Survivor (19 page)

I considered for a moment.  It was possible.  I had
spent years having to concentrate on my every move.  At times, I had even had
to consciously focus on contracting some muscles while relaxing others- things
that a normal person did without thinking about it.  “Physically I’m fine,” I
said hesitantly, “but all joking aside…my brain is still different, isn’t it?”

He reached up and grasped my branch, levering
himself up to sit beside me.  “I think you’ll be fine,” he said candidly.  “I
hate to say this, but … any sort of instability would have shown itself by
now.”

I nodded.  “Exactly.”  When I glanced at Peter’s
face in the moonlight, he looked exactly as he had in my dream, a trickle of
dried blood on his forehead, and his silver eyes wide and unseeing.  I smiled harder
and the vision resolved to my normal, mostly living boyfriend.  His green eyes
were relieved as he returned my smile. 

“I’m so glad,” he said, dropping a kiss on my
forehead.

*****

I curled up on the couch and tucked my graceful legs
under me, pulling my robe closer.  Cold wouldn’t hurt me, but I could still
appreciate a comfortable temperature.  I hugged a throw pillow to my stomach
with one arm while I held the phone to my ear with the other.  “Oh, Mom,” I
said in exasperation.  “I can’t stand to have this conversation one more
time.” 

I rolled my eyes and Peter saw it.  He chuckled
silently as he set a cup of orange juice on the little table to my left and
wandered away.  “You are not going to disown me.  If you were, you would have
done it by now.”

I set the phone down and took a sip of juice while
she finished her tirade.  I could hear her perfectly fine without holding it to
my ear- and my vampire hearing had nothing to do with it.  Finally, she slowed
down and I picked up the phone again so I could speak into it.  “I’m fine Mom,”
I said with a small smile.  I knew she was just worried.  Her and my father had
been notified that my lawyer, well Peter’s lawyer actually, had been successful
in getting my guardianship lifted.  As far as my family knew, I had then jumped
a plane to Switzerland for some extremely experimental stem cell treatment, with
Peter’s rich family footing the bill.  I was supposed to be recovering.

“Look, Mom, I’m sorry,” I said for the hundredth
time.  “If I told you before hand, you guys would have fought me, and I wanted
my life back.”  It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t a lie either.  They
would have fought to keep me in their care, but the truth of the matter was
that I didn’t have time to plan out my initiation into the world of vampires. 
I was winging it.  It would, of course, be easier for everyone involved if I
simply disappeared- faked my death or moved out of the country or something-
but I was being stubborn.  I refused to abandon my life, and force Peter to
abandon his as well, merely for my convenience. 

Peter started whistling in the kitchen and I arched
an eyebrow.  He was unfazed by the fact that we were lying to everyone and my
family was threatening to disown me.  “It’s amazing,” I told my mother, not
entirely lying through my teeth.  “I can’t tell you all of the medical details,
but I’m already feeling better, stronger, and more coordinated.  I should be
home in a month or so.”

Peter’s whistling cut off abruptly and I hid a small
smile.  No way was I waiting as long as he wanted me to.  If he had his way, I
would be cooped up at his house until next year, at the very least.  “Okay,
Mom,” I said in response to her admonishment to take care of myself.  “Tell Dad
I’ll see him soon.”  I paused and fought to keep from laughing while she
reminded me that I didn’t have a father, or a mother, or a sister.  “I don’t
care, tell him anyway.  I’m not letting you guys disown me.  Bye.”

I pushed the end button and stared at the little
phone, shaking my head.  Peter crossed the room, brining me a buttery roll,
all-natural and handmade.  I think the vampires might have been behind the
recent surge in health conscious whole foods.  “So they are getting over it?” 
His voice was mild, but the corner of his lip quirked up with suppressed
laughter.

I rolled my eyes.  “Of course not.  They’ll hate you
for the rest of your life.  And I mean your vampire life.  We’re good at
holding grudges.”

He chuckled.  “I’m sure I’ll win them over again. 
If nothing else, the minute they see you they will forget why they are even
mad.”

