Eternal (2 page)

I popped open the case and reached inside for the silver circlet pin that had once held the fragrant orange blossoms Aidan had given me on that night. I inhaled deeply, almost sure I could smell a hint of the sweet citrus scent left behind. The overhead light glinted off the crystals as I ran a finger over them, the faceted stones forming a perfect, unbroken circle.

I flipped it over, examining the back side. It was perfect, as unblemished as the day I received it, the smooth, shiny surface reflecting the light. Silver would have tarnished by now, I realized with a start. Which meant it was probably white gold—maybe even platinum. Curious now, I tipped it this way and that, taking a closer look.

And then I noticed something that I hadn’t before—words, etched into the metal beneath the clasp. My fingers shaking, I clumsily unhooked it, swinging away the metal pin. My heart began to race as I read the engraving:
Eternal love.

Tears flooded my eyes, blurring my vision. One spilled over, tracing a path down my cheek. As I wiped it away, I tried to remember what he’d said to me on that crisp, cool October night as he’d pinned the circlet to my dress—something about how
flowers had meaning back in his day, that orange blossoms meant eternal love. He’d never given them to anyone before he’d given them to me.

And now? He never would again. I had to choke back the sob that threatened to topple my sanity.

I
shoved away my half-eaten plate of pad thai with a scowl. “I’m really not hungry.”

Matthew paused, a forkful of noodles halfway to his mouth. “Come on, Vi, you’ve got to eat.”

“Please don’t call me that.” I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly tight. Aidan called me “Vi”—no one else did. No one else
could
. “I . . . it’s just Violet, okay?”

He raised one brow, eyeing me sharply. “Okay. Sorry about that.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I exhaled sharply. “This really sucks, you know? And it’s all my fault.”

With a sigh, he pushed aside his own plate. “What’s all your fault?”

“Everything.” I swept one hand in a wide arc. “Aidan, off at the Tribunal getting punished. Us, sitting here eating and trying to act like nothing’s wrong.”

He folded his arms across his chest. Involuntarily, my gaze was drawn to the tattoo on his right biceps—his
Megvéd
mark, the tip of the inked dagger exposed beneath the edge of his T-shirt’s sleeve.

“Look,” he said, his voice settling into lecture mode, “you’ve got to come to grips with the fact that Aidan was out there hurting people. Five victims with puncture wounds and severe blood loss. They’re lucky they’re alive. All of them.” He shook his head, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “He
killed
that woman in the woods near school, Violet—just left her there to bleed out. Don’t you understand that?”

I swallowed back bile. The thought of Aidan, a cold-blooded murderer—it didn’t compute. I mean, okay, I knew he was a vampire, and I knew he’d killed before. But those were murderers and rapists and really bad guys who’d hurt people that he’d loved, not random junkies who happened to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I took a deep, calming breath before I spoke. “He didn’t know what he was doing, Matthew. You saw him—you saw how totally out of it he was. It was that stupid serum. Someone messed with
it. I should have known that the vision in the lab meant something. That it was trying to tell me something important.”

He actually rolled his eyes. “How could you possibly have known that?”

I shrugged. “Because all my visions have meaning. None of them are just everyday, throwaway stuff.”

“So that’s what you’re blaming yourself for? Not realizing what the vision meant? C’mon, Violet. It’s not like the visions come with a voice-over. Cut yourself some slack, why don’t you?”

“Anyway, there’s more,” I continued, wanting to get it all off my chest. “The other vision, the one with Whitney.” I swallowed hard. “
I
sent her out of the apartment. It was
my
fault she was in the park.”

“Okay, yeah,” he said with a nod. “She was in the park because you sent her out of the apartment. I’ll give you that. But if you’d somehow convinced her to stay
in
the apartment, he would have just attacked her here instead. And worse, neither of us would have been around to stop it, right?”

I just nodded.

“The only way you could have possibly thwarted it would have been to stop Aidan beforehand and somehow change
his
course. He was on his way here when whatever it was kicked in and set him off into attack mode. Where Whitney happened to
be when he caught up with her—this apartment, the park, or somewhere else entirely—was irrelevant.”

