"My parents are expecting me home. They'll be sending out the SWAT team any minute now."
He held my hand with a strength I'd never felt before. I looked around for anything else to help my escape.
Jagger led me to the front of the coffin. He picked up the goblet and raised it to the moon, spoke a few words in a language I didn't understand, and then took a long drink.
"Now you," he said with a wicked grin, offering me the goblet.
"Forget it!" I said, pushing the goblet away with my free hand.
"But isn't this what you wanted all along? Why else would you follow Alexander?" he asked.
"Because I love him!" I said, trying to wriggle free. "And I will never love you!"
"But you don't have to," he said, and forced the goblet to my mouth.
Drops of thick, sweet liquid spilled against my lips.
I spit the liquid from my mouth. "I will never become like you, whoever or whatever you are!"
Jagger's face grew strange, as if my words had been a silver stake driven through his heart.
"And I say you will!" His blue and green eyes gazed into mine as if trying to cast a spell. "With this kiss, I take thee for all eternity."
Jagger flashed his smile, and his white fangs glistened in the moonlight. He leaned into me.
"I bite back!" I yelled defensively, gritting my teeth.
Suddenly a burst of lightning struck, illuminating the sky and all of the graveyard.
I plunged my teeth into Jagger's arm as hard as I could and dug my nails into his bony hand. He quickly released his death grip. I turned to run but slammed hard into something—or, rather, someone.
"Old Jim?" I cried, confused.
But when I looked up and stared into two midnight eyes, I realized it wasn't the caretaker I'd run into.
Instead, standing before me was my Gothic Guy, like a knight of the night. His dark, shoulder-length hair was hanging in his face. His white, moonlit skin was covered by a black T-shirt and jeans. The plastic spider ring I'd given him was resting on his finger. His eyes were deep, lonely, adoringly intelligent, just as they were the first time I'd seen them.
"Alexander!" I exclaimed, and fell into his arms.
"Just as I thought!" Jagger proclaimed, as if he'd won a contest. "I knew she'd bring me to you!"
Alexander embraced me hard as if he would never release me. Then he pushed me away. "You must go," he commanded.
"Are you crazy? I can't leave you!" I held his hand tightly. "I thought I'd never see you again!"
He stared into my eyes and warned me. "You have to go."
"But I—"
"You shouldn't have brought her into this!" Alexander told Jagger, with an anger I'd never seen before.
"She found me. Besides, I'm surprised to see that you're letting her go so soon, after she came all the way to the Coffin Club to find you…"
"Leave Raven out of this!" Alexander exclaimed.
"I couldn't have planned my revenge any better than this. I could destroy you and gain an eternal partner with just one bite."
"You wouldn't dare—" Alexander warned.
"I knew she'd bring you to me, Sterling. You think you're not like one of us, but the truth is you are," Jagger argued.
"What is he talking about?" I asked.
"Not now," Alexander answered.
"Why do you think Sterling left Romania?" Jagger asked me. "Do you think it was an accident he came to a small town in America where there weren't any vampires?"
I didn't really know, after all.
"But I found you, Sterling," Jagger bragged. "And I found Raven."
"She has nothing to do with this," Alexander said, stepping in between Jagger and me.
"I have nothing to do with what?" I asked curiously.
"Don't worry, Raven, he breaks promises all the time. Right, Sterling?" Jagger said.
Alexander clenched his fist.
"What promise? Why revenge? What does he mean?" I asked, confused, wondering what kind of agreement Alexander had made but couldn't keep.
"Well, I'm not going to leave her! I'm going to hold on to her for all of eternity!" Jagger proclaimed.
He flashed his teeth with a wickedly gnarled grin and leaned in to sink his fangs into my neck.
11 Frightening Farewell
I found myself flat on my back again, wet grass underneath me. Raindrops hit my face. I anxiously felt my neck for any wound.
Alexander leaned over me, his eyes filled with worry.
"Are you okay?" he asked sorrowfully. "You got in the way."
"Am I a…?" I didn't even want to finish my thought.
He shook his head and helped me to my feet. "You have to go!" he commanded again. "You shouldn't be here—you're in danger."
I turned to look around for Jagger. But all I saw were grave markers. "But I may never see you," I pleaded.
"You must leave now," he persisted.
Alexander was breaking my heart again. If I left, it could be for the last time. How could I be sure Jagger wouldn't harm him? Alexander could disappear into the night forever. But if I didn't listen to his instructions, I might actually be doing Alexander more harm by getting in his way.
I saw Jagger stumbling by the baroness's monument and wiping his mouth. His green and blue eyes had turned fiery red. His lean muscles tensed. He grinned at me and licked his lips like a rabid animal ready to rip into its prey.
I didn't even have time to kiss my Gothic Mate good-bye. I ran without looking back, tears and raindrops dripping down my face, the graveyard mud splashing against my boots, my heart pulsing. Thunder clapped against the trees and seemed to echo against the tombstones.
I raced to the entrance of the cemetery and climbed over the fence.
When I turned around, Jagger and Alexander were gone.
