Blood and Chocolate (6 page)

Burglar? The lights were off, the truck was gone, it was Saturday night. Possible.

Vivian crept to the edge of the roof, keeping low. Her eyes narrowed, her claws grew, and her smile was thin and vicious. Burglar Bill would take some stripes home.

She lifted her hand to strike as a head rose over the eaves.

“You!” She snatched her hand back.

“Vivian, you scared the piss outta me.”

Aiden pulled himself over the gutter and onto the roof.

7

“Surprise!” Aiden said.

Vivian swallowed a growl.
No shit.

“What are you doing here?” she managed to choke out as she sat back on her haunches. She trembled with the strain of holding back the change.

“I thought you'd be happy to see me,” Aiden said.

“You startled me,” she muttered, sorry about the hurt in his eyes.

His velvet smile forgave her. “I thought if you couldn't get to the party, I'd bring the party to you.” He crawled to her side and shrugged off his backpack. She almost pulled away but the richness of his smell held her close against her will. “I wasn't expecting to find you on the roof,” he said. “I was gonna knock on your window.” He unbuckled the backpack and pulled out a bottle of wine.

Dear Moon, he's sweet,
Vivian thought in anguish. A swift pang hit her gut, and she bit the inside of her cheek, hoping the pain would keep her sane.
Not sweet like that,
she screamed silently, staring with panicked eyes at his round firm thighs.

After the wine came two glasses wrapped in a bandanna, then a chunk of cheese, a plastic knife, and some paper napkins left over from Christmas.

“Classy, huh?” Aiden's eyes glittered with delight.

She licked her lips nervously. “Lovely. You brought dinner,” she heard herself say. She wanted to bolt for the woods.
You fool,
she thought.
You shouldn't have come.

She glanced at the moon. It was still behind the trees, its light mercifully broken by foliage so that she and Aiden were covered by mottled shadow. Could he see any change in her? Aiden was cutting slices of cheese onto the bandanna, babbling away. He didn't seem to notice anything wrong.

She experienced a dizzying surge of pain and pleasure and her face twitched. Her hands flew to her ears and felt them push past her fingers. She hastily pulled her hair around her face.

How do I make him go?
she thought as her joints began to pop.

“Here you go.” He held a slice of cheese to her mouth and it was all she could do not to take his fingers off. The cheese was sharp and ripe and clung to her tongue. She sluiced it down with the glass of wine he offered.

“Hey, silly, you're supposed to sip,” he said. “I don't want you doing something you'll regret later.” His eyes suggested otherwise.

Her lips raised into what she hoped was a smile; then she turned away swiftly. How were her teeth?

He moved closer and put an arm around her. “You pick a funny time to go shy on me,” he said.

Her shoulders shook with silent laughter at her stupidity. How could she think she could be intimate with a human? She detected an undeniable rippling up her spine, and a hardness came to her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She tested a new idea.
So what if I hurt him?

“Vivian?” Aiden whispered. His breath was light on her cheek, fragrant with the warm wine and cheese.

It was a stupid thought. She doubled over and moaned. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

“What's wrong?” Aiden asked, surprise and concern in his voice.

“I think I'm coming down with the flu,” she said. What a brainstorm. “Maybe you should go. I don't want you to catch it.”

“But someone should look after you if you're ill.”

“I'd rather be alone,” she insisted through clenched teeth.

Still he didn't move to go.

“What's wrong with you, boy?” she cried. “Do you
like
watching people throw up?”

His eyes widened.

She felt like a jerk. She changed her tone. “Please. I'll be embarrassed if you stay.”

“But—”

A spasm ripped through her and the bones in her knees crunched. “Go! Please go!” she yelled, and scrambled for the window like a drunk, her legs refusing to obey. “I'm going to be sick.”

She dove onto her bed, rolled to the floor, and spidered out of the room on knuckles and toes. She reached the bathroom at the end of the hall and slammed the door behind her. She shot the bolt home.

Outside the window the swollen moon leered at her over the tops of the trees.

She shuddered with pain, and tears outlined her downy face. She had never known a time when she hadn't wanted the change, hadn't enjoyed the change, but now she was nauseated from holding it back. He couldn't see her like this. She couldn't betray her people.