I shook my head, confused. “I don’t get it.”

He leaned toward me, his elbows resting on the table now. “Think of it this way: Remember that vision you told me about where your grandmother’s housekeeper fell and broke her hip?”

“Lupe,” I offered.

“Right, Lupe. You stopped her, because she was the one whose intent you interrupted. But let’s say you had seen someone
with
her in that vision—a friend, or something. Convincing the friend not to be there when Lupe slipped and fell wouldn’t have necessarily altered the outcome.”

“So, following your logic, if I had somehow convinced my dad
not
to take that assignment in Afghanistan, the kidnappers would have come for him anyway? Is that what you’re saying? Because that doesn’t even make sense.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions. “You’re not taking intent into account. In that case, their intent wasn’t to kidnap and murder your father, specifically. They meant to capture an American journalist, who just happened to be your father. I can only assume that if you had convinced him to stay, it would have been some other journalist who suffered his fate instead.”

I threw my hands up in frustration. “Ugh. I can’t wrap my head around this. It’s like the whole chicken-or-the-egg argument, only worse.”

“Well, that’s what you’ve got me for. It’s an honor to serve you,” he said with a grin, obviously trying to be funny.

“Yeah, lucky me.” Instantly, I regretted my words, my cheeks flushing hotly. “I’m sorry, Matthew. I don’t mean to sound like an ungrateful brat. Seriously. I’m just so freaked out right now. I’m worried about Aidan, and I miss him like crazy.” I stood so abruptly that I nearly knocked over my chair. I steadied it, gripping the back so hard that my knuckles turned white.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” I continued. “Not with me being a
Sâbbat
and all. But I didn’t ask for this. I’m not interested in playing Buffy and ridding the world of vampires. And besides, if you think this is some kind of . . . of
honor
,” I sputtered, nearly choking on the word, “then I’m never going to be able to make you understand.”

As calm as always, Matthew stood, holding a hand out to me. “Come here, Violet.”

I took a deep breath, spent now. I took his hand, allowing him to pull me into an embrace. I choked back a sob, pressing my face against the soft fabric of his shirt. Beneath my cheek, I could feel his heart thumping against his ribs as my tears spilled over.

“Shh,” he said, patting me on the back. “Go on and cry.”

“I hate this,” I blubbered, wiping my nose with the back of one hand. “I really, really hate it.”

“I know you do.”

I tried to force back the tears, but it took a good two or three minutes before I managed to pull myself together. It felt comfortable there in his arms, I realized. Safe. Which was pretty embarrassing, actually.

“Sorry about that,” I mumbled, my voice muffled against his chest. I took a step back, my cheeks flaming.

“You okay?” he asked, peering down at me with drawn brows.

I nodded, reaching for a tissue. I blew my nose, then dabbed at my damp, swollen eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. Tired, that’s all.” On shaky legs, I made my way to the sofa and sat down.

He followed me, settling onto the far side of the sofa. A nice, safe distance away.

Warily, I watched him.

He looked slightly discomposed, his eyes troubled. “For the record, this isn’t all that much fun for me, either. I never understood it—the pressure I felt to excel at school, to graduate early, to do a PhD in record time. Now I know why, of course. I needed to be in the right place at the right time in order to find you—just a two-year window at Winterhaven—but I didn’t know that at the time.”

I shook my head in amazement. “How did you do it?”

“I rode myself ragged. I doubled up on courses and gave up any semblance of a social life in order to push myself as hard as possible academically. Do you have any idea what it’s like to go off to college at sixteen? I didn’t have my driver’s license. I’d never even been on a date. Trust me, it sucked.”

With a start, I realized that he was giving up his social life now, too. After all, he’d spent pretty much every spare moment of the break with
me
. “Sorry about that,” I muttered.

He tipped up my chin so that my gaze met his steady brown one. “Don’t be sorry, Violet. This is my purpose. I’ve made peace with it.”

“How can you accept it like that?”

