by Quinn, Cari
“Thank you.” Her eyes misted—what else was new?—but she blinked fast before any tears could fall. “I appreciate this more than you realize.”
“I hurt you. We hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Really. If you speak to Jed, please tell him that for me.” She took the hand he held out and squeezed his fingers. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Yes.” He waited until she’d gotten out of the car before he spoke. “Syd?”
“Yeah.”
“Take care of you.”
Sydney smiled, though the effort took the last ounce of her strength. “It’s what I do best.”
***
Days bled into nights. Nights grew into weeks. Eventually Kellan stopped turning over in bed, expecting to find her there. But he never stopped aching at the knowledge that she wouldn’t be.
Everything between them had happened so quickly. He shouldn’t have gotten used to her being around so fast, but he’d underestimated the power of finding his mate. And yes, maybe he’d taken it for granted that she would grasp the significance of their joining, but he hadn’t ever guessed he could drive her away.
Or that she’d stay gone.
The bagged blood that appeared at his mouth upon wakening made him snort with disgust. He shoved the hand that held it away, then rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow. Even after fifty washings, the sheets still bore her scent. Strawberries and sunshine.
Come walk with me into the light, or stay forever banished to the night.
The song, Luke’s favorite, pulled at his mind. He’d believed he had moved past the urge to be human. They were so frail, after all. And yes, they experienced joys he never would again, but their losses were just as staggering. Happiness, no matter how brief, always exacted its demand for payment, so he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised he was paying now.
“Well, that solves the problem.”
Kellan pulled the pillow over his head.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all his best friend. Somehow he knew Luke believed he’d caused this to happen. He was smug about it, too, as if he’d finally been vindicated in his decision to tiptoe around Emily. Women, he’d said, couldn’t handle the truth in one straight shot. Better to spoonfeed them a little at a time. And while Luke still didn’t have his mate by his side, he also hadn’t struck out so resoundingly that Emily refused all contact with him.
All phone calls. All e-mails. All deliveries of calla lilies and irises—though they were out of season and extremely expensive—arranged with blood-red balloons and enormous heart-shaped boxes of truffles. He’d taken the flowers to the cemetery and left them on graves that lacked fresh ones, but the balloons were another issue. They clung to the ceiling around his bed, taunting him with their dangling red tails until he slapped at them like a deranged mental patient.
She’d even returned the emerald velvet gown he’d had delivered. The one he’d had specially made, sized from memory. Not only had she refused it, she’d sent the pristine white box back with the dressmaker’s seal intact. She hadn’t even looked.
Could his ego be crushed any further?
Luke grabbed the pillow off Kellan’s head and threw it aside. “Drink, you slimy bastard.” This time, the bagged blood he’d already forgotten about was slammed against his mouth until his fangs popped out in sheer retaliation. “All of it. Every last drop.”
He drank, from reflex more than hunger. He hated the bagged stuff. Hated being told what to do. But from the clench of his body as the first heavenly trickle slipped down his throat, he’d obviously waited too long to feed.
“And bathe,” Luke put in, as if reading his thoughts. “You reek.”
Younger vampires—those under a couple hundred years old—didn’t possess the ability to mind-read, but the decades between them lent knowledge of each other. Often, they didn’t even need to speak.
Which meant Luke probably knew exactly how much he was suffering. Not that he’d made much of a secret of it.
Kellan drained the blood and tossed the plastic hull aside. Then he raked a hand through his hair, now longer than he liked. Damn stuff grew like a weed when he wasn’t making bi-weekly trips to his barber, and it had been more than five weeks since he’d thought of a haircut.
Three weeks since Sydney had been gone. Might as well have been three lifetimes.
“Hey.” Luke snapped his fingers in front of Kellan’s face. “You in there? I said you need a bath.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I live here, too, you know. Hard to bring chicks around when you’re moping in your smelly bed.”
“My bed doesn’t smell.”
“Fine. You’re what smells. Get a grip on yourself, man.”
