Refuge (36 page)

“It happened back in Maine?”

“No, only since I came here. The first time,
I was out in the woods. It was the day Hugo and Woolf got loose.
The other time was outside the movie theater in Boise.”

“We have twenty-four hour patrols in the
woods around Westhorne. It is unlikely that a vampire would risk
getting that close to us.”

“But it’s not impossible.”

He studied me for a moment before he shook
his head. “No, not impossible. If not for the three dead vampires I
saw last night, I would say the possibility of a vampire showing up
in town was slim as well. I’ll have someone check the woods, and
we’ll add another patrol to be safe.” He went back to preparing the
omelet. “You said you felt the same thing in Boise?”

I told him about the cold sensation in my
chest as we were leaving the movie theater. “I’m not suggesting the
vampire I sensed had anything to do with the lamprey attack, but I
am positive there was a vampire nearby.”

Tristan nodded, but he looked troubled as he
poured the egg mixture into the skillet. “Boise is normally very
quiet. We see some lower demon activity – like lampreys in the
sewers – but rarely vampires. I’ll ask Chris to assemble a team and
investigate. If there was a vampire, it might have been passing
through, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”

His belief in me and his readiness to take
action was both gratifying and reassuring. “Me either.”

“Tell me, why do you think you can sense
vampires now?”

“Aine thinks it could have something do with
the vampire blood on the knife I was stabbed with.”

This time he turned to face me. “You saw the
sylph? Here?”

“No, at the lake a few days ago. She said she
couldn’t come here because it would upset everyone.”

“Did she come to ask you to go to Faerie with
her again?” His voice held an edge of worry, and I rushed to
reassure him.

“No, she just wanted to catch up and make
sure I’m doing okay.”

Tristan finished making the omelet and slid
it onto a plate. He laid it in front of me with a glass of orange
juice and sat across from me as I took a bite.

“This is amazing.” I moaned through a
mouthful of food, earning a smile from him.

“I’m glad you like it.” He clasped his hands
together on the table. “So, you believe you can actually sense a
vampire’s presence? If that is so, it would be an incredible
ability to have.”

“Yeah, and it’s a lot better than having to
sniff them.”

“Sniff them?”

“You know – that awful odor vampires have. Of
course, you can only smell it when you get really close to
them.”

His brow furrowed. “Vampires don’t smell any
different from humans.”

“You must have been too busy killing them to
smell them because, trust me, they reek like road kill when you get
up-close-and-personal with them. I only got that close to Eli, but
I’ll never forget that smell.” I laid down my fork and shuddered at
the memory.

Tristan stroked his chin. “It must be an
elemental trait that allows you to smell them. Interesting.”

“You wouldn’t find it interesting if you were
the one gagging on vampire BO.”

“No, I guess not.”

I took a few more bites of food. “Hey, we
could always test my vampire radar. You could take me somewhere
like Vegas and I can find them for you.”

To my surprise, he did not dismiss my idea.
“We could do that once you get some more training under your
belt.”

“Great, I’d like that. By the way, was Derek
okay? Jordan threw him pretty hard.”

“We treated him and took him to the hospital.
He has a mild concussion and as far as he knows, he fell trying to
climb up to the barn loft while he was intoxicated.”

“How do you do that – make people forget
seeing a vampire?”

“We manufacture a drug from several plant
extracts that allows us to modify short-term memory in humans.
We’ve found that most humans are happier not knowing about the
supernatural.”

I nodded in agreement as I took a drink of
orange juice to wash down the last of my omelet. Back when I
thought I was human, I’d spent half my time learning about the
supernatural world. But would I have been the same if my dad hadn’t
been killed? I might have lived in blissful ignorance until
vampires came looking for Madeline’s daughter or until I discovered
I’d had stopped aging.

“Sara, Nikolas was here before you woke up.
He wants to see you. I told him you weren’t ready, but you should
consider talking to him soon.”

My stomach tightened. “I don’t know what to
say to him. Can I have a few days?”

Tristan nodded. “No one is going to rush you,
but don’t leave him hanging long. This has not been easy for him
either.”

