Unnatural aa-1 Read online

  “I’ll be right there, Michael.”

  “Why is Penry’s hair so long?” No, it wasn’t hair wrapped around his neck, it was blood. Blood gushing out of his neck, rushing over his shoulder. “Oh, Penry, no!”

  “No, don’t think of that,” Ronan ordered, shoving a leg into a pair of jeans.

  When Michael wiped the tears from his eyes, the sunglasses fell onto the bed, but with the blinds shut tight and sunlight barred from the room, there was nothing to burn his eyes. Oh, that feels much better, Michael told himself. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and realized he probably had a touch of the flu. Served him right for sleeping naked with his boyfriend two nights in a row, but it just wouldn’t feel as good if he wore his pajamas.

  Michael was able to stand for only a few seconds before he fell to the floor. It wasn’t that he was weak, he was terrified. He had seen his image in the mirror. Repulsed, Michael crawled backward until he slammed into the wall and couldn’t crawl any farther. “My eyes! My God, what’s wrong with them?”

  Half dressed, Ronan ran to Michael and knelt in front of him to block his reflection. “It’s only temporary,” he said. “Once you drink from The Well, they’ll go back to normal. Like mine.”

  The Well? What the hell was he talking about? Michael pushed Ronan to the side so he could see into the mirror. His eyes were like two black holes that burrowed into his skull. Am I blind? Am I imagining this? Michael wasn’t sure; he needed a closer look. On his hands and knees he moved toward the mirror, forcing Ronan out of his way when he tried to stop him. “They’re like Nakano’s eyes,” Michael said in amazement. “It’s what I saw … in St. Martha’s … when his sunglasses slipped.” His eyes were as black as a starless sky and yet they shone brightly. How could that be? How could any of this be? He turned to Ronan and was, for some reason, compelled to ask him a question. A question he was utterly afraid to hear the response to. “What did you do to me?”

  “Only what you wanted.”

  This?! This is what I wanted? “What do you mean what I wanted?” Michael bellowed. “I didn’t ask for this.”

  Stay calm, Ronan, you have to stay calm for his sake. Remember what it was like for you. “You asked for immortality,” Ronan replied.

  What was he talking about? Michael racked his brain and finally stopped when he remembered the conversation they had in the cathedral, the conversation Michael had assumed, ultimately, was hypothetical. But now, looking at Ronan, he realized his instinct had been correct. Ronan was serious. He had been talking about the possibility, the real possibility of becoming immortal. Like Dorian, but without a portrait in his attic. That was fiction; this, no, this couldn’t be fact.

  Once again his head started to spin. He reached out his hand to grab the side of the bed, but in his mind, behind the blackness of his eyes, he saw something completely different. He saw his hand, distorted, enlarged. What was that between his fingers? Webbing? Then he saw his hand clutch the side of stone, curved, damp stone, and felt a pain roar through his body. “Don’t touch me!” Michael screamed when Ronan tried to help him off the floor.

  “Please, Michael,” Ronan begged. “I need to help you.”

  Riddled with fear and pain, Michael didn’t know what to think. He loved this boy in front of him, loved him more than he thought possible, but something had changed. “Something has changed,” Ronan said, understanding his thoughts. “You’re like me now, you’re immortal.”

  Pulling himself back onto the bed, Michael searched for the sunglasses and put them on. He couldn’t bear the thought of Ronan seeing him with his eyes looking so grotesque. Not that anything about Michael’s appearance seemed to frighten him. He wasn’t running away; on the contrary, he kept telling him that he was going to help him, bring him to this well. “Why do you keep talking about a well?” Michael murmured. “I dreamed of one.”

  Ronan grabbed Michael by the arms, enthusiasm overriding fear. “Because it’s our destiny.”

  You are my destiny, Michael thought. I felt it the moment I saw you because I dreamed of you back home in Weeping Water; you’re the boy from the ocean, the dark-haired boy who loved me. Who loves me even now, like this. “No! I have a fever … I must, I’m hallucinating,” Michael protested, trying to break free from Ronan’s hold. “Please, Ronan … bring me to Dr. MacCleery … so he can help me.”

