***
Harriet came round in Tom’s room, lying on his bed. A few of the Cavaliers stood around, watching her. She tried to stand, but her legs refused to cooperate. Instead, she glanced wearily around her, looking for Tom. He was lying in his coffin, absolutely dead to the world. Someone had removed his shirt and waistcoat. A scar had already formed where George’s sword had penetrated. It looked as though he’d sustained the injury years rather than minutes before.
“He’ll be okay, I promise,” Rupert said. “The wound has already healed, as you can see. He’ll take a few days to recover from the blood loss and the trauma, but there won’t be any long term effects.”
“How did we get back here?” she asked weakly.
“The few of us who could flew,” he replied calmly. “I carried an unconscious Tom, George took you. I didn’t think you’d entirely approve, but you have the blood bond, so he did have the right.”
“Okay, but I want you to leave now,” she said, as firmly as she could through her weakness. “I think your little society has caused enough trouble for one night, and I need some time alone with Tom.”
Rupert nodded and led the other members out, until only George remained.
“Please leave, George,” she said. “Can’t you see that I don’t want you here?”
“Can’t you see that you’ve lost so much blood you can hardly function? And it still didn’t do any good. Putting the best oil in an old Ford won’t make it drive like a Ferrari.”
“I don’t want to hear this. I’m not in the mood for one of our little conversations. You’ve as good as killed him.”
“He’ll be fine,” George said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “I’m not sure I can say the same for you though. He’s going to be in no state to replace all that blood for the next few weeks. Let me give you some of mine to help you rebuild your strength.”
“George, no. I don’t need your blood. I don’t need anything from you except for you to leave me alone.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, leaning in slightly. “You’ve had it before. We already have our little blood bond. A few drops more won’t make any difference. Consider it my apology for getting your boyfriend into that state, although I’d be lying if I said I regretted it.”
She ought to resist, of course, but the exhaustion and weakness penetrated her bones. She’d felt great the last time she’d taken his blood. How could she help Tom if she had no strength herself?
“All right, I’ll do this for the good of my health,” she said at last. “But don’t you dare try to make anything of it. A starving man would accept food from his worst enemy, I suppose.”
“Let’s get started then,” George said, grinning. Harriet wished he would at least pretend not to be delighted about the whole situation.
“Not here. I’m not having Tom wake up to see us doing that.”
“Where then? Your room?”
Could she really invite him in? If she did, the last bit of protection remaining to her would vanish, but she couldn’t do it in public, and there wasn’t time to get anywhere else even vaguely private.
“All right. Take me up there and I’ll let you in.” Harriet couldn’t shake off the feeling that this might be the stupidest decision of her life, but she couldn’t think clearly through the blood loss, couldn’t keep things in perspective when she’d seen her boyfriend stabbed.
He picked her up and began to climb the stairs. “I’ll carry you normally this time,” he said soothingly. “Flying is pointless indoors.”
Harriet didn’t think anything else could shock her, but didn’t argue. She paused once they reached her door and looked at his flashing emerald eyes. “I suppose you’d better come in,” she mumbled.
George laid her softly on her bed and closed the door. “I like it,” he said. “Nice posters. Lovely rug.”
Harriet glanced around. The scout had visited that morning, so the room looked relatively tidy for once. “Well, that’s a relief. You being a bloodthirsty monster is one thing, but I don’t think I’d have coped if you didn’t appreciate my decor.”
He smiled at that but quickly became all business. “It’s almost dawn. Drink now, before I have to seek shelter.” With that, he lay down next to her on the bed, drew his wrist to his mouth and ripped open the vein.
Harriet shuddered, but didn’t require any further encouragement to put her mouth to his hand. The blood tasted as good as she’d remembered, and within seconds, her strength began to return. She tried her best to stay matter of fact about the feeding, to regard it as purely about nourishment and healing and not let herself treat it as an emotional bonding experience. On the whole, she succeeded, but keeping George at arms’ length and not snuggling into him took all of her self-control.
After a while, he lifted her head up. “Better?” he asked.
“Much,” she said, climbing to her feet with ease. “Thank you, but now you really had better go. I won’t have you make anything of that. Besides, I need to check on Tom.”
“Just give me one kiss as a little thank you,” he said, lounging back on the bed.
Harriet didn’t feel like fighting one of her endless battle with him. She leaned over, kissed him hard but dispassionately on the lips. He tried to put an arm around her and soften the kiss, but she held firm. She kept this up for a few moments and then broke away.