Kellan cast Luke a sideways glance. “And what chicks are you bringing around? I haven’t seen you boning anything but yourself.”
Luke kicked back on the edge of the bed and tipped a bottle of root beer to his lips. That was a recent affectation, because Kellan had never seen him touch the stuff before. “And you talk about my language.”
“I’ve decided decorum is overrated.”
Along with true love, soul mates, and living an eternity. What he wouldn’t give to be a mortal man content to screw his way across Maine right now.
“This new attitude of yours isn’t becoming, Kell. Your questionable grooming and eating habits aside, the man I’m looking at isn’t the one I’ve known since I was a boy.”
“Get used to it.”
“I’d rather not, thanks.” Luke leaned forward and met his eyes. “I saw Sydney.”
Kellan’s heartbeat quickened in time with the breaths that lifted his chest. His reaction to her name would have been laughable if he hadn’t been on the verge of desperation.
“Is she well?” he asked, when at last he trusted himself to speak.
“Short answer? No.” Lucas rose a brow when Kellan bunched the sheets in his fists. “She’s pale, but otherwise, she seems okay. Physically. On her break, I noticed her snacking on a steak rare enough to moo, but other than that, she seemed pretty normal.” He hesitated, almost as if he were debating how much to reveal. “I think she might have filed down her fangs.”
“Bloody hell.”
“She’s trying to blend. Hard to do, because she’s even more beautiful than she was before. Her hair’s a darker, richer brown, her eyes a killer green. And her body. Wow, man. Just wow.” He gestured crudely as Kellan’s eyes slitted. “Seriously, it’s better you haven’t seen her. You’d jump her on sight.”
“Was that what you wanted to do?”
“Only mentally. She’s one hot ticket. But physically?” Lucas sighed and gave a plaintive glance at his lap. “Except around Emily, damn thing’s dead as a doornail. It’s even worse now that I’ve spent so much time with her. My cock has numbed to the wiles of any other female.”
Kellan laughed. He simply couldn’t help it. But the sound seemed foreign to his ears. “I know your pain.”
“Yeah.” Luke braced his elbows on his knees. “You’re going to go after her, right?”
“I’ve tried.”
“Sending stuffed mice isn’t trying. You need to show up at her door.”
Kellan tugged at a loose thread on his pillowcase, feeling like an idiot. Had he fumbled around a girl this much even in junior high? “Did you speak to her?”
“Briefly. She had to serve me at the coffee shop, or else I don’t think she would have. Cutest thing was, she blushed when she saw me. Adorable. I mean, wasn’t she kind of promiscuous before we—”
Kellan flashed him a glance rife with suppressed fury. “I know you didn’t just call my mate a slut.”
“Sorry.” Obviously sensing that now wasn’t the best time for his version of the truth, Luke coughed into his hand. “Anyway, she came across as sexually…uh, experienced. But seeing me embarrassed her. Her hands shook as she counted out my change.”
“She didn’t ask about me.”
Reading Lucas’s quiet look of pity, Kellan shook his head. “No, of course she didn’t. Well. I’m glad to hear she’s active. Back to work. Living her life.”
Bile filled his throat. Yeah, living her life by slaving away as a coffee waitress when he could give her everything she’d ever wanted. Okay, maybe not everything. They weren’t millionaires. But he could provide for her far beyond her current standard of living. He’d make sure she never exhausted herself counting out nickels and dimes.
He’d also make sure she understood it wasn’t all about his love for her. That he was willing to wait as long as it took for her to grow to love him back.
“You’re right,” he said after a moment, kicking aside the sheets wrapped around his feet. “I haven’t gone after her yet. But it’s time.”
***
Sydney spritzed cleanser on the miles of countertop at Pastry ’n’ Joe and started scrubbing. One hand held her nose, the other cleaned furiously. The fumes were noxious, and thanks to her new vampy senses, what had been merely displeasing before had become nearly unbearable.
