by M. J. O'Shea
“You ready for your classes tomorrow?” he asked.
“Sort of. I only have two so it’s not bad.”
It is bad. I don’t want to leave you.
We kissed again, and I felt the desperation. It sucked so bad—like we’d just really found each other after all those years of being right in each other’s faces and then kabam. I had to leave.
I’d better get it over with.
ONLY A few hours later I was out of the Forest, my favorite place in the world, and back at Noah and Zack’s apartment, which was quickly becoming my least favorite. It wasn’t that I had anything against them or their apartment—it wasn’t bad at all. It was just that the apartment reminded me of school, and responsibilities for things I didn’t want to be responsible for, and the fact that at least in my parents’ mind I was never ever going to be a hunter. My little guest bedroom encompassed all of that.
And of course Xan wasn’t there. I hated that the most. I closed my eyes and thought of earlier, flashes of skin and laughter and kisses that I could still taste. I wanted him back, and not in five or six days and only for hours at a time. I wanted him back like we used to have. All day, every day. It sucked how much I missed him, even after only a few hours. They needed to invent some kind of phone that would work in the Forest, because a whole week at a time of not hearing his voice? Intolerable.
ZACK AND Noah moved their desks out of the room to make space for my stuff, and one of them had set my computer up in my absence. I heard them stirring out in the living room and looked at my watch. It was almost dinner time—at least for me. They would be just getting up. I stuck my head out of my room and waved. “Hey, guys. I’m here.”
My cousin and his boyfriend looked up from the quiet conversation they’d been having. Zack smiled and tapped his nose. “We know.” Oh, of course. They could probably smell me from a million miles away.
“Thanks whoever set up my computer. Something less to get done.”
“No prob,” Noah answered. “Hey, there’s still a day or so before class starts, right?”
“Tomorrow. And I’m looking forward to it so very much.”
“Well, do you want to come out with us and have some fun tonight?”
“Oh God, I would in a heartbeat, but Princess Colin would rat me out to Mom and Dad.”
Noah grinned. “Colin has been awfully busy lately with a certain blonde vampiress. I do believe they said they were staying in this evening.”
I grinned back at him. “Works for me. He needed something to keep him occupied so he’d leave me alone.”
“Can you be ready at nine?”
“Not a problem.” I was starting to think New York might not be all that bad.
IT TOOK me a good half an hour to realize that, no, Colin was not in fact going to be at the bar that Noah and Zack had snuck me into. He was absent, along with Amanda. I was happy for him and even happier for myself. More than that, I couldn’t effing believe I was in a club. Like an actual drinks at the bar, dancing upstairs club, and one filled with vampires and supernaturals too. It was the coolest freaking thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to tell Xan. Hell, I wished Xan was there with me to check it all out.
Colin didn’t show up, but the rest of Noah and Zack’s gang did—the pretty little Persian vampire Leila and her witch boyfriend Jason. And then there was PC the lycan, who was still cool and laid back, but had this glow about him that hadn’t been there before. Probably because he had his arms wrapped around this mop-topped little vampire who wasn’t much bigger than me.
“Hey, I’m Miles” were the little vampire’s first words to me. He’d smiled and stuck out his hand like it was no big deal that some human kid was joining their crowd. Turned out that was because he’d been human himself only a few weeks before. He and PC had met the night Xan and I had been in town, when he’d flipped out and turned into the huge wolf, apparently to protect Miles, who was his bonded mate.
“It’s a long story” was the only explanation I’d gotten. I shrugged and figured I’d hear the whole thing eventually.
Miles and I got along really well. I didn’t know if it was the fact that he was so newly nonhuman, that his friendly smile reminded me a little bit of Xan, or just that he was a really cool guy. We drifted toward each other, him touching PC absentmindedly the whole time, and while the others talked about hunting, I confided in him about my feelings for Xan and how much I wanted him to know that I was falling in love with him even if I was scared to say it.
“He probably already knows,” Miles told me with a smile. “Haven’t you guys been friends for a million years?”
I smiled. “Yeah. I can’t remember not knowing him.”
“Then I bet he knows how you feel. Can’t you tell that it’s the same for him?”
“I think so.” I shrugged. “I—” I laughed softly at myself. “I just miss him. Jesus, it’s only been a few hours.”
“Why isn’t he here?” Miles asked. Oh yeah. Left that part out.
“Because he’s a dryad. He can’t be away from the trees for very long. But it sucks already.”
“A dryad?” Miles cocked his head to the side. “I thought they were all female.”
“Xan says that’s a popular misconception. I know I’m glad he’s not a chick.”
Miles and I chuckled at that.
“Can I ask a question?” I was hesitant after everyone’s usual hesitation to tell me anything.
Miles shrugged. “Sure. Fire away.”
“Um, if you just turned into a vampire, and you’re mated with PC…. Well, how come they didn’t turn you into a lycan instead? You can get turned into a lycan, right?”
Miles made a face. “I was supposed to become a lycan. But there was this asshole lycan who hired vampires to kill lycans by biting them—”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Komarov.” At least that much I knew.
