Vampires Rule (4 page)

“Don’t—please,” she said. Her voice was
barely audible. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to hurt
me. Fight it. I believe in you. I know your human half is
stronger.”

He bent forward, and his lips parted. The
closer he got to her throat the better he felt. If he bit her,
drained her, he might live. His survival instinct drowned out
compassion and tenderness. He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t
see the look of horror on her face.

Pain ripped through his head.

He fell to his knees. The most intense pain
he’d ever experienced sawed into his brain, threatening to split
his head in two. He grabbed his head with both hands. This was it.
He was going to die. The werewolf had succeeded in killing him. It
was going to be a worse death than the first time and there wasn’t
a thing he could do about it.

“Are you okay?” Silver asked, taking a
tentative step towards him.

They both looked to the glowing spot on her
blouse at the same time. Reaching beneath the material, she pulled
the silver dagger necklace out again. The three tiny blue jewels
had turned ruby red. Glowing bright, they went from red to black,
and the pain in Jack’s head intensified a hundred-fold. Forget
werewolves, the charm was killing him.

“Wow,” Silver said in a breathless voice.
“That’s never happened before.”

The jewels stopped glowing. Jack crawled
away, eager to put distance between himself and the inhuman agony
the necklace caused. His fingers sank into the soft carpet. He
grabbed handfuls of the shaggy threads and pulled himself along. It
took several painful minutes to reach the other side of the bed.
Holding the top of the mattress with both hands, he slowly pulled
himself up. His strength vanished.

He collapsed and flung an arm over his eyes,
not caring what Silver did next. If she got the stake and drove it
into his heart, at least his problems would be over. The mattress
sagged beneath her weight. He prepared himself for death. The last
thing he expected to feel was the gentle touch of her hand on his
chest.

His heart beat tripled in tempo as a new
sensation rippled through his body.

“You are going to survive this, Jack. I can’t
tell you how I know. You’re too out of it to understand anyway.
Just trust me. You’re going to be fine.”

Confidence ruled her voice, and he instantly
believed. He wasn’t going to die, at least not now. He looked into
her eyes. An odd sense of déjà vu hit him as if they’d done this a
million times before.

“Do I know you?” he asked. While he waited
for an answer, his mind went through a long list of pictures from
the past. There had been a lot of girls, most of them passing
through his life quickly because they’d been afraid of Summer. The
few who’d thought he might be worth the risk had vanished, probably
killed by Summer.

“You know me,” she said. “And you don’t know
me. It’s complicated.”

“Usually is.” He closed his eyes again,
beyond tired.

She lay next to him. Her leg touched his and
her arm bumped into his arm as she squirmed around, trying to get
comfortable. He tensed. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow. She
was too close, and she smelled more incredible than she had at the
cemetery. What was she doing to him? Maybe she had power like her
ancestor.

“Don’t even think about trying anything,” she
said. “You touch me, and I’ll rip your soul out through your
nostrils.”

He turned his head to look at her, startled.
Was she serious? He didn’t know if it was possible to take his soul
out through his nose, but he didn’t want to find out. She sounded
like she knew what she was talking about. For a petite girl she was
pretty scary.

Despite the vivid images her threat conjured,
he began to drift. He tried to fight it, tried to stay awake, but
in mere seconds he was in a different world, a world of tall trees
and fresh air. Silver was with him. Having her there felt right,
like it was meant to be. And the forest felt like home.

****

The next time he opened his eyes, darkness
greeted him. Silver had turned off the lamp after he’d fallen
asleep. She lay on her side next to him, snoring softly. He came up
on one elbow and stared down at her, studying her with superhuman
vision. She looked like a pretty doll with her eyes closed. Her
features were soft and delicate, and a place deep in his heart
began to ache for what he’d missed in life.

He had a peculiar feeling he had been
dreaming about her, but he couldn’t remember the details. She
turned her head, snuggled deeper into the quilt and moaned his
name. “Jack.”

Was she dreaming about him?

“Where are you?” she asked, talking in her
sleep.

