Nika gave me a crooked smile and walked into the living room to sit with Spike. Carefully setting her bag next to the couch, she nuzzled her head into his fur and murmured, “Sure, Julie.”
I exhaled a frustrated breath. I knew they’d notice just as quickly as Starla had. It was the blood. Even healing, the wound exposed the scent into the air. It was a smell specific to me, and being undead vampires who existed solely on blood, my parents would pick up on it almost instantly. Shaking my head, I joined Nika on the comfortable, leather couch. Resting my head back, I waited for Mom and Dad to get home. In about an hour or so, I was going to be filleted.
My parents worked just a few minutes away, in the heart of the city. They both worked for a local magazine highlighting life in the great Salt Lake. Dad was the writer of the bunch; he enjoyed it nearly as much as ranching. Maybe more, I wasn’t sure. Mom worked with him. She was his secretary or research assistant or something.
As I rested on the couch, I imagined my father’s disappointment when he learned that I’d gotten into a fight. Then I imagined my mother’s. God, this was going to suck. What would the rest of my family think? Most lived at the ranch, about an hour outside city proper. The sprawling place nestled in the mountain foothills was where the family tended the herd of cattle that we lived on. For food, and for money.
Before Mom and Dad had moved Nika and me to this house, so we could go to a regular high school, our family had lived much closer to the ranch, just a handful of miles really. Nika and I had spent almost every day there when we were younger. Our grandmothers had all taken turns homeschooling us until just a couple of years ago. I had some great memories of growing up there.
My family was tight, and I was sure they’d all know about the fight by tomorrow morning. They definitely would after this weekend. I could almost hear my various grandmothers’ disapproval at the thought of me fighting. Well, except for Halina. Being full vampire, she was a little more tolerant of violence than the rest. She’d probably give me a sly grin and ask if I’d left my mark on the asshole.
About an hour later, I felt my parents’ position begin to move; the pinging sensation of them in my head started shifting toward home. I wasn’t looking forward to their arrival. At all. Nika was resting on the couch beside me, laid out on her stomach as she worked on her homework. Whatever she was working on was frustrating her, but Mom and Dad approaching quickly snapped her out of it. Again, sympathy welled from her. Reaching over, I shoved her shoulder. “Quit worrying about me, Nick.”
Tilting her head, she gave me a smile. “Not gonna happen, Julie.”
Shaking my head at her, I stood up and stretched. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”
Nika nodded and I felt her amusement. She knew that clean water and citrus-scented soap wouldn’t really do anything; Mom and Dad would still see and smell my injury. Leaning down, I gave Spike a kiss on the head before I left; his tail slowly swished back and forth as his glossy eyes peeked up at me. Leaving Nika and Spike to their bonding, I trudged upstairs.
We all lived in a Bavarian-style house. As far as homes go, it was actually sort of cool. With creamy white walls and dark brown exposed beams elaborately decorating the outside of it, the place reminded me of a fairytale come to life…Hansel and Gretel or something. I think that was one of the reasons Dad had bought it, the other being that Mom had fallen in love the moment she’d spotted it. Someone else had lived here then, but they had miraculously decided to sell the place to Dad just weeks later. It was long rumored in the family that Dad had enlisted Halina’s “help” in getting the homeowner to sell the house to him. Whenever someone asked Dad about it, though, he’d get annoyed and say, “Do you really think I would do that?”
I wasn’t sure if he had, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that the rumor was true. There wasn’t much Dad wouldn’t do for Mom.
Nika had confessed to me before that she was sure she’d never find a man who would treat her like Dad treated Mom, that he set an impossible standard. But even still, it was a standard that I strived to reach. I wanted to be like that to someone…someday. Maybe to Raquel? My heart started beating harder at just the thought of buying her the home of her dreams one day. God, wouldn’t that be amazing?
Stepping into my bedroom, I shut the door behind myself and waded through the mess of clothes and crap to get to the shower. The bathroom that Nika and I shared was squished in-between our bedrooms and each room had a door that led to it. In a normal family, that could lead to some embarrassing moments, but since we could all feel each other’s location, it wasn’t a worry in our house. We generally didn’t even lock the door.
