“Sorry.” I stepped backward, seeing how flinty his eyes were. “I just made some hot chocolate, and I thought—”
“I don’t like chocolate.”
“You just finished another carton of Dad’s carob tofu ice cream,” I said. “So don’t pretend you don’t like chocolate. Just have some.”
Lucius pushed my hand away, spilling some on the floor. “Jessica, it’s late. Go to bed.”
I ignored him and sat down cross-legged next to him, sipping the cocoa. “What are you listening to?”
“German metal. Richthofen.”
Setting down the mug, I waved for the headphones. “Can I listen, please?”
He ground his teeth, but agreed. “As you wish.”
Clamping the headphones over my ears, my heart sank. It sounded like elevator music for tormented souls on the way to hell. Guttural German lyrics, synthesizers growling, no melody. Just howling and groaning. Scary stuff. “What happened to the Black Eyed Peas?” I made an effort at a joke, removing the headphones.
“I find this is more in tune with my psyche.”
“Lucius—”
“Jess, go.”
“Stop pushing me away.”
“Stop trying to pull me close!”
I hugged my knees to my chest. “I’m worried about you.”
“The time for worry is past.”
“No, that’s not true. We can still fix things.”
“Jessica, in a few weeks, I will return to Romania to face the punishment for my defiance. Just leave me in peace for a short time. The time I have left. That’s all I ask.”
“But Lucius, I want to help you.”
He laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “You? You want to help me?
“It’s not funny. I can help you. I might be the only person who can help you.”
“How?”
“I can marry you, that’s how.”
His eyes softened for just a second, and then he rubbed them with his palms, grinding against the bruises, as if he was punishing himself. “Jessica . . .”
I leaned forward, taking advantage, grabbing his hand. “We could do it. I would do it.”
Lucius yanked his hand away. “You don’t even know what you offer, Jessica. All you know is that you feel sorry for me. I will not be married out of pity. To be saved like an ailing mongrel about to be euthanized who is adopted at the pound by some too-kind soul. I would rather be destroyed with dignity.”
“I don’t pity you.”
“No?”
“No.” Tears pricked at my eyes. “I love you, Lucius.”
I couldn’t believe the words had slipped out of my mouth. I had always thought the first time I said them, the moment would be perfect. Not desperate and sick, like this.
There was a long silence, and Lucius’s eyes grew hard again.
“More’s the pity, Jess,” he replied. Then he lay back down, rolling onto his side, as if to sleep.
I ran out of the room, smack into my mom, crashing into her arms. She led me into her bedroom and closed the door with a soft click.
“What were you doing with Lucius?” she asked, pulling some tissues from a box and handing them to me.
“Just talking.” I wiped at my eyes, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
“And what did he say to you? Why are you crying?”
“I told Lucius that I love him,” I admitted, clutching the soggy tissues. “That I want to marry him.”
My mother’s eyes flew open. Her usual calm demeanor cracked completely. “And what did he say?” she asked. Her voice was low, deliberately even, but scared.
“He said no. That he’d rather be destroyed than have me marry him out of what he believes is pity.”
My mom exhaled visibly. She closed her eyes, clasped her hands, raising her fingertips to her lips, and I heard her whisper, “Good man, Lucius. Good man.”
Chapter 47
“JESS, WE’RE GOING to be late for calculus,” Mindy said, practically dragging me down the hall.
I tugged back. “I’m not going. I think I’ll just skip.”
“Again?” There was concern in Mindy’s voice. “Jess, you never used to skip class. Now you hardly ever go. And this is math, Jess. Your favorite!”
“I just don’t feel like it, Min.”
“What is up with you, Jessica?” she demanded. “Is it Lucius? Because you two have both changed. And he had those bruises . . . What is going on at your house?”
“It’s nothing, Mindy. I swear.”
“You’re cutting classes, Jake is history, Lucius looks like he’s always on the edge of committing murder and nothing’s going on?”
I wandered toward the restroom. “Just go to class, okay? I’m going to hang out in here until the halls clear so I can get out of here.”
