The Seventh Sister, A Paranormal Romance (12 page)

“Yes, I do know Lux—and,” she says the first part of that very quickly but holds on to the second word a little longer. “That was the right answer.”

“You mean feeling bad about the vampires being killed?”

“Yes. You’ve been created to preserve life not take it.”

I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know it doesn’t. But those guys chose to die because they chose to fight. However, I know that for someone like you that’s still not a good reason, but it was either you or them, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I quietly say.

“You’re going to be faced with that same decision in the future, and you can’t hesitate, never hesitate.” She leans into me. “Understand?”

I swallow the lump in my throat and just bob my head.

“But…” She interrupts my heavy thinking. “Tonight, we’re going to enjoy dinner together,” she says with an air of lightness. She’s smiling broadly at me. “Come on, try it,” she urges me.

Now I realize I’m frowning, but I force myself to smile.

“Keep it going,” she says, still smiling hard herself.

Finally we’re both laughing.

This is why I love her so much. She always had a way of showing up and making the brief time we spend together worth the wait.

“Can I ask you something else?” I say once we simmer down.

“Go for it.”

“Well…” I pause. Gosh I feel embarrassed. “Well…” I try again.

“Well…” She’s leading me on.

“Weks,” I come out with.

“What about Weks?”

“Can they like people, you know? Like me?”

“Are you asking if Derek could like you?”

I study my plate. If I could ever blush, which I can’t, my face would be blood red by now. “Yeah,” I mumble.

I’m preparing myself to hear,
no
.

“Maybe,” she says as she turns the sides of her mouth down. “Have you asked him?”

I look at her. “No,” I answer too fast. “I mean, no,” I say this time with much more control.

“You should.”

“I should?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

“It wouldn’t?”

She grins at me, detecting the double meaning in my question.

“You’ve always been a clever one,
but
this is not me providing you with the answer you want to hear. You have to be willing to hear the worst and the best and move forward with that answer.”

I understand her. She’s right and so I tell her. “I know,” she says with a wink.

I chuckle. “You know, Mom, you’re like my own personal Yoda.”

“Great! But what’s a Yoda?”

And the look on her face is telling me she’s seriously asking me this.

“Wow—you’ve never seen
The Empire Strikes Back
?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

Sometimes she makes me wonder—has she ever lived a normal life and experienced normal things? Even I saw
The Empire Strikes Back,
and that’s saying a whole lot.

“Well, that’s your homework for tonight, mom, go learn who Yoda is because you never know, not knowing this piece of American film history can make you lose out on a big business deal. The next tycoon you run into may be a Star Wars geek.”

She throws her head back and laughs. “But I thought you said
The Empire Strikes Back
?” she asks, still laughing.

My face drops. “Forget it,” I say shaking my head, “you’ll just lose out on that deal.”

And now we both laugh.

I hit the pillow earlier than usual tonight. That walk must’ve taken a lot out of me. Earlier it sounded like Deanna connected the exercise with me looking exhausted. I forgot to ask her why. Also, I finally feel like I can rest because she’s home.

I strip off my pajamas and hop into the shower. I let the steam the running water generates engulf me as I massage the shampoo through the mounds of hair on my head, which will dry in a matter of minutes after I step out of the shower. That’s another crazy fact about myself.

I can’t sleep in my pajamas when Deanna is home because she cuts the heater up about five degrees higher than I keep it. Normally, I’ll end up pulling my clothes off during the night. This way at least, I’ll get a head start on that so I climb into bed wearing my bra and panties only.

As I lay in bed with the lights out, I’m dreading tomorrow. Of course, having to go to school hasn’t changed and since I skipped out on almost all of my classes today, for sure Mrs. Lowenstein will be stalking me.

“Great,” I mutter and turn on my side to dream the night away. Not even dread can keep me awake tonight.

At some time during in the night, I kicked the covers off of me and flip over to lie on my other side. Now, out of nowhere I feel a body push up against my backside.

I gasp but before I can jump out of bed, Vayle whispers, “It’s just me,” in my ear.