Walking into the bathroom, I glanced through Nika’s open door into her picture-perfect bedroom. We were a lot alike in several things, but in the realm of cleanliness, Nika had gotten most the genes…much to Mom’s dismay. Shaking my head at my neat-freak sister, I closed her side of the bathroom and turned to examine myself in the mirror again. I looked a little better than I had in the locker room mirror, when blood had been openly trailing down my face, but the ragged, red line was still with me…and I was pretty sure my eye was starting to bruise.
Feeling my parents approaching fast, I shucked off my clothes and hopped into the shower. It was refreshing, if nothing else. As the relaxing water pummeled me, I noticed some bruising along my ribs, and was instantly grateful that at least my parents wouldn’t see those marks.
I was lathered and rinsed when I felt and heard Mom and Dad come home. They were laughing about something as Nika greeted them. Sighing, I leaned my head against the shower wall and took a moment to collect myself. As I let my skin soak up an obscene amount of hot water, I heard Mom ask Nika, “How was your day?”
I tensed, waiting for Nika’s answer, but I knew she wouldn’t throw me under the bus. We’d never do that to each other. Nika sighed. “Fine, just stuck on this stupid English assignment.”
“What is it?” Dad asked. “Maybe I can help.”
I shut off the water as I heard Dad sit down. The two of them started having a conversation about what Nika could and couldn’t say about our family history. I felt Nika’s distress as she told Dad, “I can’t talk about you like I want. It’s so unfair.”
Climbing out of the shower, I mulled over Nika’s feelings. She had a point. It was a little unfair that we were never able to talk about our parents as our parents…but it was just a part of our deceptive life. Nika would have to accept that one day. Me too.
I tossed my towel on the floor, next to my dirty clothes, and changed into some fresh ones. I felt Mom coming up the stairs as I slipped my shirt over my head. When she was almost to my door, I debated running back to the bathroom. No time.
A heavy thud sounded outside my doorway. “Julian, if you’re done with your homework, can you please put your backpack away in your room…not leave it in the entryway?” She knocked on my closed door when I didn’t respond to her statement right away. “Julian?”
Inhaling a calm breath, I felt Nika tense as she waited for my secret to explode. Her conversation with Dad stopped as she listened to my response. “Yeah, okay, Mom…sure thing.”
Biting my lip, I waited to see if she’d leave. She started to twist the knob, and I stifled a sigh. She wasn’t leaving. “Can I come in?” she asked.
Containing a curse, I turned my back to the door and found something to busy myself with. Unfortunately, all I could find was an old comic book on my nightstand. I didn’t really read them anymore, but they were strewn throughout my messy room. “Yeah.”
Mom stepped inside my room, and I heard her place my heavy backpack on my side of the door. I studiously kept my back to her—I didn’t need her to see the jagged line across my skin. Hearing her sniff, I concentrated harder on my book. What was she smelling? My crusty socks in the corner, or the healing wound on my skin?
“Ugh, maybe you could clean up in here…it’s a little gross.”
Dropping my book to the nightstand, I immediately
started picking up clothes; anything to distract her. “Sure, Mom.”
I felt her walking toward me, and I twisted to get a jacket that had been shoved under my bed sometime last spring. “You never agree to pick up your room that fast. Something going on?”
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “No.” My heart started racing, and from downstairs I heard Dad ask a suddenly silent Nika, “What is it?”
Hearing my heart surging, Mom knelt beside me. Her cold hand touched my shoulder, and a light shudder passed through me. “Hey? What’s going on?”
Silence echoed throughout the house. Dad had finally figured out that Nika’s quiet concern was for me, and he was listening for my reply just as surely as Mom was. Right when I was about to turn and face her, Mom inhaled a deep breath and exclaimed, “You’re hurt!”
Her cool fingers were on my face then, shifting me to look at her. Warm brown eyes locked onto mine, then shifted to my wound. Those eyes widened as she examined the injury, and I sighed as I felt Dad speeding up the stairs. “I’m fine, Mom. It’s no big deal.”