  Sternly, Ronan told Michael that Dr. MacCleery didn’t have the knowledge or the power to help him right now. Only he did. “I need to bring you to The Well off the island where I was born so I can offer it your blood and you can drink from it. Then the transformation will be complete and you won’t feel sick. You’ll be healthier and stronger than you’ve ever been in your entire life.”

  Ronan spoke so calmly, his words spilled out of his mouth so effortlessly, that they were almost soothing, like a prayer, but Michael couldn’t shake the spasm of fear that clung to his brain. “My … blood?”

  “Yes, your blood must be offered to The Well for you to become one of us.”

  Now his brain was slowly, but surely, being devoured by fear. When he started to speak, he couldn’t stop his voice from shaking, but with each new word, he seemed to be reclaiming his strength. “Ronan … I need you … to get me to a doctor … or get the hell out of my way, because something is really, really wrong!”

  “No! Everything is perfect,” Ronan said, his eyes bright like a child’s. “This is all meant to be. You said so yourself.”

  “I love you, Ronan, I really do, but right now you’re scaring the hell out of me.” Michael broke free from his boyfriend’s hold and flew off the bed. His legs were shaky, but sheer determination kept them from collapsing underneath him. He was only able to keep the door open for a few seconds before Ronan slammed it shut.

  “Don’t be scared,” Ronan pleaded, his hands pressed against Michael’s shoulders making it impossible for him to move. “It’s because of our love that I was able to create you in my image.” Tenderly, Ronan removed Michael’s sunglasses and he wasn’t offended by the two dark tunnels staring back at him. If anything, they made him love Michael even more because they meant that he had begun to shed his mortal trappings and was on his way to becoming a far superior being.

  Although Michael could see tenderness etched into Ronan’s face, he couldn’t feel it. All he felt was dread. “You created me.”

  “Yes.” Ronan nodded. “You’re like me now. You’re a vampire.”

  Following a tense pause, the room was filled with the roar of Michael’s laughter, incredulous, loud, and relieving. Chords of laughter flowed so freely from Michael’s body that he almost forgot about the pain. “You’re a vampire?”

  “Yes,” Ronan answered quietly, his hands once again pressing against Michael’s shoulders.

  “Then where’s your coffin?” Michael asked, trying to do so without laughing, but unable. “And how come the sun hasn’t burnt you to a crisp?”

  Ronan felt his breath quicken. He had thought this would be so easy; he thought Michael would embrace his new life, not fight it at every turn. “Because I’m different; I’m a hybrid.”

  If his laughter wouldn’t keep making him lightheaded, Michael would have continued, but he needed to steady himself, he needed his mind to be clear. “A hybrid? Ronan, you’re incredibly sexy, so very sexy, but you’re no comedian. Now seriously, I need to see MacCleery.”

  “Michael, listen to me, I need you to understand. No doctor can help you now because there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re simply crossing over from what you used to be to what you’ve become, a vampire like me.”

  “This isn’t funny, Ronan!” Michael shouted, quickly losing patience with his boyfriend. “I’m not Dracula, for God’s sake, I’m sick!”

  Michael turned and reached for the doorknob, but Ronan grabbed his hand before he could make contact. Using strength he didn’t know he had, Michael brought his elbow up and slammed it into Ronan’s chin, the force of which made Ronan stumble backward into his
dresser. Ronan realized he wasn’t going to convince Michael by using words, so just as he was about to open the door, Ronan showed him his true self. “Look at me!”

  It was like watching a horror film unspool and bleed out into the room, the unimaginable coming to life. His boyfriend, his absolutely beautiful boyfriend, was changing right in front of his eyes. His hands and his feet were growing, spreading out, the spaces between each finger and toe being filled in by the same kind of webbing that Michael had seen on his own hand in his vision just minutes earlier. His eyes that were so blue—Michael knew for sure that they were blue—were now like white-hot flashes of light, and his fangs, dear God, he had fangs, sharp, smooth, deadly. Michael couldn’t move. If he was breathing, he was doing so only because his body remembered how. His mind had forgotten everything, everything except what Ronan had said. He was a vampire. And if that was true, then so was he.

