Blessed (33 page)

I’d wanted to say . . . I wasn’t sure what. But Dr. Morales was there, asking a thousand questions about the Wolf pack and Dracul One, and just being a dad.

On my way, I ducked into Meghan’s room to turn on her pink Barbie night-light. “You should be asleep,” I said, though I couldn’t blame her for being excited.

“He’s home,” she whispered, brown eyes bright above the waffle-weave blanket.

“Yeah.” I almost kissed her good night. But I knew she still didn’t trust me. And I didn’t totally trust myself, either. “Try to sleep. He’ll still be home tomorrow.”

Lying on the water bed, I stared at the ceiling and thought about Meghan. About how vulnerable she was with me staying only steps down the hall. I couldn’t keep trying to fool myself that carrying around holy water or maintaining an animal-blood diet would be enough to defang me.

That night in the castle courtyard, I’d drunk from Bradley, greedy and grateful. I’d relished it, and I couldn’t blame that on being newly risen. He’d been spinning my mind. But the blood had still called.

Afterward in the throne room, it had seemed so clear. I couldn’t go on this way much longer. But now that I’d been reunited with Kieren, I couldn’t imagine giving him up again.

Miranda had been a teenage girl, just like I was. She’d had her humanity ripped away and known what it was to love. She’d not only been immersed in the demonic world; she’d briefly ruled it. But ultimately, she’d made the right choice, the brave choice. I’d try to help rid the world of Brad-Dracula. But then what would I do?

When I heard the knock, I hoped it was Kieren, but Miz Morales walked in instead. “Clyde!” I exclaimed as I sat up in bed, sloshing a bit. “Is he —?”

“Still stable,” she said. “His parents are a wreck, though. They’re with him now. Don’t worry, Quincie. I’ll find a way to save him. Somehow.”

I wished she sounded more confident.

“I know you will.” I wished I sounded more confident, too.

As Miz Morales pulled up the desk chair, I readied myself to hear my punishment.

Instead, she said, “I understand why you did what you did, running off with your friends like that. I know it wasn’t your fault, the massacre at the training pack.”

So Kieren had told her at least that much.

“I understand,” Meara went on, folding her hands in her lap, “that you feel responsible for the vampire Brad because of his history with your uncle and Sanguini’s. I also understand that you didn’t tell me what was happening because I would’ve forbade you to leave.”

Boy, we were just bursting with understanding.

“You’re a brave girl, and no one would call you irresponsible, least of all me. But Roberto and I, we can’t help noticing that you’ve been begging off meals, complaining of stomach trouble, acting a bit strangely. At times, it’s like you’re trying to avoid us. Even Meghan has noticed it. She keeps saying that you’re ‘weird’ now.”

Uh-oh. They
knew.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Quincie?”

This was it. They’d stake me, cut off my head, and stuff my mouth with garlic.

“What do you mean?” I wasn’t ready to face my end, not yet.

Miz Morales scratched behind her ear. “Well, I’m a Wolf, a full Wolf, with a Wolf’s senses. You’re living with me. I’m your guardian now, and I’ve known you since long before you hit adolescence.”

Had Kieren told her? No, why would he? I began toying with his crucifix.

“When’s the last time you got your period?” his mama asked.

Before I’d died. I no longer needed a menstrual cycle anymore. Dead things couldn’t reproduce. Was Miz Morales waiting for me to admit it?

Clasping her hands again, she forged on. “I know how close you and Kieren are. And I respect that your feelings for each other are more than puppy love.” She offered a reassuring smile. “If you two are facing the possibility of becoming parents, please don’t worry about confiding in me and Roberto. We love you both very much, and you have our one-hundred-percent support.”

Oh, my God. She didn’t think I was undead. She thought I was pregnant!

Relieved, embarrassed, mortified, I burst out laughing.

I couldn’t tell if Bradley had invaded my mind or if I’d entered, unnoticed, into his. Given what Ivo had said, I’d begun to hope that he’d abandoned me and turned his full mental forces to the inner battle between him and Dracula Prime.

I didn’t know where Brad was, but I could feel his presence. Watching.

A clump of teenagers wandered up a gravel road. A private driveway?

The fog was thick. Two of the girls clung to each other, wide-eyed like they expected a boogeyman to leap out. Their friends marched forward. The vivacious blonde up front skipped. They looked more city than suburbs, more style than cash.

Muted blue and purple lights illuminated a trio of cheesy coffins arranged against the backdrop of a decrepit altar and what appeared to be dry-ice vapor.

The scene resembled something out of a Halloween haunted house.

