Breathless (33 page)

“Yes, it’s me,” she said. “Leesa.”

“Leeee-saaa,” Bradley whispered. He seemed to gain strength from her presence, from her touch. After a moment, he pulled his head back and looked down at her face. “I told you…not to…look for me.” He turned toward Stefan, then back to Leesa. “Ohhh, pumpkin…what have you done?”

More tears welled up in Leesa’s eyes, but she fought them back. “Only what you’ve done for me my whole life.” She drew Bradley deeper into her embrace. “I’m taking care of you.”

Bradley’s knees buckled, his strength gone. Stefan caught him easily and held him upright. Leesa was glad her brother didn’t have the strength to fight her.

“Let’s get him into the van,” she said.

Stefan lifted Bradley in his arms and carried him to the van. Leesa pulled the door open, and after Stefan deposited Bradley onto the seat, she buckled the seat belt around him. She kissed her brother’s cheek and closed the door. She turned to Professor Clerval, waiting behind her, a sad look on his wizened face.

“Turn the heat up high,” she said. “Get him home as quick as you can. You heard what Stefan said. Feed him and keep him warm. When he’s better, take him to my mom, and give them the letters I gave you.”

Professor Clerval nodded. “I will. I promise.”

“Don’t tell anyone the truth until Rave tells you I’m dead.”

“I understand.”

Leesa gave him a quick hug. “Thank you, Professor. For everything.”

“I wish I could do more,” Professor Clerval replied sadly.

“Don’t worry about me. I won’t suffer long. Not like Bradley would have suffered.”

Stefan moved closer. “It’s time, Leesa. Let’s go.”

Leesa looked into his eyes, hoping to see some sign he might change his mind, might release her from their bargain, but saw only the familiar bottomless pools. “Yes… okay,” she mumbled. “Go ahead, Professor. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

Dr. Clerval’s face was a mask of anguish. He stared mutely at her for several long seconds, then turned and climbed into the van.

The sound of the door clunking shut was like the sound of a prison door slamming shut behind her. Without really thinking about it, she picked her umbrella up from the ground.

Stefan rested his hand on her forearm. “You’ll soon have no need for that. We do not feel the weather.”

Leesa turned toward him. “Except for the sun,” she said wryly.

Stefan grinned. “Well, there is that, yes.” He grabbed both her hands in his. “Are you ready?”

Leesa was anything but ready. How could anyone be ready for what was about to happen? But she had made a deal, and Bradley was now free. She must keep that thought foremost in her mind, must cling to it and let it carry her through the dark days ahead. Glancing toward the van, she saw the professor watching them through the driver’s window. She wondered if Bradley was watching as well.

“Not here, Stefan. Not where they can see. Take me into the darkness.”

Stefan took her elbow and guided her away from the road. They didn’t go far, perhaps a dozen steps into the deserted parking lot—the longest, most difficult steps of Leesa’s life. Her bad leg felt like an anchor, dragging heavily through the puddles, as if it were reluctant to let her leave her old life behind. She wondered if she’d still limp once she became a vampire, then chastised herself for the ridiculousness of the thought.

Behind them, the van’s engine rumbled to life. She listened sadly while the professor let the motor warm. What she wouldn’t give to drive away with them, to take Bradley back to her mom and see the joy on her face. But that would never be, Leesa knew. She had made a bargain, and her future, such as it was, was with Stefan. As if to reinforce the thought, his hands gripped her shoulders. She could barely see his face in the blackness. There was no way her brother could see them from the van.

Stefan’s pale face inched closer, near enough now that she could see the sharp fangs curving down from his mouth, could feel his frigid vampire breath on her neck. She shivered as his teeth pressed against her throat. Her heart pounded inside her chest and her knees began to grow weak. She felt a brief moment of searing pain as his fangs punctured her skin, then mercifully, consciousness left her.

