My Love Lies Bleeding (5 page)

We didn’t close our eyes, not even when our lips met. I tingled all the way down to my toes. I wasn’t remotely chilled anymore;
in fact, it felt like the longest, most humid day of summer. His skin was cool. I kind of wanted to nip into him like he was
ice cream. When his tongue touched mine, my eyelids finally drifted shut. I gave myself to the moment, all but hurled into
it. I wanted it to last for the next year and a half at least. I’d never felt like this before.

It could totally become addictive.

“Stupid satellite.”

I’d need a calculator to figure out how many times I’d woken up to her yelling at my computer. Patience was not one of Lucy’s
finer qualities. I snuggled deeper into the nest of blankets. The sun seemed a little too bright, but I liked the warmth of
it on my face. “What time is it?” I yawned.

Lucy flicked me a glance. “Just past two, I think.” She scribbled on a piece of paper. “Nose plugs, definitely need those.
And a pocket knife, something really pointy. Ooh!” She interrupted herself excitedly. “A stun gun. Think they sell those
on eBay?”

I yawned again, pushed myself up on my elbow. I was more tired than usual but I ignored that. “What on earth are you doing
now?” I asked.

“Making a list of supplies,” she answered grimly. “I have no intention of letting that Helios-Ra jerk face use me to get to
you again.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

She didn’t look remotely convinced. “Nicholas thinks it’s my fault.”

“Since when do you care what he thinks?”

She paused. “Oh. Good point.” She clicked the mouse. “Hey, look, they do have stun guns. That one has Hello Kitty on it, I
think. Maybe not, it’s hard to tell.” Her eyes widened comically. “What are they made out of, solid gold and diamonds? I can’t
afford that on my allowance.”

I groaned, letting my head fall back on my pillow. “Lucy, you can’t order one of those. Not exactly subtle.”

She made a face. “I guess.”

“Besides, you know my mom’s probably got one in the storeroom.”

She swiveled on her chair, eyes shining. “Think she’d give me one?”

“After last time? Not a chance.”

“What, come on! That was ages ago.”

“No one’s forgotten what happened when you convinced her to teach you archery.”

“How was I supposed to know I’d have such good aim?”

She’d very nearly skewered Marcus through the heart, which would have killed him, like anyone else. Arrows worked as well
as stakes; it didn’t matter what the material was, as long as it was pointy and went right through the heart. It was actually
fairly difficult to do: rib cages weren’t easy to pierce. She frowned at me.

“You’re really pale. Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“God, not you, too.” I pulled the pillow over my face. “I’m fine.”

“You’re crabby.”

“Because you’re bugging me.”

She poked me. “I haven’t even begun to bug you.”

I uncovered one eye. “Go away, Luce. I’m tired.” I tried to make my one exposed eye do that cold flare thing my mom was so
good at. Lucy tilted her head.

“You’re getting better at that.”

The one thing about being best friends with someone for so long was that even turning into a vampire didn’t really faze her.
Her smile softened. Great. My vampire mojo engendered pity, not fear.

“Go back to sleep,” she said. The light caught the sequins on her velvet scarf, making me blink. “I’ll keep making lists of
the painful and very slow ways I can make Kieran suffer.”

Kieran.

I closed my eyes, wondering why it was no effort at all to call up the exact shade of his dark eyes, hostile as they were.
I should be thinking about the bounty on our heads, not whether or not I’d get to see him again. Because of course I’d get
to see him again; he’d probably try and stake one of my brothers, if not me. Hardly a promising start to a relationship.

Relationship?

What the hell was I thinking?

No doubt my impending birthday was making my head fuzzy. There was no other explanation. I just needed more sleep. Because
I did feel more tired than usual, as if keeping my eyes open was becoming a ridiculously difficult task, on par with algorithms
and Hyacinth’s needlepoint. When I woke up again, I was alone in my room. My stomach grumbled loudly. I felt better, rested
and clearly hungry. Maybe I’d make myself waffles with blueberry syrup. I couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to eat my way
through a huge pile of them with whipped cream, even if every single one of my brothers assured me that by this time next
week the very thought would make me nauseous. So I’d better eat as much as I could, while I still could.

The house was still quiet. The sun hadn’t set yet, my brothers would still be asleep. My dad could stay up all day and could
even sit outside under a shady tree. But today, I knew, he’d be on the phone with every operative and vamp he knew, and Mom
was probably taking inventory of the weapons. She wasn’t very strong during the day yet, but she wouldn’t be able to sit still—not
after last night.

