Origins (7 page)

“Think you can still lick your little brother?” I teased, enjoying my momentary victory.

“No one came for me!” Katherine pouted, wandering out of the maze. Her frown quickly turned into a smile as she saw us on the ground, breathing heavily. “Good thing I’m here to save you both.” She knelt and pressed her lips first to Damon’s cheek, then to mine. I released Damon’s wrists and stood up, wiping the dirt off my breeches.

“See?” she asked, as she offered an arm to Damon. “All you need is a kiss to make everything better—although you boys shouldn’t be such brutes with each other.”

“We were fighting for you,” Damon said lazily, not bothering to stand up. Just then, the sound of horses’ hooves interrupted us. Alfred dismounted his horse and bowed to the three of us. It must have been a sight: Damon lying on the ground, resting his head on his hand as if he were simply reclining, me frantically brushing grass stains off my trousers, and Katherine standing between us, looking amused.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Alfred said. “But Master Giuseppe needs to speak to Master Damon. It’s urgent.”

“Of course it is. Everything is always urgent for Father. What do you bet he has another ridiculous theory he needs to discuss?” Damon said.

Katherine lifted her parasol from the ground. “I should
get going, too. I’m all disheveled, and I’m due to visit with Pearl at the apothecary.”

“Come,” Alfred said, gesturing for Damon to jump onto the back of his horse. As Alfred and Damon rode away, Katherine and I slowly walked back to the carriage house. I wanted to bring up the Founders Ball again but found myself afraid to do so.

“You don’t need to keep pace with me. Perhaps you should keep your brother company,” Katherine suggested. “It seems that your father is a man who’s best taken on by two,” she observed. Her hand brushed my own and she grabbed my wrist. Then she stepped on her tiptoes and allowed her lips to graze my cheek. “Come see me tonight, sweet Stefan. My chambers will be open.” And with that, she broke off into a spirited run.

She was like a colt, galloping free, and I felt my heart gallop along with her. There was no question: She felt the same way I did. And knowing that made me feel more alive than I ever had in my life.

A
s soon as twilight fell, I sneaked down the stairs, opened the back door, and tiptoed out onto the grass, already wet with dew. I was extra cautious, since there were torches surrounding the estate and I knew Father would be displeased that I was venturing out after dark. But the carriage house was only a stone’s throw from the house itself—about twenty paces from the porch.

I stole across the yard, staying in the shadows, feeling my heart pound against my rib cage. I wasn’t concerned about animal attacks or creatures of the night. I was more concerned that I’d be found by Alfred or, worse, Father. But the notion of not being able to see Katherine that night made me feel hysterical.

Once again, a heavy fog blanketed the ground and rose to the sky, an odd reversal of nature that most likely was due to the changing of the seasons. I shivered and made sure to look away from the willow tree as I ran to the bridle path and up the porch steps of the carriage house.

I paused at the whitewashed door. The curtains on the windowpanes were pulled shut, and I couldn’t see any candlelight seeping under the windows. For a second, I feared I had come too late. What if Katherine and Emily had retired to bed? Still, I rapped my knuckles sharply against the wooden door frame.

The door creaked open and a hand grabbed my wrist.

“Come in!” I heard a rough whisper as I was swept into the house. Behind me, I heard the click of the lock and realized I was standing face-to-face with Emily.

“Sir,” Emily said, smiling as she curtseyed. She was dressed in a simple navy gown, and her hair fell in dark waves around her shoulders.

“Good evening,” I said, bowing gently. I glanced around the little house, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dim light. A red lantern glowed on the rough-hewn table in the living room, casting shadows against the wooden beams of the ceiling. The carriage house had been in a state of disrepair for years, ever since Mother had died and her relatives had stopped visiting. But now that it was inhabited, there was a warmth to the rooms that was absent in the main house.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Emily asked, her dark eyes unblinking.

“Um … I’m here to see Katherine,” I stammered, suddenly embarrassed. What would Emily think of her mistress? Of course, maids are meant to be discreet, but I knew how servants talked, and I certainly didn’t want Katherine’s virtue to be compromised if Emily was the type to engage in idle servant gossip.

“Katherine has been expecting you,” Emily said, a glint of mischief in her dark eyes.

