Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (22 page)

“I can feel you looking at me, you know,” he murmured drowsily, and rolled onto his back to stretch. Then he rolled back, and started planting lightning-fast butterfly kisses across my face, neck, and shoulders. I laughed as he pulled the sheets down just enough to plant a raspberry on my stomach.

“I have to say that butterfly kisses and raspberries were not what came to mind when I considered taking a vampire lover,” I said, smiling.

“Oh really?” he asked archly, flopping back onto his side to look at me. "Let me guess: I'm supposed to be all inscrutable, dark and brooding?"

I laughed, nodding.

“So," he continued, "
you’ve
considered taking vampire lovers frequently, I suppose?”

I flushed, still unwilling to share my little vampire novel obsession with him, and then realized that flattery is always a good distraction.

“Just you,” I said, leaning forward and kissing him squarely on the mouth, then slowly trailing my kisses down his neck, across his shoulder, along his chest, and onto his stomach—where I then blew some raspberries of my own.

“You’re not feeling especially melodramatic this afternoon either, I see,” he said laughing.

“Nope,” I said, grinning as I lifted my head. “Looks like we both woke up on the right side of the bed today.”

“It would seem so,” he murmured, lightly running his hand along my side as I stretched back out. My eyes closed so I could better follow the lovely feelings he was tracing up and down my skin.

“Hey Tom?”
I asked, my eyes opening as I remembered one of the things I’d been wondering about last night. “When we—well, when I was drinking from you, it felt like there was this white electric current filling me, and when you drank from me, it felt like it was flowing back into you.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, still focused on lightly tracing every contour along my side. I shivered involuntarily, trying to stay focused before I forgot completely what I had wanted to ask.

“Is that—well, is that how it always feels when you drink, or when someone drinks from you?”

Tom’s hand paused, resting against the curve of my hip, and his eyes turned to mine.

“Not completely. When you drink from a human, you feel something—comparing it to an electric current seems as apt as any other metaphor, I guess—I’ve always thought of it as something akin to life force, or chi, or something like that. When you drink from a vampire it’s both more concentrated and yet less satisfying to that core hunger. It never really made sense to me why.”

I nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“If there’s an attraction there," he said, "the feeling turns into something different—far more sensual, obviously. I’ve never traded blood with a vampire I was attracted to though, before you, so I don’t know if it’s just our mutual attraction or something else that made things so much stronger between us.” He paused, looking at me. “It was definitely more intense than anything I’d ever experienced before.”

That made me feel
slightly better about having lost control.

“So when you go out and,” I paused, trying not to sound as awkward as I felt, “and feed, it doesn’t feel the same?”

Tom
laughed,
his eyes crinkling in a way that made me want to kiss them. “Am I detecting a hint of jealousy?”

I looked away, embarrassed, but he gently gripped my jaw and faced me towards him again.

“No,
Aly
, it is nothing like what we shared. I promise.”

I hated that I cared, hated that I felt so much better hearing that. I’d only really known Tom for a few days—I didn't count the time he'd spent as my student, not really. Granted, it was a few days that had been spent almost entirely in one another’s company, but I still felt foolish for being so attached. I pressed my head against his chest so he wouldn’t see how ridiculous I felt.

Should I tell her just how different it is, how strongly I feel? Or would that scare her?

Startled, I pushed back so hard I fell off the edge of the bed, and then hastily scrambled to my feet.

“What did you just say?”

 ”I promised that feeding is nothing like what we shared,” he said, looking confused.

“No, after that.”

Tom's forehead wrinkled.
I didn’t say that out loud, did I?

“Holy crap!”
I stared at him in disbelief. Was I really hearing his thoughts? I’d never heard anyone’s thoughts—well, except dead
people’s
.
And Cesar’s.
Oh shit. Was Cesar somehow nearby, and pretending to be Tom as he projected thoughts into me?

Tom’s eyes went wide.

“Are you somehow whispering without moving your mouth?” he asked.

I froze.

“No,” I said. Wait, so was Tom hearing me now too? How could Cesar be doing that? “Are you…are you hearing what I’m thinking?”

“I’m not sure. Are you thinking about hearing my thoughts, and about Cesar?”

“Yes,” I whispered, staring at him. “Had you thought something about being afraid to scare me by telling me about your feelings?”

He colored, but didn’t look away. “Yes,” he said.

“Is it—could it be Cesar?” I asked, beginning to snatch up and throw on clothing. If Cesar was nearby I did
not
want to confront him naked. Tom started scrambling for his clothes as well.

“I don’t think so," he said, "but I’m not sure. I think we better talk to Damian and Valerie about this.”

I nodded, quickly finger-combed my hair, and followed Tom downstairs.