I stretched, looking down at my legs.  “At this
point they really could disown me for all I care.  I can walk.  Hell, I can
run
.” 
I grinned up at him and he bent down to plant a soft kiss on my forehead, sharing
my elation.  The smell of him was electric and my lips parted as my fangs shot
out.  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, embarrassed. 

Peter laughed and just kept right on invading my space. 
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and glared, fighting the urge to pin
him.  He only laughed in response.  “You said you would be back home in about a
month,” he reminded me mildly, a glint in his eyes.  “You need to practice
control if you want to achieve that kind of ridiculous goal.”  He put a knee
between my legs and leaned forward, his hands resting on the back of the couch
on either side of me. 

“I’ll be fine,” I said between clenched teeth.  The
smell of his skin was wafting to me every time he moved and I started to pant,
trying not to breathe through my nose.

He leaned forward to nuzzle at my neck and I shoved
him.  Hard.  He was probably expecting it, but he didn’t resist, falling back
to sprawl on the floor like a weak victim.  “Oh…” he said in mock helplessness,
“that hurt.”  He rubbed his hip as if he were injured, his emerald eyes
flashing to silver.

I reached for my cup of orange juice.  Pressing
myself back into the fluffy couch cushions, I brought the drink to my mouth and
inhaled the scent of oranges and sunshine.  “Fuck off,” I said succinctly. 
Peter laughed, still refusing to get up off the floor.  I took a sip of my
juice, almost wincing at how wrong it tasted right now.  What I wanted wasn’t
fruit.

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a wide-eyed
look.  “Is there something wrong with your juice?”  He sounded
oh
so concerned. 
I gave him the finger.  He stretched slowly, then rolled over and started doing
push-ups, making his heart beat a little faster. 
Asshole
.

I swallowed hard.  My mouth was watering.  I took
another gulp of the juice and almost gagged at the sweet, fruity taste.  Peter
rolled back over and fanned himself, as if he were all worked up.  Like a
vampire would be worked up after a few little push-ups.  I set the glass down
with trembling fingers.  “Stop it, you stink,” I said flatly.  “It’s
disgusting.”  His warm, spicy, male scent was going straight to my head.  I
made a face as if it sickened me.

Smiling, he grabbed the hem of his faded t-shirt and
pulled it up over his head.  He reclined on the floor, braced on his elbows,
waiting.  I narrowed my eyes at the self-assured look in his eyes. 

He didn’t have to wait long,
the jerk
.  I was
pinning him to the floor within seconds. 

*****

I opened the door and let Haine in.  Technically, I
wasn’t allowed to have visitors when Peter wasn’t there. 
To hell with it
,
I thought, irritated.  The rule was in place to protect my human friends and
family.  It wasn’t as if I was going to hurt Haine.  He was older and stronger,
and more than capable of taking care of himself.  I didn’t have many friends
right now, especially those who knew what I was going through.  I needed a
non-human friend to talk to. 

I wasn’t entirely oblivious to Peter’s reactions to
Haine.  Jealousy is not a laughing matter among supernatural creatures.  It can
be a big problem when inhumanly strong people start to argue.  If Peter wasn’t
here, then he wouldn’t go all alpha male on me.  I knew he didn’t doubt my
loyalty, but he got over protective any time
any
vampire was around, let
alone one as pretty and powerful as Haine.

He flashed a stunning smile and made himself at
home, kicking off his shoes, and hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. 
“How are you holding up?”  His tone was light, but I knew he was serious.  I
knew he was close to Leah.  She had probably sent him to check up on me.

I waved away his concern.  “I’m fine, just going
stir crazy.”

He reached into the bag he was carrying and brought
out a stack of books and movies.  “I thought you might like these.”

“Thanks.”  I took his gift into the living room, and
Haine followed.  He arched his eyebrows when he saw the new layout of the room.

“You’ve redecorated…”

I laughed sarcastically.  “
Someone
broke the
couch.  So we had to get a new one.”  I shrugged.  So I broke things.  Big
deal.  It was Peter’s fault for provoking me.  “Since I don’t have anything
better to do, I re-arranged the room.”

 Haine laughed, his beautiful voice filling the room
with warmth.  “I see.”

