Authors: Shari Richardson
"I guess not," I said.
"Mairin, my donors give me food. They are no more to me than the man who hands you the food you eat at a restaurant. But you, you are everything to me. If I were to lose my focus and...and kill a donor, the guilt would be enormous, but not so much as to destroy me. To allow you to offer me blood is to consciously put your neck under the guillotine and depend upon my reflexes to be fast enough to stop the blade once it begins to fall. That is not something I am willing to do."
"I wish I had more to give you. I wish I didn't envy those women," I whispered.
"Do you envy the cows your family consumes? There is nothing in those donors to envy, my love. It is you who holds my heart, not them. As for what you give to me, who could offer me more than the care of my soul, the light of my existence and the love of my eternity?
Mathias pushed my hair away from my left shoulder and lay his lips against the soft spot between my neck and shoulder. The shudder that rolled up my back made me sigh and press more tightly against him. I could feel him smiling against my skin.
"Why do you always choose that spot?" I asked.
"Because it is where I can hear your heart and smell the blood rushing beneath your skin." He pulled back, letting me settle more comfortably against him. "It is where I must deny my baser instincts. That I could take your life from that place makes it that much more intimate and precious to me. You see, I'm still selfish to my core. I still wish to enjoy the bouquet without tasting the wine."
I turned and lay my head against his chest, curling my arm around his waist. "Oh," was all I could think to say. Mathias always answered my questions, but sometimes the answers were not what I would have wanted had I known them before I asked the question. I knew he struggled every day to refrain from harming me, but I didn't realize he purposely put himself in a position from which he had to restrain himself or kill me.
"Mairin, I will never hurt you," he said, brushing his lips over my hair. "You do not have to fear that."
"I'm not afraid of you, Mathias," I said. "I just forget sometimes what it means for you to be with me."
"Being with you means I can be as close to human as is possible for me. You are my reminder of what it was like to be human, to be worthy of this life."
"But you have to deny so much of yourself to be this close to me. I can't be worth that."
I looked up into his beloved face. His dark eyes were hooded now, a frown creased deeply between them.
"Mairin, you don't understand...I don't know how to help you understand. You've seen the worst of what I am through my memories, through your dreams, and yet here you willingly lie in my arms and with my heart in your hands. Anything I deny myself when I am with you is replaced ten, no one hundred times by the gift that you are. I was a careless and soulless monster before you came to me. I killed because I was too lazy to learn not to. You helped me see the value in living a life without death. I can never repay you for that gift."
My heart thundered in my chest, as it always did when Mathias became so impassioned. "I don't think of myself that way."
"I know, my heart. That is part of why I cannot help you understand."
"You give to me just as much, Mathias," I said, raising up on my knees and taking his face between my palms. "Before you, I was a shadow, a wraith with no real value. But you see me, all of me. You help others see me. You made me whole and solid, a part of this world instead of separate from it."
I lay my lips gently against his. I wished for the deep kisses I saw others enjoy. I wished to taste his lips, his tongue, but we had compromised with this gentle touching. Mathias' razor sharp teeth held the venom that would make me immortal and he refused to tempt fate by allowing me to kiss him in a way that might risk contact with those poisonous teeth. If he'd had his way, we would observe the mores of his time. A stolen kiss from time to time, chaperoned dates, and a kiss on the back of my hand. I had pushed for and convinced him that we didn't have to be quite that puritanical, but there were still things he refused to budge on.
He turned his face slightly to trail his lips down my neck. Desire curled lazily in my belly. I traced my lips along his jaw, snaking my tongue tentatively between my lips to taste his skin. I shuddered, groaning with frustration as Mathias gently pulled back.
"You are ever so fetching when you are pushing me to the edge of my control," Mathias whispered.
My breath began to come in short pants and I threaded my fingers into his thick, silky hair. Mathias kissed my neck once more before pushing me gently away.
"You need to go back to sleep," he said, helping me lay against him again. "Your mother will be upset enough with me for allowing you to watch horror movies."
