Dark Secrets (55 page)

“
Same way you stopped
yourself from biting me, I guess,” I said, pulling his hand away
from my face.

He nodded once. “This
is a first for me, you know. I’ve never had to do that before—to
control myself. It took everything in me not to rip your throat
open and drink your blood, and even more to stop enticing you with
the spell of lust.”

“
Is that what made me
want to…you know, die?”

“
Yes.” He laughed.
“It’s how we kill. We seduce you into trusting us.”

“
So…you seduce men
too?”

“
No. I’ve never
seduced a man. And I’ve not killed any girls since we met.” He
brushed his curled fingers over my cheek. “I use an attack kill,
now. It’s more brutal, more painful for the human, but I can’t bear
the thought of killing girls since I found you.”

“
Why?”

“
Because I see your
face—think how I would feel if that was you.” He looked up as,
above us, the loud thunder of footsteps sent vibrations through the
walls. “We better get back out there—lunch will be over
soon.”

“
Okay.” I breathed
out. “But, what will we tell everyone?” They all saw us walk in
here. I didn’t even wanna imagine what they’d think.

“
Ara, what do you
think
they will think? We’re teenagers. Let them think
what they want. They’ll never guess the truth.”

“
Well, at least that part’s true.” No one would guess that I
led a vampire under the stage and let him bite me. Or even more
so—that I bit
him
. It didn’t matter what they thought, anyway. I was so damn
hungry that if I didn’t go eat,
David
would become the next victim
of the ogre. Then, he wouldn’t need to worry about me becoming a
people-eater, because he’d be in my stomach.

David shook his head,
laughing softly. “I can think of a few ways I could be in your
stomach, Ara, without being eaten. Of course, you’d still have to
put a part of me in your mouth.”

My lips gaped, a giant
huff expelling between them.

His eyes widened. “Oh,
no, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant blood—drinking my blood.” He
held his wrist up.

I dropped the insult
and giggled into my hand.

“
I’m so sorry, Ara.
That came out sounding…incredibly wrong.”

“
Yes, but, it was
also funny to watch you react that way.”

He lowered his head
and shook it, a sharp intake of air whistling through his
teeth.

“
I love you, David,”
I said, still laughing at his fallibility.

“
Come on.” He reached
for my hand. “Shall we head back out and face the
music?”

“
Yes.” The reality
simmered over me then and I shook my head at myself. “I can’t
believe I just provoked a vampire into biting me.” Therapy,
anyone?

David cleared his
throat. “You said it first.”

“
Hey!” I dropped my hands to my hips. “I’ll give
you
therapy in a minute,
if you don’t stop reading my mind.”

He chuckled, wandering
across the room to grab his jacket. I loved it when he laughed. It
made him seem so normal—so human.

“
Except, there is
nothing
human about what we just did,” he
joked.

“
Stay out of my
mind!” I headed for the door in a stormy huff.

“
Wait.” He grabbed my
arm and held up his jacket. “You might want to put this
on.”

I frowned at him; he
pointed to my neck. Oh crap! The bite! If it looked as bad as it
burned, people would think David did something really horrible to
me.

“
I did.” He held his
jacket out, pulled it closed around my chest once my arms were in,
and kissed my brow.

“
What about you? I
bit you.”

“
I’ll be healed by
the time I cross the room. But you—” he laughed, running his finger
over my bruise again, “—you may take a little longer.”

“
How
long?”

“
If you heal fast—a
week, maybe. If not—a month.”

Crud!
“If Dad sees it, he’ll freak.”

“
Ara, he’ll freak if
word gets back to him that we were even in this
closet—alone.”

Damn. Didn’t think of
that. I wrapped my hand over the bite. The rough denim of David’s
jacket rubbed against it, making it sting more. But, since he’d
been wearing the coat all day, the strong smell of him was all over
me like a warm breath, so I didn’t mind one bit.

“
Oh, and one more
thing.” He grabbed my arm again. “The history paper?”

“
What about
it?”

He kissed my temple
quickly. “Don’t do vampires.”

“
Why?”

“
Just
don’t.”

“
You never give me a
reason.”

“
I don’t have to—you
should just trust me.”

“
No way. What do you
think this is? The eighteen-hundreds?”

“
No. I think you are
a human, and I’m a vampire—and I have my reasons.” He turned away
with a sly smile, and the room filled with light as he opened the
door, severing any further discussion.

Hmph! I’m still doing
vampires. You can’t stop me.

He leaned closer and
muttered, “Try me.”

A group of David’s
friends, only at rehearsal for their stupid comedy skit, burst into
a Mexican wave as we walked out, sending me spinning back toward
the closet.

David grabbed me by
the coat. “Keep walking, Ara.”

“
Hey, Dave? Man, your
jeans are wet,” one of the jock’s pointed to the soda
spill.

“
Funny. Real funny.”
David nodded and took my hand.

“
Now I wish you
had
eaten me in there,” I said.

He laughed as we
wandered back to our table. “Don’t worry about it. No one will pass
any further comment on it. I’ll
personally
see to that.”

“
Okay.”

“
Okay.” He squeezed
my hand.

“
Oh, hey, you’re
back.” Emily smiled casually.

“
Are we? Didn’t
notice,” I said.

She rolled her
eyes.

“
Do
I need to ask what
you two
were up to in there?” Ryan’s brows rose and fell
a few times.