“There you are. I hope you enjoyed it. Now please leave. I suppose I’ll see you at the Summer Party.”
“As you wish, Harriet. See you soon.” Obviously tired of any pretence of normality, he disappeared in front of her.
Harriet splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth to take away the taste of both the blood and George’s lips. Glancing in the mirror, she saw she still wore her pirate outfit. Never had something looked more inappropriate. She felt as though she’d been wearing it for a lifetime. She tore off the skirt and laboriously untied the corset, and then slipped on a pink polka dot dress in honour of it nominally being the first day of summer, even if the weather seemed unlikely to have noticed.
Once dressed, she rushed down to Tom’s room. He seemed to be in the same state she’d left him in - unconscious and scarred - though even in the half hour that she’d been away the scar had already begun to fade.
“Tom, it’s me,” she said, shaking him as vigorously as she dared. “Wake up.”
At the sound of her voice, he stirred slightly. “Harriet,” he said, his voice barely audible.
“Thank God, you’re alive. I know all this stuff about how normal injuries can’t kill you, but I was so worried.”
“I’ll be okay. I need two things. Rest and blood. It’s almost dawn, so for now I’ll settle for the former. I daren’t take more from you, and even if I all but drained you it wouldn’t be enough. Tomorrow night, you might have to bring me people to drink from.”
She kissed him then, allowing herself all the passion and feeling that she’d carefully avoided with George. “Shush, save your strength. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, I promise. Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No, you should enjoy the choir and the sunrise. It’s the main point of the evening after all. Close the lid and let me sleep. Then take this key and lock my door from the outside.”
Harriet didn’t like the sound of that. Did he really think someone might come and hurt him? She nodded, and after one last kiss, awkwardly put the lid onto the coffin. It would have been too heavy normally, but with the fresh dose of George’s blood, she found it physically easy. Emotionally though, shutting her boyfriend into a coffin was the stuff of nightmares.
Trying not to think about the evening’s odd events, she ran over to Ben’s staircase to find her friends. She bumped into them halfway, walking towards the cloisters to listen to the choir and see the sunrise. She fell in with them and tried to act normally.
“Hey, I wondered where you were,” Ola said, coming up beside her. “I’ve managed to get two tickets to go up the Founder’s Towe
r to get a better view. Do you want to come with me?”
Harriet didn’t know if she could manage to carry on as normal, but nodded and followed her. Despite being smaller than the main college tower that the choir would sing from, the Founder’s Tower still registered as one of the highest points in the city. She’d never been up it before.
Most of their group walked out onto the lawn at the centre of cloisters whilst she and Olamide ascended the steep stone staircase. Her guilt over accepting George’s blood faded with every step. The state she’d been in before, she’d barely have been able to leave her room, never mind make the difficult climb.
The view from the top made the exertion worthwhile. She could see out across the city in all its glory, bathed in the pre-dawn half-light. Always slightly fantastical, it looked like a bizarre medieval toy town. Closer to home, she saw the other students milling around on the lawn below, clutching one last drink and steeling themselves for the final part of a long night. She noticed two people in white tie slumped in one corner of the lawn. They lay face down, passed out drunk and, so she couldn’t tell who they were. Could they be Cavaliers? If so, staying out with only minutes until dawn represented a huge risk.
“Don’t look down there, look up,” Olamide said, turning her around to face the larger tower. “Can you see Josh? They’re going to start singing any minute now.”
Trying to ignore the feeling of unease, Harriet followed her instructions. “It might just be the booze and sleep deprivation speaking, but this feels really magical,” she said.
Before Ola could reply, the choir began to sing in Latin, their voices carrying over the college, and the sun rose, turning the sky a beautiful shade of pink.
Within seconds, screaming drowned out the sound of the choir. Harriet rushed to the edge of the tower to look down. The two white-tie clad people were on fire. Too high to hear anything but themselves, the choir kept on singing. As people panicked down below, they sang the college anthem in their angelic voices.
Some students ran away, others dashed over to the burning boys, trying to pour water on them or smother them in a cloth. Nothing helped. Within moments, they burnt away to nothing. Only their canes remained, topped with the silver horse and sword sign. The choir came to the end of their final song, and the bells rang for 6 a.m. – the new day and the start of summer.
Chapter Fourteen
Oxford Blood (The Cavaliers: Book One) Page 45