He shrugged. “Because it is what it is. I’ve known about the
Megvédio
since I was twelve. Say what you want, but I’m proud of my heritage. My father made sure I realized what a privilege it would be to find my
Sâbbat
, how rare and special. I never even imagined . . .” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

“Never imagined what?” I prodded, an uncomfortable knot in the pit of my stomach.

Again, his gaze met mine, steady and intense. “It
is
special,” he said softly. “I would do
anything
for you.”

“Oh, man. You realize how weird this is, right? I mean, you shouldn’t be saying this stuff. If people were to hear . . .” I bit my lower lip. “Do you have any idea how skeevy it sounds?”

“Just know that it’s not like
that
, okay?” he said, his cheeks reddening. “It’s more . . . I don’t know”—he shook his head—“brotherly or something. I want to protect you; that’s all. I
have
to protect you. Can you understand that?”

“Not really,” I said with a grimace, even though deep down I felt it too—the bond. I’d never admit it, not in a million years. Not to him, not to anyone. My feelings for Matthew were . . . complicated. But somehow it felt right when he was by my side. I felt complete. At least, as complete as possible without Aidan in my life.

“I know it’s crazy, this whole
Sâbbat-Megvéd
thing. I’m not saying it isn’t. I mean, you’re just a kid.”

“I am
not
a kid,” I argued. “I’m almost eighteen.”

The corners of his mouth lifted with the hint of a smile. “You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s skeevy because you’re a kid, or you’re not a kid and therefore it’s not all that skeevy. Choose one.”

I decided to change the subject. “My birthday’s in March, by the way. The twenty-seventh. Are you going to take me to get my tattoo? It seems like you should get the honors, right?”

“What tattoo?”

“You know, my ‘mark.’ A stake, on the inside of my right wrist,” I explained, describing it just as I’d seen it in my mind. “With a butterfly resting on it.”

“Why a butterfly?”

I let out my breath in a huff. “I have
no
idea. Maybe because my transformation will be complete?” It popped into my head, just like that. “I’m having to figure this out as I go along, you know. You’re lucky you had your dad to explain it all to you. I have
one
page from some ancient book, and that’s it.”

A shadow flickered across his face. “What book? You never mentioned a book to me.”

I hadn’t, I realized. “Hold on and I’ll go get it.”

I
hurried to my room, digging out the book from where I’d stashed it in the dark recesses of my closet, away from prying eyes. A minute later, I was back in the living room, trying not to sneeze as I flipped through the dusty pages until I found the folded page with Luc’s translation.

I unfolded it and handed it to Matthew. “There isn’t much, really. You probably know it all already.”

I chewed on my thumbnail while he read.

“Yeah, not much new here,” he said at last, handing the page back to me.

“What about this?” I tapped my finger against a line that made me particularly uncomfortable.

If she fails in her quest and her blood runs through a vampire’s veins, the
Megvéd
’s life is extinguished.

“What do you make of that?” I asked, my breath catching. “It doesn’t mean what I think it means, does it?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it does.” He rubbed his jaw with the palm of one hand. “Basically, if a vampire gets you instead of the other way around, then it’s lights-out for me.”

“B-but,” I stammered, “does that mean the vampire has to kill me? Or just drink my blood?”

“Does it matter? Oh, wait. Right,” he said sarcastically, his features hardening. “Your boyfriend’s a vampire, which puts a whole new spin on it, doesn’t it?”

My mouth was suddenly dry. “Because, uh, well . . . he kind of bit me just before break, remember?” I reached a hand up to my neck, rubbing the pads of my fingers across the spot where Aidan’s teeth had pierced the fragile flesh. “It wasn’t a big deal. I swear. Just, you know . . . a nip. And then he healed it right away.”
Please, please don’t say you’re going to die because of it.

Matthew’s eyes widened. “Christ, I’d forgotten about that. He broke the skin?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t drink my blood. It was more like a scratch, that’s all.” A scratch—okay, maybe a small
puncture wound—and then his saliva doing that thing it did. I squirmed in my seat, remembering. Nope, I wasn’t going to mention
that
.

“Well, your blood doesn’t run through his veins, right? So I guess I’m safe. For now, at least,” he added.