by Moore, E. M.
“Yeah,” Stephan added. “Except Ariana can kick some serious ass too. She’s not quite so clumsy.”
“When she’s fighting,” Christian said. “You ever see her try to walk through the quad? It’s like watching a baby horse learn to walk.”
“Really?” I asked, looking at him. I expected that from Connor, but not from him. He shrugged, and I laughed. “I’m not that bad.”
The guys all looked at one another and then kept eating. It was as if some sort of silent agreement had been made that I wasn’t a part of. Oh well. They were right about the pizza though. It was delicious. The best I’d had in a long time. As you could imagine, I didn’t eat out much in my old life. I was scraping by with tuna from a can and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Pizza was a luxury for me that I didn’t often get. To prove it, I was on my fifth piece. Thankfully, the guys didn’t seem to notice how much I’d eaten.
On the other side of the table, Nic’s phone vibrated. He looked down and frowned before picking it up and showing it to the rest of us. Well, the rest of us that had vampire vision knew right away what it said, but I hadn’t seen it. Connor sighed, and Christian leaned back in the booth, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Nicolai pressed the screen to ignore the call and then no one said anything, just continued to eat. I decided to let it go and not ask considering they weren’t offering up who it was. But then, Christian’s phone rang in his pocket. I knew the ringtone was a Metallica song, but I couldn’t quite place it before he pulled out his phone and ignored the call too. I looked around, sensing that whatever this was wasn’t over when Stephan’s leg—the one that was right next to mine—started to vibrate. With their vampire hearing, their necks all twisted toward him.
“No, Ariana,” Connor said. “Stephan’s not just happy to see you, that’s his cell phone ringing.”
Har, har, I wanted to say. I gave him a look and then watched as Stephan pulled the cell from his pocket. He looked at the screen and his look confirmed that whoever had just called Nicolai and Christian had just called him. “Don’t answer it,” Nicolai said.
“Are you kidding?” Stephan answered as he pushed the green phone and held the device to his ear. “Hey, Dad.”
Hey, Dad? They just ignored a call from their father? Twice. Why?
The rest of their shoulders slumped. Nicolai even dropped the rest of the slice of pizza he had in his hand back onto his plate. He wiped his fingers off with a napkin and then threw that down on top of his half-eaten pizza.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, whispering to Connor who was the closest to me besides Stephan.
Connor’s eyes widened, and he put his finger to his lips.
It was too late. Stephan was already stiffening beside me. “Yes, that’s her.”
An angry voice sounded from the speaker and Stephan immediately waved at Christian to get out of his way. Christian scooted out of the booth and Stephan was right after him. He stood and walked outside. The thigh that had rested against his the whole time was now cold. “Okay…” I said slowly. I must’ve missed something. I eyed the remaining Ravana brothers around me. “What’s going on?”
Christian ran his hands through his dirty-blond hair. It wasn’t gelled today like it normally was. “Dad doesn’t approve of what we’ve done.”
“With me?”
Nic nodded once. “Not just you. The whole being here and not at home thing is bothering him too.”
Christian smirked. “Bothering him? He’s downright pissed.”
Nic shrugged as if he could care less. I knew it was the truth just from the few harsh, clipped words I heard said to Stephan. I looked out the window behind the booth and saw him pacing just outside, his hand rubbing his neck.
Connor pressed his leg into mine. “He’ll be okay. He handles Father the best.”
I nodded, though I still stared at poor Stephan. I hoped he wasn’t getting yelled at because of me.
Christian’s voice pulled me out of my head. “It’s really not just you, Ariana. Dad wants us with him, so we can take our rightful place in The Council.”
I snapped my head around. What little I’ve heard of The Council—and I admit, I hadn’t heard much—wasn’t good. “You guys are going to be on The Council?”
“Of course, we’re the Ravana princes,” Nicolai said, though he said it almost begrudgingly with only a slight bit of humor. “It’s our rightful place.”
