Blood Type (14 page)

August 3

Mom turned on her heel and disappeared through the front door without another word, the click-clack of her shoes against the stone
path
the only sound echoing her departure. 
My head was reeling, and I stared at John in disbelief.

“How did you do that?” I had never been able to get the last word in with my mom without a massive struggle
, and yet she was like putty in John’s hands
.

John grinned like it was no big deal and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans
like
some innocent school
boy. “I find that people are extremely susceptible to the direct approach. All you have to do is tell them what you want them to do, and they’ll do it.”

“Good adv
ice. I’ll have to remember that.
W
hatever it was you did worked. So, thank you. She’s been on my case ever since I broke up with Zach, and the best I’ve been able to do is avoid her.”

John closed the gap between us and opened his arms. “Come here.”

I melted into the broad expanse of his chest
and breathed deeply
, the scent of the outdoors lingering on his skin. “Maybe you should talk to Olivia, too,” I joked. “She’s been pissed at me
ever since
Gabe
came over and accosted me. I don’t know what the heck she sees in him.”

Tension ripple
d
through John’s body, vibrating under my cheek, and I lifted my head to look up at his face.
“W
hat’s wrong?”

“
Gabe
accosted
you?
He’s at least twice your size.
”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, not really. I mean, it’s not like he did me any bodily harm. Gabe is just a big jerk and gets off on intimidating people. I complained about him to Olivia, and she got a little defensive. That’s all.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I suppose I should have seen that one coming.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Blake. It’s not your fault. He’s the one who should be sorry.” He lifted a handful of curls to his nose and inhaled, his eyes closing in apparent ecstasy. “Your hair smells so good. Like,” he sniffed again and then laughed, “strawberries.”

“Thanks.
” My belly rippled with the sudden wanting of him. “For the compliment, I mean, and for saying that it’s not my fault. I guess you can say I’ve been feeling no shortage of guilt lately.”

He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face, his eyes blazing under the soft burn of the overhead light. “Kiss me,” he said. “For
right now
, kiss me and forget everything except us.”

I closed my eyes, and the entire world disappeared. As John’s lips pressed against mine, it was just him and me floating in space, the firm stone under our feet
falling
away.
My troubles about
Zach, Olivia, and Gabe ceased to exist. There was no
Mom
or Dad. No Ian hanging his head out the
car
window making rude noises and telling us to get a room. I closed my eyes a little tighter and tried that one again, and Ian magically faded into the night with the rest of my worries.

John’s arms wound tighter around my waist as he pulled me closer to him, molding my body against his. His skin felt cooler than usual, but it was refreshing against the warmth and humidity of the night. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck, twining my fingers in the soft tufts of hair that brushed his collar. His tongue darted inside my mouth, cold as though he’d been sucking on a cube of ice. But instead of shrinking away, I opened myself up to it, feeling at once that
my body had slipped
away
and I’d lost
all sense of myself in the intoxicating sensation of his mouth.
I slid my hands up the back of his shirt as he
pushed
me against the door.
B
lood pounded in
every part of my body, and I hooked my fingers in his belt loops, pulling him closer against me.

The car horn honked, jarring us back to reality, and John nipped my bottom lip with his teeth. “
Ow
!” I said, my hand going to my mouth.

“Come on, John! I’m not gettin
g
any younger,” called Ian, laughing as though he’d made some spectacular joke.
“Hurry it u
p
!”

“I’m so sorry,” John said to me. “I got caught up in the moment. I should have been more careful.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It was just an accident. Is my lip bleeding?”

John tilted my face to the light and pulled my lip down gently with the flat part of his thumb. “It’s just a tiny nick,” he said.
“Nothing more.”

Our eyes met, and he smiled. “Would you like me to kiss it better?”

The car’s horn blared again from down the drive.

“Quickly,” I said. “And then you’d better go. If Ian keeps up that honking, one or both of my parents will come out here, and I can guarantee you it won’t be pretty.”

John dipped his head to me at once, and his tongue flicked against the spot where his teeth had grazed my lip. The blood in my veins pulse
d
with a furious need, which only intensified when John whimpered against me, his own need evidently great.

“You taste so good,” he murmured.

I pushed away from him, finding it difficult to catch my breath while standing so close. “You’d better go, and, uh, I’d better get inside. I should go to bed.”

“Come on already, John!” Ian yelled again. “You can devour her later. The night is young yet, and I’ve got needs. Take me out to prowl the town.”

John groaned. “I forgot how much babysitting he requires.” He rested his forehead against mine. “I’ll see you tomorrow. But for tonight . . . dream of me.”

I
wandered into
a garden teeming with the ripe fruits of summer—full-headed dahlias
with
colorful blossoms as big as my fist; the slender forms of bell-shaped foxglove dangling from long, dainty stalks; clusters of vibrant blue and pink hydrangea
; purple lilacs with their pungent fragrance
.

But then I came upon a single thistle flower—a tuft of dense purple adorning a bulb of thorns in regal splendor
;
its spiky spindles, like the pointed canines of some ferocious beast, protruding along its stiff spine.

