The Noctalis Chronicles Complete Set

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  She’s about to respond when both of us hear a noise.

  A car, coming down the driveway. I should have been paying attention, because I would have heard it sooner.

  “Is that Tex? I can’t imagine her getting up at the crack of dawn and driving up here, but maybe she did?” Ava says, sending a quick message.

  We wait and the car gets closer.

  “We should probably put some clothes on. Plus we’re covered in pollen.” The yellow substance clings to our skin, but a quick swipe removes it. Still, I have not tried out the shower, and it is big enough for both of us. I love the feel of water on my skin, and combining that with being intimate with Ava sounds perfect.

  We both run toward the back of the house and in moments we’re upstairs. This time I’m the one who bought the clothes. I know her body better than mine now, so finding something she would like, would fit her and look good, was easy.

  “I think it would be best if we showered separately, so you go first. Make it quick.” She shoves me toward the shower, tossing some clothes at me before grabbing some out of the drawer for herself.

  “I will be fast,” I say, and turn the water on as I listen to Ava dressing.

  She then dashes down the stairs to meet the car and then calls my name. I hear the beating hearts around the same time she yells.

  “Peter! Get down here now.”

  Fourteen

  Tex

  Being the only member of a couple who actually needs to sleep is going to give me a complex. I kind of feel sorry for Viktor, because it has to be boring watching me sleep, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Actually the sound of his fingers on the computer keys is weirdly soothing and I don’t know if I could get to sleep without it now.

  Since I am the only one who sleeps, it’s like my body has adjusted and I need less of it (maybe because of the Claiming?), so I wake up around seven, which is insane. I never used to voluntarily get up at that time.

  Viktor is still working.

  “Good morning,” I say, stretching my arms over my head. I’ve also started sleeping naked, because we’re nearly always in the mood and clothes tend to get destroyed when Viktor takes them off me.

  “Good morning,” he says, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek and then going back to work. This is partially my fault. I don’t like him kissing me in the morning until I’ve brushed my teeth, so I get up and do that, coming back and straddle him, shutting the computer.

  “Hi,” I say with a grin.

  “Hello.”

  We both turn our heads as there’s the sound of a crash downstairs and then a muffled curse from my dad. Our coffeepot is broken, and he’s been trying to fix it instead of getting a new one like a normal person.

  “I ordered you a new one. It should be here tomorrow,” Viktor says, running his hands up and down my sides.

  He does that a lot. Order things online that just show up at our house. Honestly, it’s hilarious watching my parents try to figure out where the stuff comes from. They ask me if I bought it, and I can honestly say with a straight face that I didn’t.

  “You’re awesome,” I say as he sets the computer on the floor.

  “We should probably get going,” I say, because we have a huge and un-fun drive coming up. Well, maybe we could pull over for a quickie. That might make it more bearable. Plus, a whole week without my parents. That was going to be epic.

  “I’ll be fast,” he says with a grin, and flips me on my back. I have to bite my lip not to squeal.

  ~^*^~

  We take a shower together and then I go down for breakfast because my parents are finally at work. Coby is making a Hot Pocket, as usual. I swear, that kid lives off those things and nothing else. It’s probably not nutritionally sound, but nagging him to eat healthy would do absolutely nothing, so I don’t bother anymore.

  “You done fucking up there?”

  “For now,” I say, giving him an icy look. Then I feel like a bitch, so I go to the fridge and pull out the orange juice. “So what did you and Viktor talk about?”

  “Nothing.” Wow, how did I know that was going to be his answer? I must be psychic. Maybe the Claiming has given me special powers or something.

  “Okay, fine.”

  I sip my orange juice as he stares at the rotating Hot Pocket in the microwave like it’s going to give him the answers to life.

  Be nice. Viktor’s voice invades my head and I take a deep breath. I can be nice. How hard can it be?

  “Look, I know I’m a bitch, and I know we don’t get along, but I am still your sister, and I’d like it if maybe we could exchange an entire sentence that isn’t filled with sarcasm.” I try to sound as sincere as I can.

  Coby doesn’t look up from the microwave as it dings. It makes me want to say something sarcastic about him being deaf, but that would undo the stuff I just said, so I don’t.

  Instead I lean against the counter and drink my orange juice. Coby looks up at me, as if he’s expecting me to add something else.

  I shrug at him.

  “Okay, fine. Whatever.” He puts the Hot Pocket on a plate and starts to go upstairs.

  “I love you, Cobes,” I say, using the nickname that I hadn’t uttered out loud in at least five years.

  He stops and turns back around.

  “Love you too, Texi.” He doesn’t smile, but the nickname and the fact that he said he loved me are enough.

  See? I can be nice.

  Ava

  It’s not Tex who’s parked outside. It’s an unfamiliar car and there are two people in it. Two very alive, full of blood, people.

  Shit.

  They’re talking about the house and getting out of the car. I hear the woman say something about thinking this is the house that’s for sale, but he says something about my car and hopes that they aren’t going to get arrested for trespassing.

  I freeze, with the door between us. In addition to their talk, I can hear their hearts. Both healthy. Both beating they way they should be. I close my eyes and try to block it all out, but it’s no use.