Dad stepped into the room and Mom broke away from me to look back at him. Impossibly youthful for being my father, Dad and I were almost twins. Mom and Nika also could have pulled off being identical twins, too. When we moved to the next city in the few years, we were probably going to have to tell the world that we were brothers and sisters. God, that was going to be weird.
Dad’s hands went to his hips as he stared at me. Cocking his dark head, he narrowed his sky-blue eyes. “What happened?”
Looking between the two of them, I shrugged and wriggled my way out of Mom’s hands. “I’m a kid; I was clumsy and fell. I don’t think we need to make a huge production out of it.” Standing, I looked away from my father’s suspicious eyes and my mother’s concerned ones.
Dad stepped closer to me. “I’ve seen falls, and I’ve seen fights…and that looks more like a fight.”
I tried twisting my head even more, so he couldn’t see the burgeoning bruise beneath my eye, but Dad grabbed my chin and made me face him. I felt my will power shrinking as I held my role model’s gaze. “What happened, Julian?” he quietly asked.
Mom came up to stand beside him, putting one hand on my shoulder, the other on Dad’s. “You can talk to us, Julian. We love you.” Her smile was warm, loving, and a flash of guilt washed through me.
“Tell them, Julie,” Nika murmured from downstairs. I frowned at her, but it didn’t really matter anymore. Mom and Dad weren’t stupid. They knew I was lying.
Sighing, I looked at the floor. “I got into a fight at school…”
Dad let out a long exhale, and my heart broke a little. Even though I wasn’t emotionally connected to my parents like I was with Nika, I felt the waves of disappointment radiating from Dad. Mom clenched my shoulder, silent. Nika’s feelings turned supportive and I felt her presence zip up to my bedroom.
“They started it, Dad. It’s not his fault. He was just defending himself.”
I peeked up to see Nika standing in my doorway, her chin tilted up, her mouth in a firm line. She looked just as she had in the locker room when she’d been sticking up for me in front of a pack of bullies. Only now it was our parents she was shielding me from. Always my protector.
Dad looked over to her, then back to me. I tried to avert my eyes again, but the concern in his gaze held me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It won’t happen again.”
Dad nodded, then extended his hand toward the hallway. “Come with me. I want to talk to you…alone.”
Nika was still standing in the doorway. She looked up the hall, to where we both knew Dad meant for me to go. The only place in the house to have a private conversation was Mom and Dad’s bedroom. They’d had Gabriel soundproof the room the moment we’d all moved in. And by soundproof, I meant vampire-soundproof. It was like being in an isolation tank once you stepped inside and closed the door—all outside sounds ceased. There had been similar rooms like this everywhere we’d lived, and anytime either my sister or I had gotten into trouble, it had usually included a visit to the “private” room. It wasn’t something either of us enjoyed.
Biting my lip, I nodded. Mom leaned up and kissed my injured temple, her lips cool and comforting. As she patted my shoulder, she glanced at Dad. Some silent conversation passed between them, and Mom nodded. I was pretty sure their nonexistent conversation had been along the lines of, Do you want me in there with you? No, you stay here. Julian and I need to have a man-to-man conversation.
My heart fell as I trudged to the door, and I sort of wished Mom was coming too. I might have been able to play on her sympathies. Not that Dad was overly harsh—he was very fair, even I couldn’t deny that—but sometimes I could wrap Mom around my finger. Maybe that was because I was the spitting image of Dad; sometimes my looks were a blessing. Also, I was pretty sure Mom still carried around a large amount of guilt over what had happened to me when I was younger. Dad too. I wasn’t the type to use that guilt against them though, and I tried very hard to never bring up the incident. Another reason I wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.
Nika gave me a sympathetic smile as I passed; her mood matched the look. Walking into my parents’ room, I sat on the edge of their perfectly made bed. Dad stepped in a moment behind me and shut the door before twisting to face me. The absence of external sounds was both jarring and soothing. Living with a constant level of humdrum in the background—cars on the street, dogs in their yards, the neighbor asking what was for dinner—was a fact of life that I was used to. Having all of that suddenly shut off felt like being struck deaf; my heartbeat was the only thing that told me otherwise.
