I felt the tug of his hand like it was on a direct line to my lady parts. I flashed to a fantasy of going with him, disappearing into the shadows, where he’d kiss me like he’d kissed me before. I’d melt into him like a pat of butter on a hot skillet.
And then we’d be discovered, and I’d be killed.
Or he’d be killed, our bond would be severed, and I’d realize I was never truly attracted to him in the first place. Then some other vampire would try to bond with me and I’d be back to square one.
No, thank you.
I tugged back, reclaiming my hand. “Was that Gaelic? What ridiculous thing are you calling me now?” Honeybun? Sugarbear maybe?
His normally lively expression grew quiet. “Isle of my heart.”
I swear, I felt an actual twang in my chest. Because that was how I felt.…I was an island, choked by my solitude. Did this reckless, inscrutable vampire actually see inside me? We had a blood bond—I’d assumed it was a purely physical thing. But had it attuned him to the ways of my heart? Could he sense my deepest secrets? Had he noticed just how lonely I was?
I felt vulnerable, and it made me wary. “I’m not going with you until you tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?”
“Why can’t I get you out of my head?”
“Because I’m a handsome devil?” He gave me a naughty smile, knowing the truth of the matter was that my head had nothing to do with it—I couldn’t get the feel of him out of my body. “What’s going on is you need blood.”
“I have a shooter of the stuff with every meal.”
“My blood,” he said with a sexy growl. He got that look in his eye again—that twinkly, beckoning look—and nodded his chin away from the dorm. You’d think he was merely suggesting we sneak around back to make out like real teenagers would.
I crossed my arms at my chest, closed for business. “Not until you explain this. Do other Acari have bonds like this? Why can’t anyone find out? Is it permanent?”
“Perhaps. Because. And not necessarily.” He snatched my hand and began to walk. “Now come. Your peevishness is wearing.”
I dug in my heels and snatched away my hand. “If you’re not going to answer my questions, then it looks like we’ve got nothing to talk about. I’m going inside.”
Anger flashed in his eyes, sharp and crystalline. Adrenaline dumped into my body as I saw what rage smoldered beneath that carefree surface. “You’re a foolish child to deny me,” he snarled. “To deny yourself. It was foolish what you did to us. Now, more so, what you continue to do.”
Terror sent my heart galloping. I’d gotten too relaxed with him. With all of our flirty banter, I’d forgotten—this was a vampire. He might be easy, sexy, devil-may-care Carden, but he was a creature who could turn on me in an instant, flaying me. Sucking me dry, if he chose. He was ancient, with the strength of ages.
I wouldn’t forget again.
“You only want me because of the bond,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “Not because of me.”
“Just let me take care of you,” he said through gritted teeth.
But I didn’t want to feel like I needed a vampire. Especially not this vampire. Until I figured out why Alcántara seemed to have it out for Carden, the last thing I needed was for the Directorate to think I was with him.
“I can’t go with you,” I said quietly. Technically, I didn’t have to agree to go with him. I supposed he could just take me. Grab me, throw me over his shoulder, and do what he would. The way he stepped closer made me think for a second that he might.
“Then I have two things to say to you.” His jaw was clenched, as though he was restraining himself from doing something bad. “First, Tracer Ronan is correct. Stay in your room. There is a killer out there, and no, it’s not me.”
I mustered my willpower. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Putting space between me and Carden felt like walking away from an ice-cold glass of water while dying of thirst. But I swallowed hard and made myself say, “And the second thing?”
“The second thing,” he announced, biting out the words in a glacial tone. “Stay away from me. If you won’t accept me, it is the only way.”
Maybe I was stubborn, or afraid, or cautious, or just a romantic hoping for more.…Whatever my reasons, I hadn’t wanted to go with him. But now that he forbade me, well, that was a different story. It felt so final. I laughed nervously. “I thought I was your wee dove.”
