Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (9 page)

“Yes, it’s nice to see you too, and I’m fine, thank you,” she sniped, extending her hand, palm open. A small box rested on it. “Here, this is for you. A little get well gift.”

I picked up the box and opened it. Inside was a pair of antiqued bronze earrings that I had admired at an art fair Ava and I had scoped out together a few weeks before. Dainty long chains hung from each French ear wire, with small verdigris leaves dangling at the bottom. I slid them into my empty earlobes immediately.

“So that’s where you snuck off to when I lost you at the fair,” I said, grinning. “Thank you.”

“I was going to keep them for your birthday, but I figured recovering from an attack merits an early gift.
Though you don’t seem too badly injured now that I finally get to see you.”
She sounded relieved as she hit the light switch, and then I noticed her eyes widening. “Hell, you look better than fine—
Aly
, your skin is practically glowing!” Her mouth opened. “Oh my god, you little sneak—you stood me up for some guy, didn’t you? Who is he? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth? I’ve been worrying myself sick this whole time.”

“Well, it’s kind of...complicated,” I said, stalling for time. Complicated didn’t even begin to cover it, but I didn’t want to
will
her into believing another stupid lie again if I could avoid it. And then it struck me. I’d nearly ripped Tom’s head off for accusing me of lying, but he’d heard me
lie
to her yesterday and I was on the verge of doing it again.
So now I’m both a liar and a hypocrite.
Great
.
I wrapped my arms around myself, clenching my fists and biting my lip.

“Take a seat complicated, or get a drink and
then
take a seat complicated?” Ava asked, moving toward my kitchen. Apparently she’d already decided it was the latter. “I’m pissed at you, but a good drink and better story might encourage a bit of forgiveness.” She reemerged, drink in hand. “Oh, and you might want to stop biting your lip. You’re bleeding.”

Horrified, I darted to the bathroom. Sure enough, there was a small trickle of blood headed toward my chin. I opened my mouth to examine the damage, and was startled by the sight of my own fangs. Holy crap, they were long. No wonder I’d cut Tom’s mouth last night—how could anyone kiss with these things? I reached my hand up, gently pressing my thumb against the right one.

“Ouch!” I yanked my thumb back, shocked at the red welling up.

“
Aly
, everything okay in there?”
Ava called, pushing the door open. “I brought you some ice...” she stopped, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t have to look to realize what she saw: two needle sharp fangs, stained with blood. We both simply stood there for a moment. Then she stuck the ice-filled paper towel in my hand, shook her head, and walked out.

“Wait!” I called out, only it sounded wrong, my refusing-to-retract fangs mangling my speech. I followed her out of the bathroom, hovering in the hallway because she had walked over to stare out the patio door, leaving sunlight lancing into the room past the blinds she’d tugged aside. After a moment, she let them fall, turning back towards me, a now empty glass in her hand.

“What the hell is going on with you,
Aly
?” she asked, and this time all the playful jesting had left her voice. “First you stand me up after swearing you won’t. Then you tell me you’ve been attacked and all but cut off contact with me. I worry myself sick, thinking you’ve been beaten, maybe even raped, that you may be hiding out of shame...” her voice tapered off and she stared at the carpet for a moment.

And then the memory that had to be running through her mind at that moment caught up with mine. During grad school, we’d both had the
hots
for this older student, Todd. He’d been nerd-chic—dark, handsome, Buddy Holly glasses and scruffy beard. One night, when a bunch of us were gathered at a nearby pub, guzzling cheap beer to recover from having finally completed our comprehensive exams, Todd approached Ava and asked her if she wanted to have coffee sometime. She'd been thrilled, I'd been thrilled—okay, and maybe a tinge jealous, but I figured the vicarious details would be worth it—and she'd said yes.

Two nights later, I got a call from her just as I was cuddling up in bed with my latest urban fantasy. She was crying so hard I could barely recognize her voice, and I couldn't understand a word she said. I scrambled out of bed and drove to her place, still in my polar bear
p.j.s
. She didn't open the door the first few times I
knocked,
and I finally had to call out that it was me and she'd better open up or I was calling the cops.

When she opened the door, she didn't even look at me; she just turned back to her couch and curled up in the corner, surrounded by a nest of wadded tissues. I sat down across from her and waited for her to speak.

“It's my fault,” she said finally. “I dared him to a drinking contest, but I kept switching mine out for plain soda water. He probably never would have...” she trailed off.

“Would have what, honey?” I asked softly.

“Would have.
You know.” She gestured to her lower torso, and my face paled. A moment later I was so angry that, had Todd somehow crossed my path, he probably would have found himself hanging out the 8th story window beside me.
By his jewels.
With a rusty nail.

Instead, I'd asked her if I could give her a hug and, when she'd nodded, slid across the couch and pulled her toward me. We'd stayed that way for quite a while, but after a few unsuccessful attempts to convince her that it wasn't her fault and that she should report him, we never discussed it again.

Now I'd reopened that wound. I felt like the lowest of the low. And I still didn't have any idea what to tell her.

“I'm so, so sorry, Ava,” I said. “You're absolutely right to be pissed at me.” Or rather, I attempted to say that, but my sincerity was mangled by my fangs, which were still severely interfering with my ability to talk.