The place was set up diner-style, with lots of bar stools for patrons to sit at the counter that looped around the shop. Keeping the black Formica gleaming was a challenge she enjoyed under normal circumstances, smelly cleanser aside. But tonight she worked like a demon possessed.
No surprise there, since she was one. Cast out from heaven and bound for hellfire. Except oops—she probably wouldn’t die.
Worst of all, she wasn’t totally a vamp, though she wasn’t truly human either. What she was no one could understand.
Her priest couldn’t help her. The evangelists she’d sent money to from those late-night infomercials had told her to pray to Jesus to save her blighted soul. But it was too late. She probably didn’t even have a soul left.
“I think it’s clean, Syd.”
The dryly amused comment made Sydney glance up at the woman lounging against the counter. That wasn’t exactly true. Emily didn’t lounge. But the normally uptight librarian looked positively relaxed as she paged through the latest issue of Goth Grrl magazine.
Out of the last crazy weeks, one good thing had emerged. One real, insanely good thing.
She’d found a new friend.
Three days after she’d left Kellan’s, Sydney had ventured out on her first solo trip AV—after vampirism. She’d stopped by her normal haunts. The corner drugstore for the vanilla soda she no longer craved. The movie store for a couple flicks—anything but horror, which had once been her favorite genre. Her favorite delicatessen, only to find her beloved pastrami-on-rye tasted like warmed sawdust.
Worn out and miserable, she’d found herself at the library. Emily had come upon her sobbing in the stacks over the V section of the World Book Encyclopedia, but she hadn’t laughed. She’d just asked her what she wanted to know.
In between hiccups, Sydney had managed to share her questions. In whispers, of course. Emily selected a stack of books for her, then took her lunch break so she could help Sydney carry them home, since she’d never retrieved her car from Kellan’s. She’d been so freaked out the day she left she’d never even thought of her vehicle, and since then, she’d refused to contact him to ask him to return it. Besides, with her new vampy strength and speed, jogging to work every day barely made her sweat.
Emily had quickly become her confidant. During the last two and a half weeks, they’d become inseparable.
She’d never had a girlfriend before. Not one she could giggle and share secrets with—though, let’s face it, nowadays all she had were secrets. She’d only ever befriended guys. Women never liked her. Whether she just lacked some vital feminine trait that would’ve granted her acceptability or if it was because they didn’t approve of her fearless sexuality, she didn’t know.
Which was another salient point she and Emily discussed. Sex, and their dire lack thereof.
Emily had gone without for quite some time, but she didn’t say exactly how long. She’d had some sort of trauma in her past, that was clear. But she was as horny as the next gal, if the next gal didn’t happen to be a half-vamp like Syd.
Horny didn’t begin to cover Sydney’s current level of frustration. If she didn’t get some relief soon, she’d start humping the extra-tall bar stools.
“Seriously, you’re going to ruin your manicure.”
A smile tipped up Sydney’s lips. She didn’t have a manicure. Didn’t need one. Since the change, her nails bore a natural pink sheen no polish could compete with. Strangely enough, now that she’d become a poster child for the half-dead, she radiated health.
She buffed a scratch along one edge of the counter. “I missed a spot.”
“No, what you miss is getting rammed until you’re little more than a whimpering mess.”
At first, she’d been shocked to hear talk like that from the seemingly prim little librarian. Then she’d realized there was more to Emily than baggy brown cardigans and argyle kneesocks. Maybe she dressed conservatively, but Emily’s mind was wide open and she swore like a sailor who’d taken up a second career driving a truck.
“We both need to get rammed,” Sydney agreed, tossing aside her rag. Just as well she stopped before she got lightheaded. “Any ideas on that score?”
“I’m a watcher, not a doer.” Emily continued to flip her magazine, but her fingers tensed enough to wrinkle the pages. “You, on the other hand, know where your bread is buttered.”
Sydney turned away. “Not any more.”
“You’ll only be able to fight the lure for so long. He is your sire. A bond like that is lifelong, Syd. You’ve read the books. Even if he didn’t turn you, he drank enough of your blood and gave you enough of his own to start the change. You will never be able to forget him, unless you get a lobotomy.”
