The Thirst Within (21 page)

For one
! Oh heavens, this is bad.

“It speeds up when you’re agitated,” he
explains.

“And what’s another reason?” I ask, totally choosing
to ignore what he just said about hearing my agitated heart.

“What makes you think there’s another reason?”
I’m pretty sure, but I don’t know how I know, that he’s playing idiot and knows
exactly what I mean.

“You said ‘for one,’” I remind him.

He pauses and looks at me through the rearview
mirror. He’s debating to tell me, but he’s cautious.

“I have a pretty good insight into what you
feel. Not your thoughts,” he adds quickly. “I don’t know what you think. But
emotions. Like if you’re happy, I can catch that. Or afraid….”

Oh. He’s known the whole time I’ve been afraid
of him! This crazy fear! I wish I could explain it. Or better yet, that I
didn’t feel it. And how come Thierry never explained that to me? That he could
sense my feelings, or whatever?

I don’t really know how to reply to that, so I
say, “That’s gotta be handy, I guess. You can see through poker faces; you can
tell if people are lying, if they’re afraid.” I’m glossing over the fact that I
know that he knows I’m afraid of him.

He says, “Well, it doesn’t work like that. I
can usually read people’s minds to tell if they’re lying. Reading feelings,
that’s not with just anyone.”

I remember Thierry saying that he wasn’t that
good at reading minds. Corben makes it sound easy. “You say you can’t hear my
thoughts… but you can read a lot of people’s. Is that right?” I ask, making
sure I understand.

“It is.”

“But then you
can
read my feelings,
whatever the difference is, yet you can’t with most people.” I just
have
to be the opposite of everyone else.

“Uh… yes. For the most part,” he says.

“For the most part
which
part?”

“The part about reading your feelings. That
part is true; I can do that.”

I’m so confused. “And the other part? Not being
able to read the feelings of most people…. You
did
just say that it
wasn’t with just about anyone.”

“I meant… it’s only with you.”

“What?” Oh God.

He’s uncomfortable, and a little irritated. “We’re
here, Tori. I’ll tell you later, okay? If you still want to know.”

No, he’s not irritated. He’s shy. Shy! That’s
interesting.

I have no idea where we are, but it looks like
a residential neighborhood with regular houses mixed in with high rises. I was
expecting a lonely, isolated castle with a huge basement where the murders take
place. This house does look huge, but it’s surrounded by other houses and larger,
taller buildings. The front patio is beautiful, even in the winter. It has to
be professionally landscaped. Not that Corben couldn’t do it…. I just don’t see
him tending it himself. The house sits on the corner of a lot, and there’s a
park right across from the main entrance.

This house is probably very expensive. Of
course.

Vampires
.

I shrug, as if that explains it.

He drives the car to the back of the property
through a paved driveway on the right edge of the house, which butts against
the next neighbor house’s brick fence. The driveway passes under a freaking
brick archway, above which there’s more house. We stop in front of a double
garage. He presses a button and the garage door opens… revealing two more cars
parked one in front of the other. How many cars does a person need? And this
garage…. Really? I was under the impression that parking in the city was a big
deal. And yet he has space to park four cars. Five, if you count the driveway.

He picks up my bag from the trunk and I follow
him inside the house. Once I arrive inside I rename it
mansion
instead
of
house
in my head. This thing feels more like a castle than a house.
So I shouldn’t disregard the murders in the basement idea. I mean, he’s a
vampire. He eats people. And he has plenty of getaway cars to drive and dispose
of the bodies. Hell, I saw a lagoon in that park in front of the house. He
could dig a hole at the bottom of the lagoon and bury the bodies there.

We go up half a flight of stairs and then we’re
in the main floor. The door we came through is off to the side of the main
entry. As I take the scene before me, I have to scratch my head. A grand
staircase dominates the entry hall; its railings and posts are polished dark
wood. The foyer and everything I can see from where I stand, like Thierry’s
house, is furnished with tasteful, antique-looking furniture, that harmonize
with the staircase and gleaming hardwood floors. But this house is so big that
the few pieces here or there look scarce. It doesn’t look bad, but it does look…
lonely.

