I curled up on the couch next to Jack, and Peter sat it in a chair on the other side of the room. Bobby came down to join us a little while later, which was good, because it helped alleviate some of the tension in the room. Jack and Peter were making an attempt to get along, but there was still animosity in the air.
Mae came out of her room, saying she couldn’t take it here anymore, and she stormed out to her car.
Milo chased after her and went with her, but I think that was mostly to prevent her from doing anything stupid, like going to see an ill relative perhaps. Ezra moped about the house of the rest of the night. He didn’t say much to any of us, and he wouldn’t join us in doing anything, even when we suggested playing Monopoly.
When I decided to turn in for the night, I really wanted to invite Jack to stay in his room with me. Not even in a naughty way or anything like that. The fight between Mae and Ezra had left me feeling shaken up, and I just wanted to hang onto something that I knew would be around forever. But Peter was lingering around us, giving me a weird look, and I didn’t feel right about asking him. I think Jack noticed Peter’s bizarre behavior because he insisted on walking me up to my room and stayed at the door until he was sure that Peter was safely in his own room. Then he kissed me, just bit long than would be polite in public, and returned down to his couch bed in the den. The one thing I could say for Jack was that he always left me wanting more, and my heart raced dizzily when I went to bed.
Jack tried waking me up bright and early the next morning, but I wanted to sleep in for a change. He decided to take Matilda to the dog park for awhile, which was just as well, because I didn’t feel comfortable going there anymore after Jack had fought a rabid dog there last spring. The joke was on me, though. After he left, I couldn’t fall back to sleep, but I blamed that entirely on how hungry I was.
It had been a dull ache growing in the pit of my stomach since yesterday. When we had been watching TV with Bobby, I kept finding myself more fascinated by the watching the pulse pounding in his jugular than in the images on the screen. Now it was even worse. There was a dryness in my veins and my throat. My limbs felt crackly when I moved them, and even though I felt kind of jittery and twitchy, I was slow moving. All my energy was fading away, but I felt strangely frenetic. I was avoiding eating as much as possible, to gain control and all that. I knew I was going to have to soon, but for now, I decided that my best bet would be to just avoid Bobby until I absolutely had to eat.
I went about getting ready, but I couldn’t find the energy to shower. I just brushed my teeth, got dressed, and pulled my hair back in a messy bun. I tried to call Jane again, but she still wouldn’t answer. Milo and Bobby were going have to go to the club again soon to check on her, but I didn’t feel up to being around Bobby in order to talk to them about it. In fact, I could hardly stand being this close to them as it was. All their heartbeats echoed in my ears, and I could smell the faint scent of Bobby through my walls. I was going to have to distract myself somehow before I went insane.
I knocked franticly on Peter’s bedroom door and chewed my lip. I stood a better chance of not biting him than I did Bobby, and even if I did bite Peter, he stood a better chance of living. Since I was at this point, I probably should’ve considered eating, but I really, really had to control of myself. Because I really, really wanted to be alone with Jack, and this was the only way I could trust myself to do that. This would be so worth it in the end, though.
“What?” Peter opened his bedroom door, looking irritated. “Is the house on fire?”
“No. Can I come in?” I tucked a stray stand of hair behind my ears and looked plaintively at him. His green eyes were confused, but he relented and took a step back from the door so I could go in.
When I brushed past him, I inhaled deeply. He smelled so good, and I had almost forgotten that. His blood used to be my favorite scent in the world, before I really knew that’s what it was.
When I had been human, the tangy scent he left behind always intoxicated me, and I hadn’t realized that was his blood I was lusting after. Now I did, and the smell was even stronger and more delicious.
“You look hungry,” Peter commented. He shut the bedroom door behind me when I came in, and that might have bothered me if I had a clearer head.
“Yeah, well,” I tried to play it off like nothing. For him to notice meant it had to be getting bad. My skin was paler than normal, and my heart was beating more rapidly than it should.
His room was slightly messy, or at least as messy as he would allow, which was much cleaner than mine and Jack’s room. His large four post bed was unmade, but the white blankets were pulled back neatly.
Bookshelves lined his walls, but they were overflowing. Peter had apparently decided to spend the day reading, and there were a few books discarded on his bed. On the white chair by the bookcases, he had a book splayed open, a red ribbon marking his page should it close. The French doors that led onto the balcony off his room were slightly ajar, letting in a chill breeze that ruffled his curtains. I paced his room, trying to ignore the painful gnawing inside of me, but I stopped when I saw the red stain on his white rug.
“Perhaps you should eat,” Peter suggested, but there was an uncomfortable edge to his words. He had caught me staring at the stain and was eager to draw my attention from it. It was blood, my blood, from when he had nearly killed me.
“Why don’t you throw away the rug?” I twisted at the hem of my shirt, feeling fidgety, and turned to face him.
“As you can tell, I’m really not in the mood to hang out,” Peter completely ignored my question. He avoided my gaze and gestured to his room, as if the state of it would signify something to me. Underneath his smooth tan skin, I could see his veins pulsing delicately, but it had quickened ever so slightly.
