Easy for him to say—he was a vampire. Surely he didn’t feel a thing. An Acari I recognized from my dorm put words to my thoughts. “But we’re human. We’d freeze in that.”
He crossed his arms at his chest. “A normal human can survive this temperature for thirty to sixty minutes before reaching exhaustion or unconsciousness. You are not normal humans. A normal human could stay alive up to three hours in this water. You have been consuming vampire blood since your arrival. You are not normal. So stop thinking you are.”
He stepped deeper. “In a real situation, you won’t have a wet suit. You’ll be wearing clothing, and it will be heavy and cold. You must learn to manage the pain. The panic.” The water soaked his jeans, the denim dark and clinging to his thighs. It mesmerized me.
“Situations have a way of taking us by surprise. There will come a day when you’ll need to climb and you won’t have gear. You won’t have a climbing kit or rope. You won’t be able to hook in or rappel back down. I’m here to show you that it’s possible. Because until you believe it, you won’t be able to do it.”
And then Carden simply turned and dove into an oncoming wave.
Priti chattered at us, droning on about the sea cliffs and stacks. About climbing kits. Free climbing. Bouldering. But I tuned her out, unable to do anything but watch his powerful strokes cutting through the water.
He disappeared under the surface, and concern nagged at me. I sent feelers out into the universe, trying to sense if he was safe. Somehow I knew he was. Somehow I knew I’d be able to tell if he were in danger.
“They call it the Needle,” Priti said. Water churned violently at its base, and Carden burst from the surface, riding the crest of a swell. It tossed him a few feet above the water, and he found his grip with ease. He began to climb at once. “McCloud is a local. It’s a particular favorite of his.”
I detected the hint of a smile on her face, and I wanted to smack her. I chafed my arms, trying to get a handle on these crazy thoughts. Was this jealousy? That she’d known something about him that I hadn’t? I was getting cold just standing there, and I hunched into myself, making myself watch instead of think.
The Needle dwarfed Carden, but his small figure clambered up until he reached a point where the rock forked into two. He swung like a monkey to the center and slipped between the cracks. The space was much larger than it seemed from afar, and he wedged himself in and began to hobble up, one foot braced on either side.
Near the top, he edged onto an outcropping. The glare off the water had a way of distorting scale and distance, and I hadn’t seen it before. He stood, and I saw that, sure enough, a table of rock protruded from the side.
He walked to the edge. A collective breath sucked in, as loud as the ebbing tides. Then Carden dove off.
He swam back to shore. I’d expected to see giddiness on his face as he emerged, but he was grim. Sober. His white T-shirt clung to him, and I stared unabashedly. I didn’t care anymore—I couldn’t peel my eyes from him. He was magnificent.
Who was Carden McCloud, really?
Once more, the water churned and pulled at him as he returned to us, only now my heart felt as tossed as the seas.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I stayed after, sitting on the cold, damp sand, contemplating the Needle, reeling from what I’d just seen. Would I have been strong enough to complete Kate’s climb? Would I have been brave enough to hold fast, seeing something so unsettling it’d made another girl lose her grip and fall to her death?
I’d thought I was alone with these thoughts, but then a heavy body plopped on the sand next to me, casting me in shadow. I knew at once who it was—his identity practically vibrated to me, echoing through my body with a pull stronger than the tides.
He’d said we needed to keep our distance, but Carden had sensed my distress before. Maybe he sensed my turmoil now, my need for answers.
I didn’t even look at him. I just said, “The girl who died climbing. Acari Kate. Why did she fall?”
“Pride goeth before a fall.”
“Please, Carden. I need to know—in English.” His nonanswer gave me the mental strength to angle my body to look at him, and I wished I hadn’t. He’d wrapped his arms around his bent legs, and his shirt tugged against his body, outlining ropes of lean muscle. I looked down the beach, back to the scene of the accident. “She climbed to the top and saw something. It scared her enough to make her fall. What did she see?”
“Only Acari Kate knows what awaited her at the top.” At my impatient look, he chuckled, but he continued. “You’ve seen the mysteries this island hides. What monsters lie in wait. Not all are as brave as you in the face of danger.”
Had she seen a Draug? A vampire? How many creatures were hiding out there, lying in wait?