  I scream for Peter and he’s down the stairs in an instant, only a towel around his waist and water streaming off him from the shower.

  I turn away from the door and back toward Peter. It is a monumental task, and takes everything I have. He watches me and I send a scream in my head his way.

  “Ava, get upstairs, get in the shower and turn the water on. Now.” He’s never talked to me this way, but this situation definitely calls for it.

  I’m not sure how he can simultaneously stop me, and get rid of the people, who are now debating about knocking on the door.

  I want them.

  Want. Funny word, want. What I want, with the new part of me, is to demolish these people and feed. What I need is their blood.

  But there is that smaller part of me that desires not to hurt them. That remnant of my human sensibilities. I’m going to hang onto it for as long as I can.

  He turns and practically pushes me up the stairs, and every step away from what I want is a herculean task. Finally I make it to the top of the steps just as the people are about to knock. I try to make my feet move.

  “Go, Ava. You can do it.” He believes in me, so much.

  I try to channel that belief as the man knocks on the door and Peter opens it.

  If I can’t make it to the shower, at least maybe I can freeze myself like this.

  “Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you, but we thought this house is for sale,” the woman says with a little giggle when she realizes Peter is in just a towel. Her heart rate picks up and I pray that they will leave before their scent comes up the stairs, because that will be the end of me.

  Actually, of them.

  I hold my breath and then realize that I don’t need to. This not-breathing thing takes some time to get used to.

  “Clearly this house is sold. So we’ll go now,” the guy says, grabbing the woman’s arm and trying to pull her away.

  And then a traitorous gust of wind sweep
s in from behind them, carrying their scent up the stairs, and it shatters me.

  Without another thought, I am down the stairs, and they are screaming. I snap his neck with one motion and bite down on her wrist in the next fraction of a second. She thrashes, but I don’t care. Her punches and kicks are ineffectual against me.

  I feel Peter’s hand on me, and his voice in my ear.

  “Listen to the heart. Let the body tell you when to stop.”

  Oh, I’m listening to her heart all right. It’s still racing deliciously as she struggles to get free. I suck harder and then I hear it start to slow. I focus on listening to it, feeling when it’s getting too faint. Okay, it’s definitely slowing now, but I can’t seem to make my jaw unlock from her neck.

  Okay, Ava. You can do this. Peter believes in you.

  I whimper, a plea for Peter’s help, and his strong arms help to pry my jaw away from the woman’s wrist.

  I toss her away from me and she lands on the other side of the room, which probably isn’t good. I bet I broke something.

  “Let me show you.” Peter dips his head and bites the man’s wrist, and it’s all I can do not to join him, even though I am already full of blood. I watch and listen as the man’s heart slows, just like the woman’s. Peter calmly lets go of him, laying him down gently on the floor.

  “We can destroy the car and put them in it.” He goes to the woman, throwing her over his shoulder and then, more carefully, picks up the guy.

  “Get her purse and use the cell phone to call 911.” He walks out of the house with the two people as I run behind him.

  What follows is the two of us smashing up the car as best we can and then shoving the car into a ditch far enough from the house that it shouldn’t arouse suspicion, before shoving the people inside it and putting their seatbelts on. Peter is good at arranging them so all the injuries look like they happened as the result of a crash and not the two of us.

  As soon as we hear the sirens a few miles away, we go back to the house. On the outside, it still looks abandoned. If, by any chance, the crash looks suspicious, we can always make a run for it.

  Peter has it all worked out, and I’m glad, because it took everything in me to leave those two people even semi-alive.

  When we close the door behind us, Peter grabs me, pulling off my now-blood-soaked clothes, throws me over his shoulder and carries me upstairs to the shower, where he bathes me.

  This is another one of those times when I want to cry, to sob. To get all the anguish out of my system, but I can’t. I can only stand still as Peter washes me with a gentleness that also makes me want to cry.

  “You did very well, Ava-Claire. I think, with some more practice, you should be able to stop every time.”

  I watch the water drip off my newly waterproofed skin. It would be fascinating, if I wasn’t already so occupied with everything else going on in my head.

  “So what, are you just going to watch me all the time and coach me? I don’t want you to have to babysit me.”

  I’m in the depths of despair. It seems so easy to dive into them now. My emotions are more volatile than they were before, and I don’t know if that’s my immortality, or my personality now, or both.

  “You are worrying too much. Let’s think about something else.” How? How can I think about anything else? I mean, I don’t think when we’re making love, but we can’t do that every single second of the rest of eternity, no matter how tempting it is.

  Peter pulls me to his chest and brushes my wet hair off my shoulders and down my back before shutting the water off and wrapping a towel around me.

  “Come, I will brush your hair.” That almost makes me smile. He used to do this when I was human and I loved it. He ends up carrying me back to our bedroom and wiping the rest of the water from my body, dressing me and then sitting me down on the edge of the bed, sitting behind me with his legs on either side of mine, and brushing through my hair.

  It’s such a normal thing to do after we nearly killed two people. Twisted.

  The sirens are retreating, so they must be taking the people to the hospital. I hope they’re going to be okay. Well, the guy won’t be since I broke his neck.

