He rested an elbow on the wall above me and leaned forward so his full lips and wide mouth were millimeters from my own.
“A high school? You make a fool of yourself, Highness,” he hissed.
“If you’re here to kill me, then just do it,” I said through chattering teeth. My gaze didn’t break from his black stare.
He bent next to my right ear and whispered, “Twenty minutes, Lenah. Out front. Or the boy dies.”
I collapsed right there onto the floor. On my knees, I twisted to watch Vicken walk down the hallway and disappear out of the double doors without looking back. The music blasted from the ballroom. People were having an amazing time and I was crying with my back to the banquet door. It was clear what I had done after Suleen’s warning. I had recklessly put myself, Justin, Tony, and all of us at risk. I should have told them all—protected them. Had I learned nothing? Would I always put myself first?
I took a few deep breaths. I had to get myself together. I only had twenty minutes. The prom music was so loud and I needed to think. Needed to make choices. The idea of Justin’s death was the worst possible image I could conjure. I had lost Rhode and now maybe Justin? I couldn’t think of it.
I stood up and wiped my eyes. I would say my good-byes and let fate have me. I had done so many incomprehensible things that it was time that I paid for the bloodshed I’d caused. The loss was now mine.
Somehow I managed to stumble back down the hallway. I couldn’t stop the tears now. It was too late. I held on to the ballroom doorway to support myself. The DJ played a slow song and while Curtis and Roy paired up with Kate and Claudia, I looked at Tony and Tracy already wrapped around each other. Her nose was nuzzled into the nape of his neck. From the back I could see the way her long eyelashes pointed to the floor. Maybe I had been wrong about her—maybe what we all needed was for someone to care for us. Justin stood up from the chair at our table. When he caught my eye, his smile faded immediately. He jogged across the dance floor toward me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Dance with me,” I said. I didn’t want to make a scene and I knew I only had a few minutes left.
“Okay…,” he said, and we walked to the dance floor. Couples surrounded us, and I was momentarily relieved to feel Justin’s strong hands around my waist.
We started to dance, and the tears started again.
“Listen to me. I have to tell you something very important,” I said. Every minute counted.
“Lenah, what’s wrong?” He tried to wipe the tears away, but they were pouring down now and I wouldn’t have stopped those drops from falling for the world. “The coven?” he whispered.
“You have to listen to me very carefully. Okay?”
Justin nodded. “If it’s the coven—”
“Shh. I have to get this out,” I said. “Everything that’s happened. Meeting you. What you’ve done for me.”
Justin’s face was a tragedy. He kept his mouth in a thin line. He had no idea why I was crying. I couldn’t explain it. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t set his anger and determination on a coven of vampires who would murder him in moments.
“You showed me how to live. Do you know what that means to a vampire? Do you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You brought me back to life.” I was crying horribly now and I was almost out of time. I let go of his body and placed my hands on his cheeks. I looked into his eyes for a moment, then kissed him so hard and deep I hoped it would give me the strength to walk away. “I have to get some air. Okay? I’ll be right back. Real quick.”
“Lenah—”
“Right back,” I barely choked.
I turned away and didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I walked out of the ballroom and into the long hallway. As I walked away, I lifted my head high, clenched my hands, and pushed out into the freezing night. Directly in front of me on the pathway was my car, the blue luxury car that had been parked outside my dorm room for weeks. Vicken was driving my car. The window came down, and Vicken said, “Get in.” The sound of that voice was ice cold.
I did as I was told and Vicken pulled away from the banquet hall, zipped through the campus as though he’d been there for years, and pulled out of the school. I looked longingly out the window at Seeker before we turned left and onto Lovers Bay Main Street.
I refused to look at him. Instead, I placed a hand on the cold glass as I watched my favorite places zoom by. The candy store, the empty sidewalk where the farmers’ market stood, the restaurants and dress shops.
“There is much to discuss,” he said.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked. My voice was a bit stronger. I wasn’t going to let him see me cry again. Somehow, in that moment, I knew that Justin was outside the banquet hall calling my name.
“Why, darling. We’re going home.”
In a matter of two hours we were on a private chartered plane and I was gone.
Part II
My bounty is as boundless as the sea;
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
—JULIET, ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT 3, SCENE 2
Chapter Twenty-Five
Two days after my return to Hathersage, I leaned against a window frame and stared out at the fields through an upper-floor window. Snowflakes barely coated the top of the grass. Behind me, scarlet-colored sheets and a matching comforter covered a claw-footed bed. A crystal decanter sat on a night table, though it was empty. I knew what it would contain soon enough.
It was a cloudy day, but a dismal light strayed into the room. The blinds were modern, white, and I had pulled them all the way up. I had considered escaping through the window, though, as a vampire, I had never installed a way to open or shut the house windows. They were bolted closed. The central air system kept the house at a cool sixty-five degrees.