12 Risky Reunion
I sobbed as I ran as fast as I could from the cemetery. I could barely see the pavement through my watery eyes. I headed through downtown Dullsville in the pouring rain where drivers in their Saabs, Mercedeses, and Jeeps looked strangely at the sight of a miserable, soaking wet goth girl.
I ran down the main street and tore through shoppers with umbrellas, knocked into couples coming out of the movie theater, and barreled past patrons escaping from the rain into restaurants. With every flap of a bird's wing or sound of a honking horn, I was startled, thinking it was Jagger following me. I raced on.
I didn't want to go home. I needed to be alone, away from my family. I didn't want to talk—no one, not even Becky, would understand this unearthly experience. I had to hide out and seek comfort in the only place I had ever really felt at home.
I hurried through the open Mansion gates, my legs numb and my feet tingly inside my boots. I rushed up the long, windy driveway and around to the back of the Mansion. I glanced toward the gazebo to see if any two-colored eyeballs were staring back at me. When I found the gazebo empty, I climbed through the open basement window and made my way through the deserted Mansion. My tears dropped onto the creaky wooden floors beneath my squeaky boots. I wiped my eyes as I ascended the grand staircase and made my way into Alexander's attic room.
I touched the empty easel. I gazed at his bed, still creased from when he'd slept there days ago. I held his black knit sweater left behind on his beaten-up comfy chair.
I walked to the attic window and gazed out into the lonely moonlight. The heavy rain had ceased. I felt exhausted, abandoned, like a complete failure. Had I just stayed in Dullsville, Alexander would have returned for me. But my impatience had put me, and Alexander, in danger. He had been safely hiding in Dullsville from Jagger's thirsty revenge, and I'd pointed his nemesis right in his direction. As clever as I thought I was, I'd just been a pawn in Jagger's wicked game.
I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I slowly turned around but could barely make out the dark figure standing in the doorway.
"Jagger—" I said with a gasp.
The floorboard creaked again as the figure took
a step toward me.
"Get out!" I yelled, backing up. I had nowhere to go. The figure was blocking the doorway, and my only escape was the narrow attic window ledge.
I stepped away, anxious about making a dangerous escape.
"I'll call the police!" I warned.
The figure drew closer. I decided I'd have to make a run for it by going around him. I took a breath and counted to myself. One. Two. Three.
I speedily darted around the figure, and was close to making my escape through the doorway when the figure grabbed my wrist.
"Get off!" I cried, trying to wriggle away. But when the moonlight gleamed down on his hand, a black plastic spider ring shined back at me.
I gasped, ceasing my struggle. "Alexander?"
He stepped completely into the light.
There he was, like a dream, standing before me. He'd returned. Handsome and now weary looking.
"I thought I'd never see you again!" I exclaimed. My body, tense with fear, melted into him as I wrapped my arms around him. He squeezed me back, so hard I could almost feel his heart beat through my own chest.
"I'm not letting go," I said, squeezing him harder and smiling. "Not ever!"
"I shouldn't have…," he began, softly.
I looked up, as if I were seeing an apparition. "I just can't believe you're here!"
He took my hands and raised them to his mouth, kissing the back of them with his full lips, sending shivers through my veins. He gazed back into my eyes and smiled.
And then he did what I had so longed for him to do. He kissed me. His full lips pressed tenderly against mine, slowly, softly, seductively. It was as if we'd been separated for an eternity.
We continued to kiss, passionately, moving from our mouths to our cheeks to our ears as if drinking in each other's flesh. He gently stroked my hair, then nibbled my ear. I giggled as he sat on his comfy chair and pulled me onto his lap. I looked into his eyes, wondering how I could have breathed the last few days without him near me.
I ran my fingers through his messy, licorice-colored locks.
He brushed my hair away from my neck and made his way up my shoulder with sexy kisses. I could feel his teeth, seductively sliding against the skin of my neck. Touching, toying, tingling, giving me playful nibbles. The nape of my neck hung tenderly in his mouth.
Suddenly Alexander pulled away, a look of terror in his eyes.
"I can't," he said shamefully, looking away.
"What's wrong?" I asked, surprised by his change in mood.
Alexander stood up, helping me to my feet. He anxiously drew his hand through his hair and paced the room.
"It's okay," I said, catching up to him by his easel.
"I thought I wasn't like Jagger," he said, and sat on the edge of his bed. "But…maybe I am."
"You are nothing like him," I said. "In fact, you are the opposite."
"I just want you to be safe. Always," he said, looking at me soulfully.
"I am, now that you are here," I said, stroking his hand.
"But don't you see?" he said seriously. "My world is not a safe one."
"Well, mine isn't either. Don't you watch the news?"
His sullen face turned bright, and he laughed. "I guess you're right."
"See? I'm more at risk going to school with Trevor than I am kissing a vampire."
"I've never met anyone like you," he said, turning toward me. "And I've never felt before the way I feel about you."
"I'm so glad you came back for me." I hugged him around his waist.
"This won't happen again," he assured me.
"How can you be so sure? Jagger seems bent on getting even with you," I asked, sitting beside him.
"Because he couldn't get even."
