In the Dark

by Melody Taylor

  IAN

  By the time we got back to the penthouse, my feeding-high had worn off. We recovered from that kind of thing depressingly quickly.

  Not that I wanted to stay lit after that guy tried to convince Sebastian to turn me over. He was such a pretty man, too – until he opened his mouth and started spewing that evil crap about how much the pack missed Sebastian. Talk about a buzz kill. I couldn’t help worrying quietly to myself all the way home. I knew Sebastian wouldn’t turn me in, but still. Having someone try to convince him was scary.

  By the time we boarded the elevator, I was moody and upset. As we rode up, I remembered what awaited me. I was about to feed my little sister blood. Because she needed it. Because I’d turned her into a vampire. Because she’d been murdered by people who were after me.

  The elevator stopped, throwing off my balance, and the doors slid open. In the living room Josephine curled like a cat on one of the chairs while Amanda sprawled on her belly on the floor, legs kicking the air. They looked like they were having a good talk.

  Well, good.

  I still felt like shit. I flexed my fingers in my pockets, feeling my borrowed warmth. There wasn’t much left. I was cooling off fast.

  “Well,” Josephine said, “You’re back and each in one piece. That’s a relief.” She said it lightly, with a worried undertone.

  I smiled weakly. Sebastian took his coat off, followed by his sword, and hung them both up by the elevator. Josephine came over to us and, to my shock, put her arms around Sebastian and kissed him. Full on the mouth. Possibly more shocking was that he kissed her back.

  I stared. I couldn’t help myself.

  They let go and I dropped my stare, I hoped before they caught it.

  Sebastian turned to look at me. “I have things to do. We will practice when I return.”

  “Practice?”

  “Indeed. You will not improve without practice.”

  I wilted a little, but didn’t argue. Maybe fighting would take my mind off things.

  Well, no, it would wind up leaving me pissed and tense. But I’d almost rather feel pissed than this scared-guilty-sorry-for-myself crap I felt now. And those were my options for the night.

  “What are you guys practicing?” Amanda asked.

  “Fighting,” Sebastian said. “If you like, I will teach you. Separately from Ian. Not tonight.”

  “Can I watch?” Amanda asked.

  “No,” Sebastian said instantly. “It might be dangerous.”

  She didn’t look like she believed him. “Dangerous?”

  “Yes.”

  I knew what he meant. I remembered prowling back and forth across the practice-room floor, swearing and fighting the urge to jump him. More than that, I remembered fighting the urge to pound the living hell right out of Alec. Remembered fantasizing about lapping up his blood after I’d beaten him.

  Sebastian meant I might be dangerous.

  Sebastian did not seem to notice my startle – or if he did, he wasn’t concerned about it right then. He turned on his heel and left again. I stared after him, feeling my worries about myself wash away in worry for him. I glanced at Josephine. “Where’s he going?”

  She shrugged. “To do what he does best.”

  I took that to mean that she wasn’t sure, but that she trusted him. That seemed to be about all we could do. Reluctantly, I turned back to Amanda. She watched us, curious, nervous.

  What I saw was underneath her expression. Her face was sallow. Waxy, really. Her eyes were sunk in, leaving dark circles all around them, the white points of her teeth showed against her bottom lip.

  So soon. She’d nearly sucked me dry just last night, and she was hungry again.

  I remembered being so hungry for the first little while. I normally didn’t need to eat more than two or three times a week, but for the first month, Kent had fed me every day. A lot.

  Amanda licked her lips, trying to be subtle.

  I swallowed. “Hungry?”

  She met my eyes. Hers had a faint glow. “Starving.”

  “All right.” My voice didn’t shake, but it was low, kind of thick.

  “What do you want me to do?” she said.

  Josephine stayed quiet, leaving this all to me. I bit my lip and tried not to feel abandoned.

  “This is weird,” I told Amanda, thinking of the times I had taken blood from Kent. The very first time. Even though I had remembered my own death, I hadn’t been able to shake the suspicion it had all been one really bizarre dream.

