He sighed deeply and brushed some snow off my hair. "Okay, well, there's a thing between you and me, too. And someday, if we make it through this damn Change, we'll be alike. I won't turn into a wrinkled old man and die decades before you will. Being with me won't be something other vampyres will whisper about, and humans will hate you for. It'll be normal. It'll be right." Then his hand was behind my neck and he was pulling me to him. He kissed me hard. He tasted cold and sweet. My arms went up around his shoulders and I kissed him back. At first I just wanted to make the hurt I was causing him go away. Then our kiss deepened, and we pressed our bodies together. I wasn't overwhelmed with blinding bloodlust for him, like what happened when I was with Heath, but I liked the way kissing Erik made me feel, all kinda warm and light-headed. Hell, the bottom line was that I liked him. A lot. Plus, he had a point. He and I would be right together. Heath and I would not.
The kiss ended with both of us breathing hard. I cupped Erik's cheek in my hand. "I really am sorry."
Erik turned his head and kissed my palm. "We'll figure this out."
"I hope so," I whispered, more to myself than him. Then I stepped away from him and put my hand on the old iron doorknob. "Thanks for walking me here. I don't know when I'll be back. You shouldn't wait for me." I started to open the door.
"Z, if you really did Imprint with Heath you might be able to find him," Erik said. I paused and turned back to Erik. He looked strained and unhappy, but he didn't hesitate to explain. "While you're brushing the mare, think about Heath. Call to him. If he's able to, he'll come to you. If he's not and your Imprint is strong enough, you may be able to get an idea of where he is."
"Thank you, Erik."
He smiled, but he didn't look happy. "Later, Z." He walked away and the snow swallowed him.
The warm hay smell mixed with clean, dry horse contrasted dramatically with the cold, snowy outside. The stables were dimly lit by only a couple of soft gaslights. The horses were making sleepy, chewing noises. Some of them were blowing through their noses, which sounded a little like snoring. I looked around for Lenobia while I brushed the snow from my shirt and hair and started toward the tack room, but it was pretty obvious that except for the horses I was alone.
Good. I needed to think, and not explain what I was doing here in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of the night.
Okay, I'd told Erik the truth about Heath and he hadn't broken up with me. Of course, depending on what happened with Heath, he might still dump me. How did those ho-ish girls go out with a dozen or so guys at the same time? Two was exhausting. Memory of Loren's sexy smile and incredible voice flashed through my guilt-filled mind. I chewed my lip as I grabbed a curry brush and a mane comb. Actually, I'd been kinda sorta seeing three guys, which was utterly insane. I decided then and there that I had enough problems without adding the weird flirting that may or may not be going on between Loren and me into the mix. Just thinking about Erik finding out that I'd shown all that skin to Loren ... I shuddered. It made me want to dump myself. From now on I'd avoid Loren, and if I couldn't avoid him I'd treat him like any other teacher, which meant no flirting. Now if I could just figure out what to do with Erik and Heath.
I opened Persephone's stall and told her what a pretty, sweet girl she was as she gave me a sleepily surprised snort and lipped my face after I kissed her soft nose. She sighed and rested on three feet when I started brushing her.
Okay, no way I could figure out anything about dating Erik and Heath until Heath was safe. (I refused to consider that he might never be safe—might never be found alive.) I began to quiet the babble and clutter and confusion that was my mind. Truthfully, I hadn't needed Erik to tell me that I might be able to find Heath. That possibility was one of the many things that had been making me so restless all night. The cowardly truth was that I was afraid—afraid of what I might find and what I might not find, and afraid I wouldn't be strong enough to deal with either. Stevie Rae's death had left me broken, and I wasn't sure I was up to saving anybody.
But it wasn't like I had any choice.
So ... thinking of Heath ... I started by remembering what a cute kid he'd been in grade school. In third grade his hair had been lots blonder than it was now, and he'd had like a zillion cowlicks. It used to stand up all over his head like duck fluff. Third grade was when he'd first told me that he loved me and was gonna someday marry me. I'd been in second grade, and I so didn't take him seriously. I mean, even though I was almost two years younger I'd been a foot taller. He was cute, but he was also a boy, which meant he was annoying.
Okay, so he could still be annoying, but he'd grown up and filled out. Somewhere between third and eleventh grade I'd started taking him seriously. I remembered back to the first time he'd really kissed me, and the fluttery, excited way it made me feel. I remembered how sweet he was, and how he could make me feel beautiful, even when I had a terrible cold and my nose was bright red. And how he was an old-fashioned gentleman. Heath had been opening doors and carrying books for me since he was nine.
Then I thought about the last time I'd seen him. He'd been so sure that we belonged together and so unafraid of me that he'd cut himself and offered his blood to me. I closed my eyes and leaned against Persephone's soft flank, thinking of Heath and letting the memories of him drift past my closed lids like a movie screen. Then the images of our past changed and I got a vague sense of darkness and dampness and cold—and fear slammed into my gut. I gasped, keeping my eyes tightly closed. I wanted to focus in on him, like I had that one other time when somehow I'd seen him in his bedroom, but this connection between us was different. It was less clear, more filled with dark emotions than playful desire. I concentrated harder, and did what Erik had said to do. I called Heath.
Aloud, as well as with everything inside of me, I said, "Heath, come to me. I'm calling you, Heath. I want you to come to me now. Wherever you are, get out of there and come to me!"
Nothing. There was no answer. No response. No sense of anything more than damp, cold fear. I called again. "Heath! Come to me!" This time I felt a surge of frustration, followed by despair. But I didn't get an image of him. I knew he couldn't come to me, but I didn't know where he was.
Why had I been able to see him so much more easily before? How had I done it? I'd been thinking about Heath then, just like I had been now. I'd been thinking about ...
What had I been thinking about? Then I felt my cheeks get hot as I realized what had drawn me to him before. I hadn't been thinking about how cute a kid he'd been or how pretty he made me feel. I'd been thinking about drinking his blood ... feeding from him ... and the red-hot bloodlust that caused.
Okay, well then ...
I drew a deep breath and thought about Heath's blood. It tasted like liquid desire, hot and thick and electric. It made my body burst alive in places that had only begun to rouse before. And those places were starving. I wanted to drink Heath's sweet blood while he satisfied my yearning for his touch, his body, his taste—
The disjointed image I had of darkness cleared with an abruptness that was shocking. It was still dark, but that was no problem for my night vision. At first I didn't understand what I was seeing. The room was weird. It was more like a little alcove in a cave or a tunnel than a room. The walls were round and damp. There was some light, but it was coming from a dim, smoky lantern that hung from a rusted hook. Everything else was complete darkness. What I thought at first was a pile of dirty clothes moved and moaned. This time it wasn't just a threadlike feeler I was looking through. It was actually as if I was floating, and when I recognized the moan my hovering body drifted over to him.