Desired (25 page)

She cried out with a gasp of pain—but it was too late now.

His teeth were deep in her neck, and as she leaned back, he held her head with one hand, and with the other plunged deeper, unable to stop himself, as he felt her life force fil his veins.

He drank and drank and drank, as if there were no tomorrow.

Pol y lay in bed, besides Sergei, both of them naked, beneath the sheets. She rested her cheek on his shoulder, and looked up at him, studying his face. He lay there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, expressionless.

His features were so perfect, so chiseled. She wondered how she had gotten so lucky.

She thought back to what a wonderful experience it had been, sleeping with him. Now, more than ever, she knew that they were meant to be together forever. She would do anything for him at this moment.

She reached up, and ran her hand along his chest. Final y, he turned to her.

“Tel me about your friend,” he final y said.

Pol y was confused.

“The one that stormed out after my concert.”

Caitlin
. Pol y was annoyed. Why did he have to bring her up now? Why did she have to ruin a moment like this?

“That was nobody,” Pol y said. “I’m sorry she ran out.”

“What’s her name?” he pressed.

“What’s her name?” he pressed.

“Caitlin,” Pol y said.

Pol y saw what looked like recognition in Sergei’s eyes. It made her think, made her wonder about everything Caitlin had said. About how she had known Sergei before. Had any of it been true?

No, of course, that was ridiculous. But why was he asking about her now?

“And where was she going, in such a rush?” he asked.

Pol y shrugged. “I don’t know. Who cares about her?”

Sergei suddenly turned to her, with complete intensity.

“I do,” he said harshly, “or else I wouldn’t be asking.”

Pol y was taken aback. She didn’t know what she had done to offend him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Then answer my questions,” he pressed.

“What do you want to know?” Pol y asked.

“Where exactly was your friend going?”

Pol y shrugged again, thinking.

“I have no idea. She probably went looking for her father, I guess. She always is.”

“Did she mention any place specific?”

Pol y racked her brain. She suddenly remembered something.

“Wel , she did mention something about a dream. About her brother. About some kind of key in a church.”

Sergei’s eyes opened wide. Pol y was surprised at how interested he was. He suddenly sat up, and grabbed her shoulders fiercely.

“What church?”

Pol y was scared by his intensity. She didn’t understand what was going on.

“I don’t understand. Why does it matter? Why’s it so important?”

He shook her, roughly. “Tel me!”

“It was the Notre Dame,” Pol y said, suddenly scared. “She said something about the Notre Dame.”

Sergei suddenly threw her across the bed, and she landed hard on the floor.

He then threw off the covers, dressed, and hurried across the room.

Pol y burst into tears.

“What’s wrong with you?” she cried. “Why are you being so mean? Where are you going?”

Pol y couldn’t understand what was happening. Just a minute ago, her world had been perfect.

Sergei stopped before the door, turned, and smiled at her for the first time. But it wasn’t a smile of love. It was an evil, crooked smile.

“Stupid girl,” he said. “I’ve gotten al I need from you. You are as useless to me now as you were the first moment I met you. And now your friend wil pay the price.”

And with that, Sergei stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Pol y sat up, put her head in her hands, and cried and cried and cried.

Al she could think, as tears poured down her face, was how stupid she had been. How mad at herself she was for believing in Sergei. How, al along, her friend, her only best friend in the world, Caitlin, had been right.

And worse, how she had returned the favor by putting her in danger.

Sam lay there, in Kendra’s huge bed, sprawled naked on top of the most luxurious covers he had ever seen. She lay in his arms, and they both reclined in a huge mound of silk pil ows. He felt like he had died and gone to heaven. He’d never been with anyone remotely like Kendra, and he hoped they could stay together forever.

His mind reeled, as he thought of the implications of what he had just done. He had real y turned her. She lay there, sleeping with her head on his chest, peaceful y enough, and for al the world to see, she was just as she had been before. But he knew that when she woke, she would be different. Changed forever. Turned. One of his race. Just as Samantha had turned him.

He recal ed how difficult it was for him when he first woke, and came to the realization. But then again, it wasn’t something he had asked for. It had been thrust upon him. In her case, she had asked for it, had begged him to turn her.

And she had received her wish.

He wondered what she would be like when she awoke. If she would stil love him as much. Or hopeful y, even more.

But he stil couldn’t escape the gnawing feeling that he had done something wrong. That he had transgressed some sort of sacred vampire rule. That somehow, he would have to answer for this.

Before Sam could finish the thought, Kendra suddenly opened her eyes, and sat bolt upright, immediately awake.

She stared at him, her eyes wider than he had ever seen them. Her eyes seemed to be glazed over, like the eyes of a wild animal. Alert. As she stared right through him, he began to wonder if she even recognized him at al .

“Kendra?” he asked, sitting up in bed. “Are you okay?”

She suddenly jumped up from bed in a single leap, landing halfway across the room, surprising him.

She quickly got dressed, her back to him, and she moved so fast, faster than anyone he had ever seen. It was unnatural. Clearly, she already had the speed of his race.

He slowly got out of bed, began to get dressed, and came over to her.

“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” he asked again.

But she kept her back to him as she dressed, and he wondered why she was acting so strangely.

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” he asked.

She suddenly turned and faced him, and he saw the wildness in her eyes, and was almost afraid.

“Why would I?” she spat back.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I already have al I need from you.”

Sam felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He could not believe her words. Had she real y said what he’d thought she had just said?

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked with more urgency, and he could hear the fear in his own voice.

She suddenly headed for the door, and he reached out and grabbed her arm, to stop her.

But she spun around, and with her incredible new strength, roughly threw his arm off of her. He was shocked. She stared at him with a ferocity he had never imagined, her aqua eyes glowing and unearthly.

