Flutter

Flutter

Book III

by

Amanda Hocking

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright © 2010 by Amanda
Hocking

http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

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hard work of this author.

-1-

Jack smiled at me from across the glass
chessboard, and any thoughts I had about the game were completely
lost. Since I made the transformation from seventeen-year-old girl
to full-fledged vampire three weeks ago, the ability to focus on
anything had become much harder.

My new senses made Jack even more amazing.
When he moved his hand to touch a pawn, the light, tangy scent of
him and his blood made my mouth water. He wass even more attractive
than I’d ever known, and I’d spent far too many hours just gaping
at him.

“
Ahem,” Milo cleared his
throat more loudly than necessary, considering he could grab my
attention by just changing the way he breathed.

Every sound was so much more magnified than
it was before. While I couldn’t hear a butterfly flapping its
wings, my hearing had greatly improved. When it comes to heart
beats and blood, I’m particularly sensitive.

“
I thought you wanted to
learn to play chess,” Milo said.

He sat behind us, perched in an over stuffed
chair with one of his legs hanging over the arm. In human years, he
was a year and a half younger than me, but he’d been a vampire
longer than I had. With dark, wide eyes, he managed to look deep
and mysterious, while as a human, he had just looked innocent and
naive. The change sat with him immensely.

“
I know, I know,” I said,
and my embarrassment amused Jack. “Just go over what a rook is one
more time.”

“
You’re not even trying at
all, Alice,” Milo sighed.

“
Be serious,” Jack chimed
in, his tone very dutiful.

Our relationship currently bordered on
unhealthy obsession, but that had to do with me turning and our
recent bonding. Everyone assured us that it would eventually lessen
to an acceptable level.

Without any effort on my part, my body would
automatically tilt towards him. Under the glass chess table, he had
started brushing his foot against my leg, trying to get me to pay
attention to him. His touch, even through a sock against my calf,
did insane things to me. My heart fluttered unabashedly, but at
least I could hear his for a change.

“
Okay, I totally know what
you’re doing.” Milo sounded disgusted.

“
Sorry!” I pulled my leg
back.

“
You’re no fun,” Jack
grumbled but made no attempt to touch me again.

Jack’s brother Ezra insisted we keep some distance
for awhile. My emotions tended to get the best of me. Anything
passionate, like hunger or lust, overpowered everything, and I
could actually kill Jack if we got frisky. So, we almost constantly
had baby-sitters, in the form of Milo, Ezra, or Ezra’s wife
Mae.

Jack decided that he wasn’t the best one to teach me
chess, so he bowed out and let Milo take his place. Milo explained
the rules to me again while Jack made himself comfortable on the
couch.

His giant white Great Pyrenees, Matilda, brought her
rope over to him so he would play with her. Even though he had
moved away from us, my attention remained fixed on him.

“Alice!” Milo snapped his fingers in front of my
face, trying to draw my eyes away from Jack. “I’m going to send him
out of the room if you don’t knock it off.”

“Sorry!” I repeated.

Jack laughed, and that did nothing to help the
situation. With sandy, disheveled hair, dancing blue eyes, and
flawless, tan skin, Jack was attractive in his own right, but it
was his amazing laughter that always got me. It was the clearest,
most perfect sound I had ever heard.

Milo stood up, preparing to make good on his threat,
but Ezra walked into the living room.

Ezra’s presence was like no other. Handsome in a way
that only a vampire could be, his blond hair fell across his
forehead, and his warm, russet eyes were unnaturally anxious.

Mae followed close behind, and her usual happy
demeanor vanished. She wrung her hands as they walked into the
living room.

“There’s been some trouble,” Ezra said in his deep
voice, edged with his faded British accent. “I’ve got to go take
care of some things.”

“What trouble? What are you talking about?” Milo
asked, and his voice raised an octave, the way it did when he was
nervous. When he had first turned, I’d been afraid he would lose
some of his human traits, but for the most part, they seemed
intact.

Ezra exchanged a look with Mae, but she shook her
head. Jack had dropped the rope, and Matilda kept pushing it
against his hand to get him to play with her again, but he ignored
her.

“Peter,” Ezra answered finally.

At the mention of his brother’s name, Jack’s entire
body tensed so much he frightened Matilda away.

I was still surprised at how little I felt when the
topic of Peter was brought up. The painful bond I had with him no
longer existed, but I doubted that I could ever entirely sever my
feelings for him.

“Is he coming back?” Milo moved closer to me, as if I
still needed protection.

Jack dropped his eyes to the floor, and he battled to
keep his anger under control. He’d never forgive Peter for nearly
killing me when I’d been mortal. Somehow, I had never really
faulted Peter for that.

“No, he’s not coming back.” Ezra shook his head but
kept his eyes on Jack, gauging his reaction to the news. “I don’t
think he’ll ever come back.”

“He won’t if he knows what’s good for him,” Jack
growled in a voice so low it barely sounded like his own.

“Jack, he’s still your brother,” Mae reminded him,
her gentle accent trying to calm him.

“He was
never
my brother!” Jack rolled his
eyes and leaned back in the chair.

Peter was 150 years older than Jack, so they weren’t
related in the human sense of the word. Peter had been the one to
turn Jack, so his blood had fused to Jack’s, creating a bond
between them that was much stronger than any normal familial
relation. Before that, Ezra had turned Peter, making a steadfast
bond between the three of them. Until I came along.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel about him,” Ezra told Jack, but
there was an underlying hurt. “He’s in very real danger, and I’ve
got to go help him.”

