CHAPTER 18
The rhythmic thumping of our very different heartbeats was the only sound in the room. As I entered, I looked everywhere but at Will.
I wasn’t familiar with this room. I’d explored the manor plenty of times, and had happened upon this room a time or two, but took it for a spare bedroom. For new members of our family if there ever were any.
I doubted what it was being used for now was what Colin had in mind for it.
The walls were stone like the rest of the house. The ceiling was darker and rougher rock than the walls and the floor, which were smooth and pale grey. There was a bed along one wall which I instantly dismissed and torches flickering along the walls. A big, wooden chandelier hung from the ceiling. Small flames danced on it.
He breathed softly, and I finally looked at him. Either Will was feigning acceptance of the situation or actually wasn’t worried. I couldn’t be sure. The walls were thick and the room was sealed up tight, so whatever was happening in the rest of the manor sounded only like rustling and mumbles to me.
“What now?” he asked, taking a wobbly step closer, his arm cautiously cradling his injured bones.
He really wasn’t frightened. I was about to murder him, take his life, turn him into a monster, and he was fine with it.
No. I knew of Will’s ability to lie now, to hide his feelings and mask his expressions. He was gifted in deception, yet I still believed everything he did was genuine. Even his lies were true.
I had no idea what that meant. How could I trust him if I knew he lied? With so much ease?
But when I looked at him, his calm face alleviated my debate. I trusted Will. That was all there was to it. And right now he seemed so calm, so resigned to what was about to happen.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t strange.
Will smiled, seeming to read my silence, “suddenly eternity with you doesn’t sound so terrible.”
“What could possibly make you say that?”
“Well, not having a choice about the eternity part certainly has one hand in it,” he paused, then gave me a sweet grin. “Having a choice about staying with you or not has the other.”
I couldn’t look at him. There was no getting out of this room, out of this mansion, out of this situation. And he was being so kind, though he knew quite well what was about to happen.
No more lazy afternoons on his best friends’ couch. No more best friends. He wouldn’t get to see them graduate. Or their wedding. Their autumn wedding in the park, with leaves at their feet. Julia with her exotic eyes wide with joy. Spencer with his good-natured sweetness, enduring her dream ceremony, just for her.
And Will wouldn’t get to graduate though he had earned it yesterday.
Just yesterday.
And he would never get married, never have children, never get a job or anything he might have once seen in his future.
He’d never see his family again, and would forget them when he awoke. Erased, just like that. Because of me.
Will was so close to my face that his warm lips brushed my cheek.
Or, he had meant to do it.
I flinched away, but he grabbed my shoulders and I allowed myself to be led by his touch.
“I’m not asking for anything. And I know everything is gonna be different soon, but I want to kiss you. Just this once.”
“But why?” I asked quietly, not sure how I felt or what was going on. Had he lost his mind? This was not the time.
Or maybe it was the best time for it. I didn’t know. But it didn’t feel right and I was scared for the life of my vampire family. We didn’t have all day. How long would Charles wait? Patience was not one of his virtues, so I couldn’t be sure.
“Because I’m about to die,” he said.
I think he meant it as a joke, but the words sunk in as he spoke them and he broke out into a sweat as he released me.
Bowing my head, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He took several deep breaths in a row and wrapped his arms around his battered torso. “I can’t get out of this.”
He wasn’t asking me, he was telling himself.
“We could go to Charles. He likes me. Sort of… Maybe I could offer him something…” I rambled. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could offer. This was already a compromise Charles agreed to. He wouldn’t be forgiving if I disrespected him by asking for more favors. But I could die trying.
And he would kill us all.
Will clenched his teeth and untangled his arms from around his body. He looked handsome to me then, all of a sudden. His chocolate eyes were liquid pools, so warm and with so much emotion. A lean muscled chest and stomach could be seen through his ripped t-shirt, and I remembered what I thought when I first awoke in his apartment yesterday morning. That he wasn’t very tall and was rather skinny. His baggy clothes gave him that illusion, but now I could see what they’d been hiding, I knew I was wrong.
He breathed heavily. “Let’s get on with it.”
I couldn’t move for a few seconds, and Will said nothing if he noticed my apprehension. There had to be something I could say to give him even a little reassurance.
Of course, there wasn’t. He was right. I was about to kill him. He was about to die. There was no making someone feel better about that.
“We’ll have to do this quickly. When I cut my wrist, there’s only a short amount of time before the wound heals. We have to tie our arms together and let my blood get into your blood stream—while I’m drinking…”
“Will it hurt?” he asked with only a hint of strain in his tone.