Leesa awoke slowly. Her first awareness was just that—a simple awareness of being. No details of who or where or what. She was a disembodied spirit, floating in a sea of nothingness. And for a while, that was enough. More than enough, for there was a strange comfort in not knowing. Something deep in the core of her being, some last vestige of herself, told her to hold on to the nothingness, to cling to it, that it was safer, preferable to what might await her. But slowly her consciousness increased, and the comfort faded, replaced by a growing disquiet.

She lay on her back, unable to move—or unwilling to. Unable or unwilling, it didn’t really matter. There was no need for movement. She tried to let her mind drift, tried to regain the comfort of not knowing and not caring, but it grew increasingly difficult. Questions began to emerge from the recesses of her awakening brain—simple questions, but questions that pricked at her comfortable complacency. Where was she? How had she come to this state?

With infinite slowness, it began to come back. Fleeting images in her still foggy mind, images that became steadily more clear. Stefan… And Bradley. A thin, unfelt smile moved her lips. She had saved Bradley; she remembered that now. But at a price—a terrible price. For the first time, she noticed the dull ache on the side of her neck.

She reached toward her throat but stopped her fingers just above her skin, afraid of what they would find. How long her fingers hovered there she had no idea, for time still had no meaning to her, but finally she could wait no longer and forced them down to her neck. She gasped when she felt the rough scabs of twin punctures. So it was done. So be it. She prayed that Rave would find her quickly and put an end to her torment.

Opening her eyes, she saw only darkness. She rolled her head from side to side, trying to pierce the blackness, hoping to see something, anything—perhaps a window a bit less dark than the inside of this unknown place. But there was nothing. She’d been foolish to expect anything else—the vampire cavern would have no windows, would have little need of light.

She let her eyelids fall closed. Why wake up, when what awaited her was worse than any nightmare? Better to sleep. Better to die—but she could not die, she realized. She could only be destroyed. Mercifully, sleep once again claimed her.

As before, wakefulness came slowly, but as her mind climbed from the depths, she realized something was different now. Instead of blackness, dull purple light flickered behind her eyelids, and she sensed a presence beside her. Her first thought was Stefan had come to claim his prize, but instead of cold, she felt warmth in the air. Warmth that hadn’t been there earlier. A familiar and very welcome warmth.

She opened her eyes and found Rave standing beside the bed, his copper hair glinting in the glow of a tall candle he carried in his left hand. Somehow, beyond any hope, he’d found her. She smiled weakly up at him. Her ordeal would be over before it had barely begun.

Rave returned her smile and moved his hand toward her throat. Gently, he touched the twin scabs. She felt his heat seep into her wounds. If only he could make them disappear, but she knew he could not. That was beyond even his powers. And even if he could, so what? Healing the wounds would not change what Stefan’s bite had done to her. That was something that could never be undone. Nothing but death could undo that—the kind of death only one of Rave’s kind could bring to a vampire. The kind of death she would eagerly embrace.

She watched as Rave bent his face toward her, drinking in his handsome features one final time. She closed her eyes just before his lips met hers. Thank you, my love, she thought as her lips parted for a final kiss.

His delicious heat surged through her, reaching every inch of her body, burning into every fiber of her being. She snaked her hands behind his head and pressed his mouth to hers more tightly, trying to draw the full force of his fire even more deeply inside her.

She could think of no better way to die.

34.  EXPLANATIONS

I
t was a bright cold day. Bradley stood next to his mother on the deck of the Harbor Park Restaurant, leaning against the wooden railing and gazing out onto the sun-dappled river. He was bundled up in a dark green down jacket and wore a matching woolen ski cap drawn down over his ears. A week had passed since Leesa rescued him from the vampires, and while he was recovering rapidly, he still felt the cold more than most. Today was his first real outing, after five days spent lying in bed at Professor’s Clerval’s, warmed by an electric blanket, getting up only to eat and take short walks inside the house. His stay at the professor’s was followed by two more days recuperating at Aunt Janet’s, where he’d gone for a brief stroll outside with his mom each afternoon. Determined to make the most out
of
this trip to Middletown, he’d insisted they go to the edge of the deck and watch the river before going inside to eat.

