Dead Perfect

by Amanda Ashley

  “Shannah…”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell? And that noise?”

  “Shannah, listen to me…”

  She licked her lips, and grimaced. “And that taste…” She looked up at him, her eyes widening. “You gave me your blood again, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s different this time.” She frowned thoughtfully for a moment, as if trying to put all the pieces together. “Why is it different? Why are you looking at me like that? Why…?” She clutched her stomach, a groan rising in her throat as she doubled over in pain. “What’s happening? I’ve never felt like this before. I’m dying, aren’t I?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fright and resignation. “In my room, letters to my parents…” She groaned again, an animal-like cry of pain and fear. “Ronan, hold me! Please, hold me. I’m so afraid.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, lightly stroking her cheek and the side of her neck with the backs of his fingers.

  “It’s all right, love,” he murmured. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “But I am afraid. I don’t want to leave you…I don’t want to die.”

  He should have told her the truth, but try as he might, he couldn’t form the words. She would know the truth soon enough. And she would hate him for it.

  He held her all through the night, comforting her as best he could as her body cast off the last vestiges of illness and mortality and began to adjust to its new preternatural state.

  At dawn, she went still as the daytime sleep of his kind claimed her. He put her to bed, then went through the house, making sure all the doors and windows were closed and locked. It was then that he saw the broken window in the kitchen. There was no need to wonder who had done it. Cursing softly, he went back upstairs.

  He couldn’t leave Shannah in the upper part of the house, alone and unprotected, as long as Hewitt and Overstreet were in the area. He didn’t credit either of them with enough sense to leave town.

  Lifting Shannah into his arms, he carried her down to his lair in the basement. Knowing it would frighten her to awaken in his casket, he lowered her into the chair, then went back upstairs to get the mattress, pillow, and blankets from the bed.

  He held her in his arms until the Dark Sleep tugged at him, held her, wondering if he would ever have the chance to hold her in his embrace again once she realized what he had done.

  Kissing her tenderly, he put her to bed, then climbed into his own resting place and closed his eyes, truly afraid, for the first time in his life, of what the night would bring.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ronan woke an hour or so before the sun began to set. Rising, he immediately went to Shannah’s side. His Shannah, now cursed with the Dark Trick because he had been too weak, too selfish, to let her go. Never had she looked more beautiful. Her skin was radiant, her hair more lustrous than ever.

  He knew it would be another couple of hours before she woke. Fledglings required a great deal of rest. Only after a hundred years or so did they grow strong enough to rise before the setting of the sun.

  Needing to touch her, he brushed a kiss across her brow, laid his hand against her cheek, then drew back.

  The thought of facing her filled him with renewed terror. Would she accept what she had become? Would she refuse to accept it and walk out into the sunlight and end her new existence before it had truly begun? Or would she hate him for a thousand years and more?

  Too agitated to remain still, he went upstairs where he paced the halls, his senses focused on the woman sleeping below—the barely audible beat of her heart, the lingering scent of her perfume, the remembered taste of her life’s nectar on his tongue.

  Shannah.

  She had been sunlight to his shadow, light to his darkness. She had brought him laughter and a joy in his existence that he had never known before. She had given him her love and her trust, and he had betrayed both in the worst way possible.

  The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon when his senses told him she had awakened.

  A thought took him to her side. He found her sitting cross-legged on the mattress looking beautiful and bewildered.

  “Ronan, what am I doing down here?”

  “I didn’t feel it was safe for you to be upstairs alone.”

  “Not safe? Why not?”

  “Have you forgotten about Hewitt and Overstreet?”

  Her eyes widened as memory of the night before returned. “How did you get me away from them?”

  “We made a deal.”

  “A deal? What kind of a deal?”

  “I promised not to kill them if they let you go.”

  “That was very clever of you,” she said, smiling. “But surely you don’t think they would try to kidnap me again?”

  “I don’t know what those two are capable of, but finding out isn’t a chance I’m willing to take.”

  She lifted her arms overhead, stretching her back and shoulders, and then ran her fingers through her hair. “I must look a mess.”

  “You’ve never been more beautiful. How do you feel?”

  She canted her head to one side, taking mental inventory. “I’ve never felt better,” she declared. “I didn’t feel this good even before I got sick. Why is that? And why can I see you in the dark?” Rising, she walked back and forth beside the mattress, her brow furrowed. “I can hear noise from outside. Why? I never could before. And I can smell the grass and the trees, and…” She stopped pacing to look at him. “Even you look different, as if I’m seeing you more clearly.” She glanced around the room. “Everything looks brighter, clearer, more distinct, even in the dark…”

  She looked at him once more, her gaze riveted on his face. “What’s happened to me, Ronan?” she asked, a tremor in her voice. “What have you done?”

  He couldn’t sidestep the truth any longer. Expelling a deep breath, he said, “I’ve given you what you wanted the day you first came to see me.”

  She digested that a moment, and then she slapped him with all the force at her command. Even though she was a newly made vampire, her strength was considerable.