“Thing is,” Connor said. “The Council has been doing some really messed up stuff lately. None of us really want any part of it.”
“Connor,” Christian scolded.
Connor seemed unrepentant as he continued to tell me what was going on. “There’s a major…issue happening right now. It’s something The Council hasn’t really seen in a while, and my dad wants us there for it.”
All three of them shook their heads, piquing my curiosity. It was definitely something they didn’t like. “What is it?”
They looked at one another. Again, another silent agreement before Nicolai said, “Listen, Ri. Things are different here than in the human world. We have certain rules we need to adhere to, whether anyone wants to or not, or how outdated they are.” His stare turned angry.
“Well, what is it?” I looked around as the others stared off, not looking at me. “Aren’t you guys going to tell me?”
Just then, Stephan walked back into the restaurant. Christian scooted in for him and wound up next to me. He put a soothing hand on mine and I automatically felt better. There was no underlying panic or fear seeping its way into me. Connor knocked his shoulder against mine. “We better get you back, Princess. We don’t want Samuel thinking you flew the coop. You think he’s hard on you now, you won’t have seen anything yet.”
My gaze immediately moved up to Christian. He stilled a little, but let a slow smile cross his face. “Connor’s right. It’s getting late. You want to ride back with me?”
I agreed immediately. I wasn’t ready for the others to see my reaction to cars yet. We all slid out of the booths. Christian put his hand on the small of my back as Nicolai dropped a few twenties on the table. The waitress came out of the back just in time to see us all get up. She stopped, her mouth unhinging into a wide “O”. “Bye,” I called to her, hoping to make her feel just a little bit better. She shook her head and gave me a short wave before watching us all leave.
Once again, Christian led me to his car, opened the door for me, and then got in the front seat. He immediately turned toward me. “You don’t have to tell me why you had that reaction earlier but tell me what I can do to make it better. It seemed to help when I touched you. Do I need to do that again?”
I sat back in the seat and pulled my seatbelt across. Christian took it from me once more and made sure it latched. I sat back in the seat, getting comfortable. “Can we try without that at first? I kind of want to push myself, to see…” I let my voice trail off, so I wouldn’t have to explain everything to him.
He understood. Turning back in his own seat, he put his seatbelt on and started the car. Putting it in Reverse, he backed it up and pointed it back the way we came. We made it all the way to that point when he put it in Drive and pushed on the gas until my mind started to take over again. My hand immediately reached out and gripped his thigh. His hand was covering mine in an instant, squeezing, and then moved it to the center console. A flood of warmth spread through me. Relief from the memories had me opening my eyes in the next second to try to enjoy the ride as much as I could. “It’s a really nice car,” I said, trying to take my mind off it.
“Mustang,” he said, clearly proud. “She’s my pride and joy.”
I snickered at his words and we fell silent for a little while before I said, “You guys aren’t going to tell me what’s going on with The Council.”
I looked up to find Christian’s thinking face on as he stared out the windshield. He looked clearly torn. “It’s more difficult than you might think. One, we’re not really allowed to say much. We have privileged information
for being who we are. Two, we kind of want to keep you separate from that right now. We just brought you here. We don’t want you to run away screaming so quickly.”
They weren’t going to get rid of me that easily. It would be nice to know what was going on in the vampire world though. Sometimes I felt like a blind person feeling my way through the light here. Everyone else had the upper hand on me. They’d been here far longer than I had. I leaned my head back against the headrest, staring at Christian. “Trust can go a long way.”
“Ahh,” he said, his thumb tracing imaginary lines on my skin once more. “But it also goes both ways.”
Touché.
I’d have to be content to be in the dark for now. I wasn’t ready to give up my secrets and it seemed as if the Ravanas weren’t either.
After we returned to The Fort through the metal gate Christian opened for us by punching a number in on a keypad, Stephan offered to walk me back to my room. “I need to put some salve on your palms since I can’t trust you to do it yourself.”
“I can do it,” I said. “I promise.”