She took the lantern from the table and led me up the wooden stairs, stopping at the white door at the end of the hallway. I squinted. When Damon and I were little, we’d always been vaguely afraid of the upstairs of the carriage house. Maybe it was because the servants had said it was haunted, maybe because every floorboard had creaked, but something about the space had stopped us from staying very long. Now that Katherine was here, though, there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

Emily turned toward me, her knuckles on the door. She rapped three times. Then she swung the door open.

I walked cautiously into the room, the floorboards creaking as Emily disappeared down the hallway. The room itself was furnished simply: a cast-iron bed covered by a simple green quilt, an armoire in one corner, a washbasin in another, and a gilt-plated, freestanding mirror in a third corner.

Katherine sat on her bed, facing the window, her back to me. Her legs were tucked under her short white nightgown and her long curls were loose over her shoulders.

I stood there, watching Katherine, then finally coughed.

She turned around, an expression of amusement in her dark, cat-like eyes.

“I’m here,” I said, shifting from one booted foot to the other.

“So I see.” Katherine grinned. “I watched you walk here. Were you frightened to be out after dark?”

“No!” I said defensively, embarrassed she’d seen me dart from tree to tree like an overcautious squirrel.

Katherine arched a dark eyebrow and held her arms out toward me. “You need to stop worrying. Come here. I’ll help you take your mind off things,” she said, raising her eyebrow. I walked toward her as if in a dream, knelt on the bed, and hugged her tightly. As soon as I felt her body in my hands, I relaxed. Just feeling her was a reminder that she was real, that tonight was real, that nothing else mattered—not Father, not Rosalyn, not the spirits the townspeople were convinced roamed outside in the dark.

All that mattered was that my arms were around my love. Her hand worked its way down my shoulders, and I imagined us walking into the Founders Ball together. As her hand stopped at my shoulder blade and I felt her fingernails dig through the thin cotton of my shirt, I had a split-second image of us, ten years from now, with plenty of children who’d fill the estate with sounds of laughter. I wanted this life to be mine, now and forever. I moaned with desire and leaned in, allowing my lips to brush hers, first slowly, as we’d do in front of everyone when we announced our love at our wedding, and then harder and more urgently, allowing my lips to travel from her mouth to her neck, inching toward her snow-white bosom.

She grabbed my chin and pulled my face to hers and kissed me hard. I reciprocated. It was as if I were a starving man who’d finally found sustenance in her mouth. We kissed, and I closed my eyes and forgot about the future.

All of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain on my neck, as if I were being stabbed. I called out, but Katherine was still kissing me. But no, not kissing,
biting,
sucking the blood from beneath my skin. My eyes flew open, and I saw Katherine’s eyes, wild and bloodshot, her face ghostly white in the moonlight. I wrenched my head back, but the pain was unrelenting, and I couldn’t scream, couldn’t fight, could only see the full moon out the window, and could only feel the blood leaving my body, and desire and heat and anger and terror all welling up inside me. If this was what death felt like, then I wanted it. I wanted it, and that was when I flung my arms around Katherine, giving myself to her. Then everything faded to black.

I
t was the lone hoot of an owl—a long, plaintive sound—that caused my eyes to snap open. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I felt a pulsing pain on the side of my neck that seemed to keep time with the owl’s cries. And suddenly I remembered everything—Katherine, her lips drawn back, her teeth sparkling. My heart pounding as though I were dying and being born all at the same time. The awful pain, the red eyes, the dark black of a dead sleep. I glanced around wildly.

Katherine, clad only in a necklace and a simple muslin slip, sat just steps away from me at the basin, washing her upper arms with a hand towel. “Hello, sleepy Stefan,” she said coquettishly.

I swung my legs out of bed and tried to step out, only to find myself tangled in the sheets. “Your face,” I babbled, knowing I sounded insane and possessed, like a town drunk stumbling out of the tavern.

Katherine continued to run the cotton cloth along her arms. The face I’d seen last night was not human. It had been a face filled with thirst and desire and emotions I couldn’t even think to name. But in this light Katherine looked lovelier than ever, blinking her eyes sleepily like a kitten after a long nap.

“Katherine?” I asked, forcing myself to look into her eyes. “What are you?”

Katherine slowly picked up the hairbrush on her nightstand, as if she had all the time in the world. She turned to me and began to run it through her luxurious locks.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” she asked.

So she
was
a vampire. My blood turned to ice.

