I let my hand start to drift down from his knee, my goal clear. He moaned into my mouth as I cupped his hardness, and then he tore himself free. His hand came away from my waist and caught my wrist, gently overcoming my strength and moving my hand away. “You don’t have to do that to get me to stay with you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but his eyes were so blue and deep I thought he could see all the way down to the howling emptiness that passed for my core. “What if I want to? What if I honestly want to?”
He studied me. “Do you? Because you look like you’re about to burst into tears at a moment’s notice. And pardon me, but that’s not actually the sexiest thing ever.” His hand stroking down my cheek somehow made it less of a rejection. “I said I’d stay. No strings. So you tell me what you actually want.”
I studied him for a long moment, looking for any sign that he was being anything less than perfectly honest. I watched him as I stood up. I wanted to be all sexy as I changed my clothes, but then I turned my back to him as I drew my shirt over my head and skimmed my pants down to my ankles. I thought I’d feel frustration from him as I reached for the sweats and the oversize shirt; instead, he said out loud, “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
I turned back to him. He reached out a hand and drew me to his side. “I do want to,” I said, “It’s just—”
He put his finger over my lips. I thought about pulling it in between my teeth just to be contrary. “No explanations required.” He shifted around to push the covers down, then opened his arms to me. I snuggled in, turning my back to him. He kept his hips carefully away from mine, and I smiled into his arms. “Are you okay?” I asked. “Will you get any sleep like this?”
He reached over to a control on the nightstand and dimmed the lights until they were almost gone. “I’ve slept in spots that were a million times worse than this. I get to wrap my arms around a beautiful woman and keep her safe from nightmares. Not exactly a fate worse than death.” He started to whisper something else in my ear, but I faded out before I really heard him.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10
I felt the bed shift when he slid off the mattress, but it was the light spreading across my face that actually woke me. I pushed my eyes open and saw Eli’s form backlit for just a moment before the door closed behind him. I told myself that he probably just needed to pee, but that didn’t stop my heart from shaking.
I tried to close my eyes again and rest, but there was no way. After tossing and turning for longer than I’d want to admit to a jury of my peers, I sat up and turned on the lights. My phone was on the table by the bedside. I picked it up; the message received LED was blinking. Surprising that they even got service underground, but then, they had a secret base under the city. They probably had a cell tower tucked away in the church spire.
The messages included half a million useless updates from social networking sites, a couple of spam emails, and a text message. From Wes.
I almost shut my phone off rather than read it, but curiosity got the better of me. ‘So sorry for however I hurt you. Miss you. Love you. Please get in touch. Anything that’s wrong can be worked out.’
They had clothes and shoes in my size for the asking. What were the odds they’d dig out a smartphone for me if I batted my eyelashes and explained about dirtbag guys? I’d even take secondhand if it got me a new phone number.
I remembered Eli’s ratty flip phone, and decided not to smash mine. Sending back ‘screw you, you freak,” was tempting, but might invite further conversation. I closed the phone without sending anything back. Total silence was the way to go.
And then I noticed the shouting. It was right outside my door, or close to it. I had the idea that, a month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to make out the words I was hearing, maybe not even have noticed the volume. I could hear them, though, perfectly, like they were standing inside my room.
I stood and padded barefoot over to the door, debating on opening it and confronting Eli—he was clearly one of the shouters—and his partner in crime. It was a female voice, which was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“She’s not a danger,” Eli was saying, “not to anyone here. Except for herself.”
“It’s not up to you to make that decision.” There was exasperation in both the voices. This was not the first time they’d gone around this circle.
“Someone had to make it. You said you wanted me to help her, but really, you just wanted me to watch her die.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Really? We’ve watched her for twenty years and never intervened. Why is that?”
“She’d never manifested anything more exciting than intuition until she was infected.”
“And now? She’d put any of our psy ops to shame, and she’s completely untrained. Can you imagine, if we had more time—”
“But we don’t have any more time, do we? Because in a little more than a week, she becomes a ravening beast who, by any interpretation of the law, is our enemy. Some would say, the very reason that we exist.” The voice softened a fraction. “You’re the one who’s going to get hurt in this scenario, Eli. I didn’t bring you here so that you could fall in love with her.”
I yanked the door open before I could stop myself. Eli stood, facing off with Mrs. Dennis, who’d traded in the floral house dress for a black turtleneck and a pair of tailored grey slacks. Her glasses were gone, but she’d kept the iron-gray, no-nonsense bun. Eli had the grace to look embarrassed. She stared at me, all five foot nothing of her built around a core of flint.
“Hi,” I said. “I thought you should know that the irreversible evil curse comes with really excellent hearing. Which way to the bathroom?” After a moment, Eli pointed down the hall to my right. “Thanks,” I said, way too brightly. He nodded, and I walked down the hall, forcing my back straight and my hands still. Once I’d found the door and walked through it, though, I crumpled.