As I said, it was two days after the winter prom. While I looked out at the landscape, I thought of Tony dancing with Tracy and the looks on their faces under the glittering lights of the ballroom. I thought of our snow fight and the way coffee tasted as it trickled down my throat. I had been fed well for my first two days back in Hathersage, but I was not allowed outside of the mansion. I was given food ordered in from restaurants on the main strip downtown. I didn’t even know we had a main strip. I suppose that was something that was developed over the one hundred years I was asleep. After we returned from the airport, Vicken walked me into the kitchen of the house and instructed that I call the school and tell them I would not return until the spring. It was only then that I would be able to collect my belongings. No one at Wickham seemed to mind when Vicken offered a hefty sum of money that the administration could not refuse. I wondered if word had spread. I wondered if Justin had knocked on my door, waiting, hoping that somehow I would answer.
I continued to look out the window. The grass meadows still stretched as far as I could see. My precious fields had been spared modern-day development.
“‘Evil be he who thinketh evil,’” Vicken said from the doorway behind me, though I did not turn around. “Do you still believe that?” he asked. He sauntered into the room. I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, though from the quality of the clothing I knew these were top of the line. Vicken never spared any expense on fashion.
I turned from the window and rested my back on the cold glass. It was hard to deny Vicken’s power. He held his strength in his control—the slow movements, the calculated gaze. I had forgotten the sharp angle of his jaw and the strong point of his chin. I used to love to run my hand along his spine and ask him to name the constellations—just so I could forget myself awhile. No, even then, standing in front of that window, I did not forget why I chose Vicken.
“I told you, if you’re going to kill me, then just do it,” I said.
I was surprised to see that the rest of the coven had taken up residence in the doorway. Gavin on the right, Heath on the left, and Song in the hallway.
“Rhode always kept his pape
rs here,” Vicken said. I stared them all down despite the fact that every molecule in my body pulsated with fear. “Yet, there was nothing. Nothing in that room, save the one scrap we found in the ashes of the fireplace,” Vicken continued. He fingered the comforter between his index and thumb. “He really had no intention of returning.” The way Vicken said it, it was almost a question, though I would never answer.
Vicken turned to the eyes of the coven.
“Leave us,” he said quietly. They followed his command and shut the door. He leaned on the opposite side of the window. “He left no trace. No information about how to raise you from your hibernation. I should have known.” Vicken ran his hand through his hair. When I didn’t respond or even move my gaze from his, he jumped at me and clutched the back of my head and kissed me. I thought I would lose my breath. His lips pressed mine apart. His tongue, cold and tasteless, wrapped against my own. I thought of Justin and I thought of the night after the club and the easy way he lifted me so my legs wrapped around his waist.
Vicken pushed me away from him so my back hit the frosty glass window. “You dare think of that pathetic human?” he spat.
My heart beat in my chest as though to remind me just how much it wanted to be there. How badly it needed for me to stay alive. I forgot that Vicken’s love for me was a curse—a link that would make him unable to kill me. He could make me a vampire easily and that would kill me, but he could not hurt me for his own gain. This was the magic, and it had betrayed him.
“Oh…” He laughed, though it sounded more like a cackle. “Pathetic human. My apologies.” He shot one more glance at me as he paced the room.
I sat down on the bed and looked at my feet. The heels of Vicken’s shoes clicked on the wooden floor, then he was standing across from me.
“My God. Look at you. I’m at a loss what to do. The most powerful vampire in the world cannot even look her minions in the eye. Pathetic.”
I knew this tactic. Beat them down emotionally, then they’ll fold. They’ll want to be released from their pain. This was just phase one. But I didn’t care. I was numb. Rhode hadn’t meant to leave evidence. He had done so much to protect me. He even erased all of the evidence of the ritual.
“Say something,” Vicken commanded, his voice rising.
“I have nothing to say,” I said, finally looking up.
“Why aren’t you afraid!” he yelled so the chandelier shook. “Put up a fight!”
“Death is inevitable either way,” I said, though my voice betrayed my intentions. It wavered a little. Vicken walked slowly and sat down on the bed to my right. We held each other’s gaze and the blackness behind’s Vicken’s eyes reminded me that there was no soul inside the man in front of me. All I hoped was that the love Vicken felt for me was going to, in even some small way, make this less painful than it needed to be.
“You are not afraid to die?” he asked. I could see him looking at the base of my neck and then back up at my eyes.
I shook my head, and a single tear escaped down my right cheek. Vicken watched it roll down to the base of my chin, hunger in his eyes. What all vampires wouldn’t give for one tear to escape; what freedom to release the pain, even for one moment.
“Why not?” he asked.
I looked at Vicken. I mean, really looked at him. Somewhere underneath the monster was the boy who loved maps and navigation. Who fought in a war and sang bar songs in a tavern.
“Because I finally lived.”
Vicken broke eye contact with me, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against my neck. He started out kissing me, tiny pecks along the nape of my neck, then my throat, until he was staring straight into my eyes. In a blink he ripped the nape of my neck, sucking my blood with such force, I couldn’t breathe.