"Wow, so you showed him who's boss? Like in a school yard brawl?"
"I guess…Only in our case it was a graveyard brawl."
"Is he gone?"
"His family is in Romania. There is nothing for him here now. He can go back and tell them he found me."
I fingered my necklace.
"What promise did you break?"
"I didn't break it. I never made it…But we don't have to worry about that anymore," he said wearily.
"What were all the candles in the cemetery for?" I asked.
"A vampire can take anyone at any time. But if he takes another at a cemetery or some other sacred ground, then she is his for eternity."
"Then I'm glad you showed up when you did!" I squeezed Alexander with all my might. "I'm sorry I led Jagger to you," I confessed.
"I should be the one apologizing to you. I couldn't imagine you'd come for me," he said, staring off into the moonlight. Then he turned back to me. "But I should have known. That's what I love about you."
"Now tell me everything!" I exclaimed suddenly. "What's it like being a—?"
"What's it like being human?" he interrupted.
"Boring."
"How can you say that?" he asked, holding me close. "You can wake up in the daylight, go to school, and see your reflection."
"But I want to be like you."
"You already are," he said with a smile.
"Were you born a vampire?"
"Yes. Were you born a human?" he teased.
"Yes. Are there millions of vampires around?"
He nodded. "But we are a minority, so we like to stick together. Obviously there is safety in numbers. We can't reveal our identities or we'd be persecuted."
"It must be so hard to cover up who you really are inside."
"It's very lonely, feeling like an outcast. Like you are invited to a costume party, but you are the only one in a mask."
"Do you have a lot of vampire friends in Romania? I bet you miss them."
"My dad procures art for his galleries in several countries. So we traveled quite a bit. By the time I made a friend, it was time to leave."
"What about humans, like me?" I asked, curling up next to him.
"There is no one like you, vampire or not," he said with a warm smile. "It's hard making human friends when you don't attend school, and it's even harder keeping them when they're eating their evening dinner and you are just rolling out of bed."
"Are your parents upset that you have a human girlfriend?"
"No. If they met you, they would immediately fall in love with you, just like I did," he said, and stroked my hair.
"I'd love to travel and live in the nighttime and sleep during the day. Your world seems so romantic. Being bonded to one another for an eternity…Flying off into the night together. Thirsting for no one but each other.”
“I feel that way about your world.”
“The grass is always greener, I guess. Or, in our case, blacker."
"When I'm with you," he began, "I don't care which world we are in, just as long as we're in the same one together."
13 The Promise
"Wake up," Alexander gently whispered in my ear.
I opened my eyes to find that I had crashed out on the couch in his TV room as he stroked my hair. Kissing Coffins was playing on his oversized flat screen.
Jenny had desperately entered Professor Livingston's office at the university.
"I knew I'd find you here!" she exclaimed, finding Vladimir seated at his desk, his head buried in a textbook.
"You weren't supposed to come," he warned, without looking up, "to my house or to my study. You have put yourself in danger."
In the distance, there was an eerie howling.
"Why did you let me fall asleep?" I asked Alexander, lifting my head from his shoulder. "Did you put a spell on me?"
"You suggested we watch this," he replied. "But you conked out as soon as I pressed 'Play.' Besides, it's late and you've been through a lot."
"Late?" I asked, stretching my arms. "For you it's the middle of the day."
Jenny looked toward the window. "They are coming for me," she confessed to Vladimir nervously. "They want me to be one of…you."
Vladimir methodically turned the page of
his book. He didn't look up. Another eerie howling was heard in the distance.
"I'll walk you home," Alexander offered as we rose to our feet. He kindly handed me his black leather jacket.
"But I want to stay here," I whined.
"You can't. Your parents will be worried."
“I’ll tell them I'm babysitting."
"For a seventeen-year-old?"
He put the coat around my shoulders.
"I had better go—" Jenny started, looking out the window of the study into the fog-layered darkness. "It was foolish of me to come."
"You'll be all alone here in this huge mansion," I said to Alexander, as I adjusted my wrinkled dress.
"I'm safe. Besides, I've sent for Jameson."
"As slow as he drives? It'll take him years to get here. I'll stay until he arrives," I said, sitting back down.
"Wait!" Vladimir called, his head still focused on his book.
Jenny stopped at the door. The professor rose and slowly walked to her. "Since I've met you, I haven't been myself," Vladimir confessed.
The howling continued.
"Come on, girl," Alexander said, nudging me.
"I was afraid I'd never see you again," Jenny said. "If I leave here without you, I may not be able to find you next time."
I stared at Jenny as if she had just proclaimed my own fear.
"But what if I never see you again?" I asked Alexander, pulling him close.
"Is tomorrow after sunset soon enough?"
"I can't leave," I told Alexander. "I thought I'd see you after the Welcome to the Neighborhood party. And the next night you were gone."
"I left to protect you, not to hurt you," he answered in a serious tone, sitting down next to me.
"Protect me from what?"
"From Jagger. From me. From my world."
"But you don't have to protect me."
"My world is not just filled with romance, like you think it is. There is danger."
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