I took the sheet and wrapped it against my body, then grabbed my breeches from the side of the bed and pulled them on. I quickly shoved my feet into my boots and yanked on my shirt, not caring about my undershirt, still on the floor. Fast as lightning, Katherine was at my side, her hand gripping my shoulder.

She was surprisingly strong, and I had to jerk sharply to wrench myself away from her grasp. Once free, Katherine stepped back.

“Shhh. Shhh,” she murmured, as if she were a mother soothing a child.

“No!” I yelled, holding my hand up. I would
not
have her try to charm me. “You’re a vampire. You killed Rosalyn. You’re killing the town. You are evil, and you need to be stopped.”

But then I caught sight of her eyes, her large, luminous, seemingly depthless eyes, and I stopped short.

“You’re not afraid,” Katherine repeated.

The words echoed in my mind, bouncing around and finally taking residence there. I did not know how or why it was so, but in my heart of hearts, I suddenly wasn’t afraid. But still …

“You are a vampire, though. How can I abide that?”

“Stefan. Sweet, scared Stefan. It will all work out. You’ll see.” She cupped her chin in my hands, then raised up on her tiptoes for a kiss. In the near sunlight, Katherine’s teeth looked pearly white and tiny, and nothing like the miniature daggers I’d seen the night before. “It’s me. I’m still Katherine,” she said, smiling.

I forced myself to pull away. I wanted to believe that everything was the same, but …

“You’re thinking of Rosalyn, aren’t you?” Katherine asked. She noticed my startled expression and shook her head. “It’s natural that you’d think I could do that, based on what I am, but I promise you, I did not kill her. And I never would have.”

“But … but …, ” I began.

Katherine brought her finger to my lips. “Shhh. I was with you that night. Remember? I care about you, and I care about those you care about. And I don’t know how Rosalyn died, but whoever did that”—a flash of anger flickered in her eyes, which, I realized for the first time, were flecked with gold—“they give us a bad name. They are the ones who scare me. You may be scared to walk during the night, but I am afraid to walk during the day, lest I be mistaken for one of those monsters. I may be a vampire, but I do have a heart. Please believe me, sweet Stefan.”

I took a step back and cradled my head in my hands. My mind whirled. The sun was just beginning to rise, and it was impossible to tell whether the mist hid a brilliant sun or a day of clouds. It was the same with Katherine. Her beautiful exterior cloaked her true spirit, making it impossible to ascertain whether she was good or evil. I sunk heavily to the bed, not wanting to leave and not wanting to stay.

“You need to trust me,” Katherine said, sitting down beside me and placing her hand on my chest so she could feel my heart beat. “I am Katherine Pierce. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m the girl you watched for hours on end after I arrived two weeks ago. What I confessed to you is
nothing.
It doesn’t change how you feel, how I feel, what we can be,” she said, moving her hand from my chest to my chin. “Right?” she asked, her voice filled with urgency.

I glanced at Katherine’s wide brown eyes and knew she was right. She had to be.

My heart still desired her so much, and I wanted to do anything to protect her. Because she wasn’t a
vampire
; she was Katherine. I grabbed both of her hands, cupping them in my own. They looked so small and vulnerable. I brought her cold, delicate fingers to my mouth and kissed them, one by one. Katherine looked so scared and unsure.

“You didn’t kill Rosalyn?” I said slowly. Even as the sentence left my lips, I knew it to be true, because my heart would break if it weren’t.

Katherine shook her head and gazed at the window. “I would never kill anyone unless I had to. Unless I needed to protect myself or someone I loved. And
anyone
would kill in that situation, wouldn’t they?” she asked indignantly, jutting out her chin and looking so proud and vulnerable that it was all I could do not to take her in my arms right then. “Promise you’ll keep my secret, Stefan? Promise me?” she asked, her dark eyes searching mine.

“Of course I will,” I said, making the promise as much to myself as to her. I loved Katherine. And yes, she was a vampire. And yet … the way the word came out of her mouth was so different from the way it sounded when Father said it. There was no dread. If anything, it sounded romantic and mysterious. Maybe Father was wrong. Maybe Katherine was simply misunderstood.

“You have my secret, Stefan. And you know what that means?” Katherine said, throwing her arms around my shoulders and nuzzling her cheek against mine. “
Vous avez mon coeur
. You have my heart.”

“And you have mine,” I murmured back, meaning every word.