The Vampires' Last Lover (Dying of the Dark Vampires Book 1) (4 page)

What stayed most with me that night was neither the wound to my neck nor our brief conversation. It was his eyes. They were so unusual in their fiery luminance, as if fueled by some unfathomable ocean of feeling. Magnetic, dangerous, and very hard to get out of my mind.

All of this raised other questions as well, much more worrisome. If, per chance, he were a vampire, what would he want with
me
, a warm-blooded human being? Other than to suck my body blood-dry I couldn’t think of a good reason. And, again, why would Garvan show up the evening of my birthday? Was that merely a coincidence?

None of it made sense. At least, not yet. And, other questions gnawed on the edge of my consciousness.

I shuddered again as I thought about it all, long after Peter and I said goodnight to each other and crawled into separate beds. He slept in my top bunk while I took Tyreen’s bed below. He had insisted on this arrangement, saying that if I needed to get up during the night he didn’t want me falling and hurting myself.

Soon after midnight I heard him snore. How I longed for the same sweet solace of slumber, but the whispered voices had returned and I couldn’t help but listen. While I tried to decipher what those voices were saying, I strained my eyes watching for elusive movement in the shadows outside my window. Finally, I lost the battle to stay awake.

t’s funny how things seem so different in the full light of day. When I awoke the next morning, the girls on my floor were already moving back and forth from the showers to their rooms. All illicit male company had quietly departed under the cover of darkness except for my guy. Peter left reluctantly, and only after I shooed him away after demonstrating I was all right. I assured him that whatever illness I suffered from the night before had left me completely. Surely, the frantic scamper around my dorm room to gather my shampoo, soap, and toothpaste helped sell the notion I was fine, as did the occasional pillow or bit of discarded clothing I threw at him.

Tyreen returned to our room while I was showering and was sitting on her bunk when I came in after I finished. She was already dressed in jeans and her favorite beige pullover, tapping her right foot nervously.

“C’mon girl, get your butt moving! I’m starving here.” She motioned to the rumpled bedcover of her bunk. “Looks like you worked up an appetite too.” She winked at me.

I ignored her insinuation. “Hey, I’m sorry,” I told her, as I walked over to my dresser and put my lotion away and tucked my makeup bag under my arm. “I haven’t had a chance to make your bed yet, but I promise to do it right after I dry my hair.” I grabbed my hairdryer and brought it over to the vanity’s mirror.

“It’s okay, honest… really, it can wait until later,” she assured me. “You seem a lot better. Are you feeling as good as you look?”

Right then I resembled a drenched river-rat with my hair dripping on my shoulders. Her wan smile told me this wasn’t a joke at my expense. Tyreen often stated her envy of how my hair held just enough natural curl to where I didn’t need to dry it fully. I scrunched the ends to enhance that curl without even thinking about it.

“I’m feeling much better,” I said, offering a bright smile.

Maybe I even exaggerated it a little bit, since her foot had begun tapping again. I worked diligently to put my makeup on. “So, did you and Johnny have some fun after you left last night?”

“We did… although I guess he didn’t care much for my little joke about leaving his ass behind if you needed me,” she said, winking and chuckling for a moment. Then she grew serious.

There was a slight tremor in her voice as she asked “Did you hear about the murder that took place on the north side of campus last night?”

“What?”

I was in the process of securing my earrings when I whipped my head around to face her.

“When did it happen?” I scarcely believed what I heard. “Was it someone we know?”

“No, but it was a student,” she confirmed, and then sighed, deeply. “The victim lived off campus, in one of the apartment buildings off 21st Street.”

Knoxville was far from being a crime-free city but the last murder involving UT students took place a couple of years ago. So this news came as a shock.

“It was a girl,” Tyreen continued, her eyes misty. “Johnny turned on the news this morning to see how the Cavs did last night and they were showing her picture.” She took a trembling breath. “Txema, she looks just like
you
!”

She started to weep. I may not have been as softhearted as her, but I did have compassion for others. Especially for her. I rushed over and threw my arms around her. She bawled on my shoulder while I held her tight.

“Damn it, I really thought something bad had happened to you—that you somehow bullheaded your way into making Peter take you out after all!” said Tyreen between sobs.

“It wasn’t until Johnny told me her name—some other weird name like yours, but different—that I settled down. I thought I was going to have a heart attack—really, I did!”

I didn’t know how to respond to this, or even if I could. When I opened my mouth to say something, my throat constricted. All I thought of was Garvan’s warning. Someone waited outside—somewhere on campus, and intended to take my life. How could this killing not be related, especially if the victim looked a lot like me?

When I awoke that morning, to warm sunlight pouring into our dorm room, my first thought was about the previous night’s craziness and I had tried to make sense of it. Garvan was just some handsome weirdo who happened to sneak into my room—maybe while Tyreen and I were in class across campus. I felt incredibly foolish for assuming something as outlandish as a vampire had visited me. I had almost convinced myself that I had simply tripped over my shoes and hit my neck somehow. It really bummed me out that my birthday celebration plans got botched like that.

Now I wasn’t so sure what happened. Garvan might be more than what I passed him off as. Regardless of anything else, I had to accept the reality that he might’ve saved my life.

“Well… are you going to say something or just let me carry on like this by myself?” said Tyreen, when all I could do was shake my head. “It really could’ve been
you
, you know!”

“When did the murder take place?” There, I said something.

“Johnny said the police don’t know the exact time, but I’m sure it happened after we came to check on you,” she said, pausing to take a deep breath. She was regaining her composure.

“Did the police say how it happened?”

Tyreen shook her head, and patted me on the shoulder, letting me know she was ready to get up.

“No… just that the girl was attacked and killed.” She gathered her purse and backpack and headed toward the door. “Are you coming? We can talk about this later. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more as the day goes on.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I agreed. Really, I didn’t want to speculate any further, as my head already swam with a plethora of questions. Concentration during my morning classes, English Lit and Poli-Sci, would present enough of a challenge. “Let’s go eat.”

rma Goizane. That was the victim’s name
.

Strange name, like mine, and like Ybarra
, Goizane is Basque.

Tall, slender, light skin, dark hair, and green eyes—she looked a lot like me. Not as athletic as me, perhaps, which is probably the reason she couldn’t fend off her attacker. Her throat was torn out so viciously that her head was barely attached to her body. You would expect her body to be in a pool of blood with that kind of wound, but there was hardly any at the crime scene. The police thought it meant she was killed somewhere else. However, I know now that she died exactly where they found the body.

“Thank God you got sick last night, Txema,” said Tyreen, once we had all the information about the victim and what happened to her. “I’m really scared. It could’ve really been
you
!”

Johnny nodded in agreement, thoughtful, as if afraid now to reveal anything to further upset us. I wasn’t angry, or even really scared. Just saddened for this girl named Irma. I thought again about Garvan’s warning last night, although not for long. Realizing it would only lead to many more unanswerable questions, I forced myself to think about my afternoon Lit assignment instead.