I sifted through the pile of books, stopping when I
found a graphic novel in the mix.  “You read this stuff?”  I was surprised, as
always, to find that the other vampires had as many human quirks as I did.

He ran a hand through his silky hair, embarrassed. 
“Well…I wasn’t sure what you liked, so…”

He held out his hand to take it back, but I didn’t
give it to him.  “C’mon.  I’ll show you the library.”  I led the way to the
little guest room that Peter and I had converted to the library.  He already
had a huge book collection before he took me in, but with me being housebound,
it had grown so much it needed its own space.

“This is nice,” Haine said, looking around.  Most of
the room was floor to ceiling bookshelves, lined with neat rows of books.  A
massive roll-top desk and computer took up most of one wall.  A couple of
overstuffed chairs and a footstool were arranged in the middle of the room.  I
went to my side of the room and pulled out a few slender, hard cover books,
replacing them with the ones Haine had brought.

I handed him the books, grinning like a geek.  “I’m
sure you’ve read both of these series, but these are the newest volumes.  I
don’t think they’ve been officially released yet.”  Peter had pulled some
strings.

His fingers curled around the spines as if they were
a rare treasure, and he returned my grin.  “I don’t have them yet.”  He flopped
down in one of the chairs and started leafing through one of the graphic novels
with the urgency of a fellow geek.  I took the other chair and shoved his
gigantic feet out of the way to make room for mine on the footstool. 

“Peter teases me for reading about fairies.”  I had
explained to him that they were
evil
fairies, and thus way cooler than
your average Tinkerbell, but he still laughed.  “He said I should just watch
cartoons if I was going to read picture books like a kid.”

Haine grunted a reply and kept reading.  It was warm
in the library, and the quiet sounds of sliding paper combined with Haine’s strong
aura were comforting.  I didn’t mean to doze off. 

I snapped awake and stared into big sparkling pools
of blue.  Haine’s face was inches from my own.  “What….”  I belatedly realized
that I must have fallen asleep.  How could I have done something so stupid? 

“Melody, are you okay?”  My head started to clear
and I realized he had been calling my name for a while now.  We were on the
floor, and he held me in his lap, cradling me in his arms.

I sat up straighter, pulling away from his broad
chest.  His nearness and the scent of his emotions- fear, and something tender-
weren’t doing me any favors. 

“I’m sorry,”   I said, trying to pull it together. 
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”  My voice had dropped, and it came out all
sultry. 
Crap, I was thirsty
.  I clamped down on my instincts and
focused on the fear.  Shit, I had just fallen asleep in front of another
vampire.  I had just revealed a huge weakness.  Peter would be pissed.

I slid off his lap, and he let me go, breathing a
sigh of relief.  “You were just sleeping?”  He shook his head and looked down
at his hands.  “Sleeping…”  His eyes met mine and one corner of his mouth
turned up in a weak smile.  “I thought you were dying or something.  I’ve never
seen a vampire do that.  It never even occurred to me you were…just
sleeping
.” 
He laughed.

I nodded.  “I’m sorry I scared you.” 

He was still shaking his head.  “So you’re really
okay?”  I nodded, and his expression grew serious.  “I won’t tell anyone else,
if I can help it.”  He looked uncomfortable, and I thought I sensed anger.

I took a deep breath.  “Thanks.  I would appreciate
it if you didn’t.”  I leaned forward and put my head in my hands.  “God, I’m so
bad at this!”  At being a vampire.

Haine patted my back.  “Don’t sweat it.”  As usual,
his kindness made me cry.  I couldn’t show all this weakness and fear to Peter
because he would only feel guilty, but with Haine, it didn’t matter.  Sensing
my mood, he slipped his arm around me, drawing me close to his side.

“I just…”  I said tearfully, “…something’s not right
with me.”  I turned to look up at him.  “Haine, I have these dreams…”

He sat up and pulled away, cutting me off. 
“Don’t.”  His voice was cold.  I stared up at him in surprise and he grimaced. 
“Don’t tell me your weaknesses,” he said softly.  “I shouldn’t know what they
are.”