“I’m afraid this place is not too homey,”
Corben says, and it sounds a little apologetic. “I do have a real living room
with a TV in the basement. Hardly anyone ever comes up here. But all the rooms on
the second story are furnished and tended to, so you can pick any room you
want—there are four bedrooms one flight up. They’re all livable.”

“Maybe you can show me downstairs.”

“Okay,” he says, and smiles briefly. His smile
affects me way more than it should.

But he’s moving, thank God, and I follow him.

We take the main staircase one flight down, and
then we’re in the basement… if you could call it that. This area alone is almost
bigger than the house I grew up in. But at least it’s furnished more casually,
giving the space a more relaxed feel.

There are two bedrooms down here. Score. I open
the door of the one right off the family room—oh, I see why he didn’t call it a
family
room, there’s no family here—and decide that I have everything I
need down here. There’s a kitchen in the basement, although of course there’s
got to be a bigger one upstairs. There’s a bathroom, a TV, and plenty of windows
at the top of the half-buried walls, so there should be light in the morning. I
walk to the bed, while Corben is still at the door, lie across it, and pass
out.

***

I have a vivid, troubled dream. While dreaming
I don’t realize it’s a dream, but I feel like hours have gone by, and at some
point I can’t take it anymore and I wake up. There are tears in my eyes, and my
heart is beating fast. Within seconds Corben is outside my door, knocking.

“Tori? Are you alright?”

“I’m okay,” I say breathlessly.

“Do you need anything?”

“No.” What I need is a slap across the face to
shake the dream away.

“How about some water?”

“I….” My throat feels dry. “Yes, please. I
could use some.”

“I’ll be right back,” he says through the
closed door.

I’m trembling. The dream was intense, but amazing.
In the dream, I had been striving for years to be with my beloved, at least
that’s what it felt like, and we were finally together. We were alone in a
large house such as this, and it was our first night together. I felt the
tension of my expectations, the sweetness of our victory, the passion of our
embrace. But above all, the
love
that filled us both. The feelings were
so powerful that I’m still experiencing them even now that I’m awake.

But afterwards the dream changed; I was sick,
and I was going to die.
He
was devastated, and that hurt me more than
the fact that my life was ending. Dying I didn’t care for. It was his pain that
woke me up. His suffering was unbearable to me.

Corben returns and knocks on my door. It’s been
only a few seconds since he left, and I haven’t really regained my voice, so I
don’t answer him.

He opens the door an inch or so. The door is
unlocked, since I didn’t care to lock it last night. “Tori? I’m coming in.”

I sit up and wipe the tears from my eyes. He
opens the door slowly, as if giving me a chance to tell him not to. I guess he
takes my silence as affirmation because he comes in. In the low light that
comes from the street outside, I see he’s holding a bottle of water and a
glass, wearing drawstring pants and a white cotton shirt. He looks so young. His
dark hair falls perfectly to his sides as though it weren’t three in the
morning. Of course, he was probably very much awake. It’s not like he just woke
up and threw a shirt over his head.

I look down, away from him, because I’m
emotionally conflicted.

He approaches me and sets the water bottle and
glass on the nightstand next to me. He turns on the bedside lamp, and I squint
against the light. He pours water in the glass.

“Here,” he says, and offers it to me.

“Thank you,” I finally speak.

I drink greedily, feeling the restorative
effects of the water immediately.

“How bad was your dream?” he asks me.

“It was
bad
,” is all I say. The dream
was terrible in so many levels. Even the beginning, which ignites my body again
just thinking about it, was awful once I woke up. Because once I did I felt so
guilty, thinking about the way it made me feel—as though I loved him.

I loved
Corben
.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I was going to
die. I can still feel the physical pain; it was so real. The anxiety. The fear of
the unknown.

But worst of all was the anguish I felt for
him
—the
pain of leaving
him
alone and suffering.

I look up at Corben, hoping to clear my head—hoping
to see him cold, distant as usual. But he’s looking at me like he’s really
suffering. My heart aches for him, to take his hurt away. My arms yearn to comfort
him. I could just stretch them and I’d reach him, where he stands there, so
close to my bed.

But I know I shouldn’t—I’m holding back because
the desire battles with my reason—I
know
I love Thierry, although I
can’t evoke that love right now. I can’t feel anything but this irrational
longing for Corben, leftover from my stupid dream. A tear spills from my eye, a
testament of my pain and frustration.