He added nonchalantly, “I believe Acari Kate must have bonded with someone.”
My eyes bugged open. “Seriously?”
He shrugged. “It would explain much.”
“With who?” I ran a mental catalog of all the vampires I’d seen on the island—the possibilities were endless.
“That, I do not know.”
I remembered her mania, her recklessness. “Was that why she was acting nuts? Is that going to happen to me?”
“You’re strong in mind and body. This island has made you forget, but it is time for you to remember: Your fate is not beyond your control.”I flopped back on my hands, stretching my legs before me on the sand. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“You must credit yourself. This leg, for instance.” He smoothed his hand along my thigh. “You’ve worked hard to carve muscle where once there was none.”
My flesh grew hot, buzzing where he touched me. “I…I thought we were supposed to stay away from each other.”
“Ah.” He pulled his hand back. “How quickly I forget. You are still anxious to break the bond.”
“I am,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt. “It is possible, right? To become unbonded.”
“Aye,” he said. “It’s possible. Difficult, but possible.”
“And you think Acari Kate had bonded with a vampire?”
He shrugged. “It would explain such rash behavior. It’s the blood fever. Some who’ve bonded feel as beyond the reach of death as their vampire mates. Others bond, and when they cannot feed again, they grow mad with their need.”
Mad with need. I had some experience with that. I remembered Kate’s restless, fevered eyes. Was that how I appeared?
Clouds scudded overhead, stealing light from the sky and warmth from my skin. “You’re saying my options are to stay bonded, be reckless, or go insane.”
He gave me a sidewise look. “I don’t recall saying any of those things.”
“You’re giving me more nonanswers.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I’ve been more honest and more forthcoming than anyone.”
Even though the wind had whipped his words from me, they reverberated in my head. Carden was right—he had been honest with me, from the moment I’d met him in that dungeon.
I had to ask another question and I feared the answer. “Will I become reckless?”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked in a musing tone. “There are two sorts of reckless, are there not? There is impulsive and there is brave—you must decide which you will be.”
“Strong and brave,” I whispered into the wind. He’d told me I could be these things.
Then it hit me. I didn’t need some vampire to tell me—I knew in my heart already that I was these things. Strength and guts—it was how I’d survived my childhood.
I became aware again of his body next to mine. There was another sort of reckless, and the blood pounded beneath my skin to consider it. Could I be the sort of woman who was strong enough to stay bonded with a vampire and remain sane? To be brave enough to lean over and kiss her bonded vampire? “So I can be whomever I want to be?”
“Are you so quick to think yourself incapable? Do you accept Vampire superiority so willingly?”
“No,” I answered at once.
He gave me a thoughtful look. “Then why are you quick to doubt yourself? Perhaps you are in control. Maybe you have only to realize this.”
How much was in my control? The longer I stayed on this island, the more mysterious it became. “The vampires have told us why they want us here. But why might they need us?”
Carden smiled. “You ask a good question, pretty one. You are strong, and the vampires recognize this strength. Now you must recognize it, too.” He put a fingertip beneath my chin, ensuring I wouldn’t turn away. “You must recognize your power.”
Why was he telling me this? “You’re a vampire. Why help me? Why be honest?”
“I was once a man. As not all men are good, not all vampires are evil.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I was in control. I was powerful.
I was also very, very stupid. I was heading back to Crispin’s Cove. I’d need to do some climbing, and yet there remained just one tiny problem: I still didn’t know how.
But ideas had woken me in the night, implanting themselves and not letting go. What if Trinity hadn’t been attacked from behind? What if the killer had climbed up the rock face, surprising her from below? What if there was evidence lodged somewhere on the bluffs, waiting to be discovered? Or what if she’d wrested something from her attacker? A tuft of hair gripped in her hand, a bit of fabric torn free, someone’s dropped knife. She’d put up a fierce fight; maybe something had tumbled down with her.
It was a long shot, but one I had to take.
Unfortunately, I was taking that shot before I’d had a chance at more of Priti’s climbing instruction. But I had to act now—soon the infamous island wind would scour the rocks clean. And besides, I did have that one climbing class under my belt, and thanks to Acari Kate’s little exhibition, I’d learned two things: