Flutter Page 9

  “They’re okay,” he said. “And if they weren’t, they have cell phones, which they know how to use. Unlike some people.” So he hadn’t entirely forgiven me for not calling him from Finland, but that was okay. I planned on making up for it.

  “So what you’re saying is that Milo is gone, Peter is gone, and Mae and Ezra are too preoccupied to notice anything? And we are completely, entirely, alone?” I said, sliding my leg up over his.

  “It would appear that way,” Jack smiled wickedly.

  I tilted my head up towards him and his mouth pressed softly against mine. The kiss was only gentle for a minute, though. As soon as I felt his lips searching mine, this frantic need took over me.

  Throwing one leg over him, I moved so I was sitting on top of him, straddling him between my legs. Jack moaned, but it was barely audible through our kisses. His hands searched my body, and his skin was already smoldering. My temperature would soon match his, and I felt the warmth racing through me.

  I pulled away long enough to tear off my shirt, and he smiled appreciatively at me. He looked like he wanted to say something, so I silenced him with kisses. I loved talking to him, but right now, words weren’t enough.

  We’d been forbidden from being together almost since day one, and even after I turned into a vampire, we’d been forced to stay at arms length.

  After he slipped off his shirt, I took a moment to take him in. His skin was tan and soft over the smooth muscles of his chest and stomach. Jack was completely perfect. A painful happiness spread over me as I thought about how lucky I was that he wanted me. I leaned over, peppering him with kisses, on his mouth, cheeks, chest, everywhere.

  When my lips came to his neck, a delicious heat surged through me. I could feel and smell and taste his blood through his skin, and I remembered how wonderful it felt when I drank it to turn. All of his love and pleasure had coursed through me, filling me with the most intense heat. Every other emotion paled in comparison.

  “Alice, no,” Jack breathed heavily, but he sounded reluctant to stop me.

  If I pushed it, I knew he would let me drink from him. It’d feel almost as amazing for him as it would me, but it was dangerous. As much as I wanted Jack, it would be nearly impossible for me to stop once I got started.

  “Sorry,” I whispered, using all my strength to pry my lips from his neck.

  His hands on my back slid below my pants, pressing me even harder against him. His kisses had gotten hungrier and more aggressive, and I knew it was a battle for him to keep from biting me as well. It would be too easy for me to get out of control, even if I was the one being bled.

  Jack started pushing down my pants, and my body started to tremble with excitement.

  I heard the bedroom door open, but it was a secondary sensation. My hunger for Jack blotted out everything else. He was slightly more grounded than I was, and thinking quickly, he pulled the covers up to hide me, since I was almost entirely naked.

  He had stopped kissing me, but there was a fog over my mind where I could still taste him. It took a moment to clear, and I realized Milo and Bobby were standing in the doorway. Bobby looked embarrassed, but Milo just looked grossed out and disapproving.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I was almost screaming. I had probably never been as pissed at my brother as I was then.

  “What are you doing?” Milo countered, crossing his arms firmly over his chest and glaring down at us.

  Jack sat up so he could shield me somewhat, and I wrapped his comforter around me. Bobby snuck an admiring glance at him, and I moved closer to Jack.

  “I don’t think that’s really any of your business,” I snapped.

  “Whatever.” Milo rolled his eyes. “You both know you’re not supposed to be alone like this. And for once, its not you I’m worried about, Alice. You could kill him, and he’d be happy to let you.” His words stung as true, and feeling ashamed, I pulled the blankets more securely around me.

  Jack noticed my discomfort and rubbed my back, but I pulled away from him. The heat of the moment faded, and I hated knowing how close I had come to hurting him just because it felt good. He sighed and turned to my brother.

  “So, what exactly did you want?”

  “We came home to tell you something, but then I heard you guys,” Milo wrinkled his nose in disgust, and Bobby made a nervous giggle. He chewed at his black nail polish, and when he caught me glaring at him, he cowered more behind Milo.

  “So what’s this big news?” I asked, sounding bored.

