Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6 (16 page)

“So it’s permanent,” I said. I had to be absolutely sure. My future was riding on it. “Once you’ve turned back human, you can’t ever become a cognate again.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Stay away from that guy. Whatever he was to you, he’s not your boyfriend anymore. Even if you don’t mean to, if it goes wrong, you’ll lose everything, Cora.”

I’d lose everything except for the life I’d originally wanted to save.

“That’s awful.” I hoped I sounded like I meant it, because I had no idea yet what I thought. “Thanks for telling me. I didn’t want to bother Dorian with it because, well, I wasn’t fully sure how he’d take it.” No kidding. “But now that I know, I’ll steer clear of trouble.”

“Give it a year or so and you won’t even have to worry about it,” Clarissa said, cheerful again. “You’ll be strong enough by that point that no mere human—or two or three, even—could overpower you if they wanted to. Of course, you’ll never be anything like as strong as us agnates, but at least you won’t have to worry about humans anymore.”

That was another revelation. What more would change, given enough time?

“Thanks,” I said. There was nothing else to say. “I guess I’ll see you at Dorian’s New Year’s Eve party?”

“Possibly,” Clarissa said breezily. “You never can tell, with Dorian.”

No, you couldn’t.

“Bye, then,” I said.

“Goodbye.”

I hung up.

I could be free....

I tried to savor the thought of it, but my head was filled with shadows of Dorian. His rare, true smile, the phantom of his hands on my shoulders, my face, my breasts, the memory of his mouth on mine and the words that he murmured in my ear.... All echoes of the bond that bent my will to his desires, that narrowed my future to the path that had been laid out for his cognates since long before I was born.

I could get rid of it now—break it once and for all. And the memories and shadows would be gone, I was sure, along with the craving that gnawed at my very bones.

I was sure.

I had to be.

Taking a deep breath, I headed for my car. If I left now, I’d get to the Mall at Columbia only a few minutes after I’d agreed to meet Geoff and my best friend Lisette. And then I could let things play out as they would.

Ever since my cancer diagnosis three months ago, my life had turned into a narrow corridor with nothing but dead ends at the turnings. I could choose to try an aggressive drug therapy—or I could die. When that failed, I could agree to Dorian Thorne’s dangerous, experimental treatment—or give up on my life. Everything was posed as a choice, but there really had been no choice at all.

Now, for the first time in months, I had one.

I turned the key in my Ford Focus. It growled temperamentally to life, nothing at all like the honey-smooth hum of Dorian’s cars. I backed out of the parking space and turned onto the street, heading for the Beltway.

I had gone to Dorian’s house a willing subject for his experimental research. I had no way of knowing then his real purpose, which was to identify the humans most likely to be turned into cognates by a vampire’s kiss rather than dying as most did. The cancer cure that I was seeking was nothing more than a side effect of that change, of the bond that now tied me to him and gave him power over my mind.

I had already learned that he would change me consciously if it was important enough to him. And I knew that he changed me unconsciously, subtly but inevitably, every time I was with him.

I bit my lip as I took the exit for the Columbia mall.

For now, I still had enough of my will left that I could make a choice. Soon, I feared, all that would be gone.

Because I wanted him, even now. I wanted him and missed him like I imagined an amputee missed a limb—an aching absence that was as much a part of me as anything else.

Time was running out.

The mall was swamped with the post-Christmas shopping crush. I had to park far out from the entrance to Marble Slab, where we’d agreed to meet. I locked the car and zipped up my coat, settling my sunglasses more firmly over my eyes as I headed toward the ice cream shop, my head down against the stiff wind.

“Cora!”

Lisette’s squeal made me look up. She was running toward me, a huge grin on her face. And behind her, at a more restrained pace, came Geoff.

“H
ey, guys,” I called back. “You could have waited inside.”

“We were,” Geoff assured me. “Lisette saw you from inside and had to run out.”

Lisette flung her arms around me in a soft, warm embrace, and I hugged her back, hard. It seemed like forever since I had seen the two of them, but it had really only been a week and a half, and I’d been unconscious for five days of that.

I looked at Geoff. He had a slightly goofy, slightly shy grin on his face.