“Start, yes, but not finish. In case you’ve forgotten, Em, I’m still partially human.”
She crossed to the small personal cooler she carried with her everywhere she went and withdrew four raw steaks. The pungent aroma struck her like a sledgehammer. Nothing like the smell of blood—even bovine—in the afternoon.
The impulse to dig into the frozen meat battled with the knowledge she might chip a tooth as she had the last time. Why risk the pain? Besides, it was about time she developed a little self-control.
Saliva pooled in her mouth as she peeled off the plastic wrap and transferred the steaks to a paper plate. An instant later, the steaks were rotating on the silver disk in the microwave.
Surely she could wait one minute.
“Partially human. Uh huh. So you say as you prepare to siphon off a pint of cow’s blood.”
Turning back to Emily, she licked the bloody ice crystals from her fingertips. Wrong move. Her fangs began to elongate the moment the sweetly bitter substance hit her tongue, and need churned in her stomach.
The need to feed.
Wistfulness filled Emily’s expression as Sydney’s teeth changed. Filing the stupid things down hadn’t helped. They’d grown back within hours. If she’d been a true vamp, they would have regenerated even more quickly. At least they stayed a semi-reasonable size most of the time unless she became aroused. Or hungry. Since those were pretty much constants in her life, she tried not to smile or speak more than necessary, unless she was with friends who understood. Namely Emily.
Okay, only Emily.
“When are we going to talk about it?” Sydney asked.
“About what?”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “You know about what. About you wanting to become a vampire.”
Emily didn’t attempt to evade the question. Nor did she duck her gaze from Sydney’s direct stare. “That obvious, hmm?”
“Yes.” Deliberately ignoring the cheerful ding from behind her, Syd lifted a brow. “So? What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to become one.” With a dainty shrug, Emily set aside her magazine. The eyebrow stud Syd had talked her into last week gleamed above her left eye, only highlighting the silvery gray of
her irises.
“How?”
“How do you think? I’m going to ask one to bite me.”
“Ask one? Do you know that many?”
“No, but I know Kellan. And you.”
Belatedly Sydney remembered that Lucas hadn’t informed Emily he was a vampire. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed the hiding the fangs bit until she’d read some more skilled vampires were able to control their body’s external reactions. Basically, if he didn’t want his fangs to show, they wouldn’t.
Another thing she hadn’t mentioned to Emily? Her, uh, multiple naked excursions with the two men. Emily swore up and down she didn’t see Lucas that way, but considering the hard-on she had for vamps, maybe her belief that he wasn’t one explained her supposed non-attraction.
Then again, if Emily wanted to be turned, she definitely would need the four-one-one on how the whole sex, blood, and rock-n-roll thing worked.
“You understand the cravings for blood. But do you realize the thrall of sex after the change?”
“I’ve studied the literature.”
“Literature?” Sydney scoffed. “Honey, you’re in for a rude deadening. I always enjoyed sex. Craved it. A lot. I thought I just happened to be friskier than your average bunny, but now I know it’s probably because of my genetic code.”
“The latency, you mean.”
“Yes. But after I drank from Kellan, things got even worse. Or better, depending on your perspective. I’m hornier than the worst human male you’ve ever come across.”
Something flashed in Emily’s gray eyes. Storm clouds sliding over the moon. “You’d be surprised what I’ve come across. And what I can handle.”
“Emily—”
“Eat. Your meat’s getting cold.”
There was no one else she could have felt so comfortable with as she tore into her nearly raw steaks. No one else that would have just passed over a couple wet wipes after she’d made quick work of them.
“Em, I’ve never….”
The words clogged in her throat. She’d never been good with them, yet another reason she’d preferred sweaty, physical action over flowery expressions of love. After watching the men who’d paraded in and out of her mother’s life, she didn’t believe in happily-ever-afters. And because she’d always been pragmatic, happy-right-now held more appeal than cuddling her morals in her empty bed at night.