Because the Night (The Night Songs Collection) (25 page)

Chapter Forty Eight

Emptiness rumbled violently through my body. My eyes snapped open, not quite waking from sleep, but from something else. I needed to eat. Now.

“Damn it.” Tristan sighed. I sprung up way too fast in the dark room, feeling hands on my shoulders before I realized Tristan’s arms tensed against them.

“What’s happening?” I could see him perfectly in the dimmed room. It was like I was looking at him for the very first time. I could smell his skin, feel the blood move through his veins when I reached for his arm. So hungry. He wrestled himself away from me.

He stood up quickly and turned on the light. His arms were folded in front of his chest, and he rubbed his hands along his biceps as if he fought off a chill. He backed away from the bed slightly, looking sad, disgusted. Afraid.

“I’m hungry.” I felt like a helpless child, unable to take care of my own needs. My lips quivered, reacting to Tristan looking at me.

“I know you are, beautiful.” He sat down on the edge of the bed stiffly and reached out to stroke my hair. I grabbed him before he touched me, not missing his look of surprise, and tore through the skin on his wrist with so much ease. It wasn’t enough, it was like sucking through a straw at the bottom of an empty drink. I pulled his arm and his body slid along the bed until it was against mine. Was this a dream? He had to weigh almost twice as much as I did.

I’d figure it out later.

I straddled his lap and pushed him down on the pillow by his shoulders, just like he had attempted to hold me down. He was mine to mold and take. I smiled down at his gorgeous face. Dark eyes wide, watching my every move. His soft lips parted, not sure what to say. I nipped them quickly, enough to make his head come off the pillow wanting more.

I laughed, pulling away just out of reach before dropping my lips down to his neck. I sunk my teeth into the vein without making nice first. My hunger didn’t have time to mess around.

Tristan cried out. “Callie! Stop! Please.” He pushed me hard enough to send me flying through the air, landing at the end of the bed. I laughed and crawled back towards him, wanting to get back to the wound on his neck before it healed completely.

He lunged towards me, tackling me, holding my arms down to my sides. I wriggled and squirmed against him, hard enough that we fell off the bed. He squeezed me tighter. Still hungry, I wore out easily. When we were both still, I lay pinned underneath him on the floor.

I stifled a giggle.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this.” Tristan sounded like he was trying to reprimand me. Like he had the right to scold anybody.

“You aren’t?” I asked, bucking my body underneath his. He pushed down harder.

“I’m sure I will eventually,” He arched his shoulders up away from my body, still holding me down. “Once we get you under control.”

“Oh, what? I need to be broken like a mare?” I followed his face with mine as much as I could.

“Something like that.” He sighed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to yourself?”

“Oh what
I
did. Because you’re so innocent.”

“I can’t take any blame for this one, beautiful. I warned you to stay away from me when I slept. I thought it was me I had to worry about. I never thought it would be you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Tristan shook his head in disbelief. “The other night, after I drank from you, you came in and nearly drained me dry. You took too much. I’m still not totally recovered. I passed out on stage.”

“Sorry.” That didn’t even sound convincing to me. My lips quivered, fighting a smile. How long had I been asleep?

“This isn’t about me. I’ll be fine. In fact, you got me a couple days off. But you. You’re not going to get better. You turned yourself.”

“I did what?”

“You turned yourself into a vampire.”

Shock rolled through my body. I waited for Tristan to burst out laughing, but he didn’t even crack a smile. He looked down on me as if he looked into my casket.

“How?”

“You drank too much from me after I drank from you.” He looked so sad.

I rolled up, pushing him off of me with enough force that his body hit the window. I gasped, watching his body slam against the glass. Once his surprise wore off, he moved back towards me. I hissed at him. Hissed. Like an alley cat in a fight.

“Like hell you didn’t do this to me!” I roared through clenched teeth.

“What are you talking about? I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. Never for you.” He reached out for me again and I swatted at his hand.

“You couldn’t leave me alone. You drank my blood. You told me to drink from you. You made me crave your blood like a drug. So yes, you did this to me!” I burst into tears. Just like a little kid. How embarrassing. Here I could throw a two hundred pound man almost through a window and I cried because I was a vampire.

