by Gayla Twist
“Haley!” Erika exclaimed. “What are you doing out there?” She quickly opened the window.
“Just hanging out,” I said. I hadn’t really thought about how I was going to explain the fact that I was perching off the side of her house.
“How did you get up here?” she asked, looking all around for a ladder or a rope or something.
“Uh…” I stammered. “I had a ladder, but it fell,” I said, pretending to look down at the ground. “It’s right there.” I pointed into the dark.
“Well get in here,” Erika said, grabbing my jacket and hauling me into her bedroom. “I don’t really think those window boxes are supposed to be weight bearing.”
I wasn’t really putting my weight on the window box. I was more hovering than sitting. But I couldn’t exactly tell Erika that. She was pretty strong for her size. I practically flew through the window and we both landed on the carpet in a heap.
“Oof,” Erika said. “That’s going to leave a bruise.”
“Sorry.” I immediately sprang to my feet. Erika smelled like freshly cut lemons and clean skin. “Thanks for inviting me in. I hope I didn’t scare you.”
“You scared me a little bit,” she admitted as she got to her feet. “And not just from climbing up the side of my house like a lunatic. I’ve been worried about you. It’s like you fell off the planet. Did you drop out of school or what?”
“Oh. Um…” I had completely forgotten about high school. It was like the whole concept had vanished from my head. And then I remembered that I hadn’t really spoken to Erika since Dorian had lured me out of the Winter Formal dance with the promise of a flask full of blood. “I’ve been going through some stuff,” I told her.
“With your uncle?” she wanted to know. “Or your mom?”
“Just kind of with me,” I hedged. I didn’t want to make up a story about my uncle and end up having a well-intending parent call child services. “But I’m probably just going to get my GED. I don’t think I’ll be going back to high school.”
“This isn’t because of Tommy. Is it?” Erika asked. “He is such a sleaze. I can’t even believe Sheila is going out with him.”
Despite my mad longing for Dorian, I still felt a twinge of pain hearing that piece of news. “They are?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Sorry.” Erika grimaced. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
“That’s okay,” I assured her. “They probably deserve each other.”
Erika shook her head with dismay. “Sheila is such an idiot. I mean, she knows Tommy is a scumbag. Why doesn’t she understand that in a couple of months he’s going to turn around and treat her the exact same way?”
“Beats me.” I shrugged.
Chewing her lip, Erika said, “My mom says it’s because people always think they’re the exception and not the rule.”
“I guess that would explain smokers,” I said. When Erika shot me a confused look I added, “No one ever thinks they are the one who is going to get cancer.”
As I was speaking, Erika flipped a lock of her long black hair over her shoulder causing the subtle fragrance of her to waft up my nostrils. Even though I had recently dined on the seedy man in the alley, I felt my stomach growl. It would be so easy to just wrench Erika’s head over to one side and sink my fangs into her slender neck.
“So… Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?” she asked. “I mean it’s like…” she glanced over at her digital clock. “It’s almost three in the morning?”
I suddenly realized that Erika was looking uncomfortable, clutching her hands together and glancing around the room. She looked more than uncomfortable, she looked a little frightened.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I told her, trying to push visions of feeding off her lovely fresh blood out of my head. “And I thought you might be up. Didn’t you tell me that you sometimes have trouble sleeping?”
“Um, no.” She shook her head. “That wasn’t me. Once I climb into bed, I sleep like the dead.”
“Oh.” I internally winced at her unfortunate turn of phrase. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” She gave me a hesitant smile. I’m just glad you’re alright. You look great, by the way. You’re skin is just so flawless. I still really want to do some glamour makeup on you for my blogcast.”
“Sure.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I would love that. As a matter of fact, I’ve never quite gotten the hang of liquid eyeliner. I was wondering if you could show me how to do it.”
“Now?”
I realized from the surprised expression on her face that asking for makeup tips in the middle of the night probably wasn’t the most natural thing I could have done. I closed my eyes and tried to get a hold of myself. Because the truth was, I’d wanted to lure Erika in. I’d wanted her to lean over me, her face very close to mine, as if I could sneak in sipping at her blood without her even noticing.
“No, not now,” I said, rather too hastily. “I just meant… you know, at some normal time.”
“Oh... Kay...” Erika said.
“So,” I said, feeling awkward as ass. I shouldn’t have used the word normal. That made me sound even more not-normal. “I guess you want me to leave. Right?” I asked. I was beginning to feel like I was losing control. “I mean, I could leave now if you ask me to.” Visiting Erika was a huge mistake. Every second I stayed in her house it was becoming increasingly more challenging not to completely drain her and every member of her family.
“No, that’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to go. As a matter of fact, you probably shouldn’t. I mean, it’s late. You can’t just walk home by yourself in the dark.”
“You want me to sleep over?” I asked, brightening. My mortal self would have loved a sleepover. I had literally never been invited to spend the night at a friend’s house.
“Sure,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Let me just check with my mom and dad.”