“I won’t. I just . . . I need a little time.”
The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Nikolas, but I couldn’t face
him yet. I certainly wasn’t ready to talk about our future or this
bond between us. I carried my dishes to the sink and washed them.
“Does Nikolas know that I’m going back to training with
Callum?”

“I haven’t told him yet.” Tristan crossed his
arms over his chest. “Did you ask to switch because of what
happened between you?”

“Yes, but I really don’t want to talk about
that.”

“You know that despite everything, Nikolas is
the best trainer for you.”

I hung up the dish towel and leaned back
against the counter, chewing my lip. I knew Tristan had my best
interests at heart, but I was not going to discuss my feelings for
Nikolas with him.

After a moment, he let out an unhappy sigh.
“I’ll tell him today.”

I stayed in my room for the rest of the
afternoon and while everyone else was at dinner I snuck out and
went to the menagerie. Sahir brought me a covered tray of food, and
I suspected Tristan had asked him to keep an eye on me. I sat
across from Minuet’s cage and told her about everything while I
ate. Since the night she had scented me, she sat on the floor of
her cage facing me every time I came to see her, and every now and
then, she cocked her head as if I’d said something of particular
interest. Sahir kept shaking his head and muttering that he’d never
seen anything like it.

When I finished my dinner, I noticed that
Alex had crept closer to the front of his cage and sat listening to
me talk to Minuet. The thing about a wyvern is that their
expression never really changes so you can’t tell if they are just
curious or planning to try to fry you. I decided to keep my
distance, throwing him pieces of the steak I hadn’t finished.
Although he preferred raw meat, he gobbled up the food I tossed
him.

Back in my room, I picked up the phone to
call Roland, but I couldn’t dial the number. I shared almost
everything with him, but how did I explain something I had trouble
grasping myself? I hadn’t told Roland yet about kissing Nikolas or
my confusing new feelings for him. I loved Roland, but there were
some things you just couldn’t share with a boy.

Thoroughly depressed, I reached for my
sketchbook. I’d started a new one two weeks ago, and it was already
filled with drawings of Hugo, Woolf, Alex, and Minuet. Who would
have thought a few months ago that I would be drawing hellhounds, a
wyvern, and a griffin from life?

I opened to a new page and picked up my
pencil. I thought for a minute about the scene I wanted to capture,
and then my pencil began to move deftly over the paper. As I drew,
I relived every detail of the bloody encounter in the barn. Jordan
and I had won the fight, but I knew it could have gone very badly
for us. If the three vampires had arrived together, we would not
have been able to take them all at once. If I hadn’t recognized
what Seth was in time or if I’d been with someone less skilled than
Jordan – like Olivia – we’d be dead now. If my power hadn’t done
what I’d hoped it would do, that vampire would have killed me.

The sad truth was that I was a terrible
fighter and I didn’t even know basic self-defense. I was years
behind the other trainees, and if it wasn’t for good luck and my
sporadic bursts of power, I could have been killed last night. Not
to mention surviving the lamprey demons. Having power was great
when it worked, but what I really needed was to learn to fight.

I was putting the finishing touches on the
drawing when there was a knock at the door. When I answered it,
Jordan flashed a small smile and slipped past me without waiting
for an invitation.

“Hello, Jordan, would you like to come in?” I
asked dryly, closing the door behind her.

“Why thank you, Sara. I think I will.” She
plopped down in my desk chair, and I went back to sitting on the
bed. “So, what excitement do we have planned for tonight?”

I made a face and picked up my sketchbook
again. “Last night wasn’t enough for you?”

Her face glowed. “That was the best party
I’ve
ever
been to. You should have seen Terrence and Josh when they found out
they missed all the action. They were so bummed.”

“I’m sure you gave them a complete
play-by-play, didn’t you?”

“Of course.” She grinned and looked around.
“You want to do something?”

“Like what?” I was surprised she hadn’t
already brought up Nikolas, but I was in no hurry to discuss him if
she wasn’t.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

I looked up from my drawing. “It’s too dark
to go for a walk. And since when do you walk anyway?”