  Amanda leveled her green eyes with mine. “I’m hungry, Jen. What do you want me to do?”

  I swallowed again.

  “Come here and sit down.” I pointed at the floor. That would make it easier to get the blood going down my arm. She did.

  I glanced at the wrist I’d bitten in the garage before we’d left. I could feel the twin slices under my sleeve. Josephine nodded once in my periph, encouraging.

  “Here,” I said, holding out my wrist. Amanda stared at it like it was a dead snake. My little demonstration earlier couldn’t have helped matters.

  Shit.

  I remembered my own first time drinking Kent’s blood. I hadn’t wanted to. This would take more encouragement than “here.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. I tried to keep my tone light, not let on that this was awkward and uncomfortable for me, too. “Just suck, right there. It’ll taste funny at first, but you’ll get used to it. It’s okay.”

  She raised her eyebrows like she didn’t believe me. I kept my wrist in front of her face. Slowly she leaned over it, examining. I let her. The cuts wouldn’t seem inviting, they’d seem like cuts. There was only a hint of blood even though they were obviously deep. Right now she’d be questioning her sanity and mine, but she would be able to smell the blood and that would press her into taking one sip, just to see . . .

  Her lips pressed cold and moist against my wrist. I felt her suck. Not enough for a mouthful, only a taste. She jerked back as it hit her tongue, mouth twisted.

  “It’s okay,” I said with more meaning this time. I could see her rolling the blood around in her mouth, getting the taste of it, wondering why it was so good.

  We watched each other a long second, waiting to see what the other would do. I made myself sit perfectly still. The least twitch on my part could seem to her like I meant to take my arm away. Or it might drag her back to reality, where this was fucked up and it was time to stop. She examined my wrist, keeping her distance. When I stayed still, she reached for more. Slowly. As if she didn’t want to but something was talking her into it.

  Her stomach.

  She brought my wrist to her mouth as if she might scare me off. I let her. She took another tentative suck, and another. Gentler than she had last night. She looked up at me then away again fast.

  “I know it’s weird,” I murmured. “I tried to tell you how weird. Just keep drinking.”

  She nodded absently. She didn’t want me to talk.

  I sighed and let myself relax a little, getting used to the feel of her feeding from me. It felt good, even if it felt strange. Like being kissed for the first time – exciting and frightening at once.

  A shocked guilt ran through my head. This was turning me on. The touch of soft lips on my skin made me react without wanting to – but it was my little sister. I clenched my teeth and resisted yanking my wrist away from her.

  Amanda didn’t even seem to notice my discomfort. She kept drinking without so much as a stutter. She needed a lot. I felt the drain by the time she stopped.

  She sat back, brushing purple hair out of her eyes, licking red from her lips. I shivered, suddenly faced with what I must look like after feeding. She had left a bloody smear on my wrist. Without thinking, I licked it off. Sweet.

  She watched me in fascination, running her tongue across her new fangs. Red on pink. Her eyes were glazed.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she murmured. “Yeah. Thanks.” She didn’t sound all
that okay.

  I nodded and let her be. She wasn’t hungry. She was safe. She had time to think. I rolled my sleeve back down over the stinging cuts.

  Sebastian still hadn’t returned. He most likely wouldn’t for hours. With a look at Josephine, I sighed.

  “I know I’m not much help right now, but I feel so useless. The womenfolk left back at the ranch.”

  Josephine smiled a thin smile. “I know.”

  The conviction in her voice made me notice the lack in my own. I looked away, biting my lip. As if being useless wasn’t bad enough.

  Josephine started up a conversation. Something about a book she’d read, I thought; something totally unrelated to what was happening to us. I half-participated, which was more than Amanda did. Josephine didn’t seem to notice, carrying on talking when neither of us responded.

  And so we waited for Sebastian to come back.

  NIGHTFALL

  Sebastian stayed in bed when he woke.