I didn’t want him to have to go out of his way, considering I was pretty sure they were all eager to ask him questions about what his dad wanted on the phone. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “I want to help.”
I said goodnight to the other guys as they walked toward the big mansion on the other side of the perimeter wall. They were staying with the family who oversaw the human guardian training. Connor blew me a kiss, Nicolai waved, and Christian gave me a small smile before Stephan led us in the opposite direction. “What’s the house like?” I asked, just catching the top of the roof before I looked out over the lawn in front of us.
“It’s…big?” Stephan offered.
“You don’t sound so sure,” I mused, smiling at his lack of details.
“It’s nice.”
I tried a different tactic. “Is it like your house?”
He shook his head. “My parents are a little over-the-top. Ours is bigger, fancier, more gothic looking.”
My stomach flipped. And this would be the house I’d stay in once I became their guardian? Well, if I became their guardian. “Do you like it there?”
His green eyes regarded me from the side. “It’s my home. Of course I like it there.”
“What’s your father like?”
He smirked. “Intense?” He thought about it for a second and nodded once. “He’s like Christian but tenfold. How’s that?”
My eyebrows shot in the air. “That’s a lot of intensity.”
“You have no idea.”
“You didn’t get in trouble because of me, did you?”
Stephan pulled me to a stop. “No, absolutely not. Our father understands what we’re doing. Don’t even give that a second thought, okay?”
I nodded, and Stephan bumped into me to lighten the mood. He wasn’t as touchy as the other guys were. Well, unless he was dealing with some injury on me. Then, he would massage my muscles or rub my palms.
“Good,” he said.
We started walking toward the guardian’s building again. The sun had long since been replaced by the moon. I stared up at it through the ever-present mesh that kept the vampires safe from its harmful rays during the day. “What happens when sunlight hits you?” I asked.
“It zaps our energy,” Stephan answered, his gaze also moving to the mesh above us.
“So, it doesn’t kill you like in the movies and books?”
Stephan grinned. “I suppose prolonged exposure might, but probably not. None of us are stupid enough to go out in the sun for that long anyway. We can wear certain sunglasses and fabric that helps repel the harmful rays. It’s not really as much of a threat as fiction makes it out to be.”
“Do you miss it?” I asked.
He cocked his head toward me, his brows pulling together.
“The sun,” I mean, trying to explain myself. “Do you miss it?”
“No, not at all.”
He pulled open the large door to the guardian building, and we made our way through the foyer past the common room. The buzz of conversation died as soon as we walked through. I looked to my left, found Shannon, and waved at her. She did the same, but it looked awkward as heck. When we were out of sight, I shook my head and chuckled.
“It’s not really their fault,” Stephan said. “They’ve been brought up with the solid line between us and them. It’s out of place to see us spending time with you. At least to them it is.”
“That’s kind of sad,” I mumbled as we made our way to my room. When we got to my door, I bent over and untied my room key from the shoelace I’d knotted through it that morning. It was another tip I’d picked up from Shannon.
“Clever.” Stephan watched as I unlocked the door and then he held it open for me.
I quickly ran in and threw all my dirty clothes into the closet. I hadn’t expected one of the Ravanas to walk me home that evening. If I had, I would’ve made sure the place was squeaky clean. As it was, I was usually exhausted by the time I got home and barely had enough energy to slip out of my clothes, throw on the pajamas The Fort gave me, and fall into bed. Stephan spotted the small tub of salve he gave me on the dresser. He picked it up and made his way to the bed. He sat, then immediately stood again. He pulled my pajama bottoms from the blankets and handed them to me. My ears burned. “Guardian-issue pajamas,” I said, not fully understanding why that made me so embarrassed. Perhaps it was because it was worse than sleeping in an over-sized t-shirt. They were like old man pajamas. He shrugged, and I quickly threw them into my closet with the other clothes I’d tossed in there.