“I’m right here,” he said, answering
automatically.

“Don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” His gaze drifted to
the window. He’d lost track of time, but he knew the sun was
getting ready to appear. He could smell it, the burning heat of a
new day. Sunlight was even worse for a vampire than werewolf claws.
He wasn’t walking out the door until it was dark again.

Silver continued to sleep and he remained
frozen in a holding pattern, hovering over her. This was the first
time he’d spoken to a sleeping person. It was a bit creepy but kind
of cool. He wondered if she would answer him if he asked her a
question now.

“Why did you help me tonight?” he asked.

“Because you’re Jack.” A smile touched her
lips.

Okay. He tried again. “Where do I know you
from? How do you know me?”

“We met in a dream.”

A flash of the two of them standing in the
middle of a forest haunted the recesses of his mind. As hard as he
tried, he couldn’t grasp it firmly. Every time he got close, it
faded like smoke.

Giving up, he collapsed onto the pillow she’d
provided and stared at the ceiling. He went over everything that
had happened to him in the last few hours. Earlier he had thought
he knew everything about the world and about his place in it. Now
he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t known of Silver’s existence. Life was
weird sometimes.

“Be careful, Jack.” She whispered the words
in the dark, startling him. He turned to look at her face and
waited to hear more. A few minutes passed and he started to think
she wasn’t going to add anything else. Her lips parted on a sigh.
“They’re going to kill you. Be careful. I don’t want to lose
you.”

Those words struck a chord deep within him.
She liked him. His insides warmed at the thought. If he was smart,
he’d start running now. The last thing he needed was a hunter
girlfriend. Slowly, the rest of her words replayed in his brain.
Someone was going to try to kill him?

He sat up quickly and asked, “Who?”

She didn’t respond. Her lips refused to
budge. If she woke up, she wasn’t going to be happy to see him
leaning over her, and he wouldn’t get the answer to his question.
Maybe if he rephrased the question, she would be able to answer
it.

“Is a hunter after me right now?” ‘Besides
you,’ he almost added.

She frowned in her sleep. “Not yet.”

“What about a werewolf? Is there a werewolf
tracking me?”

“Not yet.”

Irritated, he prepared to raise his voice,
not caring if her parents heard and came to investigate. He felt
stronger and could probably take out her entire family without
breaking a sweat. As quick as he got angry, he let it go. He
wouldn’t hurt anyone Silver cared about, not after she’d saved his
life.

“What is that supposed to mean? Not yet? Who
do I need to be careful of? Who is going to try to kill me?”

A single word floated to his ears, chilling
him to the bone.

“Everyone.”

The next time Jack woke it was morning, and
his hand felt oddly warm. A nagging voice deep in the recesses of
his mind slowly connected the dots. He had experienced this
soothing heat before, but it had been so long ago he couldn’t
pinpoint the source. Whatever it was, it was bad.

Jack cracked his eyes a slit. His hand rested
comfortably on the pillow beside his head. Light streamed through
the open curtains and rested on his unprotected skin. His eyes
widened as the truth dawned on him.

With a yelp, he jerked his hand out of the
light and dove under the covers. Sunlight and vampires did not mix.
Any second now he would burst into flames, and it would all be
over. Where was he anyway? He searched his recent memories.

An amused voice spoke from the doorway.

“It’s okay,” Silver said. “You’re fine. I
opened the curtains this morning, but I watched your skin carefully
for any signs of burning. The sunlight can’t hurt you anymore.”

He struggled to breathe through the
suffocating covers and mumbled, “What are you talking about?”

“You’re not a vampire.”

“What?” Oh yeah, she’d lost her mind. Or
maybe this was a trick to get him to commit suicide. She was the
enemy after all, albeit a beautiful one.

She yanked the covers off the bed and him
with one quick sliding motion like a magician revealing his final
trick. Silver was fully dressed, hair combed, and eyes sparkling.
She flashed him a quick grin. “You don’t need to hide from the sun.
You are no more a vampire than I am. See?” She motioned to the
window. “You aren’t catching fire or exploding. Isn’t that enough
evidence for you?”

