Everafter Series 1 - Everafter (13 page)

“I don’t know if it’s worth it,” I blurted. Fear had risen to the forefront again at her oblique mention of the dangers involved in Alexa’s and my agreement. “I’m so terrified of hurting her. I hate that I felt so out of control yesterday, and if I ever took too much I’d—I’d—Jesus, why does she even want to be with me still, now that she knows what I am?”

On the verge of breaking down, I locked my jaw and looked away toward the windows. I knew I was visibly trembling, but I forced myself not to give in to the sobs that wanted to rip their way out of my throat. I didn’t want to betray any weakness in front of Helen.

A moment later, her cool fingers firmly gripped my chin, turning my head so that I was forced to meet her gaze. “You cannot do this to yourself,” she said, her tone sharper than I’d ever heard it. I would have flinched, had she not been holding me. “To live out an eternity crippled by guilt for what you are is nothing but pathetic nihilism. You are a vampire: powerful and untouched by time. You are beautiful now, and the passing of the years will only make you more so. This rash impetuosity of youth will be replaced by wisdom and patience. You will be a force to be reckoned with, Valentine. You must never apologize. And you must never let anyone convince you to be less. If Alexa cannot embrace what you have become, then you must let her go.”

She spoke with an intensity that riveted me, even as my chest constricted in fury that she would dare presume to tell me what to do when it came to my lover. “Alexa has always loved me for exactly who I am,” I said stiffly. “That should have been at its most apparent yesterday, when she volunteered her blood only minutes after hearing the whole story.” Helen couldn’t have been more off base by accusing Alexa. She wasn’t the so-called “problem”—I was. But how was I supposed to wholeheartedly embrace my newfound vampiric nature when giving up rigorous self-control meant the possibility of killing her?

Helen’s fingers loosened. She rose, smoothing her hands over her charcoal slacks as she stood. “Her loyalty and love are remarkable gifts,” she said softly. “Don’t poison them with your own guilt.”

Only when she had gone did I realize that Helen’s tirade—if not the words with which she expressed it—was familiar. My father had taken a similar tack during my senior year of college in one of his attempts to persuade me to take up the family mantle rather than pursue a master’s in what he had called “psychobabble.”

I had told him to fuck off. Maybe I should have told Helen to do the same.

*

I frowned hard at page 172, trying to bully my brain into focusing on the material. I had an exam next Monday and wasn’t remotely prepared, but it was impossible to concentrate. Alexa had left half an hour ago, after bringing over Chinese take-out for dinner. She sat at the desk and I perched on the bed, and we kept the door open lest one of us get carried away. Our conversation had been stilted, even when she had moved to the bed and offered me a shoulder rub. I had allowed that, but my inability to relax had made her attempts fruitless.

I craved her blood. I craved her body. At least tomorrow, I’d be able to have the former. My throat ached sharply, nostalgic for her taste.

A knock at my door yanked me out of my brooding. Maybe Alexa had come back for some reason. The thought both thrilled and frightened me. But when I looked through the keyhole, I saw the Consortium’s receptionist. Why hadn’t she just called up?

“Hello,” I said politely, swinging the door wide open. “What can I—”

She walked right in, kicked the door shut with one of her stilettos, and grabbed the collar of my shirt.

“We haven’t been properly introduced,” she murmured, mere inches from my mouth. Her breath tasted like cinnamon. “I’m Giselle.” And then she kissed me.

I tried not to react, but my body betrayed my mind. Giselle kissed as though she were as starving for passion as I was. Twin flames of need twisted in my gut. To fuck. To drink. Yes.

Only when the backs of my legs hit the bed did I regain enough sense to tear my lips away. I grasped her upper arms firmly but gently and held her as far from me as I could. “No.” But my voice was a pant of desire, devoid of any authority.

She relaxed in my grip, and I let go, believing that she was going to honor my request. Instead, she pulled aside her shirt collar and, with one long, pink-tinted fingernail, drew a furrow just below the bone. I had one split second in which to register just how persistent she was being, before the sight and smell of blood assaulted me. The tiny red ribbon beckoned, but I forced my feet to remain where they were. I was struggling so hard against my thirst that I didn’t even register her grip on my hand. But when her tongue touched my fingertip, a jolt shot down my spine.