“What a joke!” complained a guy in a Spurs shirt. “I want my money back.”

The girl in front let slip a snorting giggle. “You didn’t pay no money.”

Then the lids of the coffins rose, and three bewitching female vampires emerged. One cradled a sleeping boy, a toddler, with a swath of dark hair.

“Run!” I shouted, but they couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t there. Like with the blood rite with the knives, I was seeing what Brad saw.

The teens jeered and laughed at the approaching fiends. Under other circumstances, some of their comments might’ve been funny. At least one was crude.

Then the undead woman tossed the little boy like a sack of burlap. He landed at the feet of the blonde in the lead, the one who’d been skipping. I could see the child’s throat, torn open. I watched a blood-drenched beetle crawl out of the seeping wound.

At about half past 2
A.M
., the bedroom door opened a crack.

Kieren held a finger to his lips, urging me to keep quiet. He set his running shoes on the carpet and slowly shut the door. Then, carrying a black vinyl tote, he cruised over with a note.
Get dressed. Going out.
Sneaking out sounded more like it.

Minutes later, we strolled in the moonlight toward the neighborhood park. When I felt the first sprinkles hit my nose, I scanned the clouds.

“Relax,” Kieren said. “I caught the news earlier. Thirty-eight percent chance of light showers. It’s natural weather. The kind of rain —”

“That only makes it more humid.” Nothing Brad-Dracula had done, and nowhere near heavy enough to impact the drought.

As Kieren and I paid our respects at the community shrine — homemade cards and signs (
WE LOVE YOU, TRAVIS!!!
), burned-out candles and ’dillo plush toys — the rain fell harder, and I knew Kieren had to be thinking of Clyde, too.

At the open-air shelter, Kieren unzipped his gym tote, took out a carefully rolled, forest-green tablecloth, and unfurled it over the picnic table. Then he plugged an electrical cord into the outlet, making the outdoor room come alive with green holiday lights. So far as I knew, Kieren had
no
dating history.

“How did you —?”

“I may be a manly Wolf man, but I’m also the son of a wedding planner. I spent most of my childhood being bored by women plotting special occasions.”

I didn’t have much — or really any — experience with guys, but I knew there were a lot who would’ve staged a date like this to angle for a night like the one we’d had in Michigan. Brad, for example. Everything that he had said and done with me had ultimately been about taking advantage. Even the seemingly good times, cooking in the kitchen, shopping for his toasting ensemble — all of those memories were tainted now.

Kieren gestured at the carefully crafted, hyperromantic backdrop. “Too cheesy?”

Maybe a
tad
cheesy. “It’s perfect.”

I reached into the tote and withdrew a couple of wineglasses, a bottle of porcine blood, and a bottle of sparkling water.

Then Kieren and I settled cross-legged, facing each other, on top of the picnic table. He filled and raised his glass. “To second chances.”

I paused. “You’re happy to be home.”

“Yeah, home with you.”

I sipped without clinking. “You know, I’m different now.”

Kieren took my glass from me and set it beside his. Then he slid his hands under my thighs and pulled me closer, until our noses touched. “That night at Sanguini’s, it was the first time you’d fed as a vampire. By all rights, you should’ve sucked me dry.”

“I almost —”

“Quince,
all
neophytes kill their first victims — period. I’m talking every last one. They can’t help themselves. Self-restraint is beyond them. That’s why Bradley made the bet. He agreed to leave town only if you didn’t kill me because he knew he couldn’t lose.”

Kieren had too much faith in me. “You thought that and still let me bite you?”

“I knew you.” He brushed my curls from my forehead. “I know you.” He traced a star, then a heart, connecting freckles on my face, outlining patterns only he could see.

The next morning in the Moraleses’ kitchen, Meara pitched me a blueberry muffin and asked if I could stay out that night. “Can you bunk at Aimee’s? We’re going to try to bring Clyde out of the coma. I’ve already arranged for Meghan to go home after preschool with her little friend Didi.

“I haven’t talked to Kieren yet,” Meara added, unusually babbly, clearly nervous about the whole thing, “but we’re taking the shepherds to that new dog hotel on Lamar.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I still have my bedroom at my house.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, clearly feeling motherly guilt over kicking me out of the house after whatever had just happened up north. And still embarrassed about our “misunderstanding,” though I’d promised to go to a gynecologist, just to make sure everything was okay, if my “system” didn’t get back on track.

“Nora will be there,” I said, and that did the trick. I had no idea what had transpired in my absence between my chef and my guardians, but I wasn’t inclined to argue with the results.