  “Ro … Ronan … what … has happened to you?”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Ronan said. “Please don’t be afraid.” He slowly moved toward Michael, who involuntarily cowered. “No, no, I would never hurt you.”

  Michael closed his eyes. He wanted to run from the room, run as far as he could, back to the safety of his old bedroom, but he had no strength, so he shut his eyes and chattered like a child. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this is make-believe.”

  “No, Michael,” Ronan said. “This is our reality. We are a special breed of vampire. We can walk in the sun, we can live normally, and we are immortal. You and I will be together, in love, forever.”

  He couldn’t take it any longer. The fear, the anger, the betrayal couldn’t be concealed and controlled, so Michael allowed them to be unleashed. He kicked Ronan squarely in the stomach and sent him flying across the room, smashing into the wall. The stones shook and a spray of dust hit the air. Before Ronan hit the floor, Michael scrambled to his feet, grabbing the sunglasses that were lying next to the bed, and bolted out of the room. He didn’t know where he was running to, but he had to get away from that thing that pretended to be his boyfriend. Maybe if he ran far enough and fast enough, the horror of the morning would turn into a harmless memory, and his life would go back to being what it was just the other day. But the farther he ran, the farther he knew his life had already changed and not for the better.

  Just as he entered The Forest of No Return, he heard Ronan running behind him. He was gaining speed. He knew The Forest better than he did, and Michael was sure he wouldn’t be able to outrun him here.

  But Michael didn’t realize he had a protector.

  “Michael, wait!” Ronan called out, his bare feet hardly touching the stones and ground beneath him, and Michael stopped, not because he was obeying Ronan’s command, but because he saw the fog.

  The mist encircled Michael and for a split second he remembered something: He had been here before, lost, walking into fog, then when he woke, he thought he was being attacked by an animal with long fangs and white lights for eyes, an animal that turned out to be Ronan. “Oh my God, it’s all true,” he murmured. “It’s always been true.”

  As the fog rose all around him, Michael turned to see Ronan standing only a few yards away, his chest covered in sweat and heaving, his face distraught. Gone were the fangs and the distorted hands. He was back to being the Ronan he knew and loved. And then suddenly all he could see all around him was gray smoke. He pressed against it, but it was hard as cement, impenetrable. “Ronan!” he cried, but the sound just echoed within his tomb. Falling to the ground, Michael cried out again, but this time his cry was devoid of any love and was filled with hatred. “Damn you!!”

  On the other side of the fog, Ronan pounded against the barrier, but just as Nakano had come to realize, Ronan knew that it couldn’t be penetrated. Whoever was responsible for creating this protection made sure that its detainee was secure. Ronan understood how charms worked and why they were used, and he knew this one’s purpose was to separate him and Michael. He would leave for now and allow it to win, but he would be back to take his place at Michael’s side where he belonged. First, however, he needed to get advice from someone who was far more experienced dealing with the unknown.

  “Why would someone want to prevent me from helping Michael?” Ronan asked.

  “There are countless reasons, dear,” Edwige said. “Too numerous to mention.”

  “I’m only asking for one!” Ronan’s voice bellowed throughout his mother’s apartment with such force, the painting on the wall shook, the waves moving as if alive. Edwige didn’t chastise her son for his outburst; she understood that he was distraught. His lover’s blood and soul were pulsating through his veins and what he thought would be a glorious morning spent offering himself and his betrothed to The Well had turned into a nightmare. But Edwige knew from experience that every nightmare, no matter how horrific, had an ending.

  “Has this fog ever separated the two of you before?”

  “No.”

  “Has Michael ever mentioned it to you?”

  “No, Mother, never!” Ronan rose from his chair and started to pace the room, the untied laces of his sneakers failing about at his feet. But before he reached the other end, he stopped. “Yes! Once, once he mentioned a fog.”

  “Think,” Edwige ordered. “Think clearly and tell me what he said.”

  Ronan closed his eyes and looked into his memory before conveying what Michael had told him. “He was lost; he was walking on campus at night looking for me and he got lost. I found him the next morning in The Forest. He said he had no idea how he got there, but he remembered seeing a fog and then getting very tired.”

