My Blood Approves (23 page)

Everything that happened with Peter had felt
so physical because it was. There was a chemical reaction between
us that I couldn’t explain. But then I had started thinking about
it, and it was more than Jack could take, so he rushed past me and
into the house.

“
Mae!” Jack shouted when he
got inside. Stupidly, I kept following him. Part of him wanted me
to, because so much of him still wanted me. “Mae!”

“
What?” Mae rushed into
entryway, wrapping a bathrobe tightly around herself. Then she saw
his pained expression, and her face went pale. “Jack, you
didn’t.”

“
Just get her away from
me!” Jack snarled, and I saw there were tears in his
eyes.

“
Just go upstairs,” Mae
nodded. “I’ll take care of her.”

“
I’m sorry,” I mumbled
through my own tears, but Jack was already gone.

“
Did he bite you?” Mae
rushed over to me, inspecting my neck much the same way Jack had
the day before.

“
No,” I shook my head
fiercely. There was a loud banging upstairs, and Mae looked
apprehensively at the ceiling.

“
Come on. We need to get
you out of here.” She put her arm around me and started ushering me
out to the garage.

“
You’re wearing a
bathrobe.”

“
He can’t take much more,
love,” Mae whispered. The Jetta was still running, so we got inside
of it and pulled out of the garage.

“
I’m sorry,” I
repeated.

“
Oh, love, it’s really not
your fault,” Mae smiled reassuringly at me. “Jack should know
better, but he’s still so young.” She reached over and stroked my
hair. “It’s really not so bad. Honest.”

“
I feel what he feels,” I
said quietly. “I know how hard that was for him. I felt how much he
wanted me, so … I wanted him to, and I was making it
harder.”

“
You what?” Mae looked at
me with a startled expression on her face. “You feel what he
feels?”

“
Yeah,” I nodded. “Is that
okay?”

“
It doesn’t matter if it is
or not if that’s the way it is,” Mae replied matter-of-factly and
looked straight ahead.

“
He told me that I’m meant
for Peter.”

“
I thought he might,” Mae
sighed. Then she smiled at me again. “You would’ve found out
eventually. We just didn’t want to surprise you with too much new
information, especially with Peter being the way he is.”

“
If I’m supposed to be for
Peter, then how come Jack is the one that wants me around?” I
asked. “And why didn’t Peter just bite me? Why did he run
away?”

“
Peter is a very
complicated man, but he’s a good man.” She swallowed hard, and I
could tell there was something she was still keeping from me. “And
Jack is very young. And they may not seem like it lately, but they
were very close to each other.”

“
Would Peter really kill
him if he found out Jack bit me?”

“
Yes.” She licked her lips
and refused to look at me. “And he would know. It’s not something
you can hide. He could smell Jack on you.” Then she turned to look
at me. “So if something happened, I need to know, so I can try to
protect you both.”

“
What do you mean? Peter
would kill us both?” For the first time since meeting Jack, I felt
really scared for my safety. “I don’t understand. If I am meant for
Peter…. None of this makes sense, Mae!”

“
As soon as I drop you off,
I’m going to call Ezra and make him come home to sort this all
out.” Her eyes filled with tears and she gripped the steering
wheel. “I should’ve never left you alone with Jack. He’s just been
alone with you so much, but I knew things were
changing.”

“
He didn’t bite me.
Honest,” I tried to reassure her.

“
Everything’s still getting
out of control. I told Ezra not to go. That everything is different
this time.”

“
This time?” I
asked.

“
Not right now, Alice.” The
car suddenly jerked to a stop, and I realized we were in front of
my building. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hadn’t
even noticed it. “You need to go home, and Ezra or Jack or somebody
will be in contact with you tomorrow.”

“
How did you know where I
lived?” I looked over at Mae, but she just stared straight
ahead.

“
I have to get home and
take care of Jack before he hurts himself.”

“
He might hurt himself?” I
gasped.

“
I have to go!” Mae
pleaded. “We’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“
Okay, go!” I jumped out of
the car and watched her speed off, praying Jack wouldn’t do
something stupid.

Everything about me felt so confused and
jumbled, and I collapsed onto the cold sidewalk and sobbed.

One hot bath, two pm Tylenol, and a hot tea
and brandy (courtesy of Milo and my mother’s alcohol cabinet)
later, I managed to fall asleep. Milo saw the wreck I was when I
came home, and I promised him that I would tell him another day,
but I couldn’t muster the strength to do it then.

When I woke up, my pillow was soaked, and I
knew I had been crying in my sleep. Milo informed me that I’d been
moaning all night long, but thankfully, he couldn’t understand
anything.

I stumbled around the house most of the day,
and I’m surprised that I didn’t bump into any objects. Milo forced
me to eat, but swallowing felt like a massive chore.

I put on comfy sweats and a tee shirt and
didn’t even bother with showering. It would be too much work, and I
didn’t even know if I’d see Jack or Peter today. There was a very
good chance that I’d never see either of them again. Peter had run
away, and Jack…

“
Alice, I don’t think you
should go over there anymore.” Milo stood next to the couch,
frowning at me. I had curled up in a ball and stared blankly at the
TV with my phone gripped in my hand. “You keep coming home looking
completely drained. I don’t know what they’re doing to you, but it
can’t be good.”

“
You should see what I do
to them,” I mumbled.

“
What?” His brown eyes were
filled with concern, so I just looked away from him.

“
Nothing.”

“
Alice, I’m serious.” Milo
had that parental vibe going on, and normally, I’d cave under it,
but I was too numb to react to anything. I just pulled the blanket
up over my head so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

Eventually, he walked away, and I stayed
buried underneath the covers. The horrible truth was that I didn’t
really want to be alive anymore. Last night had devastated me too
succinctly.