She snorted. “Since I met you I’ve killed
demons in a movie theater and vampires at a party. Who knows what
we’d run into out there in the woods.”

“I’ve seen the kind of creatures that hide in
the woods at night; trust me, you don’t want to meet them.”

“Fine, then we’ll walk inside. God knows this
place is big enough.”

No place was big enough when you were trying
to avoid someone who lived under the same roof. “Or we could just
stay here.”

“He’s not here, you know.”

I pretended to be interested in my drawing.
“Who?”

“Olivia saw Nikolas and Tristan talking
outside this afternoon, and she said Nikolas looked mad about
something. Then Nikolas tore off on his motorcycle. Last I heard,
he wasn’t back yet.”

“Oh.”

“
So
. . . you and Nikolas, huh?”

I laid my sketchbook on the bed. “It’s not
like that. Not like you think anyway.”

Jordan let out a laugh. “Oh, I know exactly
what it is. I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me about the bond.
It’s not like I wouldn’t have found out soon.”

“I didn’t know about it until last
night.”

She made a scoffing sound, but when my
expression did not change, her eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

I nodded, and she frowned. “How is that
possible? A blind person could tell there is something between you
two. And last night . . . ” She let out a low whistle. “I’ve heard
about bonding males going into a rage, but that was scary.”

“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I apologized
because it wasn’t like I had caused it. Had I?

She leaned forward in the chair. “I’ll tell
you something else; males don’t get worked up like that over a
casual friendship.” Her eyes took on a knowing gleam. “Miss Grey, I
do believe you’ve been keeping secrets. Those must be
some
training
sessions.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I told you
it’s not . . . we haven’t been . . . ”

She raised an eyebrow.

“One kiss, okay, we kissed one time.” I fell
back on the bed and pulled a pillow over my face. “I really don’t
want to talk about it.”

“Oh, hell no!” Jordan pulled the pillow out
of my hands and bounced on the bed beside me. “You do not get to
say you kissed Nikolas Danshov and then leave me hanging. I want
details.”

“What details? It wasn’t a date, Jordan. It
was just one kiss.”

She huffed and lightly punched my shoulder.
“You are a piece of work. It’s never
just
a kiss with a man like Nikolas. So
tell me, when did it happen? What did he say? Was it as good as I
think it was? Duh, never mind. Of course it was mind-blowing. Just
tell me, was he wearing his sword?”

I opened an eye to stare at her. “Sword?”

“What? I have a thing for men with swords.”
She wagged her eyebrows. “The bigger the sword, the better.”

I groaned and rolled away from her. There was
no way I was going to tell her that Nikolas
had
been wearing his sword at the
time. Thanks to her, I’d never look at it the same way again. Why
had I ever thought it might be nice to have a girlfriend to share
things with?

“Well, are you going to tell me about
it?”

“Okay.” I heaved a sigh. “But don’t blame me
if you’re disappointed.” I told her how Alex had burned me and
Nikolas had followed me to the medical ward. “We had an argument
and before I knew it, he kissed me. Then he stopped and said he
didn’t mean to do it. He left and I didn’t see him again until last
night.”

Jordan flopped down on her back beside me.
“He kissed you in a fit of passion? That’s even better. Don’t you
dare tell me you didn’t like it.”

The memory of Nikolas’s hands cradling my
face as his mouth covered mine made my stomach do those funny
little somersaults again. I’d never understood why other girls made
such a big deal over kissing, but now I got it. Just thinking about
it made my pulse jump and my breath catch in my throat. Were all
kisses that amazing, or was that one special because of
Nikolas?

“I did like it,” I admitted.
A lot.
“But I’m not sure if he
did.”

“Uh, his behavior last night would suggest
otherwise.”

“Tristan told me people have no control over
who they bond with and that males feel it a lot stronger. What if
the bond made Nikolas kiss me when he didn’t want to?”

She made a sound somewhere between a laugh
and a snort. “I don’t think anything can make that man do something
he doesn’t want to do. The bond gets stronger only if the two
people have feelings for each other. That much was pretty clear
last night. So fess up.”