Aven's Dream (33 page)

“Unfortunately, you’ll never truly appreciate how painful that was for me.”

I gasped before my hand flew to my mouth.

“I practically
attacked
you.”

Will laughed, but the sound was humorless, almost pained.

“
Attacked
would imply I hadn’t enjoyed every second of it, and allowing you to believe it was your doing would be dishonest of me.”

I shook my head.

“I don’t get it.”

“Aven, you were feeling
my
desire. You were acting on
my
craving for you.”

“Wasn’t some of what I felt
my
desire?” I asked wryly.

“Yes—and yours only increases mine.”

I had never felt anything so overwhelming, just on the edge of painful.

“Do you feel like that all the time?” I asked cautiously.

“No. It is both better and worse when I’m with you.”

“Um, how does
that
work? Better
and
worse?”

“I’ve developed a tolerance across many decades. While the craving for energy is always there beneath the surface, it is manageable. With you, though, it’s different. I crave more. I crave different things. The urge is stronger. So much stronger.”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they burned into me.

“But the energy I take from you, like I said, is also much stronger than what I would take from a normal human. Regrettably for me, it makes it that much more difficult for me to resist going too far. It also makes being parted from you rather excruciating.”

My eyes widened.

“Are you saying you go through
withdrawal
when we’re not together?”

Will nodded, and I frowned.

“Wait, does that mean I’m just some addictive substance—like cigarettes or heroin—to you?”

“You are not
just
anything,” Will said. “You are everything to me. Most addictions are habits people wish they could quit, a sickness that destroys their lives. You are what has given my existence meaning.”

I jumped off the couch, but it didn’t help our height difference.

“Have you ever thought that we’re the perfect match? I feel too much, and you feed off of that energy. If I remember correctly from freshman-year biology, that’s symbiosis.”

“My taking energy from you, even in small amounts, would be more aptly described as parasitic than symbiotic,” Will countered.

“You’re saying I don’t get anything from you, but I think you
know
that’s not true. Because you know my energy is different when I’m with you. I feel more alive with you than I’ve felt … in a long time.”

“That is true of both of us,” he said, touching my chin.

I smiled, feeling like we had reached an understanding. Then I remembered the conversation that had taken place between Will, Edmond, and Gen before we had come upstairs.
As though
I’m
the reclusive misanthrope
, Gen had said before Edmond’s comment about not being responsible for
their
lack of decorum. Who had they been referring to?

“Was their supposed to be someone else here today?” I asked.

Will looked away from me, but not before I caught the same expression he had had during his strange, silent interaction with Edmond earlier.

“Yes,” he said finally. “James, the most recalcitrant of our assemblage.”

I froze.

“I thought it was just Edmond and Gen,” I said carefully.

“It mostly is. James does as he pleases, and politesse rarely dictates his actions.”

“Why didn’t you mention him?”

Will shrugged.

“Because I never fully expected him to grace us with his presence.”

Will’s tone was dismissive and disappointed at the same time, like he was talking about a wayward sibling. When music began to fill the house, Will smiled.

“Gen is trying to lure us out of hiding. Do you have enough energy to sustain?”

“Are you kidding? I not going to sleep for days,” I laughed uncomfortably, still feeling the electricity burning through my veins from what Will called
equilibrium
.

Will led me downstairs to an alcove where Edmond sat in front of a gleaming black grand piano. Gen was sitting in a chair next to him with a cello between her legs. They played as though no one else in the world existed. The music that emerged from the two instruments was flawless and beautiful, just like them.

Will’s eyes were peaceful as he sat on the couch and drew me into his arms. The two of them continued to play without any sheet music, Gen wielding the bow effortlessly at a pace I thought would set the strings on fire. It felt like I had stumbled into a concert hall during a private recital. As the music finally drifted to a close, I stared speechlessly.

“Did you just finish that?” Will asked.

“It’s called
Halloween
,” Gen smiled. “In honor of the occasion, since you didn’t appreciate the Berlioz.”

Gen rested the cello against the chair and came to sit beside us.

“I liked the Berlioz,” I pointed out. “But it
is
the creepiest piece of music ever.”

Gen turned to Will.

“William, as you plan on pretending to be human tomorrow evening, does that mean I shall be given permission to borrow Aven for a shopping excursion?”

I looked over at Will, suddenly reminded of his poker game with Sean and the others. I should have known he wasn’t going to leave me unattended for that long.

“Without Edmond there to serve as the responsible influence?” Will laughed.

Edmond, who was still seated in front of the piano, continued to play, his fingers floating over the keys effortlessly.

“One day,
mes amis
, I shall tire of being the responsible one,” he said lightly.

Gen rose and returned to the cello. She began playing again, and within moments the two instruments were perfectly in sync again. I listened and turned to look toward the glass doors leading to the pool. Standing on the other side of the glass, a man stared back at me with an expression that scared me. For half a second, I thought it was Vladimir Fidatov, but the man watching me had a shock of copper-brown hair that looked like he either spent way too much time making it look that wild, or absolutely no time at all. Combined with his slate-gray eyes, he was startling. I blinked, and he was gone. There one second—gone the next.