"I think she'd be more upset to know you were still here," I said. I lay down, curling into Mathias' body as closely as I could.
"Should I go? My staying does compromise your reputation, should it become known." He knew I wouldn't ask him to leave.
"Stay," I whispered.
Mathias laughed softly, "Until you send me away, my heart."
***
The morning sun streamed through my bedroom window, revealing the empty space where Mathias had lain during the night. Mornings were both my favorite and my most hated time of day. There was always the balance of emotion from knowing he had only just left after holding me through the night followed by the emptiness that filled me when he wasn't near enough to touch, to hear, to see. I knew he left me to feed some mornings. Other mornings, he returned to his home and watched the sun rise over the ocean. Mathias' love of the sun was awe inspiring. Anyone who believed the myths of vampires living in the dark because they loved the night had never seen Mathias standing on the beach, head thrown back, eyes closed, a small smile on his lips. No one who loved the night could worship the coming of a new day as he did.
This summer had, thus far, been the most precious season of my life. Each day was filled with the usual summer activities of beach, sun, and fun. I'd grown up in Highland Home and I knew that for the rest of my life I would have to live near the ocean. Each night, though plagued with the horrors of my dreams of the killer, was precious because Mathias stayed with me. As long as I could stay awake, we talked about everything from his past to my future. He told me of the people he had met and asked me about the people we went to school with. When it came to my future, however, I didn't know what to say in answer to most of his questions. My senior year of high school would start in two months. Mathias had laughingly agreed to come with me when I'd asked what he'd be doing for the year.
"I think I can handle one more senior year," he'd said.
"How many senior years have you had?"
"Enough."
He wouldn't tell me the exact number, but I began to understand that he'd often attended high school when he'd been bored or when Alfred had felt the need to stay in one place long enough to be noticed. He'd also already been to and graduated from college a few times. That idea was far more daunting to me than our senior year in Highland Home.
I'd applied to colleges all over the country before I'd met Mathias. Cecelia and I had planned to find a college where we could go together so we wouldn't be lonely, but her requirement was that the college be far enough from Highland Home that she wouldn't be expected to visit too often. I'd been on board for that plan until the incident on the football field last spring. After that, I had begun applying to colleges closer to home. Mom was ecstatic that I wanted to stay closer to Highland Home. Cecelia, on the other had was furious.
"What the hell, Maire?" she'd yelled when she found the acceptance letter from the state university campus in the city. "You've talked about nothing but getting out of Highland Home since you were ten. We've applied to every school on the east coast that wasn't in this state. Tell me you aren't seriously considering staying here because of Mathias!"
"It has nothing to do with Mathias," I said. "Actually, he wants me to go to Princeton. But after my accident, I guess I feel strange about being away from Mom and Kerry and Tawnya."
"What does your mom say?"
"She's gotten kind of clingy, actually. She was thrilled when I got the letter from Princeton, but State means I can be near her. I think she's up in the air about how much to push for one or the other, afraid I'll pick the wrong one just to spite her."
Cecelia had dropped the argument then, but she hadn't given up. I could tell by the way she watched my mail for more acceptance letters and let me know which schools had accepted her. I think she was hoping one would come that would convince me to leave Highland Home with her.
I hadn't been lying when I told her the "accident" had made me want to stay closer to my family. The battle on the football field had resulted in several strange outcomes. Braden Lambert moved to number one on the werepanther's watch list while Mathias had moved down significantly. Kerry and I had been added to the protection detail the panthers had set up around Highland Home, and more and more supernatural creatures had begun turning up in the area, drawn by me if I were to believe Elise's assessment of the situation. I couldn't just leave my family to face all of that alone. I had to stay, to help protect them if I could. But I couldn't say any of that to Cecelia. As far as she knew, I'd tripped and fallen over the railing at the stadium and broken four ribs. I hated keeping secrets from her, but I knew the less she knew, the safer she would be.