The kitchen was empty though Lucy had left a pot of coffee warming for me. I poured myself a cup and though it tasted good,
I wasn’t in the mood for food anymore. We were out of blueberry syrup anyway. When my parents went shopping for groceries,
they tended to bring home bloody steak and anything red: raspberries, cherries, hot peppers. It didn’t make cooking easy.

“Darling, try the raspberry mousse. It’s fresh.”

Neither did Aunt Hyacinth.

I tried to conceal a shudder as I turned on one heel to smile at her. She stood in the doorway, wearing what I called her
Victorian bordello dressing gown: all lace and velvet flowers and silk fringe. Her long brown hair was caught in a messy knot.
Her pug, Mrs. Brown, sniffled at her feet. If Mrs. Brown was out of Aunt Hyacinth’s rooms, then it followed that the other
dogs, giant babies that they were, were currently cowering under the dining room table. They feared Mrs. Brown the way I feared
reality TV.

“Come up for a chat,” Aunt Hyacinth invited after pouring herself a glass of cherry cordial. She liked to experiment with
flavoring her blood-laced food and drink.

Which is why I had absolutely no intention of touching the raspberry mousse.

We could technically eat food after the bloodchange, only it had virtually no taste and absolutely no nutritional value for
us. Only blood kept us alive and healthy. Gross, gross, gross.

I was so going to have to get over this blood phobia of mine.

And soon.

“Are you coming?” Aunt Hyacinth called from the top of the staircase. I followed her up, Mrs. Brown nipping at my heels enthusiastically.
There was a canine whine from the dining room.

Aunt Hyacinth had a suite of rooms on the second floor, as did my parents and I, next to one of the guest rooms. Aunt Hyacinth
preferred to live with us instead of building her own house on the Drake compound. She could certainly afford it. Our family
had been around long enough to learn how to be comfortably wealthy. At first there was considerable theft involved, which
no one ever reported, thanks to the pheromones. But in the last few hundred years, everyone had begun stockpiling coins and
decorative pieces, which turned into very valuable antiques with very little effort. In fact, every child born or made in
the Drake family had a trust fund begun in their name in the form of a chest full of antique gold locked in the basement safe
room. But, wealth notwithstanding, Aunt Hyacinth claimed being alone too much made her maudlin. Her word, not mine; though
according to Lucy’s school friends I had a weird vocabulary and a weird accent—a hazard of being home schooled by a family
with members born anywhere from the twelfth century on.

Aunt Hyacinth’s rooms were pretty much what you’d expect from a lady who still mourned Queen Victoria’s death—and the fact
that said queen turned down an offer of bloodchange.

I sat in a brocade-cushioned chaise next to a huge copper urn filled with ferns. Aunt Hyacinth loved ferns; they’d been the
fashion when she had her coming- out ball on her eighteenth birthday. She’d worn a white silk gown and made her curtsy to
the queen. She’d taught me to curtsy and I’d taught Lucy, who had practiced until she gave herself leg cramps. The parlour
had lace tablecloths on every surface and silver candlesticks and painted oil lamps and silhouettes in gilded frames. There
was a small dressing room filled with corsets and petticoats and pointy boots. Lucy and I had spent hours playing in there
when we were little. Lucy would still play in there, if Aunt Hyacinth would let her.

Aunt Hyacinth reclined dramatically on a velvet fainting couch, drinking her cherry- flavored blood. Mrs. Brown hopped up
to curl by her feet, accepting slivers of rare beef as a mid-afternoon snack.

I wondered, not for the first time, if it was possible to be a vegetarian vampire.

“If you keep worrying so much you’ll give yourself wrinkles,” Aunt Hyacinth scolded me gently.

“I can’t help it.”

“Darling, your brothers survived the change. As a Drake woman, you are far stronger than they are. Just think, you’ll wake
up so refreshed. There’s no feeling like it.” She fanned herself with a silk fan decorated with white feathers. “And meanwhile,
you ought to enjoy the courting.”

“Courting? Aunt Hyacinth, they’re drunk on my particular stink. And they don’t care about me, they just want me to give them
little fanged babies or whatever. And they want the power of the Drake name. Not exactly romantic.”

She fanned harder. “But it can be, if you use it to your advantage.”

“No thanks.” I loved my aunt but there were certain topics we would never, ever agree on. Case in point: boys. Also: boyfriends,
husbands, flirting techniques, and the supposed comfort of steel-boned corsets.

