Blood Crave 2 (16 page)

Read Blood Crave 2 Online

Authors: Jennifer Knight

Tags: #Social Issues, #Love & Romance, #Vampires, #College Students, #Juvenile Fiction, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Werewolves, #Dating & Sex, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural

BOOK: Blood Crave 2
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But how did I tell Derek all of that? Especially after their macho-wolf battle tonight?
And even taking Lucas’s feelings out of the picture, there was still the fact that no matter how much Derek tried to pretend that he held only platonic feelings for me, I knew he was full of garbage. I could feel his emotions, and knew that every touch of my hand on his, every smile, every kind word, translated into hope for him. I had to be more careful than ever to keep our relationship strictly friendly, because Derek—no matter what he said—was still in love with me.
I opened my mouth to try and—somehow—break this to him, when I was saved by my cell phone. The high-pitched ringing sliced through the night, ripping us apart. I grabbed it from my pocket and held it to my ear.
“Hello?” I said. I watched Derek throw his hands on his hips and stalk away.
Way to piss off the newborn viran. Real smart.
“Hey,” Lucas’s voice came through the receiver.
“Hey,” I said. “Where are you? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Lucas said tartly.
“Are you still mad?”
Silence blared on the other side of the phone. I took that as a
yes
.
I lowered my voice and turned away from Derek. Even though he could still hear me—and Lucas through the phone—I hoped he’d take the hint and not listen in.
“I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “You know—for what happened during the fight?”
“You promised you’d never do that, Faith.”
“I know I did, but you would have killed him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was making a point. I’ve dealt with uncontrolled runts before and I don’t kill them. They just need a firm hand in the beginning. I never would have seriously hurt him.”
I wasn’t so sure of that, but he had a good point. Maybe I’d overreacted. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I was just afraid one of you’d turn on me.” Partly true.
“Well, what happened to using it on Derek?” Lucas’s voice was so low I had to strain to hear it.
I cast a nervous glance at Derek, who was eyeing me interestedly. “I can’t,” I told Lucas.
He rumbled a low curse. “Then I guess I get why you did what you did. I might have done the same thing in your position. But, still. You need to trust me more than that, Faith.”
I was about to argue back that he’d made it difficult for me to trust him by repeatedly telling me what a wild killing machine he was when he changed, but decided against it. I didn’t want to fight. Especially not in front of Derek.
“Okay,” I said.
“Tell him from me he better stop treating you like shit,” Derek snapped at once.
I turned on him. “Shut up!”
“I don’t treat you like shit,” came Lucas’s voice on the phone.
“Well, you were pretty mean to me tonight,” I said, turning away from Derek again so he’d get the hint. “I know your pride was hurt or whatever, but still. Treating me like that is not okay no matter what mood you’re in.”
There was a long stretch of silence, during which I wondered if he’d hung up, but finally I heard him sigh. “You’re right.”
Whoa.
“But you have to understand, Faith, sometimes I overreact or react wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you or even that I think it’s okay to talk to you the way I did. I just can’t control it. Which isn’t an excuse. I’m just trying to explain that I’m not some chauvinistic jerk. I’m a werewolf. And I’m sorry.”
I nodded to myself, feeling uncomfortable because Derek was listening. “It’s okay. Just try to tamp it down from now on all right?”
I rounded on Derek, who straightened suddenly, looking guilty for eavesdropping. “And you said you’d apologize,” I reminded him.
Derek’s lips thinned. “Sorry.”
I mouthed
thank you
at him, and then Lucas spoke up.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “I didn’t call to fight.”
“Why’d you call then?” I looked out at the ocean, trying to let the rhythm of the waves soothe me.
“I have bad news.”
My pulse stuttered, and Derek whipped around.
“I went back to your mother’s house,” Lucas said. “She was watching the news, and I overheard the headlines. There was another murder in Fort Collins.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“It was a girl,” he continued. “Same type of thing as before . . .” He paused. “Faith, we gotta go back to Colorado. Rolf’s summoning us again.”
11
 