“Why didn't you just tell me what really happened?”
She paused. “No, scratch that question. Just tell me now. What happened,
Aly
? And could you please take those ridiculous things out of your mouth so you don’t sound like an idiot?”

“I can’t,” I mumbled, staring at the floor while mentally chanting
retract, retract,
RETRACT
.

It didn’t work.

“Now you’re just being absurd,” she muttered darkly, marching over to me and reaching her hand to my face. Once I realized she was reaching for my mouth, I backpedaled, bouncing awkwardly off the wall as I went. She stared at the spot I’d been standing in for what seemed like minutes, a terrified look on her face.

“Ava?” I called out.

She turned toward me, fear now battling confusion.

“How...how did you do that?”

“Do what?” I asked, feeling as confused as she looked.

“It was like—like you disappeared, or something, and then you were down the hall. What just happened?” She began backing away from me, and I noticed her face was now moving from a wide-open question to a narrowed glare. “That’s it. I’ve had just about enough of this today.” She paused. “I hope you get over this, or him, or whatever is going on with you fast.”

She resumed walking to the front door, and glanced back at me only after she was standing outside it, inches from being closed.

“Please don’t call until you’re prepared to be honest with me," she said.

Then she shut the door, quietly, and I heard her flip-flops slapping against the stairs as she jogged down. I continued to just stand there, listening to the sound of her car turning on and pulling out of the parking lot, the blended rumble as it joined the traffic on the main road and sped away. Then I dropped into a crouch, idly tracing the ugly beige carpeting with a fingernail, staring at the small cut on my thumb as it slowly closed and healed, until I couldn’t even be sure where the wound had been in the first place. I gently probed my teeth with my tongue. With an unerring nod towards Murphy’s Law, the fangs had now slid back, leaving fairly normal feeling canines in their wake.

I pulled out my cell again, wondering just how long it had taken me to ruin my relationship with my best friend.
Two-fifteen.
Wow
, I thought bitterly,
I wonder if I should be calling Guinness with that one
. I wondered if this was why vamps had the reputation of being angst-ridden whiners—I certainly felt like moping around in loose black dresses while singing along to Morrissey right now. Though, come to think of it, none of Damian’s vamps had been wearing black, so maybe it was just me.

As I tucked my phone back into my pocket, I heard a soft crinkle.
Tom’s note.
I fished it out and unfolded it, hoping it might provide an effective distraction from my current pity party.

Aly
,

Thanks for letting me crash on your couch. I’m bummed I didn’t get the chance to bond with Beckett—I was looking forward to being awakened by the thump of four kitty paws hitting my chest at some absurd hour of the morning
. I grinned.
Anyway, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that, it’s just.
I paused, trying to read through the dark lines he’d scratched through the next few words, but couldn’t.
I know you’ve only known me for a couple weeks, and most of those as your student, but I’ve wanted to touch you for months, and I guess that urge took over my better judgment last night. I’m sorry. I know that sounds like an excuse—I guess it is one—but I wanted to let you know.

I’m heading over to chat with Damian about dropping your class now that you know we’re keeping an eye out on you. If he says yes, I’m hoping you’d be willing to get to know me a bit better as someone who is no longer off limits due to your professional ethics. As far as the blood lust goes—well, there are ways to avoid it, if that's what you decide you want to do. What would you say to us going out on a proper date, your pick of place?

Give me a call when you get up. I know Damian is hoping you two can finish your conversation today.

-Tom

The last time a guy had asked me out was at least six months ago, and the kiss we'd exchanged at the end of the night definitely hadn't caused me to become almost paralyzed with lust. My emotional roller-coaster of the last few days probably qualified me for some potent prescriptions—just the jump from friendless despair to butterflies-in-the-stomach in the last few minutes was leaving me kind of dizzy. I felt like I was seventeen again, and that did not feel like progress, as much fun as the butterflies were short term.

I felt irrevocably nerdy doing it, but the only counter I knew to being hyper-emotional was to get hyper-intellectual, so I flipped the note over to its blank side and drew two columns. Over the first I put “Reasons to date Tom” and over the second I put “Reasons not to.” Then I scratched those out, deciding I needed to answer a more fundamental, albeit less
fun,
set of questions first. I carefully renamed my columns “Reasons I should try to get my life back to normal,” mentally adding
and spend as little time with vampires as possible
, and “Reasons I should not pretend my life is the same as it used to be.”

I decided to start with column A.

First
came
every modern girl’s perpetual concern: career. I wrote “I have worked for years and I’m damn lucky to have landed a tenure track position at a research university; I need to spend as much time as possible on getting published and impressing my students and colleagues so I can secure tenure” under the first column.

Then, a close second, friends. “Ava was there for me when my parents died, when my dissertation adviser almost dropped me, and when we managed to get lucky enough to land jobs in the same town. She knows me better than anyone, and I’d be an idiot to screw up our friendship. Not to mention my other colleagues, all of whom I know and trust a lot better than a few vampires I just met.”

That thought prompted reason three. “I hardly know these people, and I never asked to be turned into a vampire. How do I know this wasn’t all a set-up to give Damian some new semi-psychic toy to alleviate his boredom?”