The Zoey Chronicles: Discovery (Vol. 2) (3 page)

I found myself remembering our brief kiss, how our lips had brushed for so fleeting a moment. I longed to be kissed by him again, but I didn’t want to initiate it. What if he pushed me away? “No, Galahad,” I said, giving his hand another squeeze. “It’s not your fault. What were you supposed to do? It was the Plague, not you.”

He shook his head. “I should’ve taken them away, made sure that they were okay. My sister was only three. She didn’t understand what was going on. She kept crying and asking us, and we didn’t know what to tell her.” He spat on the floor, forcefully. “She was only three.”

“Galahad,” I said, taking my hand off my shoulder and moving around so that we were face to face. “It was not your fault. Don’t feel bad, please don’t.” Suddenly my mind filled with images of Jessica’s dead body, of the two boys I’d attacked and the girl I’d hit when I’d be under a blood frenzy. Her head had been jarred to the side and her neck had been red with blood, and her body had been covered in scratches from where she’d tried to resist me.

I felt tears well up in my eyes, and cursed myself for being so selfish and self-pitying at a time like this. Galahad looked at my tears and then, to my astonishment, started to cry himself. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed, long and hard, and I couldn’t do anything other than sob along with him.

After a little while he looked up at him. He was hazy through my tears, but even so I could see that his face was flushed and his eyes were bloodshot. I stared at him, longing for him to kiss me, and then he did.

He pounced on me like an animal.

At first I was worried. I thought that he was attacking me, but then his mouth met mine and my body filled with warmth. His lips were smooth and moved over mine skilfully. I opened up to him, losing myself in the pleasure of the moment, grabbing his muscular back and digging my nails in. He let out a whimper and I dug my nails in harder, and he growled. I growled back.

We had become nothing more than animals, enjoying the pleasure of each other’s embrace, and yet beyond that my heart filled with joy. He was so strong, and I felt so safe in his embrace. His hands moved over my body, deftly.

I arched my back and savoured each tingly touch. His scent overwhelmed me. He smelt of dead deer and sweat, which once I would’ve found revolting, but as a vampire I relished. I breathed him in deeply. He pulled away for a second and stared at me intently, and I felt my cheeks flush. “You are special, Zoey,” he said. “But I don’t think I can do this.”

My spirits immediately dropped. “Why?” I said. “Why can’t you? I want you to, Galahad. I’ve never done it before, and I want you to be my first.” I meant every word. My body ached, pulsed for him. Every fibre of my being was infused with an electric energy that pulsated when he touched me. My hands were sweaty and my heart beat in my chest aggressively. My mouth was dry and my breasts were tingling, and other things were happening to my body that I’d never felt before, things that I’d heard adults talk about . . .

“It’s hard to explain,” he said. He looked past me, over at the trees. “It would be like betraying your father.”

“No,” I said, kissing his neck. He didn’t push me away, but neither did he respond. He stood as still as a statue. I stopped after only a few kisses, feeling foolish. “It wouldn’t be a betrayal. If we both want to do it, and we both know we’d enjoy it, then what’s the problem? You’re not going to say that you’d hurt me or anything as cheesy as that, are you?”

He smiled at that. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I can control myself. It’s just . . . oh, screw it.” He lurched forward and kissed me.

Once again my body filled with warmth and tingled, and I was too caught up in our pleasure to ask him why he had suddenly changed his mind. This time he wasted no time and he undressed me in a matter of seconds.

I tore his top off and started to kiss his chest. His muscles were hard under my lips and I could taste his sweat, and it’s then that I realised that my teeth were aching almost as strongly as other parts of my body. I looked up at him and bared my teeth, and he nodded eagerly.

I smiled and sunk them into his flesh. It was hard, because his chest was rock-hard with muscle, but eventually they punctured him. His blood flowed into me instantly. I sucked hard, feeling my body fill with pleasure and desire as his chest hardened in my mouth.

The blood came in slow pulses and each swallow made me feel strong and brought new waves of pleasure. My breasts were aching and so was the rest of me. After a while he pushed me onto my back and pulled his trousers down. I opened my legs, staring at him. I was a little scared and nervous, but mostly I just wanted it to happen.

It was my first time, and it was incredible.

As the weeks
turned into months, my life became a blissful dream.

I spent my days learning how to be a proper vampire. Galahad taught me how to hunt different kinds of animals. He showed me how he climbed the high trees and waited for birds to pass, and then launched himself through the air at them. He showed me how to sneak up on rabbits and squirrels, and how to fight foxes. He even killed a bear.

We also had restraint lessons. These were because vampires had to limit the number of humans they killed and fed on to one per town per year. When he’d first told me, I’d been disgusted. How could they kill any humans at all? But then he said that if the Council of the Undead didn’t let vampires kill at least some humans, then they’d simply ignore the rules and go on a rampage, and more humans would die as a result.

When I’d asked him if he killed humans, he’d nodded gravely. “Sometimes the urge is too strong,” he’d said, and left it at that. I knew that I should be angry at him for that. He was killing members of my own species, I thought reflexively. And then I remembered; he was my own species now, and how well had I ever really got on with them anyway? Save for Ben, pretty much every human I’d ever met had hated me. Of course they didn’t deserve to die for that, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to save them.

And how could I blame him without being a hypocrite? I’d killed a human. I may have been in a blood frenzy, and I may not have been myself, but I’d killed one nonetheless. Plus, if Galahad hadn’t been there, I would’ve killed my bestfriend.

