“Magdalena wanted to make certain I’d survive. The drug she gave me put me into a stasis,” Elle murmured heavily. “I was awake, but not…really awake. Because of what I am, there was part of myself that was conscious during the whole process, but my body, for all intents and purposes, was unconscious. I did not require blood in that state.”
“The problem,” said Alec with a growl, “is that if a vampire tries to abstain from blood for any period of time, they starve and die. It’s cut and dry—it’s simple. This isn’t like humans and their relationship with food. You can go a long time without food if you have to before your body starts to break down. Vampires can go a day, at most, without blood.”
I stared at Elle, horror moving through me. Her eyes were flashing with defiance, and she stood strong and tall and utterly unmovable. I could tell from the stubborn slant of her shoulders, the defiant way she held my gaze, unmoving and unwavering, that she was absolutely determined to do this, and nothing Alec—or I—could say on the matter would move her.
But that certainly didn’t stop Alec from trying.
“Blood is the most powerful drug in the world,” whispered Alec, stepping forward to put a gentle hand on Elle’s arm. He tried to catch her gaze, but she would not look at him. Alec squeezed his fingers reassuringly around her arm and dropped his hand limply back to his side as if he’d lost all of his strength. “The withdrawal will kill you, Elle,” he told her, his voice catching at the end of it. He swallowed and sighed, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand, his breathing coming quickly now. I think he was trying to hold back tears.
We stood for a very long moment before Elle responded. She shifted, rolled her shoulders.
“I appreciate your concern for me, old friend,” she whispered back quietly, “but I think that it won’t.”
Alec threw his hands up into the air again, and began to pace in tight circles in my room, breathing heavily and angrily through his nose, shaking his head every few steps.
“You are the key,” said Elle then, ignoring Alec’s barely concealed frustration, and holding out her hand to me. I stared down at that white, open palm, considering it before I gazed back up into her eyes. I did not take her hand, and she didn’t lower her arm—she continued to hold her hand out to me as she went on: “you are the fail safe, Cassandra. I will go through withdrawal with you beside me, if you are willing. If I crack, and you will let me, I will feed from you. But if I stay strong, then you will be there to see me vanquish my addiction. You will be a temptation,” she breathed, her eyes dark and deep. “The greatest temptation. But through this, you will be my greatest test. And perhaps you will lead me to my greatest triumph.”
The connection between us was strong enough to fill the room, it seemed, in that moment. Every cell I possessed seemed to be answered by one of hers, my body alive in ways that I never knew it could feel. My entire being was drawn to her like gravity, my whole body and soul inextricably linked to her own in that single, solitary moment where time seemed to come to a stand still as I considered her before me. Her proud posture, her haughty, beautiful face, but her hand out to me, as she asked me to help her.
Elle had saved me. I drew in a deep breath, my hands curling into fists at my sides. A million sensations and emotions warred within me. She had saved my life. What she was asking of me wasn’t very much. Some blood if she needed it. I’d already offered that to her yesterday unthinkingly.
But what she was really asking for, I realized, was something that I hadn’t given in a very long time…
She wanted me to be completely vulnerable. To be there with her for the painful parts, to offer her a part of myself if she needed it. She could die, and if she did, I would be there to see it, see her in what I assumed would be exquisite agony. She was asking all of this of, basically, a stranger. She wanted my trust. She wanted things of me that might be a stretch for even the most devoted lover.
And I didn’t think we were lovers. My heart turned at that thought as I examined it in the light of day.
I wasn’t certain what we were at all.
I thought about her dying in front of me. A shiver ran through me and I sighed. “I…I don’t think that this is very safe,” I said then, gulping down air as I stared up into her eyes. “What if you die from this?”
“Then Alec will keep you safe from Magdalena and her men,” said Elle quietly, searching my gaze. “We’ve already discussed it. They won’t get to you—”
“No, no,” I said, my heart beating so loudly within me that I wondered if both of these vampires could hear the blood moving quickly through my veins. I wet my lips, trying to find the right words. “Elle, what if you die?”
Elle seemed surprised by this, her expression faltering for just a heartbeat. She shook her head, stood straighter, raising her chin. “Then I die,” she said simply. “Another life extinguished. In the scheme of the world it means nothing. What does it matter?”
I reached out between us, choking down the fear at my own predicament, the sadness that there was a very real possibility that she could die. I choked down everything but the sensation of touch as I took her hand, took it and held it tightly.
“It matters to me,” I told her, then, my voice soft, quiet, but with an undercurrent of fierceness that surprised myself.
Again, that flicker in her expression, but hardness stole over her face in an instant. “It shouldn’t. I’m the reason that you’re trapped here, Cassandra. Why should I matter to you at all? There isn’t a single reason—”
There were a million answers to that question. Maybe more than a million. But I didn’t answer it with any of them. In an instant, I simply took a step forward, wrapping my arms around her waist, tilting back my head and standing up on my toes…and I kissed her.
