The Hunted (59 page)

I gasped for breath as his lips left mine, as they kissed their way down my chin and to the hollow in my neck, his tongue trailing circles on my skin. My body writhed against him, trying to pull closer to him in any way possible—we were already pressed together more tightly than should be possible.

His mouth now moved slowly down to the top of my red cardigan and singlet, parting it gently to allow his lips to graze the skin of my décolletage and shoulders. I briefly wondered if my flesh had suddenly caught fire. Everywhere he touched was burning, and my body longed for him in a way that I had never once felt before, not even in my wildest dreams. Heat built within my depths, those depths that the inexperience of my virtue and youth did little to help me interpret. All I knew with every screaming nerve ending in my body was that I wanted him. I wanted him the way a woman truly wanted a man.

I blushed at the thought, my entire body burning all over with the rush of blood that was thrumming through my veins.

He leapt off of me in an instant, landing hard against the glass panes of his bedroom window. The glass clanged thunderously in its aluminium framing, the weight of his body shuddering against its foundations. His hands and feet were splayed out behind him, holding him against the glass a couple of metres off the ground just as he had done only the night before. His eyes were back to their menacing black depths, those depths that spoke of his Vampiric nature. His canines were fully extended, his fingernails long black talons. Again I could see almost every vein running through his arms, legs, face and neck. His breathing was laboured and forced.

‘William?’ I said gently.

‘Don’t come near me,’ he gasped.

I stopped moving and hastily retreated back towards the bedroom door, just in case. ‘I told you this would happen,’ I whispered.

He shook his head, his chest still heaving in and out. ‘I’m sorry, I’m getting better, it’s just that you blushed, and my mouth was already right there, right on top of your artery and …’ He trailed off.

‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured, ‘I couldn’t help it.’

‘Don’t apologise!’ he yelled.

I took another step backwards, surprised.

‘Don’t apologise,’ he repeated, more calmly this time. ‘It’s not your fault. I’m tempting fate just being with you, but that’s something I simply cannot help either. I have no intention of letting my thirst dictate what I can and can’t have, and trust me, Elena, I want you.’

I grimaced. ‘Maybe we should just cool it. I mean I like kissing you but—’

He looked over at me, his skin returning slowly to normal, his long dark claws retracting back into his fingers. He jumped down from the window and landed on the floor with a quiet
thud
. ‘No,’ he answered aggressively. ‘I won’t give you up, not now that I’ve found you. I will learn to control myself. I have not tasted human blood for over four hundred years and I aim to keep that promise to myself, even if it kills me.’

I looked at him hesitantly, my fingers brushing the handle of the door. ‘I think it would be okay if you did.’

His eyes snapped to me and his lips pulled into an angry snarl. ‘What did you just say?’

I faltered. ‘I just mean, if you did bite me, it couldn’t be any worse than what that vânâtor did to me. I’d heal. So if it does accidentally happen—’

‘Stop!’ he commanded, taking several fast paces across the room and grabbing both of my hands in his angrily. ‘Don’t you ever offer yourself to me again, do you understand me?’

I stared back at him in confusion. ‘Why not?’

He dropped my hands and turned his back to me. ‘Because I wouldn’t be able to stop. Even briefly, I’d drain you dry. I’m still too young to even think of it.’

I touched a hand to his shoulder. ‘You haven’t told me why you swore an oath to only drink animal blood? You could live on Synth blood without hurting humans—why don’t you do that?’

He didn’t answer me for the longest time, his shoulders tightening. He turned around slowly, his eyes shifting back to their green brilliance, but still overflowing with self-loathing.

‘William, tell me. What made you take that oath?’

He sighed and looked away, his eyes briefly closing and opening again. ‘I killed my own mother.’

I wanted to say something but couldn’t think of a reply. So instead I simply said, ‘How did it happen?’

He was hesitant to try but eventually continued. ‘She was there the night of my turning. My father hadn’t arrived in time enough to nurse me through the change.’

He shook his head, trying to block out his memory of the past. ‘He was supposed to have come to collect me the day before, but he was busy with important matters. He left me in the care of my mother, unbeknownst to her of what was happening to me.’ He stopped and took a breath. ‘When I awoke, she was the first thing I saw. I was thirstier than I’d ever been in my entire life. My throat felt like it was on fire, and all I could see was her and the warm blood that pulsed just beneath the surface of her skin. I tried to stop myself but I couldn’t. I drank her, every last drop, killing her in the process.’

He stopped and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Even when I was finished and became aware of what I had done, all I could think about was where I could get more blood. It wasn’t until my thirst was completely satiated that I could take stock of what I had done and finally grieve over her death.’

‘What about your father?’ I said. ‘Did he apologise for his absence?’