I was ashamed, but I was thinking about Ben less and less now. In fact, all I really thought about was Galahad and my training.

He’d put a piece of meat in front of me during restraint lessons, and I had to stop myself from jumping on it. At first it was nearly impossible. My mouth would fill with saliva and my body would start to shake, and then I’d jump on it and suck it dry. The blood put me into an intoxicated state, where everything felt pleasurable and perfect, and all I wanted to do was lie down and stare up at the stars.

After a few dozen times, it started to get easier until I no longer had an uncontrollable urge to jump on the meat. Galahad was proud of me, but warned me to not get overconfident; he said that the urges are ever-present and should be respected, not ignored. We should give in to our urges when we know it’s safe, he told me, and restrain them when we know it’s not.

On top of that Galahad also taught me a few vampire magic words. Mostly these were for if I had another vision; he taught me how to get out of them safely, without causing damage to myself. I’d asked him how I’d hurt myself in a dream and he’d smiled and said, “You aren’t dreaming. You are seeing into the past, and sometimes the past doesn’t want to let you go. Sometimes you have to fight the past away, to reach the present.” I’d smiled at that. It was so true.

So that’s how I spent my days, and as much as I loved them, I looked forward to the nights much, much more.

My nights were spent with Galahad. Sometimes we’d light a big fire and he’d hold me in his arms, and we’d watched as the fire spit orange into the darkness, and I’d feel the safest I’d ever felt in my entire life. His arms are big and strong, and every second I was within them was perfect. Other nights we’d hardly be able to control ourselves and we’d go at each other with passion, and I’d lose myself in his body and his kisses and his strong yet soft hands.

Every second I was with him I felt like I was under the effect of a drug. It was like blood, and yet somehow better. Blood gave you pleasure, but it was fleeting, momentary pleasure. Galahad’s company was more than that; it satisfied me to such an extent that everything else, my life before him, ceased to exist.

My insecurities, my mother, my father, and Ben all disappeared from my mind completely for those few precious months. I sometimes felt guilty when I thought of Ben, of how I’d left him, but then Galahad would hug me from behind or smile at me or touch my hand and I would instantly forget.

Is this love? I thought. It was a constant thought in my mind. I’d never known love before, not even the love of a parent. It must be love, mustn’t it? I thought. Every time I looked at him I filled with warmth, and in his eyes I saw my future; his eyes were not like windows into his own soul, as some people say of their lovers, but were windows into my soul. In him I saw everything that I’d ever wanted to be.

No longer was I a plain girl with no one to love her; I was a lover, a woman with a man to call her own. It was thrilling, and I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else other than Galahad. I wanted to tell him how I felt, but I was scared that I’d gotten everything horribly wrong and he’d laugh at me. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle that.

No, I thought. Just keep everything the same and then you won’t ruin it. But what if he loved me too? How sweet would it be to hear him utter those wonderful words in my ear at night whilst he held me? Would it make our relationship better, more perfect? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to risk it. I wished that he’d tell me he loved me, and then everything would be simple.

I thought he was going to say it one day after we’d made love. It was strange, how quickly I got used to making love. At first it had hurt a little, but after that it felt incredible; pure pleasure pulsed through me as we did it, and as soon as it was over I was always hungry for more. It was perfect. I could hardly believe how lucky I was to have had someone as perfect as Galahad as my first.

I’d asked him why he had suddenly changed his mind about it a couple of times, and he’d just shrugged and said, “Because you are too beautiful.” I knew that that was probably a lie, and that he was concealing the true reason, but I was too caught up in love to care. So what if he kept a few secrets from me? I was the happiest I’d ever been. I wasn’t about to spoil it by pushing him to share things that he didn’t want to.

He’d looked up at me that day with a smile on his lips. The sun had just been setting, and his yellow haired was tinged with orange. Birds tweeted beautifully in the sky and a squirrel watched us with big eyes from a tree, nibbling on a nut. “I . . .” he’d said, but then trailed off.

I’d stared at him eagerly, my chest aching. I’d wanted him to say it so much. But then he looked away and stayed silent. “What were you going to say?” I’d said.

He’d looked up at me and smiled. “I want to be with you for as long as I am able.”

That’d both thrilled and confused me. What did he mean, for as long as he was able? I was about to ask him what he meant, but then I’d saw my father’s war-medal glinting from a pile of our supplies. I was going to ask him what he had won that for, I’d recalled, and ventured the question. “What did my father do to win his war-medal?”

Galahad had looked away and shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he’d said, and his voice had been distant. That’d hurt me more than I could say. It was the first and only time he’d been his old cold self with me since we’d made love, and I didn’t understand why. But I’d left it alone. I didn’t want to anger him. I didn’t want to ruin it.

Apart from that, everything was perfect, and I floated in a sea of happiness. My shock at becoming a vampire quickly went away. I didn’t particular care if I was one of the undead. As long as I had Galahad I didn’t care what I was.

One day after I’d killed a deer he looked at me and smiled. “I think you’re ready,” he said.

“Ready for what?” I said.

“Ready to go to the Council of the Undead.”

My heart fluttered. So our time of solitude and happiness was over. It was time to meet the Council. I was a proper vampire now. I smiled at that, but I was also a little sad. I’d never again be Galahad’s student. “Are you looking forward to going home?” I said.

“Oh, of course,” he said, but we were too close, and I could tell that he was lying.