  He had gone out to search for pack members. Finding none, he set human spies on the area he had seen so many vampires. They would be his eyes and ears, keeping watch while he stayed away.

  Returning home, he had found all three women in a somber mood. Training Ian had only seemed to worsen it for her. She had excused herself to her room early. And so Sebastian had gone to his own – to find Josephine already waiting in his bed.

  He had seen no reason to ask her to leave.

  But now – all his trained instincts screamed for him to be up and gone. The woman beside him was only safe while she slept, he was lucky he woke up early and how did he know she didn’t? If he allowed himself to trust her, she might be up precious minutes before him and take his head while he slept, helpless.

  He stayed, though his body went rigid with tension.

  Josephine? he asked himself. The woman who came to his home because she “had a bad feeling?” The woman who had, in the end, risked her life to see to his safety?

  He chided himself automatically for the foolishness that had followed her reaching his home – and stopped.

  Foolishness? By whose definition?

  He mulled it over. He could recall a time when he would not have thought such behavior foolish. At some point between then and now, he had learned to think of it differently.

  Been taught.

  He knew who had taught him this new definition.

  Sebastian shifted to see Josephine better.

  He did not intend to kill her. She had done nothing to deserve it. Not only that – he had not taken a lover since Sarah. Not because he could not replace her – which he couldn’t – but because he did not agree with the pack’s policy for dealing with lovers.

  It seemed more foolish to him taking lover after lover, leaving their dead bodies decomposing in each subsequent bed, rather than taking and keeping one, learning to trust and aid each other . . . indeed, was that not the purpose of the pack? Working together to accomplish more than each could do alone?

  Sebastian watched Josephine, her auburn hair strewn across her face, eyes shut, arm curled under her pillow.

  No, he had to answer himself honestly. The purpose of the pack was to protect and promote Specter. Not each other.

  In truth, the pack had always centered around Specter. What he wanted, what he ordered, what he believed. The notion should not have come as a surprise, but somehow it did. Sebastian had left because he did not feel he fit in, not because of traitorous thoughts.

  Though I seem to be having more and more of them.

  Sebastian would not doubt if that was why Specter taught the pack to murder their lovers. To keep the members from forming alliances outside the pack, to keep them loyal to Specter. A startlingly easy way to keep them as one unit. The blood of death was addictive; Specter did not even need to see the rule enforced. Once he showed them the pleasure inherent in killing, the pack members themselves would give in to temptation and take care of inconvenient outside interests all on their own.

  And none of them sees the real reason.

  Josephine shifted in her sleep, red hair slipping over her face –

  Watching Sarah sleep, how blond strands fell over her face, how even in sleep, she reached out to him . . .

  Memories. More of them.

  It was so like living again, so vivid, that for a moment he was Donal again, wondering at the room he found himself in and the strange woman lying beside him in Sarah’s place –

  Knowledge of the here-and-now slammed into him, forcing him to remember. He cringed against reality while tears formed and dried in his eyes.

  He reached out, brushed Josephine’s hair from her face.

  Without meaning to, he thought of Sarah’s death. His reaction to her death. That part of her life stayed vivid in his mind, always. The horrible pain. The emptiness. The aloneness that had swallowed him whole, leaving nothing else for him to feel.

  Would he react that way to Josephine’s death?

  No. The answer was immediate. Not like that. Wailing for nights, slitting his wrists only to find they would no longer bleed. No.

  But the loneliness . . . that he would feel. As he would if Ian were killed. Perhaps he had more feelings left in him than even he had suspected.

  Josephine murmured in her sleep, one hand searching for him. Unexpectedly, his throat tightened and his eyes became uncomfortable.

  He swallowed once and let her hand find his. She tugged him, cracking open one eye. He let her, and she pulled him to fit against her. Soft curve of her breast against his chest, her flat stomach pressed to his, arm settled loosely against his waist.

  She could kill him like this.