His cool hand is instantly on my face, his thumb
like rich velvet on my cheekbone, brushing the tear away. His hand lingers for
a second on my cheek and I close my eyes as a violent burst of desire assaults
me under his touch. My chest rises as if drawn to him, and I hope and pray his
lips close over mine; I don’t leap forward only because I’ve frozen, and can’t
move to seek them myself.

But his hand is abruptly gone. I open my eyes
and I see him fifteen feet away by the door. “Good night, Tori,” he says, and does
that little bow of his head that’s so old fashioned. Then he leaves me, closing
the door behind him.

I turn out the light, and lie in the darkness
with my sullen thoughts.

I stay in bed until the sun rises, and white
light slowly trickles in the room. The new day harbors a small fraction of
hope. There is snow accumulation against the basement windows that makes me
smile ruefully; it makes me feel strangely homesick. It reminds me of the home
where I grew up, and the park where Grandpa would take me sledding. I want to
go outside and make a snow angel. I want to leave. I need to clear my head.

But my head does not wish to be cleared. The improper
thoughts running through my head have the stamina of a hundred wild horses. And
right now they’re set to full sulking mode.

Bad luck seems to have always followed me. I
haven’t had the chance to enjoy happiness for long when I have to screw it up
like this. Just when I’m starting to convince myself that my time with Thierry
is real, that he loves me, I have to throw it all away.

I can’t explain my feelings for Corben, but
they are still there in the morning, although thankfully subdued. I check the
weather forecast and it shows a little sun later in the day, which could mean
that I may be able to fly home today. Finally some good news. I don’t like being
here, forcing Corben to babysit me. He’s the strangest vampire I’ve ever met
(okay, I’ve only met two vampires. But still). And we’re stuck in this
ridiculously huge and empty house. I’d rather be in the middle of nowhere snowed
in with my Aunt Marie as I should have been; and you can throw in June and Fiona,
too, a hurricane flooding the house, and aliens at the door.

But I’m not complaining because I’m having the
worst possible time with Corben. No, my problem is that I’m having the worst
possible time remembering that I’m with
Thierry
.

My heart beats erratically when I’m around Corben.
I told myself at first that it was because I was scared of him, but now I’m
embarrassed to admit I feel a profound attraction to him. It pulls me, it draws
me in, this magnetism. When I’m alone I think of him. I think of what would it
be like if I kissed him. Then I get flushed all over as I remember that he can
probably hear my heartbeat. And he supposedly feels my feelings—although since
he can’t read my mind this doesn’t bother me much. He can’t know for sure that when
I feel desire I’m thinking of him.

I sigh. I need to
stop thinking
.

I throw the covers angrily aside and get out of
bed. I stretch and my body responds grouchily, since I slept in not the most
comfortable clothes. I need a shower.

Damn it. I’m the type of person who always asks
if it’s okay to use the restroom in someone else’s house, but as the night
creature he is, Corben should be sleeping. At least two levels up, or perhaps
even three. Hmm. The thought that he’s separated from me by two floors relaxes
me into moving around his basement and using his bathroom without asking. Before
I go in, just in case, I open the other bedroom in the basement to make sure
he’s not sleeping here. I find nothing.

Good. I didn’t want him sleeping in the room next
to me.

After taking an unnecessarily long hot shower I
change into comfortable workout clothes that I plan to wear all day to make up
for sleeping in my bra and jeans. I put on warm socks and decide to face the
day. When I leave the bathroom a lone basket catches my eye on the otherwise
bare countertop of the lower level kitchen. I didn’t notice it when I first
left my room. I approach the countertop looking at the basket suspiciously.
It’s covered by a white cloth napkin. Ah. There’s bread inside, and while it’s
not warm, I can tell it’s still quite fresh by the looks of it.

I realize I’m hungry, and I wonder if there’s
any butter around here. It’s likely that this kitchen serves more like a wet
bar than a real kitchen, since it’s right next to the recreational room.
However, it
looks
like a kitchen, fully equipped. I open the fridge and
find the butter along with a few bottles of water, and remember Corben bringing
me water last night. It makes my stomach muscles clench in ways that they’re
not used to.

Shush
, I order my body.