I think she hadn’t been expecting that. Her mouth met mine in soft surprise, but then I felt her smiling against me, a soft, tired smile that I pressed tightly to myself, just as I pressed her body to me, every curve perfectly fitting against me like we were meant to be. She was so hard in so many places, muscle and stubbornness melding together to a taut form that still was perfect. It was perfect because I felt, when my body was pressed against her, that this was exactly where I was supposed to be.
And that realization scared me.
But this was a powerful vampire, a powerful vampire who was about to test her resolve and stubbornness by not allowing herself to have the one thing she needed most to survive. And I? I was a human who had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I hadn’t gone out for drinks that night would I ever have even met Elle? Would our paths have crossed? Would the connection between us have ever been created?
Or had that connection always been there? Were we always supposed to meet?
I was too tired and had gone through a hell of a lot in the last twenty-four hours to be considering this many existential questions before breakfast. All I wanted to notice or pay attention to, in that moment, was the fact that there was a woman in my arms who I was completely attracted to, a woman who—as cliché as it sounds—took my breath away the moment her gaze met mine. Hell, the moment she entered the room I was consumed utterly by her presence.
There was something to Elle that called to me in a way that was so primal that there was no possible way that my logical brain could make sense of it. So my body made sense of it for me. I held her to me tightly, strongly, and I reveled in the fact that we fit together with simple perfection.
But Elle took a step back just then, gripping my shoulders tightly and holding me out at arm’s length. She didn’t remark on the kiss, and she didn’t ask me again why she should matter to me. Instead, Elle searched my eyes for a long moment with her deep, dark gaze before she breathed out, and said in a low voice: “Cassandra…will you help me?”
It all happened so quickly. The determination that gripped me as tightly as Elle’s fingers curling into my shoulders, the sensation of my own want and need for her roaring through me.
; “Say no, Casey,” said Alec quickly, at the exact same moment that I said: “Yes.”
“Great,” muttered Alec then, shaking his head and cursing under his breath. “You don’t even know what you signed up for,” he hissed at me. He worked his jaw as he rocked back on his heels, and he was about to say something else when he thought better of it. Alec shook his head again and stalked past the both of us, shoving out the door of my room and practically stomping down the corridor away from us, anger radiating off of him in waves.
There was a very real reason that Alec was so opposed to Elle’s plan. It was because he believed completely that Elle would not survive this.
I was too worried to do much more than gulp down air and hold Elle’s gaze. “Can you really do this?” I asked her quietly.
Elle maintained her grip on my shoulders, her face inches away from my own. This close, every part of my body came alive as if a switch had been flipped. I was so aware of the places where Elle touched me as she came close enough for her hips to press roughly against mine, her taut stomach flat against my own. She still gazed down deeply into my eyes, searching, searching, as if she was looking for something hidden deep inside of me.
“I’ve already been a few hours without blood,” she said calmly, quietly. “I’ll know in roughly twenty-four more if I can.”
“What’s going to happen to you?” I whispered.
For another long moment she didn’t answer me. But then she took a step back, raking her long fingers through her hair again as she shrugged elegantly and turned away from me. There was a dull ache inside of me as she turned away, a sort of emptiness unfurling in all of the places she’d touched.
“Well…” She worked her jaw and sighed out, spreading her hands. “I don’t honestly know what will happen, Cassandra. I’ve never gone without blood long enough for the first symptoms of needing it began within me. But I’ve seen the desperate need in other vampires. This great…hunger. It makes them violent. Think about someone coming off of drugs, how they’d do anything to get their next fix. That’s what it’s like, but…worse.” The last word was whispered.
I stood there quietly, trying to let all of the thoughts that had started to fill my head the moment that Elle had revealed her plan to me to disappear. I’ve meditated a couple of times before, and the meditation MP3s I’d found online had told me to imagine a daisy to try and clear the clutter and thoughts in my head. I did that now. I thought of the biggest, prettiest daisy I could imagine with a bright yellow center, and about a thousand white petals, but nothing in the world, not even the image of the perfect, peaceful daisy, could quite erase the image of my mother that had immediately planted itself in my head.
My mother, lying on her bed, moaning and thrashing around, acting lifeless and still as she went through tremors because she didn’t have enough money for what she needed. My mother with her long, brown hair that looked so much like mine, wavy and tangled on the pillowcase, her cheekbones sunken in, her eyes tear-filled, tears leaking down her sallow cheeks as she said my name over and over again, my name, always followed by a “please.”
“Cassandra?” whispered Elle. Immediately she was at my side, concern etching her brows as she frowned and gripped my elbow gently, turning me toward her. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d become—my shoulders had risen, and my breath came out ragged. “What’s wrong?” said Elle, searching my gaze again. “Are you overwhelmed by this? We can—”
I breathed out steadily through my nose and shook my head. I flicked my gaze up to hers and just as quickly looked away. “Well…I’ve done this before.”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed. “What have you done before? You’ve helped another vampire through withdrawal? That’s highly coincidental—”
“No. No. Nothing like that.” When I closed my eyes, I saw my mother’s gaunt face in the doorway the day child protective services took me from her. Her cheekbones had been extra pronounced because she hadn’t been eating lately. She’d been too strung out to remember to feed herself, and she’d ignored me when I’d brought her food. I sighed for a long moment, rubbed the heels of my hands over my eyes as I tried to not think about that moment, as I tried to not think about that moment every day of my life.