He spun around and looked at me, his eyes wild with fury. ‘As far as I’m concerned I no longer have a father.’

I decided to pursue the matter no further. ‘Would kissing me again make you feel any better?’ I said cheekily, trying to lighten his mood.

His eyes softened and the corner of his lips quirked. ‘Yes, I think it would.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

MISSING

Y
ou’d think leaving Lucas alone with a vampire would have curled his hair, made him roll into the foetal position and even make him mess his underpants, but it didn’t. He appeared at ease with his present company. Lucas was obviously a little ballsier than I gave him credit for.

Both Thomas and Lucas were reclining comfortably on the same sofa that we had left them on, watching the cartoon network on the humongous wall-mounted LCD screen. They looked like two ordinary guys participating in a ritualistic bonding exercise.

Thomas had obviously discovered that the best way to Lucas’s heart was through SpongeBob Square Pants, and apparently the best way to Thomas’s heart was through a pack of AB Negative.

Lucas cradled a can of soda in his hand.

Thomas sat only about a foot away from him, much closer than I would have thought tolerable for either of them—Thomas because it would be like making friends with the cow before you ate the steak, and Lucas because he was suddenly no longer the top of the food chain in the room.

My surprise waned when I noticed that Thomas was sucking on one of those bendy straws jabbed into the top of a tetra pack of Synth blood. They were both oblivious to the giant elephant in the room, since Thomas was a thirsty vampire and Lucas was a human Protector.

The scent of the synthetic blood wafted across the air, as clear as freshly baking chocolate chip cookies. It wasn’t as sweet or enticing as the smell of fresh blood, but it was still fairly appetising, regardless, and I licked my lips absently at the memory of the taste.

They both rolled their heads over to our side of the sofa as we entered the room. They performed the movement in perfect, almost rehearsed synchronicity. They were eerily similar in ways I wasn’t quite ready to explore just yet. The world wasn’t big enough for more than one Lucas.

‘Wow, that was some
private time
,’ Lucas said sarcastically, while nudging Thomas suggestively in the ribs and wiggling his eyebrows. Subtlety was apparently lost on Lucas.

‘I showed Elena the house,’ William replied evenly.

Lucas snorted and laughed again. Thomas looked a little uncomfortable about the topic. ‘Did any of this
seeing
actually involve checking out the house—or just some of its contents?’ Lucas queried.

Oh, he thinks he’s a comedian.

‘Trust me,’ Thomas muttered, ‘It
should
have just been a tour.’ He turned around and looked pointedly at William. William left my side, walked purposefully around the side of the sofa and punched Thomas hard in the arm.

Lucas immediately scooted over to the far corner of the sofa, pretending he had nothing to do with anything. Obviously Lucas’s newly injected bravado only extended as far as Thomas.

‘Ow!’ Thomas muttered, rubbing at his upper arm and frowning up at William. ‘I was only saying. If you and Elena want to spend all day making out, then fine. What can I do about it anyway?’ He leaned forward and grabbed at the remote. ‘There’s an X-men marathon coming up next,’ he said, looking at William again. ‘I suppose Lucas and I can bide our time while you continue to shit on fate.’

‘So you were listening in too?’ William said more coolly than before.

Thomas looked at him hesitantly and then, suddenly, his face hardened. ‘Only until the moaning and panting started and then we switched on the cartoons to drown out the noise.’

William flashed his canines in fury and then punched him hard again, deadening his other arm as well.

In the meantime, I went to my happy place and tried to pretend that the entire household had not just heard every private moment that had just passed between William and I back upstairs.

Lucas made an odd sort of gurgling sound in his throat as the sound of Thomas’s bones crunching crossed Lucas’s threshold of possible bystander immunity. He took one look at William’s malevolent expression before leaping over the arm of the chair and coming to stand next to me. If he thought he was any safer standing next to me then he had another thing coming.

‘You’re a total pussy, Lucas,’ I whispered. ‘No one is going to hurt you.’

Except maybe me.

He sniffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘I don’t want to tempt fate by standing in the path of a pissed off steamroller with teeth.’

‘Thomas will be fine. William’s just letting off some steam,’ I laughed nervously. ‘I think.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ he hissed and discreetly pointed at William. ‘The guy’s got crazy eyes!’

I shook my head and gave him a playful shove, which with my new strength meant an impact equivalent to a wrecking ball ploughing into the side of a building.

Lucas let out a gasp of disbelief as he went sprawling hard into the side of the sofa table, effectively sending it sliding about halfway across the room. A vase of flowers that was sitting proud on the top of the wooden surface, tilted, fell and smashed onto the floor below. Lucas landed with a heavy
thump
on his stomach, his hands splayed out in front of him.