"Death wish, huh? Well what if I did something like this?" Alexis lunged at him, the silver chain held between her outstretched hands like a garrote. She aimed for his neck, planning to knock him away from Caitlin and pin him to the floor.
Except Michael wasn't there anymore. He was standing behind her. She hadn't seen him move. Hadn't felt him slip by her. He was just gone. Damn, he was fast.
Alexis yelled and swung the chain like a whip, but Michael caught her wrist and lifted her off the ground. His face was completely composed, and still human. Alexis kicked and squirmed, but she couldn't get away from him.
"That's enough," Caitlin said. "Michael, she's my friend."
Michael raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because she isn't acting very friendly."
"Alexis, he saved my life. Twice now. He isn't dangerous. Please, settle down, both of you."
Alexis stopped struggling—but kept giving Michael a nasty glare. Michael shrugged and set her down.
"Okay," Olivia said, "I'm out of here. I have a bottle of Xanax calling my name. Caitlin, I appreciate what you did for me, but I just can't." She choked back a sob. "I just can't." She left, and a moment later her door slammed shut.
"So why would you sacrifice yourself for a bitch like her?" Alexis asked.
Caitlin shrugged. "She's not that bad."
Bethany looked up. "Are you kidding? Or do the pretty girls just stick together? She's terrible."
Caitlin looked surprised. "Oh. Well, I ... I mean, that doesn't mean she deserves to get eaten."
"Speaking of," Alexis said, "we still haven't discussed how we're going to keep ourselves off the buffet menu."
"Michael?" Caitlin asked.
"I was serious. There's nothing you can do, except get the hell out of here and hope he's not bored enough to follow you."
"Wow, you're a great hero," Alexis said. "Why did you even bother showing up tonight, if you were just going to leave us hanging?"
"I didn't come here to protect you," Michael said. "I came here to protect her."
"Oh, so now you're all about Caitlin? What about when that other chick you're sleeping with? Are you protecting her, too?"
Michael looked at Caitlin, his mouth open. "Sorry," Caitlin said. "I needed some girl support. And I don't want to be safe if my friends aren't, too. So whatever solution we come up with, it has to work for them, too." She looked up at Alexis. "It's ... a lot more complicated than I let on. Mostly because the other girl is a vampire, too. The one that made him."
Alexis threw her hands in the air. "Fantastic. Anything else I should know about? Werewolves?"
"Um, actually," Caitlin said.
Alexis' response was surprisingly creative, and almost shockingly profane.
But Evan's eyes had lit up. "Werewolves, too? That's awesome." Alexis looked daggers at him. "Well it is," he said. "I mean, come on. This is world-changing information. This is ... this is incredible." He looked at Michael. "What else can you tell me?"
"I can tell you that you're in over your head."
"Michael," Caitlin said. She sounded like a stern mother. Alexis laughed.
"Fine," Michael sighed.
"I've been a vampire for about a year. Sunlight will kill me in just a few minutes. Fire, too, if it damages me enough. Or you could cut my head off. A stake through the heart will hurt me, bad, but it won't kill me. It might have, at first, but I'm getting stronger every day. A silver knife is worse, but I can survive that, too. Silver burns if I touch it. Saps my strength. It's poisonous, if you leave it in long enough. And if you'd gotten that around my neck," he said, looking at Alexis, "you could have actually taken me down."
Alexis grunted.
"Liam is over two hundred years old. He came over from Ireland, during the Great Famine. He was turned on the boat, by the same vampire that turned me, and he slaughtered everyone on board. Including his own family.
"He's stronger than me, faster than me, and more vicious than me. I wouldn't stand a chance in hell against him. And if you went toe-to-toe, the best that you could hope for is a quick death."
"But you did go toe-to-toe with him before, didn't you? When you were still human?"
"I tried."
"But it almost worked, didn't it? What did you do?"
Michael looked annoyed, but he settled down on the couch. "Liam killed a friend of mine. A girl named Sarah. My best friend's twin sister. We decided to do something about it.
