Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (62 page)

–  the morning anchor had said that much  –  but somehow, seeing  her staring at  me as I ate my breakfast made the reality much  harder to accept. Or even comprehend.

“I don’t like sausage.” Luci poked at one untouched link

with her fork.

“You liked them yesterday,” I said, my glass halfway to my  mouth. And suddenly I was glad her chair faced away from the  television.

“Today they’re gross,” Luci rolled her meat into a thin

puddle of blood. “I don’t like them cold.”

I rolled my eyes and speared a link of my own. “They were warm when I got them out of the microwave.” My gaze wandered  over her head to the screen, where the reporter was giving a brief bio of the dead girl.

Phoebe Hayes was a fourth-grader at an elementary school across town. Luci couldn’t possibly have known her, which meant I wouldn’t have to explain the ritualistic murder of small children to her in out mother’s absence. Thank goodness.

515

“You want some toast?” Oscar held his last slice out to her.

“Yeah. But no pig’s blood. I like lamb. Smooth, not chunky.”

Oscar just stared at her for a moment. Then he shoved the

last  of his breakfast into his mouth and got up to fill her special  order. Mom would have made her eat the sausage. But Mom  wasn’t there, which was probably part of the problem.

I pulled into the student lot, braked to avoid some idiot on rolling shoes and  parked in my assigned spot. The lot was illuminated by at least a dozen huge, automatic lights, beneath which students loitered in groups, bundled against the plummeting temperature.

“Look at them,” Oscar spat, staring out the windshield.

“Like bugs drawn to light.”

I followed his gaze to the largest gathering, a loose knot of students clustered around Amelia Garrison and her new car. No one was obviously fawning, but everyone seemed to find a reason to touch the car or talk to Amelia.

“It’s disgusting,” Oscar continued, shoving a textbook into  the backpack propped between his feet. “And the worst part is  that it isn’t really their fault. We’re biologically programmed to  be attracted to a certain physical ideal, to a combination of  features that speaks to us on a cellular level, telling us a  potential mate is healthy, and will probably produce healthy  children.”

I blinked at my socially challenged brother. What kind of twelve-year-old talked about biological programming and healthy offspring? “You know,
 
this
 
is why people make fun of you. It’s not because you’re short; it’s because you’re weird.”

516

He scowled. “I’m serious. I mean,
 
look
 
at her.”

I looked.

Like the rest of us, Amelia had the usual pale hair, skin and eyes  –  all the result of millions of years of darkness gradually eliminating our need for pigmentation. But Amelia Garrison was the embodiment of that evolutionary ideal. There was less than a shade’s difference between her irises and the whites of her eyes, and her hair was practically clear.  To emphasize that enviable trait, she brushed some kind of glittery gel through her mane every morning, so that she virtually glowed beneath any light that shone on her. Rumour had it she’d even had her fangs surgically augmented. I wasn’t prepared to swear by that bit of gossip, but I knew for a fact that her cuspids hadn’t been that long  –  or that
 
white
 
– the year before.

“You’re just jealous,” I shoved my car door open, and

bitterly cold air curled around my ankles.

“I’m not jealous. I feel sorry for them. They don’t even  realize they’re at the mercy of urges and instincts they can’t  control. I’d rather take a morning stroll than run that particular  rat race.”

No wonder Oscar wanted to dye his hair when everyone else was bleaching. Not to blend in, but  to stand out. To separate himself from the world he both envied and despised.

“Just do me a favour and don’t say stuff like that where  anyone can hear you.” I did
 
not
 
want to have to rescue him from  another pounding.

“You think I’m stupid?” He lifted one pale brow, then  shoved his own door open, tossing his bag over one shoulder.  “Don’t wait for me after school. I’ve got science club.”

517

“You got a ride home?” I slammed my door and eyed him

over the roof of the car.

“I can find one.”

I frowned for a moment, then nodded, knowing damn well that his ride would come from the faculty adviser, not from any fellow student. “OK.”

He took off towards the building and I grabbed my backpack from the rear floorboard, glancing at the seat to make sure Luci hadn’t forgotten her lunch when I dropped her off.

The back seat was empty except for my phone, which I grabbed and flipped open. The display said I’d missed a call from Titus ten minutes earlier. But my phone never rang. I started to call him back, then spotted him walking across the lot towards me.

I kicked the back door shut and shoved my keys into my pocket, dropping my bag higher on one shoulder as I leaned against the car.

“Evening beautiful.” Titus dropped his bag next to mine and

bent down for a kiss.

I  pressed myself against him, loving the contrast between the delicious warmth of his body and the cold metal at my back.  His lips met mine and I opened for him, everything else forgotten with his taste in my mouth, his tongue teasing mine.

The points of his fangs brushed my lip, not hard enough to break the skin, but firm enough to threaten. A thrill shot up my spine, tingling all the way into my fingertips at the hint of danger. At the possibility those barbs  –  those evolutionary remnants  –  represented.

518

Kissing Titus gave me biological urges Oscar wouldn’t understand for several more years. They made me want to do things (to let Titus do things) that I’d told Luci were unacceptable.

And in polite society, they were.

But we weren’t in polite society. We were in the grip of a desire untempered by age, unspoiled by experience. And from the perspective of youth and passion, with the tips of his fangs on my skin, the cravings of our ancestors didn’t seem quite so savage.

They seemed . . .
 
yummy
. The most pre-eminent delicacy and the ultimate penetration all rolled into one. But we’d resisted the urges, content with teasing each other so far, because the taboo was inescapable, with good reason: psychos like the Midday Mangler had rendered the consumption of fresh blood forever synonymous with brutality, debauchery and death.