That did not sound like a good idea. Parents would have a lot more questions about a teenager crawling into their daughter’s bedroom window at night. Even if I was a straight girl, and not some horny boy. And then there was the little problem of what I would do after the dawn. There was no way I could stick around for bacon and pancakes.
“Wait a minute,” I told her, grabbing her by the arm as she headed for the door. “I just realized that if I stay out all night, my Uncle Kevin will blow a gasket. I should probably get going.”
“Haley,” Erika exclaimed. “Are you okay? Your hands are like ice.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, quickly retracting my hand. “I just forgot my gloves and…”
I felt like the room had started to pulse. But then I realized it was just me zeroing in on Erika’s heartbeat. She was the nicest girl in Tiburon High School and my only almost-friend, but all I wanted to do was suck her dry and leave her nothing but a dehydrated corpse.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, staggering back toward the window.
“Are you alright?” Erika put her hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t do that!” I hissed at her. I must have sounded pretty scary because Erika immediately jerked away from me.
I was starting to see red. Literally red. All I could think about was tearing into my friend’s neck and gulping down the juices that would flow from the wound.
“Haley…?” Erika asked. She sounded truly frightened.
I wrenched open the window and flung myself into the night. I heard Erika scream, but I didn’t stop. I had to get away from there as fast as I could. I still had an open invitation to her home and I felt like I was on the verge of taking advantage of it in the worst way possible.
I couldn’t kill Erika. I just couldn’t. If I was going to black out into some type of vampire murderous feeding frenzy, it shouldn’t be directed at one of the few people on the planet who had actually shown me a little kindness.
Flying blindly through the night, I felt like I had to find a vault and lock myself in it or
I would turn around and head straight back to Erika’s house. Almost unintentionally I found myself heading for the Vanderlind Castle. I’d driven past the crazy looking fortress enough times to know how to find it. There was a large metal fence surrounding the building and a gate that was patrolled by two guards. I landed a dozen yards up the road from the castle and started walking toward the entrance.
“Is the family expecting you?” one of the guards asked as I strode up to the gate. They were all dress in dark purple uniforms and didn’t seem to find it unusual that a young woman would turn up at the house in the middle of the night.
“Dorian Vanderlind will see me,” I assured them.
Chapter 7
Dorian
There was a knock at my door. “Mr. Wanderlind?” I heard a voice say. It was pretty obvious that it was the Russian.
“What is it, Hugo?” I asked, not opening the door. I was still embarrassed by my emotional outburst in the kitchen and didn’t feel up to facing him.
“There is a young lady here, asking to you,” the man said. “She says her name is Haley Scott.”
Haley Scott? I’d just been pacing the length of my room, trying in vain to think of anything or anyone other than Haley Scott. And then out of nowhere she was at my door. “Show her in,” I stammered. “I’ll be right down.”
Checking my look in the mirror, I noted that I wasn’t at my best. I was on the verge of appearing scruffy. Obsessing about the stupid girl was taking its toll on me. “Pull yourself together,” I growled at my reflection. “No one is attracted to a desperate idiot.” And I had been acting like an idiot. One kiss was no reason to lose one’s head over a young lady. It could have easily been a fluke. I had been so carried away that I had not thought of that before. The earth’s magnetic field, polar winds, the position of the moon; there were a million reasons why I might have felt an instant and intense connection to Haley Scott. It wasn’t necessarily because we were meant to be together.
I decided to play it cool. I’d been acting like a love-sick puppy, holding her hand and fawning all over her. That kind of behavior would repel any woman. As I headed down the stairs, I felt completely in control and ready to treat Haley as an impersonal visitor.
“Dorian!” Haley rushed across the room as soon as I’d entered the great hall.
She flung herself at me and I wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to kiss me or slapped my face. Either way, I caught her in my arms. “What is it?” I asked.
Her long, chestnut hair was tousled and her eyes look a little wild. “I need your help.”
“What has happened?” I asked, thrilled to feel her body pressing against mine, yet concerned for her distress.
“I went to see a friend,” she said, twisting around to look at the front door as if she would bolt out of the castle at any moment. “I needed someone to talk to.” Haley turned back to look into my eyes, her face contorted with torment. “And she invited me into her home.”
“Hugo,” I snapped. “Please bring us refreshments immediately.”
The giant had already anticipated me. He extended a tray bearing two goblets and a large carafe. “I took the liberty, Mr. Wanderlind.”
I quickly filled a goblet and pressed it to Haley’s lips. “Drink,” I told her. With trembling hands she grasped the goblet and began taking deep gulps of the red sustenance. As she coiffed it down, I filled the other glass, handing it off to her as soon as she’d finished the first one, our movements synchronized like relay runners. We proceeded through the entire carafe that way, with her barely pausing to even glance in my direction.
Finally, after every drop was consumed, the torment dissipated from Haley’s lovely face. “Better now?” I asked.
“Much,” she told me. “Thank you. I felt like I was on the verge of doing something desperate.”
“So, you were saying, you went to see a mortal friend.” I gestured that she should follow me into the salon, where we could be more comfortable.