This time, I let Tristan cradle me in his arms. I’d have him forever. A sense of belonging filled me, but the emotions were all off. I didn’t know what I was feeling.

Besides hungry.

“I need to eat.” More whining. Ugh. I looked up at him. He wiped my tears away. I cringed when I saw his fingers were tinted red.

Tristan pulled me in to his lap and rested his chin on my shoulder. His fingers laced through mine. “Close your eyes, and concentrate as hard as you can.” He instructed.

“On what?”

“The city, the activity below. You’ll start to feel the vibration.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, concentrating on the feel of Tristan’s hands in mine. He felt warm. I cleared my mind, which was much easier than I thought it would be. Things I would have normally worried about seemed so unimportant. I felt a slight buzz, and a tuned into it as much as I could. Excitement. Anticipation. Admiration. It filled me as if someone poured liquid into my body.

It felt good, almost weightless. Like I was invincible. I felt my body strengthen, and opened my eyes to watch my muscles firm under my skin. I let go of Tristan’s hand, and wriggled my fingers in front of my face.

Everything almost seemed normal.

I turned around, still his lap and kissed him on the lips, pulling away quickly but leaving my arms around his neck. All signs of my earlier ambush had disappeared. I couldn’t help but laugh again, and finally Tristan cracked a smile.

“This is amazing.” I rested my forehead against his.

“Oh man.” He said, still smiling. “It’s going to be good to have a partner in crime.”

Chapter Forty Nine

No matter how you leave the mortal world, there are loose ends that need to be tied up. It’s not like you can just send out little announcement cards like you could for a birth or a marriage that say, “I’m a vampire!” Although, someone should start selling those. There’s probably some money to be made there.

Now I understood why Tristan didn’t contact me when he turned. I hardly cared about anything that happened before the other night. It didn’t happen to me anymore. That was someone else. Everything about me now felt different than me then.

Never did I think I’d be thankful for my mother’s banishment from the island. It gave me time to figure out what to do, what to say when it came to my family. Knowing how they would grieve would tear me into thousands of tiny pieces. But if Tristan could still function in polite society, maybe I could figure out something before Christmas.

My only human friend left in Las Vegas was Lennon. I wanted to see her so badly, but Tristan thought it was better if I waited a few days. Let me get my bearings. Thankfully, the concept of me being something other than human wasn’t completely foreign or unwelcome to her.

Tonight she planned to come to Tristan’s apartment. I’d stayed here ever since I changed. I was nervous to see her, would things be totally different? What was I going to do now? Would I just go back to working at Embrace like nothing had happened?

I practically ran to the living room when I heard her come in. Tristan had gone downstairs to film the TV show and play a concert. He left Tony to babysit me.

“Oh my God, it’s so good to see you!” I jumped on her without having a chance to really look at her, wrapping her in a tight hug. I had to be stay mindful not to make it too tight. Her fruit punch scented shampoo smelled intoxicating. My mouth watered as my hands touched the smooth skin of her arms.

“Easy.” Tony warned me like I was a dog on a leash. But I still needed the reminders.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m sorry. I’m still in training, I guess.” I giggled a little bit as I led her towards the couch. “Come sit down, I want to hear everything I missed.”

“You seem to be taking to this well.” Lennon said as she sat. “You seem so vibrant. Full of life, pun intended.”

“It’s not so bad.” I admitted, never in a million years would I imagine I’d embrace being like this. But I did. I finally took a good look at Lennon. She looked like a ripe piece of fruit begging to be picked off a tree. Tristan warned me this might happen. I did as he said I should and concentrated on picking up the vibrations of the hotel to make the lust subside.

It worked, and my head cleared. I opened my mouth to ask her a million questions in rapid fire succession when I really got a good look at her. Her hair was undone, she wore very little makeup, and she wore just a T shirt dress. She usually rolled out of bed looking more made up than this. I met her eyes, and realized they looked so heavy. Sad. Heartbroken.

“Are you okay?” I reached out to touch her knee, thankful she didn’t shy away from my touch. “I mean, things are going to be normal, right? I just can’t sit out in the sun with you anymore.” I smiled, but she didn’t smile back.

“It’s not you. It’s weird that you’re different now, but I’ve been through this before. I still love you.” She looked away from me. “It’s Jacey.”