A few minutes later, we were sitting with Damian and Valerie in the kitchen. Fortunately Luis and Sam hadn’t made an appearance today; I didn’t particularly want to discuss this with them there. Equally fortunately, I discovered Damian had restocked the blood supply in the fridge. I drank while Tom caught them up to speed.

“So last night you exchanged blood, and slept together, and now it seems you can hear one another’s thoughts?” Damian asked.

We both nodded.

“Forgive me for prying, but just how much blood did you exchange?”

“I, uh,” I stammered. “I accidentally lost control and drank far too much. I replenished it though,” I added, hating how defensive I sounded.

“With your own blood?”

“Yes,” Tom and I said simultaneously.

“Then I don’t think this has anything to do with Cesar,” Damian said, smiling. “I think you, quite accidentally, completed the bond that would normally occur between
maker
and made. In the process, Alyson somehow managed to transfer the telepathy that Cesar has granted to his line.” Tom and I exchanged looks, but Damian wasn’t finished. “It may also be that you have weakened Cesar’s hold on Alyson in the process, which would be excellent news.”

“Wait,” I said, as other implications of what Damian was saying occurred to me. “Does that mean Tom can now assert his will over me the way Cesar was? The way Tom couldn’t before?”

“I have reasons to doubt that," Damian said, "but there is only one way to be certain. Thomas, try to give her an order.”

I glanced at Tom and then away again, appalled. If he could order me around there was no way I could be involved with him, no matter how much I enjoyed it. That would just be creepy.

Aly
, come to me.

Tom’s voice echoed in my head, and for a split-second I felt my body begin to turn, my knees begin to bend. And then it simply stopped. I looked up at Tom, relieved to see that he looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

What just happened? The feeling of compulsion ended as quickly as it began,
I thought to Tom.

You didn’t do anything to stop me?
he
asked

No—with Cesar I had to get angry, and really work at it, to keep him out of my head.

“Would you two mind having an actual conversation so we can be a party to what is going on as well?” Valerie said.

“Oh, uh, sorry, my fault,” I muttered. “I was asking Tom what had happened—I felt the start of a compulsion and then it just stopped. With Cesar I had to get really angry in order to stop him. But with Tom it was like it just stopped on its own.”

Damian cast an appraising glance at Tom.

“Did you feel too uncomfortable to maintain your command, Thomas?” Damian asked, arching one eyebrow so perfectly that he looked like a parody of himself, and I almost laughed.

“I—I honestly don’t know. I felt her response to it and then—" Tom paused. “It was like tugging on a rope that suddenly disappeared from my hands.”

An idea struck me. “With Cesar I noticed he could only influence me when I was afraid. Perhaps Tom can’t maintain a hold over me because I’m not afraid of him, or because I’m not frightened right now in general.”

Now Damian turned his arched eyebrow to me, and I once again had to suppress the urge to laugh.

“Really?"
Damian asked. "He could only influence you when you were scared? And you could use anger to force him out?
Interesting.”

“Damian, no offense," I said, "but I hate it when you give me the whole bug-under-glass treatment. Could you just be direct, please?”

I noticed a small grin lift up the corners of Valerie’s mouth, and Tom turned away with a brief coughing fit. Damian simply nodded.

“I apologize, Alyson. On occasion I forget how valued directness is in modern times. So, to be direct, I imagine you are correct that your emotional state affects Tom’s ability to influence you, just as it did Cesar’s. Unless you have cause to get truly frightened around Tom, he will probably never be able to influence you, and even then he won’t have as much control as makers usually have. We have no way of knowing how much of this weakened control is due to the unorthodox way you were turned and how much is due to your unique abilities, but the influence of your emotions makes me think it may have more to do with the latter.”

“Why?" I asked. "I’m not empathic, I’m clairsentient.”

“Are you familiar with the concept of auras?” Damian said.

“You mean the whole new-age oh your aura has pretty colors thing?” I chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”

“New Age?”
Damian began, but Valerie cut him off with a quick shake of her head. Wow, he really
was
out of touch with modern times.

“I’m unfamiliar with your term," he continued, "or the idea of aura’s having pretty colors, but auras do exist. Some people may see colors in
them,
some simply see them as a haze or distortion around the body”

“Like the way the space above a road can look almost wavy on a really hot day,” Valerie added.

“Some people—like
who
?
Humans?
Vampires?
Elves?”
I asked.

“Anyone can, with a little training, though it’s usually harder for humans,” Damian replied.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, while another part of me was pointing out, quite logically, that if I’d accepted the presence of supernatural creatures in the world, and the presence of psychic abilities in
myself
, there was no reason to doubt the existence of auras. Perhaps I was simply bothered by the idea of something extending from within me past my skin to hover in the air around me.