“Are you warm enough, Bradley?” Judy asked.

“I’m fine, Mom.” He lifted his face toward the sky. “I thought I’d never feel the sun on my face again. It feels so good. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of it.”

Judy laid her gloved hand atop his. “I know exactly how you feel, dear. I don’t think I will, either. We’ve both spent way too long in darkness.”

Bradley watched a gleaming white pleasure boat chug past heading upstream, fighting the stiff current. “I still can’t believe what Leesa did for me,” he said after a moment.

“She did what she knew you would do, if your places were reversed. You always took care of her, ever since your father left. Lord knows I was no help.”

“You had your own burdens, Mom. Which neither of us truly understood. Or believed, I’m sorry to admit.”

“Well, your sister saved us both.” She patted Bradley’s hand. “I’m so proud of her.”

“Me, too, Mom. Me, too.”

“Is this a private party?” a cheerful voice called from behind them. “Or can anyone join?”

They turned to see a smiling Leesa limping toward them, holding Rave’s hand. She was wearing jeans and a bright blue parka. Her head was bare and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a matching blue scrunchy. Underneath the coat, a navy turtleneck hid the scabs on her neck. Rave wore a heavy black and white checked flannel shirt, mostly to ward off any questions about why he wasn’t cold.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Judy said. “We got here a bit early, so we were enjoying the sunshine and the river.”

Leesa gave her mom a warm hug and then embraced Bradley. “How are you feeling?” she asked him.

“Pretty darn good, thanks to you.” He kissed her forehead. “And I intend to stay that way.”

“Then you’d better be a little more careful in your choice of girlfriends,” Leesa teased.

Bradley laughed. “Okay, Sis. I promise to get your approval in the future.” He let go of Leesa and extended his hand to Rave. “Good to see you again, Rave.”

Rave shook Bradley’s hand, using his ever-increasing control of his heat—a control Leesa was enjoying
very
much—to keep his hand from being too warm. He and Leesa had decided against telling her family about his true nature, thinking they’d had enough of supernatural creatures for a while.

“You, too,” Rave said. He draped his arm around Leesa’s shoulders. “I’ve never seen Leesa happier, now that you’re back.”

“Thanks to her,” Bradley said.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” Judy said. “How did you get bitten, Leesa, but not end up as a vampire? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

“I’m not sure I completely understand it, either,” Leesa said. “I passed out when Stefan bit me. When I woke up and felt the scabs on my neck, I thought I
was
a vampire. I should have known better, because I couldn’t see anything, and if I’d been turned, I would have been able to see in the dark. But my mind was foggy, and I was feeling kind of hopeless.” She leaned her elbows on the railing and gazed out across the river.

“I got the rest of the story from Professor Clerval. He said he’d started to drive away when Stefan appeared out of the darkness, carrying me. Stefan told him I had vampire blood in me.” She smiled at the irony. “It was the
grafhym
, Mom. You were pregnant when it bit you, so I got some of its essence. Filtered, but
grafhym
essence nonetheless. As soon as Stefan tasted the hint of
grafhym
in me, he stopped. He had no idea what would happen if he continued, but was afraid it would go badly. I don’t think he would have taken my blood if he couldn’t turn me in any case, but luckily,
grafhym
blood tastes really sour to a vampire, so he wouldn’t have gotten any pleasure from drinking mine. He told the professor he released me from our bargain, and since I had fulfilled my part of the deal, Bradley could remain free as well.” She wished she could tell them about Rave’s kiss, how she thought it was meant to kill her, and what an exquisitely pleasurable way to die it would have been, but that needed to remain their secret, at least for now. She was lucky Rave had learned so much control. Otherwise, when she’d locked her arms around his head and pulled her mouth tightly against his, it could very well have turned into a fatal kiss.