  The sound of flesh meeting flesh echoed like a gunshot in the room. His head snapped back from the force of her blow. He could feel the blood rushing to his face, knew her handprint stood out in vivid relief against his cheek.

  “Tell me,” she said, her voice rising. “Tell me that you didn’t make me what you are.”

  He stared at her, his silence condemning him.

  “Tell me, damn you!”

  “I couldn’t let you die. Hate me if you wish. Destroy me if it will make you feel any better.”

  “How could you?” She slapped him again, harder this time. “How could you?” Rage and anger bubbled up inside of her and spewed out in a vitriolic hiss. “You knew how I felt about it. I told you time and again I didn’t want to be what you are.”

  He said nothing. Indeed, what could he say in his defense? Except, “Would you rather be dead?”

  “Yes! No! I don’t know, I only know I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to me. Never!”

  “Then may be it a long and healthy hatred.”

  “I’m going out,” she said, striding toward the stairway. “And I don’t want you to follow me.”

  He said nothing, only stared after her as she walked up the stairs. He heard the sound of her footsteps overhead as she moved toward the front door.

  He listened as the door opened and then closed.

  She was gone, perhaps for good, and he had no one to blame but himself.

  Shannah left the house with no destination in mind other than the need to be as far away from him as possible.

  She was a vampire. Undead. A creature of the night. Forever lost, forever damned. Nosferatu.

  She walked down the street, deaf and blind to her surroundings, her rage and confusion growing with every step. How could he have done such a thing to her? He had known how she felt about becoming a vam
pire. They had discussed it often enough. She had made it clear that she was dead set against it. She laughed mirthlessly. Dead set. A poor choice of words.

  She would never be able to enjoy a summer day at the beach again. She would never be able to have children. Never be able to go shopping with Judy, or out to lunch with her mother. Her mother! How could she ever face her parents again? What could she possibly tell them? The truth was out of the question. She could only imagine their reaction. Hi, Mom. Hey, guess what? I’ve decided to come back home. Oh, there’s just one thing. I’m a vampire now. Right.

  Maybe she could tell them that the doctor had discovered a cure. Oh, but there’s just one little drawback. I can only be active at night. She frowned. That just might work. She could tell them her sudden aversion to the sun was a side effect of the cure.

  A sudden pain deep in her gut put everything else from her mind. She knew instinctively what it was. It was the need to feed. On blood. Even as the thought was born, her fangs pricked her tongue. Opening her mouth, she explored her teeth with her fingertips. Her new teeth were very sharp indeed!

  I am a vampire. I have fangs. What will my dentist think?

  A bubble of near-hysterical laughter rose in her throat. Guess what I’ll be next Halloween?

  There was a bar on the corner. Taking a deep breath, she went inside, and almost gagged. The smell of liquor, humanity, perspiration and lust was overpowering, the noise almost beyond bearing. And the blood…she could hear it pulsing with the beat of a dozen hearts, smell it, almost taste it on her tongue. She lowered her head, afraid someone would see the bloodlust in her eyes, the way she had seen it in Ronan’s.

  A young man approached her. “Hey, baby, wanna dance?”

  She shook her head and turned away, then practically ran out of the bar.

  The pain in her belly grew worse.

  She stopped halfway down the block. A man was walking toward her, alone.

  She knew Ronan called his prey to him, that he took what he needed and sent his victims on their way, leaving them blissfully unaware of what he had done, but she couldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to drink human blood, not now, not ever.

  Passing the man by, she walked for miles without tiring or getting out of breath. Amazed by her new powers and abilities, she jumped over a six-foot fence just to see if she could do it, and cleared it with ease. It was like being reborn, she thought, like being Superman. But it wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. She was an abomination.

  No! She was Shannah Davis.

  Vampire.

  She walked for hours with no destination in mind, the pain in her insides steadily growing worse, but she refused to give in to it. Gritting her teeth, she walked until a tingling under her skin warned her that it was almost dawn and she realized she had nowhere to hide from the light of day.

  For a moment, she thought of waiting for the sun to rise and putting an end to her pain and her new existence. She wondered how long it would take, but the thought of burning to death, whether it happened quickly or not, was more than she could bear and she began to run, not stopping until she found an abandoned building in a town far from North Canyon Creek.

  With remarkably little effort, she pulled a board away from one of the first-floor windows and climbed into what had once been a warehouse of some kind. Moving away from the bank of windows, she made her way down a rickety stairway to the next level. Streaks of sunlight filtered through a broken window. She was running now, driven by her fear of the unknown. Spying a dusty canvas tarp on the other side of the room, she dove underneath, hoping it would shelter her from the sun’s light.

  She huddled in the musty darkness, fearful of the death-like sleep she knew was coming. Tremors wracked her body, her stomach cramped with the sharp pangs of vampiric hunger.

  Murmuring, “This can’t be happening,” she tumbled into the dark sleep of the Undead.

  Ronan sat on the mattress in the basement, his face pressed against the blanket that had covered Shannah the night before. He drew a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hair, her skin, her very essence. They had been parted for one night and it already seemed like a lifetime.