“It was my mother. She was a…drug addict.” God, it always hurt to say those words. I choked on them now, but I kept going. “I was taken away from her when I was a kid and put into foster care,” I told her quietly.
Elle’s hand dropped to her side, sorrow passing over her face. “I’m so sorry, Cassandra.”
“It was a long time ago,” I told her, careful to keep my voice light. And yes, it was a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me every day of my life.
And now, it seems, I have to relive it.
But there’s the difference, isn’t it? I don’t have to do anything. Right now I could walk out of that front door, and I don’t think anyone would stop me. I don’t know—maybe I could make it to the police station in one piece, and then tell them…what exactly? That vampires are following me, intent on killing me because another vampire marked me, and they don’t like that? It’s too fantastic of a story, but it doesn’t matter. I could do it.
I don’t need to stay here and watch this vampire, this vampires who sets my pulse racing, who makes me feel things I’ve never felt…die.
I curled my hands into fists, felt my pulse race through me.
Elle stood and watched me, her dark eyes impossible to read.
“You don’t have to do this,” is what she told me then.
I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath.
“I know,” I said carefully. “But I want to.”
Chapter 8: Leaving
“Why were you out that night?”
I glanced up at Elle in surprise, the curlicues of steam rising from my mug of coffee between us framing her face like she was an angel.
But she wasn’t an angel.
Elle considered me, seated across from the table from her. Her head was to the side, her long dirty blonde hair hung in unkempt ringlets around her shoulders, and it was difficult not to notice that her cream-colored blouse had slipped down one shoulder, revealing the milk-white skin beneath because the top couple of buttons on that shirt were undone. It was hard to keep my eyes from drifting to those inches of lovely skin. I’d pressed my mouth to there. I’d tasted that skin.
But now there was a table separating us, a big oaken affair that looked like it was probably over a century and a half old (and considering the other furniture in this place, I wouldn’t doubt it), which was heavy, with large legs carved with vines and spirals, the type that kept its guests very formally separated. It was a long table, the kind you’d see in a period movie about kings, but we sat at the very end of it on each side, facing one another, and only a few feet separated us now. Only a few feet separated me from her full lips that were curved downward into a half frown as she considered me, her deep, dark eyes revealing nothing other than the mildest of curiosities.
“I was out that night…” I trailed my finger around the heavy rim of my mug, tapping the warm ceramic gently. I didn’t really want to talk about it just then, but I knew it’d have to come out sometime. I replied with a small sigh: “I was out because my girlfriend had just broken up with me.” She watched me with a cat-like patience, and I kept going. “She’d just left me, my girlfriend. And I was very upset about it. I didn’t want to face my friends just yet, have to explain everything, especially the ‘why’ of why she left me.” I grimaced. “So I went drinking alone, and I stayed out at my favorite bar until last call…which is really something I don’t normally do. I did a lot of things that night that I wouldn’t normally do…” I trailed off. I sounded regretful. I mean, I was regretful.
But there were a few things in the last few days that I didn’t regret at all.
Like her.
“A girlfriend,” she repeated, sounding out the word with a sneer.
That was unexpected. I
thought we’d at least moved past her indifference and haughtiness.
“Yeah,” I said, my hackles rising despite my best efforts to squash them. I gripped the mug handle a little tighter. “Why, is that so hard to imagine?”
“No,” she replied mildly, examining the nails of her right hand with her eyebrows arched. “Why did she break up with you?”
I chuckled sarcastically and shook my head. “This is kind of rubbing salt in the wound. But,” I continued as she fixed her piercing gaze on me, “she broke up with me because she met a guy that she liked. And she thought that what she was going through with me was a phase.”
“Hm,” said Elle with a sideways frown.
I wanted a stronger reaction than that. At least some sympathy. In all of her years of living—however many years she’d actually lived—hadn’t she ever had a similar experience? Couldn’t she at least empathize? But maybe she couldn’t. She was a vampire, after all. Maybe vampires were utterly incapable of empathy.
“Anyway,” I muttered, staring down at my cup of tea and wrapping my fingers tightly around the warm ceramic as I felt my cheeks warm, “it wouldn’t have worked out anyway, so I think she saved me a lot of heartache in the end by dumping me now. We weren’t really good for each other, I think. I was…really in love with her.” My voice caught at those words, and I took a deep breath. “And she just didn’t feel the same way about me. So. It was better that it ended now, rather than later. It saved us both a lot of heartache.”
When I looked up at Elle again, the intensity of her gaze made me catch a breath. Her eyes were dark and flickering with some silent emotion that she was carefully keeping in check. Her posture was relaxed—lounging back against the ornate chair, her fingers drumming absentmindedly on the chair’s arm, her other hand propped up beneath her chin as she gave me the grave expression of someone who’s paying close attention. But as she leaned forward, just then, the power her body was emanating seemed to rise up and off of her in waves, just like the steam from the tea. As she leaned toward me, I felt everything in me rise to meet her, even as I remained seated, my breath coming so quickly I was practically panting.
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