Breathless (14 page)

“Yes, it is,” Rave said, turning to look at her. “Very beautiful.”

Leesa blushed. His dark brown eyes seemed almost to caress her, and she almost missed a step with her bad leg, nearly tripping.

“You’re not really talking about the trees, are you?” she managed to stammer.

Rave grinned. “What trees?” he asked innocently. He made a show of looking up at the trees. “Oh, yeah. Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Leesa shook her head in a “What am I going to do with you” manner, but couldn’t help smiling. She had never felt so at ease with a guy, so comfortable. And it got a hundred times better when Rave reached out and took her hand. Even through his glove, she could feel the inviting warmth of his hand. All her frustrations were temporarily forgotten, shoved aside by her joy.

Hand in hand, they resumed their walk. Leesa warmed up quickly and wondered how much was from the sun and the walk, and how much was from Rave’s presence. After a few minutes, they stopped briefly so she could remove one of the T-shirts from under her sweatshirt. At the bottom of the hill they turned right, onto a wide sidewalk lined with shops, bars and restaurants. There were few trees here, the colors coming instead from weathered canvas awnings and painted signs. This street was not as pretty as the one they’d just turned off, but Leesa didn’t care—not with Rave beside her, still holding her hand. She caught their reflection in the wide window of an old drugstore and liked the way they looked together. At least he’s not a vampire, she thought suddenly, recalling what Professor Clerval had said about their lack of a reflection.

“How come you know so much about vampires?” she asked. “Did you take Professor Clerval’s class?”

“No, I just pop in to listen now and then,” Rave replied. He squeezed her hand. “I’m glad I did.”

Leesa squeezed back, but before she could reply, a series of beeps from the small nylon pouch on her hip told her she had a text. It had to be Cali. “Do you mind?” she asked, reaching toward her hip.

“Go ahead,” he said, smiling. “I know how attached you people are to those things.” He started to pull his hand free from hers, but she grasped it more tightly.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said. “I can do this with one hand.”

She flipped open her cell, saw it was indeed a text from Cali, and pushed a key to open it. Before she could read the message, the letters began breaking up and the screen faded to gray. She pulled her hand from Rave’s and held the phone in both hands, pressing several keys. Nothing happened. The phone was dead.

“I don’t get it,” she said, staring at the blank screen. “I charged this thing last night. It can’t be dead already.”

Rave knew why the phone had stopped working. She should have let go of his hand, but he wasn’t ready to tell her that. This was why his people didn’t use anything with batteries.

“Don’t ask me,” he shrugged. “I don’t have a clue about those things.”

Leesa shook the offending instrument, as if that might bring it back to life, but nothing happened. She dropped the phone back into her pouch and reached out for Rave’s hand. This was more fun, anyway.

They continued their walk, heading back up the hill to the campus. Halfway up, Leesa peeled off a second T-shirt. When they began to near her dorm, she wished she had time for another loop. She didn’t want this wonderful morning to end. But physics began in less than an hour, and missing even one session of that difficult course would set her back.

“I have to get ready for class,” she said when they reached her dorm. “But I’d much rather stay with you if I could.”

Rave took both her hands in his. “Me, too.”

As she gazed into his beautiful dark eyes, Leesa remembered the comment he’d made the last time they were together about not having wings. Right now, she felt like she
could
fly, wings or no wings. Even if he was still wearing those darn gloves. Now if he would just kiss her…

Rave felt himself beginning to get lost in Leesa’s crystal eyes. The pull to kiss her was powerful, almost irresistible. It would be so wonderful to let himself go, to give in to the pull. He forced his eyes down to her hands, still clasped in his.

“You’d better get going.” His voice was almost hoarse, caught in his throat. “You don’t want to be late.”

Leesa blinked. What had just happened? She had been sure he was going to kiss her. She was sooo not good at this stuff. “Will I see you again soon?” she managed to ask.

“Count on it.”

He squeezed her hands once, then let go and began walking away. He stopped after a few steps and turned back to her, lifting his hand to his ear and miming a phone.

“I’ll call you,” he joked. His handsome face broke into a wide grin.

Leesa laughed, then spun around and hurried into the dorm.

16.  VAMPIRE COUNCIL

I
magine a ruin so strange, you wonder can it truly exist. Imagine a hole so deep sunlight never penetrates the gloom, a cave so hidden no human has ever discovered it. Imagine a place so dead even vermin and insects avoid all but its outer reaches. And then imagine a cavern so huge and elaborate its twisting chambers can easily house scores of vampires. This is the grotto the Connecticut coven of vampires call home.