  It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed not to follow her when she left the house, but he had failed her once, he would not fail her again. If she wanted to be alone, he would accept her wishes, even if it meant he would never see her again. And even though she was now far away, he found some small comfort in knowing that she was still alive, that she still walked the earth, even if she no longer walked with him.

  Where was she now, he wondered. Would he ever see her again?

  Rising, he left the house. Her scent still lingered in the air. Unable to help himself, he followed it, curious to see where she had gone. He followed her scent down the street and into a bar and then into an abandoned warehouse located in another town. It pained him to know her anger had driven her so far away.

  He walked around the outside of the warehouse. Her scent was strong but his senses told him she was no longer in the building.

  Was she, perchance, on her way back to his house?

  Had she fed? He remembered all too clearly the agony he had endured as a fledgling. Unless she fed, the pain would grow steadily worse until it was excruciating.

  If only she had stayed, he would have guided her through the transition from mortal to vampire, a change that was often difficult, especially for those who were brought across against their will or without knowing what to expect.

  But there was no help for it now.

  When his own hunger rose within him, he put Shannah from his mind and prowled the city streets in search of prey. Finding none to his liking, he went into a night club where he found a woman sitting at the bar, alone. She was a lovely creature, with short blond hair and large brown eyes. She smiled when he sat down beside her.

  He returned her smile. “Good evening.”

  She lifted her drink. “Hi.”

  He nodded at the dance floor. “Would you like to dance?”

  She tossed off her drink. “Sure, why not?”

  He took her hand. It was small and soft, warm and pulsing with human life. She went into his arms, easily following his lead. The music was slow and he held her close, wishing all the while that it was Shannah in his arms, Shannah smiling up at him.

  “I’ve never seen you in here before,” the woman said.

  Her words were slightly slurred, making him wonder how much she’d had to drink.

  “I’ve never been here before.”

  “I’m Anne.”

  “Ronan.”

  “A distinctive name,” she remarked.

  “A very old name.”

  His nostrils filled with the scent of her blood, arousing his hunger. It would be easy to take her away from here, he thought, easy to seduce her, but it wouldn’t be right, nor would it be fair to the woman, not when he was worried about Shannah. Worried and angry.

  But he had no scruples when it came to taking the woman’s blood. Mesmerizing her with a look, he took what he needed, there on the dance floor, and then he wiped the memory from her mind and escorted her back to her seat at the bar.

  A thought took him out of the night club and back into the darkness of the night. His thoughts immediately turned to Shannah. She had so much to learn; how to dissolve into mist, how to transport herself from one place to another, how to travel with preternatural speed so that her passing was invisible to mortal eyes, how to block the constant barrage of sights and sounds and smells that he knew were pummeling her senses every hour of the night. All that, and so much more he would have taught her if she had only stayed and given him the chance.

  But he could not fault her for shunning his company. Whatever blame there was lay in him, not her.

  Shannah wandered through the city, the ache in her belly spreading, burning through every nerve in her body like liquid flame. She had never felt such agonizing pain before. It was like her blood was on fire,
as if her bones were melting. She needed to feed, and soon, she thought, before the pain consumed her and there was nothing left of her at all.

  She didn’t want to feed off of humans. She didn’t want to consume blood to survive. Perhaps, if she resisted, the pain would go away. Ah, foolish hope. Even as it crossed her mind, the hunger clawed at her insides. Her body screamed with agony until she couldn’t bear it any longer. She needed nourishment, and she needed it now.

  Glancing around, she saw that she had traveled far from the city. Instead of houses and shops, she was surrounded by hayfields and pasturelands. Farmhouses and barns and corrals lined both sides of the road.

  It scared her that she had no memory of how she had gotten there.

  She moved toward the nearest pasture, drawn by the scent of blood. Several dark shapes were clustered together in the middle of the field. They lifted their heads as she drew near, their ears twitching, their nostrils flaring.

  She called one to her, waited while a small brown horse trotted toward her. Slipping between the fence rails, Shannah put her arm around the horse’s neck.

  “I can do this,” she said, and with tears of pain and revulsion coursing down her cheeks, she bit into the horse’s jugular and satisfied her hunger. The horse didn’t seem to mind. Oddly enough, neither did she.

  With the hunger assuaged, she felt content, almost joyful. Quiet power thrummed through her veins. She had never felt better in her life.

  Later, at a loss as to what to do to fill the long, lonely hours until dawn, she tried to transport herself across the road, but no matter how hard she concentrated or thought about what she wanted to do, nothing happened. How had Ronan managed it? Maybe zapping from one place to another was something only older vampires could achieve.

  Walking back toward the city where she had spent the previous night, it occurred to her that she had no cash and no credit cards. She needed her wallet and a change of clothes. And a shower, she thought, wrinkling her nose. And then she laughed. Of course she smelled. She had been in these same clothes since she died. How long ago had it been? Two nights? Three? She couldn’t seem to think straight.