I was making him nervous, and I delighted in that, even though it was doing nothing to ease my hunger pains.
“You shut the door behind me,” I motioned to the closed door. “I think you’re okay with talking. You just want everything on your terms.”
“What’s so wrong with that? Don’t you want everything on your own terms?” Peter grumbled, running a hand through his chestnut hair. He hadn’t cut it since we’d come back, and while I had never been partial to long hair on guys, it looked really good on him.
In fairness, everything looked really good on him. Wearing slim jeans and a white sweater that rode smoothly over his muscles, he was still the most attractive vampire I’d ever seen, and that really was saying a lot. I hated him for it. The way he could just be casually spending the day in his room, and look like he was a movie star at a video shoot. More than that, I hated that I was still attracted him, when I knew I had no reason to be.
“I want things the way I want them, but I don’t force other people to live by my rules,” I clarified.
“Neither do I! Am I forcing you to do anything?” Peter countered and looked at me, letting his brilliant emerald eyes pierce through me. They still dazzled me, if not the same way that they once did, but maybe in my hunger, they hit me even more. Everything about him just seemed so much more enticing.
“No, but… I don’t know.” I shook my head and turned away from him, returning to pacing his room again. Peter leaned against one of the posts on his bed and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Why don’t you just eat something instead of pestering me?” he asked.
“No, no, I can’t,” I waved away the idea. “I’m fine anyway.”
“Very convincing,” Peter sighed. “Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to distract yourself from eating? You’re probably fantasizing about ripping into your brother’s little boy toy, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be disgusting!” I scoffed, but he was really close to the truth, and I blushed a little.
“It’s not disgusting. It’s a fact of life.” He narrowed his eyes at me as something occurred to him.
“You haven’t bitten anyone yet, have you? You’re still a virgin to the vampi
re ways?”
“I’m virgin in every way,” I grumbled under my breath before I could catch myself.
“What was that?” Peter asked with wide eyes.
“Oh, never mind!” I shook my hands and blushed deeper. “I haven’t been turned for very long! I need time to get everything under control! I don’t want to kill anybody!”
“I see.” A wry smirk was growing on his lips, and I sighed heavily.
“Stop! Don’t look at me like that!” I chastised him, but that only made him chuckle softly.
Groaning, I looked around his room, desperate to find something else to talk about. Luckily for me, I spotted something that was actually worth talking about.
On his bed, half covered by his blanket, probably in a poor attempt to conceal it, was a book. But not just any book. It was a century old with worn binding and tattered pages, and I had spent a great deal of time reading it a few months ago. Entitled A Brief History of Vampyres, Jack had been convinced that Peter had written it himself. I had stolen it from Peter’s room and kept it until it mysteriously disappeared from my room.
I moved towards his bed to grab the book, but Peter saw where I was heading and moved to intercept me. He was much quicker than me, but I think his attempt was rather half-hearted since I’d already seen the book. It wasn’t like he could hide it from me now. He grabbed my wrist just as my hand touched the cover, and almost the instant his skin hit mine, it started to heat up considerably. I pretended like I didn’t notice and jerked my hand away from him before he could feel my pulse quicken in his grip.
“You did take it!” I said indignantly and held the book up in front of his face, as if he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. “I knew you took it!”
“It’s my book! You stole it from me!” Peter tried to match my indigence but failed. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was embarrassed at getting caught.
“So?” I faltered for a minute, since he did technically have a point. “You weren’t reading it, and I didn’t ‘steal’ it. I was borrowing it.”
“And I wanted it returned.” He tried to reach for it but I pulled it back before he could grab it. He didn’t chase after it, but he didn’t look amused either. Instead, he just held his hand out to me, waiting for me to give it to me. “Can I have it back please?”
“I was reading it. I want to know how it ends.” I opened it, flipping the pages and trying to skim through it. He was glowering at me over the top of the book, so I couldn’t really pay that much attention, and it had been awhile since I read it, so I couldn’t even remember where I left off. It didn’t really read like a novel, either, but rather it was part diary, part how-to manual.
“Rosebud is the sled,” Peter replied flippantly, giving away the ending to Citizen Kane instead.
“Why don’t you want me to read this?” I asked sincerely and looked up at him.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to read it,” Peter said, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I had a feeling that he wasn’t being entirely truthful.
“Then why did you take it from my room?”
“Because I…” He floundered for a minute, a very rare occurrence with him, and rubbed at his eyes. “I just didn’t want you have it anymore!” I had never made him this distressed and irritated before, and I rather enjoyed it. Usually he was the one driving me nuts. “Do you remember when I took it?”
“Yeah, it was the night you snuck into my room.” It was hard to forget. He had done more than just sneak in that night. He’d bitten me as well, but I hadn’t even really known what happened until days later. I had just believed it was all a dream.
“And I bit you.” His eyes shifted and his heartbeat changed. He had deep emotions buried in with biting me, but I couldn’t tell what they were. “Your blood tasted of Jack, and… so I didn’t want you to have the book anymore.”
