He stopped in front of me and touched a finger just above my left breast. My heart leapt. The feeling of perfect connection was so profound it made my vision waver.
“You must know this in your heart,” he said in a voice hoarse with intensity. His touch was a brand, burning through the flesh and bone, straight to my heart. But it wasn’t a sexual thing. In that instant, I felt how he was trying to communicate something to me. Something that might keep me alive someday. “You must believe you can master every situation. Or you will be finished before you even begin.”
I gave the slightest nod. He gave the slightest nod in return. I knew a peculiar sensation—it was the feeling that I’d found something.
With a sharp breath in, Carden turned from me. “Watcher Priti has asked for a climbing demonstration.”
Climbing. Not swimming. Relief swelled through me as he headed inland, toward one of the cliff walls lining the beach. Anything beat swimming.
Priti interjected, “Today, Master McCloud will introduce you to the basics. And then we’ll be mastering these skills over the coming weeks as I lead you on our own climbs.”
Carden led us far along the beach—farther than I’d ever been—and stopped at the base of a modest-sized face. He slapped his hand against the rock. “The basics.” He looked up, squinting against the glare. Sunlight picked shades of gold and red in his hair, and the wind whipped it into a tangled halo around his head. He was beautiful. “This wee rock should pose no trouble. I’ll talk you through it as you go.” He faced us. “Who’s first?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I can climb.” A girl stepped from the group. It was the Acari who’d made the crack about hatred. I wondered if this was her way to prove herself.
Carden narrowed his eyes. “Can you, indeed?” He stepped aside so she could take her place at the base of the rock wall. “And I’d thought there was always something more to learn. But what do I know? I’m a lad of only…let’s see…over two hundred and fifty years now.”
The other Acari tittered at his joke, but I saw from the steel in his eyes that this was no laughing matter. Things rarely were where vampires were concerned. I was discovering that Carden’s nonchalance was much more of an act than he let on.
“Your name?” he demanded.
“Acari Kate.” Her eyes were fever bright. It made her look like a junkie whiffing a fix.
“All right, Acari Kate. You’ve climbed before?”
She nodded, pleased with herself. “A lot.”
“Have you ever done a free climb, climbs-a-lot-Kate?” There was a hint of derision in his voice, like he’d seen her type before.
Her lip curled. “That’s all I do. I’m from Colorado, and there we—”
“So you know to imagine your path before you begin,” he said, cutting her off. Acari Kate didn’t like it, but I did, guessing that it was for the benefit of those like me who’d never scaled a rock in their lives.
Shielding his eyes with his hand—the glare can’t have been easy on vampire eyes—he pointed up the face. “Search for the shadows along the rock. Those are the cracks and ruts that will be your handholds.”
“I know,” she said, and took off.
Carden’s smirk spoke more to his disgust than amusement. “This is not a race. If you try to compete with Mother Nature, you will lose.”
We watched her climb, and she was impressive, scrabbling up the cliff side. I made a mental note to beware if I ever found myself facing her in a combat ring—the girl had killer fingertips.
She paused at a difficult point, searching for a handhold.
“See how she finds her center,” Carden told us. “Her breath, her movements…She remains composed and even.”
Kate bent her knee to her chest, nestling her foot in a crack, then lunged, stretching high for the next handhold.
“Ah, there. Did you see how she used her legs?” His gaze lingered on me as he said, “You must let your legs do the work. They’re stronger than your arms.” I felt his hand over my heart again, even though he was several feet away. A phantom caress soothed me. Reassured me. “You must never think your arms weak. You’ll only panic. Trust your legs—they have all the power you’ll need.”
I believed he’d catered his comment to me, the person who’d just recently managed her first series of successful pull-ups.
When he glanced back up, Acari Kate was near the top. He shouted, “That’s enough. You’ll be unable to make it all the way.”
But Kate upped her speed, calling down, “No, I can make it.”“My role is not to scold you like wayward children.” He set his jaw in a grim line as he faced us. “The intention was to discuss climbing. I fear this has become a lesson about pride.”
I’d been mesmerized by the sight of Kate scaling the rock like a spider, but Carden’s tone demanded my full attention. What lesson would he teach Kate when she came back down? I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to have to see this side of him.
I hadn’t realized Priti stood behind us until she announced somberly, “Pride kills more surely than the fiercest competitor.”
