chapter Twenty-One
Peter
I pull the door off the car and discard it before catching her face before it hits the steering wheel.
“Holy shit!” Texas screams, jumping back into the passenger door. I have no time for her.
“Ava?” I pull her face toward me. Her eyes are closed. “Ava. You need to wake up.” I shake her gently, and her head bobbles loosely. I know you are supposed to slap a fainted person, but I am afraid to do her damage. I pull her from the car, laying her on the driveway.
“Ava?” Her eyes flutter a few times. She's coming back.
“Peter? What happened?”
“You fainted, Ava-Claire.”
“I, what?” She puts her hand to her head. I feel her disorientation, thick and sticky. Her eyes search mine, her forehead puckers. I try to brush it away with my thumb.
“Peter?”
“Yes, Ava?”
“I did something bad.” The worry gnaws at her, bites at the edges of her mind. I feel it as well. She need not worry. I brush my fingers on her cheeks. Such a precious thing she is.
“You could never do anything bad, my Ava.” Her face smooths like a piece of silk, but the worry doesn't go away from her mind.
“You've never called me that.”
“Not out loud.” Her skin starts to warm mine. My desires collide with each other. I want her lips as much as I want her blood. I am not sure which will win.
“Ava?” Texas crawls out of the car.
“Tex.” Ava closes her eyes and breathes her name like she wished she could take it back.
“Are you okay?” Tex hovers, as if she wants to make sure Ava is okay, but also scared of what occurred.
“No. I'm not.”
She nods. “Yeah. I know. I think we should talk.” Her hands twist together, as if she's coiling and uncoiling a rope. Ava stares at me. I can feel it from her. She doesn't want to. But I know we have to.
My thumb traces her mouth. “You need to share this with someone. Someone human. Because I am not.”
She tries to shake her head. “I don't care.”
“I know. But you need her. Now more than ever. Don't burn your bridges, Ava-Claire.”
“That's what she'd say.” She means her mother. I know. I take my hands from her face and help her to sit up.
“I really don't want to do this.” My back blocks her face from Texas' view.
“I know.” She closes her eyes and pulls in a shaky breath. Such a simple thing, breathing. It seems to calm them. Noctali are naturally calm, but ever since I'd Claimed her, I had experienced turmoil without a way of assuaging it. I tried to take a breath into my lungs. The dry air rattles.
“That was gross,” Ava says, sounding more like herself. “It sounded like a rattlesnake.” She makes a face as I help her to her feet. Her legs wobble like a newborn calf, so I hold her elbows to make sure she doesn't fall.
Tex sighs. “Let's go in and sit down. Looks like I'm going to have to get ready not to freak out.”
“You did okay the last time,” Ava points out.
“True.” She rubs her arms and pulls her skirt down. A nervous habit.
“Come on kids, I'll get some cookies and milk.” Tex walks us to the front door, using her key to get inside. The house is clean and square and very human.
There are books, but none of them look like they've been read. You can tell when a book has been loved. The pages show crinkles and folds where a thumb has pressed against them. The covers have stains. A residue of human oils sticks to them where they've been held with living hands. None of these books have that.
Texas escorts us into a kitchen filled with white and stainless steel. It doesn't look as if it's been eaten in. The overwhelming scent is artificial lemon cleaner.
“Water. Shouldn't you have some water?” Texas asks Ava.
“Yeah, sure.” I put Ava into a stool, standing behind her so she doesn't fall off. She holds onto me as if she's never going to let go.
Ava
So here we are again. Different time, different location, but the same deal. Explaining the mistakes I'd made, yet again.
“So you're a vampire now?”
“No,” I say for the third time. She doesn't seem to understand that while, yes, I do think blood smells really freaking good, once I put it in my mouth, it's not so much. I know that taste is tied to scent, and that if you can't smell, you can't taste, but that doesn't seem to apply in this case. It's like the second the blood hits the air, it starts getting not so yummy.
Oh, who am I kidding? I've been living with this for a few weeks now and it hasn't gotten better. It's gotten worse. What worries me the most is that day when blood will taste good. Then things are going to get dicey.
“But you want blood.”
I squirm on the stool. “Uh, yeah.”
“So what is it that makes a vampire?”
I throw up my hands. “I don't know Tex, there isn't a manual with a specific definition.”
Peter senses my frustration. “We are in the dark on this, Texas.”
“I've told you, it's Tex.” She holds up her hand as if to get her point across. She's still being weird to him. That doesn't make me very happy. I want her to be nice to him because he's my boyfriend.
God, this is complicated.
“So what happens now?” Tex says. I'd asked Peter the exact same thing when he Claimed me.
I shrug. Peter blinks. I should probably explain that gesture to her. Eh, she's a smart girl, she'll figure it out.
“What is that blinking thing?” Maybe not.
“It's kind of like a shrug. Sometimes. Other times it's a yes. Sometimes it's an eh.” Peter looks at me. “What? I pay attention. It can mean about a thousand different things. I just figured out what some of them are.”
“You are correct.”
“Am I?” I'd never asked him about it. Seemed like something I'd be able to put together on my own.
Tex brings us back to the matter at hand. “Okay then. So you want blood, and you can't control yourself. Clearly. And apparently I have nice-smelling blood. And you're my best friend. This. Is a problem.” I'd go so far as to say crisis.
“It is time to see Cal.”
Tex pipes up. “Who's Cal?” Probably hoping for another attractive brother.
“You explain,” I say, leaning back into Peter's chest. I'm so very tired. And Tex's blood fills the room. Even though it still smells like lemon cleaner. The blood's there, too. It's always there. And it will be until Peter faces facts and turns me. But what will it be like then? Will it be worse? Somehow I think I know the answer to that question.
Peter gives her an even more abbreviated version than I got. It pisses me off when he keeps secrets, but he's never kept anything that I really needed to know. For the most part.
“So you really think he can help her?” Tex is doing her job being the skeptical best friend.
“He agreed to it. He has helped me before.”
“Oh, I bet there are some good stories there.” Tex leans on the counter and raises her eyebrows suggestively. Luckily, Peter is immune to that kind of thing.
“More or less.” Oh snap, Tex gets the more-or-less line. “Cal was the one who helped me stop killing.”
“How?”
He blinks. This time it stands in for a heavy sigh. “It is a long story.”
Tex looks at the clock. “My parents won't be home for at least two hours. But if we're telling a juicy story, I think I need some coffee. And chips. I need chips.”
Tex shoos us into the living room. I wait until she's out of earshot before I hiss at Peter, “so? Are you going to fill me in?”
“In a moment.” He's stalling. I can't imagine why.
“Peter,” I say, sitting down on the couch and pulling him with me, “nothing you could have done would bother me. Nothing.”
“I wish that were true.” No, no, no. This is Dark Peter. I don't like him. He takes Smiling Peter and puts him away for a while.
“I love you. Nothing changes that.” I grab his face, hard. My fingers want to melt against his skin. My lips crave his, but I resist. I need him to understand. He doesn't say anything.
Instead, he takes me into his chest and my arms go all the way around him. The muscles in his back are so lovely. They remind me of a study on the male form. Not that I'm partial or anything. But when it comes to backs, Peter's is the best.
“Okay, let's hear it,” Tex says, setting down the tray.
“It was a long time ago.” This sounds very much like, “once upon a time...”