There was a gentle tapping on the bathroom door. “Are you all right?”

She tried to say
Yes, I am,
but her jaw was wrong for speaking and the words came out a muffled growl. Why was he making this beautiful gift seem dirty?

“Well, if you're sure you'll be okay…”

“Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmm!” she moaned, hoping it sounded like an affirmative. Her arms lengthened, her muscles bulged, and she tore at her clothes as her pelt rippled over her flesh. She had never had to hide away before. What a crime to trap her beautiful body. It was all his fault.

“Look, like, give me a call tomorrow and let me know how you are. Hope you feel better.”

When she was sure he had gone, Vivian quietly pulled back the bolt with short, furred fingers. She reached for the doorknob.

But what if I'm like Axel?
she thought.
What if I smell him as prey when I'm in fur?

She clenched her hand, withdrew her shaking fist, and curled into a tight, trembling ball on the bathroom floor.
I won't go out,
she promised.
I won't go out.
If she did, she might follow him and stalk him to his lair.

She shuddered into her final shape, raised her muzzle, and howled frustration at the porcelain tile. Her voice echoed about her like a curse.

 

Vivian blinked her eyes in the early-morning sun. The sound of a truck door slamming had awakened her. Esmé and Rudy were back. She sneezed, sending dust mice scurrying, and crawled, pink and naked, out from under the bed, where she'd spent most of the night. She was drained and aching from clenching her body tight against its needs.

I'll have to tell him I can't see him anymore,
she thought.
I can't hide from him every full moon.
She tried to feel self-righteous and committed, but all she felt was a sinking feeling in her gut. He had climbed up to her window, brought her wine, thought of her when he could have been out partying. She remembered the tickle of his hair on her cheek, his breath on her neck, and shivered deliciously.

Vivian reached for her robe, which lay in a silken gray-and-blue shimmer across her desk chair, and dragged a brush through her tangled tawny hair.
No,
she told herself firmly.
I'll leave the poor boy alone.
How long before the Five bothered him because of her? How long before the pack stepped in? They wouldn't be leaderless forever. Soon there would be someone to answer to. That last thought annoyed her. Maybe she didn't want to answer to someone.

“Perhaps Astrid's right,” Esmé said as Vivian walked into the kitchen.

“What do you mean?” asked Rudy from the counter, where he was pouring the coffee.

“Why aren't females allowed to compete in the Ordeal?” Esmé said. She sat at the kitchen table. There was a leaf in her hair, and Vivian was jealous of Esmé's night in the open.

“Gimme a break!” exclaimed Rudy. “Isn't it obvious? It's purely physical. Females are in a different weight category. Their muscles don't develop to the same degree. Why risk injury or death with no chance to win?”

Vivian took the cup of coffee meant for her mother from Rudy's hands and leaned back against the counter to drink it. Rudy rolled his eyes, but poured another cup.

“But some females are smarter than some males, craftier fighters,” Esmé argued.

Rudy set Esmé's coffee in front of her and sat down himself. “Stop being awkward, Esmé. It's only a way of matching fairly and protecting our own. You females get your chance. It's only the top female who mates with the victor. She has to be the strongest and the smartest to ensure our survival.”

“Yeah, great, some chance. It's a male's world, isn't it? A female may be queen bitch but
she
doesn't get to choose her king.”

“You loved Ivan, didn't you, Sis?” Rudy asked. “You didn't beat the crap out of every new girl who came along with a challenge just for the status.”

Vivian watched her mother's face closely.

Esmé glanced down, but not before Vivian saw her eyes soften. “Yeah,” Esmé said.

“And he loved you. You had his tail between your teeth. Who's to say the queen bitch isn't the real pack leader?”

Yes,
Vivian thought.
Mom always got her way with Dad.
But what if she'd wanted the power but not him? She couldn't have had it.

“So you had options,” said Rudy. “You didn't have to fight for the leader. A female can choose any other mate as long as he'll have her.”

“That's a mockery,” Vivian said, startling them. “The match still has to be pack approved, and she isn't even allowed to whelp without the permission of the leader. What kind of choice is that?”