My heartbeat sounded in my ears. The rhythm—it was all I could hear until it began to wane. There was no pain, just hot, sticky breath around my neck where Vicken sucked the life blood out of me. Soon, I would be a vampire and I would only desire pain and hate. My fingers started to tingle and go numb and the muscles in my neck contracted in pain so sharp—I could barely keep my head up. Vicken held my head into the palms of his hands. Then the gurgling breaths started, the blood rose and seeped up through my lungs.
I concentrated on thoughts instead. That is, while I still had my mind. The mind was the last to go.
Justin’s face at the winter prom. The sway of his hips in time with mine as we moved slowly on the dance floor. The constant smell of fresh grass on his skin and the pout of his lips. My eyesight failed next, and the images I saw were only in my mind. I saw Vicken the night I took him in Scotland. I watched his father cup his cheek in his hand. I should have let him go to be with his family. Even though he was murdering me, I wished him peace and freedom. Last, my hearing went and the sucking sounds were silent. In the quiet, I saw Rhode. I wished, more than anything, that his soul, wherever it was, was protected. That he was free of worry and pain.
I hoped that all souls could go to heaven, even vampires who were victims of their own evil. Maybe, one day, I could go, too. And in that moment of death, I thought that maybe I would never be absolved of my atrocities, that maybe I would die and the transformation would go wrong. Hell wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I made thousands live it. If I died, I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else. I wouldn’t murder or defile.
Then everything was black.
When I awoke, I blinked twice. Wherever I was, I was lying on my back. I would have thought I was in the bedroom with Vicken, but above me was the sky. The sky was too blue, almost as though it was colored in with a sea-blue paint—the color of very deep ocean. There was no sun, though it was clearly daytime. My hands lay at my sides. I looked down. Grass was all around me. But it was sharp and too green. I looked down at my legs. I was wearing the green dress, the evergreen one, from the last Nuit Rouge.
I sat up, quickly—my vampire sight was back. It was the fields at my home in England, but it was different. Dreamlike. I was at the bottom of the hill in Hathersage, and ahead, a mile or so, a familiar herd of deer ran through the open fields. If the deer were here, the green dress…could it be possible that…
My heart, in that moment, must have shattered. I spun around on the spot.
There at the top of the hill was Rhode. I smiled; all my teeth showed and the sides of my mouth hurt. Tears rushed to my eyes but, as expected, they did not fall. There was no pain, maybe this was heaven.
There he stood. Rhode wore a long overcoat and his hair was short and spiky as it had been the last time I saw him at Wickham school. He looked healthy and alive.
I held the sides of my dress and hurried up the hill. Although my Hathersage home should have been behind him, there was just a meadow spread as far as the eye could see. It looked very much like the one in front of Quartz dorm.
I was mesmerized. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his. The joy coursing through me, the sheer amazement of seeing him in front of me, was a universe I couldn’t understand. Was there a way for me stay here forever? I would—I wouldn’t question it.
“Having an adventure?” Rhode asked when we were face-to-face. Just inches from each other.
“Are you really here?” My voice was all breath.
He placed a warm hand on my right cheek. Suddenly, shame pooled in my chest.
“You must be so disappointed in me,” I said, not breaking eye contact.
“Disappointed?” Rhode clarified with a smile in his eyes. “Just the opposite.”
“I failed you. Vicken remade me a vampire. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Our time is limited, so I must be brief,” he responded.
Rhode started to walk, and I kept pace with him along the edge of the hill where the fields and the Wickham-like meadow met.
“Tell me,” he said. “What did you think of when Vicken was remaking you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about that. You’re here.” I held Rhode’s hand as we walked. I never wanted to let go.
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“You must, Lenah. Think.”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember my thoughts. Justin’s face flashed in my mind, his smile at winter prom, Tony dancing and kicking his legs out. Then I thought of Vicken’s family and his Scottish home and, of course, Rhode, in my mother and father’s orchard. I hadn’t thought of telling Rhode about Justin. It was odd to think I could tell Rhode about loving anyone besides him.
“I thought of you. That wherever you were—I wished you were safe.”
Rhode’s eyes told me to continue.
“Then I thought of Vicken. That I wish I had left him that night. He should have lived his life.”
I stopped again. Rhode’s slight smile said he already knew about Justin.
“Actually, I thought of Justin first. That I was sorry for the pain I was putting him through. Actually all my friends, for hurting them. Why are you asking me this?”
Rhode breathed a sigh of relief. “Because you succeeded. And it has made all the difference in the world.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where are we? Do all vampires come here?”
“No. I sent for you. Though I knew the call would not be answered unless you were able to pass this test. And you did, even better than I thought possible,” he said, and then paused. He was staring at me with such intensity that it made all the world blurry. Nowhere else existed in that moment but the blue of Rhode’s eyes. “I come to you with a warning,” he said. “The coming months are going to be filled with unbelievable challenges. You will be given certain”—he hesitated—“gifts. Ones that will be powerful and dangerous. Do not be afraid of using them, whatever you do. They are going to save your life.”
“I’ll be a vampire when I wake up from this. Evil again.” My breath caught in my throat. “Will I kill those I love? Justin? Tony?” I gripped my chest at the thought.