The Return of Jonas (Pearl Vampire Chronicles #4) (5 page)

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I know, Sarah.  And I love you,” he said.

We were flying commercial.  David and Cameron were standing by in New York with Stefan, ready to bring his private jet to South Africa to bring Carlos home after we found him, but that could take days, weeks, months even, and they couldn’t be hanging around in South Africa for that long, especially if we weren’t telling the authorities what we were doing there.  Omoruyi
– one of the vampires who had helped us on our dangerous journey to discover how to transform me into a vampire (vampires weren’t allowed to know then – that was one of the ways the Elders held power over everyone) – was waiting for us at the airport, and he had a boat ready for us.  He had captured one of the pirates and “interrogated” him (meaning drained him) so he had a good idea of where the boat had been when it went down.  I felt the altitude shift in the plane and I sat up straight and squeezed Matt’s hand tighter.  Being in first class allowed us to get to customs faster, but it still took a while to get through.  I tried my hardest to not appear anxious, but I’m sure they noticed it somewhat, as did Matt, who I heard say to the agents, “She’s afraid of flying.”  They nodded and appeared satisfied with that explanation.

They stamped our passports and handed them to us, “Enjo
y your visit here,” they said.

We retrieved our bags and found Omoruyi.  “Hello, my friends,” he said
. “I’m sorry that it’s these unfortunate circumstances that have brought us together again.”

“So are we, Omoruyi.  So are we,” Matt said as he shook his hand.

We got into the car he had waiting and made the drive down to the waterfront.  He had a lot of fishing gear on board, in case we were stopped by anyone, so we could tell them we were on a fishing trip.  We headed out late afternoon, along with several other fishing charters.  Omoruyi already had the coordinates programmed into the on-board computer, and as soon as darkness fell, we killed the lights and quietly moved off on our own.  We reached our first search grid at midnight.  Matt and I donned wet suits, only to protect our skin from the damaging effects of salt water, and masks.  Air tanks wouldn’t be necessary, we could both not breathe for as long as necessary, and besides, we might be going deeper than the tanks could.  We tied a line between the two of us, at Matt’s insistence, and then tied another line to the middle of that.  This second line we would bring down from the boat, as a guide to getting us back.  The complete silence, or lack of his heartbeat, screamed at me.  “Ready?” Matt said.  I nodded, Matt took my hand and we dropped into the water.  Without having air in our lungs, we dropped toward the bottom easily.  Matt’s soothing voice was soon in my head.
‘Relax, Sarah,’
he thought,
‘We need to hear his heart, not yours.’

‘
Sorry,’
I thought,
‘I’ll try.’

I closed my eyes, gripped my hand firmly in his, and allowed him to lead us down while I tried to relax.  When I next opened my eyes, I could see shapes on the bottom coming into view.  Ship parts, the stern of the ship. 
‘Let’s look inside first,’
Matt thought.

‘
Okay,’
I thought.  Matt tied the rope from above onto the railing.  He pried open a door and we moved inside, careful not to catch the rope that was linking us together on anything. It took us a few minutes of searching, but we found the room that Carlos had been in, recognizing it instantly.  I saw the broken mirror pieces floating inside, and saw the hole in the fuselage that he had gone through.  I followed Matt through the hole and we began searching.  I knew in my heart that we wouldn’t find him here, that would be too easy, but we still searched.

Finally, after what seemed like minutes to me, Matt pointed to his watch
. 
‘It’s almost dawn, sweetheart, we need to get back above.’

I so did not want to stop, but I nodded my head
.
‘Okay,’
I thought.  Matt untied the rope from the railing and we followed it up.

Omoruyi was waiting for us
. “I was just getting ready to contact you,” he said.  “We have to get out of these shipping lanes and into fishing waters before the sun rises.”

“We know,” Matt said as we took off our wetsuits.  Omoruyi went above and started the engine.  We were in prime fishing territory fifteen minutes later.  We set up the poles (without bait of course) so
that we blended in better.  Then he said, “I slept a little while you were below, why don’t you go catch a couple hours of sleep?  We can switch at, say, eleven?”