“I see how thirsty you are, Valentine,” she said, ending each sentence with a twirl of her warm tongue around my finger. “Every day. You’re suffering. Denying yourself. You really shouldn’t.”

She sucked hard and I moaned. I couldn’t help it. I was wet. Blood was dripping down her chest. She wanted me to take her. I needed to take.

But not her. The thought knifed through my instincts, granting me an instant of clarity. An instant in which to realize that her blood didn’t smell right, and her body didn’t feel right, and good wasn’t enough, once you’d had the best. No.

I pulled my hand out of her grasp. “Get out, please. Now.”

She pouted. “Valentine…”

“I don’t blame you,” I said, trying to calm my heartbeat and my breathing. “I know who sent you. But get out, please. And don’t come back.”

With a huff, she spun on her heel—no doubt to find some vampire who would willingly take advantage of the blood she so freely offered. The door rocked on its hinges behind her. I leaned against it until my pulse had returned to normal, holding an image of Alexa in my brain: smiling broadly as we rode the Carousel at Central Park on our second date. I would have given anything to go back to that moment.

When I felt calm enough, I went to the phone. Helen’s secretary picked up and, after a moment of waiting, Helen greeted me directly. What I had to say was very simple.

“I am in love with Alexa. She is the only one I want. I may not be choosing the normal path, or the easy path, but I am doing what’s right for me. For us. And I would ask you to respect that. Don’t ever send someone to me again.”

Her voice was low. Musical—as though she were secretly amused by my vehemence. “Very well. I will never send anyone to you again…unless you ask me to.”

My lip curled in a snarl she couldn’t see. “That will never happen.”

I hung up the phone and retreated to the bed. My entire body ached with unsatisfied need, and I knew that sleep was a hopeless proposition. At least that gave me more time to work. At least tomorrow, I could taste her again.

But I would still be starving.

Chapter Nine

Alexa’s phone was still off.

I leaned against the wall outside my Physiology lab, combing my fingers through my hair in frustration as I tried to figure out what to do. She had called me early this morning before going into her first class, but now it was almost two in the afternoon, and I was still getting her voicemail. I was starting to feel all panicky inside—my palms were sweating, and my heart was flopping around in my chest like a fish out of water. I hated being this needy. It was my own damn fault, too, for insisting on the separation period. I had done it for her safety, but after three weeks of sleeping alone and seeing her only briefly each day, I was starting to go crazy. I missed her. I didn’t want to lie in bed awake, thinking about how much I needed her, so I stayed up far too late every night, studying or reading the Consortium’s files. And when I did sleep, I dreamt only of him. I felt his knife pierce my shoulder, his teeth dig into my skin. I saw my blood pooling on the ground, and the flash of color across his knuckles as he backhanded me into oblivion. I heard him taunt me, calling me by name. Every night, he was there in my head, waiting for me. Between the loneliness and the nightmares, I was exhausted. And my body was physically aching for her touch. I was completely off-kilter.

If Helen had intended for Giselle to relax me, her plan had completely backfired. Ever since getting slapped in the face by just how closely linked sex and feeding were, I had insisted that I drink from Alexa under full supervision. While her blood tasted sweeter than ever, our lack of physical intimacy made the act of feeding feel…empty, somehow. I was frustrated, and she was frustrated—though admirably trying not to show it—and yet every time I thought of taking her body as I took her blood, my terror at hurting her eclipsed even my desire.

Clearly, she had just forgotten to turn her phone back on after class. Obviously. And yet, something in my brain wouldn’t let me believe it. What if she was angry with me? What if something had happened to her? What if—and this was the thought that really sent me off the deep end—she had finally decided that I wasn’t worth the effort?

Because these days, I required a lot of effort.

I could see the physical changes in Alexa’s body already. Dark circles lurked beneath her eyes, made all the more distinct by the pallor of her cheeks. A month ago, we had been in the habit of calling a five-mile run a “light” workout, but now, she confessed, she could barely manage three. She had lost more weight, too. Most nights, she brought take-out for both of us to eat while we caught each other up on the latest news and tried to savor what little time we had together. We ate in my room—she sitting at the desk, I perched on the bed. So I knew she wasn’t starving herself. Her body just couldn’t keep up with my appetite.

