Sunder

by Tara Brown

  Chapter Five

  Liv

  I walked into my room, ready to strip down to my jogging pants and sleep for a year. The dance had been fun, but the whole Briton thing was messing with me. Who was so bossy and rude to a stranger? He was so friggin’ weird. Dudes like that made girls cry while listening to wrist-cutter music. Screw that. I liked my wrist-cutter music because it relaxed me. I didn’t need depression to add to the moment.

  I had a full plate of things that could make me sad, I didn’t need to add Briton to it.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were still blushing from thinking about him. I shook my head. “What an ass.”

  My father appeared in the doorway. “Honey, where did you disappear to tonight?” His face looked like he was trying to be casual but was worried all the same.

  “I’m seventeen and living my own personal hell. It’s like some kind of Little-House-on-the-Prairie experience being here. Who cares what I do? This isn’t Chicago, Dad. It’s some podunk-ass town no one has ever even heard of. I Googled it and nada. It doesn’t even come up on Wikipedia or Google maps. The image is just green with a few fields. You know it’s bad when the Google maps car doesn’t even come here.”

  His face didn’t change. He was waiting for his answer.

  I shrugged, remembering my evening and hoped the dim lighting in the room hid my blush. “I was just walking home with a friend I made.” Josh had walked me home. He had been sweet and funny and casual. That was the word for him—casual. Easygoing to a fault probably, but it was better than wrist-cutter music and mascara to my chin.

  “Which friend?”

  I rolled my eyes and moaned, “Josh. Why are you being so weird?”

  “Look, you know I want you to like it here, but one thing I need you do is stay away from that Thorlackson kid. Okay?”

  “What? Why?” Panic hit my stomach, then chest, before I could get another word out. Regardless of how I felt about Briton currently, the sentence was a terrible one.

  “Just trust me.”

  I could see he was serious. I didn’t want him to know my interest was instantly piqued so I feigned a yawn. “Whatever. He didn’t seem that into me anyway.”

  He looked back into the hall like he was looking for Judith. “Judith says his family is trouble, honey. Please just do me this one favor and stay away from him.”

  I wanted to know why he cared, but if I had learned anything in seventeen years, it was that pretending to go along with him made things easier. I shrugged again. “Whatever, fine.” I didn’t even know why I wanted to see the damned guy again anyway, but I did. I just didn’t realize it until my dad said not to.

  He looked serious for a second. “I mean it, Olive. He isn’t as nice a kid as you think.”

  My blood boiled, it was the weirdest reaction. “I didn’t think he was that nice anyway. Now drop it. I don’t want to talk about it, for Christ’s sake.” It came out spicier than I wanted it to.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Check your tone, young lady. This is for your safety. You know I love you.” He looked me in the eyes as if to check that I knew he loved me. I gave him my best smile to make him leave.

  “Night, Dad.” I closed my bedroom door.

  “Night, sweetie.”

  I clicked the lock and walked into my closet to hang the dress and bag it. My feet tingled as the blood rushed back into them when I stepped out of the heels. The walk home with Josh had been a long one, even in such a small town. The shoes were one-block heels, not five.

  I slipped my pajamas on and walked over to the door to my balcony, opening it and letting the cold fall air shoot into the room around me. My chest felt tight as I stood there, trying to get my breath back with the cool wind rippling my pajama bottoms around my legs. My tank top didn’t feel quite thick enough for the bustling cold air I was subjecting myself to, but I needed it. I had the strangest sensation. It was like my body was fuzzy and thick, and I couldn’t get away from it. It was like losing the control I had over myself.

  I walked out into the cold night and leaned against the cold siding. I tried to calm myself, taking deep breaths and pulling the cold air into my lungs. I shivered from the siding against my back and, instead, walked to the old metal railing, watching the dark world around me. I couldn’t help but wonder how many women had stood on the balcony of this old house and looked down on the street. It could have been like a Romeo and Juliet movie set. The balcony was perfect for it. How many people had lived in this place? It wasn’t creepy, just old. Old in the way you were curious about the stories it held.

  The night was silent and peaceful. The town was silent. It was so alien for me, coming from Chicago. The wind seemed to be the only noise, and no matter how cold the breeze felt, my skin was on fire from his touch.

  Josh had walked me home. Josh was sweet and easy to be with. He was a gentleman.

  But the rude and somewhat odd behavior of Briton was what I was stuck on. I couldn’t push him from my mind or shake the touch of his hands. The way he held me was commanding and controlling, and somehow that was attractive. That weirdly bossy attitude was attractive.

  I sighed at the small town and the fact that the simple ways of the people there were getting to me. Never before had I found rudeness or a firm grip attractive.

  Not to mention, the size thing. For whatever reason, I loved how tall he was, he towered over me. He took up all the room in my eyes and made me feel safe. I didn’t even need to close them to see every inch of his face in my mind; I had memorized it. In those few seconds he had been a complete dick to me, I had memorized every feature and every inch of him.

  I was going insane, that was the only explanation.

  I looked around the street at the other houses which all seemed like they belonged to peasants, compared to my house. A slow smile slipped across my lips as I thought about my mom, and how she would have made one of the smaller houses charming and sweet. But as much as she was different from Judith, she would also have hated Briton Thorlackson just as much as Judith and my father did. I couldn’t fault them on it. He seemed like an elitist snob who was rich, dark, and mysterious. He got what he wanted, when he wanted. I could tell that.

  And because I was an idiotic teenaged girl, that’s what was hot about him for me. He was like an evil lord from the romance novels I had read at my grandma’s. It was ingrained in us to want that in a man and I had fallen for it. As intelligent as I knew I was and as savvy as I had hoped I was, I had fallen for the evil dark lord.

  Le sigh.

  Well, not anymore. The small dose of manly brutishness had been enough.

  I muttered to myself, “Telling me not to talk and just dance—asshole!”

  My mother would have liked Josh though, safe and sweet. I looked up at the sky and whispered, “Goodnight, Mom. I like Josh. I think you would have too.”

  Suddenly, the wind got colder for a moment. Colder and fiercer. I had to hold my hair down as it tossed it around my face. I held down the blonde locks, thick with mousse and hairspray, just as they were whipping around my face. Just then something caught my eye.

  Out in the dark yard, behind the very large maple tree, I saw movement—a dark figure shifting as if to hide behind the tree. A peeping tom? Creepy. And you always think in the city you’ll see the weirdos, and there I was in a small town, blatantly staring at a man watching me. Maybe it was Josh. But wouldn’t he just say hi and be my Romeo to his Juliet?

  I held my hair to my face as I tried to focus my eyes. But with so little light behind the shape, it was hard to see clearly. I lost it completely when it stopped moving. I squinted in disbelief as I looked at two red slits I could see glowing mid-trunk on the tree. I would have thought they were cat’s eyes, catching the light but they seemed much too large and far too high up the trunk of the tree. Not to mention, they were red.

  If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought they belonged to the dark figure hiding amongst the tree trunk, but that had clearly be
en a man behind the tree spying on me. What man had red eyes?

  I blinked several times, assuming it was a hallucination.

  When the red eyes never left and the figure never moved from the tree, my stomach sank and my heart raced, but I didn’t move. I was frozen in fear, no—terror.

  I blinked one more time and the red eyes were gone, but the unmoving figure remained. I forced myself to be like my mom, and I did the thing she always told me to do. I smiled and waved, shouting across the yard, “Goodnight.” I acted crazy, ‘cause no one messed with crazy people. My soft voice carried across the night air, “Have sweet dreams.”

  I walked backwards, not taking my eyes from the trunk of the tree in case the dark figure ran at me and jumped onto the balcony. I turned quickly at the last second and burst into my room. I slammed the door and closed all of the curtains tightly.

  I was hyperventilating and barely able to see straight as I climbed into my bed. I pushed away the thoughts of the red eyes and the dark figure. Instead, I forced myself to think about Josh but instantly my mind went for Briton.

  Why couldn’t I just get him out of my mind? The guy was an ass.

  Maybe I could just stop women from voting and encourage them to start making sandwiches again, to match my thinking about Briton all night long.

  Chapter Six

  Briton

  She walked into the room, looking tired and annoyed. Through the window he caught the same scent as before. Briton closed his eyes, just taking it in for a moment. The bartender hadn’t been enough, she hadn’t fulfilled his need. The entire time he had fed from her, he had pictured Liv.

  He leaned against the doorway, listening as her father told her not to see Briton again.

  He frowned. Judith was a Michaels, of course she knew what he was. He couldn’t blame her for the worry, but he planned on defying the rules when it came to Liv. There was nothing on the earth that would keep them apart.

  He couldn’t even imagine another day without her in it. If only the compulsion had worked on her. He would have to limit the amount of time, a week maybe. A week to get enough and then stop. But could he? Could he stop? He feared that once he got her alone he would kill her with love. That was a possibility for certain.

  He could change her, but what a cruel fate. Could he hurt her that way?

  He knew the answer and it scared him. He would do anything to be with her. Her father saying he couldn’t see her was only more tantalizing.

  She closed the door, looking pained and exhausted. He wanted to soothe her, kiss away her worries. He could imagine the soft feel of her skin against his lips and in his hands. He ached to touch her.

  It was a new sensation for him.

  After millenniums of the same, new was always welcomed, unless it was something like her. She was an unbearable want. He couldn’t understand his feelings. Had he blocked them off for so long that they were extra strong—extra sensitive to desire?