“I’m worried about you, Jess,” Mindy said, clutching her books to her chest. “Really worried.”
“It’s nothing,” I promised her. Nothing but a broken heart and a broken pact and a looming war. How could I concentrate on dull textbooks and pointless homework and tedious lectures when everything was falling apart? When lives were at stake? “I’ll call you later, all right?”
Mindy was still standing there looking scared when I slipped into the restroom and ducked into a stall. But misery couldn’t even leave me alone in the bathroom. As I stood there next to the rust-ringed toilet, waiting for the bell to ring, Faith Crosse came in with her friend Lisa Clay. Through the crack between the wall and the stall door, I watched as they assumed their places at the altar of the mirror, ready for some self-worship.
“So what’s with you and Luscious Lucius?” Lisa asked, rummaging in her purse and pulling out some lip gloss. She slicked a slimy trail across her lips. “And who gave him the black eye?”
“He won’t say.” Faith shrugged, brushing her hair. “You know Lucius. He keeps his secrets. But ever since it happened, he’s been, like, totally crazy.”
Lisa dabbed some cream blush on her cheeks. “Crazy good or crazy bad?”
“Crazy after me,” Faith complained, rolling her big blue eyes. “It’s like he won’t leave me alone. He just wants to fool around, all the time. And it’s so intense.”
Lisa turned her head to and fro, checking her cheeks for streaks. “Guys. They’re so horny.”
“Yeah, but this is, like, extra horny. Like he can’t get enough. We go up to his apartment behind the Packwoods’ place, and he practically drags me to the bed.”
He is having sex with Faith.
My teeth ached so sharply, so jarringly, that I thought for a second my fangs really might pierce right through my gums, and I stifled a cry, clapping my hand over my mouth, bending double in pain. And my thirst . . . I needed blood, so desperately . . . I had to have it. Lucius is having sex with Faith Crosse behind my house. My betrothed betraying me, his princess . . .
“But I keep telling him,” Faith continued, oblivious to my silent torment in the corner stall, “I’m not throwing away my whole future to have sex—not until my mom lets me get on the pill. I mean, I’m not getting knocked up before Stanford.”
So it isn’t sex. It isn’t full-blown intercourse. I tried to quell my jealousy and rage. But still my teeth pulsed with pain at the thought of Lucius on the velvet blanket with Faith. I placed one hand against the cool tile wall, shaken and suffering, trying to steady myself.
“Yeah,” Lisa agreed. “I don’t know why guys can’t just be content with a . . .” She cupped a hand around Faith’s ear and whispered something I couldn’t hear. But I could guess from the giggles.
“I know.” Faith laughed. “I mean, that’s practically the same as going all the way. And then there’s this thing that Lucius does that’s almost better than—” She paused like she realized she’d revealed too much.
My heart stopped, and I became oblivious even to my throbbing mouth, my desperate craving.
What thing? WHAT THING?
“Well, don’t leave me hanging,” Lisa cried, shaking her friend’s arm. ?
??What does he do?”
“It’s just . . .” Faith hesitated one more second, and then couldn’t bear to keep it to herself one minute longer. She turned to Lisa. “This thing with his mouth. On my neck.”
My heart didn’t just stop. It seized up, like a huge hand had clenched the muscle in my chest, trying to rip it out. No, Lucius. Don’t do it. Don’t betray us any more than you already have. And don’t risk more punishment by irreparably breaking the pact. Not yet. I need time to fix things.
“What?” Lisa squealed. “Like a hickey? That’s so junior high. Who cares about a hickey?”
“No.” Faith shook her head, turning back to her reflection. She got a little thoughtful, staring into her own eyes. “It’s not a hickey. It’s . . . I can’t describe it. It feels amazing, though. Like, dangerous, or something. Like we’re doing something really bad.” Digging in her purse, she located a hair band and swept her blond cascade of hair into a high ponytail. “Like, I like it, but I know I shouldn’t.”
“God, I wish Lucius could teach my boyfriend. Allen has no moves.”
“I don’t know if this is something you can teach. It’s just something Luc does.”
