Aven's Dream

by Alessa James

  “What did I do?”

  He looked truly puzzled by my agitation.

  “Don’t you own any shirts?”

  “I do, yes,” Will said, laughing. “Shall I put one on?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I felt excessively prim, but the sight of Will sitting there shirtless, his perfection staggering, was more than my nerve-endings could take, given I was about to sleep … in his bed, which he didn’t use. Will crossed the room and returned wearing a shirt like the one I was wearing. It fit him much better than it did me, straining across his broad shoulders.

  “Better?” Will smiled.

  “Much.”

  My heart rate was still through the roof, and it was distressing to know that Will could probably sense my heightened agitation as he glided up to me, stopping just a breath away. Even worse, I was afraid he could sense my attraction to him, which felt like it was coming off of me in waves. I wanted him to kiss me again, and I knew that it wasn’t a good idea.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, his voice revealing the slightest amount of tension.

  I nodded and walked quickly—and nervously—to the bed.

  “Do you mind if I stay with you while you fall asleep?” Will asked, his voice momentarily uncertain.

  I shook my head and felt my stomach flipping like I was on a roller coaster. He appeared beside me and pulled back the covers. Then he lifted me into the bed before getting in and pulling me against him. I shivered at the otherness of his skin. He didn’t feel hot, he didn’t cold—he just felt perfect and other.

  “Are you cold?” Will asked.

  “No,” I whispered.

  My skin burned anywhere it touched Will’s, and the house remained very warm.

  “Aven, if you wake up and I’m not here, don’t be frightened. You will be safe here.”

  I nodded against his chest. How odd it was to be here in Will’s arms. Again. It was more than I had ever imagined possible. It felt like we were the only two people in existence, but we weren’t. A shockwave went through me as I remembered something he had said.

  “When you were gone, you said that someone else had been watching me,” I said tentatively. “Someone who owes you. … Do you have a Renfield, Will Kincaid?”

  Will frowned, maybe because of my reference to Dracula.

  “I have peers and compatriots, but these two I would classify as friends, family even.”

  I sat up.

  “They’re like you?”

  He nodded.

  “And they know about me?” I asked with a spike of dread.

  “Yes. One of them was watching over you in my absence.”

  Will reached out and stroked my cheek softly as I stifled a yawn.

  “Sleep,” he whispered.

  Stretching, I felt Will’s arms tighten around me. A second later, a yipping sound made me jump. I turned to find Darcy sitting at the side of the bed, just like at home.

  “I could get used to this,” Will whispered in my ear.

  “You stayed all night?”

  I studied him. He was already dressed.

  “I left once. You didn’t stir.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised.

  I usually never slept well in an unfamiliar place.

  “You sleep very deeply,” he smiled.

  “What time is it?”

  “A little before six,” Will answered. “Would you like to stop at the bakery in town on the way to school?”

  There wasn’t much reason to keep food in this house, I realized.

  “Do we have time?” I asked.

  “Always so concerned with time,” Will said, bringing his fingers up to brush my cheek. “I’ll have you to school on time. Why don’t you get ready, and I’ll make sure Darcy is settled.”

  I nodded and pushed myself up. Before I could launch myself off of Will’s bed, he drew me to him.

  “Thank you for last night,” he whispered against my ear, his voice suddenly full of emotion.

  I had no idea what to say, silently wondering how many girls or women Will had been with in more than two centuries. Logically, it made sense that there had been others. More than two hundred years was a long time to be alone. It was more than twenty decades than I had even been alive, I thought with a shiver. I could have been one of many whose lifetimes passed in the blink of an eye for Will. The thought made me ache with a strange sense of loss, but I told myself it didn’t matter as I reached out to touch his hand. I couldn’t ask for anything more than the present.

  Will was all I wanted.

  As soon as I reached the bathroom, I felt a rush of gratitude that I hadn’t worn my clothes from the day before for very long—since I would be wearing them to school. Looking around, I laughed. What would the real world look like after the past twenty-four hours? I was in the middle of combing out my hair when I remembered that Sean was going to show up at my house to pick me up. Bursting back into the bedroom, I grabbed my phone from my bag. The last thing I needed was for him to show up and find me missing. Then his mom would call my dad—and it would be bad. Will appeared, watching me curiously as I texted Sean.

  “Sean was going to pick me up,” I explained.

  Will nodded, his expression unworried.

  “Are you ready, then?” he asked.

  “That depends,” I said teasingly.

  “On what, may I ask?”

  “Our mode of transportation.”

  “If you prefer, we can take the car. But it’s not raining, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  I squirmed.

  “The motorcycle is a little conspicuous.”

  That, and I was still terrified of it.

  “The Aston isn’t?” Will teased.

  “Actually, I think you’re more conspicuous than your car.” I looked down. “It is going to be strange showing up at school with you, though.”

  “Why?” Will demanded, an edge of defensiveness leaking into his tone.

  “Look at you. Allison Monroe would sell her soul for five minutes with you, and you show up at school with me? It doesn’t make any sense. I was invisible here until I met you.”

