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  Vaughan grabbed the zipper and started to unzip it. “So too is the relationship between a father and the daughter of his business associate.”

  Slapping his hand away, Brania slipped her feet into her black patent leather pumps. “I have a headache.”

  “Oh, come on!” Vaughan protested. “You can come up with a much better excuse than that.”

  No, he definitely wasn’t as handsome as his son. Or as interesting. “Of course I could, but I don’t feel like making the effort.”

  Vaughan slammed the door shut before Brania could leave. “Don’t be such a cheek. You know how much fun we have together.”

  Suddenly, Brania found this man standing in front of her, blocking her exit, revolting, and most important, no longer useful. “Michael is now a water vamp, Vaughan, and probably at this very moment locked in a sweaty, passionate embrace with Ronan, his boyfriend and creator,” Brania goaded. “You have alienated your son and as a result he wants nothing to do with you. So therefore, neither do I.”

  “Brania, wait!”

  On the other side of the doorway, she paused and turned back to face this arrogant lackey. “You really should have chosen Edwige. She’s far more desperate to have a man in her life than I am.”

  This was unfathomable, losing twice—first Michael and now Brania—no! That was absolutely unacceptable. “After everything I’ve done for you and your father, you can’t just walk out on me.”

  Brania sighed. It was time to take a short vacation from the opposite sex. “If you don’t want le petit Edwige, perhaps you should call my father. I know he’s quite grateful for everything you’ve done.” Buttoning a button that had come undone on her silk blouse, Brania added with a lascivious grin, “And He fancies the company of both genders.” When the door slammed behind her, it only made Brania chuckle even louder.

  * * *

  Nakano found nothing funny about Brania’s comment. He might be a vampire, immortal, preternaturally powerful, but he was still sixteen, surly, and very serious. “What do you mean Michael’s not here?!” Nakano shouted, though Ciaran didn’t even flinch. “Where the hell did he go?!”

  “Ronan took him.”

  This human was really getting on his nerves. “You mean you let Ronan take him.”

  Unhurried, Ciaran finished the paragraph from his chemistry textbook, then placed a bookmark between the pages. When he looked up, his face was calm. “And what was I, a mere mortal, supposed to do to prevent one vampire from leaving this room with another?”

  “You’re resourceful, Ciaran! You could’ve thought of something.”

  And then the calmness disappeared. “I’m always thinking of something!” Ciaran bellowed, losing control. “I gave you an alibi so no one would find out the truth, that you killed Penry.”

  Like I needed your alibi, Nakano thought. What can the police possibly do to me? “I don’t care about that and I never asked you to lie for me! What I want to know is why’d you let Ronan take Michael away from here?”

  It was hard to believe that Nakano, thinner and shorter than Ciaran, was so much more powerful, but that was the truth. Luckily, Ciaran was more cunning than he was strong. “What would it have mattered? Even if I could have prevented Ronan from taking Michael, it would only have prolonged the inevitable,” Ciaran said while walking toward Nakano. “He would have come back tonight or tomorrow or the next day and eventually Michael would be in his arms again just as he is right now.”

  Pushing that image from his mind, Nakano focused on the boy in front of him. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Ronan. Well, he was completely different, but he was better-looking than Penry. And Penry had really good-tasting blood, so Ciaran’s had to be that much more delicious. His mouth watered as Ciaran got closer. “The only way I can really help you, Kano, is if I had more power,” Ciaran said slowly. “If I was more like you.”

  Standing an inch away, Ciaran ran his fingers down Nakano’s arms, his soft nails gliding over even softer skin. He tilted his head and lengthened his neck so it was within reach of Nakano’s mouth. All Kano had to do was allow his fangs to descend and bite down. “I thought you weren’t interested in boys?” Nakano asked, a bit out of breath.

  Pressing Kano to his body, Ciaran whispered in his ear, “I’m interested in power.” He didn’t even try to slow down his racing heartbeat. He wanted Kano to feel it thump, thump, thump, and for him to imagine his blood flowing through his veins. It was working. Ciaran felt Kano’s body pulse with desire and his fangs graze his neck. Finally, finally he was going to join his family. He may not become exactly like his mother or Ronan, but it was close enough. It would have to do.