“Well,” Rudy said, amusement in his eyes. “I didn't know we had another rebel in the house.”

Esmé laughed. “She's a teenager, for Moon's sake. She's supposed to rebel.”

Vivian bristled. How easily they dismissed her feelings as a stage she was going through. Her mouth closed into a thin line.

Esmé grinned and winked at Vivian. “Never mind, babe. I'm sure we won't dare deny you when you make your choice. You'd make our lives too miserable.”

Yeah?
Vivian thought.
I might surprise you.
She glared at her mother and drank in silence.
Dammit, there's no reason I should let pack traditions rule me,
she decided.
The Law is supposed to keep us safe and strong and able to birth healthy children, yet the Law wants us to tear each other apart to find a leader. The Law's a bunch of hypocrisy.

In her room, relaxed after a shower, Vivian stood in the breeze of her fan, enjoying the coolness of air on her wet skin. She smiled lazily, imagining fingers trailing instead of water drops.
There must be a way to cope with Aiden,
she thought.
There has to be.

But was Aiden angry with her after last night? She had ruined his surprise. The boys she had known in the past would have been pissed. But then, he wasn't like the boys she had known, was he? That was the point.

She walked down the hall to the phone.

8

“Why does he have to drag parents into this?” Vivian grumbled as she ransacked her closet.

Aiden's family were having their first cookout of the season to celebrate the end of school, and Aiden had invited her along.

“It'll just be casual,” he'd told her.

Casual! What was so casual about being inspected by parents?

The weather was too hot for jeans, so she pulled out a scarlet tank dress. Parents liked girls in dresses, didn't they? She wanted them to like her, for his sake. She wiggled into the sheath of cotton and swept her thick hair back with combs. But that didn't mean she couldn't dress for him, too.

Rudy shook his head when he saw her come downstairs. “God help the poor bastard, whoever he is.”

Aiden honked outside, and she hurried out before Esmé could have a chance to see who she was leaving with.

She was pleased with Aiden's low whistle when he saw her, and not even the kiss she gave him could completely wipe the silly grin off his face.

Vivian could smell the aroma of charcoal as soon as they pulled to the curb in front of a large brick, ivy-covered house. Aiden led her through a white picket side gate and past the kitchen steps to the backyard. On a crazy-paved patio a thin, slightly balding man in a striped apron was poking at the embers under the grill.

“Hi, Dad!” Aiden called.

The man looked up, waved a spatula at his son in greeting, and then saw Vivian. His mouth opened a fraction wider, and he raised his eyebrows. He recovered quickly. “You're Vivian?”

“Pleased to meet you,” she answered.

“Well, you're an improvement,” Mr. Teague said, and laughed.

“Dad!” Aiden looked mortified.

“He usually goes for the combat boots and black eyeliner types,” Aiden's father explained. “I'm glad he's brought home someone normal for a change. His girlfriends usually scare the hell out of me.”

“Stop embarrassing your son.” An attractive woman, older than Vivian's mother, came down the kitchen steps, carrying a tray. A skinny girl in pink shorts, about thirteen years old, followed her with soda bottles under each arm. The girl eyed Vivian boldly.

“This is my mom,” Aiden said, “and my sister, Ashley.”

“We're happy you could come,” Mrs. Teague said, but her smile was brittle as she took in Vivian head to toe. She put her tray on the picnic table.

“Yeah,” said Ashley. “Sure.” She dumped the big plastic bottles beside the tray, then flopped into a recliner and dragged the earphones around her neck back to her ears.

“Ashley, there are people present,” her father called over.

Ashley closed her eyes in response, and Mrs. Teague sighed in exasperation. “Want a Coke?” she asked Vivian.

“Yes, please. Great.”

“How do you like your burger?” asked Mr. Teague.

“Rare, thank you,” Vivian answered. She sat on the other recliner and crossed her legs. Aiden sat on the flagstones at her side. She could tell Mr. Teague was sneaking peeks at her. Aiden was too busy looking at her himself to notice.

Aiden's parents were polite enough, but she didn't feel as if she was being welcomed as part of the family or anything; she was more of a curiosity. She felt vaguely worried. Would they change Aiden's mind about her?

