Dark Secrets (44 page)

“
Are you okay?” David
asked, looking overly concerned.

“
Relax, David. I
haven’t lost it…yet.”

“
Sorry.” He broke
into a breathy smile. “It’s just that…when a guy tells a girl he’s
a vampire, he doesn’t exactly expect to be laughed at.”

“
In my defence, I
screamed as well.”

He
stiffened.

“
Well, would you expect anything
less
than fear, David? You’re a
dangerous creature—not a
Cullen
,” I added, with a wry
smile.

He laughed, loud and
full. The sound warmed the room with its grace. “I wish.” He rolled
his head backward as the laugh dissipated to a smile. “Great books,
though.”

“
You read
them?”

“
Of course.” He
breathed out, still smiling as he added, “Wouldn’t life be so much
easier if it were really that way?”

“
No, because then you’d be icy-cold…and pale. But I
like
your golden
skin.”

“
I know you
do.”

My ears and cheeks
flushed with heat. “So, you don’t, like, sparkle or anything, do
you?”

“
Ara. You’ve seen me
in the sun,” he stated dryly. “Did I look like a lamp to
you?”

Hmm. I remembered how
lovely he looked in the sun; how he seemed to glow—an incandescent
beauty with perfectly formed muscles. His skin was so soft and
smooth, hairless, as far as I could see. But although the memory
was bright and golden, making me forget how dark my room was
getting, I was pretty sure he didn’t have moths buzzing around his
head or anything. So, no, he didn’t look like a lamp. But boy,
would I love to take his shirt off right now just to be sure it was
all real.

A tiny smile tugged
the corners of David’s lips, changing his whole
expression.

“
Stop it!” I scolded,
holding my finger up to warn him against his invasive, mind-reading
behaviour. Would there ever be any way to get used to him being
constantly in my head?

David’s shoulders
lifted with his short, breathy laugh.

Obviously
not.

“
Okay. So, those
myths aside—” I wandered over and plonked on my floor, crossing my
legs to get comfortable.

“
Just to save you
time, Ara, technically, everything you think you know is a
myth.”

“
Like
what?”

“
For one, despite
ancient storytelling, vampires are not actually dead.” He sat on
the edge of my bed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his
knees. “And we’re not undead, either—we’re actually
alive.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah. And you know
what else we’re not?” he hinted with a lopsided grin.

“
Enlighten me,” I
said playfully.

“
We’re not evil
demons or weirdoes with anaemia, but—” he pointed to the roof, “—we
are, in fact, colder—which is where some of the stories come from,
I guess.”

“
But…why are you cold
if you’re alive?”

“
Why are
you
cold?” He grinned; I shrugged. “If we go for long periods
without…nourishment, we get colder and a little
pale.”

“
So, you’re not so
very different from me, then?” I grinned.

“
Ha! Maybe you’re a
vampire and you just don’t know it.” He pointed at me, his very
cute, dimpled smile making me laugh.

It was nice to laugh
with him again. “There’s just one thing I’m curious about, though.
You said you’re not dead?”

He nodded.

Everything David and I
ever did together, every moment I touched him since we met, I ran
over in my mind. “I—I can’t remember ever hearing a heartbeat. Do
you have a heart?”

His gaze fell on his
clasped hands. “I don’t have a heartbeat, because I don’t
need
my heart to beat.
You see, the energy—the life force I draw from a human—moves the
blood through my arteries. It’s very powerful.”

“
Like
magic?”

“
Kind of. And I don’t need my heart to pump blood to my lungs
for oxygenation either, because I don’t
make
the blood. It comes to me with
oxygen in it. See?” He held out his forearm and rolled up his
sleeve to reveal clear veins, slightly protruding from his skin as
if he were flexing his muscles. “They
don’t contain blood. They carry the remaining life force—the
energy that makes me immortal. The blood I drink runs through the
arteries, which are deeper. That’s why my veins look
skin-tone.”

“
So…really? You don’t
make your own blood?”

“
Nope. When the blood
I drink runs out of oxygen and nutrients, I simply drink
more.”

“
So, if you get a cut
and bleed, it’s not your blood seeping out?”

“
No, it is. My body
coverts the blood I drink to use as its own.”

“
Wow.” I stared at
his arm.

“
But,” he added,
rolling his sleeve back down, “I do still have a heart.”

My head bounced and my
lips pressed together into a thin smile. “I know.”

“
Then you know I love
you?” His hand flinched a little—like he was going to reach for me,
but thought better of it.

“
I know you do. The
trouble is—I love you, too.”

“
Why should that be a
problem?”

“
Because you’re a vampire, David. You—” My words were lost.
What could I say? That I wasn’t sure how I felt about him now I
knew he killed people? That’d be kinda shallow, wouldn’t it?

“
It’s not shallow,
Ara. This,” he said, motioning to himself, “is a lot for anyone to
handle.”

I let my cheek lift my
lip in the smile it forced. “Touché.”

He sat back again,
rubbing his thumb over his chin. “I was human once, you know. And I
do understand how you feel about the deaths.”

“
Do you?”

“
Yes.”

I nodded, thinking for
a moment. “So, how long have you been a vampire?”

“
Since
nineteen-thirteen.”

“
I knew it! I knew
you weren’t an eighteen-year-old boy.” I shook my head in
amazement. “It all makes so much sense now—especially how you keep
appearing at my side all the time.” After that thought came
another, but a more carefully considered question this time. “Are
you…alone?”