I peed, then washed my hands and splashed some cold water on my face to—I’d never known what it was supposed to do. But I did it. I took a deep breath, and walked back out into the hallway like everything was just fine and dandy. I expected them to be gone, and Mrs. Dennis was. Eli, however, was sitting on my bed when I opened the door, his hands folded in his lap.
“I’m sorry you heard that,” he said, without looking up. “She means well. She just has a lot of people that she’s looking out for. The needs of the many.”
“And what about you? Why do the needs of one girl make you so willing to take such a big risk? And if you say you have a thing for redheads one more time, so help me—”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I definitely shouldn’t be here with you. You should have been eliminated as soon as I was sure you’d been cursed.”
“But you didn’t—eliminate me.”
“No.”
“You kissed me. Repeatedly.”
“Yes.”
“Why? I want a reason, a real one.”
He ran his hands through his hair, which did nothing to decrease his sex appeal. “I don’t honestly know, Cait. I know that I want you to beat this. I know that I think you could, if anyone can. I may have even found a way.”
My heart beat thumped like a train getting up to speed. The wolf stirred uneasily. “Tell me.”
He shook his head. “You won’t do it.”
“Maybe. Let me make that choice. Tell me.”
“The curse of the Afflicted is passed down through generations at the moment of the attack. In the old days, the Afflicted would kidnap those they intended to change and hide them away until the first full moon had passed. Our scholars theorized that the newly Afflicted were vulnerable in some way that they weren’t after the first moon.”
His tone was excited, his eyes bright, his gestures huge. He rose, pacing. “But you think they’re wrong,” I said.
“I think it’s the line of the curse that’s important. I think that if you break that link, before the curse fully takes hold a
nd you change, then maybe—just maybe. It works that way with people who’ve been ensnared by vampires. It’s a long shot, and it’s unproven—but it’s a shot. It’s something.”
I’d gotten stuck in there, somewhere. “Wait, you’re saying vampires are real, too?”
He shot me a pitying look. “You’re not going to argue about werewolves, telepathy, or underground training facilities for shadow organizations that fight evil under the guise of religious affiliations, but you’re going to hang on vampires?”
Right. Moving on. “There’s only one flaw in your genius plan.”
“Only one? It’s a good day.”
“We have no idea who attacked me. I don’t even know where to start looking.”
His easy smile faded. “Yeah. This is the sticky part. But, I do have an idea.”
“Really? Who?”
That pitying look came back. “Come on, Cait. Don’t bail on me now. Who’s new in your life, volatile for no reason, with a shady cover story and an unwillingness to talk about her past?”
The wolf and I both got very, very still. “You’re talking about Sophie.” Silence. “My sister.”
“Just the other day, you weren’t sure.”
“My sister.”
“Your father was killed by something the police say must have been a wild animal. Isn’t it odd that she left out that part of her story?”
“You think I should kill my sister. With no proof. When my mother has just gotten her back.”
“The fact that she turns up as you’re going through all of this hasn’t even seemed the slightest bit odd to you?”
“She is my sister. I can’t just…shoot her and hope for the best.”
“Even if it saves your soul? Even if it saves you?”
I shook my head. “If we knew—if we could prove that she’s hurt people—that would be one thing. But if I…did that, and was wrong—when she was gone, Mom would have no one. She’d be entirely alone. And I can’t do that to her. I won’t.”
Did I see disappointment cross his face? If I did, it was gone between one breath and the next. He reached out and gathered me into his arms, sitting down, pulling me between his legs. He rested his head on my stomach. I tangled my fingers in his hair after a moment; I couldn’t think where else to put them.
“How did things end with your grandmother?” I asked. “Am I okay to stay here?”
He nodded into my belly. “I took full responsibility for your actions while you’re here. So don’t go all Wolverine on me, okay?”
I managed a laugh. “Deal.”
“Good,” he said. “Can we go back to sleep now? It has been an impossible day, and you may not have noticed, but it’s three in the morning.” I let him draw me back down to the pillow and turn the lights down again. Quickly, his breathing evened out, and his arms loosened around me. But it was a long time before I slept.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16
The days passed quickly. We practiced, we ate, we practiced, and we slept. Eli stayed with me each night. He kissed me, over and over again, but any attempt of mine to move beyond that was met with a gentle refusal.
As I started shielding my mind more reliably, Eli brought me to places with more people in closer proximity. I saw Liz, once, at the end of a hallway. I started toward her, but before I took two steps, Eli caught my arm in his hand. “No,” he said. “Her path isn’t yours.”
After five days of him flinging thoughts at me, I could feel them bouncing off my mental walls, but they didn’t make me flinch, and they didn’t break through unless I let them. Finally, between one assault and the next, I opened my eyes, and flopped down onto my back.
It took him a moment to even notice, and then he laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Stretching,” I said. “I’m bored. I know how to do this now.”
“When you’re focusing. Your control still slips when we’re in crowds—”
“Yes, but I always get it back within a few seconds, and I don’t flip out any more. Plus, this doesn’t help me get better at that. I declare it break time.”