The meal was served with small talk at the picnic table. Aiden took every chance he could to touch her, brushing her fingers when he handed her a fork, wiping some crumbs from her face, nudging her with his shoulder when he made a joke. Vivian noticed that his mother looked away when he did this, as if his affection bothered her.

Vivian told the edited version of her background. Mrs. Teague was thrilled at the concept of running a country inn. She had the impression that Esmé must be very chic. “You must introduce me to your mother,” she said.
Yeah,
Vivian thought.
I know you'd love to go with her to a biker bar and get into a friendly fistfight over some guy with “Suck My Crankshaft” tattooed over his heart.

“I expect you're proud of Aiden's poem in
The Trumpet,
” she said to change the subject.

Ashley burst out laughing.

Mr. Teague stabbed another burger from the serving plate. “I would have preferred a team picture in the yearbook.” It had the smell of an old argument.

Vivian expected some words of support from Aiden's mother, but none came.

Aiden concentrated on his food, but his cheeks were flushed. Vivian wanted to leave and take him with her.

When they'd finished eating, Aiden helped his mother take the dishes inside. Mrs. Teague looked surprised, and Vivian knew that Aiden must be on his best behavior.

Mr. Teague glanced over at his daughter, lost again in her Walkman, before he addressed Vivian. “Um, so, what's a gorgeous girl like you doing with my son?” he asked.

She was tempted to say
He's great in bed,
just to see Mr. Teague's face, but she didn't. “He's pretty gorgeous himself.”

“He'd be better-looking if he'd cut that damn hair. I would think a girl like you would go out with someone older.” He winked at Vivian.

Like someone your age?
Vivian thought, repelled by the man's lack of loyalty to his son. She gave him a sultry look. “Well, some older men are attractive,” she said in a purposely breathy voice, and watched him puff up like a rooster, “but I haven't met any for a while.”

Luckily Aiden and Mrs. Teague came back before Mr. Teague figured out whether or not she'd insulted him, and Ashley removed her headphones to ask in a bored tone when dessert was coming.

“I'm gonna show Vivian my room,” Aiden said.

Ashley perked up. “Whoa-oh-oh.”

“Do you think that's quite proper?” his mother asked.

“Gimme a break,” he mumbled. “You're all down here, aren't you?”

“I don't know why you'd want to show that room to anyone,” Mr. Teague said. “But don't be long or we'll send the posse after you.” He laughed self-consciously.

Aiden relaxed the moment they were alone. He nuzzled and kissed her all the way up the stairs while she squirmed and tried not to giggle too loudly. She wished his family was a thousand miles away.

“I'm sorry I mentioned the poem,” she said.

He shrugged. “That's all right.”

The woodwork in his room was painted black, and so were the radiators and the ceiling. The walls were covered with posters and hooks from which dangled such things as beads, tassels, and a fake shrunken head made from an apple. “My mom wouldn't let me paint the walls black,” Aiden explained. “She said it would be hard enough painting over the ceiling when I finally left home, so I gave her a break.”

I'll bet,
Vivian thought, imagining the fight they must have had. “I'm painting my room, too.” She told him about the mural.

He laughed. “I guess your mom's not too thrilled, either.”

She shook her head. “Cute,” she said, examining a plastic model of Godzilla that marched across the top of his black dresser, followed by half a dozen smaller Godzillas.

“Momzilla,” Aiden said.

Next to the Godzilla family was a mound made of plasticine topped by a crucifix. She suspected it was meant to be a grave. A tiny doll's hand poked through the surface, like a corpse emerging.

“You've got a warped sense of humor, boy,” she said.

Aiden laughed with her. “My aunt Sarah gave me the cross. It's real silver. She thinks I'm going to hell.”

“Why's that?” Vivian asked. It seemed strange that one of his own pack would damn him like that.

“Oh, my long hair, I listen to Satanic music, and I have an unhealthy curiosity. She suggested to my mother that she burn my books.”

“No!”

“Honest.”

She walked over to have a look at those dangerous works of literature in his bookcase. Most were horror and fantasy novels, but at the end of the middle row sat
A Witches' Bible Complete
and
The Druid Tradition
. An Aleister Crowley paperback lay open, facedown on the top shelf.