  But she only sighed, pressed her face to his neck, and lay still. After several tense moments, Sebastian let himself – forced himself – to relax, and simply hold her.

  He thought he was doing it right. She sighed again.

  It felt right.

  Very right indeed.

  IAN

  The dream lingered as I woke up, following me from sleep. I rolled over in bed, pulled the covers up over my head and kept my eyes closed. Trying to remember. It had been a bad dream, but the images had the same feel as the last couple dreams I’d had that turned out to have connections to the real world. Even in the dream I’d been paying attention, trying to figure out what it was telling me.

  Alec and the pack vampire that had approached Sebastian sat at a little bistro table having tea together. I stood beside them while they both told me how dangerous Sebastian was, Alec with a horrified tone and the pack vampire with zeal. A sound made me turn, and I watched helplessly while Amanda was savaged to death by a group of vampires. They must have been the pack, though they looked more like demons or gargoyles than real vampires. Watching that violent scene in the dream made me feel sick and afraid; remembering the dream while awake did the same thing. I made fists around the edges of my blankets and focused on the next part of the dream. When the bloody and dead Amanda had lifted her head, smiled at me, and removed her mask. Became the blank-faced, red-eyed, ice-pick-fanged creature that had tried to kill me once before. I turned and ran, and she chased me, and I woke up with the dream following me.

  So what the hell did all that mean?

  Something. I was sure of it. Possibly something important. Alec and the pack vampire having tea, the pack as demons, Amanda dying, becoming a faceless monster . . . I turned it over, kept my eyes closed, searching for the clues.

  My stomach grumbled angrily. First the sound, then an empty stab. I thought about the dream a little more, then gave in to my furious belly. I rolled out of bed, resolving to think of the dream more later.

  Once I put down some fresh food for Gypsy, I left my room to find Sebastian. He wouldn’t approve of me running out to get a mouthful alone. Not that I wanted to. I trotted out into the living room, expecting people, or a person. Someone to say “hi” to. I walked into an empty room.

  Nobody at all . . . ? Probably still sleeping.

  Sleeping or othe
r things.

  I blew air up into my bangs. Who knew how long they’d be? Time to amuse myself for a while.

  I went to the glass balcony doors, thought about swimming in that marvelously large pool and decided against it. I wanted to be ready to go the instant Sebastian got up, not standing in wet clothes. I pressed my face to the glass of the door, watching my reflection watch me. It made me think of Sebastian’s mirrors. The ones that had been in the practice room and weren’t there now. I’d asked him where they went and he simply said that if I missed them, he would replace them. If there was a more creative way to say, “I don’t want to talk about it,” I couldn’t think of one. I wasn’t the only one going through some shit here.

  I crossed my eyes at my reflection. Maybe I should try to work my dream out some more.

  “Hey –”

  I nearly jumped clear out of my skin, whirling around with a frightened snarl that got out of me before I recognized Amanda’s voice. Not a startled “eep!” or a shriek or anything human-sounding. Of course not. A goddamned snarl. Fangs and everything.

  I saw Amanda’s eyes go wide, watched her stumble back away from me in the space it took me to realize who had spoken and how I had responded. My face relaxed, the snarl snipped off, but it was too late.

  Amanda’s hands came up to protect herself. She tripped over a chair trying to back away and watch me at the same time. She yelped as she fell, then scurried behind the chair, hoping to hide. Her hands shook. She didn’t see me, she saw a beast. A beast like the ones that had ripped her apart just nights ago.

  I tried to go to her. I knew better. I’d had these little freak-out sessions, I knew how she was locked into the memories and didn’t know who I was. I still stepped forward, reaching. She cried out and cowered behind the chair. Certain I was going to kill her.

  Sick, I flinched back from her. I wanted to hug her, talk to her, anything. Something to help. Any of those things would make the memories more intense, harder to push away. She had to ride it out on her own. Standing there, watching, I felt angry and helpless and sad. This shouldn’t have been happening. She shouldn’t be scarred like this.