It sure didn’t take long to turn my life upside down, I thought. But maybe I could still put it right side up again.

“So, you’re really better?” Lisette demanded.

“I checked my lab results this morning, and my lymphocytes are down to 15,000,” I said.

“That’s good?” she prompted.

“Well, they were at 200,000, so yeah,” I said.

Lisette squeezed me again.

“That’s great,” Geoff said. “Do I get a hug, too?”

“Of course,” I said. I disengaged myself from Lisette and gave him a quick, one-handed squeeze, ignoring the jolt that went through me—guilt at betraying Dorian, but also a sudden, desperate relief at how warm and strong and human he felt.

Geoff and I had started a relationship long before Dorian had entered the picture, I reminded myself. If anyone had been betrayed, it was him.

“Let’s get inside,” said Geoff.

He hooked an arm around my waist and the other around Lisette’s shoulders and started herding us into the mall entrance. I welcomed the trickle of self-consciousness that made me look straight ahead at his touch, too studied to be as casual as he pretended. Whatever else Dorian had done to me, he hadn’t killed what I felt for Geoff.

And I began to truly believe that I might be free.

“I’ve got to get a couple of pairs of jeans,” Lisette said as we stepped through the double doors. The mall was still decked out in all its Christmas glory. “And some business clothes because I’ve got that receptionist gig at my uncle’s law firm in the spring.”

“Nepotism,” I grumbled good-naturedly.

“Yep,” she said smugly. She led us quickly past the storefronts.

“Got any other openings?” I asked.

“Filing clerk,” she said. “But really, that’s half scanning. They’ve got a stuffed file room, and they’re trying to digitize everything.”

That seemed like a possibility. “Think you could score me an interview?”

“Sure thing,” she said. “Pay’s good for the work. Like twelve dollars an hour.”

“Is that regular pay or niece pay?” I joked.

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Niece pay is fifteen an hour.”

“So, who’s footing the bill for the clothes?” I asked.

She grinned. “Daddy, of course. He gave me a five hundred dollar cash card—for incidentals, he said. I still had enough from my job last summer to cover my books, so it’s time for a shopping spree.”

“Three hours from now, you’re going to regret agreeing to this,” I predicted, looking up at Geoff. He’d let go of Lisette, but his arm was still around my waist. It felt right. It felt good.

But not as good as Dorian,
part of my brain thought. I shut it out.

“I doubt it,” he said, smiling down at me.

I ducked my head to hide the blush I felt creeping up my cheeks. “We’ll see.”

Lisette chattered on, pretending to be oblivious as we were dragged along in her wake.

“Let’s start here,” she announced. She led us through the wide opening in the Macy’s mall storefront and headed straight for the business clothes. I helped her pick out a few likely-looking blouses, and she pawed through racks of nearly-identical skirts, making gleeful noises at some and turning up her nose in contempt at others.

“You can probably wear pants, you know,” I pointed out. “It’s not the nineteen-fifties.”

“Then who will look at my legs?” Lisette demanded.

“Are you trying to snag yourself a full partner, Lisette Bonner?” I demanded.

Lisette had curves, and she knew how to dress them. Even when she didn’t seek out male attention, she never seemed to lack it. She rode the edge of the top end of the misses section, and she freely admitted that the lack of fashion choices in the plus sizes was the single greatest contributing factor to her plateauing weight.

“Nah,” she said. “They’re all too old. Maybe a junior partner. I’ll have law school homework next year, and neither one of you two are going to be there to help me out.”

“You don’t need any help,” I said. “I’m like your security blanket. You study just fine on your own.”

“Don’t spoil her fun,” Geoff said.

Once Lisette had grabbed so much clothing that the hangers covered one arm from elbow to wrist, she said, “You guys might as well wait out in the mall. This is going to take a while.”

I lifted an eyebrow because I’d never known Lisette to miss a chance to haul me into the dressing room to confirm her strong—and excellent—opinions about each piece of clothing she was considering.

She just looked back with an expression of innocence that I did not buy for a single moment.

“Sure, Lisette,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find us.”

“What else are cell phones for?” she asked, heading toward the dressing room.

