by Nicola Rose
The patterns began to clear and I started to pick out individual pieces from the swirling mass. A clock, a dragon, a soaring bird, and… a woman’s face. Staring back at me through the gloom. I pulled my finger away sharply and he hissed a breath.
“That’s her. The love of your life.” My throat bobbed.
“I knew I should never have left you alone with Eva,” he gritted.
“What happened to her?”
I felt every muscle in his body stiffen.
“Please don’t ask me that question. Not yet.”
And I could feel it. His pain. The torment. Whatever had happened with her, it meant a lot to him. His whole body radiated the suffering.
“Do not think of my suffering,” he growled. “It’s insignificant.”
I put my hand back on his chest and let my fingers stroke across him again, until I felt him begin to soften.
“Just answer me one thing. Do you want me, because… because I remind you of her?”
“No,” he said instantly. “You’re nothing like her. You’re so much more than she ever was, Jess. That’s what terrifies me.”
35
Jess
“I wish you’d let me do that,” Zac said. “Or get one of my men to do it. You should be relaxing.”
“Why?” I laughed. “Because I’ve become a lady of leisure? Don’t be ridiculous. I love polishing my baby.”
My internal body clock was now so well accustomed to the unsociable hours we kept that it didn’t even seem weird to be outside tinkering with my Ducati at 3a.m, under the security light of Zac’s driveway. The gravel stretched out a long way from the high security gates near the road, passing through trees and flower beds before curving round to the front of the house. He sat on the veranda steps, leaning back against the railing, watching me work.
This was actually my third ‘baby’ since arriving at this place. That was probably a sign, an omen, about the crazy wreck of my life. The first one stolen by shit-for-brains, and the second completely destroyed at the same time as my leg. The insurance company would pay out, especially since there should never have been a pot hole so big in that road, so I’d ordered a new toy which had just been delivered. I’d have to think of another name.
“I was thinking more because of the fact you have a broken leg,” he sighed.
“Don’t remind me, it’s starting to drive me batshit crazy. One more week to go before I can ditch this horrendous cast.”
I couldn’t wait. It had been nice staying at Zac’s all these weeks, having some sense of normality, but seriously? Calling this normal was a joke in itself. The time had passed in a mix of happy, loved-up playing, chatting, getting to know each other better – interspersed with awkward periods of heavy talk about how wrong it all was, about the danger, the hardship of it all.
His gang had an uncanny ability to disappear at the right times. No doubt thanks to him planting that message firmly in their minds without even speaking. One minute they’d be relaxing in the living room with me, the next there would be a moment of tension and they’d vanish.
I needed to get back outside, into the real world. It didn’t feel real out there any longer, not when I studied every face on the street wondering if they were human, but still… I had to get on with it. Make life happen around this new world. Blend the two together. Danny had been sending me regular messages with updates on the crew. They were looking forward to my return to work.
“Fine. I won’t argue any longer because the view of you trying to bend over is impeccable,” Zac tilted his head to the side and ran those brooding eyes up and down my body.
I wiggled my ass at him playfully, if only to soften the blow of what I was about to say to him.
“So, Anna called earlier.” I continued moving the cloth over the tank in a slow, sultry manner. “There’s this party event thing over at Port Isabel tomorrow night. She wants me to go along and meet a guy she’s dating. I’m going to limp along on my crutches. Want to come?”
I’d asked as nonchalantly as I could, but really, the thought of a double-date, Zac having to sit and make small talk with some guy while I tried to prevent anything vampire related slipping out of my mouth – well, it didn’t sound like huge fun, but this wasn’t about me. I’d been dodging Anna for far too long, I couldn’t keep hiding from her. I needed to show my face, put her fears to rest, and hope that she’d forgive me for being such a shit friend.
“Off the island?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“There’s not enough parties here for you?”
“Yes, but she wants to go to this one.”
I set the polish down, ready for the battle.
“Then she can go,” he stated.
“Excuse me?”
“You aren’t going.”
“The hell I’m not.”
“Jess,” he sighed. “It’s not safe. There’s still a hunter out there. Not to mention that Port Isabel is neutral ground. I can’t stop Alexander’s gang from going, and I guarantee that if he gets wind of you being there, he will be there.”
“Why?”
“Because messing with me is his favourite pastime.”
“Grow up, Zac! You guys can play your little games if you like, but I’m going. I already promised Anna and I wasn’t asking your permission. I haven’t been the greatest friend lately. I need to do this. If you’re that worried then come along and protect me.”
“Games? This is no game, Jess. Do you know who had that bungee cord damaged?”
His words caused my legs to instantly buckle. I caught the handlebar of my bike to steady myself.
“What did you say?” I panted.
“Shit, Jess, I don’t want you knowing this stuff.” He dragged a hand through his hair.
“Alex tried to kill me? That’s… it can’t be. We were miles off the island. It was just some nutjob.”
“Why are you so quick to defend him? To deny what he is?”
