The Fiery Heart (34 page)

“You did good,” I told her. “Really good.” The widening of her eyes told me she'd been expecting a lecture. Maybe she deserved one, but I just didn't feel it. We treated her like a joke, but she was a fighter against evil, every bit as tough as Eddie and Neil. Glancing over at Trey, who was trying to keep his sword obscured under a coat, I realized he was one of us too. Even Jill was.

“I actually didn't believe it,” Jill said with a small smile. “When Angeline told me she was taking off, I went to your room to let you know. Zoe said you were out for the night, and that's when I realized something might actually be happening, so I went and caught up.”

Angeline gaped. “You were going to tell on me?”

Jill shrugged. “It all worked out.”

“This time,” I said. I wasn't up for any lectures, but one would be needed. Eddie was right. It was fine for the rest of us to do foolhardy things, but our sole purpose for being here in the first place was to protect Jill. If that Strigoi had broken loose . . .

At my car, we patched Neil's wound and plied him with water and orange juice. He gradually shook off the endorphins and grinned as the impact of what we'd accomplished hit him. I don't think he'd yet realized Jill was along, or he wouldn't have been so giddy. “It really worked. We did it.” He gave a soft laugh, and I tried to remember if I'd ever heard him do it before. “We're going to get yelled at when we report this.”

Eddie smiled back, and I saw genuine friendship between them. “I doubt it'll last for long when they get the results.”

“What's the plan now?” asked Trey. “We're out way after curfew.”

“Did you sign out?” asked Eddie. They shook their heads. “Neither did we. The plan was to stay out all night and then slink back tomorrow when things are busy so that they hopefully won't notice anything. None of our roommates is going to tell on us.”

“We could go to Clarence's or Adrian's,” said Angeline.

“I'm hungry,” muttered Neil.

“I know a great twenty-four-hour place,” said Trey. “We'll have a victory meal of fried food.”

We made plans and headed back to Palm Springs in our respective cars. As soon as I was on the road with Eddie and Jill, I told them, “I need to see Adrian. Drop me off and take my car. He'll give me a ride back.”

Eddie looked totally surprised by that. “Why do you need to see him?”

“I just do.” I didn't feel like attempting an excuse, and Eddie wasn't the type to badger me. The most I got was a curious look when we reached the apartment. His curiosity turned to panic when he realized I'd be leaving him alone with Jill.

“Good luck,” I said as I got out, not entirely sure who needed it the most. “Call me if anything goes wrong with Neil.” He'd ridden back with Trey and Angeline, and I didn't expect him to have any issues. He'd been on his own two feet when we parted, and dhampirs were fast healers.

Eddie pulled away, and I strode up to Adrian's building, my heart racing. I still hadn't shaken that earlier exhilaration from having been so close to having my life snatched away.

I let myself into the apartment, which was dark and quiet. It was still amazing to me how well he slept. I crept to his bedroom and found him lying there in just boxers, the covers tangled up and one arm thrown over his head. A streetlight outside shone faintly on his face, illuminating a rare moment of peace. He was so breathtakingly gorgeous that I could almost buy into his earlier comments about us living in a dream.

But this was real. It was real, and we were alive. We were alive, and I desperately needed to be reminded of that. Without further hesitation, I stripped off my clothes and slid into bed with him.

“
SYDNEY—”

The word came groggily to my lips as I felt her get into bed. My sleepy brain didn't have a chance to come up with anything more because my voice was lost as she leaned over and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around her and had the extremely pleasant surprise of finding her naked.

“What's going on?” I asked. “Not that I'm complaining. It's more of an intellectual curiosity.”

“I did something potentially dangerous,” she said nervously. “No, there's no ‘potentially' about it. It was dangerous and actually pretty stupid.”

She then proceeded to tell me an unbelievable story about how she and Eddie had thrust Neil into the path of a Strigoi. It was all I could do not to leap up and rage at her for risking herself like that. A terrible memory flashed through my mind of the time she and I had been trapped by two Strigoi, and one had bitten her. I couldn't even comprehend a repeat of that.

“Hold on.” I sat straight up as I did a mental enumeration of the cast she'd described. “
Everyone
was there?
Jill
was there?”

“That wasn't part of the plan,” she said quickly, sitting up beside me. “That was improvisation from her and Angeline. And Trey too, I suppose.”

Imagining Sydney dying was beyond terrible. And in some ways, imagining Jill dying was even worse because I'd already seen it happen.

“Jill could've been killed,” I said. “We're supposed to be keeping her safe!”

“I know, I know.” Sydney leaned against my shoulder. “I really didn't want her to be there. Eddie was pretty upset too, though I'm not sure how he's feeling now after she kissed him.”

“After she—what? Okay, we'll come back to that. God, Sydney. Why didn't you tell me any of this was going down?”

“Because you would've tried to stop me. Or tried to go yourself. Believe me . . . I'm sorry. I don't want to keep things from you. Ever. I want complete honesty between us. I just want . . . well, I wanted you to be safe even more.” She snuggled closer. “Don't tell me you don't understand that logic.”

“Of course I understand it! And yes, I would've tried to stop you. Damn it, Sydney!” I caught hold of her hands and was surprised to find I was shaking. Again, terrible, bloody images of her flashed through my mind. “This isn't the same as you running off to a witch's tea party! This is life and death. If you'd been killed—if you'd left me—”

“I know,” she breathed. “I know.”

And suddenly, her arms were around me, her mouth crushing mine in a demanding kiss that chased away all other thoughts as she pushed me down on the bed. There was an urgency and intensity burning between us that I'd never felt before, and that was saying something, in light of our recent active sex life. Maybe it was this brush with death that was driving us to furiously prove we were alive. All I really knew for sure was that I needed her, that I needed to lose myself in passion and get as close to her as possible . . . so that I'd never lose her again.

She continued kissing me with that ferocity, so much so that her lips lightly scraped my teeth. It was only a few drops, but as the sweet, metallic taste of her blood touched my tongue, a blinding ecstasy flooded my body. She pulled back with a small gasp, and looking up at her in the fickle light, I could see an answering rapture on her features as the barest flush of Moroi endorphins seized hold of her. Her lips parted; her eyes were wide with desire. I knew then, without a doubt, that I could've brought her throat back to my fangs and that she would've let me sink them into her. I could have her blood and her body tonight, if I wanted. And I
did
want it. The tease of her blood had me high and hungry, not just because it was blood—but because it was hers. Her essence. I yearned for that type of all-consuming union with her, to have no boundaries left between us, to see her lost in the pleasures of an endorphin wave. She would've let me do it all. She might even want me to—or at least, the Sydney who'd accidentally gotten a brief rush of endorphins might want me to. The thing was, I couldn't be sure that normal Sydney, no matter how much she loved me, wanted that. And until I was, it was a line we wouldn't cross, despite how frenzied the thought made me.

She hovered over me for several more tense seconds, as we each fought our own inner battles. Then, the moment of temptation passed, and we were suddenly back on each other as though nothing had happened, with a fierceness that shattered the memory of her blood. I was awash on a sea of desire, drowning in everything about her. Her passion answered mine as she murmured my name and clung to me so tightly that her nails dug into my skin, as though she feared she might lose me if she let go.

Afterward, she collapsed at my side, still clinging to me as her ragged breathing slowed to normal. I draped an arm over her, my own heart beating frantically from what had just passed. I was no longer angry. Mostly I still felt scared at how close she'd come to death. But she was alive. I told myself that over and over as I tightened my arms around her. She was alive and safe. She wasn't going anywhere.

And, to be honest, I had to admit I understood her reasoning for keeping me in the dark. I didn't like it, but I understood it. If our roles were reversed, I would've done the same thing to protect her. It was also hard to judge when I'd done my own share of withholding secrets upon starting the mood stabilizer.

The last critical piece in all this was that their risk had paid off. I couldn't deny the results. Olive's blood had worked. Somehow, through our fumbling and guesswork, we'd actually created a magical vaccine against Strigoi. If only there were a way to replicate it.

“You know,” I mused, mulling over the story in my mind, “Angeline and Neil really put it all on the line tonight. I'll never make fun of them again.”

“Never?” Sydney teased.

“Well, maybe not as much.”

“Eddie ‘put it all on the line' too,” she reminded me.

“Yeah, I know, but that's normal for him.” I then recalled her earlier words. “Wait. Did you say Jill kissed him?”

“Yup. It was actually very romantic, in a why-did-you-just-risk-yourself-you-fool kind of way.” She paused. “Actually, it was kind of like what just happened with you and me.”

“It better not've been,” I growled.

“Okay. Let's just say the motivations were sort of the same,” she corrected.

I sighed, making a mental note to have a talk with Jill tomorrow. “Seeing as everyone's alive, I can acknowledge what a big deal this fiasco was. It's going to blow their minds back at Court.”

“And tomorrow night we see Marcus and get to deliver the
other
big deal,” she said. “Maybe this is all crazy enough to work.”

“It always is,” I said. I trailed my fingers along on her shoulder, which was damp with perspiration. As I moved upward to her neck, my fingers touched a fine metal chain and I discovered she hadn't taken off everything. She still wore the wooden morning glory cross I'd made her, and somehow, that was sexier than if she'd been completely naked.

“Escape plan number forty-five,” I said. “Join nudist colony in Fiji.”

“Do they have those in Fiji?”

“Well, they've got to be somewhere warm, right?”