His eyes narrowed, his desire grown fierce. The quiver I’d felt in my belly shot through my whole body, heating me, weakening me, until my knees went shaky. He wanted me, and it was a heady thing.
“I grow hungry,” he said, his voice hoarse, “and yet you wish to sever our bond. To be this close is to be too tempted.”
This was the most he’d ever said about the bond, and it gave me strength. “You can break a blood bond?”
“With effort,” he said through gritted teeth. “But there must be distance.”
He leaned down, and I froze. His lips were perilously close to my neck. “You’re catnip, you know.” The air tickled across my neck as he inhaled. “I was your first kiss. It’s not too late for me to be your second, too.”
I flinched back. “How’d you know you were my first kiss?”
“I know many things.” He lightly swept the back of his hand down my arm, leaving a ripple of goose bumps in its wake.
How easy it would be to let him scoop me up and carry me away. How much I wanted him to.
But I also knew I didn’t trust the bond. If we could sever it, we had to try. My reaction to Carden was too powerful, and I didn’t believe it was real. I didn’t know him, but in our short acquaintance, I’d sensed the tension between him and Alcántara. What was Carden’s history with the Directorate? Until I understood this island more, I wasn’t ready to hitch my wagon to any vampire.
“No.” I took a step back. “So is that it? If we stay away from each other, we can break the bond?” My voice came out sounding more bereft than I’d intended.
His eyes lingered on me. Finally he turned from me.
It felt like saying good-bye to a lover. Carden was my first and only kiss, so I supposed I was saying good-bye to a lover.
He spoke over his shoulder, his voice cold. “This will be difficult for you. You must steal extra doses of the blood. But for now it’s late. Curfew is soon. Get inside, Acari Drew. And watch your back.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I was trapped. My limbs grew numb. I was helpless. Held captive.
I was sitting in an audience, pretending to appreciate some early medieval musical stylings, played with almost comical solemnity by an ensemble of effete vampires.
Master Dagursson was kicking off our semester of Medieval Musicianship with the Boringest Concert Ever. It seemed like the entire campus had gathered for the recital, and we were trying to be good students and sit silently, but the music was monotonous, to put it mildly.
“What did Beethoven have as a snack?” Josh whispered in my ear.
I didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop him from delivering his punch line, intoned to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth. “Ba-na-na-naaaa.”
I elbowed him hard. “Shhh…”
Boring didn’t begin to cover it.
And uncomfortable.
I’d glimpsed Carden from the corner of my eye as I walked in. My pulse pounded at the sight of him, a dull throbbing along the surface of my skin. It felt like ages since I’d fed from him, and just the thought of it had me shaking like a junkie.
I didn’t need to look to know he was standing near the exit. Probably glowering at the back of my head for talking to Josh.
“You all right? You’re looking pale, D.” Josh had leaned close to say it, and the back of my neck prickled.
There. My Scottish vampire was definitely glowering at us.
Thoughts tumbled into my head. Snapshots of Carden’s mouth. The touch of his hand. His breath on my neck.
Sweat br
oke out on my forehead. “There’s a vampire out there who’s mad at me.”
“Ah. But I’m not mad at you.” He edged even closer, and our shoulders touched. “No need to be cranky with me.”
Little did Josh know he was in very dangerous territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if Carden was the jealous type.
The piece ended and the room swelled with applause. I took the opportunity to scoot away. “Yeah, well, I’ll be mad at you if you don’t give me some space.”
He snickered. “So what’s with these music classes, anyway?”
I tried to take my mind off my abject thirst. Music. We were listening to and discussing music. I’d actually wondered about the music thing before myself. I grabbed onto the topic. “Who knows? Though somehow Emma was spared.”
“I heard she gets to hack computers this term instead.”
“So jealous,” I said, and I was.
He shrugged. “But not your roommate. Yas said they have her in a bunch of independents.” Josh’s Australian accent made Yas sound like Yeahz.