I shook my head. The Alex that had spoken to me, he was dangerous, yes. But his eyes always held something else for me. He wouldn’t have done that. If he wanted me dead, he could easily have done it by now. Why would he resort to something like a dodgy bungee cord? Surely he’d rather take me himself.
“You’re analysing the reasoning behind why my brother would like to kill you?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I’m just going on the information you’ve given me; that all vampires, particularly the bad ones, are blood-crazed lunatics with no self-control. And that doesn’t match the man that found me alone on Isabel and could clearly have killed me. I’m going to the party.”
“Please don’t make me force you to stay,” he whispered, as if the fight had gone from him, even though the words suggested far from it.
“If you do that, I will leave this place for good. I won’t be a prisoner here. I’m not your pet that you can keep under your command. That shit stays in the bedroom, not outside.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said with confidence, his eyes narrowing nonetheless.
“Try me.”
We drove to the party in the back of Anna’s car in stony silence. Damn, I missed riding my bike so much. The second this cast was off I’d be tearing up the asphalt. I shifted, totally uncomfortable. There wasn’t room for my leg in the foot well, so I was sitting sideways across the back seat, my leg stretched across Zac’s lap. He refused to touch it, to touch me. Anger pouring from him.
I felt bad for Anna. It was supposed to be fun and she had a couple of sulking teenagers in the back. James, the new boyfriend, sat in the front passenger seat fiddling with his fingers. What must he have thought of us? He seemed nice enough. A little quiet, but that could be forgiven considering the awkward tension in the car.
I resolved that we; myself, Anna and James, were going to enjoy ourselves and Zac could mope all he wanted on his own. His gang were already there when we arrived, he wasn’t taking any chances. He stormed over to them and I ushered Anna and James off in the opposite
direction.
Zac refused to let me out of his sight, but at least he stayed a small distance away and let us chat on our own. Mind you, I suppose he could still hear us. Bloody vampires.
“You’ve had another fight then?” Anna asked.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t want to spoil our night. Just ignore him like I am,” I said as jokily as I could, waving a hand dismissively in Zac’s direction.
“Why on earth are all his roomies here as well? Can’t he go anywhere without them?”
How was I supposed to answer that? It certainly did look pathetic. Thankfully James came to the rescue and changed the subject, enquiring about my line of work. We talked for a while and I found out all about his life. Gradually Anna turned the conversation more and more onto me and James gave up, sitting back in his chair and taking an interest in the surroundings whilst we caught up.
She had a lot of questions about what sort of things Zac and I had been up to over the last month. It was hard to know what to tell her when so much of it centred on him being a vampire. I dodged and skirted as best I could. It must be so convenient for the vampires. You don’t like the questions someone is asking? Just pop into their head and make them change. Would the human feel it, I wondered? Since I knew they were vampires, would I feel it if one of them tried to change my thoughts?
Tonight’s obvious issues weren’t helping to ease Anna’s mind. She delicately tried warning me to keep out of trouble. I spent a while assuring her that we were just working through some relationship kinks, but that he was a lovely guy normally. She looked over at him, raising her eyebrows. Sure. He didn’t look too nice and normal right now, the way he and his gang were watching over us like freakish bodyguards.
When James got up to fetch more drinks I took the opportunity to change the subject.
“What happened to William? I got the impression you had a serious thing going on with him?” I asked.
“Sssh,” she whispered, glancing to check where James was. “Why do you think I set this date up off the island?! I can’t have them bumping into each other.”
“You’re fucking two guys?” I squeaked, causing even Zac to raise his eyebrows from afar.
“Just until I can decide which is the right one,” she smiled, and a bubble of tension popped. “William has issues of his own. He has some warped ideas, but I can’t help wanting him, despite it.”
I cocked my head at her. Anna the Hypocrite. She acknowledged my thoughts with a small shrug, a blush spreading over her cheeks. I laughed and congratulated her on the bad girl behaviour.
Zac soon brought me back down with a bump, staring at me in glum concentration. I was returning his cold stare when he bristled and looked away. I was almost too scared to turn but when I did, I found the eager, amused watch of Alex.
I threw my head back down before Anna could notice what was going on. During the course of our conversation I kept glancing up to check what was happening, but it was always the same; Zac and his gang poised and tense, watching me and watching him. And when I had the guts to look at Alex, he was always staring at me intently, not dissimilar to the way Zac watches me, but with more humour on his face.
Then a memory popped into my head out of nowhere, so blindingly real that for a moment I couldn’t breathe — Alex bursting into my room armed with a seductive smile and a gun. A gun that he used to claim me. To own me in the most erotic way.
Did he…? Had we…?
I felt the colour drain from my face. I sought out his gaze and found it burning holes through me. He could manipulate memories. He could get into my head. It had felt so real. Was it real? My stomach churned with horror and thrill.
