Dark Secrets (66 page)

“
But, maybe I
will.”

He shook his head
again. “Even then, it would only be to save me from eternal
solitude. And for that reason, I just can’t take your dreams away.
Your human life is your greatest gift and my greatest
sacrifice.”

I sniffled, wiping my
hand over my nose. “It doesn't have to be that way.”

“
It does, my love.
Look—” He pointed to a blue and black butterfly, dancing in the
shelter of a silky leaf. “You see, you’re much like that
butterfly.”

“
How?”

He wrapped both arms
around my waist from behind, tucking his chin against my shoulder.
“She started her life in the shadows, close to the ground. She
lived and existed only as others saw her; a caterpillar, nothing
more. Then, one day, she bloomed into a beautiful, brightly-winged
creature—so free, so pure. Something she could never have been had
someone taken her away.

“
Her life is short in comparison to most. But she will
live
each moment,
flying, spreading her beauty, her life through the tree tops, so
that when her existence comes to an end, as the sun goes down on
her final day, her spirit will go on, and there will always be a
beautiful butterfly to carry on her name.” David kissed the top of
my ear, smoothing his hands against the skin on my belly just under
my top. “I love you, and your spirit will go on. As long as you
have happiness, I have everything I will ever
desire.”

“
But what will you do
without me?”

“
I am the rain.” He
looked up at the sky; I looked too. “I exist each clouded day
whether the butterfly flies or falls. A human life is but only a
blink in the eye of eternity. I will go on when you are gone, I
will have no choice.”

“
Go
on, or
move
on?”

His arms tightened
around me. “I will never move on. The pain I will feel for eternity
without you is a sacrifice I am willing to make to save you from
forever longing, wishing you’d been given the chance to live. I owe
that to you—” He nodded once. “For the love I feel—I owe that to
you.”

“
So that’s it? You’re
making the decision for me?” I turned to face him.

“
I
have to, Ara. I’ve been watching, waiting, scanning your thoughts
to find some hint of promise for us. But you don't,
anywhere
in your
thoughts, want to be a vampire. And yet, you keep making me wait
for your answer. And stupidly, I keep waiting.”

I had nothing to say.
He was right. Life was just too important. I’d seen it in action;
the beauty, the magic it had to offer. And I feared, if I gave that
up for immortality, I’d never forgive myself, or worse, never
forgive David. “Just give me two weeks more. For forever, please?
Just let me have the last two weeks.”

“
Two more weeks?” He
stepped back. “While you spend those days with another man—one you
happen to love?”

My head hung in shame.
“Please don’t hate me for loving him, David. I loved him for such a
long time before I ever even knew you existed.”

“
I
do know that.” He exhaled, stepping into me. “I just…I suspected
it. I'm actually angrier at myself, Ara—for not listening to my own
gut—
again
.”

“
What would you have
done if you’d asked me and I’d told you I loved him?” I rolled my
face up to look at him. “Would you have left?”

“
That’s the stupid
thing about all of this.” He sighed, casting his gaze to the
heavens.

“
What’s
stupid?”

“
That, even if you
had
admitted your feelings for Mike—” he touched my
cheek and smiled, “—there’s no way I’d have left
you.”

“
Then don’t leave
yet.” Hope filled me. “Give me the nights—for two more weeks.
Please?”

“
You don’t even need
to ask. You know I will. How can I not savour those last few
nights?”

I melted against him
again. “Thank you, David.”

After a moment, he
turned my face so my blue eyes met his shimmering green windows. “I
just need to hear you say it, though—from your own
lips.”

“
You mean…that I’m
not coming with you?”

He nodded.

“
I haven't made my
mind up yet.”

“
Please stop playing
these games, Ara-Rose. Tell me the truth.”

“
That is the truth,
David. My mind makes up its mi—well, my mind makes decisions all
the time, doesn’t mean I agree with them.”

“
Stop it.” He drew
back a little further. “Ara, just say it. Just tell me you’re not
coming with me.”

“
No. Because that’s
not what I’ve decided on.” I folded my arms.

David turned away from
me, extending his arm to grasp a tree branch. “You will eventually
have to say it, Ara. Either way, a decision has to be made.
Wholeheartedly or not.”

“
Okay, then…ask me on
the last day of our two weeks—that way I can be sure you’ll stick
around.”

“
The night of the
Masquerade?”

“
Yeah. It’s perfect.”
I carefully touched his elbow until he turned his face to me. “You
can ask me on the last dance.”

“
The last dance?” He
dropped his hand from the branch, his brow staying up in an arch of
mockery. “On the last stroke of midnight?”

I nodded, smiling.
“Perfectly corny.”

He grabbed me gently
by the arm and pulled until my chest fell against his. “I’m sorry I
yelled at you.”

“
That wasn’t really
yelling, David.”

“
No matter. I
shouldn’t speak to you that way, despite how I feel.”

“
I yell at you all
the time.”

He laughed. “But
you’re harmless. When you yell, it’s merely amusing.”

“
Thanks. Glad to know
you take me so seriously.”

“
Only as serious as
you take me.”

“
Hey.” I slapped his
chest softly.

He laughed. “So, I
guess that means you don’t take me very seriously.”

“
Not really.” I
smirked, then remembered the gift I had in my pocket.

“
Gift?”

“
Stay out of my head,
vampire!”

“
Make me.”

I ignored that and
reached into my pocket, keeping my hand there, unsure if I should
do this. “It’s a little corny, but—”

“
I like
corny.”

“
I know.” I smiled
warmly. “I figured the old guy in you might like it.”

