,” Sebastian informed her, before I could open my mouth. Amanda’s eyes went a little wide.

  “Excuse me?” she managed.

  “I said, no, in answer to your question whether we intended to consult your feelings in this matter.”

  Leave it to Sebastian to cut to the chase. Trample a few sensibilities. Ignore tact.

  “And why not?” Amanda asked. I watched her shoulders set.

  Sebastian shrugged again. “You no longer exist in a state you understand. You do not have the experience to make these decisions for yourself. Until you mature enough to make educated decisions, I do not see the point of asking how you feel about them.”

  Amanda stood, staring at Sebastian. He stared right back.

  “Look, Amanda,” I said, stepping between them. “The fact is this is all very new and kind of scary. You don’t know anything about vampires yet. I think it’d be best if you wait here while I go get something to eat. Don’t you?”

  “I’ve gotta learn sometime,” she said, like she thought I was being over-protective.

  “And that time’s not tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I tried to bring her back to the point. “You have to make someone bleed and then drink it. That’s why.”

  “It doesn’t sound that bad,” she insisted.

  I bit my lip, trying to choose the wording of my next argument very carefully. Letting her get her way on this was not an option.

  “All right,” I said.

  I turned to Sebastian and dropped Gypsy into his arms. With a quick look around to make sure we had the garage to ourselves, I rolled my shirt sleeve up and held my wrist out to Amanda, palm up. When she frowned, I took a step closer.

  “Take a bite.” I flexed my fingers. The tendons in my arm shifted under my skin. Amanda frowned a little deeper. “Go on,” I said, watching my point get made. “This is how it’s done, you know. Bite me.”

  “Ian –” she faltered.

  “Here, I’ll help –” I took my wrist in my own teeth and chomped, pulling my lips back so she could hear the skin snap as it broke, watch my teeth sink in. It stung like razors, but at the same time my wrist tingled under the hard perfection of my fangs. When I held my hand back out to Amanda, her eyes had gone wide. I dropped it.

  “It’s not as easy as you want to pretend,” I told her as I rolled my sleeve back down. “You’re waiting here for tonight.” I turned to Sebastian, holding Gypsy for me. His eyes were cloudy. Thoughtful, maybe.

  “If you would,” I said, aiming a hand at Amanda. I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. I felt dirty and exposed.

  Sebastian headed for the elevator without another word. Amanda and Josephine followed. I got back in his car, slumped in my seat and waited for him to come back down.

  ELEVATOR

  This was the first time he had seen a mother and new child interact outside his own pack. Sebastian boarded the elevator with a thoughtfulness that had become familiar of late. Ian had exerted her superior experience without harming or horrifying Amanda. Simply convinced her of the truth: to feed for the first time was frightening.

  He wondered how his own infancy would have gone, had his father – mother? – stayed long enough to do more than kill him. How would it feel to be cared for, even a fraction? When they reached the penthouse, he set the cat on the floor and watched it scurry under his couch – when he looked up, he found Josephine standing close by, apparently waiting for something. He stood and she kissed him again, that same gesture as earlier. He kissed her back, enjoying her soft smile when she let him go. He boarded the elevator and rode back down, still thinking.

  Was this why Ian had become important to him? Because perhaps, for reasons he could not guess at, she cared for him?

  When he reached the Vector he found her sitting deep in her seat, her face troubled. He got in and stayed
still, waiting for her to speak. She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. To his surprise, he did not react to her as a threat.

  Am I growing slow?

  No, his hand had tensed, ready to move. He had simply stayed it. Ian was no threat. Not simply because he could defeat her as easily as a newborn, but because he did not suspect her of attacking him.

  “I hated that,” she murmured.

  “She needed to know what you had to tell her,” he said. He did feel she had done well, convincing both her new child and himself.

  She sighed again. “Why did you change your mind so fast?”

  The answer to that came at once. “The look on her face.”

  Specter would have laughed, forced her to feed from him, mocked her for being so eager and then so frightened. Sebastian found himself growing more and more to hate Specter.

  “You must have had it rough,” Ian murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is no fault of yours, Ian.”

  But her comment made him think. Somewhere between Sarah’s death and finding the pack, he had ceased to think of his life as hard or difficult. Somewhere between them, the pain had faded into an ache he still vaguely felt, wordless, imageless. Endless. At some point, he had stopped thinking of the quality of his life and started thinking of just how to live. How to survive one more night, find blood, stay hidden from the sun.

  He’d thought that was all his life meant anymore. Survival.

  Even the members of his pack sought more than that, securing wealth and property, building reputations for themselves, playing idle terroristic games when otherwise unoccupied. His own reputation had been largely built on his avoidance of such games. He had found them time-consuming and disgusting. Perhaps because their idea of life had never been, at heart, his own.

  Ian sat back up with a faint smile. He’d been getting smiled at frequently of late. A pleasant change. He started the Vector and pulled out of the parking garage.

  That, I think, is something I could use more of in my life. My idea of what a life is.

  But the rest of it . . .

  He had not thought of it in too long. He could not recall what he might have wanted, or why.