I shook my head at her back.

“Well?” Geoff prompted.

“Let’s find somewhere to sit, then,” I said.

Geoff offered his hand. I took it. His palm was warm and rough from his lacrosse calluses. How different his grasp was from Dorian’s cool, smoother one. I knew who Geoff was in a way that I could never know Dorian, and when he smiled, I felt only the flush of his attention and not any of the conflicted, fearful thoughts that the vampire stirred in my heart.

We headed out into the main part of the mall again, where a thousand conversations echoed against the hard floor and high walls, swallowing us comfortably in the din and bustle.

“I’ve got to hit up Auntie Anne’s,” I said. “I skipped lunch.”

Geoff frowned. “That’s not smart.”

I knew what he meant. I was still too thin. “It wasn’t planned, believe me. Something just came up.” Yeah, Cosimo the vampire had come up in a luxury car and whisked me away to a supernatural dive bar.

We checked the nearest map kiosk and started off, still hand in hand through the crush of shoppers. Santa was gone from his wonderland, but Christmas scenes still cluttered the main walkways and wreaths and garlands festooned the walls.

“I got an acceptance yesterday,” I said suddenly, without planning to.

Geoff’s expression got very still, his hand tightening fractionally around mine. “Where to?”

“University of Chicago,” I said.

His broad face split into a grin. “Your top pick.”

“Close to yours, too,” I prompted.

“Yeah. Chicago, Berkley, and Harvard. And I just got my rejection from Harvard.”

“So you’re in at two,” I said.

“Yep. It’s going to be either Chicago or Berkley,” he agreed.

“When do you decide?”

“Deadline’s in May, after the fellowships and assistantship offers go out.”

“Plenty of time, then.” Plenty of time to find out exactly how serious we were going to be.

“Plenty,” he agreed.

We reached the back of the line at Auntie Anne’s. I got three sesame pretzels and a Coke, pulling my hand reluctantly out of Geoff’s to take my food. I wolfed down the food as we headed back toward Macy’s. Geoff waved me over to an empty bench close to the store.

“So, you really are recovering,” Geoff said as I shoved the last wax paper wrapper back into the bag. “You already look a ton better.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded with pretend outrage, setting my drink at my feet.

Playing along, he held up his free hand as if to ward me off. “Hey, hey! You know what I meant.”

I laughed. Geoff was always good at making me laugh.

“Anyhow, it’s good,” Geoff said.

“Yeah, it is.”

There must have been some unintentional sarcasm in my response because Geoff frowned at me and caught my free hand in his. “I really mean it, Cora. I’m glad you’re getting better—more glad than I can say. More glad than I probably have any right to be.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, struck by the peculiarity of his phrasing.

“You’ve been a good friend. A really good friend for three years now. But I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I want you to be more than that. And to be honest, I already consider you to be more than that.”

His eyes were unusually serious, their puppy dog liquidity as charming as it ever had been. I dropped my gaze to our entwined hands. His skin was golden against mine, golden, warm, and entirely human. I turned my wrist slightly so I couldn’t see the bond-mark on it.

I had a choice. I had chosen life. Now I could choose which life it was that I wanted.

“I feel the same,” I said.

He treated me to a boyish smile. “Good. ’Cause I just kinda put myself out there just now. And it would have been pretty awkward if we’d had to sit here for the next half hour while Lisette was pretending not to be giving us time apart if you’d shot me down.”

“Our goodbye didn’t convince you of that?” I returned.

He laughed, a bright sound. Geoff was, I thought, exactly what he appeared. Simple, direct, uncomplicated. As smart as hell, of course, for all his casual approachability. But he was day to Dorian’s night, a world away from angst and moral complexities.

“Well, I did sort of initiate that,” he said. “Maybe you were just being polite.”

“Polite?” I demanded. I punched him in the arm with my free hand. “Polite stops with me long before your tongue is in my mouth.”

His laughter stopped abruptly, and he gave me a look that I knew too well.

“Here?” I said. But my breath was already coming a bit fast.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Maybe because we’re in a mall,” I said. “With thousands of after-Christmas shoppers all around.”