Balthazar (20 page)

The rest of her school days were never as much fun, at least not until study hall. She finally got her transfer out of anatomy, because the risk of suffering the janitor's heart attack the same way she had the suicide victim's hanging was just too much to think about. The school filled her free hour by letting her work as an aide to Mr. Bollinger, who was super nice but didn't have a whole lot for her to do.

Sometimes Skye felt herself falling into a rut—going only the places she knew were safe—but with vampires after her, a routine seemed like a good thing. She'd deal with the impact her psychic visions would have on her life more when this crisis had passed.

Her routine involved capping off each day with study hall, normally the most boring hour in school. Now study hall was the good part. That was when she got to text Balthazar some more.

She braved Craig's basketball games when Balthazar had to supervise, though she never, ever cut under the bleachers. Usually she went with Madison and her group of friends, which meant they could sometimes sit near Balthazar and even talk and joke with him in the stands. Though Skye was careful never to speak to him directly when there were so many people around to see, sometimes it was nice just being close to him. Nicer to see how his gaze followed her while she joked around with Madison, Keith, Khadijah, and the rest of the gang.

Best of all, though, was when they were alone together.

“You're really good with Peppermint,” Skye said, watching Balthazar riding beside her. While she was on Eb, he sat astride the mare from her stables, who was fairly old and fairly cranky. As a result, she wasn't ridden often—which meant she'd gotten a little fat. However, Balthazar handled her smoothly.

“I've always done best with mares. Not sure why.” Balthazar patted the reddish shoulder of his horse; Peppermint responded with a whicker. “She's a steady girl.”

“With you, she is.” Maybe the old horse had never needed anything but kindness and patience. “The only other rider she was ever as good with was Dakota. He was gentle with her, like you.”

For a moment she thought of Dakota as he had been one short year ago—riding ahead of her on Christmas break, coaxing stubborn Peppermint swiftly uphill, while she and Eb followed behind. The forest seemed to ring with their lost laughter.

“You don't speak about Dakota often,” Balthazar said. His voice was even, inviting her to talk if she wanted to, but clearly not pushing the matter.

Skye knew she wanted to talk about Dakota, but it didn't feel like the right time. Then again, it never seemed to feel like the right time. Maybe she should take the chance. “He was—the brave one. The free one.”

“You seem pretty brave to me.”

“You didn't know Dakota.” She realized then that Balthazar and Dakota would have liked each other. They weren't alike, exactly, but they would have gotten along. It was one more cruelty to her brother's early death—one more friendship and experience he'd been denied. Skye stared down at the reins in her hands. “He wasn't a rebel—Mom and Dad were never around enough to rebel against—but he did his own thing. Made up his mind about everything. I wanted to be as fearless as he was someday. But I always knew our parents needed me more. So I kept doing the safe thing, the right thing, for them.”

“You sell yourself short,” Balthazar said. His tone was so tender that Skye didn't dare look at him. “But your brother sounds like an amazing guy.”

“He was.” And then Skye banished the memory as quickly as it had come. “Let's ride.”

They were on the high ridge about thirty minutes' ride from her house. After that first terrible attack, it had taken her awhile to go out on Eb again; even with Balthazar by her side, it seemed too scary. Mrs. Lefler rode Eb often enough to make sure he had adequate exercise, so it wasn't a necessity. But ultimately, she missed it too much. Letting Redgrave take that part of her life from her was too cruel.

Besides, the woods had their own stark beauty in winter—and Balthazar had proved to be an enthusiastic rider.

“Don't get me wrong,” he said as they looked down on the valley, with the bare-branched trees silvered with frost. “I love cars. I bought my first one in 1912. But I miss horses, sometimes.”

She appreciated his willingness to change the subject. “Did you ride a lot when you were—well, when you were alive?”

“Sometimes. Usually we used him to pull the wagon, though.” Balthazar stared out at the horizon and the small bit of town visible from here, no more than a few houses and one church steeple. “But I had a horse purely for riding by the eighteenth century. Bucephalus. He looked like a wreck—bony no matter how much you fed him—but that horse could
run
.”

“Why did you call him something crazy like Bucephalus?”

“That was the name of Alexander the Great's horse,” he said, as if that were a logical reason. “Which was kind of a joke, based on how scruffy he looked, but how did you come up with Eb's name? It's unusual.”

“Oh.” This was embarrassing. “Well, I got him when I was twelve. And back then I thought it would be cool and romantic to call a horse … um…. Ebony Wind.”

Balthazar didn't laugh. “Why not?”

“It sounds a little silly now. Besides, even within the first week or so, I was already calling him Eb.”

“So you knew his name from the start.”

Balthazar's smile made Skye feel as though something within her was melting, going deliciously liquid and soft. She could have leaned over to him—their horses were that close—could have kissed him, right then, and she
knew
if she did, he would respond.

But she didn't. The next time they kissed, Balthazar was going to have to be the one who made the move; Skye was determined on that point. Though it was hard to remain firm. Why did he have to possess so much willpower?

He said, “It's good of you to come to the basketball games, but you really don't have to. Even with me there, going home is safer for you.”

“Also more boring for me.”

“Yeah, but—I know it's tough for you.” Balthazar shifted in his saddle, slightly awkward in the way he was when he thought he had to do something for someone's own good. “With Craig being there. Britnee, too.”

Skye shrugged. The cold wind whipped past them, stinging her cheeks and making her tuck her scarf in more snugly around her neck. “It's not as hard seeing them together as it used to be. I mean, I'm still angry. But… I don't want to be with Craig anymore. I guess I've moved on.”