Lisa pointed to her friend’s neck, frowning. “Well, whatever it is, it leaves scratches. You want some makeup for that?”
Faith twisted to look at the side of her neck, close to her ear. She ran her fingers along fine red marks, smiling, remembering. “Oh, Lees . . . you should feel it when he’s doing it.”
“You are so lucky to have a European guy,” Lisa pouted. “So, so lucky.”
When they left, I collapsed against the stall wall, breathing hard, waiting for the aches and appetites inside me to subside. Waiting for the vampire side of myself, so desperate to fully emerge, to calm down and hide again.
Lucius . . . What are you doing?
Chapter 48
“HE’S GOING TO BITE Faith Crosse,” I informed Dorin.
“No, no, no,” Dorin objected. He stirred cinnamon into his cappuccino. “That wouldn’t do. I just don’t think our boy would do it.”
“Dorin, I saw his girlfriend, Faith, in the bathroom at school. She said Lucius is doing weird things to her neck. With his mouth. And she had scratches.”
Dorin set down his cappuccino, his crinkly eyes clouding. “Big scratches?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t close enough to tell. Does it matter?”
“Not really, I guess. As long as he doesn’t really sink in there, you know?” Dorin curved his hand, arching two fingers like fangs, and swiped at the air. “That kind of thing—that would be bad news.”
“For Lucius or for Faith?”
“Hard to say for the girl, really. I mean, of course, if he didn’t suck this Faith person dry—kill her on the spot—well, she’d be undead then. Now, that’s something some girls really regret if they do it on the spur of the moment. Not something to rush into. And girls who don’t have a vampire lineage, like you . . . they’re the ones who get all nasty, after about a hundred years. Don’t like drinking the blood. Can’t embrace the lifestyle. Wish they’d just married a regular human, bought a minivan and had kids. Whiners. Troublemakers. They make you wish you had a stake through the heart, just to spend a few minutes with them. Lucius might very well be sorry he indulged in a moment of passion, after a few millennia.”
“So you’re saying they’d get married if he bit her?” I hated the envy—the Biblically proportioned, sinful coveting—that consumed me. A twinge pricked my gums, and I rubbed my jaw.
“Hurts, eh?” Dorin asked, noticing.
I rubbed harder. “It’s that obvious?”
“If you know the signs. But trust me, it’s a good thing. If your fangs didn’t ache—that’s when a young vampire needs to worry.”
“I know,” I said. “I read the book.”
“Lucius gave you a copy of Growing Up Undead?” Dorin grinned. “It is a classic!”
“Yes, it’s very helpful,” I agreed. “But about Lucius and Faith—”
“Oh, yes,” Dorin said. “If Lucius did the honorable thing—as I suspect he would—they would wed. You can’t just bite an unsuspecting virgin and go your merry way. It’s not done.”
The ache roared to life, and my gums throbbed. “I can’t believe Lucius would be linked to her for eternity.”
Dorin shook his head, avoiding my eyes, dumping more cinnamon in his mug. “No. No, he wouldn’t.”
“But you just said Lucius would do the honorable thing—”
“Honor, schmonor. If Lucius ultimately does break the pact, it won’t matter who he bites. Vasile won’t stand for insubordination. The whole reason vampires have survived so long is harsh justice. Something like breaking a treaty between clans—that’s grounds for immediate destruction.”
Jealousy was banished by raw fear. “What?”
“Destruction. With a capital D.”
I’d known they would punish him, and severely. Even Lucius had been afraid of what they’d do. But I hadn’t really thought they would destroy him. “But he’s their prince . . .”
“And princes are expendable. It’s not like they’re kings yet.”
My voice seemed stuck in my throat. “How much time will Vasile give him to obey?”
“He’s already hanging by a thread,” Dorin admitted. “Vasile is determined to make Lucius obey, but he won’t wait forever.” My uncle mimicked jabbing his chest with what I assumed was a stake, then lighting a match. “And then . . . poof.”
The steamy, chicory-scented air in the coffee shop suddenly seemed raw and icy. “Is that really how it happens? With a stake?”