The panic of losing her still burned within me, almost enough to urge me toward sex again. But as we lay there, talking throughout the night, it was our minds and spirits that ended up connecting. There was peace and joy in each other's embrace, and the balance we brought to each other's lives allowed me to drift into a deeper sleep than I'd had in a long time.

I didn't know what questions she'd face the next day. The Ms. Terwilliger excuse went a long way, but surely Zoe would wonder what had kept Sydney out all night. Maybe Sydney could say they'd been up so late that she just stayed over on Jackie's couch. Whatever it was, I could see from Sydney's resolve the next morning that she would handle it. This was her battle, not mine.

She scoured the ingredients that Cassie had left behind and found enough to make us pancakes. I didn't actually have any syrup, but I did have raspberry jam. We slathered it on the pancakes, and it was the best thing I'd ever tasted. And as we sat there at the kitchen table with our pancakes and coffee, Sydney reading news on her phone while I leafed through the poetry book, I knew without a doubt that I could do this for the rest of my life.

“Escape plan number seventy-three,” I said. “Open a pancake restaurant in Sweden.”

“Why Sweden?”

“Because they don't have pancakes there.”

“They do, actually.”

“Well, then, it looks like we've got our market already in place.”

Dropping her off at Amberwood was bittersweet, mostly because it ended the spell we'd been in since last night. We both had things to do, though, and I was going to see her later anyway.

“You know I love you, right?” The urge to kiss her goodbye was so strong that I almost broke our rules.

She smiled, beautiful and golden in the late morning light. “Not as much as I love you.”

“Oh, man. This is my dream come true: having an ‘I love you more' debate. Here, I'll start. I love you more. Your turn.”

Sydney laughed and opened the door. “I've taken debate classes. You'd lose to my logic. See you tonight.”

I watched her walk away and didn't leave until she disappeared inside the building.

A text chimed for me when I walked in the door of my apartment. For a moment, I thought it was the Love Phone, and then I remembered I was an idiot and had lost it. When I'd called the coffee shop I'd been to, they told me they had a couple phones in their lost and found, and I intended to go there later today. Meanwhile, on my regular phone, the message was from Lissa:
Get on your laptop. We need to talk face-to-face.

I had a good idea what this was about, and when we connected, her radiant face confirmed it. “You heard?” she asked excitedly.

“About the dangerous and completely unauthorized field trip the kids went on last night? Yeah, I heard.”

Lissa ignored my snark. “Adrian! This is monumental. It's amazing. It's a dream come true. I know they shouldn't have done it, but it's over, they're safe, and now we have a real answer.”

“I know.”

She gave me a puzzled look. “You're awfully calm about this.”

“I found out last night. I've had a lot of time to process it.” That, and the thought of how Sydney had endangered herself took away some of the awesomeness of the escapade for me.

“You realize how big a role you had in this, right?” Those jade green eyes were piercing. “You figured out what none of us could. What happened is because of you.”

I shrugged. “Nah, one of you smart girls would've figured it out.”

“But you were the one who did. Now we've just got to find a more efficient way to do this that doesn't involve restoring a Strigoi each time.” Her enthusiasm faltered. “I wish . . .”

“I know,” I said. I'd guessed this was coming. “But I can't, Lissa. I'm staying on the pills.”

She nodded, resigned. “I figured. And it's wrong of me to ask. You look good, you know—and no jokes about how you always do. There's something different. A light. A happiness. I don't know.”

“Hey, it's not all sunshine around here. I was listening to
The Wall
the other day. Man, let me tell you my opinions on that.”

“Maybe some other time,” she said with a grin. “And for now, maybe you can just help advise the rest of us. Nina and I have brought back Strigoi. Sonya was restored. You and I have brought back the dead.”

“Impressive resume, Your Highness.”

“You know what I'm saying. Between all of us, we've done enough and seen enough to figure out how to make this work. We won't let spirit beat us.” Her earlier rapture returned. “I don't want glory and fame, Adrian, but I'd like to leave behind some kind of legacy. This could be it. I don't want to be one of those monarchs who ‘just ruled.' I want to do something for my people.”

“You're going to do a lot of things for us, cousin. You're going to get that age law fixed, right? And the family quorum?”

“Ah.” She grew serious. “That's the thing . . . I was going to tell you later. The council's on the verge of voting about the two-person family rule, and from what we can tell, we've got all the votes we need.”

“Holy shit,” I said, unable to help myself. “If that passes . . . Jill's safe. She can leave Palm Springs.”

Which meant Sydney would also have to leave.

“I know. And it will pass. I'm certain.”

The world as I knew it was suddenly altered. “What happens to her then?”

“She can come back to Court, go to school here, learn royal stuff. I know she'll want to see her mom too.” Lissa hesitated. “And I wouldn't mind getting to know her better. I know you think I've treated her badly.”