“Ah.” That was all Balthazar said, but Skye knew he was happy to hear it.

Because she believed that someday, probably soon, Redgrave would be back, Skye also used that time to learn how to defend herself.

She learned from the ideal teacher, of course.

“Okay, keep a wider stance.” Balthazar wore ordinary street clothes; Skye wore yoga pants and a camisole. They were in the basement of her house, an unused “family room,” which was almost bare of furniture and thickly carpeted and thus ideal for use as a sparring ring. “A wider stance is a steadier stance.”

Skye planted her feet farther apart. “Now what?”

“You want to protect your throat. Technically a vampire could bite you anywhere, but we tend to go for the throat—for the jugular or the carotid. It's a powerful instinct.” Balthazar's eyes were locked on her bare neck, which Skye figured she should have found unnerving, but didn't. His black T-shirt fitted his broad chest and taut abdominal muscles like so much body paint.

“And how do I do that?” As Balthazar began lifting his hands, apparently in demonstration, Skye shook her head. “Don't show me. Make me do it. That's the only way I'm going to learn.”

“You mean—”

“Yeah.” Skye tossed her hair as she met his eyes. “Attack me. Don't hold back.”

Faster than she could see, almost faster than she could think, Balthazar pounced on her, his body slamming against hers so hard that it took them both to the ground. Skye flung her arms up to block her throat in the instant before he brought his mouth to her neck.

For a long moment, they paused there, motionless. Balthazar's lips were only inches from her hands—his legs straddling hers, his enormous body blocking her on every side. “Good,” he said, his voice low. “That's good.”

“But not enough.” Skye tried to keep her voice from shaking and her mind from wandering. This was vitally important. “If Redgrave did this to me, he wouldn't stop here. What would I do next? What are a vampire's—I don't know, vulnerable spots?”

Balthazar remained above her, his arms framing her shoulders. He never took his eyes from hers. “There are only two ways to kill a vampire,” he said. “Fire or beheading. It's possible that a blade dipped in holy water might do it, but I'm not sure about that, so it's not worth risking your life to try.”

Fire or beheading. Check. Horror-movie details swam in her mind again, and she had to ask: “What about a stake through the heart?”

“A stake can paralyze, but not kill. In a situation like this one, it's fine to settle for staking. You might have a chance to come back and burn or behead the vampire later; even if not, you'll definitely have a chance to get away. Anything wood will do, but it has to pierce the heart.”

Skye nodded slowly. “What if we're—if I'm like this, and I can't grab something to use as a stake?”

“Then a vampire's vulnerable spots are the same as a human being's, more or less. The windpipe is useless—we only breathe from habit—but a blow there hurts. You can always try to go for the eyes.” Balthazar then looked slightly sheepish. “With a guy vampire—well, strike at the obvious.”

She jerked her knee up between his legs, stopping just short of hitting him someplace that would've hurt a human male a
lot
. “Like this?”

Eyes wide, he said, “You've got the idea.”

The final element of her daily routine was the end of the day, when Balthazar left her. Although Skye knew he entirely trusted Redgrave's fear of the wraiths to protect her—and she trusted it in return—she sensed that he would have preferred to remain in her home to protect her. But, he said, they never knew when her parents would start spending more time at home, and they had to keep up the student/teacher facade.

My parents will start hanging out at home exactly never
, Skye could have told him, but she knew that wasn't his real reason.

The reason he left every evening was the same reason she didn't want him to leave. Because if he lingered in her house late at night—in her room—the tension simmering between them would finally boil over.

As much as she wanted that, Skye knew it would only lead to heartbreak. If Balthazar kissed her only when he was carried away, he would eventually take it back. That had hurt too much last time; she was in no hurry to go there again.

No, the next time they kissed—she wanted it to be their choice. Their decision. Something neither of them would ever take back.

Not everyone agreed with this point of view.

“You sound better,” Clementine said.

Skye stretched across her bed, propping her ankles up on the footboard as she adjusted her phone's headset. “Not being repeatedly attacked by vampires really helps your mood.”

“Well, yeah. I still can't get over that. I mean, we were surrounded by vampires all the time at Evernight, and none of them ever tried to hurt us. Except that one time you and Courtney Briganti wore the same dress to the Autumn Ball.”

“Do you think Courtney was a vampire?” After she thought that over for a second, Skye finished, “No, wait, of course she was.”

Clem continued, “Anyway, as soon as we found out vampires were real—I don't know about you, but I figured they weren't all bad.”

“Some of them aren't.” Skye sighed heavily as she glanced at her most recent packet of history readings. “But some of them definitely are.”

“Speaking of the ones who aren't—when I said you sounded better, I didn't just mean, you know, not freaking out all the time.” By now Clem sounded almost smug; it was as if her satisfied smile could shine across the cellular connection. “I mean, you sound happy. Especially when you talk about Balthazar.”

“Nothing else has happened.”

“He kissed you!”

“Once. And I kissed him once. That's it.”

“You need to jump his bones.”

“Clementine!”

“You know you do!”

“No,” Skye said, trying to sound more firm than she felt. “Chasing a guy like that only gets you hurt. Any guy who really cares about you should want to be with you. Once he knows how you feel, he should step up.”

“And you feel like Balthazar's not stepping up?”

Skye pushed herself up onto her pillows, trying to think about how best to say what she really meant. “He looks out for me every single day. He's my protector. He's my friend. So it's not like he's treating me badly, you know? Nobody's ever treated me like this. Like I … mattered more than anything. Not since Craig when we first got together, and even then, it wasn't like the way Balthazar treats me.”