  Unfortunately, it was not to be.

  Stop! The word thundered in Nakano’s brain and involuntarily his fangs throbbed in protest. Do not take Ciaran. Father says he is worth more to us as a mortal. He wanted to betray Brania’s command, he wanted to take Ciaran from humanity to satisfy his own hunger and to spite Ronan, but he couldn’t. He heard something in Brania’s voice, a tone he had never heard before, and he knew that if he went against her wishes again, he would be destroyed. He hated caution, but he had no desire to die.

  “Do it,” Ciaran pleaded, cringing at the sound of desperation in his voice. He pushed his neck into Nakano’s mouth, but all he felt were lips, dry, uninterested, like Ronan’s. “Take me!”

  “I can’t!” Nakano cried, pushing Ciaran away from him.

  Reaching out like a blind man about to fall, Ciaran’s fingers sought out Nakano’s flesh. He felt his shoulder, then his neck, and pulled him closer to him so once again Nakano’s mouth was against his neck. “Do it! Do it now!”

  Against his will his fangs descended, instinctively searching out the human flesh that was coated in a thin layer of sweat. Nakano’s arms clutched Ciaran around the shoulders and waist, his mind desperately trying to override his craving. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t, but how could he ignore this boy who was giving himself so willingly?

  “I SAID NO!” Brania’s voice was so loud, so unyielding, it transcended space and even stung Ciaran’s ears. Nakano pushed Ciaran away from him brutally, a fang scraping the skin of his neck, and fled the room.

  As he crashed into the headboard, Ciaran heard the door slam shut. “Not again!” Livid, Ciaran knelt on the bed and banged his fist into the headboard several times, shaking the bed frame. His body heaving, he grabbed his textbook, held it over his head, and let out a guttural cry as he slammed it against a lamp, smashing it to the floor. He kept slamming the book onto the end table over and over again until the fury, the despair, that clung to his body was released.

  Exhausted he collapsed onto his bed too tired to even cry when a shard from the lightbulb pierced the palm of his hand. As he pulled the sharp remnant of glass from his flesh, he saw his blood spill out, the blood no one wanted. Quickly the bleeding stopped, producing only a small puddle of the red liquid, but enough to taste. He cupped his hand and brought the blood to his mouth and drank it, the taste intoxicating, even if it was his own. His free hand shook slightly, so he reached out to steady it, resting on the surface of his chemistry book. Tracing the sturdy, reliable edges of the book with his fingers, he suddenly knew what he had to do. What he had done practically his entire life, rely on himself. If Ronan and Nakano wouldn’t create him in their images, he would have to take matters into his own hands.

  “And when I succeed,” Ciaran said, the taste of his own blood still fresh on his tongue, “I’ll make the both of you pay.”

  * * *

  Revenge didn’t only fill the space of Ciaran’s room, it hung over Penry’s memorial. Imogene gazed down at the flowers, wilted, lifeless, like Penry’s body must now look in his coffin, and her blank stare hid her outrage. She had been hiding it for days. She didn’t share it with anyone at the trauma center in Carlisle or with the police; she kept it to herself. Now standing on the soil where Penry took his final breath, she was no longer able to keep it contained and felt the rage bub
ble to the surface.

  Her scream was so loud the birds high above in the trees flew from their nests, frightened. She covered her mouth with her hands, her wails spilling out through her fingers. Why?! Why was Penry taken from me? Why did his life end so violently? She didn’t know why, but she thought she knew how.

  There was no way he was killed by an animal; it was the act of a man. Her boyfriend was murdered. She knew it instinctively, just as she knew there was something wrong with the headmaster when she saw him walk toward her from the other side of the brush. His stare was blank, empty, the line on the left side of his face so deep it was like a scar, and when she called out to him, he didn’t respond. He was just staring at her, but not at her face; he was fixated on something else.

  “Professor Hawksbry,” Imogene said. “Wha … what’s wrong with you?”