“Did you guys have a fight? You didn’t break up, did you? You know I can kick his ass now if you need me to.”

“He’s dead.” She dissolved into tears.

I cradled her in my arms and let her cry on my shoulder. I rubbed her back, trying to calm her down. How could he be dead?

“What happened?” I asked as she settled down, pulling a handkerchief from her bag.

“Someone got him in the dressing room.” Her voice cracked as she spoke. “He’d stayed behind to finish some paperwork before the show started. It had to have been another vampire. They left a note, saying that things hadn’t gone according to plan and Jacey was responsible somehow.”

“What didn’t go to plan? When did this happen?”

“Shortly after you turned. Tristan called me before you even woke up, basically so I wouldn’t panic that you didn’t come home and so I could tell Jack you wouldn’t be in for a while.”

My body filled with rage that someone had the gall to do anything to Jacey. Out of all the vampires I’d met in Las Vegas, he was the most no nonsense of all of them. I thought about what Lennon told me, trying to piece things together.

“Do you think it was Talis?” I asked.

“No.” She said right away. “If it had anything to do with what Peter cooked up with you, why would she take it out on Jacey that you guys couldn’t pull it off?”

“You’re right. It doesn’t make any sense.” I sighed. “Who else would want to hurt Jacey? Who would have cared that things didn’t work out?”

“I don’t know, doll. I’m scared.” Lennon’s eyes brimmed with tears once more. “For all of us.”

**

I needed to talk to Peter about this. Were we stupid to focus on Talis when there was another vampire in the city, killing his own? Was that the person who got Janelle? If it was, who else would be after me? I didn’t know if I was brave or stupid for wanting to face this head on.

Tristan wouldn’t let me out of his sight. At first it was cute, but now it just made me crazy. He said my behavior was too unpredictable still to be left unsupervised. Even though drinking too much of his blood had complicated matters, I couldn’t ever tell him why I’d done it. It was such a betrayal. Karma was having a field day with me.

I convinced him to bring me to Embrace, telling him I had a meeting with Jack about coming back to work. I had to be careful, since Tristan could read my mind as my creator. Nothing was more violating than someone knowing your every thought.

Lennon was to have Peter meet me in the office. Embrace looked totally foreign to me through my new eyes. Still soft and pretty, but welcoming instead of threatening. Almost like home.

Tristan sat on a stool by the bar. I jumped over the bar, since my feet were practically spring loaded. Some of the regulars looked at me in surprise, and then smiled welcomingly. I winked back at them, now that I shared their secret. I grabbed a bottle of Venom and two glasses. I poured it over ice and handed one to Tristan. He whistled low as I downed it in one sip. I hoped it would be enough to cloud both of our minds enough he couldn’t pick up on what happened during my meeting.

The Venom tasted like sugar water now. No wonder he pounded it. I leaned over the bar, kissing Tristan deeply. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” His gaze smoldered back at me.

“The afterlife looks good on you, little girl.” Peter leaned back in Jack’s chair.

“Are you challenging me?” His condescension put me on edge. “Because I don’t need you anymore.”

“I’m not, and you do.” He grinned at me, anything but friendly. “So you’re wrong on both counts. I was paying you a compliment.”

“Thanks, I guess.” I didn’t sit. “I don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t want Tristan to hear this. But I’m concerned that we have someone to worry about other than Talis.”

“I think you’re right. You’ve been created from her bloodline. That gives her rank over you. But you’re a woman, and you may have noticed, there aren’t many woman vampires.”

I thought about it for a second. “I hadn’t noticed, but you’re right.”

“It’s because the women are much stronger than the men. They usually fight each other to the death if there are two in the same territory. But again, you’re in her bloodline. She didn’t create you, so that does put you at a disadvantage.”

“So what are you saying?”

He handed me an envelope. “I have someone who might be able to set you straight about things.” I started to open it. “No, not now. Open it during the next Immortal Dilemma show. It will cloud your creator from being able to know what it says.”

I narrowed my eyebrows at him. Curiosity had the best of me. “I have Tristan to guide me.”

“Tristan is a reckless addict who scrapes by on his good looks and his pull on women. You won’t learn anything from him. Trust me, Callie. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”