"I was ... already involved with the vampires, so I started learning everything I could about them, about their weaknesses. I pretended to be trying to decide if I could live as one of them, but I was really planning revenge.
"There were three of us—me, Eric, and Morgan. Eric was all gung-ho, wanted to charge in with crossbows blazing. You'd have liked him," he said, looking at Alexis.
He continued. "But we realized that that would just get us killed. There was no way we could take him on physically. We needed an equalizer."
"So what did you do?" Caitlin asked.
"Magic. Morgan's grandmother was Romani. She passed down some of her superstitions and good luck charms, but when we decided to take on Liam, Morgan started doing some real research. The Romani and the vampires have had a feud going for centuries."
"Are you kidding me?" Alexis asked. "A freaking witch? What, is Eric a mermaid or something?"
Michael ignored her. "Morgan was the bait. We fought her on that, of course, but Liam doesn't go for dudes, so it was her or hire a hooker. She actually went up and hit on him in Indigo. The girl had brass.
"She had a trap waiting for him. A containment spell from one of her Grandmother's cookbooks."
"Oh, yeah, I saw that in your library," Caitlin said. Michael looked at her sideways. Caitlin blushed. "When I was totally not snooping through your personal belongings."
"Anyway, she had a containment spell set up. A circle drawn on the roof, with a bunch of symbols on it. She lured him in and powered it up, and for a while, it worked.
"Eric and I went at him with silver, but he could still move around inside the circle, and we couldn't pin him down. We weakened him, but not enough. And eventually the strain of keeping the circle going was too much for Morgan. It collapsed, and Liam got away."
"What happened to all of you?" Bethany asked.
"We ran. An example all of you should follow. Eric and Morgan got away, but Angelica was able to track me, because she'd had my blood."
"Angelica?" Evan asked.
"My Sire, the one who created me. She's the Regent of St. Troy."
"Like a queen?"
"More like a governor, but yeah, basically."
"How is Angelica in bed?" Alexis asked.
"Alexis," Caitlin hissed.
"Sorry."
"So what did Angelica do when she caught you?" Evan asked.
"There was a trial, and I was found guilty. The sentence was death, but Angelica intervened. Instead of killing me, she turned me. Made me one of them. One of the things I tried to destroy."
Everyone digested that. Finally, Alexis piped up. "So. Question still remains, what are we going to do about this?"
"Can I get a look at that spell book?" Evan asked.
"Sure," Michael said. "Do you read Latin?"
"I ... speak a little French."
"It's not in Latin," Caitlin said. Michael shot her dirty look.
"We need a plan," Alexis said. "He has vulnerabilities. We just have to figure out how to exploit them."
Michael shook his head. "You're all going to get yourselves killed." He stood up and walked to the door.
"Michael, wait," Caitlin called, but the door slammed shut, and Michael was gone.
***
Bethany was lying in Garrets arms, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and examining the fine sheen of sweat on his chest. A candle danced on the table next to the bed, which was against the dorm rules, but whatever. Bethany had been breaking all kinds of rules lately.
She probably should have been thinking
about what she had just seen, what she had just learned, but she couldn't get her mind off of the beautiful man holding her. It seemed like a dream.
"Why are you with me?"
"What?" Garret asked.
"Why are you with me? Why are you here, doing this, with me, and not somewhere else?"
"You're kidding, right? You're amazing."
"Stop. I meant it. You're this totally hot guy, and I'm ..."
Garret got up on his elbow. "You're serious?"
Bethany rolled onto her side, so she could look Garret in the face. "Yeah. I mean, when I left for college, I hoped ... well, I wanted things to be different than they were in high school. But I didn't expect them to be so different, so fast."
"Let me get this straight ... you're complaining that you got a hot boyfriend faster than you expected?" He was grinning a little, but his eyes were serious.
"No, I'm not complaining. I just ... I want to make sure that this is real. And that what I think about all of this is realistic."