“This is your book, isn’t it?” I didn’t mean to taunt him anymore. There was something apologetic and sad in his demeanor. “I mean, you wrote this, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Peter sounded almost regretful. “So you can understand why I wouldn’t want you to have it after everything that happened with Jack.”
“I do.” I held the book out to him so he would take it, but he just looked at it for a moment then looked up at me.
“Do you still want to read it?” Peter asked thickly.
“Only if you wouldn’t mind,” I admitted.
“I don’t think it really matters to you what I mind.” His voice was barely audible, and he turned away from me, leaning his back against his bed.
“That’s not fair, Peter!” I protested. His accusation stung much deeper than I would’ve liked.
“I’ve been doing everything I possibly can to make it up to you!”
“I know you have,” Peter sighed. “Just take the book. Read it. It’ll take your mind off how hungry you are so you can finally fuck Jack.”
My jaw dropped. That was exactly what I was trying to do, but I really didn’t appreciate him knowing that. Especially when I had been trying to make amends with him. He didn’t need to throw it in my face like that. He made it sound dirty and bad, when it was something perfectly natural and reasonable. Still, it hurt and pissed me off, so I threw the book at his chest and stormed past him.
“Alice, wait!” Peter groaned and grabbed my arm, stopping me from escaping his room.
“I’m sorry.
That was uncalled for.”
“You’ve gotta meet me half way,” I was almost pleading with him, and I was surprised that tears were stinging at my eyes. “I have been trying and trying. And even Jack is trying. But you gotta help me out here.
You’ve gotta…” I trailed off and looked away.
“Why is it so important to you that I forgive you?” Peter asked quietly.
That really was the question at the heart of it all. Why did it matter to me so much what Peter thought of me? It wasn’t even just about getting him and Jack to repair their relationship, or tying to make amends for damaging the family. It was something more than that, something that I couldn’t quite explain.
“Why did you come back?” I whispered, unwilling to look at him. His hand was burning warm on my arm, and I knew that I should shake it away, but I didn’t.
“You asked me to.” His brow furrowed with confusion.
“No, not from Finland. I mean that night that you took the book. You’d been gone for months, and then, suddenly, one night, you appeared in my room and you drank my blood.” I bit my lip, and I didn’t even know why I was asking. Or why I’d even care anymore about that night. “Did you really want my blood that badly?”
“Your blood is divine,” Peter admitted sadly. “But I always wanted more than that.” He exhaled huskily, staring intently at me. “What is it about you? You were more than just a human, and even now that I’m not bonded with you…” He trailed off, but I finally lifted my eyes to meet his. “Why can’t I resist you?”
I inhaled deeply, breathing him when I should’ve been running away. His skin was scorching against mine, but I felt my own body hurrying to match his temperature. His green eyes were burning so intensely I couldn’t look away. The sound of his heartbeat rippled pleasurably through me. The air was so thick with the scent and feel of him that I could almost taste it, and I wanted to taste him. I wanted him in the most visceral way.
Suddenly his lips were on mine, and I honestly can’t say if I moved to him or if he moved to me, but I definitely didn’t resist. His kisses were rough and soft all at once, and I kissed him fiercely.
There was no room for breathing, but I barely noticed. Burying my fingers in his thick, silky hair, I pulled myself as close to him as I could get. His muscles were like granite forming to my body, and he wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to him. His mouth tasted amazingly sweet, and I wanted more, so much more.
The blinding hunger was surging through me, mixing bloodlust with passion. It was almost impossible to contain. All my se
nse were blurring together into one. I could taste what I felt, and I couldn’t see anything.
My pulse was pounding in time with his, heavy and warm. And he smelled so delicious I could barely stand it.
My body literally burned for him, like my skin was covered in flames and the only relief would come if I bit him.
He was kissing me just as ferociously, and gently, almost playfully I pressed my teeth against his lip. I didn’t bite him exactly, but I was testing the waters to see if I could. Peter moaned huskily, and the sound of his voice radiated through me. He would gladly let me bite him, let me drink the wonderful the elixir that flowed through him, and I wanted to. I wanted him so badly it was painful.
Chapter 17
Just before my teeth sunk into him, something inside me had a moment of sanity and screamed Jack.
I’d like to say that just like that, I was snapped out of it, but I wasn’t. Thinking of Jack made me hesitate before I bit Peter, but it didn’t change how badly I still wanted to. Everything about Peter was designed so I’d want him. His blood, his touch, his smell, everything, really had been meant for me.
Admittedly, I loved Jack, but the physical shell of Peter was everything my body had been made to want.
That’s a hard thing to resist, especially when I was ravenous as I was.
Somehow, I managed to free my mouth from his, but I stayed in his arms, holding him to me. Peter started kissing my neck, and as wonderful as it would feel to have him bite me, I did not want to be bitten. I was starving, and losing more blood would only make it worse. In the end, it was my intense hunger that saved me.
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