Haley hung her head. “I just wanted to talk to someone and…”
“Don’t worry,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s a mistake that many fledgling vampires make. But please tell me, is there any type of situation that needs to be tidied up before the dawn?”
She looked up at me, obviously confused. Then realization caused her brow to soften and her eyebrows to rise. “No,” she assured me. “I managed to leave in time. But it took every ounce of my strength to do it.”
“But you did do it,” I said. “You left. That shows a remarkable amount of self-restraint.”
“Dorian,” she said, taking the seat that I offered her. “I know that…” She bit her lip and then tried again. “I know that you dislike me as much as I dislike you but…”
“But what?” I asked, even though her words stung me to the core.
“But I don’t know how to be a vampire,” she blurted. “I almost killed the only friend I have in this town and there’s still a good chance I might go back and do it.”
“You won’t,” I assured her.
“I might,” was her reply. “If I leave this place right now…” Her voice was jagged with emotion. “I don’t think I could stop myself.” She began to sob.
“Haley,” I said softly, gathering her in my arms. “You won’t hurt your friend. I promise you that. I will make sure that it doesn’t happen.”
She had said that she knew I disliked her as much as she disliked me. Nothing could be further from the truth, as far as I was concerned. But I wasn’t the kind of man to make a fool of myself chasing after a vampiress who had openly stated her dislike of me. I would just have to accept her feelings and do my best to control my own.
“I’m not asking you to be my mentor for the next decade or anything,” she said through her tears. “I know that you think turning me was a mistake. But would you at least show me a few things? I don’t have any vampire skills at all. And then, once I’m not such a newbie, I promise that I’ll leave you alone.”
I suppressed the urge to yell, Of course I’ll show you anything you want. I’ll show you the world, if you’ll only let me. I also stopped myself from bellowing, What in the hell do you think I’ve been offering you all along? Instead I settled on, “Haley, I would be happy to show you whatever you wish to know.”
Haley righted herself, pulling away from me. I let my arms fall stiffly to my sides. “Thank you,” she said with a sniff, wiping at her nose. It wasn’t a very ladylike gesture, but on her it looked adorable.
“My pleasure,” I assured her. “Where would you like to begin?”
Haley twisted her lips to one side as she gave it some thought. “Flying?”
I couldn’t help but smile. I adored flying. The idea of soaring through the night with Haley by my side was absolutely enticing. But then I remembered that she wasn’t asking me to be her paramour. Far from it. She was simply asking for my aid.
“I think a few flying lessons can be arranged,” I said. “Would you like to start immediately? Or do you need more time to recover from visiting your mortal friend?”
“Let’s start now,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll try to waste as little of your time as is humanly possible.”
I immediately thought that no time with Haley would ever feel ill spent, but I couldn’t exactly say that. So I went with, “You’ll soon discover that vampires have a lot more time to waste than when we were all living in the mortal world.”
“Where are we going?” Haley asked as I started leading her in the opposite direction of the front door. “Shouldn’t we go outside?”
“No,” I told her, taking her hand and tucking it under my arm. “Given your very recent scare, I think it’s advisable for you stay inside for awhile. It’s best to let all those murderous impulses settle as much as possible.”
“Oh.” Haley frowned. “Then how are we going to practice flying?”
“I’ll show you,” I said, escorting her down the main hall. I couldn’t decide if it was a piece
of good luck or a horrible misfortune that Miss Haley Scott had sought my family’s castle as a safe haven. But it really was unwise for her to be unattended if she was feeling a bloodlust. Especially if she still had an open invitation to her friend’s home.
I had to wonder if the friend that Haley almost devoured was that delightful creature, Erika, who I’d met on the evening that I’d become Haley’s maker. Erika had also been with Haley at the dance where I interceded, keeping my scion from committing the kind of atrocities that would make her meet the sun. Or at least locked in a coffin for the next century.
Erika was indeed beautiful, especially for a human. But in my mind’s eye, her looks paled in comparison to Haley’s. There was a barely controlled fire in Haley that I found absolutely magnetic. The way she kept herself from feeding off her uncle, and in fact had actually changed his life for the better, was impressive in itself. But that she’d been able to flee a friend’s home without giving into temptation was remarkable. It was a sad truth that vampires did have a tendency to seek their mortal friends when first turned. And those reunions usually ended with the stuff of nightmares. I had to wonder how Haley had acquired such amazing self-control at such a young age. When I turned her, she couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen.
“Where are we going?” Haley asked as I escorted her past a few doors in the hall.
“Just thought I’d show you some of the advantages and disadvantages of castle living,” I told her, accompanying my words with a sly smile. “Castle can be drafty,” I began. “And the heating bills can be outrageous.” I stopped in front of a set of ornately carved double doors. “Not that vampires mind the cold, but the staff does tend to complain if there are icicles hanging from the faucets.” I grabbed the handles to both of the doors. “But there are a few perks,” I said, pulling them open. “Like a ballroom.”
“Oh,” Haley exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “It’s so beautiful.”