  Will gave me an exasperated look.

  “You are far from invisible, although perhaps a bit nearsighted if you haven’t noticed the looks from the boys around you.”

  “Right,” I laughed.

  “You’re not very perceptive for an empath. The world’s energy crisis would easily be solved if humankind discovered a way to harness the energy of adolescent boys’ lust.”

  “The world running on the power of horny teenage guys?” I laughed. “I guess you could put them all on hamster wheels.”

  Will’s expression lightened, and before I could register his movement, he was inches from me. His hand shot out, and he touched my cheek lightly.

  “Why did it take me so long to find you?” he whispered.

  I smiled.

  “Maybe because I hadn’t been born yet.”

  “You’re quite impertinent this morning.”

  “I prefer saucy.”

  His hand moved from my cheek to the back of my neck before very softly tracing the length of my spine. I sighed and closed my eyes. When his lips touched mine, they were gentle. Then Will reached out with his other arm and drew me closer. Before the kiss could turn into something that would ruin my ability to concentrate for the rest of the day, I pulled back. Inhaling, I tried not to lose my balance.

  “You are not allowed to do that before school. You’re probably melting my brain.”

  Will grinned charmingly.

  “You are very difficult to resist.”

  “You should talk! My brain goes haywire every time you look at me, not to mention kiss me.”

  “Am I truly not allowed to kiss you before school, then?”

  “Not unless you want me failing math,” I muttered. “I’m not that far off as it is.”

  He sighed.

  “Breakfast then, and only one of us will arrive at school
satiated.”

  I glared at Will before following him downstairs with Darcy trailing behind us. As we approached the doors, I saw that there were dishes with dog food and water.

  “He’ll stay here. We’ll come back for him this afternoon,” Will said.

  I gave him a wary look.

  “I’ll have you both back home before your father returns,” he assured me.

  The glass entrance of the house slid open, and he led me around the house to a large building that had remained hidden from view the day before. As the steel doors opened, a light clicked on, and I saw a dozen or so shiny and very expensive-looking vehicles. I stared in disbelief. It could have been the showroom of an exotic car dealership. Some of the cars were classics in pristine condition; others were brand new. Some had foreign plates.

  “Oh my god, you are taking your inconspicuous vehicle to school, aren’t you?” I laughed.

  Will smiled as he walked to the Aston Martin, tossing our bags in the backseat before holding open the door for me. We drove for a while in silence as I tried to prepare myself for showing up at school with Will. By the time I glanced at the speedometer, I had to wonder why he never worried about the possibility of being pulled over by the police.

  “Have you ever gotten a ticket driving like this?” I asked.

  Will turned to look at me, his expression alone illustrating what a silly question I had asked.

  “Do you think I can’t talk my way out of a ticket?”

  Will looked away from the road to stare into my eyes for what seemed like a reckless length of time. My thoughts spun away from me, leaving me speechless, and he laughed quietly before turning his eyes back to the road.

  “Point taken,” I growled.

  As I watched him, his appearance rippled slightly, giving me a glimpse of how he had appeared the day before—indescribably beautiful, but unmistakably alien. His demonstration of his power made me wonder why he tried so hard to fight what he was. Not that I wasn’t grateful for his restraint, but I was curious. Will’s nature, as he had put it, made me wonder about the man from Mr. Blake’s classroom.

  “Will?”

  He turned again to face me.

  “I know about you now, which is a huge relief.” I looked at my lap. “I even know what to call myself finally. But you still haven’t told me anything about the man from Mr. Blake’s classroom. Like why he’s after you, what he wants with me. Am I just a pawn to him? A way of getting to you?”

  Will’s expression had hardened into stone, and he looked back out the windshield. I felt our speed increase and glanced at the speedometer. Our speed had gone from terrifying to freakishly insane, and the roads were still slick from the storm with debris everywhere. I reached out and touched Will’s shoulder.

  “Hey, I need to get to school in one piece! I’ve got college applications to work on, and I can’t do that if you go flying into one of these trees.”

  Feeling him ease off on the accelerator, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Vehicular accidents in my presence should be the least of your concerns,” Will said. “My perception and reflexes are much keener than those of a human.”

  “Okay, fair enough. Then tell me something about my biggest concern.”

  I watched his hands flex on the steering wheel.

  “His name is Vladimir Fidatov. A creature of vast darkness and cruelty.”

  “And you said he wants to … destroy you?” I asked, trying to keep the tremor from my voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I dropped him to the bottom of the ocean nearly a century ago.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s still … alive?”

  I frowned, not sure if alive was the best way to describe what Will was.

  “Containment, imprisonment—these are as close as our kind comes to death. We exist more so than we live.”

  I stared at him, not sure what to make of this.

  “Then you can’t … die?”

  “Not from your perspective, but imprisonment can be a similar fate—nothingness for an eternity.”

  “Wow. Then when you say this guy—Vladimir—wants to destroy you, what did you mean?”