“Yes, exactly.” Miles looked surprised that I knew. “Well, Komarov’s vampire muscle mistook me for PC and bit me. That’s why PC’s still alive. Vampire venom is poisonous to lycans.”
“Oh.” And I thought my situation was bad. “That oughta get inconvenient for you guys.”
Miles grinned at me. “It’s not a big deal. I would’ve rather become a lycan, but I still get to have PC for a long time, so I’m not complaining.”
I had a million more questions, but I didn’t want to annoy my new friend.
THINGS FELL into a predictable routine after that—well, as predictable as it gets with vampires, witches, and lycans for friends and a dryad for a boyfriend. I went to my classes, which were exactly the kind of random classes anyone would expect to get if they registered late in the middle of the school year. No underwater basket weaving exactly, but the history of French film wasn’t much more practical. Every Friday, the second I was out of my New York authors class, I booked it home, packed my bag, and went to the Forest.
I’d always find Xan waiting for me at the bus stop and we’d hug and kiss, and kiss some more, then walk hand in hand through the wintery streets of town until we passed through the waterfall into his perfect world. It was hard, even though we were so happy together whenever we got to see each other. I missed his voice during the week, the warmth of his arms. The weekends never seemed like they lasted two whole days. There wasn’t time for enough talking and touching to come even close to making me happy.
It was a sunny, balmy day at the beginning of March when I decided Xan and I really needed to talk about it.
“Babe?” I murmured. We’d been hanging out on his huge, comfortable bed. I’d had some reading to get done for class, and he was sitting close to me, drawing a picture. At the sound of my voice, his hand automatically drifted down to rest lightly on my chest. It was becoming a habit and one I really, really liked.
“What’s up?” he asked softly. Then he kissed me. Kissing between sentences was another habit. I liked it even more.
“I hate this.”
“Being here?” His face instant
ly dropped and his hand slid off of my chest. I grabbed it and held on.
“No, dork. I love being here. You know that. I hate not seeing you every day. It would’ve been freaking weird when we were just friends. Now, it’s like I can’t even deal with my life half the time because I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too. Constantly.”
That earned him a good minute of kissing. I pulled away before the kissing turned into touching and more and our conversation was over before it really began. “I really think we need to do something about it.”
“Like what? You can’t drop out of school.”
“Do you think you could spend more time in the city? I know you have responsibilities here, but aren’t I one of your responsibilities too?”
Xan nodded. “You are. And even if I didn’t constantly want to be with you, I wouldn’t like having you so far away when Komarov is allegedly still in the vicinity.” He made a face. “I don’t like it. At all.”
“You think you could talk to your mom? Ask her if you can spend more time in the city. I mean, it shouldn’t be too bad for you to be away from the Forest for a couple of days at a time. You did okay in Bucharest.”
“I’ve never tried it for more than a day or two, but I’m ready to try. And then we can still do the weekends here?”
I nodded enthusiastically. I looked forward to our sleepy, intimate weekends in Xan’s tree house more than anything else in the world. Even if I got to see him every day during the week, I’d still want to spend the weekends in his sun-filled room in the trees.
“Thanks for agreeing to this,” I said. “Since I started school, it’s been….”
“Hard.” Xan made a face. “In more than one way. I swear there were a few nights where I almost lost my mind. I wanted to get on a bus and come down to the city just so I could touch you. I never realized how much I’d miss being able to do that whenever I wanted.”
I shivered at the thought of him sliding into bed next to me in the middle of the night and kissing his way down my back. It was those kinds of thoughts that kept me up half the night when I should have been sleeping.
“Next time you’re thinking about surprising me, will you please do me a favor and get your butt on a bus?”
“I won’t have to.” He gave me a big smile. “Now I’ll already be there.”
Chapter 15: New York
IT WAS awesome how laid-back Noah and Zack were. Every day they did little stuff that made me like them more and more, but the way they handled the Xan situation was awesome. I was hoping they wouldn’t freak out about another person being in the apartment on a somewhat regular basis, and even prefaced it with the offer of more rent and chores, but both of them just waved me off and said they liked Xan and it was no big deal. I was so relieved that I seriously wanted to kiss both of them—well, probably best to lay off on the first-cousin kissing, but a big hug was just as good.
Anyway, it was a big deal to me. After the past month or so of only seeing Xan on Saturday and Sunday, I was dying to have him next to me again. Even if it was for only two days during the week, and again on the weekend, it was better than what’d we’d been getting, which was barely anything.
Xan came on a Tuesday, after my talk with Noah and Zack, which had actually turned out to be a nontalk. I took a cab to the station after class and was waiting for him, twitching and hopping around in the terminal until I saw his golden-blond head through the doorway.
He smiled and walked faster, duffel bag bouncing on his thigh until I was in his arms, kissing his neck and squeezing him.
“Missed you last night,” he said quietly into my hair. “Wanted to hold you.”
“Me too. You guys need to get cell service in the Forest so we can have fun phone calls when we can’t be near each other.”
Xan pulled away a little. “Fun?”