I ease up off the bed and then tip toe across the floor to gently shut the door. I turn to face him.

“You’re back,” I whisper.

His mouth is wide open and he looks mesmerized by something. That’s when I look down at myself.

“Oh my gosh,” I say a little too loud and then race across the floor on the tip of my toes trying to cover my exposed body with my arms.

“No, by all means, be free,” he whispers, grinning with shining eyes.

I’m looking around for my pajamas, but then I remember stuffing my last clean pair in the hamper, which is in the laundry room. So I dive back on top of the bed and pull the covers around me.

He’s fighting against laughing hard and soon so am I. I did look ridiculous trying to hide myself. No one has ever seen me this close to being in the bare, not even Deanna.

“Listen,” he whispers and then looks at my door. I’m sure he knows I’m not alone. “You look hot, but I have bigger problems than wanting to bang you, at least right now.”

“Wow, now that you put it like that.”

He’s lying beside me, looking up at the ceiling at first and then he flips on his side. “But can we, you know?”

I sigh hard, and pull the blanket off of me. It’s a really fast movement, but he’s behind me, pulling me into him. Even with the heater blowing out hot air, I feel warm and comfortable in his grasp. It’s like our skin on skin not only soothes the cold but the heat too.

My eyes are getting heavy again but I manage to ask, “So how did it go with your girlfriend?”

After a long thoughtful pause he says, “She’s scared of me.”

“But does she believe you?”

He takes another long pause.

“Yes.”

“Will you ever see her again?”

“Not like this.”

“Not like what?”

I flip around to face him.

“No,” he rephrases. “I’ll never see her again because this will never change, I guess. Have you ever heard of a cure for being a vampire?”

I swallow hard, saddened by his predicament. “I haven’t,” I’m barely able to say.

I think his eyes are tearing up. This moment of his seems private so I flip back around to face the opposite direction.

After a moment, he pulls me in closer to him, but this time I feel different about it because his hands are sliding up and down my arm and he’s throbbing in other places.

“You’re soft,” he whispers.

I don’t know what’s happening inside of me.

“That’s the first time I ever heard that,” I say, trying to lighten the moment. I want to forget how his hard body, pressing against my backside tickles my insides.

“I bet you’ve never been kissed,” he says and then puts his lips on my bare shoulder and kisses it.

I swallow hard.
Tell him to stop
, I shout within myself.

“Why do you think that?” I ask instead.

He chuckles quietly. “It’s true isn’t it?”

I don’t respond because it is true.

I’ve seen couples with their mouths pressed together sometimes at school. I heard it happens a lot on television and in movies, but I barely turn on the TV and never head to my local theater and if I watch a movie, it’s on DVD. I’ve heard kissing being called
suck face
once, and that’s exactly what it looks like to me, defined as the unsanitary act of two people actually sucking the other’s face off.

My stance against kissing has started to change recently. Surely if Derek would’ve put his lips on mine after we had lunch together in the tight classroom, I wouldn’t have resisted. I sort of wish he did it now. When Vayle asks, “Can I be your first kiss?” my mind ventures back to that very moment.

I turn to face my bed partner again and am taken aback by the lust in his eyes.

“This is all of a sudden, don’t you think?” I whisper.

“Not for me. I can’t stop thinking about how it will be to be with you.”

“But your girlfriend?”

“I know,” he says and there’s that pain again. “I can’t control what this is I feel for you. I want you all the time. I think I’m even jealous of that runt who walked you to school yesterday.”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about him.”

“Do you like him?” he quickly asks.

I shrug in the dark.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t know,” I say and cast my eyes down.

“You do,” he concludes.

“I said I didn’t know.”

“I can feel that you do.”

I frown suspiciously at him.

“You don’t get how connected we are to each other yet, do you?” he continues to say. “If that guy wasn’t around, you probably would.”

“Maybe,” I say, agreeing. It’s true I’m consumed by this desire for Derek. I absolutely, unequivocally love to share physical space with him. As a matter of fact, if it were Derek I was lying next to right now, I’m sure I would’ve said yes to that kiss right away.