“Sounds good, thanks Omoruyi,” I said as I led Matt below.  We fed and then crawled into bed.
Exhausted from spending the entire night in the water, I wrapped Matt’s arm around me, snuggled in close to him and fell quickly to sleep.

I was awakened a few hours later by the pain. Oh my God, the pain.  My arms, my neck, my eyes, everything was burning.  I tried to rub my arms to get them to stop hurting, but nothing helped.  “Sarah!” I heard Matt say, but I couldn’t find him, it was too dark.  It was pitch black.  “Sarah, wake up, honey.”

My eyes fluttered open and tried to take in my surroundings.  “Honey, you were dreaming.” 

It took me a few seconds to realize what he had said then I curled into a ball and felt the sobs.  “Sarah, it was just a dream.  You’re fine now.”

I shook my head, “He’s hurting, Matt.  He’s in so much pain down there.  Oh my God, we have to find him,” I sobbed.

I felt Matt’s hand on my hair. “Honey, it was probably just a dream.”

I couldn’t stop myself, I turned and glared at him,
. “It was not a dream,” I snapped.  “It was him.”  I regretted it the before I even said it, but I couldn’t stop myself.  I squeezed my eyes shut and reached for him.  “I’m sorry,” I whispered into his chest. 

“Don’t be,” he said
. “You’re sure it was him?”

I nodded
. “Yes,” I whimpered.

“Well, hopefully that means we’re close.  And it means he’s still alive,” he said.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I had to let Matt know it was him, and only him that I wanted.  I don’t know where it came from, I only knew it was there and nothing was going to stop me, nothing.  I crushed my mouth onto his, finding his tongue with mine.  I tried to pull him on top of me, but he resisted. “Honey,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “We can’t.” 

But
I could feel his body already responding.  I linked quickly with him. 
‘We can and we will, and don’t you dare try to stop me Matthew Pearl, just shut the hell up and enjoy it.’

He pulled back and grinned at me
.
‘Do you have any idea how much you just turned me on,
’ he thought before his mouth crushed down onto mine again.

‘
Show me,’ I thought, stifling the groan that threatened to escape. 
‘The floor,’
I thought. 
‘The mattress makes noise.’ 
I wrapped my legs firmly around his waist, pulling him deep inside me as he tried not to groan while he took us down to the floor, where I stayed firmly on his lap, as we rode the waves in the water and our own waves at the same time.

I rested my head on his chest, trying quietly to catch my breath. 
‘Sorry about the scratches,’
I thought. 

‘
Jeez, woman, don’t you dare apologize for that.  They’re already healing. But the things I felt your body do, holy crap… that was amazing.  Just thinking about it and I’m getting all worked up again.’

‘
I can
tell,’ I grinned.  Suddenly his mouth was on mine again. 
‘Again?’
I thought.

‘
We have thirty minutes until we have to go above… and I’m using every… single… one… of… them,’
he thoughtWe emerged into the bright sun at eleven on the dot and Omoruyi went below to sleep.  We sat on the bench seat in the shade while we scanned the water for other boats.

I grew anxious and impatient as the day seemed to drag on.  I really needed to get under the water soon.  We had the area mapped out into
twelve grids and we managed to get through two yesterday.  I was hoping to do three today.  I went and snuggled into Matt and tried to draw some calm from him.  He wrapped his arm around me and kissed my forehead.  “I know this is hard for you, and I’m really sorry for that,” I said. “It’s hard for me too, because you still think that I don’t know what I want, but I do.  I know that I’m here searching for my best friend with the only man that I truly love, that I love down to the depths of my soul.  But I don’t know how to convince you of that.  I hate that I gave you a reason to doubt me.”

“Sarah, don’t blame yourself for any of this.  This wasn’t your fault.  This was Malina, all Malina.
She pushed us all to our limits and it’s pretty amazing that the only effect we suffered was a little doubt.  It could have been so much worse.  And as for convincing me, well, after this morning I’d have to say that you’re doing a mighty fine job of that,” he grinned as he leaned in to kiss me. 