  Edwige glanced at her painting, which loomed heavily in the room. “He was out searching for you?”

  “Yes, he was on his way to my dorm but lost his way,” Ronan said.

  At another time, when matters weren’t so serious, Edwige might not have said what was on her mind, but this was no time for caution. “It sounds like Brania’s work. It appears as if They are desperate to prevent you and Michael from coupling.”

  For once his mother was wrong. “No, that’s not it.”

  Turning to face her son, she said, “I know you would prefer it be something else.”

  “It is something else! That was the night Penry was first attacked … by Nakano. And Michael was only a few yards away. I never understood why Nakano didn’t attack him as well, but now I know Michael was being protected. Trust me, if I couldn’t break through that fog, there’s no way Nakano could.”

  Her son made sense. If They didn’t want Ronan to transform Michael, why would They create an obstruction to stop Nakano from getting there first? However, They were a hideous race and their intentions were rarely compassionate. “Something isn’t right,” Edwige declared. “There’s a piece missing.”

  “The fog is protecting Michael, but not from me. If it were, I would never have been able to transform him last night.” Edwige almost had to look away when she saw the veil of sadness cover her son’s face. “But now he’s out there alone. He has no idea what’s happening to his body and he thinks … he thinks I’ve tried to hurt him.” A mother never wants to see her child cry, even a mother as unskilled as Edwige. “Doesn’t he know how much I love him? Doesn’t he know that I can’t live without him?”

  The last time Edwige cradled her son in her arms was when she told him his father had been killed, destroyed by their enemies. That was also the last time she felt tears sting her own eyes. She could sense that the pain Ronan was feeling now cut just as deeply as the pain she had felt that night. “I need to find him,” Ronan said, his voice cracking. “I need to bring him to The Well so he can feed before it’s too late.”

  Edwige hated giving in to such human frailty, but maybe it was time to let go of some of the pain, some of the rage. “You have time, Ronan. You have until your next feeding.”

  When Ronan looked up at his mother, it was almost too much for her to bear. She wanted to look away, she started to, but she compelled
herself to look into the eyes of her son, just as she had compelled herself to look into the eyes of Saxon before he left this earth. “But what if he doesn’t want me? What if he hates me for what I’ve done and I’ve lost him forever?”

  Edwige understood the need to ask such questions. She also understood that it was a complete waste of time because she had been asking her own useless questions for years. What if someone comes into your house in the middle of the night and takes your husband from you and your children? What if the last time you see the man that you love, love more than you thought you were capable of loving another being, human or otherwise, he is surrounded by a mob carrying torches, tied to a stake, covered in gasoline, begging for his life? What if you could erase all that from your past? “That will not happen.” Edwige cried. “Not again.”

  She bowed her head and rested it against her son’s, fighting to let go of the image of one man, the first to set her husband on fire. The man who shouted, “Death to all water vamps!” into the cold night air and whose ugly blue eyes filled with sheer joy when her beloved Saxon started to scream, to shriek in absolute agony, and whose voice erupted into cheers of triumph when Saxon’s body was gone and in its place lay black ash and embers. But enough! Enough of the past, enough of the memories. Our future is all that matters. “Come now,” Edwige said. “Let go of me.” Ronan stood up, not as tall as usual, but at least he stood. “I need to get Michael back for you.”

  The first stop she made was at St. Peter’s Dorm. Ciaran was surprised to see them, but relieved to see Ronan. “You and Michael weren’t in class today. Is everything all right?”

  Pushing her way into his room, Edwige sat Ronan down on the bed. “Your brother isn’t in the mood to talk. Stay with him until he’s well enough to leave.”

  Ronan looked like he had been crying. And if Ciaran didn’t know his mother better, he would have suspected the same thing of her. “What’s going on?”

  “I need you to take care of your brother! Can you do that?”

  Sure, Mother, Ciaran thought, I’ll be part of the family now that it’s convenient for you. “I’m sorry, Mother, it’s just such a rare occasion when you need my help.”