  “He wants to take away the one thing I thought it was impossible for me to find in this existence.”

  I stopped breathing when he looked over at me.

  “You, Aven.”

  I turned back toward the window as I tried to absorb this new information. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but when the car stopped, we were in town, parked in front of the bakery. Will got out and disappeared before I could say a word, and less than two minutes later, he opened my door and handed me a large pastry box and a plastic to-go cup of orange juice. I opened the box and laughed when I discovered that he had bought one of each type of pastry the bakery offered. He looked at me expectantly.

  “I take it you can find something you like,” he said humorously.

  “I think I’ll manage.”

  I picked up a chocolate croissant and took a bite. Will smirked.

  “I should have known you would choose chocolate.”

  “Maybe if I give the rest of these to Ms. Kluman, I won’t flunk Trig.”

  By the time we pulled into the student parking lot, my stomach clenched. The car’s darkly tinted windows felt reassuring in the anonymity they provided, but the thought of walking to class with Will was making me seriously edgy. He parked and walked around to open my door. As I got out, I tried to convince myself that nobody would notice the difference from the week before when Will had started escorting me from class to class like some kind of bodyguard.

  Then Will slipped his arm around my shoulders as we began walking, and my brain went into a full-on panic mode. A few students I recognized from later periods turned as we made our way toward Ms. Kluman’s room. At the door, Will handed me the pastry box. Then, before I could stop him—like that was even a possibility—he leaned down and kissed me.

  Stunned by his unequivocal breach of our agreement from earlier in the morning, I glared at him before stumbling dizzily into the classroom. Nearly every student in my honors Trig class was a junior, since most seniors taking honors and AP classes were in Calculus this year. Which was good, since I wouldn’t see any of the people currently gawking at me.

  When I reached Ms. Kluman’s desk, I set down the box and tried to smile, knowing the woman couldn’t stand me. One of the downsides to being an empath, I thought with a jolt. Reaching my seat, I waited for the final bell to ring so I could find out my grade on last week’s quiz. Unlike the day before, class seemed to take forever. Will was outside waiting for me when the bell rang, but six minutes wasn’t really enough to savor the time with him. By the time I got to Health Sciences, Lizzie was waiting by my desk, her eyes bright with anticipation. I frowned as I walked up to her.

  “What’s up?”

  “Is it true?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Is what true?”

  “That you and the new guy are hooking up!”

  My cheeks flushed as I tried to think of some way to dissolve into the floor.

  “Sort of?”

  I cringed when my answer came out more like a question.

  “How’d that happen? I thought you guys were just partnering for a paper.”

  “We were. I was feeling better on Sunday, so we got together to study, and things just sort of happened.”

  “Half the school is talking about it! People were thinking Allison Monroe was going to dump Jason Everett just to hook up with the new guy. And then you snag him!”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  “You score with the mysterious stranger of hotness—no offense to Sean—” she giggled, “and you sound depressed!”

  “It’s not that. I just wasn’t expecting it. At all.”

  Apparently neither was anyone else, not that I could blame them. The bell rang, and Lizzie paused.

  “Hey,
real quick—do you want to have lunch in the cafeteria with us?”

  The thought of the cafeteria made me physically ill, but I nodded anyway, because I couldn’t come up with a good excuse not to go—other than the fact that I hadn’t told Sean about Will. My one friend in Winters, and he was going to think I had been lying to him. As Mr. Morgan walked down the rows collecting the homework assignments from the weekend, relief washed over me that Will had brought my books to his house the day before so I could do my homework. If he hadn’t, I didn’t know if I would have had the willpower to leave. Again, class passed by at a ridiculously slow rate as I watched the clock, trying to make the minute hand move faster. Then, halfway through Mr. Morgan’s lecture, I heard someone whisper my name.

  “Really? Her?” the second voice asked in disbelief.

  Looking behind me, I saw two girls looking in my direction. I sank lower in my seat as I realized they were on the cheerleading team with Allison Monroe. By the time the bell rang, I had packed my bag and was headed for the door, ready to escape. Will was outside waiting, and my heart took off in a disjointed gallop as he walked toward me. He smiled, which made his face even more beautiful. He leaned down and brushed my ear with his lips, causing a shiver to run through me.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “It’s only been two hours,” I teased, feeling overwhelmed by my good luck.

  “I’ve known years to have passed by faster than the last two hours.”

  The look in his eyes was so intense that I nearly melted into him when he touched my cheek. He took my hand as we walked to my locker. After I exchanged my Trig and Health Sciences books for my English binder and U.S. History textbook, he took my hand and began leading me down the hall. I kept my eyes averted as we passed people, only looking up as Will opened the door of the empty classroom he had brought me to before. Pulling me in after him, Will left the lights off and guided me to the counter along the back of the room. He took my bag from me and lifted me onto the counter. Then, reaching up, he brushed my cheek, his touch feather light.

  “It’s difficult to be apart from you,” Will said.

  “I feel the same way,” I whispered. “Is that strange?”

  Will paused and looked like he was weighing the question.