“That is, indeed, the surest way.” Dorin confirmed Lucius’s earlier assertion. “Time tested.”
The image of Lucius being stabbed through the heart—of Vasile, giving a quick upward thrust just below the ribs that had been broken too often—flashed through my mind, and I swore, it was almost like I could feel the sharp wood piercing my own flesh. I actually clutched my chest. Had my parents done the same, in their final moments?
“What will happen to Lucius then?” I said, willing the horrible images out of my brain.
“What do you mean?”
“Like . . . his soul.”
“Oh, that. His soul belongs to the clan. It’s not the typical heaven-hell stuff, like you’re used to. A vampire’s soul is a different thing. The clan giveth, and the clan taketh away. Well, sometimes angry mobs taketh away.” Dorin shrugged. “We’d just go to hell, anyway. Might as well just be gone.”
The thought of a universe without Lucius—Lucius just not existing—was too much to bear. And yet I felt helpless. “He still refuses to honor the pact, even though I told him that I love him. That I want to marry him.”
Dorin brightened. “You really do love him, don’t you? You can admit it to me.”
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“Then don’t let him bite Faith Crosse, even if it means sticking by his side twenty-four hours a day,” Dorin advised, sipping his cappuccino. “Because the second he bites her, the clock will strike midnight for Lucius Vladescu. I can guarantee you that.”
Lucius destroyed. A universe without him. I couldn’t imagine it. And yet I had no idea how to prevent it, either.
All that night I tossed and turned in bed, remembering how I’d felt when I’d thought Lucius had died. That cold wind, tearing through my hollow chest—ripping me open like a stake.
If he didn’t honor the pact, I feared it wouldn’t just destroy him. It would destroy me, too.
Chapter 49
“OH, DAMMIT,” I muttered, watching out my window as Lucius and Faith Crosse crept across the yard under cover of darkness, headed toward his old apartment. I hated spying on him, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to keep him from biting Faith. And so I waited just a few minutes and followed them.
“Hey, you guys,” I said, barging in without knocking. “What are you up to?”
As if I can’t tell.
Faith practically leapt away from Lucius, smoothing at her hair, tugging at her disheveled shirt. “God, Jenn. Don’t you knock? Some people have sex lives.”
Lucius didn’t make any effort to disentangle himself. He just sat there on the bed, keeping his arm loosely around Faith’s waist, idly stroking her hip. “What do you want, Jess?” His voice was low, menacing.
“Maybe she wants her pots and pans,” Faith smirked. “You know, to do her hair.”
“I can’t smell the hare anymore,” I shot back. “The stench of peroxide is so strong. You’d better ease up on the bleach, Faith, or you’ll wind up bald.”
“I could do worse.” She sniffed, staring pointedly at my head. “Better bald than a Brillo head.”
“Better a Brillo head than a bitch.”
I don’t think anyone had ever spoken to Faith Crosse like that. I could hardly believe I’d done it. But damn, it felt good.
Faith sat in stunned silence, curled up against Lucius, eyes wide. Then she pulled away from him, jabbing her finger at his chest. “Did you hear what she just said to me, Luc? Are you going to let her call me a bitch?”
Lucius laughed, a mirthless sound, and drew her closer. “Oh, Faith. Accept the compliment.”
She shoved his chest. “Watch it, Luc.”
Lucius ignored the warning, addressing me. “I repeat: What do you want, Jessica?”
“I need some help with Belle in the barn,” I lied. “I think she’s favoring a leg, but I want your opinion. You know horses better than me.”
“Call a veterinarian,” Lucius said. “I’m no horse healer.”
“Come on, Lucius,” I urged. “It will just take a minute.” Anything to get you away from Faith . . .
“It is nearly ten o’clock,” Lucius noted. “The horse will live until morning. And we are rather preoccupied here.” His face was obscured by the gloom in the room, but I thought I caught a flash of fangs.
“Lucius, be reasonable,” I urged, abandoning my story about Belle.
“I am so done with the pointless banter,” Faith said, sliding out of Lucius’s embrace. “Later, Luc.”
“Don’t go,” Lucius said, pulling her back.