  “Jane was at V, and she’s a blood whore,” Milo said.

  “A blood whore?” I asked.

  “It’s like a whore, but with blood instead of sex, and usually there’s no monetary exchange,” Milo explained.

  “Well, if there’s no money, than what is she getting for it?” I asked. Milo lowered his eyes, but I didn’t understand. It was actually incredibly obvious, but I was still under the fog of my lust for Jack.

  “They get hooked on the feeling they get from having vampires drink their blood,” Jack said carefully. He’d never liked my former best friend Jane, but he wasn’t eager for bad things to happen to her, and he knew that I still cared about her.

  Milo became shifty and uncomfortable. A few months ago, he’d been wounded protecting Jane and me from vampires, and he’d been forced to drink her blood to compensate for a blood loss. Well, he hadn’t really been forced. He just hadn’t resisted, and it was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. He had been like a wild animal, and she moaned with pleasure. So if Jane was addicted to being bitten, Milo had gotten her addicted.

  “Milo-” I was about to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but Bobby put his hand on Milo’s back, comforting him. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Wait. Is that what you are?”

  “No, of course not!” Bobby protested quickly.

  “Alice!” Milo yelled.

  “What?” I asked. “That’s not an unfair judgment to come to, especially after whatever it was you two were doing earlier.” Bobby’s olive skin burned red with shame, but Milo just glared at me.

  “That’s a horrible thing to say to him,” Milo said.

  “Imagine how you would feel if someone had called you a bloodwhore,” Jack looked at me with something veiled in his eyes. It made me think that somebody had probably called me a bloodwhore, and I wondered if that somebody had just been rescued from Finland.

  “Sorry,” I said without looking at Bobby. “I’m just looking out for Milo’s best interests.”

  “Whatever,” Milo said, but he didn’t sound as angry as he had before. “Just get dressed. I’m not a big fan of talking to you when you’re naked.”

  Milo put his hand on Bobby’s back and ushered him out of the room. He gave us a warning glare before closing the door behind him. Jack and I just sat in silence for a minute, letting the weight of what we had almost done and the news about Jane settle in.

  “So what exactly does being a bloodwhore entail?” I asked. I pulled my shirt back on, and I watched sadly as Jack did the same. “I understand the basic concept, but like… I don’t know. How does it work?” Running my fingers through my hair to smooth out the tangles, I thought of something that made my stomach twist. “I mean… you’ve had bloodwhores before, haven’t you?”

  “Most vampires try it once or twice at least,” he replied evasively. He got out of bed and readjusted his clothing, purposely avoiding looking at me. “It’s fairly common.”

  The word “whore” made me the most uncomfortable. And I knew how amazing it felt when Jack drank my blood, how I could feel him, and how he could feel everything I felt. It was the most intimate act on earth, and he casually did it with random whores he picked up at a bar. I swallowed hard and refused to think about it.

  “Alright.” I remembered that I had to take it all in stride when dating a vampire. “So how do you go about that? You just… what?”

  “Bloodwhores usually hang around the club. They know what the scene is.” He bega
n pacing the room, pretending to do things like readjust a picture on the wall or move something on the night stand. “You can just go there and find a girl. Or a guy. Whatever you’re into. Then you, y’know, bite them. When it’s done, you go on your way, and they sleep it off.”

  “So how would Jane find out about a place like V?” I asked.

  “If she hung around downtown long enough, and she knows what to look for in a vampire, it’s only a matter of time.” He fixed a piece of tape on his Purple Rain poster and looked back at me. “It’s like it is with any other drug.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Bloodwhores are addicted,” Jack said. “Letting a vampire bite you is pretty dangerous, but it’s not the worst thing you can do. And they’ll crave it more and more. There’s only so much blood loss the human body can take.”

  As soon as Milo had mentioned that Jane had gotten involved with vampires, I hadn’t been thrilled by the idea. But I had gotten so used to Jane being reckless and her name associated with being a whore that I hadn’t thought much of it. If Jack was showing even an ounce of concern for her, it meant things were pretty bad off, and he was looking very gravely at me.

  “You’re saying that Jane could actually die?” I sat up straighter in bed, and my mouth suddenly felt very dry.

  “No. I’m saying that… unless she gets out of that lifestyle, she will die,” he said quietly.

  Time seemed to stop. It wasn’t until somebody threatened to take her away that I realized how much she meant to me. Jane was vain, self-absorbed, and a bitch most of the time, but underneath that, she had always been my friend. No matter who was at a party or what they thought of me, Jane always brought me along, and most of the time, she stood up for me. When vampires attacked us a few months ago, she saved my life.

  Jane just never believed that she was more than a pretty face. And even through all the things she did, she had been my best friend since I was seven years old, and she’d been there for me as much as she was capable.

  Now she was in serious trouble, and it was all because of me.

  “We have to go get her,” I said.

  I jumped off the bed, scrambling to pull on my jeans as I did. Panic started taking over, and I flew around the room. Grabbing my shoes and my brush and a sweater and thinking that I had to do something to my hair before we went to a club or Jane wouldn’t even speak to me… and then Jack grabbed my wrist.

  “Alice. Slow down,” Jack said. “She’s not dying right now.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “I’m pretty sure if she was in immediate danger, Milo wouldn’t have left her there,” he pointed out.

  “Maybe.” My heart slowed a bit. “But we still have to go get her.”

  “I agree, but you need to take a minute to calm down. We’re going to a vampire club, for the first time since you turned, and it would be helpful if you were in control of yourself.” Jack smiled wryly.

  “Okay,” I nodded and looked down at myself. The casual jeans and top combo I was going for would never work at a club, or at least Jane would say it didn’t. If we were going there, I might as well fit in. “I’m gonna go get ready. Why don’t you let Milo know, and we can get out of here?”

  “Sounds good.” He kissed me gently on the lips, sending tingles through me so much that I almost forgot about Jane. “Everything will be okay.”

  I smiled like I believed him, and I went into the closet to look for something to wear. What exactly did one wear when going to rescue their former best friend from an underground vampire club?

  - 13 –

  Milo and Bobby took the Jetta down to the club because Jack called dibs on the Lamborghini. Jack was a notoriously speedy driver, but the trip downtown had never seemed so long.

  Since it was after two in the morning, most of the clubs and bars had cleared out, and he found a parking spot a block away from V. Milo pulled up behind us a minute later, meaning he had sped as well. I considered launching into a speech about the importance of driving safely, but then I saw a vampire walking towards us.

  After becoming a vampire, other vampires are a lot easier to spot. A vampire’s heart beats much slower and much quieter than a human could and still walk around.

  The one walking towards us was tall and slender and pale, reminding me of the way Tim Burton would design a vampire. The human girl at his side looked even shorter and chubbier in comparison to him. Her skin had a blotchy ashen quality to it, a symptom I associated with recent blood loss, and her eyes were glassy with overly dilated pupils.

  Her Tim Burton companion led her along carefully to keep her from stumbling or simply passing out right there, and while he smiled, there was an offhand way that he treated her. Like he was leading a cow to the slaughter.

  I shivered involuntarily, and she smiled dazedly at me, her pudgy cheeks dimpling. She couldn’t be more than sixteen herself, if that, and I wanted to steal her away from him. He wouldn’t be eager to part with her, though, and even if I could get her away, she wouldn’t appreciate it.

  Besides that, the horrible truth of it was that this was the way of life. My way of life. Vampires are going to drink from people, and at least this way they’re both willing participants. This is probably the best I can hope for.

  “Come on,” Jack said, putting his hand on my back. He saw me watching after them, and while he empathized with her, he knew there was nothing we could do. “We should get going.”

  “Yeah, come on. Before Jane leaves,” Milo agreed. He held Bobby’s hand and walked ahead of us.