My reply was a low chuckle. By the look on his face, I imagined he was trying to come up with a way to get a phone to work in his part of the world.
“C’mon, let’s go. I think it’s almost bedtime.”
Xan rolled his eyes at me. “It’s four.”
“Uh-huh. I know.”
“You know what? I think you’re right. I am pretty tired.” I grinned at my dense boy, who finally got it, and pulled him toward the street where the cabs were lined up.
I ONLY had two classes the next day. One of them was my New York authors lit class. It wasn’t bad, just a hell of a lot of reading and not very many freshmen. I wondered if my parents had checked into what kinds of classes they were signing me up for before they did it.
Class didn’t start until noon, though, so I had a nice long morning of playing in bed with Xan. Even though it was still fairly new, I decided there wasn’t a better sensation in the world than Xan’s naked skin rubbing up against mine as he kissed me and touched my body.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I whispered to him.
“Me too. This feels so perfect.” Sure, it was a twin and not his huge bed in the Forest, but we were together and touching and ohhh. His hips slipped between my thighs and I wrapped my legs around him. I wanted him. I wanted him inside me; I wanted to be inside him. I wanted it all.
“Xan, I—” I froze. Damn. I’d almost said it.
He stopped where he’d been grinding against me. “What’s wrong?”
I decided to go for it. “Nothing’s wrong. I just…. I love you. I wanted you to know. You don’t have to say it back.”
Xan dropped his head and kissed my neck before he looked at me. “Of course I love you too. I’ve always loved you.”
“Not like that, Xan.” I wondered if my stomach was supposed to be quaking.
“I know.” He lifted his head and smiled. “I love you too.”
“I wanna be with you,” I told him. “Like every way I can. Do you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Charlie. Of course I do. But not right now, when you have class in two hours. I want to take our time.”
I growled and Xan laughed.
I WENT to class incredibly horny that day. Horny and planning how Xan and I could be together. Because I’d wanted it for weeks, and maybe weeks wasn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it sure felt like forever.
A girl named Indigo sat by me in class. We’d been chatting back and forth since the semester started. It was nice to have one other person who didn’t look like a senior.
“Hey, Charlie, whatchya thinking about?”
I was so preoccupied with my plans for Xan and I that I almost blurted them out. “Um, nothing really” was the best answer I could come up with. I’m sure I turned bright red.
She laughed. “Yeah. And I’m going to buy that. You’re thinking about your boyfriend, aren’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“I have my ways.” It was odd, but I thought her hair might have shifted colors, from dyed purple to a warm pink. I chalked it up to seeing things and went back to shuffling through my backpack for my notebook and dreaming of getting Xan in bed later that night.
“WHAT TIME’S your next class?” Indigo asked me as we put our stuff away after the lecture.
“Um, two hours.”
“You wanna go get coffee? I don’t feel like doing the reading.”
I didn’t either. The poems of Allen Ginsberg weren’t calling me any more than they were her. “Sure, I’ll go. Anyplace good on campus?”
I usually didn’t stick around much. I was either heading back to hang out with Zack and Noah or trying to get to the Forest.
“There are a few that don’t completely suck. Follow me.”
WE SAT companionably at a wobbly round table with our coffees. A few happy minutes were spent commiserating about our class and how we were already tired of the reading schedule. After that it was awkward for a moment until I noticed her hair changing again. And I knew damn well I wasn’t imagining it.
“How do you do that?” I blurted.
“Do what?” And then it happened again, except i
t was her eyes that time, and a wave of hot pink that flushed over her skin.
“Change your colors like that.” I gestured. “See? You did it again. How?”
Indigo cursed softly. “I’m trying to control it. No one’s supposed to see me do that.”
“What are you?” I leaned closer and spoke softly. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“I’m not sure about that.” She hesitated, and I could nearly feel her concentration as her hair and eyes stabilized into blue and the purple color it usually was.
“No, seriously. You can trust me. I have friends who are witches and vampires and lycans. And my boyfriend… he’s a dryad.” I made sure to say all of it quietly. That wasn’t the kind of statement you wanted to be making in your loudest outside voice.
Indigo’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Seriously.”
“I’m a witch,” she whispered. “My parents told me not to tell anyone when I got here.”
“What’s with the color-changing thing?” I’d never noticed Leila’s boyfriend Jason doing that in the few times we’d hung out.
She shrugged. “It’s just something I can do. I’ve always been able to change the colors of things around me, but when I’m not paying attention I do it accidentally.”
“Do it!” I exclaimed quietly. “Change… this cup. I want to see.”
Indigo looked at the cup and it shifted from plain white to purple, to blue, back to white again.
“Damn, that’s cool.”
“Not really. My family’s pretty powerful and my gifts… well, they’re nice if I don’t feel like putting on makeup, but that’s about it. My dad’s hoping that I’ll develop something more useful once I’m on my own.”
As different as we were, it was clear that Indigo and I had a few things in common in the “can’t please our family” category. We sat and talked and laughed until it was time for me to go to my last class. I told her I’d see her the next day and booked it to French Films, where I barely paid attention to the movie and thought about everything I wanted to do to Xan that night.