“She’s some kind of musical prodigy.” I grew quiet. There were lots of music prodigies in the world, so why did the vampires want her so badly? I sensed she was more upset about it than she let on, but the kid was a vault, sealed tight. I couldn’t get much information out of her to begin to piece it together. At fifteen, she was younger than the rest of us, and she didn’t seem to have any extraordinary physical gifts.
Another group of musicians arranged themselves onstage—they were empty-handed, which meant we were about to be serenaded. The chatter in the room slowly died, and we settled back, shutting our mouths, too.
This was a form of torture. I rubbed my belly, which was starting to cramp. It was an empty, needful feeling…beyond mere hunger and thirst.
As the men took their places, I distracted myself with an internal debate over which was worse: surfing with Ronan in the bitter-cold sea, as I had that morning, or sitting here, trapped and uneasy, listening to this god-awful music.
At least now I was sitting down. This morning on my borrowed surfboard, I’d paddled and paddled, and still hadn’t been able to get past the break. I’d panicked, feeling how I’d grown weaker. I’d tried to take my mind off it by eyeing Ronan, looking hot in his wet suit, but not even that had been enough to distract me. My arms ached so badly afterward, I’d barely been able to shampoo my hair.
I needed Carden’s blood. I was growing weaker and clumsier without it. The refrigerated shooters just weren’t enough.
A shrill trilling startled me from my thoughts. A particularly pale vampire was currently rocking his woodwind.
Josh chuckled, and I was grateful to have him there, always a willing cutup. “Who knew the recorder was such an instrument of passion?”
“That’s not a recorder,” I said, though I really should’ve shut up. If I were smart, I’d act as grave as those vampire musicians, but anything to get my mind off my hunger. The accompanying harpsichord was a surprisingly loud instrument—it was amazing what it drowned out. “I think we’re enjoying the magic of the pan flute.”
Josh snorted, then turned it into a cough.
But a starchy-looking Watcher in the row in front of us had heard. She peered behind her to see who had the gall, and I stared straight ahead using my best serious face. Thankfully, we sat far enough toward the back to escape anyone else’s notice.
They’d begun a chanting number, and I cringed as a vampire singer hit a particularly shrill note.
Josh’s shoulders shuddered with silent laughter. He leaned toward me to whisper from the corner of his mouth, “You think that mate’s a castrato? Like with the—” He made a little snipping motion with his fingers.
Unexpected laughter bubbled in my chest, dying to burst free in a fit of the giggles. My intense thirst was making me slaphappy, but I was going to get both of us in trouble if I couldn’t pull it together. I hissed at him, “Shut up.”
He slouched back in his seat with his legs kicked out and arms tucked at his chest. If someone were to glance at him, he’d just appear to be really laid-back, but the pose put his head closer to mine, enabling more whispering.
We clapped at the end of the number and he muttered, “This is killing me. Do you think they know any classics? ‘Free Bird,’ maybe? Can’t you just hear it chanted?” He made a low humming sound, not unlike the chanting men. “Hohhhhhh…”
An Acari in front of us turned and glared, and I gave her a prim smile. Placing a discreet hand in front of my mouth, I muttered, “I’d settle for anything tonal. What kind of mission will they send us on that we need to be familiar with Gregorian chant?”
Thinking about it, I supposed the possibilities were endless. Especially considering that our enemy vampires were once monks who lived on another island in an abandoned monastery.
As I whispered to Josh, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Carden. Why was he even there? He didn’t strike me as a big music fan, nor was he the monastic type—particularly as unholy-goddamned-sexy could be counted among his qualifications.
What did this preoccupation with him mean? Was it permanent? Did I feel him out there, looming nearby, because he was focused on me, or was it that I was obsessed with him? Not to mention the fact that he was so hot in a roguish, careless sort of way. But again, was that purely the bond talking?
Regardless, I leaned away from Josh—I didn’t want to get him in trouble. I’d already been his downfall once before, when he’d intervened and stopped Masha and her cronies from hazing me. Her cronies…including Trinity.
