“I won’t fight Amelie, and for as long as Oliver holds sway over her, she’s dangerous to us all. So what do you propose I do? They’ll come for me, sooner or later; I’ve always been a thorn in Oliver’s side, and he’ll want me dealt with before long. If I’m lucky, he’ll do it before he comes after you and your friends, relieving me of the burden of standing by for that.”
“Amelie won’t let him hurt you.”
“Won’t she?” Myrnin’s face set hard, and he seemed to be remembering something very unpleasant. “Oliver has a talent for corruption. He had the same skill in breathing life. The atrocities men committed in his name were legion and legendary, and those were mere mortals acting on his behalf. Vampires can be infinitely more cruel. Let enough of us lose our better instincts to that, and there will be a kind of—fever. A madness that sweeps us away, and we won’t care about promises of good behavior, or even about our own survival. I’ve seen it happen to entire towns of vampires. They just…break.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face in a sharp, dry motion, and the sound reminded her of bones shattering. “I don’t wish to see it again. And I certainly don’t wish to be part of it.”
“Then make her listen to you. You’re one of her oldest friends!”
“Friends count for little when they cross lovers,” he said. “You’re old enough to know that. And it is why I can’t—” He shook his head. “Why I can’t stay.”
She felt she would choke on tears, suddenly. He stepped forward and took both her hands in his cool ones. For a moment, she thought he intended to kiss her, and for a panicked moment she wasn’t sure if she ought to stop him, wanted to stop him…but then he just touched his forehead to hers and held it there.
“Hush, now,” he said, and there was so much sweetness in his voice. “I don’t want to see you cry. I’m nothing to cry over.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
He pulled back, still close, very close, too close. There was a faint crimson flicker deep in his eyes, like a distant thunderstorm. “Take care,” he said. “Promise me.”
“I will,” she said. “Myrnin—”
He kissed her. It was so fast that she couldn’t move to prevent it, even if she’d wanted to; it was also quick, and light, and cool, and then…
Then he was gone.
Claire leaned out the window and saw him scrambling in a blur down the tree. He jumped the last ten feet, landed smoothly on his white patent leather shoes, and looked up at her in silence, then held up a pale, long-fingered hand.
She held hers up in response. Tears blurred her view of him, before they broke free of her eyes and rolled hot down her cheeks.
When she blinked, the yard was empty, except for the broken branch he’d been standing on when she’d first spotted him.
Claire gulped in several deep, cold breaths of night air, then slammed the window shut and sat down on her bed. She felt…She didn’t know how she felt. Just wrong. She wanted to talk, but she couldn’t to Shane, not about this; he wouldn’t understand, not about this.
Eve. Maybe she could talk to Eve…. But she could hear the shouting from downstairs, and Eve’s voice was gleefully announcing her victory over Shane in the game. Upstairs felt like a whole world away from that.
Claire stretched out on her bed, closed her eyes, almost ill with how wrong that had been, how guilty she was about that whole conversation. But she’d needed to have it with him; she knew that.
She flinched and bolted upright at a knock on the door, both arms instinctively crossing over her chest. “Who is it?”
“What do you mean, who is it?” Shane eased the door open and studied her. Oh. Of course, that was Shane’s knock; she knew it very well. “What’s up? You all right? You look scared.”
She felt a surge of feeling so fierce that it burned in her cheeks and made her stomach churn, and for a second she didn’t even know what it was, until her brain kicked back in.
It was shame.
“No,” she said, and her voice sounded shaky. “No, I just—I had a dream. A bad one.” Liar.
He gave her a grin that made the shame bite deeper, then sank down on the bed next to her. “Shouldn’t have come up here and gone to sleep, then. Come on, sleepyhead. It’s too early for you to crash out.”
He kissed her, and he felt warm and sweet and strong and most of all, alive…and she fell into it eagerly, almost desperately. The kiss went on, and on, damp and slow, like something perfect in a dream, and she pressed close and into his arms, and all the storm inside her turned into peace, a peace so strong she could feel it glowing in her blood. She sighed onto his lips, into his mouth, and he was smiling, his hair brushing gently over her face like a ghost’s caress.
“You make me happy,” she whispered. She meant it literally—he’d just led her out of a strange, dark place and into sunlight, and the relief was so great that she felt tears in her eyes. “So happy.”
Shane pulled back and looked at her with an expression of absolute focus. His smile was blinding. “I was about to tell you the same thing,” he said, and brushed his fingers over her face. “Cheater.”
For an awful second she thought he knew about Myrnin, standing here in her room, but then with a wave of icy relief she realized he was talking about her beating him to the punch. She gave him a shaky smile. “Got to be quick.”
“Oh,” he said, and kissed her very lightly, moving his lips down her throat, “I really don’t think I do.”
She laughed, because the joy just became a pinpoint of light inside her, bright and searing, and she rolled him over and sprawled on top of him and kissed him again, and again, and again, until everything was a burst of brightness, everywhere in the world.
And when it faded, when it was dark and quiet again, she listened to the strong, fast beat of his heart with her head on his chest, and thought, I’m sorry. She wasn’t even sure what she was apologizing for, or even to whom it was directed. Myrnin? Herself? Shane? Maybe she’d let them all down, somehow.
But not again.
Never again.
Shane fell asleep next to her, out like a light, but Claire found herself humming with energy and too restless to try to close her eyes. She went out into the quiet hallway, closed the door, and sank down against the wall, turning her phone over and over in her hands. Might as well, she thought. It was late, but her parents were used to that, and they were always going on about how she didn’t call enough.
Claire dialed before she could think better of it. Her mom answered on the second ring, her tone anxious. “Claire? Are you all right, honey?”
“Fine,” Claire said. She felt a deep surge of guilt, because what did it say about her that her mom assumed she was in deep trouble every time she bothered to call? “Sorry I haven’t been to see you lately. How’s Dad? Is he doing all right?”
“Your dad’s fine,” her mom said firmly. “Except he worries about you, and so do I. He was hoping you could come home and visit soon. Any chance of that? If you want to bring your boyfriend, I suppose that’s okay.” She didn’t sound so very enthused about that. It wasn’t that she and Dad disapproved of Shane, exactly, but they were…cautious. Very cautious.
“I might do that,” Claire said. “So, are you still doing that book club thing?”
“Oh yes; I just read the best mystery novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Maybe you’ve heard of it…?”
“Yes, Mom, I’ve heard of it. And there are movies.”
“I didn’t think there were any theaters in Morganville.”
“There are a couple,” Claire said. “But I watched it as a rental. You should do that.”
“Oh, I have to do it over the Internet now; it seems so complicated.”
“It’s not. I could show you—”
“You know me and technology, sweetie. So, how’s school?”