Stephan pat the bed next to him. I sat while he unscrewed the cap. He dipped his finger into the tub and pulled it out with the pink-tinted Vicks-like substance on his fingers. He reached for my palm and I gave it up willingly. He smoothed the rub into the center of my palm and then used both his thumbs to work it over my rope burns there. My eyes fluttered closed at his touch. I wasn’t used to human contact. I hadn’t been hugged or kissed or touched in the right way since my mother died in that car accident. There’d been an incident with a too-touchy foster dad that thankfully never went anywhere, but besides that and the opposite of that, I’d never felt taken care of the way my mother had made me feel with just the slightest caress. It wasn’t just a simple brushing of shoulders when you walked by someone on the street and rubbed up against them accidentally, this was more. I hadn’t been “touched” like this in so long.
Stephan’s voice was husky when it broke through the silence. He’d moved on to my other palm and I hadn’t so much as opened my eyes. I was enjoying the moment. “You look completely blissed out.”
My eyes tore open and I tried to pull my hand from his grasp, but he held on tight. “Don’t be embarrassed, babe.” His cheeks reddened as the pet name rolled off his tongue without hesitation. He cleared his throat and continued his massage of my hands. He moved his fingers everywhere. Over my palm, in between my fingers, and all the way to my tips. I didn’t know what was in this pink salve, but it really worked. I really would use it if I wasn’t so exhausted by the time I got home every evening. Even now, I could feel my tenuous grip on the day slipping away. My eyes were heavy, and Stephan’s soft touch wasn’t helping. If anything, it made me more relaxed, easier to fall asleep. If he didn’t stop soon, I’d probably be Jell-O in his arms within a minute.
Sure enough, my eyelids started to droop. I vaguely recognized the careful hands that pulled me into a laying position on the bed and the lifting of my head as my pillow was moved underneath me. By the time Stephan left, I was out like a light.
10
I awoke with a start the next morning, my alarm pulling me from the first good dream I’d had in a long time. I shot right out of bed and turned the alarm off before hopping in the shower. I hadn’t woken up with this much energy in a long time. Stephan was a miracle worker. I hoped I hadn’t drooled while he was tucking me in last night. I’d have to remember to thank hi
m.
I got ready for the day quickly, throwing on another guardian-issued training uniform before grabbing my key off the dresser. I opened the door, locked it, then knelt to tie my key into the shoelace. When I stood again, a white sheet of paper taped to my door caught my attention. I smiled, wondering if Stephan had left me a quick note after he left. Soon enough, though, my stomach dropped as I read the words on the paper. I balled the paper up and threw it into the closest garbage as I ran through the building to make it outside.
I’d show them. Vamp whore my ass. This was Zeke. I knew it was. Him and any other guy he could talk into putting such a disgusting thing on my door. I didn’t remember if I’d seen him in the common room last night when Stephan and I walked through, but I bet he was there. He probably had the whole building talking about how I was putting out for the Ravanas. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but it wasn’t like that.
I ran all the way across the lawn and right to the obstacle course. I spent my mornings training on this while the rest of the trainees were still in bed. The princes didn’t even know I’d been doing this. They thought I only trained extra at night with them, but my hard work in the mornings had been paying off. I could now get through three-quarters of the horizontal ladder and halfway up the rope climb. I wasn’t going to be humiliated in front of the Ravanas again. One of these days, I was going to complete the whole thing and sit back and watch the surprised expressions on their faces. Not the Ravanas. I knew they believed in me. But everyone else. Especially Zeke. I couldn’t wait to complete every obstacle on this course and look right in his eyes and smirk in his face. Vamp whore my ass.
Rage fueled me this morning. I was more determined than ever to push myself through the obstacles. I ran it again and again. The last time through before I had to head to breakfast, I got almost a foot higher up the rope climb than my previous attempts before my arms gave up on me. I slid down smiling, confident in my progress. I was going to kill this course someday. I finished the rest of the course strong until I plopped down into the grass just on the other side of the finish line, trying to catch my breath before making my way back to the guardian building. I didn’t want anyone to know I was putting in the extra training.