  Oh, God.

  “People die every single day. For every person that dies, there is a new on that is being born.” Peter says all kinds of things about life and death and he’s trying to be comforting, and I love him for it, but I think I just need to wallow in my misery for a while.

  I remember when Tex used to wallow and we’d watch her favorite movie and eat too much ice cream. I wish I could do that now and feel better about this.

  We both hear another car as Peter is finishing my hair, and I get a message and this time it is Tex. I wonder if the other people’s car is still in the ditch up the road and if Viktor will know what it means.

  “Don’t tell Tex,” I say, taking my newly brushed hair and twisting it into a bun so it doesn’t drip down my back.

  “Of course.” Peter finally gets dressed and we go down to meet Tex. I have to be happy and smile so she doesn’t know something is up.

  She knocks at the door and Peter answers it.

  “Can we come in?” Tex says, her arm linked with Viktor’s. There’s a twinkle in her eye, and I know what she’s doing. Vampires in movies always have to be invited into a house.

  “This house isn’t owned by a human, so you can come in without an invitation,” I say and her smile drops as she walks over the threshold.

  “Way to ruin it, Ava. Wow, this is nice.” Viktor closes the door behind them and he and Peter have one of those eye conversations that I’m pretty sure somehow tells Viktor the entire story. Tex is oblivious, walking through to the living room with the piano.

  “Oh my God, I don’t know where you found this picture, but it needs to die,” she says, finding a picture of me and her and Jamie, making duck faces. It was taken a few years ago, and I have no idea where Peter got it. She takes it and puts it flat on the piano.

  “It’s a little dusty, dude,” Tex says, scuffing her feet on the floor. “You should have cleaned a little first.” So critical, that one. I’m trying to keep calm and not ask her if she saw anything accident-wise when they drove down.

  “I wanted it to be nice for Ava, but there wasn’t time to do the floors,” Peter says, putting his arm around me.

  “I guess.” She strolls through the rest of the downstairs as Peter and Viktor continue their little eye convo.

  “Question,” she says when she comes back around. “Did you buy any food for the lone human?”

  Food. I’d completely forgotten about it in the chaos.

  “I stocked the fridge,” Peter says. “I wasn’t sure what to buy, so you can eat what you want and leave the rest.”

  Tex dashes to the kitchen and starts ripping through the cabinets and the fridge.

  “There’s no pie! Why is there no pie?” she calls out.

  “I have ingredients. I thought you might want to make one,” Peter says to me.

  “What’s the point of making a pie that I can’t eat?” I’m being kind of snappy, but I think I’ve earned the right today.

  He blinks. Noctalis shrug.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I feel horrible for snapping at him when he had just did so much to help me.

  “It will take time,” Viktor says, and I give him a smile that takes a little effort. Tex is still rustling around in the kitchen.

  “Okay, the food situation isn’t too bad. Tell me you also have a television so we don’t get bored out of our minds in this place.”

  Sussex isn’t exactly an exciting town, but it was closer to things than this place. This house was remote, which was perfect as a safe house. That’s what I’d started to thinking of it as.

  “I installed one, and there are plenty of movies,” Peter says.

  “Good,” Tex says, munching on a bowl of Cheese Doodles mixed with salt and vinegar chips, her favorite snack.

  “I also saw that there is a
good selection of booze, so thanks for that.” She holds one of her thumbs up in approval.

  We all stand around and there is a semi-awkward silence.

  “Did I miss something? You’re all doing that weird freezy body thing,” Tex says, her eyes lasering into all of us. She doesn’t miss a thing.

  “Nope. Just getting used to not breathing,” I say, trying to make a joke.

  She watches me, but seems to accept it. Then she pulls her hand out of the bowl and snaps her fingers.

  “You know what this place needs? A pool. And a hot tub.” She starts talking about how much fun that would be and moves to grab my arm, but I flinch back.

  “Sorry! I was just going to take you to the back and show you where we could put it.” Of course Tex would immediately be at home enough to think of this as a place that she could suggest putting a pool into. I didn’t really care about a pool either way. I’m not the one paying for it.

  I’d been weird about money with Peter before, but now I’ve kind of gotten over it. Viktor makes massive amounts of money and is more than willing to share it.

  In time, I’ll find some way to pay him back. When you can live forever, I’m sure there are great ways to make money. A job right now is out of the question, but maybe something online. Or maybe not. I could do anything I wanted, really.

  I follow Tex to the backyard, where she starts talking about a patio and a grill and all the things we could do to the property. I hadn’t known she was such a home improvement nut, but it seems to be going around.

  Honestly, I like the place exactly as it is. This was my mother’s house and part of me wishes I could put it back exactly as it was when she lived here as a little girl. That’s impossible, but I want to keep it as unspoiled as possible. Mom never liked those houses that were perfect.

  “A garden,” I say, interrupting Tex rambling about a pool house. “It needs a garden.”

  I want to kick myself for not thinking of it the very first thing.

  “We could take cuttings from you mother’s flowers and plant them here,” Peter says, coming up behind me with Viktor.

  “Okay, we can do a garden next to the pool house,” Tex says.