“What kind of danger?” I asked, and I felt Jack’s
eyes flit over to me but I refused to look back at him.

“He’s…” Ezra furrowed his brow. “He’s killing
vampires.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Peter,” Jack muttered.

“I thought he’d gone off the grid,” I said, and Jack
scoffed at me.

Three weeks ago, Jack turned me into a vampire, and
Peter took off. Peter did that frequently, but usually Ezra had a
way of getting in touch with him. This time, Peter disappeared, and
despite his best attempts, Ezra had been unable to reach him.

“He has. Word travelled down about Peter,” Ezra
elaborated. “I just got a phone call that vampires are seeking
revenge on him. So I’m going to try and find him and see if I can’t
reason with him.”

“He can handle himself,” Jack sneered at everyone’s
concern. “Peter has killed vampires before, and he’s fought in
wars. If there’s one thing Peter knows, it’s how to fight.”

“This is different.” Ezra’s eyes grew sad. “There’s
reason to believe he’s on a suicide mission.”

“Good,” Jack grunted under his breath.

“I’ll go with you.” I stood up abruptly and knocked
over the chess board. My mind hadn’t caught up to what my body
could do.

“You’ll what?” Jack raised an eyebrow but looked at
me evenly. We hadn’t talked about Peter at all since I had turned,
but he incorrectly assumed that my feelings for Peter mirrored his
own.

“I’ll go with,” I repeated.

- 2 –

I bent down to pick up the chess pieces, but Milo
swatted my hands away.

“I’ll do it,” Milo said, pulling glass pawns out of
my hand. “You get busy letting them talk sense into you.”

“Alice.” Jack’s expression remained mostly quizzical,
but his breathing got heavier.

Part of me did still care for
Peter, and not because it was ingrained in me. Peter hadn’t done
anything wrong in all of this, but he’d been ostracized by his
family and gone through a terrible heartbreak because of it -
because of
me
.

“Alice, you don’t need to go with,” Mae shook her
head.

“I know I wouldn’t be any good in a fight, but maybe
I could reason with him. Maybe I could convince him that it didn’t
need to get to that point,” I said.

Mae turned to Ezra, waiting for him to shoot me down,
and I think that’s the only reason that Jack hadn’t freaked out
yet. They all expected Ezra to thank me for my sentiments but tell
me that it was better if I stayed home.

“She has a point,” Ezra said carefully, and that’s
when everybody decided to get upset.

Mae touched his arm and tried to plead with him that
I was far too young to go anywhere, let alone on a crusade to save
Peter from a suicide mission. Jack jumped to his feet, but he
couldn’t seem to decide whether he was angrier with me or Ezra, or
maybe Peter. Milo finished setting up the chess set and smacked me
on the arm.

“Ow!” I scowled, rubbing my arm. “What’d you do that
for?”

“Because you’re an idiot and I can!” He’d always been
a rather over-protective younger brother, but he was the mature
one, the sensible one.

I knew it was stupid, but as soon as Ezra had said
that Peter was in danger, my heart flipped. If anything bad
happened to him, it was my fault. If I left his family alone, the
way he repeatedly begged me to, then he wouldn’t have run off into
the mess that he’s in.

“Ezra, you can’t seriously be thinking of taking her
with you,” Jack said.

His fists clenched at his sides, and his eyes were
frightened. It killed him that I cared anything for Peter, and it
would literally kill him if anything happened to me.

“I won’t let anything happen to her, but she might be
the best chance I have for talking Peter down.” Ezra held his hands
palm out towards Jack, trying to calm him. “I have to try
anything.”

“I am so sick of this!” Jack shouted. “I should’ve
just killed him when I had the chance!”
“Jack!” Mae yelled. “You don’t mean that! Don’t say things like
that!”

“I would love to stay and have this argument with
you, but we really need to get on a flight out of here,” Ezra
boomed over us all. “Alice, if you’re coming with, you need to pack
for the cold. I’ll go book the flight and get our passports ready.”
He turned to walk down the hall to his den, ending the
conversation.

“Ezra!” Jack made a step after him, but Mae stopped
him.

“I’ll talk to him. You take care of her.” Mae nodded
towards me.

She hurried after Ezra, and Jack turned to me. He
looked at me for a moment, trying to think of precisely what he
wanted to say to me, and I took a deep breath before he could mount
his argument.

“You’re not going to talk me out of this, Jack.”

I brushed past him so I could run
upstairs to my room, to
our
room, but both he and Milo followed right on my
trail. With my quick, clumsy steps, it was amazing that I didn’t
fall down the stairs, and if I had, that would’ve done very little
for my case.

Jack had been sleeping in Ezra’s den downstairs since
I had turned, but all his things were still in here. The closet was
full of both our clothes, and my wardrobe had expanded since I had
moved in. Ezra and Mae had set me up with an expense account and
credit cards a few weeks ago, and my new, trimmer vampire body
required all new clothes.

I went into the massive walk-in closet, rummaging
around for bags. Jack had hot pink luggage, but I didn’t have time
to question it and pulled them out. Jack stood in the doorway, and
Milo was behind him, both of them glaring at me.

“You’re actually packing?” Milo asked. “You can’t
really be considering going with Ezra.”