He shook his head.
“No. I live in a large community of vampires. Plus, I have my uncle
and my brother, which is more than most vampires have.”

I nodded. “Wait,
they’re vampires, too?”

“
Yes.”

“
What about girlfriends? Have you ever had one?” I probably
didn’t really want to know, especially if she went out to dinner
with him and ended up
becoming
the main course.

David laughed again.
“I’m not that careless, but, yes, I have had
girlfriends.”

“
Was anyone special?
I mean, you’re pretty old, right, so have you ever, like, loved
anyone?”

“
Loved?”

“
Yeah—like you love
me.”

“
Like I love you?” He
shook his head. “Never. But there were two other girls I’ve loved
in my existence. Neither of them worked out.”

“
Why?”

His eyes narrowed
slightly. “Why do you want to know this?”

“
Same reason you
wonder about Mike.” I pointed at him. “And I know you
do.”

David nodded. “So, you
wanna know who the competition is.”

I shrugged.

“
Okay. Fine. Well,
let’s just say that for one of the girls—it turned out that we were
really too different, and…” He took a breath, biting his lip, his
eyes distant. “And the other was…just not meant to be.”

“
Well, what happened
to her?” I moved an inch closer, sensing his obvious
distress.

“
Perhaps this story
is for another time.”

“
Is that what
happened two years ago?” I asked after dropping it for a whole
three seconds. “Is she the reason you missed so much school—why you
came to live here?”

“
Ara, I don’t want to
talk about it.”

“
So, you can tell me
that you kill people, but you won’t talk about
ex-girlfriends?”

“
Stop it.”

“
Why? Why won’t you
tell me?” Agitation wandered into my tone. “Was she human, like me?
Did you love her as much as you love me?”

“
She’s gone!” David
yelled. “Okay? Just drop it!”

My heart jumped. I
sunk back into myself. “I’m sorry, David.”

“
Er!” He gripped his hair. “No, Ara,
I’m
sorry.”

My hand moved and I
felt his fingers around mine before I realised he was beside
me.

“
I shouldn’t have
yelled at you like that. It’s just—they took her away. She was a
vampire, and they took her away.”

“
Why?”

“
Ara, please, I don’t
want to talk about it.” He studied the ground, as if he couldn’t
look at me.

“
You really did love
her?” I asked quietly.

“
Yes. But nothing
like the way I love you—that has no measure, but I loved her
enough.”

“
Will she ever come
back?” I studied his eyes.

“
No.”

“
Do you want her
to?”

“
No,” he raised his
voice a little, then softened it, running his fingers through his
hair. “Look. It doesn’t matter. I just. I don’t want to talk about
it yet, okay?”

“
Okay. I’m sorry. I
won’t ask again.”

“
No,” he moaned,
rolling his head back a little. “You can ask—just not
today.”

“
That’s what you
always say.” I looked right into his eyes; he looked ready for a
challenge, but too much was going on in my head. I wasn’t up to
arguing with him. Instead, my mind wandered through the past few
weeks, analysing and going over everything we said or did together,
then stopped on the best memory I had stored away up there in my
catalogue of thoughts; the butterflies—the look of concentration on
his face as they fluttered around us; the seemingly perfect
timing.

David’s head titled
down a little and a very sexy smile spread across his
lips.

“
It wasn’t a timing
thing at all, was it? Did—did you do that?” I asked, full of
wonder.

“
It’s one of my many
talents,” he said, still grinning.

“
But, how? Are you
magic?”

“
No.” He shook his
head, almost laughing. “I’m a creature of nature, Ara. Hard as that
is to believe—”

“
A
creature of nature! But you
kill
people?”

“
Ara?” he scolded
softly. “I’m no different to the lion killing the
antelope.”

“
Except that the lion
doesn’t look like the antelope, or live among its kind.”

“
True, but still,
like the lion, I blend into my natural surroundings; he has the
advantage of a certain colouring, and I have the ability to emulate
the human form.”

“
Yeah, but if you’re so natural, how come your species isn’t
born—you’re, I don’t know, like,
created
, aren’t
you?”

“
You’re unbelievable,
girl.” He shook his head. “You’re sitting beside a vampire, and
wrought with scepticism. Is it so hard to believe I might be one of
God’s creatures—just because I kill?”

I thrust my shoulders
back and sat up straight. “Yes.”

“
Look—” He exhaled
frustration. “What I am is a natural occurrence. I wasn’t created
by witchcraft or magic. And yes, some do say it started as a curse,
but it was actually passed on by those of an ancient
bloodline.”

“
Your
bloodline?”

“
No. I was human
once. You see, it takes a genetic polarity in a human which, when
converged with vampire venom, triggers the change in their genetic
makeup. They become less human and more of what is commonly called
a vampire.”

“
A genetic polarity?”
I frowned, thinking over his words. I took genetic sciences in
school—I wasn’t any good at it. “So, are you saying you have to
have the right gene to become a vampire?”

“
Yup, so, even though I’m a supernatural being, I’m actually
mostly natural—just also very
super
.” He grinned warmly,
straightening one leg out in front of him, hugging his other
knee.

“
So, if you’re not
magic, how did you do that thing with the butterflies?”

He shrugged. “They’re
just affected by humidity. Vampires? We can manipulate the
elements—water and temperature for example.” He scratched the back
of his neck. “I can get really scientific about it if you like, but
most people fall asleep after about ten minutes.”