“
We were just
talking,” David said casually and pushed my chair in for me as I
sat down.

“
Right, ‘cause
everyone goes to the make-out room to ‘talk’,” Spencer
said.

“
As a matter of fact,
that’s exactly why we were in there,” David said, then winked at
me. “I would never be so inappropriate as to display my affections
for the girl I love, in a closet space.”

Everyone looked into
their laps. Conversation. Over.

“
So. Subject change,”
Emily chimed in, motioning around the table. “The memorial concert?
The whole reason we’re here?”

“
Let’s start the
rehearsal, then.” I grinned, biting into my nachos, but they tasted
boring in comparison to David.

From the corner of my
eye, I saw him grin, and while conversations went on around us,
David reached into my lap and took my hand, winding his leg under
my ankle. And it felt nice—like the way things should be; sitting
at lunch with friends, talking about normal things, concealing the
burning desire to run away with the boy you love, and never let him
go.

Thursday passed with a
rhythmic pace; note-passing with David when we were in the same
classes—only I didn’t need to pass them to him, since he just read
my mind; talking with Emily in History, trying to get kicked into
Mr Adams’ class, and lunch times with my group of friends in the
auditorium, rehearsing for the memorial concert. When the day
ended, I said my goodbyes and wandered across the field toward my
dad’s house, stealing the quiet for my own private thoughts—for
once. The sun warmed my upturned face and the wind caressed the
crevices around my nose and under my chin. I closed my eyes,
entrusting the safety of the widespread field of grass as I bounced
along, smiling to myself, for no other reason than that I was
happy.

“
Haven’t you learned
not to walk with your eyes closed?”

So much for private
thoughts. “Well, I’m happy. If you want me to get across the road
safely, you’ll just have to walk me home.” I opened my eyes to look
at David. He looked so normal with a schoolbag on his back—just a
boy, just as everyone else saw him. His dark side was a secret. No
one could ever imagine he was a vampire, and no one would ever
know. Except me.

“
So, I was thinking?”
He glided along beside me, at my pace, with his hands behind his
back and that cheeky grin slipping into place.

“
Mm. I’m
listening.”

“
I want to buy you a
dress for the Masquerade.”

“
A dress?
Why?”

We stopped for a
second, and David took my hands. “This will be your first real
ball. I want you to feel like a queen. And—” he turned and started
walking again, smiling, “—I won’t take no for an
answer.”

“
But…Vicki?” I ran
after him. “She wants to take me shopping.”

“
And she can.” He
spun around and walked backward. “But when you find the right
dress, I want to pay for it.”

“
David, I
can’t—”

“
Ara.” He cut in with a finger to my lips. “I’ll have no more
of this. Just accept it, as a gift—a token of my affection for you.
It will do me great honour to escort you to the ball in a dress fit
for a queen—for
my
queen.”

My throat stopped
passage of all vocabulary. I froze in place, my hands and feet numb
under the weight of his perfect words. All I could do was nod and
swallow the sentence that
had
been my retort.

Sam’s schoolbooks
engulfed the dining table, leaving one space left for me to do my
homework; the kitchen counter. I slumped over my books, munching an
apple, spinning my hips from side to side on the swishy stool. I’d
deliberately moved my schoolbag off the seat beside me, hoping
David would sit there to either help me with my homework or just
plain old be close to me, but he went and sat next to my pesky
brother instead, and helped
him
. Except, he wasn’t helping him
with his math—he was doing it for him.

“
David, will you stay
for dinner tonight?” Vicki asked, casually chopping away at
vegetables.

David looked up from
the page. “That’d be great, Mrs Thompson. If Ara doesn’t
mind.”

A giant, invisible
question mark formed above my head.
Why
would I mind, dummy? Unless you plan to eat
us
for dinner.

He smirked.

“
Great,” Vicki
beamed, without needing my answer. “It’s nothing special. Although,
I am making apple pie for dessert.”

My vampire flashed the
most incredibly charming smile and said, “Apple pie happens to be
my favourite.”

“
Oh, really?” Vicki’s
whole face lit up. “That’s great then.”

I groaned quietly,
rolling my eyes.
I think my stepmother has
a crush on you, David.

He nodded to himself,
his eyes small with humour, aiming the pen tip to the top of the
page. He went on then to explain some number jargon to Sam, and I
turned back to my books, a breath away from asking for his help. I
really just didn’t get this Pythagoras’ Theorem crap. I never
had.

Out of the corner of
my eye, I saw David look over at me for a second, but as the
numbers on the page started to shift into place in my brain, I
fazed him, Sam, and Vicki out, and concentrated on my
homework—taking a sideways glance every now and then to see David
look up at the same time. All I really wanted, though, was to go
upstairs to my room so David and I could do our ‘homework’ in
private. The idea made me smile to myself.

A roll of paper hit my
forearm then and bounced up, landing between my wrists.

David winked at me,
rolling his hand in the air as if to say ‘Open it.’

As I unfolded the
paper, perfect Victorian cursive handwriting stared back up at me
in the words: What exactly would we be doing in your room—other
than homework?

Stay out of my
head!

He laughed and took a
sip from his coffee cup; I ditched the paper back at him, but he
caught it without even looking.

Smart arse,
I thought.
But
if you were any decent sort of mind reader, you
wouldn’t need to ask what I wanted to do with you in
there.

He looked over at me,
his face tight with a frown, his cup just in front of his
lips.