Not that I don’t want to kiss Vayle too, because I do. But my heart feels like it’ll betray Derek by doing so.

“What is he anyway? I know he’s something.”

“He’s a Wek.”

“A wreck?”

I chuckle a little bit as I know he mispronounced it on purpose.

“No, a Wek, no
r
.”

“And he likes you too.”

“I don’t know,” I sadly admit. “He seems to like everyone. I think it’s his nature.”

“Maybe that’s what you’re attracted to, his nature and not him.”

“How are the two separate?”

“Kiss me and you’ll see.”

I hesitate. It’s obvious he’s putting the moves on me. And it’s obvious I’m falling for it. It would be nice to have some sort of clarity on how I feel about Derek.

I love how Derek likes everyone and how everyone likes him. He genuinely cares to listen to stuff I’d have little or no patience to lend an ear to. He’s gorgeous. He’s chivalrous. And he can really kick butt at the same time.

“You’re like the apple, you know?” I say with a coy grin.

“Forbidden fruit.” He’s giving me that wicked smile of his as he presses a finger against his lips “Here, Zillael, put your mouth here and I’ll do all the rest.”

I don’t hesitate because the mission is to get it over with, to finally be kissed and then prove to myself that what I feel for Derek isn’t romantic but pragmatic.

Our lips touch and the next thing I know he’s on top of me, and we’re kissing, actually sucking face. He’s being very gentle with me to my surprise because his desire is so strong; I can feel it consuming me. Every touch of the tongue and compression of the lips is sensual.

“You taste sweet,” he breathes between kisses. “It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted anything sweet.”

We’re looking into each other’s eyes as we’re doing this. I haven’t completely let go although my body wants to. His hands skillfully caress parts of my body, my back, neck, even nipples where his mouth slides down to.

A breath escapes me because of the way it feels when he does that. Then his fingers are beneath my panties and touching me even more. I find myself grabbing on tight to him as I cry out after a rush of pure pleasure builds up and then explodes down there.

“Shush,” he says gently.

I look at the door. I cried out loud enough for Deanna to hear me if she were still up.

“Are you still a virgin, Zillael?” he whispers while kissing my mouth. He still hasn’t moved his hand either.

“Yes,” I breathe.

I can imagine how timid I look because these physical feelings have immobilized me. This pure sexual sensation is very new to me. The image of Derek that remained stuck in my head before the vampire started this exploration of my body is foggy now. I’m still very confused about how far I want Vayle to go.

He kisses me even more fervently, but I do notice he’s moved his hand out of my panties.

“Damn, you’re a virgin,” he mutters after one last kiss to my shoulder. “Oh damn,” this time he says entirely different.

He pulls back.

“What?” Now I’m alarmed.

“What’s this?” He’s rubbing a finger in circles around a single area on my upper back. Without looking I know what he’s referring to.

“Birthmark, why?”

He sits straight up and reaches an arm over his shoulder and touches his back. “Look.”

I twist around him to see a birthmark that looks exactly like my own and in the same spot as mine. It’s formed in a perfect half-moon shape.

“Strange,” I whisper, still inspecting it. I think this new discovery has calmed our lusts, or at least masked them.

He lies down on his back again, staring up at the ceiling. But as soon as I lie back down on my side, he turns to cradle me in his arms.

“Are we done?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he answers.

After thinking about it, recalling how we were just all over each other, I start laughing. What’s funny is he starts too.

Finally we simmer down.

“I still want you so damn bad,” he says, breaking the silence. “And your first time will be with me, but you’ll be over the Wek by then.”

I crack a smirk. “You sound pretty sure of yourself,” I say.

He pulls me in closer to him. “I can’t wait,” he whispers in my ear and then gently lifts my hair to kiss the back my neck.

I turn my head to face him and kiss him on the lips again. I love how he tastes my lips with his warm tongue but I have to turn away and face forward. He’s right. The haze has lifted away from the picture of Derek in my head and now I see him more clearly.