“Don’t you ever put your hands on me,” she snarled in a low, guttural voice.

“Kendra,” he said softly. “It’s me, Sam. What’s happened to you? Don’t you recognize me?”

She suddenly broke into a laugh, a demonic laugh, right in his face, mocking him.

“Of course I recognize you, you pathetic little thing. And I never loved you. I was just using you.

You gave me what I wanted. Now, I’m done. I’m only going to spare your life because you turned me. But if you get in my way again, you wil suffer—the same way that your people, and your sister, are about to suffer.”

With that, she wheeled, grabbed the huge oak door, and tore it off its hinges.

The two servants stared back at her, in shock, and she spun the wood and knocked them both off their feet with it.

Then suddenly, like a wild animal, she bounded down the hal , leaping twenty feet at a time, tearing down the corridors of Versail es, smashing candelabra as she went.

She was like a one-woman wrecking machine.

Sam could not believe what he saw. He looked at the destroyed hal way, the unconscious servants, and wondered, with dread, what he had created.

He bounded off after her, chasing down the hal . As he did, he felt how much her words had stung. Had she just been playing him al along? Had he fal en perfectly into her trap?

And what did she mean about Caitlin? What was her agenda, exactly?

As Sam ran down the corridor, using his ful vampire speed, he caught a glimpse of her, far down a corridor, tearing through a room. As she did, she hurled human beings to the left and to the right, to terrible screams of mayhem.

Sam picked up speed as he fol owed. She smashed through yet another door, down yet another corridor, then final y, entered the main entry parlor of Versail es. She ran right for the main doors.

About a dozen guards, apparently alerted to her presence, stood before the door, blocking it with their bayonets. As she approached them, they lowered them towards her.

“Stay where you are!” one of them yel ed.

As Sam watched, she leapt up, high in the air, over their heads, and with a single kick, knocked open the huge double doors. They went crashing down with a bang.

She landed out the other side, and with one more leap she was flying in the air, heading off into the night.

Sam wanted to fol ow her, but he suddenly spotted something on the horizon, and his heart stopped.

There, racing towards the palace, was an angry mob of thousands of citizens.

They were charging right for the palace steps.

As Caitlin flew across the French countryside, far away from Versail es, the silver cross and her dad’s scrol in her pocket, clutching Ruth in her arms, she final y, for the first time in this place, felt as if she were on the right track. She felt deep in her bones that she was final y doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing. Searching for her father. Searching for the Shield. Fol owing the clues, doing what she was destined to do.

As she flew and flew, her head cleared even more as she got further away Versail es. She was mad at herself for not doing this sooner. She knew al along what her mission was: why couldn’t she just embark from the beginning?

She thought of Caleb. Her heart pul ed as she remembered how much she loved him, at how bad she’d felt when he’d left. At the same time, now that she was on her mission, she realized that if he hadn’t left, maybe she would have just settled down, and never sought out her father. She realized once again that, no matter how painful things seemed while they happened, if she looked back upon them in retrospect, over time, she realized that everything happened for a reason. That reason wasn’t always easy for her to see while it was happening. But the more distant she got from events, the more that reason started to become clear.

As Caitlin raced towards Paris, she started to feel a tremor of nervousness, of anticipation, at the idea of possibly meeting her father. Could it be that he had been waiting for her in Paris al this time? So close? That he would be at the Saint Germain Des Pres church? Or at the Notre Dame?

Would he embrace her, be proud of her? Would he give her the Shield?

Caitlin hoped that he would indeed be proud of her, that he would recognize what a woman, what a warrior, she had become. That he would acknowledge al that she has sacrificed to find him.

He would open up a whole new world for her, introduce her to his coven. And maybe she could final y have a place in the world, a people to belong to, a place to settle down.

She would like that.

Caitlin also thought about Sam, with a pang of regret. She wished that he was with her, at her side, helping her on her quest. But she realized that he was too caught up in his relationship, and there was simply nothing she could do about that. Sometimes, people just had to come to their own realizations, in their own time. She just hoped that everything would be okay for him. She had a sinking feeling, though, upon looking at Kendra, that it would not.

More than anything, Caitlin wished that Caleb was here with her now, at her side, as he had always been on her search.

She missed him desperately, missed having him there, missed not being able to share her ideas with him. And whatever she found, she wanted to find it together with him.

And if once again, for some reason, she had to go back in time, she desperately wished that he would be by her side.

But as Caitlin flew, she realized that she was much stronger now. She had become a warrior.

And part of what it meant to be a warrior was to be unafraid to go it alone if need be, to carve your own path in this world. To forge forward, even when no one else was wil ing to forge forward with you. It was about individual strength, and courage. And sometimes that meant the courage to do what no one else was doing.

Caitlin felt a new wave of strength come over her, emboldened by al of her training with Aiden, al of his lessons, and al of the sparring she had done. She wanted Caleb there, but she felt strong enough to handle this mission on her own.

As Caitlin flew, the landscape changed, and the thick forest of the French countryside began to give way to the urban landscape of Paris. Beneath her, Caitlin recognized the buildings, the tal church steeples, the occasional medieval church and abbey, and the more fashionable recent construction of the 18th century townhouses. From up here, it was a breathtakingly beautiful city.

But at the same time, as she looked down, real concern overcame her. Despite the late hour, the streets were flooded. They were absolutely packed with mobs of angry citizens, carrying torches. The tension and anger in the air was palpable; she could feel it, even from this height.

People screamed and ran throughout the chaotic streets, and worse, they were destroying property, throwing stones through windows, throwing torches into buildings. The crowd seemed to particularly center around the huge Bastil e prison, and spread out from there. She couldn’t believe it: it looked as if a war had broken out.