“You believe this stuff?” she asked.

He looked relieved that there was no sarcasm in her voice. “Well, curious really. I mean, we shouldn't close ourselves to possibilities right?”

So he liked to be open to possibilities, huh? Was he open enough to accept the truth about her? There was a thought. Would he still care for her if he knew?

“You read Tarot?” she asked, picking up a pack of cards. It was the classic Rider-Waite deck.

“I haven't learned yet. I've got something about it here, though.” He shuffled through some books.

“That's okay,” she said. “I only wondered. My great-aunt uses that deck.” It was easier to call Persia Devereux that than to explain. A pack was like family, and all older members were aunts and uncles. “She's very good.”

“Cool. Your aunt reads Tarot. What other neat stuff does your family do?”

Wouldn't you like to know?
she thought.

“That's a wicked smile.” He put his arms around her. “Are you getting ideas now I've got you in my den of iniquity?”

Den.
She liked his choice of words. “And what ideas would I be getting?”

“Something like this.” His lips met hers, and his hand slid up to cup her left breast gently. She put her own hand over his and made him squeeze harder as her tongue snaked into his mouth. Why did he always have to be so damn polite?

He moaned.
That's better,
she thought.
Loosen up, boy.

“Dessert time!” Ashley's voice echoed up the stairwell.

“Oh, man.” Aiden kissed her neck. “Better go, or she'll come and get us.” His voice was husky. Vivian loved hearing him sound that way. “You go on down,” he said, releasing her. “I've got to do a couple of things.”

Yeah, like pour a glass of cold water down your shorts,
she thought, and grinned. “See you soon,” she whispered, and slinked out in a way that she knew would keep him up there a few extra minutes.

After dessert, Vivian excused herself. “I need to use the bathroom,” she explained.

“Aiden, show Vivian the rest room in the basement, will you, so she doesn't have to go traipsing upstairs again,” Mrs. Teague said.

To keep me away from his bedroom, you mean,
Vivian thought. When Vivian had come downstairs, Mrs. Teague had stared at her as if Aiden had left handprints all over her dress.

Aiden took Vivian through a door into a workroom. Guns hung on the wall and a workbench was scattered with parts and tools.

“Dad's hobby,” Aiden explained. “He collects and repairs antique guns.”

Vivian was fascinated. “What's that?” she asked, pointing to some equipment on the bench.

“He makes his own bullets for some of them,” Aiden said.

“Isn't that hard?”

Aiden shook his head. “No. He taught me.”

Vivian was surprised. “I wouldn't think you were into guns.”

“I'm not. That was a long time ago. He used to take me out hunting,” Aiden said. “You know, like a ‘real American' father and son are supposed to do. I hated it. There should be more to being with your father than going out and killing something together.”

Vivian didn't speak. She'd give anything to be able to go out and kill something with her father again. This made her feel sadly distant from Aiden. She took his hand from her waist. “I'll meet you back outside,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. The bathroom. Over there.” He pointed to a door near the stairs.

Coming out of the bathroom, Vivian heard voices upstairs from the direction of the kitchen.

“She seems rather sophisticated for Aiden, don't you think?” said Mrs. Teague.

“She does seem mature.” Vivian could hear the innuendo in Mr. Teague's voice. It made her skin crawl.

“You watch yourself.” Mrs. Teague didn't sound amused. “You'd better have a talk with that boy.”

Vivian heard the sound of a screen door closing.
Have a talk with him about what?
she wondered. What had she done wrong? Why did Mrs. Teague not want a mate for her son?

The rest of the visit was ruined for Vivian.

“Your parents don't like me,” she said on the way home.

“That's a good sign,” Aiden said. “They don't like any of the people I care for.”

But it wasn't only his parents.

Vivian took a deep breath. “People weren't friendly at school, either,” she said. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“God, no!”

Aiden didn't say anything else for a while, but just when she thought he had nothing to add to the topic, he spoke. “You're, like, so beautiful and cool and sure of yourself, I think the kids at school were frightened of you.”

“Frightened of me?” Vivian laughed with surprise. These people didn't have enough sense to know what to be frightened of. She could show them frightening.