Dread prickled my skin. So sure they were. But why?
Pebbles crumbled loose, skittering down the rock wall, and we all swung our heads, looking up the cliff. What did this girl think she was trying to prove?
“Almost there,” Kate shouted with satisfaction. More rocks trickled down. “Whoa.” She laughed, a rolling, self-satisfied cackle that sounded crazy. I wondered what was wrong with her. The wind carried her laughter over our heads to the sea.
Carden stalked from the cliff face, looking disgusted. We parted to let him through. His arm brushed mine as he passed, and breath whooshed into my body, my traitorous lungs sucking in air, trying like an animal to catch his scent.
“I can reach the top,” she shouted, sounding determined. Maybe she wasn’t nuts—maybe she just had something to prove. Hell, maybe she just really liked climbing. She was mere inches from the top now.
“Vanity outlives the man,” Carden muttered behind me.
“Acari Kate,” Priti called. “You will return. Now.”
“A Scotsman said that,” Carden went on, sounding as coldly impassioned as any vampire. “Robert Louis Stevenson.”
“Okay, okay,” Kate shouted. “I’m coming back down.”
But she didn’t. I squinted into the glare. Watched as her leg pushed her up. She reached an arm over the ledge. Hoisted herself higher. She froze.
And then Acari Kate screamed. A terrified, shrieking scream, like she’d looked over the ledge only to be faced with a nightmare. A large chunk of rock broke free and bounced down, and we had to jump back not to get hit. Tiny rocks dislodged, crumbling down around us like hail. She screamed again, and this time it seemed she barely stopped for breath. It was one long, uninterrupted cry.
Everyone gasped when her foot slipped. But then her arm slipped, too, and she began to fall, the image surreal as both her arms spun in the air like a slow-motion windmill.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, aghast, as she tumbled down, bounced once against a jut in the cliff wall, and landed with a chuff in the sand.
Her body was still.
After her screams, our silence was deafening. There was only the breathing of the girls around me, heavy like we’d just run laps. Waves crashed behind us, a loud, rhythmic thrumming reminding us that we were minuscule and meaningless and that life went on without us.
Finally Carden broke the silence. “This is enough.” He gazed out toward the sea, and what I saw in his expression was unexpected. Beneath the anger, I imagined I saw sadness, too. Had he really wanted to help us? Did he want us to succeed? To live?
Watcher Priti told him quietly, “Perhaps it is time for your demonstration.” Her tone was that of one adult giving another a hint.
And then she turned and stepped away. But as she did, I spied her sliding a small device from her belt. She keyed something in. Was she texting?
I darted my eyes away so she wouldn’t catch me staring. It was a shocker, that was for sure. Her device seemed too small for a phone, but who could guess? For all I knew, the vampires were more wired than Silicon Valley.
I heard her speak to Carden behind my back. She’d pitched her voice low, but the wind carried it to me. “They’re coming.”
It was a long, slow walk back to where we’d begun. What had Kate seen? What would Carden have done to her if she’d made it back down alive? Or had he known she wouldn’t? There was still more than an hour left in class. I wondered just what this demonstration of his would entail.
He walked us all the way down to the surf. Foamy water rushed up to us, then back again, leaving the sand glassy in its wake. I hated swimming, but for once I wanted to slip off my shoes and feel the frigid water roll over my feet. Maybe the cold would shock my body out of this numbness.
“Acari Kate’s foolishness teaches a valuable lesson.” Carden’s voice was hard. Whatever sentiment I thought I’d seen earlier was gone. He was pure Vampire once more. “Only when you master your emotions, will you master your surroundings. Today I will prove this by climbing”—he pointed to the sea stack far offshore—“that.”
“Will we need to climb that?” Some panicked Acari had spoken without thinking. Had she learned nothing from watching Kate plunge to her death?
“No,” he told her. “Not today. But perhaps someday. Someday you’ll face your biggest fear.”
I chafed my arms. I had a feeling there were fears that would dwarf even that giant chimney rock.
Carden stepped into the water. It swirled around his calves, the deadly riptide sucking at his feet already. He looked blasé about the whole thing. “The average temperature of the North Sea in winter is six degrees Celsius. That’s forty-three degrees Fahrenheit.” He paused. “It is not yet winter.”