Aunt Hyacinth leaned over to run a hand over my hair. “It amazes me how beautiful you are sometimes, even with that loose,
messy hair.” Her expression was dark, fierce. I’d have been terrified if I didn’t love her so much. “No harm will come to
you, Solange, not while any of us live.”

And that scared me most of all.

I knew Geoffrey would be in his lab now that he had a sample of the Hypnos powder. It really rankled that I’d been the weak
link. Kieran had a lot to answer for, the jerk.

I drove to the last house on the compound and around to the barn set out back. Geoffrey had been using it as a lab for decades. I knocked on the door before going in. It was a lesson I’d had drilled into me since I was old enough to know that
it was okay to ignore certain explosions and black smoke out of this particular barn but that it was never okay not to knock.
Geoffrey might hear my heartbeat approaching, but some of his experiments were delicate and dangerous and he wasn’t always
able to step away from them or close them down for visitor safety. And though I usually preferred Hyacinth’s closet for my
explorations, Geoffrey had helped me pass my biology exam last year and I was hoping he’d be as helpful today.

“Come in, Lucy,” he called out, already sounding distracted. I’d have to make my questions short. The barn was outfitted with
the most modern equipment, acres of counters and refrigeration units and at least a dozen fire extinguishers. Geoffrey was
standing over a tray of beakers, wearing a creased lab coat.

“Hi. I know you’re busy so I’ll be quick,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the familiar odor of formaldehyde and rubbing alcohol
with a tinge of hay. There hadn’t been hay stored in this barn for nearly a hundred years, but apparently that dusty smell
never really went away. “Any progress with the Hypnos?”

“These things take time, you know that.” He added a drop of blue liquid to a slide and slipped it under a microscope. “Just
like I know that’s not why you’re really here.”

“I’m sorry I let him get away.”

He looked up. “It’s hardly your fault— even I would follow orders if I got a mouthful of Hypnos. It’s very potent, Lucy.”

“I know.”

“Now, what can I do for you?”

I bit my lip. “I want to know about the bloodchange.”

“You know about the bloodchange.”

“No, I don’t. I know it’s the big bad and everyone’s freaked out, but that’s it. And every time I ask Solange, she tells me
not to worry.”

“And she’s right.”

“Please.” Apparently I wasn’t above begging. “I just want to understand it so I can help.”

He smiled gently. “Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to help, my dear. This is Solange’s battle.”

“Solange is my best friend,” I said stubbornly. “So it’s my battle too.”

Something in my face must have convinced him I was going to make a nuisance of myself until I got what I wanted, because he
finally sighed and said, “All right, Lucy. Have a seat.”

I sat quickly, before he could change his mind.

“Are they as scary as everyone makes them out to be?”

“Yes.”

“Do the Hounds get sick too?”

“In a manner of speaking, though not like us. Our change is genetic, you understand. As near as we can explain it, when our
young reach puberty, the flux in hormones triggers the change. It’s like the body attacks itself and then shuts down— until
it is reawakened by drinking vampire blood. Our children need to be very strong to fight through it and win.”

I swallowed. “But mostly everyone gets through it, right?”

“Mostly.”

“Why do some go crazy? Is that a hormone thing, too? Like permanent PMS?”

“Are you telling me Solange could turn into one of them if she’s not strong enough?”

“I wish I knew for sure. The more likely outcome would be that she might simply die and not reawaken.”

“This sucks.” I scowled. “But Solange is totally strong enough. She won’t die for real and she won’t go crazy.” If I said
it enough, it would be true.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Geoffrey said soothingly. “She has strong genes, which is an asset. Drinking the blood from someone
of the same lineage will restore her enough to win the battle. Her body won’t attack the new blood, but it can’t create its
own supply either. At first, she’ll need to drink every day to supplement, less as she gets older.”

“She’s not going to get older.” I tried not to dwell on the fact that one day I’d be wrinkled and wearing dentures and she’d
still look young enough to be my granddaughter. We had way bigger worries.

“She won’t age physically, no. At least not for a few years, after her body completely adjusts to its new form. I’m afraid
I don’t really understand the science behind this adaptation yet. My theory is that it’s another genetic survival mechanism:
we reach our optimum age, where we look the strongest. It’s a way to scare off predators, like making yourself look bigger
to scare off a black bear.”

“Oh. And her special pheromone thing is a survival mechanism too, right? How everyone’s all obsessed with her?”

“Yes. It’s a mating thing. Everyone is wondering if she’ll be able to carry a vampire child to term.”

“Gross.”

“Study your Darwin, my girl.”