For hundreds of years, the vampires have used the perpetual night of this deep cavern to avoid the hated sun and to remain hidden from the ever-increasing human population as well. Cut eons ago under the tree-covered hills on the eastern side of the Connecticut River by a now-vanished underground waterway, the cavern was the perfect hideaway. Thousands of hours of labor shaped the various chambers to suit the vampires’ needs—but what were hours, or even years, to the undead, who had eternity?

The largest of the chambers, a vast natural amphitheater a hundred feet across with a ceiling almost thirty feet high in the center, served as their Council chamber. Rows of stone benches carved from the uneven floor faced seven seats hewn from the limestone wall. Small candles in iron holders drilled into the rock spilled meager illumination into the chamber, all the light needed for the more than three score vampires who filled the benches. Seated in the seven places of honor were the members of the High Council, the ruling body of the coven. Stefan, the youngest and least senior among them, sat proudly on the left end. Occupying the middle seat was Ricard, Lord of the Coven and the vampire who had turned Stefan.

A vampire for nearly a thousand years, Ricard was an imposing figure—tall and muscular, with long silver hair gathered by an ornate silver clasp into a ponytail reaching to his waist. The features of his handsome face were sharp and aristocratic.

He raised his arms to signal the waiting crowd to silence.

17.  TEASING

“
H
ow do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” Cali quoted, her voice soft and dreamy. “I love thee enough to hold
both
thy hands. Woo hoo!” she teased. “But not enough to take off his freaking gloves!”

“Stop it!” Leesa said, laughing hard. She was sitting on the wooden chair in front of Cali’s desk, her left elbow resting on the desktop, holding a plastic cup of wine. Green Day was squawking something about Jesus being in suburbia—Leesa had never been able to make complete sense of the song. She set her wine down on the desk to avoid spilling it while she laughed. This was her second glass, the first time she’d ever had more than one, and her head was buzzing. She’d already decided two glasses would be her permanent limit. She wasn’t all that fond of wine—had tried some only a couple of times before—but this one, a mellow chardonnay with a slightly fruity taste, was actually pretty good. Andy had brought a couple of bottles to Cali’s room the night before. He and Cali drank some—Leesa did not want to know what else they did—but there had been a bottle left over, and she and Cali were putting a nice dent into it tonight.

She hadn’t come down to Cali’s room to drink; she just wanted to share the details of her walk with Rave that morning. But Cali suggested they have some wine, as long as it was there, and Leesa figured why not? She had planned on sipping hers while Cali drank, but the wine tasted better than she expected, and she drank faster than she’d planned. The more she drank, the more romantically she described things.

Cali, perched on her bed as usual, was wearing a comfortable pair of baggy purple sweatpants and an oversized gray long-sleeve T-shirt with black and white slashes across the front. She, too, was beginning to feel the effects of the wine and couldn’t help teasing as Leesa became more and more sappy.

“You wouldn’t be making fun if you were there,” Leesa said when she managed to stop laughing. “It was so…” She paused, trying to find the right word in her wine-fogged brain. “So magical.”

“Oh, well, as long as it was magical, I’ll have to stop teasing you.” They both giggled.

Leesa took another sip. Her mind drifted back to that wonderful moment when Rave held both her hands and his dark eyes locked onto hers. “For a minute, I thought he was going to kiss me.”

“Ooooh, he almost kissed you!” Cali mimicked, grinning. “What is this, sixth grade?” They both started giggling again. 

“Stop it, Cali,” Leesa pleaded, trying to control her laughter.

“Do you want to hear if Andy
almost
kissed me last night?”

“Ha! Please, no. I beg you.” Leesa knew Cali and Andy had gone out twice before last night and she had already heard about the passionate goodnight kissing that followed their second date. “I heard enough last time, thank you.”

They both broke out laughing again.

Caitlin poked her head in through the doorway, drawn by all the laughter. She was wearing a bright red T-shirt with
i love boys
printed across the front in giant gold letters. Leesa realized she’d never seen Caitlin wear any of her flirty shirts outside the dorm and thought perhaps her friend was not quite as wild as she tried to appear.

“Sounds like you two are having an awful lot of fun,” Caitlin said, smiling. “Can I join you?”

“C’mon in, Cat,” Cali invited. She lifted the nearly empty bottle of wine. “Want some wine? There’s a little left.”