  Milo turned off Hennepin Ave onto a darkened street. The nearest streetlamps had gone out, and I suspected that was a constant occurrence. Vampires liked night as dark as it could be, which was why the doorway of the club was hidden on the darkest street in Minneapolis.

  Bobby held onto Milo more tightly, probably because he couldn’t see where he was going and didn’t want to trip over anything. Jack and I followed directly behind them, and Milo glanced back at us before opening a nondescript door.

  The bouncers stood inside the door. They were two massive vampires, and they barely looked at any of us, but they sniffed at Bobby. We squeezed in between to them to the narrow hall lit by a single red bulb.

  At the end of the hall, a steep set of cement stairs led down into black nothingness. The only light came from the red one upstairs. It was more than enough for me to see the way down, but Bobby went down slowly and carefully, and Milo kept his hand on him to catch him if he fell.

  As soon as we had opened the doors upstairs, I had been able to hear the faint sound of the music, but I’m sure that Bobby was just starting to hear it when we hit the landing. The hall went on forever, but we stopped at a pair of massive doors.

  Milo pulled them open, bathing us with a blue light that was almost blinding after the darkness of the hall. To all the people dancing inside, it seemed dim and reasonable for a club, but it was different for vampires.

  A long, metallic bar ran along the far side of the room, and bottles lined the back wall, full of alcoholic drinks for the humans. Several very attractive vampires stood behind it, bartending. The stools in front of it were full, and a line of people were waiting to get drinks.

  The ceilings of the room were amazingly high for a basement. Electronica filled my ears, blotting out any sound of heartbeats, which was a relief. Nothing could be done for the smell. At least five-hundred people were smashed onto the floor, dancing wildly. And they all smelled deliciously of blood and sweat. Jack squeezed my hand tightly, drawing me back to him before bloodlust hit me.

  The dancers were a mixture of vampire perfection and people, but the bouncers sifted through the humans to make sure only the more attractive specimens made it down here. Every one of them was beautiful and delectable. For Bobby’s part, he seemed just as entranced by the vampires. I wanted to be angry with him for it, but they were still captivating to me.

  “She’s probably in the other room,” Milo
leaned in closer to us. He didn’t raise his voice at all, but I could hear him above the echo of the club.

  Wrapping his arm around Bobby’s waist, Milo waded through the crowd. Jack looked down at me, checking to make sure I could handle crossing the floor. It required me to push up against lots of people, to physically be able to feel their rapid pulses beating against me, but I had to learn willpower sometime. Swallowing, I nodded and gripped his hand, and we followed Milo.

  Everyone was hot from dancing, and I could feel it radiating from them. Jack pushed headily through, purposely being rough to get them out of the way. He wasn’t a threatening person, but he was strong, and they parted for us. It was still a fight to keep back my thirst. I had no idea how Milo had been able to handle himself so well after he first turned.

  We made it across the room, where the blue lights started to fade and a doorway led into the next room, glowing warm under the dim red lights. Milo waited at the door for us, Bobby pressed up close to him, his head resting on his shoulder.

  Just before we reached them, I heard something disturbingly familiar. Jack and Milo didn’t seem to notice it, buried in the sounds of the club, but I froze in my tracks. The sound was sweet yet fragile, like a tinkling bell… on helium. I pulled away from Jack, scanning the crowd for bright purple hair.

  The last time we had gone to the vampire club, I had been introduced to a pair of vampires, Lucian and Violet, who became intent on capturing me. Peter took care of Lucian, but she had gotten away. Violet seemed less interested in pursuing me, but like her boyfriend, she had been a caricature of vampirism. Her hair had been dyed purple, her eyeliner was thick black, and she capped her teeth to make them more pronounced fangs.

  “What?” Jack asked, watching me search the dance floor.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. I had been positive I had heard Violet’s distinct laugh, but I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  I was just about to give up looking when a girl at the bar caught my attention. Her blond hair hung down her back, shimmering like silk under the blue lights. She tilted her head back, laughing at something a drunk guy said to her, and I shivered. That was Violet’s laugh.