She rolled back over and looked up at the ceiling. "I feel alive, Garret. For the first time in I don't know how long, I feel alive. The night we hooked up, I thought that was all this was. A one-night thing. And I was okay with that. But ... it kinda keeps happening, and I'm glad that it keeps happening. The thing is ... you're so incredible, and it seems almost too good to be true, and I want to make sure that I'm not setting myself up for disappointment."
Garret just looked at her, and Bethany wished that he would just say something. Finally, he spoke. "You aren't making too much of this, Bethany. I mean, sure, this is all happening fast, but I really like you. You're smarter than most of the girls I've hung out with. And you've got that sexy librarian thing going on." Bethany blushed. "I didn't expect to be in a relationship so soon, either, but I'm glad that I am."
"So this is a relationship?"
"Um, we're kinda naked right now."
"Yeah, but does that make this a relationship? Or is it just a hookup? Are we friends with benefits, or something more?
Garret smiled at her, and she remembered why she fell for him in the first place. That smile could melt the snow. "Yeah," he said, "we're something more."
Bethany snuggled against him. "Good," she said.
"What about you? You sure you're not just checking 'date a hot black guy' off your to-do list?"
Bethany laughed. "I don't even have a list."
"And you're not just getting back at your father?"
"No." She thought for a moment. "Though he'd probably kill me if he found out. His mind isn't exactly open."
"So I guess we're not going home for Thanksgiving together."
"God no," Bethany said. "I'd never do that to you."
For a while they just lay there, held in each other's arms, watching the candle light play on the ceiling. Then Bethany took a deep breath, and let out a long sigh. "So. Vampires."
"Yeah. Vampires." He paused. "Wanna go again?"
Bethany rolled over on top of him. "Damn right I do."
***
Caitlin had stayed up long after everyone else went to bed—so late that it was probably closer to "morning" than "night." Her brain had been going a million miles an hour, and she had started reading one of her trashy romance novels to distract herself. But she was still going to have to get up in the morning, so eventually she climbed into bed.
She could still see when she turned the light off. That was kind of cool. A little bit freaky, but cool. She wondered what else Michael's blood had done to her.
She felt Michael's presence before anything else. There's no other way to describe it. The same way you feel happy or nervous or sad, she felt Michael. Caitlin looked up, and sure enough, there he was, standing by the window.
"Really? Another sex dream?"
"What?" Michael asked.
"Look, these are fun and all, but they always end up with me getting bit and waking up drenched in sweat, and I'd just like to skip that tonight, if we could."
"Caitlin, are you feeling okay? What the hell are you talking about?"
"The sex dreams. The sex dreams that I have every time I drink your blood. Which really needs to stop happening, by the way. I can see in the dark now, and I don't want to start having dental issues."
Michael stared at her, like he wasn't sure she was being serious. "Caitlin, if this was a sex dream, would you be wearing pajamas with pigs on them?"
Caitlin looked down at herself. "Right. Not a sex dream." Her face turned red. "Okay then, why are you here? I mean, it's not like I'm unhappy to see you, but ... you usually only turn up when I'm in grave mortal danger. Am I in grave mortal danger? Is there asbestos in the walls? Is that it?"
Michael chuckled and shook his head. He picked up her novel, which was still lying open on the bed. "You read these?" he asked. "'Thighs like white towers?' Really? 'Throbbing?'"
Caitlin snatched the book back. "Hey," she said with a grin, "you boys have your girlie mags, we have these. Don't judge."
Michael smiled. "How are you feeling?"
"Great. I can't sleep, because I've got vampire in me, but otherwise I'm doing fine. So is Olivia, by the way. She ended up going to the campus nurse. Said a squirrel freaked out and threw itself at her."
"That's probably not the strangest story she's heard," Michael said.
"So ... why didn't you heal her, too?"
Michael made a face. "I don't want that ... I don't want her in my head."
"So you do want me in your head?"
"I didn't have a choice with you. You were hurt pretty bad, both times. But ... no. I don't mind you."