David’s lips quirked
up on one side, his eyes lighting with curiosity. “You’re getting
good at keeping your mind clear when you want to hide something
from me.”

“
I know.” I grinned
and pulled out a small white square of cloth. “You know in movies,
how the fair maiden would sometimes give her knight a
handkerchief?”

“
Well—” David swept
the beads of water through his hair, “—it wasn’t a custom that
started in movies, but, yes?”

“
Um…well, since you
have this strong set of beliefs about staying with me at night, I
figured you could at least take a part of me home with you.” I
pressed the cloth into David’s palm. “It has my scent on
it.”

He sniffed it. “So
that’s why you were sleeping with this under your pillow the last
few nights?”

“
Yeah. You saw
that?”

“
Yes. I thought you
might have had a cold or were…crying.”

I pouted, reaching
back into my pocket. “No, I’ve actually had this diabolical plan
going all week.”

“
Plan?”

“
I…it isn’t just my
scent I want you to have.”

“
Okay?” His brows
pinched with confusion; my shoulders lifted as I clamped my index
finger onto the pin in my pocket, then drew my hand out.
“Ara!”

“
This is my perfume,”
I said quickly, before he could get mad, then dropped a dollop of
blood onto the hanky. David’s fingers tightened around mine for a
moment. “It’s the best way I could think of to give you a part of
myself.”

“
You silly, sweet
girl.” He shook his head, then kissed mine. “Thank you.”

Ouch
. “I must’ve pricked it pretty
deep.” I squeezed the base of my finger. “It’s still
bleeding.”

“
Don’t squeeze
it—you’ll make it worse.” He pocketed the hanky and took my hand,
pausing for only a moment of hesitation, then slid my fingertip
into his mouth, closing his lips tightly around it. His smooth,
tepid tongue pushed my nail up to the roof of his mouth, sliding
slowly down the length of my finger; he closed his eyes, his
shoulders lifting with each calm breath. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn't
worried he might lose control. There was no urgency to his touch;
just a deep longing that I could feel emanating from his skin,
coming off him in waves.

He opened his eyes as
he slid my finger past his lips, dropping a gentle kiss there.
“Ara, you taste amazing—like a creamy dessert wine. Sweet and yet
so powerfully intoxicating.” His eyes changed colour around his
words, just like they did in the storage closet at school; the
green became darker, encircling the growing pupil, almost entirely
consuming the whites of his eyes. “I can’t keep doing
this.”

I stared up at him,
blinking each time his warm breath touched my lashes. “Doing
what?”

“
Telling myself not
to touch you, not to...to want you—to drink from you.”

“
Oh God, David, don't
you know how badly I want that, too?”

“
Yes. And that’s what
makes it so much harder for me to refuse you.”

My eyelids fluttered
involuntarily. “I don't want you to refuse me.”

He tried an accusatory
glare, but the look washed away quickly as he ran his tongue over
his lips one last time and the history of my blood clearly fell
against it. “Fine.”

“
Fine
what?”

The vampire surfaced
within his eyes; he cupped the side of my neck, his body inches
from mine, his breath suddenly weighted, fast. “I’m going to drink
from you. But not with your clothes on.”

I looked down at my
jeans, then back up at the vampire. “Huh?”

“
Vampires like skin; we
need
skin. If we do this with clothes on—” he looked
away for a second, “—when I get carried away, I might rip them off
you. I don’t wish to explain to your father why I’m bringing you
home naked.”

“
Oh.” I laughed, but
a sudden sinking feeling shot through my arms, like a hot blast of
toxic, adrenaline-inducing drugs.

“
It’s okay.” He
placed a steadying hand over my heart. “I won’t do anything to hurt
you. You have my word.”

“
I
know. It’s just—” I disentangled my fingers from their ball-grip.
“It’s just that no one’s ever seen me…
naked
before.”

“
Are you
uncomfortable?”

I nodded.

“
Why?”

“
I’m…I’m afraid…that
you might be...disappointed.”

I tensed, waiting for
him to laugh, but he only slid the backs of his fingertips along my
cheekbone and stared deeply into my eyes, reaching down to take my
wrist with his other hand. “What if I were to undress, and suddenly
you decided I was not as...hot as you thought?”

“
What?” I smiled.
“Impossible. You’re totally hot, and besides, as if I’d care. I
love you.”

He smiled down at me.
“Precisely.”

“
Point taken.” I
frowned at myself. “Naked then?”

“
Yes.” He released my
wrist and fingered the base of my tank top. “Naked.”

My shoulders rounded,
hunching slightly as he lifted it, revealing the strip of white
skin above my jeans, then my belly button and my ribs. I stiffened
all over, realising I hadn’t planned my undergarments to suit this
kind of…misbehaviour.

“
Don't worry,” he
said with a laugh. “You won’t be wearing them for much longer
anyway.”

And so many pictures
of all the things we would do ran through my mind; I knew David
could see each and every one of them.

I lifted my arms above
my head, and a breath of a smile swept across my lips as David
dropped my top to the wet grass and stepped back, shaking his
head.

“
Ara, my love.” That
look warmed his entire face. “You are incredibly
perfect.”

I quickly covered my
purple and pink candy-striped bra. “Even in a bra from the same
boutique as Bozo the Clown?”

David’s burst of
laughter caught me off guard, making me smile. He reached out, took
each of my hands, and pulled them away from my ribs. “This—” he
nodded to my bra, “—is just another thing that makes you so damn
sweet and cute. You’re seventeen. I didn’t expect black
lace.”