Braden had continued to watch me and Mathias through the end of the school year, but he'd apparently taken Xavier's warning to leave us and all other humans alone to heart. The quarterback might have been angry about getting beaten but I could see the fear in his eyes when he looked at Mathias. I knew Braden was remembering the sound of Mathias' voice and how close he'd come to being a meal after he'd threatened to kill me. If Mathias hadn't been more interested in redeeming himself in my eyes than killing Braden, the quarterback knew he'd have died on the football field.
Perhaps because he feared Mathias might change his mind, Braden had kept Stephanie away from me and Kerry, and kept his distance. When summer break started, I'd heard that the Lamberts had decided to take a European tour for the summer. I hadn't seen Braden since. Xavier said the family had really left the country and had taken so much stuff with them that the panthers thought they probably wouldn't be coming back. I knew I wouldn't miss them.
So instead of a future of avoiding Highland Home unless my sister needed me, I was now beginning to plan a future that kept me close to home. Mathias was supportive of my choice, but I could also tell he wanted to encourage me to take one of the acceptances from the more prestigious schools. He'd even offered to pay for my schooling when I pointed out that there was no way my family could afford Princeton. Not even with the scholarship they'd offered me. I'd refused to take his money and he'd finally stopped offering.
In the present, I had the best and worst of summers. Instead of the public beach where the Cotes had always been somewhat of an oddity to be watched and laughed at, we stuck to the private strip of beach behind Mathias' home. Even Tawnya had enjoyed having Mathias' beach at her disposal and had stopped huffing every time I mentioned his name. She still refused to spend a lot of time close to Mathias, but she'd willingly planned cookouts and other activities with Mom at Mathias' home.
And while Braden was no longer a problem, the killer in East Hampton was. It had arrived a few weeks earlier and had been conspicuous in its kills, killing sometimes as many as four men a night. Mathias was beginning to grow concerned about the unwanted attention the killer might draw to the vampire community, though he wouldn't admit it to me. I could see his anxiety and flashes of his fears would sometimes filter into my dreams. So far the visitor had stuck to East Hampton, but I couldn't help but worry that eventually Highland Home would look more appetizing and the killer would change its hunting ground. Not that I didn't have sympathy for the families in East Hampton, but I had to be realistic. I could only do so much and my focus was undeniably my own family.
In addition to the daily newspaper accounts of the rising murder rate in East Hampton, I had to watch a running, live newsreel of the murders in my dreams each night. I had wanted to stake out the most common locations I saw in my dreams, but Mathias wouldn't let me. He sent the panthers instead, but so far the vampire had eluded them.
There was no sense dwelling on what I couldn't change. I knew I was doing everything in my power to help the vampires and panthers. It wasn't my fault something about this killer made the premonitions came too late for me to help the victims. I threw on my bathing suit and some shorts and headed for the kitchen. The plan for the day was to take Kerry and Cecelia to the beach at Mathias' house while Mom and Tawnya opened the shop for the annual July 4th street fair. I could hear Mom in the kitchen talking to Tawnya as I padded down the stairs.
"I don't know where it came from, Tawnya. If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you."
"What's up, Mom?" I asked, helping myself to toast from the plate in the center of the kitchen table.
"Someone left a flower arrangement on the porch. There's no card."
"Hmm," I nodded. I couldn't imagine what the big deal was about some flowers.
"It's a funeral arrangement, Loraine," Tawnya said, looking pointedly at me.
"I'm sure it was just a mistake. You're making too much of this, Tawnya."
Tawnya said nothing, but I could feel her watching me. I had no idea who would send a funeral arrangement to us without a card. I was ready to side with Mom on this one. It was a mistake, not something sinister.
"So I'm taking Kerry and Cecelia to Mathias' house today, right?"
"Unless you want to come to the street fair," Mom said, laughing. She knew I hated the crowds at the street fair. I'd always been uncomfortable in crowds, but since I'd started being able to see auras and know things about people based on their auras, crowds were worse.