Caitlin smiled. "So, did you mean what you said to Alexis? That you were here to protect me?"
"Yeah."
"Why? Why are you so good to me?"
Michael shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe, maybe I just feel guilty. About what happened to Sarah. Maybe some part of me thinks I can make up for it, if I save you."
Caitlin's face fell. "So this isn't about me at all."
Michael seemed to be actually considering the question. "It wasn't, not at first. I mean, I'd known you for five minutes when Liam took you. That was just my Knight in Shining Armor thing taking over. And when we talked that first night? I thought you were some Meyerpire fangirl. But ..."
Michael looked at her intently. "What you did tonight. What you did for Olivia. And the way you came looking for me, when you felt Liam attack me. You put yourself in danger for us. There's more to you than I gave you credit for."
"Well, thanks for the almost compliment," Caitlin said, but she was smiling. She was used to having people look at her as a set of breasts on top of a pair of legs, and that was so frustrating. It was nice when someone saw beyond that, and started appreciating her for her.
"We still need to figure out how to keep you safe," Michael said. "I know Liam, and I know that he isn't going to give up. You're still in danger."
"Well, you could start spending the night with me. I mean, the bed is kind of tiny, but Bethany and Garret make it work, and I promise not to get fangirl all over you."
Michael grinned. "That's tempting, but it would be all awkward in the morning. Especially when I lit on fire."
Caitlin's eyes went wide. "Oh, right. Sorry."
"I can't convince you to leave?"
"Why are you so eager to get rid of me?"
"I'm not!" Michael started pacing. "I'm sorry. I just ... I feel so helpless, and I hate that. And I don't know what else to do. I can't take on Liam, and Angelica isn't going to be any help. I don't see any other answer."
"Well, I'm not going anywhere until my friends are safe."
"Your friends are idiots. They should leave, too."
"You'll have to take that up with them, Michael."
Michael walked to the window, shaking his head. "I don't even know. I'll think of something. Just be careful." He reached up to the window, ready to leave.
"Wait," Caitlin said. She got out of bed and walked over to him
. "Everything with Angelica, I ... look, I'm not going to share you. I have more respect for myself than that. But ..."
She stood on her toes and brushed her lips gently against his. For real this time.
Michael stared at her. His face was a mask, and Caitlin desperately wished she knew what he was thinking. Was he happy she had kissed him? Upset? Indifferent? He wasn't giving anything away.
"Goodnight, Caitlin," he said, and disappeared.
Chapter Ten
Caitlin, Alexis, and Bethany ate breakfast together the next morning. The topic of conversation was obvious.
"Were you afraid?" Bethany asked.
"Of course I was," Caitlin replied. "I mean, I thought I was going to die. And then all the screaming started ... I thought it was Liam, I thought he was ... but then Michael kicked the door down, and he was standing there, like some kind of an I don't even know what. And the first thing he said to me? 'It's all right, Caitlin. You don't have to be afraid anymore.'"
"Aw, that's so sweet," Bethany said.
"Yeah, it's awesome," Alexis said. "You know I'm still not a fan of him."
"I know," Caitlin said, "but the whole thing with Angelica really is a lot more complex than—oh, hi Olivia. Do you have time for some breakfast?"
Olivia had just walked out of her bedroom. She had a light scarf tied around her neck, but that was the only indication of what she had suffered the night before. Her skin had a much healthier color, and she was walking tall and proud again.
She lowered her sunglasses just enough to look over them. "Okay, let's get something straight," she said. "We? Are not friends. And this whole little let's be besties thing? Is not happening."
The girls were dumbstruck, but Olivia wasn't done talking yet. "Look, I'm grateful for what you did last night. But the way I see it, the only reason I was in any danger at all is because I had the bad luck of getting stuck in a dorm with you.
"I'm a cheerleader, Caitlin. I date football players. I don't fight vampires. And the best way for me to save my own neck is to stay the hell away from you, so that's exactly what I'm going to do."
Olivia pushed her sunglasses back on and walked out the door.
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