  Alistair almost laughed in the girl’s face. There’s so much wrong with me, so much inconceivably wrong, I don’t know where to begin. He wanted to leave her, return to his office and close the door, shut the blinds and be alone, the way he’d spent most of his days since the festival. But even a monster will seek company when isolation becomes too unbearable.

  And even a reluctant vampire will seek blood. In one clean rip, Alistair pulled the bandage off of Imogene’s neck, exposing the two small puncture wounds. Imogene tried to scream again, but this time she was too frightened because she saw a vision of that face, the face she had seen right after Penry told her that he loved her. It was only a flash. She saw it only in shadows, out of the corner of her eye, but she would never forget it. The face was long, the teeth huge, and the eyes the same empty black color as the headmaster’s. She wasn’t sure if it was a hallucination or if she was seeing a ghost, but the last thing she saw before she fainted was Penry’s face. He looked the same way he did the last time she saw him alive. He looked terrified.

  When Alistair placed the girl on the table, however, Brania wasn’t terrified; she was simply appalled. “Why the hell did you bring her here?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” Alistair said meekly. “Please, she needs help.” He went on to explain how he had found her and why she had fainted.

  Although she was disgusted by Imogene’s presence, Brania did love the way her scent mixed in with the dampness of the room. A virgin’s blood always smelled better in the dark, entombed by stone. “I know you’re struggling with your new existence, Alistair, but you need to be more careful. You can’t reveal your true self to humans willy-nilly.”

  God, how he loathed being here among these … things. He hated them almost as much as he hated himself. “Just help her.”

  “You mean help ourselves,” Jeremiah said, his fangs already descended.

  Pushing him away from Imogene, Alistair cried out, “Get away from her!”

  “You touch me again and that’ll be the last thing you do!” Jeremiah growled.

  “Boys!” Brania shouted. “There’s no need to squabble.” She stood over Imogene and admired the girl’s youthful beauty. She bent down and inhaled deeply, sniffing the entire length of her body, then she stood upright and placed a hand gently on the girl’s foot. “I’m sorry, Alistair, she is far too scrumptious to receive clemency. Her time has come.”

  His knees buckled under the cruel simplicity of her words; he wanted to help the girl and he had brought her to slaughter. Devastated, Alistair could only watch as Jeremiah threw Imogene over his shoulder and walked toward the stairs that led up to his apartment. “I want to take this one in private.”

  “You’re becoming quite the gentleman, Jeremiah,” Brania remarked. “If your restraint permits, however, leave a few drops for me. It’s been quite a while since I’ve tasted untainted blood.”

  * * *

  One drop, two drops, three drops, four. These were the words from the poem Michael heard in his dream when he was still living in Weeping Water, when he was still human. They were also the words he was reading in Ronan’s journal. The similarities were mind-boggling. Ronan had written about things Michael had dreamed of, imagined, long before they met. He wrote about a beautiful blond-haired boy from another land who lived far from the sea, a boy who took his breath away. A boy who was surrounded by people, by family, but who had no real friend. He had written about Michael.

  One drop, two drops, three drops, four. That’s all Jeremiah wanted. Well, that’s all he wanted for a start. He sniffed at the dried wounds on Imogene’s neck like a wild dog would sniff at a corpse to see if the meat had spoiled. He licked his lips when he confirmed that the girl was still fresh and her flesh ripe for the taking.

  Floodgates open, the waters pour. Michael couldn’t believe what he was reading; word for word it’s what he had heard in his dream. How long have I been dreaming about him? Before he left Weeping Water, when he was dreaming of a new life, dreaming of spending it with one special person, he had been dreaming of Ronan. Not figuratively but, somehow, literally. The dark-haired boy who looked like Phineas from A Separate Peace but spoke with a British accent when he told him he could jump safely from the tree, that was Ronan. The boy who swam with him naked in the ocean, just the two of them while his mother committed suicide, that was also Ronan. He had been with him in his dreams before he entered his life. What more proof did he need that he and Ronan were destined to be soul mates? He felt his heart swell; he was overcome with a feeling so powerful it was undeniable. Regardless of what Ronan had done, his actions and their connection were inevitable. Their love was quite simply meant to be.