When I glanced up at Will, he was staring in the same direction, and his expression was not amused.
So that was James
, I thought. Maybe he and Megan would hook up since she was into insanely hot guys and both she and this guy seemed to hate me on sight. I fully understood Megan’s reason—she wanted Will. Why Will’s other
companion
disliked me without ever having met me was a bigger mystery.

My stomach growled at me, and I suddenly felt annoyed by having to eat so often. Still,
this
hunger was nothing compared to the gnawing, frantic craving of Will’s that I had felt for a few seconds. Before I could say anything, Will pulled me up from the sofa and gestured for me to follow him across the house, leading me into another room I hadn’t seen before. I stopped, looking around the kitchen we had just walked into.

“You don’t eat, though,” I said, laughing.

“
You
do.”

He opened the stainless steel refrigerator and took out a bottle of sparkling water and a large plate piled with oversized grapes, different berries, cheeses, olives, and sliced tomato. Magically producing a glass and a French baguette, he led me into another room, where he set down the plate and bread on a long formal dining room table. When he pulled out my chair, I sat down and watched as he took a seat across from me. I tore off a piece of bread and spread some soft cheese over it with a cheese spreader that sat on the plate. Taking a bite, I smiled. The cheese was rich and creamy, and the bread was just the right combination of crusty and soft on the inside. For not eating, Will had
really
good taste in food.

“Gourmet food? A professional kitchen? A dining room?” I asked as Will poured me a glass of water.

“We live in the human world,” he said as I picked up a grape and popped it into my mouth.

I felt a jolt as I realized that Will had been living in the
human world
for more than two centuries. I thought of Mrs. Hendrix’s reaction to Will. I had assumed she was just mesmerized by his beauty like everyone else who saw him, but that wasn’t the full story.

“Mrs. Hendrix, the night she met you—she
recognized
you, didn’t she?”

“I thought I’d managed to escape without you noticing that.”

Staring at him, I started to connect the dots. The newspaper article. Her fearful memories of a fire in Winters. And the way she had looked at Will, as though trying to remember someone from a long time ago.

“The fire in Winters that happened when she was a little girl—Mrs. Hendrix looked so upset when she mentioned it.” I paused. “Something happened, and
you
were there, weren’t you?”

“She was a very young girl then, and I was surprised she remembered any of it. When Fidatov attacked the town, hers was one of the homes in his path. I managed to bring her to safety, and I had always imagined that she was too traumatized to remember any of it. I suppose I was mistaken. Human memories aren’t as easily expunged as I had assumed.”

I tried to imagine my ancient neighbor as a young girl and how Will must have looked to her then, the same as he appeared now, but almost a lifetime ago. I wondered if, after as many decades, I would be the same—struggling to recall hazy memories of a golden-haired young man with haunting blue eyes.

Then I remembered something else Mrs. Hendrix had mumbled that night.
… we began finding the animals and that poor young man from the Thompson house
. I shivered.

“The animals they found in the woods—that’s Fidatov, too, isn’t it?” I asked quietly.

Will nodded.

“But
why
?”

He looked down and didn’t say anything, and I knew that whatever he
wasn’t
saying was going to be bad.

“Will, whether you like it or not, I’m in the middle of this …”

He looked up and nodded grimly.

“Animals, like humans have emotions—a life force that we can feed off of.”

“So he’s killing them to consume their energy?” I asked shakily.

“No. He’s torturing them and consuming their fear and pain.
Then
he’s killing them.”

I pushed back the plate of food. I had wanted to know, but each new thing I learned about Will’s enemy made me lose my appetite.

“And
that’s
how you knew he was here,” I whispered. “He left a trail of bodies across Canada and the U.S.—and then he started an animal body count here.”

“He’s playing at a game he intends to win. He can’t risk exposure, not yet. And the deaths of animals will always draw less attention than if he were to start with the human population.”

Will took the plate from me, and I followed him back to the living room in front of the fire. He slid down onto the soft rug in front of it and beckoned to me. When I reached him, his hand shot out, pulling me down next to him. Curling up in Will’s arms, I looked into the fire, thinking over what he had just said about Fidatov playing a game.

“Have you ever thought of luring him out of hiding? On your own terms?” Will looked at me expressionlessly, and I hurried before he could interrupt me. “I mean, use
me
to trap him.”

Will caught my chin in his palm, his eyes blazing.

“Do you think for one instant that I would dangle you in front of him as bait?” he asked, his voice shaking with tension.

I felt color rising in my cheeks.

“It was just an idea. You know, instead of waiting for this guy to kill every living creature in town.”

“Be patient. Now that all of us are here, it’s only a matter of waiting for him to make a misstep.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think the cavalry is too thrilled you’ve brought me here.”

I thought about the expression on the face of the young man I had seen and shivered.

“James’s is …” Will sighed. “Let us just say he has unresolved issues.”

Gen glided into the room, and I pushed myself up so that I wasn’t sprawled over Will.

“Aven, get ready to have some fun tomorrow.”

She smiled beatifically, which just made her more gorgeous. I tried to smile back, but it came out crooked. Why did everyone but me think shopping was fun? And the thought of having to try on clothes next to Will’s perfect companion … so not good.