‘Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?’ Kaspar asked.
I yawned. ‘There’s your answer.’
He nodded slowly, but the silence was broken by a vibrating buzz. Kaspar darted up like he had been stung, pulling his phone from his jeans pocket. His eyes scanned the screen for a moment, before he cursed.
‘What?’
‘Look, I am going to have to go. There is something I have to deal with.’ He got up off the bed, slipping his phone into his pocket again.
‘Don’t leave me! I don’t think I can sleep if you go,’ I pleaded, holding back the tears. The darkness was closing in, and every corner of the room seemed menacing. Outside, the sound of the wind roaring through the trees was chilling, because I knew what those trees could hide now.
His eyes widened. ‘I have to sort this out. I’ll be back as quickly as I can, okay?’ He flitted out the room. Feeling very exposed, I rushed to the basin in the wardrobe, turned on the tap and began splashing my hands and face with freezing water.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Kaspar
‘Kaspar!—’
‘Charity,’ I sighed, finding her standing against the frame of my door, looking completely overdressed in a short black cocktail dress.
‘Where’ve you been, darling? Your mind is completely blocked off!’ she whined, walking up to me and wrapping an arm around my waist. I felt my eyes go red, as lust pumped around my body. Behave, Goddamn it.
She placed her hands around my neck, and her lips brushed my ear. ‘I have something special planned.’ Her hands ran themselves down to my chest, pausing on my abs. ‘Something very special …’
‘What type of special?’ I grunted, forcing my voice to stay steady. Her fingers were tracing the waistband of my jeans, teasing me as I became hard. At least try to behave. She linked a finger through a belt loop, pulling me into my room.
‘I’ll tell you when you tell me where you were,’ she insisted and I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. My eyes moved to her br**sts, so ample they bulged out of the dress.
‘How about you show me?’ I chuckled.
What about Violet? my voice said, but I ignored it as I so often did.
I pushed her back towards the bed and, in an awkward manoeuvre, she managed to pull off my shirt. Her hands traced my six-pack. I grabbed the material of her dress and attempted to discard it too, but she backed away.
‘Not until you tell me where you were.’
I covered the distance she had created, nibbling her ear and sighed in exasperated defeat. ‘I was with Violet.’ I moved down to her neck, ignoring the smell of her blood, acidic and foul – although that may have just been her attitude.
She backed off abruptly. ‘What? You were with that human piece of trash?’
I shrugged. ‘She isn’t human, she’s a dhampir.’ I pulled her back into me, but she resisted again.
‘Why the hell were you with her? How could you do that to me?’ she screeched, backing away with a murderous glare that told me I was in deep trouble.
‘She has just been attacked, Charity! What did you expect me to do? Tell her to sod off?’ I replied, confused at her reaction.
‘So you stayed with her, instead of being with me, your girlfriend?’
‘Girlfriend?’ I mouthed, taking a step back myself.
‘That is normally what you call the girl you are in a relationship with!’
‘Relationship?’ I breathed, looking around dazed, like the walls could make more sense of this than I could. ‘I don’t recall us being in a relationship.’
She shrieked in frustration, tearing at her hair extensions. ‘Kaspar, did you even bother to check Facebook? I applied to be in a relationship with you.’
‘You have Facebook?’
Her eyes bulged and became black and she looked like she might launch herself at me. Which would be amusing.
‘Yes, I’m one of your friends, which you would know if you ever bothered to check your profile! You’re just trying to deny the fact that you cheated on me with that lying human slut who was apparently attacked. Well, if that’s true, she deserved it. I hate you!’
I stood there for a full minute, feeling rather detached from my body. First, because we weren’t supposed to use social networking – too personal – and second, because I couldn’t take in what she had just said. But when I did, anger rose. ‘Take that back,’ I snarled, taking a step nearer to her.
‘Which bit? The “slut deserved it” bit, or the “I hate you” bit?’
‘The first bit. I couldn’t give a damn whether you hate me or not!’
She flipped her hair. ‘We are over, Kaspar. So over!’ She straightened her dress and stormed from the room.
‘We were never under!’ I yelled after her. She didn’t answer.
I couldn’t move, reeling in disbelief. I’ve just broken up with a girl who wasn’t even my girlfriend. There has to be an award for that.
I shook my head and grabbed my shirt off the floor. How inconvenient. I’ll have to find an alternative source of amusement.
I went back to Violet’s room, glad to see she had fallen asleep. I settled into the armchair beside her bed, frowning as I noticed the dampness of her clothes. I knew enough about humans from school to know she would get cold. I went to try to fold one of the sheets over her, but just then she winced in her sleep. I knew she was thinking of him.
Screw it: she can hate me for it later.
I crept into the bed with her, careful not to disturb her position. In an instant her face relaxed, and her feet entwined with me. Her breathing became more regular, and her expression more serene.
I reached over and kissed her on the back of her head. ‘Sweet dreams, Violet.’
TWENTY-NINE
Violet
‘You have three seconds to get your arm off me and move six feet away,’ I groaned, as the sun glared through the rather pathetic voiles.
‘Good morning to you, too,’ Kaspar chuckled, taking his sweet time to extract himself.
My body was stiff and, as Galen had rightly predicted, sore. I groaned again, as he rolled me onto my back.
‘Come on, you need to eat something. Doctor’s orders.’
‘I don’t want to eat.’ I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow. I never want to move from here, I thought.
‘You can’t not eat,’ he retorted, prodding my pillow.
‘Watch me. And since when did I let you sleep in my bed?’
This time he prodded me. ‘Not a morning person, are you? Well, if you want to be alone, fine, I’m heading to the kitchen because I desperately need a drink.’
‘I don’t want to eat,’ I repeated.
‘You already said that,’ I heard him call, before the door slammed. I intended to stay where I was, but every sigh of the wind outside sounded like breath on the window, and the emptiness of the room began to bear down on me. So I jumped up, darting to the wardrobe and to the basin. I washed my face and brushed my teeth before grabbing the mouthwash. I was just pouring a mouthful into the cap when it slipped from my fingers, tumbling to the carpeted floor. Seeing it almost in slow motion, I stooped down and caught it – the right way up, not even a single drop spilled. I raised an eyebrow. I certainly couldn’t do that before.
When I got downstairs, I found the entrance hall empty, both the doors thrown right back on their hinges. I paused, and then bolted across the marble expanse for the living room, like a child who runs up the stairs for fear of something running up behind them.
I found Kaspar had a drinking companion when I got to the kitchen: Fabian. They were in conversation when I entered, but stopped abruptly when they noticed me.
‘Morning,’ Fabian said. I didn’t answer, hovering instead around the counter and avoiding eye contact. An apple rolled my way and Kaspar poured water from the kettle into a mug, a cup of tea following the fruit. I gingerly sipped at the hot drink, hit by a sense of déjà vu and a return to the day of my first sample of Varnley’s fine breakfast cuisine. The uncomfortable thought was that now it was Kaspar who was looking after my human needs, whereas then I had desperately sought to avoid him. Now Fabian was the thorn in my side.
Fabian eyed me as I ate. I stared at the tiled floor. Kaspar raided the fridge, stuffing half a packet of ham into his mouth, washing it down with blood straight from the bottle.
‘You all right?’ Fabian asked. I nodded, lips tugged into a glum expression that said I wasn’t. ‘All right enough to talk?’
‘About what? There are a lot of things we could talk about. Cheese. Chalk. Chocolate. The fact I was attacked. The fact I’m a hostage. The fact this whole situation is totally shit. Take your pick,’ I replied, my voice surprisingly steely.
‘About how I feel.’
‘Well, how are you feeling today? Happy? Glum? Better than I am, guaranteed.’
‘I’m being serious, Violet.’
From beside the fridge, Kaspar glanced our way; eyebrows raised, but said nothing.
I took a deep breath. ‘Look, Fabian, I don’t feel the same way about you, I can’t, not when Lyla feels how she does, and I’m sorry about that, because you’re a great guy, especially for a vampire. But you really shouldn’t waste your time on me; go find some nice vampire chick that isn’t totally different from you. Like Lyla. And this isn’t my world. It wouldn’t work.’ I tried to be as diplomatic as possible, emphasising Lyla’s feelings, but inside I was screaming, wondering why he had to bring this up now. Couldn’t it wait a few days?
‘But face it, Vi, you are not going to make it out of this human. Do you really think your father can get you out of this? Do you really think you can just leave? Do you even want to leave?’ he finished, glaring at me as my mouth fell open.
‘Maybe this isn’t such a good time to talk about this,’ Kaspar offered, leaning against the counter.
‘Fuck off, Kaspar,’ Fabian snapped.
The other man sprang up, hands in the air, whistling. ‘Don’t shoot the mediator.’
‘You are going to be that nice vampire chick, Vi. Better than Lyla. Maybe not soon. But you will be, because I know you can’t live like this for a lifetime. Don’t you get it? This is all a waiting game. We are waiting for you to buckle. And I will wait until you buckle, whether you like it or not!’
I felt like I had been slapped. Kaspar gritted his teeth, running a hand down the side of his face as Fabian’s chest heaved.
‘It’s Violet, not Vi.’ Leaving my tea behind, I stormed from the room. I don’t need this. I don’t have to put up with this. However, Fabian darted after me and, just as I stepped onto the carpet of the living room, he grabbed my arm, swinging me back around.
‘If you deny me your affections, then at least tell me one thing,’ he demanded in a tone of voice I had never heard him use before. Loathing. ‘You wouldn’t deny Kaspar, would you?’
My face formed into a scowl. ‘I would, and have!’
‘I can’t believe that,’ Fabian muttered. ‘I will wait for you. I will.’
I didn’t hang around to listen to him. Darting back up the stairs, I hesitated before throwing myself through the door to my room, realizing I was being stupid. The windows to my room were locked; there was no way he could get in.
I found a fresh pair of socks and used them to replace the ones I was wearing, diving onto the bed and smothering my face in the freshly changed sheets. I enjoyed the complete darkness behind my eyelids, knowing it was only a matter of time before tears would start to fall.
He could have waited. He didn’t have to bring it up now. Did he think I don’t have enough to think about? Was Ilta not enough?
His name made me feel dirty; contaminated. It was as though he had singed the parts of my skin his hands and fangs had passed over, leaving me to burn and crumble.
You can’t crumble, my voice said. You’re stronger than that.
‘Budge over, Girly; you’re taking up the whole bed.’
I was prepared to spring up when I heard the voice, but relaxed back down into the mattress when I realized it was Kaspar. I didn’t move. After a moment, I heard the bed springs at the end of the bed groan as he leaned against it.
‘He’s only being a bitch over this because he isn’t used to being rejected by human girls, you know.’
‘I’m a dhampir, remember?’ I answered, voice muffled by the sheets.
‘Tomahto, tomayto.’
I rolled over onto my back and dragged myself upright, propping myself against the pillows. I won’t buckle. They can wait all they like. But I couldn’t look at Kaspar whilst thinking that. Maybe I was afraid my face would betray my determination. Maybe I was afraid I would fall out of favour – and right now, I needed that favour.
I sighed. ‘Are there many dhampirs?’
He nodded. ‘About a thousand. A fraction of the total number of vampires. Most of them are hunters or slayers.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Rank. Slayers are more skilled than hunters, but to be honest, they’re all rotten bastards. I don’t tend to discriminate.’ Unsurprisingly, his eyes flashed black. I let my head fall against my knees, drawn into my own thoughts, trying to suppress the rising image of Trafalgar Square. I know you don’t discriminate.
THIRTY
Violet
Kaspar didn’t return for the rest of the day and, in the end, I figured he must have gone hunting. Fabian didn’t come near me and everybody else left me alone. This was exactly what I didn’t want. To lose the one vampire I was close to calling a friend.