The edges of his mouth tugged in amusement. The images flickered on repeat through my mind. His cock down my throat… his body straining over me, trailing the gun between my legs… my total submission as I cried out his name…
Anna slipped off to dance with James and I felt like bait, sitting there helplessly waiting for one of the Elwoods to come and snap me up before the other could. Shivers wandered down my spine.
Alex was like a pimp; girls draped all over him, unnaturally close to them. I tried to imagine how I would have viewed the picture before I knew – it was creepy and lecherous. But I did know what he was and it made it even worse. He was pulling them in so close because he was smelling them. Would he kill them? Would one of those girls die tonight?
My chest tightened, a sudden bout of panic threatening to break free. Despite Zac regularly drumming it into me, I hadn’t allowed myself much thought about that side of things. I just couldn’t imagine him actually killing anyone. But seeing Alex like that, it was bringing home some truths. I had to start facing up to what he was, to what they all were.
Alex never took his eyes off me as a girl licked his neck. And the memories wouldn’t fuck off. I tried to think about something else, but all I could see was him in my room. All I could feel was his hands on me, rough and controlling.
I had to find out whether it was real, or whether he was just screwing with me. I also had to warn those girls to get away from him. I couldn’t just sit there and let them get killed.
Zac appeared in a blink, like an irritating magical puff, sitting next to me before I’d taken another breath. I hoped to hell he hadn’t just crossed the room with his vampire speed, but no one seemed alarmed.
“Don’t even think it, Jess, you’re not going over there.”
“I have to warn them. How can you sit here and let him do this?”
Daily. Zac feeds daily. Push him on it, Jess. Fuck Alex, grow some balls and ask him to explain his own feeding habits.
“Do what? Has he killed anyone? His only crime so far is projecting your thoughts on to me. You’ve been obsessing over him all night. Are you purposely trying to drive me insane?”
“Shit. I don’t mean to. What thoughts?” I scanned the crowd, checking that Anna was still safe and hadn’t been snatched off by a vampire. It also allowed me to avoid Zac’s eyes, since he was surely about to blow-up at the notions of me and Alex in some kinky edgeplay.
“Thoughts you have about wanting him.”
“Oh.” I waited for the big revelation, but it didn’t come, and I blew out a breath I’d been holding.
There was no use trying to hide it anyway. My heart was racing and they could see it as clearly as I felt it. I was so drawn to Alex at that moment, the very air around us seemed thick, suffocating, pulling me towards him. It was seriously unfair to have them both knowing my thoughts before I could even fully decipher them myself.
“With age a vampire can learn to keep his thoughts hidden from other vampires. We can lock ourselves down,” Zac said.
“How nice for you. How does a human go about creating that lockdown?”
“They can’t,” he smiled apologetically. “We can all get into heads and alter a train of thought, wipe some memories, but Alex is stronger. He can take whole thoughts, memories, and project them on to someone else. You’d have to be careful doing that with a human though, it could easily frazzle a mortal mind. I knew someone once who used to love projecting and watching the human fall apart and go mad. That was back when mental asylums were places full of torture. He worked there, carrying on the suffering. He stopped finding it so much fun when they became just padded cells.”
“That’s a lovely anecdote. You should tell it at every party you go to,” I huffed and my stomach flipped, because on cue my mind was bombarded with more visions of Alex with his gun. I could even remember the way it tasted when he’d ordered me to lick the barrel—
“What the fuck?!” Zac disappeared from the seat beside me, moving towards Alex, this time definitely too fast for public viewing. He practically teleported there. They collided, and tumbled backwards out of the side door.
I hurried outside after them but only found a bunch of people, no vampires anywhere. Spinning around, I marched up and down the area, calling Zac’s name, fear increasing the weight in my steps with every passing mi
nute.
This was very fucking bad.
I didn’t know why I felt guilty, it was just a dream, right? And if it was more, well, it was still on Alex and not me—
Zac re-appeared, with a bloody nose and a torn shirt.
“Zac!” I rushed to his side and stopped short when he gave me an icy glare.
He took a deep breath and leant over the railing. I followed suit and we watched the leisurely comings and goings of the town – twice the size of South Padre, yet half the madness. A smartly-dressed couple walked past, arm in arm, on their way to dinner perhaps.
“Dare I ask what that was about?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Zac replied.
“Nothing?”
“That’s right, nothing. Just like you told me when I asked what he’d said to you.”
“Zac—”
“What?” he snapped, whirling on me. “Why are you even asking? What do you think that was about? He’s made a direct play for something that is mine.”
“It was just a dream, a head-fuck—”
“Was it?”
I tried to talk. Stuttered. And tried again. “Wasn’t it?”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t fucking know!”
I stared out at the town, willing my stupid heart to calm down.
“Have I not told you enough times how dangerous he is, Jess. I don’t want him anywhere near you. Don’t ever approach him. And for fuck’s sake, tell me if he messes with your head again. Right?”
I wondered if now was a good time to remind him that warning me away from danger usually sends me right into its awaiting arms.
His answering glare and snort told me that I didn’t need to tell him, because he’d just read it in my mind.