THE BREAK-UP
 
W
e were back in Colorado before dawn the following day. Julian and Katie were at the airport to pick us up. We all packed our things into the trunk of Julian’s minute car and hopped in. Okay, Derek and Lucas hopped. I shuffled. I had been unable to sleep on the plane ride and was utterly exhausted.
I sat in the back between Lucas and Derek, leaning into Lucas’s side to keep myself warm. The other side of my body was pressed against Derek’s ice block of a thigh. It was an odd sensation, one I never really wanted to have again.
“Why’s Dad calling us?” Lucas asked as Julian got on the expressway, heading toward Gould.
“The murders have started up again,” Julian said.
“I know, but what’s that got to do with us? We were in California.”
“Your vampire uprising theory is starting to catch on. Dad wants to ask you about it.”
“Wait,” I said.
“Seriously?”
Lucas and I exchanged eager glances.
“Yeah, well, he can’t claim it was just Vincent doing the killing anymore,” Julian said. “He’s still a little iffy about it, but the Council is coming around, especially after the whole vampire-interrogation thing you two did.” He winked at me in the rearview mirror.
“Is he alerting the other wolf packs?” Lucas asked.
“Not yet. I don’t think he’s up for that. I’m betting the plan is going to be to eradicate the Denver brood ASAP and hope the whole thing goes away.”
Well, that was a decent solution anyway. It made me feel better to know that an end to the murders would soon approach.
“So this has nothing to do with Derek?” I asked.
“Nope,” Julian said. “Don’t think it does.”
I glanced at Derek and saw his face smooth in relief. I nudged him with my leg, and he smiled, nudging me back harder.
Then I felt Lucas’s body sizzle with heat, and I stopped playing with Derek. The car suddenly felt like a grenade. If I made one false move, if I pulled that pin out, I’d set Lucas off and the car would explode with werewolf jaws, leaving me slashed to bits in between them all.
Not a good thing.
I snuggled closer to Lucas and closed my eyes.
“Can Derek and I go back to campus then?” I asked, yawning. “I really don’t want to go up there. We always get stuck staying for way longer than we wanted to.”
Lucas didn’t answer for a moment, and I felt the heat of his body intensify.
“If that’s what you want,” Lucas said.
“We have to get Derek’s room situated anyway,” I said. Then a thought occurred to me, one I hadn’t really considered until now. All these details were such a pain. “What are we going to tell Pete and his other roommates?”
Lucas’s jaw flexed, but his voice was relatively calm. “We got Derek a single in my building. Already moved his stuff in and blocked out the windows.”
“Oh . . . ,” I said. “You guys
are
good at this.”
Lucas shrugged. “Take Faith and Derek to campus,” he said to Julian. “She’s right. We always end up staying way too long, and we’ve got class on Monday.” He kicked the back of Katie’s seat. “Stay with them till I get back. I know you’re not technically on duty till Monday, but there’s still a vampire killing people out there. I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Okay,” Katie said, shooting a shiny white smile back at me.
The rest of the ride was silent, and I alternated between sleep and watching the streetlamps play along Lucas’s angular profile.
Once at CSU, I kissed Lucas good-bye and waved as he and Julian headed up to Gould. It was close to dawn already, so we didn’t have time to dawdle. Katie and Derek carried all of our stuff up to the top floor of Lucas’s building. Derek shoved the key into his new room and let us girls in before him.
It was pitch dark inside. I couldn’t see my hand if I put it in front of my face, but I heard Derek and Katie walking around.
“The human needs light,” I said, stumbling over something on the floor.
Katie giggled and I heard Derek’s hand scrape against the wall as he hit the light switch. Then the florescent lights flickered on and the room was illuminated. The shape of the room was identical to Lucas’s, but that was where the similarities ended. Lucas’s room was dim, red and black, and papered with disturbed art that made you feel like you were in a macabre cave of sorts.
Derek’s room was filled with sports stuff and posters of cars and a calendar with sexy girls on it. He was such a boy. Whoever had set up Derek’s room had done a great job. Everything was in place, down to his blue toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet and his Rams helmet hanging on the bedpost.
“We even got you a new car,” Katie said from behind. She tossed a pair of car keys onto his desk. “You know—because the last one got squashed.”
I smiled over at Derek, but found that he was standing stock still in the middle of the room with this haunted, zombie-like look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Derek dropped the bags and shook his head, closing his eyes. “We gotta take this stuff down.”
“Why?” I asked and put my hand on his arm. “This isn’t how you want it?”
“I can’t look at this stuff,” he said, face burning with pain. “This life doesn’t exist anymore!” He spread his arms around the room, gesturing to the green and gold Rams paraphernalia and the pictures of the beach and his family. “This isn’t me. This life is gone!” His eyes met mine, stabbing me with intensity. They were almost white. “All I have left is you.” His voice broke. Then he winced and dragged his hands over his face. “But I don’t even have you anymore, do I?” He smiled bitterly. “All I’ve got is myself and this sick blood crave I have to deal with.”
I was so stunned by the suddenness of his outburst that I couldn’t speak.
“I can’t look at this stuff anymore,” Derek said again, quietly this time. “It’s not me.” He crumpled to the floor, shoving his face in his hands. I knelt beside him and heard Katie leave the room.
As soon as the door closed, Derek threw his arms around me, pulling me against his body. He shook with sobs; his tears were like ice water against my cheek. I felt the corner of his lips brush mine.
I felt so incredibly sorry for him, for what I’d done to him. I wanted to make him feel better—to help him in some way, but that didn’t mean I could kiss him. I pulled away from his searching lips and put my hands over his cheeks.
“You always have me,” I said firmly. “Whether or not I’m with Lucas, I’ll always be here when you need me. Remember that, okay?”
“Sorry,” he rasped. “I guess, seeing my old life all laid out in front of me was kind of a shock. It’s just luck that I didn’t change. I got close.”
“We’ll take it all down,” I said, trying to sound comforting. “Get you some new stuff this weekend.”
Katie popped her head back in, seemingly relieved that the crying was done with.
“Sorry,” Derek said, looking embarrassed.
Katie just shrugged. “I’ll help you take the posters down,” she offered.
Derek cracked a grateful smile. “Yeah, thanks.”
We set out removing anything that would remind Derek of his past life. When we were done, all that was left was the calendar of sexy girls, some pictures of me and him in high school, and the blank wall. Katie went down to the Dumpster and trashed everything else. When she returned, it was minutes to dawn and Derek was fading fast.
“Me and Katie will go to my room,” I said as Derek climbed into his bed, eyes drooping closed.
His face wrinkled into a frown, and he held his arms out for me.
I went and hugged him. “See you tonight,” I whispered. “Come to my room when you’re up, okay? We’ll hang out.”
“No,” he said. “Stay here.”
I cast a look at Katie.
“I can’t,” I said. “We don’t have a place to sleep.”
Derek tugged me onto the bed with him and held me in a vice. “Sleep with me. . . .”
Trapped in his arms, I looked up at Katie pleadingly.
“Help?” I asked, still trying to escape.
Katie giggled and watched me squirm.
Derek squeezed me tighter. “I love you,” he breathed in my ear. “I’ll always love you.”

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