  She changed and he watched, not even daring to tear his gaze from her milky skin when she was naked. For whatever reason, Liv was a whole other species in his heart and mind. She was his and he would watch her as boldly as he dared.

  She turned and walked to the balcony where he sat. He jumped down and ran for the tree in the yard. Once upon a time, the Mayor of Wolfville had lived in that very house. Briton smiled from the tree, thinking about the way he had spied on the mayor’s daughter. The memories of the young girl, what was her name . . . Sarah. The memories of Sarah, though not his favorite by far, were delicious in his mind. He felt his blood boil as he recalled the way she had tasted. She had given herself to him completely.

  Something he feared Liv would never do—could never do. She would remember him in the morning. She would remember the way his fangs bit down on her throat. She would recall him as a monster and tell everyone what he had done to her.

  Not that he could fight it, nor would he want to.

  He could never have her.

  That was the problem. She was a challenge. He had never met one like her.

  His heart screamed that she was his, and yet his brain knew it would never be, not unless he changed her. The idea roamed his thoughts like the monster in him had taken over. He pushed it back, shaking his head. He never would have chosen to be what he was, never. How could he make her that—doom her to that fate? Being bitten was a curse all in itself. He would curse her to a lifetime of darkness. He couldn’t do that, not to her.

  There was one answer to the predicament.

  He could not have her.

  From the tree he heard her whisper, “Telling me not to talk and just dance. Asshole.”

  It made a smile cover his face. She was thinking about him. She was his. Even if theirs would always be a silent attraction, she was his.

  She whispered again. “Night, Mom. I like Josh. I think you would have too.”

  His fangs popped from his teeth and his heart ached. It was a lie, and yet she whispered it into the dark night, like it was her wish.

  The wind answered her, whipping and tossing her hair about. The scent of her wafted across the grass. He felt the lust take over.

  She turned, as if she saw him. He tilted his head, fighting the urge to just take her.

  She leaned forward, like she was searching the tree.

  Did she see him?

  That was impossible.

  Unless . . .

  His eyes. Of course. He closed them quickly, praying she didn’t see him that way. Not yet. Not before he had the chance to win her heart.

  He scolded himself, knowing he had to let this one go. He would have to suffer in silence.

  He heard her shout good night and then the door to the balcony slam. He took his chance to flee for his house before she had the determination to see him for herself up close.

  When he got home, Miles was outside of the house smoking his pipe, looking around himself cautiously. Briton watched him worriedly, knowing the elixir would wear off soon and the old man would again be on his deathbed. Briton snarled at the thought and hurried to his room. He closed his blinds, feeling the dawn approaching. He knew he would need a lot of sleep to help regain his strength before facing his first whole day in Wolfville.

  He would need a lot of strength to stay away from Liv.

  Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure of his choice to come back home. He had always loved the old East Coast village, the cool breeze that came off the ocean, and the feel of every season. The storms always seemed so violent, and yet, the small town survived. The best part though was the change of color in the trees. The crisp leaves scattered across the ground made everything appear to be fall colored.

  But Liv and the dead witch made things a little bit different.

  He climbed into bed, anxious about how it would all play out. He hadn’t been around a family like the Michaels in a long time; old wounds were always hardest to heal. But it wasn’t the Michaels he thought about as he lay in bed. It was her. His heart had already claimed her as his Liv. Seeing her dancing with the boy was almost painful but listening to her whisper the boy’s name had been ungodly.

  Liv.

  Images of her ran through his mind. Her perfect lips, pale skin, blond hair, and fierce scowl.

  He had a terrible feeling the lust he felt for her was the same story his father had once told him. The romantic in him wanted the story to be his version of his parents’ love story, but he knew of their consuming love.

  Love so instant and powerful, his father couldn’t fight it and didn’t want to. He would have slain an entire city for Briton’s mother.

  There was a connection between him and Liv, what it was didn’t matter. He would never allow himself to fall for that kind of love. The kind that made you make mistakes that got your whole family killed. The kind that forced you to change the woman you loved into what you were.

  Only Liv wasn’t a woman, she was a girl. She was seventeen. She deserved to live and have a life. She didn’t deserve to become what he was so that he co
uld be with her.

  Regardless of his feelings towards her.

  As well as adding to his lust, the fact his mind tricks didn’t work on her was noteworthy. He would have to watch everything he said and did around her. There was no erasing mistakes.

  His brain told him not to even think about her, but he couldn’t stop it.

  He fell instantly into his usual sleep. It was filled with a black hole where no dreams ever existed.

  If he could have dreamt, it would have been of her.

  He woke when he felt the light on him through the curtains. He was awake, even though it felt like he had slept for only a few seconds.