“Don’t touch it!” 

I had bent down, intending to pluck the offending weed from where it
had
nestled
itself
among the roses
. My
fingers hover
ed mere
inches from the spiny stalk. I whirled on my haunches to find John staring down at me, a look of worry clouding his face.

“Leave it,” he said, his voice calm yet commanding
.
I drew my hand back at once.

But when I turned to the thistle
once more
, there stood Ian in its place. His full lips parted in a smile, revealing a set of elongated canines
that
taper
ed
at the ends into razor-sharp points.  

My eyes flew open, a scream caught in my throat. I stared at the sphere of light on my ceiling, cast upward by the dim glow of the nightlight stuck in
the
corner outlet. I had been afraid of the dark for as long as I could remember, never growing out of the fear
that there were monsters hiding under the bed or lurking in the shadows of my room.

My heart
beat
in my chest like the wings of a hummingbird, and for a moment I couldn’t recall what my dream had even been about. But then the memory of it slowly came back to me, a trickle of seemingly incongruent images that fit together to create one disturbing picture.

I got out of bed and padded across the darkened room to the set of double doors leading to the balcony. I pulled them open and slipped out into the night, not knowing what time it was, but feeling in the relative quiet and stillness of the surrounding houses that it was much too early to be up for the day.
I couldn’t sleep
, though; not with the vision of Ian’s dagger-like teeth so fresh in my mind. I sat down with my back pressed against the wall
and
pulled my knees to my chest, hugging my arms around them.

Dreaming of
Ian as a vampire was both completely irrational and silly, and yet so very creepy. I tried to come up with some logical explanation for why I had dreamed him a monster, but I couldn’t. He’d been nothing but nice
, if not a little obnoxious,
during the few hours we
’d
spent together.

And yet my subconscious mind had
turned him into
a predator. Was it my gut warning me
of inherent danger
? I didn’t think so. Ian
acted
odd, but
no
more so
than some of the people who wandered the streets of downtown. 

I shivered as the chill of the night swept against my naked arms. I rose to my feet and headed back to bed, laughing at myself for acting like such a moron. There were no such things as vampires.

But
then
Ian’s parting words as John and I were saying goodnight rang loud in my ears:
The night is young yet, and I’ve got needs. Take me out to prowl the town.

“You’re being ridiculous, Ehlert,” I muttered under my breath. And yet my blood turned to ice at the thought of Ian sinking his teeth into that waitress’s neck from the restaurant.

Nevertheless, I hurried back to the safety of my room, closing and locking the door against the shadows of the night. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head and down around my ears so that only my face
peeked
out.

“Vampires sleep in coffins during the day. They burn if they go into the sun. They can’t enter
a
house uninvited. They’re immortal. They can turn into bats or wolves at will. They have pointy teeth and drink blood.”

I whispered a litany of what I knew, or thought I knew, about vampires—a hodge-podge of Hollywood stereotypes portrayed over the years in movies.

“They’re ugly and scary. Okay, so maybe not
all
of them are ugly and scary. Some of them are actually
pretty hot
.” I
laughed,
the sound of it shrill and loud in my otherwise dark and silent room.

Having successfully freaked myself out, I pulled the covers completely over my head and scrunched my knees
t
o my chest, wondering
when morning would come
.

Ian obviously wasn’t a vampire. I’d seen him awake during the day and standing in the full light of the sun. His teeth might
be
the tiniest bit
crooked
, but
they definitely weren’t pointed. And he drank wine, not blood.

But my pulse quickened as it occurred to me that the wine had been red. Who’s to say it wasn’t blood that he
’d been
drinking? Then again, what vampire ate Indian cuisine? Surely there’d been garlic in the dish, and didn’t garlic repel vampires?

I sucked in my breath, recalling that I hadn’t actually
seen
him eating the food. He’d spent the entire time pushing it around his plate as I scarfed mine down. And then he’d made that comment about not being picky about who he hooked up with
as long as they were warm-blooded
.

“Stop it. Just stop it right now
!
” 

I stuck out my hand from underneath the covers and fumbled for my cell where I’d left it sitting on the
nightstand
. Arguing or not, I needed to talk to my best friend.

Sorry about the fight. Need to talk. 911.

I hadn’t been expecting a response until morning, but Olivia’s reply came almost immediately.

I’m sorry 2. What’s wrong?!

Why r u up?

Why r U up?

I think Ian is a vampire.

Who’s Ian?

John’s brother.

He has a brother?

Not really his brother. More like best friend. I think he’s a vampire.

LOL!!! U R CRAZY!

I know.

Call me.

I dialed Olivia’s cell, and she answered on the first ring.
“Holy crap, Blake.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve missed you. Remind me never to get mad at you again.”

“Don’t ever get mad at me again,” I said. “I’ve missed you, too. Let’s make a pact to never fight.”

“Deal.
Now what is all this nonsense about this Ian dude being a vampire? First of all, I didn’t even know you were actually seeing him.
John, not the other guy.
Is it getting serious?”