I looked him in the eye, confident at least he could take some comfort in something today.
“It may, but you won’t remember. When you awake, all of your wounds will be healed.” I could have added he’d never feel pain the same way again, that he’d live forever and be strong and agile and as handsome five hundred years from now as he was right now. But my heart wasn’t in it. I couldn’t make myself talk up being a vampire when I loathed it so much.
“I’m ready,” Will said, but there was fear in his voice now. I couldn’t blame him.
Speed would be the key. I needed to cut far into my wrist and deep enough into his to open his veins. I had to bind our wrists together as quickly as possible so Will didn’t lose too much blood and I didn’t heal.
Then I needed to drink.
The thought didn’t set well with me, but there was no going back. I wanted to go see the world, and I got to. This was my price. Will’s life was the penalty I had to pay for doing something so selfish.
I couldn’t change that now.
My vampire quickness came in handy as my hands swiftly went about their tasks.
Big slash.
Little slash.
I used my teeth to secure the bind around our wrists, and looked at Will’s face again. He was staring at our bound wrists in surprise. I’d been fast. Maybe he hadn’t even seen the movements. The pain had yet to register in his mind.
“It’s time,” I whispered, and he closed his eyes, reacting now at the cut I’d given him.
Something came over me, something involuntary. I suddenly wanted to place my lips on his, to give him the simple thing he’d asked for a few minutes ago. A kiss before he died. Once.
But I waited too long. The deep cut in my wrist was healing. I didn’t want to have to put him through this a second time.
I had planned on biting his other wrist, because the neck, even though all the other vampires thought it was the convention, still felt so intimate to me. But now, since there was no time to give him what he asked, to kiss him once, I could give him this.
He wouldn’t know what it meant, what it meant to me. But it was all I could do with the time we had left.
I moved my mouth slowly to his neck, reluctant to touch him. But time was running out, and I had to move quickly.
He was feverish, but what human wou
ldn’t be. The fact that he was still keeping his composure was a testament to how exceptional he was. His breathing was erratic and his heart knocked against his chest, but he stayed on his feet and did not protest.
My mouth finally made contact with him, and I closed my lips around the curve of his neck. We were so close. My entire body pressed against his, my left hand resting on his chest. This was the second time we’d been this close, and it felt even more incredible than the first.
What I had to do was especially awful because I realized how wonderful it felt being so close to him.
Gently, I placed blunt teeth to his skin and he took in a quick gasp of air.
I didn’t want to do this. My body ached to stop, to push Will away and do whatever I could so he didn’t have to suffer this fate.
The moment my tongue found his racing pulse, my fangs extended swiftly. Involuntarily. Like jackhammers, piercing deep into him. The warm liquid rushed into me but I refused to close my eyes. I refused to enjoy it.
Instead I focused with all the will power in me on anything else I could. The quickening of his heart and breath. The stillness of the air in the room. The flickering of the flames. The way the stone ceiling was a different texture and color than the walls and the floor.
To my surprise, the wound on my wrist was still open and bleeding. I thought it would be healed by now. But maybe this was part of it. Maybe this was the way.
Will wilted in my arms. He’d lost consciousness already, which was also unexpected. I’d only taken a few gulps and nothing seemed at all different about him. He looked the same, smelled the same. Even his heart pounded in his chest at the same, quick, human rate. Things weren’t going like Charles told me they would at all.
But it didn’t matter.
This was happening. I was feeling light-headed. There was no going back now.
I used to think I was so noble, so much better than the others. I would never take someone’s life. I would never force a human to suffer how I have suffered.
Suffered? No, I knew now I never really had. I didn’t get my way, and didn’t like the rules. I was a child who didn’t know any better, but that didn’t make it okay.
Colin was right, I was pathetic.
The room danced and my stomach twisted as I pulled away from his neck, careful not to make the punctures any worse. I struggled to untie the rope binding our wrists together and wiped off what remained of my blood on his arm, not knowing why I did it.
I felt sick, but cautiously laid Will down, being extra careful not to be too rough, not to hit his head on the stone floor. Once my arms were free of him, I stumbled and fell to my knees.
The dizziness lingered in my head and didn’t ease up at all. My skin crawled and tickled in a way I was sure it wasn’t supposed to.
Maybe this was normal. Maybe…
As my body gave way under its own weight, I caught a blurry glimpse of him. He breathed, but his face was still. Blood trickled from Will’s throat and wrist and I felt his blood in my stomach churn.
As I passed out, the last lucid thought I had was that I never wanted to wake up.
I wished I were dead.