Every fourth night, I drank from her under the watchful eye of Consortium staff, but it never grew easier to stop. The knowledge that my control was still in tatters kept me in that featureless, impersonal room, even though I was sleeping horribly there. I chose a new spot on her arms each time because her bruises refused to fade. They started off red, then shifted through each color of the rainbow. But the pale violet ovals endured. I started to hate them.

I started to hate myself.

As she grew weaker, I became stronger. I was making unnaturally fast progress in my physical therapy, and the scars that had been so grisly and prominent before were already beginning to fade. But everything I gained was at her expense. I had become the parasite.

By now, the halls were crowded with other med students leaving their classes, laughing and chatting as they relaxed into the Friday afternoon.

“Hey Val,” someone called. “Come out tonight. We’re going for sushi.”

I managed to smile and make an excuse while hitting speed dial yet again. Still, nothing. Baring my teeth, I pushed off the wall and stalked out of the building. I wasn’t going to be able to take a deep breath until I knew she was okay. Her last class of the day started in an hour. If I caught a cab to Washington Square, I’d be able to get to her classroom with plenty of time to spare. I could even bring her a chai latte, and make it look like I was trying to recreate the old days.

Clutching my phone in my pocket so I’d feel the vibration in case its ring failed to penetrate through the sounds of the busy streets, I hurried out to First Avenue and flagged down a taxi. Fifteen minutes later, I was shouldering my way into the Starbucks on the east side of the square. There was a line, of course. Damn it. I tapped my foot as I waited, and absently surveyed the crowd.

And then I saw her. She already had a drink. She was sitting at a small table in the far corner, hands curled around the girth of the cup, and she was laughing at something her companion had said. The other woman turned her head slightly, tucking a strand of wavy black hair behind one ear, and my fingertips bit hard into the palms of my hands.

Olivia Wentworth Lloyd.

I had been running into Olivia at official functions for as long as I could remember. She had always been gorgeous and smart and charming—the clear queen bee in the gaggle of political celebrities’ children. I, on the other hand, had been shy until puberty and awkward throughout my tweens. My parents—both before and after their divorce—had often held up Olivia as an example of everything I should be, and was not. I had alternately envied and admired her, both from afar and from up close, when we had ended up overlapping for a year at the same private girls’ high school.

She had come out as a lesbian shortly after finishing college, a year before I’d told my family. When, in a fit of snarkiness, I pointed out to them that I was “just trying to be more like Olivia,” they were not amused. She was a hotshot district attorney now. Just a few months ago,
Curve
had dubbed her “the female JFK Jr.”

As I watched them, she punctuated something she was saying by lightly touching Alexa’s arm.

Her hands. On my lover.

Crimson streaks shot through my vision as I stalked mindlessly toward their table. My tongue curled automatically around one of my slightly elongated canines, subtly testing its sharpness. I was going to tear out her fucking throat, and I was going to enjoy it.

Alexa saw me coming, and a stunning smile bloomed across her lips. Even in the throes of my rage, her beauty pierced me. “Hey, love. This is a nice surprise.”

Olivia whirled in her seat. “Val, hi, long time no—”

“What the hell is going on here?” I demanded, barely restraining myself from throwing a punch first and asking questions later.

The bridge of Alexa’s nose wrinkled. “What do you mean?” She was confused, but I would have bet every penny of my unclaimed fortune that Olivia knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Val,” she said again, and now her tone was patronizing. “I was on campus for the law school’s career fair, and saw Alexa there. We’re just having coffee. Talking. Catching up.”

I stood there, literally shaking, my gaze darting between the two of them. Olivia looked annoyed. Alexa looked worried. And pale. Damn it, she looked sick. Maybe I should just turn around and walk away. Olivia had it all: wealth, looks, charisma. She and Alexa shared an interest in law. Who was I kidding—they were fucking perfect for each other. Not to mention the fact that Olivia wouldn’t need Alexa’s god damn blood to survive. I was making her suffer. It would be so much better if Olivia and I just switched places.