“It’s a side effect, like their fangs. Their extra fangs enable them to take their first . . . meals . . . with such violence
and greed, it leaves them, in effect, engorged and bruised.”

“Oh.” I had to learn to stop asking these questions. I never liked the answer. I swallowed. “Thanks. I guess I should let
you get back to work.”

“Yes, Darwin’s going to get a little help when I’m through.” He turned back to his microscope and I knew he’d pretty much
forgotten I was there by the time I reached the door. I didn’t feel better exactly, but at least I didn’t feel like I was
the only one in the dark anymore.

I drove home, mind racing. My house seemed too quiet somehow, too empty. Mom’s Kali statue watched as I put out several bowls
of water. It had to last until my parents came back—just in case. It felt melodramatic to think like that, but I needed to
be prepared. Solange would have been happy hiding out in some deserted cabin until this was all over, but I wanted to fight.
My parents still didn’t understand my violent tendencies considering the way I was raised: meditating, eating tofu, and taking
long road trips in the middle of the school year to see petroglyphs or observe moose. My mom’s rabid tolerance extends not
just to people but all species—vampires included. Helena and my mom were best friends in high school but drifted apart when
Mom went to college and then traveled around the world to find herself. It was ten years before Mom came back to her hometown.
One night she went on one of her full- moon hikes and ran into Helena, who was pregnant with Solange and drinking the blood
of a deer Liam had killed to help sate her cravings. Apparently, that kind of thing had only happened when Helena was pregnant
with Solange and not any of her seven brothers.

Anyway, no amount of vampire mind control was going to make my vegetarian mom forget that particular sight. Helena couldn’t
hide from my mom, and their friendship was rekindled, which was how we came to be so close and comfortable with the Drakes.
More comfortable than they were with us sometimes— case in point: Nicholas.

Nicholas.

I really wished he’d been a bad kisser. It would have been much easier to forget it ever happened, to not wonder if it might
happen again.

“Focus,” I told myself sternly, locking our front door, double-checking it. I watched every bush and tree suspiciously on
my way back to the safety of my car. The tires squealed, sending up clouds of dust as I sped out of there. The back of my
neck didn’t relax completely until I’d reached the outskirts of town, with its candy-colored galleries and ice-cream parlors.
The area was popular with artists, environmentalists, and homesteaders like my folks. There were few places with so much wilderness
all around—dense forests and hidden waterfalls and even wolves, sometimes, singing on cold winter nights. The combination
of the untamed countryside and the fact that everyone here was pretty private and accepting of alternative lifestyles made
it a perfect place for vampires to live in undiscovered. At least I thought they were undiscovered. If not, no one talked
about it. Folks here were far more likely to get heated over conspiracy theories and nuclear waste sites.

First, I stopped by the drugstore for nose plugs and I cleared them out entirely. The cashier didn’t even blink. Then I went
to the hardware store for hunting and camping supplies, which were big business in town. I felt a little silly, I admit, kind
of like the comic book character I’d accused Kieran of emulating. But I was determined, too. If there was anything I’d learned
from my parents, besides how to chop wood and prime the water pump, it was that you did what needed doing and you didn’t complain
about it or pretend it wasn’t necessary. Afterward, I felt perfectly justified in rewarding myself with a double- shot cinnamon
latte. And since my parents weren’t there, I didn’t even use soy milk. That was downright rebellious in our family. I nearly
snorted— I was going back to a house where blood was sipped like a fine wine and vegetarianism wasn’t exactly an option. I’d
already made Solange promise she wouldn’t drink any bunnies dry.

I was halfway back to my car when I felt the warning prickle. I swallowed, forced myself not to speed up or slow down, to
keep my pace even and oblivious. There was a family eating hot dogs on a bench, someone else on a bicycle, two girls walking
a tiny teacup Chihuahua. There was something else as well, that indescribable feeling of being watched, followed. I turned
the corner, the green lawns of a park on my left, my car farther down on the right. No other pedestrians. The sun was making
the sidewalk feel soft under my sandals. Almost definitely not a vampire then, it was too hot and bright.

There was the barest tremble from the hazel thicket. I wouldn’t have noticed it at all if I hadn’t been so paranoid about
every single thing around me. Adrenaline shivered through me. I hoped I still looked like any other distracted girl, sipping
my latte and juggling shopping bags. I waited until I was right next to the hazel before I chucked my latte and hollered,
launching myself at whoever was skulking around back there. We went down in a tangle of flailing limbs and blistering curses.
I saw black cargo pants, black nose plugs, black eyes. His code name was probably Shadow.

Kieran.