I pulled back and stared at him
. “This isn’t just about sex, Matt.  If it was it’d be easy.” 

“Easy, am I?” he said smiling.  I stared at him for a few seconds, then attacked him, kissing him hard as my tongue found his, guiding his hand up to my breast, reaching down between his legs and squeezing.  He groaned and I pulled back.  It took him a few seconds to catch his breath
. “Okay, you’re right,” he gasped, “if it was just sex it would be easy.  But how can there not be any doubt at all, Sarah?  You haven’t seen him in months and the last time you saw him you weren’t sure.  So how you possibly know for certain until you do see him again?”

“I just do, Matt.  The same way I knew not to be afraid of you when I first saw you on the pier.  The same way I knew that going on this adventure with you was the right thing to do.  The same way I knew that the Elders weren’t being honest with us.  The same way I knew when Malina was going to attack us.  I don’t know how I know these things, I just do.  The only time it’s ever been messed up for me was when I watched that DVD, when I watched you die.  If I hadn’t shut down so quickly, I might have been able to figure it out and save us all this heartache.  But the truth is, shutting down was the only way I could survive at the time.  It’s the only way that I was able to stay alive at the time, but it also messed something up in me, something that took a little while to fix, but it is fixed now, Matthew
, I
know
it is.” I couldn’t say anymore now, I had too many emotions coursing through me, and to tell the truth, I really wasn’t sure.  I was trying to convince myself just as much as I was trying to convince Matt. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore.  I didn’t want to hurt Carlos anymore. 

Matt studied me for a bit, then
he nodded and wrapped me in his arms. “Alright, honey, I believe you.  No more doubt.”  His hand gently brought my chin up. “I love you, Sarah Pearl.”  His mouth came down on mine with one of those kisses.  I knew I should stop him, I really couldn’t afford to be flustered and stupid right now, but there was nothing inside me that could stop him.  The fact of the matter was that, despite how they affected me, I truly loved these kisses and I never wanted them to stop.  The only thing that stopped this one was Omoruyi’s voice as he cleared his throat.  Matt pressed his forehead to mine. “Sun’s down, let’s go find him,” he said.  I nodded as the boat’s engine roared to life. 

We h
ad a busy night, searching grids two, three, eight and nine, but found nothing. Thankfully I had a dreamless sleep the next day, but after searching grids four, five and ten, finding nothing and knowing there were only three grids left before we were out of the shipping lanes and into the open ocean, where the currents were like a washing machine… well, my hopes were dying along with a piece of my heart.

The next day at dawn, we sat at the stern of the boat with our feet dangling in the water.  We had just finished searching the last three grids
– six, eleven and twelve, and found nothing, and I could feel the panic building in me.  “Maybe we should start back at the beginning, we must have missed something,” I said.

“Sarah, the current wouldn’t have pushed him that way,” Matt said.

“But, maybe he’s stuck underneath something and the current can’t move him.  Matt, we can’t just leave.  He’s down there, we have to find him,” I sobbed.  He wrapped his arm around me. “Okay, honey.  We’ll try the first grids again, but not until tonight.  The sun’s coming up soon.  We have to move the boat, okay?”  I nodded into his chest and Matt turned and nodded to Omoruyi.  The boat roared to life and began to move toward the fishing ground.

Suddenly an image appeared in my head, an image that only Carlos could have been dreaming about, because I was wide awake and he and I were the only two who had seen this.  It was Carlos and me,
passionately kissing, in the broom closet that we had been forced to hide in when Matt was bringing someone to the interrogation room and he had given us explicit orders that he didn’t want this person to see us or know we were in the building.  It was a tiny space and we were as close as two people could be and, well, things had happened that we couldn’t stop – kissing, grabbing, groping – just about everything short of sex – which probably would have happened if there had been enough room for us to take our clothes off.