Those bastards really ruined it for the rest of us.

Finally, Titus pulled away, and I let him reluctantly. “You know you’re the only reason I come to school,” he said, his voice gruff with  need, as his hand wandered up from my waist.

I smiled and pushed his hand down. “After school.” I grabbed my bag and tugged him towards the building. “Hey, did you call me?” I asked, as he fell in next to me.

“Yeah, before bed this morning. And thanks for returning  the call, by the way. It could have been an emergency.” He  smiled to let me know he was joking and I shoved him with the  hand still holding the phone.

“Whatever. I just got the missed call. What’d you need?”

519

“A summary of chapter fifteen in  the history book.” A stray

chunk of white hair fell into Titus’ face as he blinked at me

innocently.

I rolled my eyes at him, well aware that I was a big sucker.

“Worldwide economic ramifications of Global Conflict the

Second. It’s mostly just the same stuff she talked about yesterday in class.”

“Yeah, and if I hadn’t slept through that, I might have some

idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s what you get for playing video games all day

instead of sleeping.”

“Sleep is overrated.” He pulled open the front door and held  it for me as I passed under his arm, then glanced back at him,  smiling.

“Well passing grades aren’t.”

The rest of the night was uneventful. Boring, even. So when

the last bell rang, I was ready for a little excitement.

Titus didn’t have a car, so I drove to his house (his parents wouldn’t be home until shortly before dawn). My shirt hit the floor the minute the front door closed behind us. My pants lasted until we got to the hall, and my bra fell onto the dresser as I passed it on  the way to Titus’ bed. I dropped my phone on the nightstand and turned to look at him.

He was still dressed, because I liked to help him out of his clothes. It was like unwrapping a present. A very yummy present. And I was never very careful with the wrapping.

520

His lips found mine as we fell onto the bed, my head sinking into a soft feather pillow that smelled like his shampoo.  He held himself up with one hand, while the other roamed my body with frustrating self-control.

I wasn’t so patient.

My eager fingers urged him on. My body arched into his touch. My mouth sucked at his, my tongue flicking lightly over the points of his fangs, teasing us both. All it would take was a little bit of pressure. Just a scratch. Somehow I knew that a single drop of my blood in his mouth would be all the prelude either of us needed.

Titus pulled away from my mouth, staring down at me with heat smouldering behind his nearly white eyes. “Do you want to?”

He’s asked before  –  he was a guy, after all  –  but never like this. Of  course, I’d never spent quite so much time molesting his cuspids before, either.

I thought about it. I mean, I
 
really
 
thought  about it. Part of me did want to. Rumour had it that several girls in the senior class had tried it. Just a drop was supposedly enough to make run-of-the-mill sex extraordinary. If it could do
 
that
 
for pedestrian lovers, what could it do for us? Because
 
ordinary
 
had never been our problem.

But in the end, I couldn’t do it. The idea of bloodletting was
incredibly
 
hot. Erotic. But that was in part because it was taboo.  And it was taboo for a reason.

I shook my head, and Titus smiled. He was OK with waiting, because he viewed every no as temporary, and I was never inclined to argue with that assumption. It had held so far.

521

He kissed me again, exploring my mouth with renewed eagerness, as if to assure me he was OK with my decision. My fingers trailed down his back as he positioned himself over me.  His muscles flexed beneath my  hands. His knees parted my thighs and my legs wrapped around him.

My eyes closed as he entered me. That part was new enough to still be special. And as we moved against each other, I knew I wanted it to always be like that. Always special. And always  Titus.

He made a sound of contentment against my cheek as he

withdrew, only to plunge forwards again, grinding against me

with delicious earnestness, and . . .

My phone chirped, signalling a new voice message.

“Ignore it,” he begged, watching me as he withdrew again.

“I can’t.” I reached for the phone, and he groaned,  collapsing against me to one side. “Sorry. Oscar’s ride probably  fell through. “I selected the new message and held the phone to  my ear, more than a little excited by the knowledge that Titus  was still inside me while I performed so routine a task as  checking my voicemail.

There was a new message from my mother. Only it sounded

like she’d actually left it at least a couple of hours earlier.

“Keziah, I have an office meeting late this morning, so I  need you to pick up Luci from school. Love you, sweetheart,  and thanks!”

“Dammit!” I shoved Titus off me harder than I’d meant to,

and winced at his hurt expression. “Sorry, but I have to go.”

522

The elementary school got out ten minutes earlier than the high school, and Titus and I had been at his house for  at least fifteen minutes after the last bell, which meant Luci had been on her own for almost half an hour. She probably thought we’d all forgotten her.

“What’s wrong?” Titus asked, pulling me close.

“I gotta go get my sister, and I’m already late.”

The  disappointment on his face was blatant, and more than a little flattering. I smiled to soften the blow. “I’m sorry.” I pulled my boots on in front of the door and grabbed my keys from the floor where I’d dropped them. “But hey, my mom won’t be home before  dinner. Meet me at my house in twenty minutes, and I’ll get Oscar to watch Luci.”

He nodded reluctantly, and I kissed him on the way out of the door. I jogged down the driveway to my car, deftly avoiding several solid sheets of black ice. My clunker protested with a mechanical groan when I slammed the gearshift into reverse and stomped on the gas.

The crosswalk in front of the gym barely registered as I drove through it, and a girl in tight jeans and a puffy, quilted jacket leaped back onto the sidewalk  just in time to avoid my front bumper. She hissed and bared her fangs at me as I roared past. I silently cursed my second-hand cell phone.