I find a plate and some utensils. I butter the
bread and eat it all. It’s delicious; definitely fresh from a bakery. After
I’ve finished I don’t bother to clean what I’ve dirtied.

Now that I’m fully awake, curiosity awakens too
like an old friend, compelling me to go upstairs to investigate Corben’s lair. I
take the staircase up to the main entrance vestibule. In the light of day, the
details of this house come alive, making me feel like I’m in a fairy tale. I
want to see it all.

I search the main level and find the main
kitchen. It’s enormous, and jaw-dropping in its elegance. I look through some
of the cabinets, expecting them to be empty, but there are a few items here;
mostly canned goods, or dry items like rice and pasta.

Past the kitchen I find a sunroom in a corner at
the back of the house, facing the rear and the side street. It’s almost in the
shape of a turret; like an oversized, circular bay window surrounded by glass,
and lined with a cushioned, wooden bench. Here the floor is not hardwood but a
magnificent white marble with black tiles forming an elaborate pattern. There’s
a big chair within the circle with a throw made of some super soft material
folded over its arm. The chair faces the snow-covered sidewalk outside, a half
story below. The whole scene is absolutely inviting.

While the house is made of masonry, giving it
the feel of a fortress, this bay window is all light. It’s cold outside, but in
here I can enjoy the sunlight. I move towards the big chair and see a small
round table on the other side, next to it, on top of which is the book I was
reading at the airport.

Oh….

I interpret the gesture as Corben making me
feel welcome to his home while he sleeps, by placing my book in possibly the
coziest spot in the universe. That, and the bread.
Corben
…. My mission
to explore the rest of the mansion is dissolved in an instant, and I sink in
the soft folds of the swiveling, reclining chair.
Ah
. This is how Care
Bears must have felt in their little cloud cars. I cover my legs with the throw
and read my book, looking out the window at intervals.

But after about half an hour I’m no longer
interested in the book, since my brain keeps reminding me that Corben is
around. I realize I’ve read the same sentence three times before I give up and close
the book, lay it on the side table, and stare out the window.

Then I hear footsteps behind me. He probably
doesn’t have to make a noise, but it’s his way of letting me know he’s here.

I swivel in the reclining chair and face him.

“Good morning,” I say.

“Tori,” he says, and bows his head slightly.
He’s dressed in jeans and a printed shirt, looking for all the world like a
regular human guy. Well, an incredibly gorgeous young guy standing there in the
shadows.

“Thank you for the bread,” I say. “I’m assuming
it was for me, that is. Since you’re a vampire and all.”

“It was for you,” he allows. “Are you
comfortable?”

He’s
not; I can tell. I don’t know
exactly how. His expression is unreadable. But I say, “I am; thank you. How
about you? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, since you’re a vampire and all,” I
repeat practically the same words I said a moment ago.

His expression softens slightly. “Your
self-possession with this whole issue is almost frightening,” he says more to
himself than me.

“Because I say the word
vampire
?”

“Amongst other things. To answer your question,
while I would normally be sleeping at this time, today I don’t think I should.”

“You can just sleep whenever you want?” I’ve
never asked Thierry about his sleeping patterns.

“Yes. Just like you can. When you have things
to do, sometimes you stay up all night, don’t you?”

Oh. And vampires stay up all day. “Yeah, I
guess,” I answer. But what does he mean, things to do? Is he talking about
babysitting me? I feel so awkward. I want to apologize for being a baby last
night and crying, but that would require bringing the incident back up, and I
told myself I would pretend it never happened.

He takes a step towards me. I look up
automatically, but his green gaze intimidates me and I hastily look down at his
shoes. He’s wearing black Converse that look surreal on him, the
who-knows-how-old vampire.

“I called the airline and rescheduled your
flight back to New Orleans for tonight at six,” he says. “Thierry will pick you
up there.”

Thierry
. Something pulls at my chest in
different directions when I hear Corben say Thierry’s name. “Oh, thanks,” I
manage to say. I don’t ask him how he got my flight information or how he
managed to do it when it was reserved by someone else. I’m still intimidated by
him, and my traitor heart alerting him is not helping.

“Is there anything you would like to do in the
meantime?” he asks.

I look up, and wonder if it’s my imagination
that I see concern in his expression. He said he’d explain things to me, about
how he detects my feelings, but now I’m not sure I want to know. “I…. Maybe I’ll
go outside and get some lunch later.”