  Cool and warm and clear and red. That’s what this little bitch was going to taste like, Jeremiah knew, the saliva dripping from his mouth. Her blood would be cool and warm, melded together to create something new, something beyond intoxicating, and she would give herself to him freely.

  But Imogene had other plans.

  She had no idea where she was; she had no idea who this man on top of her was, but she knew that if she didn’t make a move instantly, her life would be over. As Jeremiah arched his back to unbuckle his belt, Imogene brought her knee up into his groin, hard and fast. The pain, amazingly intense and unexpected, spread out from his center and by the time it reached his brain, it was almost intolerable. When she kicked him again in the same place, Jeremiah wished he were dead.

  Standing in front of the mirror that took up most of the waiting room outside his office, Alistair felt the same way. He looked at the faces of the archangels Gabriel, Uriel, Zachariel, Michael, all of them, and pleaded with them, “Why have you abandoned me?” Silence. The only sound was Alistair’s belabored breathing as he looked at his distorted image in the mirror. Something that grotesque didn’t deserve to be alive.

  Am I alive? A few days ago Michael wasn’t sure of the answer, but now reading Ronan’s words, the words that came from Ronan’s mind and heart, he knew the answer was yes. The moment of clarity, of understanding that he prayed for, had come. This is the boy I’ve been dreaming of; this is my destiny. I was brought here not by chance but for a reason. To find a new home.

  And that home was Ronan.

  Am I alive? Jeremiah wasn’t sure; the pain was that intense. He stumbled backward and Imogene took full advantage of his disorientation. She reached for the first thing she could find, the black marble planter filled with white roses. “NO!” Jeremiah shouted, but it was too late. The roses were already in the air, hurtling toward him.

  Am I alive? Alistair didn’t believe he was. He died a symbolic death the day they took him and made him into something monstrous.

  It was time he made that death final.

  Or am I dead? “Yes, Ronan, without you, I am,” Michael said, the words in the journal growing blurry from the tears in his eyes. Everything was so clear now. He didn’t want to be alone; he definitely didn’t want to be among Nakano and his kind. He wanted to be with the boy he had always loved.

  All that was left was for him to tell Ronan he had made a decision.

  Or am I dead? The decision was made for Jerem
iah. He tried to grab the planter before it hit the floor, but Imogene lunged forward, clawing at his eyes, and he missed. He looked down and saw the roses, uprooted, covered in brown dirt and black marble.

  And then he saw the girl trying to run out the door.

  Or am I dead? The piece of wood in Alistair’s hand shook so violently he had to press it against his leg to steady it. He had never conceived of taking his own life, but he had no choice. If today was an example of what his life had become, it was no longer worth living.

  He only prayed that God would understand.

  No prayers filled Jeremiah’s heart when he grabbed Imogene and pulled her toward him, only the desire to kill. Screaming and kicking, Imogene was able to wrench herself free and push Jeremiah back, his foot slipping on the bedsheet that had fallen to the floor. When he fell, it took him a second to realize that he had been impaled through the heart by the wooden stake that was used to keep the roses in place. But it took only another second for his body to be consumed by flames.

  Imogene covered her face in horror and disbelief as she watched Jeremiah disappear in the fire.

  Alistair didn’t see the same fiery image in the mirror because he had shut his eyes before ramming the stake through his own heart.

  Closing Ronan’s journal, Michael pressed it to his chest and for the first time in days felt complete.

  He had no idea death was hovering so nearby. He could only feel himself being reborn.

  chapter 23

  It was dark when Michael woke up. He had thought he would just close his eyes for a few moments, think of the perfect way to tell Ronan that he was ready to share eternity with him, imagine how happy he would look, how relieved and ecstatic, but his body had given in to the exhaustion.

  Now, his eyes fluttering to adjust to the absence of light, he remained still; he needed to wait a while longer before he would be strong enough to move. Until then he hugged Ronan’s journal tighter to his chest, wishing it were the boy himself, and called out his name. There was no answer; he was alone. Michael wasn’t afraid, but he knew intuitively that he had to find Ronan soon. His time was running out.