He crawled to the edge of the mattress in
wonder and stared at the beauty known as dawn. Tears blurred his
vision for a moment. Incredible. It had been too long since he’d
seen golden sunlight. He’d forgotten how breathtaking a sunrise
could be. Logic argued with his physical senses. He pushed his
fingers beneath his upper lip, felt the gums. No telltale bumps
beneath the skin. He jumped off the bed and grabbed Silver, pressed
his face against her throat as he tried to smell her blood.
Nothing.

She giggled.

He released her and went to the window.
Before he had the chance to change his mind, he thrust the glass
pane up and stuck his hand outside. The most amazing warmth
caressed his skin. A cool breeze wafted inside, stirring the hair
against his neck. His eyes closed, and he savored the sweet moment.
He ducked his head and leaned out the window. It didn’t hurt. It
didn’t burn.

“I can’t believe it.” The words floated out
with his pent-up breath. “I must be dreaming.”

Hard knuckles rapped on the bedroom door.
Jack jumped and hit his head on the window sill. Pain shot through
his skull. No, this wasn’t a dream. Definitely not. His hand went
to the back of his head, and he absently checked for blood. Since
he wasn’t alone, he bit his tongue instead of cursing.

“Silver, are you up yet?” The deep, masculine
voice penetrated the closed door.

She turned panicked eyes to Jack and
whispered. “It’s my dad. He can’t find you here. He’ll drive a
stake through your heart.”

“I’m not a vampire anymore. Remember?”

“Trust me, that won’t matter. In fact it
might make things worse.” She looked at him like he was dumber than
dirt. “You’re a boy, and you’re in my bedroom. He’s going to kill
you.”

She had a point. Jack remembered a few
confrontations with angry fathers during his last stint as a human
teenaged boy. He turned in a tight circle, searched every corner of
the room. Where could he hide? Both the closet and under the bed
seemed a little too obvious.

Silver hurried to the door and spoke to her
dad without opening it. “I’m not dressed. I’ll be down in a
minute.”

She pressed her ear to the door, listening to
her father’s footsteps travel down the hallway, and she stayed that
way until he was gone. Jack could hear the footsteps from where he
stood. He wondered if his vampire hearing would stay with him even
though he wasn’t immortal anymore.

“This isn’t possible,” he said, speaking more
to himself than to her. “Nobody stops being a vampire. There isn’t
a cure.”

“The werewolf venom saved you.”

He practically gagged at the thought. His jaw
tightened. There was no way in hell that a werewolf had saved him.
Something else must have happened. Clearly this girl knew a lot
more than she was telling him.

“Wait a second.” He shook a finger at her.
“You don’t seem surprised by my lack of fangs. How could you
possibly know werewolf blood would change me, cure me?”

“You remember the journal I told you about
yesterday? The one Lovely wrote?” She waited for him to nod before
continuing the explanation. “Well, there’s a lot of interesting
information in that book including several visions she had about
the future, about you. She predicted you and I would meet.”

“Where is this book? I want to see it.”

“You can’t.”

“If it’s about me, I have the right to read
it.”

“My father has it hidden somewhere, and
there’s no way he’ll hand it over to a former vampire.”

“But if it’s about me.” He clenched his
hands, wanting to put a fist through the wall to relieve
frustration. Yesterday, life had been a lot simpler. He might have
been a vampire, but at least he’d known what to expect on a
day-to-day basis. “Fine. I’ll ask your father for it.”

“No, you won’t.” Her eyes narrowed. She
snapped her fingers. “New plan. I am going downstairs to distract
my parents while you sneak out the back door.”

“What if you can’t keep their attention?”

“My parents see a five-year-old every time
they look at me. They were always over-protective, but they’ve
become a hundred times worse since I turned seventeen. They know
their days of telling me what to do are numbered. As soon as I say
I have a problem and ask for advice, they won’t notice if someone
drops a bomb on the house. Just count to ten before you leave. Wait
for me in my car. I’ll give you a ride home.”