Everything was confusing and it hurt, and I
couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all some kind of bad
dream.

Then, my phone played “Time Warp” and my
eyes snapped open.

Ezra’s back. He’ll be there to pick you up
in fifteen minutes.

Why not you? Are you okay? Is everything
alright? I demanded, feeling my heart race painfully.

I’m fine. Ezra will explain more. I’ll see
you soon. Jack messaged me back, but I still felt relieved.

“
You’re not going over
there!” Milo watched me as I pulled on my Famous Stars and Straps
zippered hoodie, the one I had worn the night Jack had been
attacked by that dog.

“
Yeah, I am,” I replied
flatly, searching around for my shoes.

“
Dressed like that?” Milo
asked in disbelief.

“
Yeah.” Finally, I found my
shoes and slipped them on. “Things have changed. I don’t need to
impress them anymore.”

“
Are you like breaking up
with them or something?”

“
I don’t know.” I hadn’t
really thought about me not choosing to see them, but as soon as I
did, I dismissed it. It would be impossible for me to ever end
things with them. I was inexorably tied to Peter, and I’d probably
fallen in love with Jack.

“
We have school tomorrow!”
Milo called as I opened the door.

“
I don’t care,” I said and
then left.

- 15 -

Ezra didn’t drive quite as fast as Jack, or
maybe he felt it was more polite to actually give me time to get
ready. Either way, I beat him outside.

I sat on the curb, shivering in the cold and
trying not to envision the worst, when he finally pulled up in the
Lexus. I had never been in the car, but I recognized it instantly
from the garage.

“
I hope I didn’t keep you
waiting long,” Ezra smiled warmly at me when I got inside. He saw
me shiver, so he turned up the heat. “Let me know when it gets warm
enough for you. We don’t really feel the cold the way you
do.”

“
Okay.” The seat felt warm
and comfortable, especially after freezing on the curb, and I sunk
deeper into it.

“
How are you doing?” Ezra
asked sincerely, and I tried to answer him as honestly as I
could.

“
I’m… absorbing a lot of
things. Is Jack okay?”

“
Yeah, he’s fine,” he
nodded. “He just needed some time to get himself
together.”

“
Is he going to be okay
being around me again?”

“
Yes. Last night, there
were a lot of emotions going for you both. It’s very new territory,
for all of us, and there’s going to be some missteps.” He spoke
evenly, and his deep voice managed to soothe me in a way that had
been lacking since I came home last night. “But you both will have
to be more careful around each other. It should be easier now that
you’re both aware of the limitations.”

“
I hope so.” I pulled my
sweatshirt tighter to me, even though I wasn’t cold anymore. “Is
Peter back?”

“
Not yet. But he will be
soon.”

“
Jack said that I’m meant
for Peter. What does that mean?” I looked over at Ezra, and
half-expected him to give me the same run around as everyone
else.

“
Mythology has set us up to
be extreme loners, but at our core, emotionally, we’re very human.
We desire companionship, but ours has to be more selective.” As he
spoke, he kept one hand on the wheel, while the other one bobbed a
silver ring over his fingers. “Our blood is almost magnetized to
our – for a lack of a better word – soul mates. We feel it
intrinsically when we find each other.”

“
Is Mae your soul mate?” I
asked quietly.

“
She is.” His eyes had that
faraway look again, and the corners of his mouth curled up ever so
slightly. “I lived 255 years before her, but now, I couldn’t
imagine existing a single day without her. I even ‘dated’ before I
met her, but it was impossible to make lasting relationships. That
was part of the reason that I turned Peter. I was desperately
lonely, and he traveled around with me for awhile. But then he met
his mate.”

“
Wait,” I interrupted. “I
thought I was Peter’s ‘mate.’”

“
I told you this was new
for all of us,” Ezra looked over at me. “Peter met a vampire named
Elise, and they were together for only a brief time. Maybe ten or
twenty years. He knows it to the exact day, but he never speaks of
it.”

“
What happened?” I glanced
out the window, and I realized we weren’t taking the normal route
to his house. In fact, if my guess was right, he wasn’t taking me
anywhere near their place. “Where are we going?”

“
I thought it would be
better if the two of us had some time to talk before we went back.”
Ezra must have read the confusion on my face because he continued.
“Some of this would be better if Jack didn’t hear.”

“
Oh,” I said. Jack had
mentioned that they didn’t like to tell him anything, and he wasn’t
kidding. “So what happened with Peter?”

“
Elise was killed.” Ezra
heard my sharp intake of breath and smiled humorlessly. “Fighting
broke out amongst vampires, arguing over who had control over a
certain area. Vampires are notoriously territorial and possessive,
but then again, so are humans, and in most ways, we are just
heightened versions of yourselves.”

“
So you’re saying that
another vampire killed Elise?” My eyes were wide, and he
nodded.

“
It nearly destroyed Peter.
He went into a very dark period for awhile.” A troubled expression
went on Ezra’s face, and I didn’t want to know what Peter had been
through or what he had done.

“
He’s fought in every major
war since WWI, up until this last excursion in the Middle East,”
Ezra continued. “He had blood lust or a death wish, or some
combination of that, for a very long time, but he’s mostly come out
of it now. He’s not the same man he once was, though.”

“
It must’ve been terrible
for him,” I said. I had spent hardly any time with him, but it
would be agony for me if anything happened to him.

“
It was,” Ezra agreed
solemnly. “But he had moved on, as best he could. After Elise died,
he assumed that that part of his life was over. We all had. But
then you came along.”

“
How did you know I was
meant for Peter?” I asked. “Jack stumbled upon me long before I met
Peter.”

“
We didn’t, not at first,
although Mae suspected immediately.” With that, Ezra gave a small
shrug. “None of it really made sense.”