Inhaling an unnecessary breath, Dad walked over and sat beside me. Putting a hand on my knee, he examined my wound as he spoke. “You want to tell me what happened?”
I sighed and gave him a small smile. “No, not really.”
Dad smiled too. “I wasn’t really asking.”
Pressing my lips into a firm line, I shrugged. “It was nothing, Dad.” Looking away from him, I remembered Russell’s snide face as he’d grabbed Raquel’s arm. “It’s just…this guy…he’s such a…jerk.”
Leaning forward to get my attention, Dad asked, “A bully? Are you being picked on?”
I swung my dark head back to his. “No, not me…but there’s this girl…”
Dad sighed, then nodded. “I should have suspected that it revolved around a girl.” Smirking, he added, “It almost always does. Is she pretty?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
My expression relaxed as the memory of her face washed over me. I felt my chest expand and my heart beat harder. Even though I couldn’t hear her, I was sure Nika was sighing at me. “She’s beautiful, Dad.”
Listening to my reaction, Dad frowned as he watched my face melt into a dopey smile. “Is this boy you got into a fight with…her boyfriend?” I immediately averted my eyes, and Dad sighed, my answer clear. “Julian, you can’t fall for another man’s girl.”
I snapped my gaze back to his. “He’s so disrespectful to her, Dad. The way he talks to her, the way he treats her. She cries all the time. She’s miserable with him.”
Dad looked thoughtful for a moment, his fingers coming up to stroke the stubble along his jaw as he leaned over his knees. “If she doesn’t want to leave him, Julian, you can’t make her. If she’s not willing to stand up for herself, there’s not much you or I can do. In the end, the choice to leave has to be hers. It’s the only way she’ll be happy.”
Frustrated by his answer, I looked away. “So, I just leave her with this guy? Let him treat her like a dog? No…worse than a dog.”
“Julian, I know it’s hard—”
Thinking of my family’s many gifts, of the abilities that we had, that we hid, I twisted my body to face him. “No! It doesn’t have to be hard at all. We have gifts that we can use to help people! That we can use to help her!”
Dad shook his head. “We’re not super heroes, Julian. This isn’t a comic b
ook.”
My cheeks heated with anger, and I knew they were bright red. “Grandma can force her to leave him! Grandma can fix all of this!”
Dad ran a hand back through his hair, his eyes sad. “Julian, we don’t alter people’s behavior without good cause. We don’t use our abilities in the way you’re suggesting…”
I instantly pointed at the wall of the home we now lived in. “Yes, we do! You used Grandma to get this house for Mom! Was forcing someone to leave their home a ‘good cause’?”
Sighing, Dad shook his head again. “I know that’s the joke around the house, but that’s not what happened. I asked the homeowners at the right time, with the right amount. I didn’t—”
Standing, I cut him off. “I want to help her, Dad. I want to be with her.” Anger, fear, and confusion swam through me in a reckless cycle, and I felt Nika’s emotions shift in response; she was worried about me.
Dad slowly stood up too, his hands out to placate me. “I know you feel for her, Julian, but if she doesn’t return those feelings, we can’t make her.” I balled my hands into fists. Dad eyed my hands, then stepped toward me. “And would you really want her affections that way? Forced?” Lifting an eyebrow, he added, “Would that make you any better than him, Julian?”
My jaw dropped open in surprise. No, forcing her to like me would make me even worse than Russell. So much worse. Just the thought sickened me. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the corner of the bed.
Kneeling in front of me, Dad searched my eyes. “I’m sorry, Julian, but she has to see him for what he is, and leave him on her own. That’s the natural order of things. But you’re so young, you’ll find the person you’re supposed to be with one day. You just have to be patient.”
I nodded with my head down, and Dad sighed as he sat beside me again. Putting a hand on my shoulder, he said, “Now…can you tell me exactly what happened today?”