“Of course. And I understand that the food selection
is respectable in the city. Tell me what you want and I’ll find it for you.”

“Um. Thanks,” I say carefully. Is he implying I
can’t go outside, or is he just offering to go for me? “I wanted to go myself though,
so that I could go to the park afterwards and see it covered in snow.”

He pauses for a moment as if debating. “Alright,”
he finally says, as though I’m a child and I’ve been good so I deserve to go
outside and play. “But make sure you wear appropriate clothing.”

Thanks, Dad
. Jeez. “Of course,” I say,
frowning a bit.

He looks down and smiles sadly. “Sorry. I’m
just afraid you’ll catch a cold,” he explains, and the fact that he cares about
my health blankets my heart with a warm happy glow. “I haven’t been around people
in a while; I think you are all so vulnerable. It’s because the older I get,
the less I remember what it was like.”

Oh. The age issue. I’m feeling brave from his
voiced concern about my health, so I say, “Thierry wouldn’t tell me your age.”

“Did you ask him?” he asks a bit coolly. Is he
mad? Maybe it’s my imagination; I can’t tell. Shit! My stupid mouth.

“Yeah,” I say, and I’m a little embarrassed.

“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. Thierry
gives you anything you want.”

Ouch. Corben’s words remind me of how wrong my current
feelings are. He’s right; Thierry gives me everything I ask. When I think of Thierry
a part of my heart feels hollow: the part of me that is normally full of him is
now void. I miss him.

I don’t have anything to say. I don’t reply to Corben,
because he ignored my indirect age question, and I’m afraid he’s upset.

“But I can see why he didn’t tell you my age,”
he evades an answer again.

He has my full attention.

“Why? Is it bad? Are you like… super old?”
According to Thierry, a few centuries old isn’t bad. Only
really
old,
like multiple millennia, is bad. That’s when some of them have died. Supposedly.
He didn’t know for sure; it’s not like there’s a genealogy of all ancient
vampires on the Internet for everyone to see.

Corben laughs shortly. “No. Maybe he thought it
was my story to tell.”

Ouch
, Corben. Again.

I stutter some sort of apology. “Sorry—I didn’t
mean—”

“No, that came out wrong,” he says quickly. “I
meant that maybe he didn’t want to tell you my age, not that you couldn’t ask
about me. You can ask Thierry anything, Tori. You can ask
me
anything. And
you can
tell
me anything.”

My heart swells. Is he finally warming up to
me? Allowing Thierry and me to be together?

“Thanks,” I say, and I feel my cheeks
reddening. I steal another glance at him briefly. I think he means it. “Things
have been so weird recently.”

His feet shift and I look up to see him looking
down. Bashful! He knows I’m talking about last night, and he’s as embarrassed
as I am.

“Tell me about your dream,” he requests
unexpectedly.

What?
No
. I shake my head. How
embarrassing. I can’t tell him I’ve had dreams of loving him. Me, his brother’s
girlfriend. Girlfriendish. And especially not after last night’s episode, when
he touched my cheekbone and lit my whole body on fire. In fact, I think about
it now and I flush. I look down to hide it, but of course he can hear my heart
racing.

He takes another step closer, and his feet
touch the tile. He’s now in the sunlight, very close to me.

“Please,” he says, and his voice is melodious.
“I need to know.”

“Why?” I whisper.

“I need to know, to confirm…. I’ve been having
dreams, too.” At this, I look up. He meets my eyes for a second, then looks
away. After a second he adds, “And you’re in them.”

“Me?” Oh my God.

“Yes, you.”

“Oh.” He’s been having dreams about me, like
I’ve been having dreams about him. Not
similar
, I hope. The thought of
Corben wanting me like I wanted him last night is more than I can bear at the
moment.

“Please tell me,” he entreats again. “If you’ve
been having similar dreams, that could mean….” He doesn’t finish.

“What could it mean?”

“That it’s more relevant than I think. Maybe
it’s something important.”

Oh God. I’m torn. On the one hand, I’d like to
tell him; not only to have him explain the mystery, but also to talk to him.
His plea draws me in, and my heart begs me to answer. But on the other hand….

“I can’t. It’s….”