He’d had hell to pay for it, too. I still didn’t know who’d beaten him up. All I knew was that he’d put a stop to their torture and had shown up the next day with a battered face. He still had a scar cutting through his left eyebrow—a little jog where the hair hadn’t grown back.
Did that mean that he also had a motive to see Guidon Trinity dead? Did he even have the ability to drain a body like that? His vampire Trainee baby fangs weren’t all the way grown in yet.
I thought I knew him, but couldn’t say for sure. He’d been friendly with my nemesis, Lilac, and although it was probably just because Josh was friendly with everyone, that fact stuck in my craw and prevented me from really trusting him.
I felt myself beginning to nod off and I stretched my legs, squeezing life back into my butt cheeks. “Is this going to last the full three hours?” Class went till six p.m., and I wouldn’t put it past Dagursson to regale us with zithers and lutes for the full period. It was a grim thought.
Josh shushed me, canting his head to listen. When I cut my eyes to glare at him, I realized he hadn’t shut me up because he was listening to the music. A low murmur was traveling through the room, and he was straining to hear.
Two Acari in front of us began to whisper. I picked out bits and pieces. One girl’s eyes widened. “Another one?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Josh held up a finger to silence me. He turned to the girl next to him and turned on the old Joshua Nash charm.
When he leaned back toward me, his expression was unreadable. “Angel, I hardly knew you.”
I cut him a quick look. “What are you talking about?”
“You know Watcher Angel?”
I gave a slight nod, gluing my eyes back to the stage, pretending to listen to the music. “Angel of Death, you mean?”
“Yeah, the chick with the arms.”
What was it with guys and her arms? It made me impatient. “What’d she do?”
“She got herself killed.”
My mouth dropped open. There were lots of different ways to be killed on this island, but only one would cause this much gossip. “Like…?”
He shifted uneasily in his seat. “Like, drained killed.”
My eyes shot back to him. “Like Trinity.” I went numb.
“I also heard there was another one they didn’t even tell us about. Before Trinity. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
Suddenly
, everyone around us was clapping. It jarred me to attention, and I clapped right along, but my gaze didn’t budge from Josh.
Everyone began to stand and gather their things. And even though the burst of activity made it safer to talk, Josh kept his voice low. “Careful, little D. It’s looking dangerous to be a sheila around this place.”
With a sigh, I stood. “What else is new?”
We exited and a male figure stood waiting, silhouetted in the half-light. I sucked in a breath.
Alcántara.
His lips peeled into a smile. The setting sun was a dull white orb on the horizon. Its light caught and glimmered along one long fang. “Good evening, querida.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Master Alcántara was waiting on the steps as I walked from the Arts Pavilion. He leaned against a pillar, looking every inch the dark, seductive rocker. One would never guess that he was actually an ancient Spanish vampire who’d served as a mathematician in the royal court.
For a moment, I hoped he was there for some other reason, but his gaze didn’t budge from me. He pushed from the pillar to approach, his movements lithe like a deadly panther.
“I’m outta here,” Josh mumbled under his breath.
I shot him a scowl. “Thanks.”
But then I smoothed my features to something bland and proceeded to ignore Josh entirely. Alcántara had expressed an unnatural interest in me—and lately it felt like I was the focus of a lot of unnatural interest. The last thing I wanted was for him to suspect Josh and me of fraternizing. I’d lost enough people in my life.
And where was Carden? I’d felt his presence practically vibrating through the room earlier. Fear for him speared me. From the start, I’d seen only animosity in Alcántara’s eyes where my Scottish vampire was concerned. I suspected that vampire rivalries were more ruthless than anything a mere Trainee would be subjected to.
“You are looking as lovely as the evening, mi cariño. Might I escort you to the dining room?” He reached his hand out to me, as if I might need help descending the stairs. It was a courtly gesture, and he wore it well.
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