Another minute, and then he sighed and flopped down next to me, his hands behind his head. “Lovely weather we’re having here.”
I laughed and rolled on my side, propping myself up on my elbow. “How did you get tangled up with this crazy bunch of characters?”
His face tightened up for the first time in days. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
I needed to drop it, I knew that, but I pressed on anyway. “Why are you here? What is it that you do?”
“Nothing good will come of this conversation, Cait.” His eyes were firmly fixed on the beams of the ceiling.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think I could handle it.”
“What if I don’t think you can handle it?”
My patience snapped like an old, dry twig. “Maybe it’s not up to you to decide what I can handle.”
I thought he’d flinch, but instead he flipped up towards me, his face right in mine. “Maybe you’re the first bright spot in fifty years of darkness, and the thought of losing you makes me sick inside.”
His eyes were flashing thunderstorms, his knuckles painfully white. “Eli, I—”
And then he was kissing me. He crushed me to him, his mouth overwhelming mine, his hands everywhere at once. Our nightly make out sessions had been practically polite, always gentle and soft, none of this need and want and incredible desire. I opened to him, and I felt his tongue and his mind slide inside of me with a sound that shivered through both of us. I could feel him touching me, and I could feel him feeling it, too. He was stone, and I could feel how much he wanted, how he’d been holding back, how he’d hardly slept for days from the sheer desire to pull me to him and give me what I kept asking for.
“Then do it,” I said. “I want you inside of me.”
He pulled me into his lap, pulling my hips over his hardness in an urgent rhythm. I threw my head back, gasping, and he bit my neck, hard. Urgent, passionate flashes came from my belly, begging me for the release I hadn’t had in days. “You don’t know what I am,” he murmured into my skin. “You don’t know what you’re choosing.”
I wrenched my mouth away from his, stilled my hips. I forced him to meet my eyes. His pupils were big enough to swallow the moon, my breath was heaving in and out with desperate need. “I am choosing you. You. Nothing else matters.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough for now.” I reached forward and pressed my lips lightly to his. “We’ll work out the rest later.”
I saw the moment when he decided. He kissed me back, and in an odd way, it felt like it was the first time we’d really kissed. It burned through me, cold and solid and precious, and so incredibly soft. “She can’t know,” he said, and I knew he referred to his grandmother. “You won’t be safe.”
“Should we go somewhere else?”
He shook his head. “You go back to the room. I’ll be there shortly.” He kissed me again, catching my lip between his teeth and stealing my breath away. “And when I get there, we’ll talk. There are things that you need to understand. And then…we’ll see.”
“Nothing you tell me will make me change my mind.”
“You need to hear me out, all the same. Ten minutes. Twenty, at the most. I’ll be there. Okay?”
“You’re not going to chicken out on me?”
He groaned, and I could feel his pulse against me, even through his jeans. “No. God, no.”
“Okay,” I said. “Although, I don’t see why we necessarily have to go anywhere.” I shifted my hips against him again, and his eyes drifted closed.
“Minx. Go. Before I lose my mind.”
It was the middle of the afternoon, and people were in the hallways, talking, or just going about their business. My cheeks felt like they were about to burst into flames, and the slick wetness between my legs felt like a naughty secret. No one noticed, though. A couple people smiled as I passed, but most of them
didn’t even notice me. It wasn’t like I’d been introduced around, but I’d been seen with Eli basically every moment of the last week, and no one seemed worried about me anymore. I shut the door behind me, then flopped back on the bed, my arms spread wide, ready to embrace the sky. My hands wanted to wander south, but there was no way I was ending this delicious sensation without him there to help.
He was right, after all, that I could count the things I knew about him on one hand. I was being completely stupid. I didn’t care. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wanted someone, not just someone to fuck. I couldn’t remember the last time just kisses made me feel full.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. I heard every set of feet approach my door, and each time, I realized that the steps weren’t his. I waited for the door to open, or maybe even a soft knock. Maybe he’d gotten caught up with something. He’d said he’d be here. He’d promised.
I waited until I thought I’d burst from needing to pee. I picked up my phone, meaning to leave a quick note and then prop it up on the pillow or something. I noticed the LED alert was blinking. I swiped the screen open and saw a message from Eli that I somehow hadn’t heard. I wasn’t even surprised.
‘This would be a mistake. I’ll see you in the morning.’
I stopped at the bathroom to pee before I left.
Through some miracle—there was no other explanation—my car hadn’t been towed out of the garage I’d parked in a week ago. I put another $75 on Mom’s emergency card to get my car out, and then I drove home.
No one had called while I was gone, but then, Mom hadn’t gone looking too hard the last time I vanished, either. And Sophie—she probably didn’t even have my cell number. And she might not have a phone of her own. My guts twisted for entirely non supernatural reasons as I pulled into the driveway—and then I went perfectly still. There was an SUV in the front of the house. A black SUV that I knew better than I wanted to.
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