Nocturnal by Chelsea M. Cameron
“Peter, are you crazy?” His head goes to the side and I want to kiss him, but this is too important. “Think about it. If she takes it away, then everything will be fine.”
“It won't. You don't know her like I do.”
“Listen to him,” Viktor chimes in.
“You stay out of this,” I say. He just showed up five seconds ago. He has no right to an opinion.
“Yes, Viktor, stay out of this.” Ivan looks up at me and smiles slowly. Yes, I know you have an agenda. But you don't want to kill me, so I'll deal with him later. I need to get out of this situation first.
“You could be free,” I say, touching his hair again. I always thought it was dirty, but it's soft, like feathers.
“The only one who can set me free is you. And without you, it wouldn't be worth it.”
“Peter. Don't do this to me. I'm your mother.” Di is really desperate now.
“My mother's name is Ellen Mackintire. She died in 1964. You are the woman who took away my soul. Nothing more.”
“Peter.” Somehow she thinks saying his name over and over will change his mind. That only really works when there are tears involved. I'm pretty sure noctali don't cry. So it's only empty words.
“Please, Peter,” I say. We're both begging him for different things.
“Let me do this, Ava-Claire.” It's the first time he's called me by both my names. My heart contracts and I know what he's going to do. Because even if doing is going to kill him, he's going to care about me. I wouldn't say love. Not yet. There's no way. I mean...
“I want you to promise me that you will leave Ava alone. You will not harm, or cause, bribe or convince anyone else to do so. You will not harass her, or contact her in any way. You will stay away from her. You are never to look at or talk to her again.”
“Peter.” One last desperate plea. She struggles once more, but Ivan and Viktor hold her down. If she were human, her shoulders would have been broken or dislocated. But she is not.
“I promise,” she whispers, not losing eye contact with Peter. At first I think I imagine it, but a breeze hums through the air. There's a crackle, like static and I tingle with it. It reminds me of that one time Tex dared me to touch an electric fence at the pig farm. The wind gets stronger, whipping my hair over my face. Other than their hair, the tableau in front of me doesn't move.
The air goes still. It's done.
Peter turns his back on Di.
“She'll kill you, Peter dear! You don't want to die, do you?”
“I'm already dead. Just existing.”
“What about all I've done for you?”
“You took my soul. She's going to give it back to me.”
“Peter!” Ivan punches her again, and the sound is cut short.
“Let's go,” he says, holding out one hand.
“What about her?”
“They will take care of her. You need not worry.”
“Are you sure they'll be okay?”
“Yes.”
He holds out his hand. I have reservations about taking it. I don't want him to think I'm fine with him choosing me instead of ridding himself of his promise. But my hand reaches out and takes his. As if I don't have a choice. I'd always choose him.
Chapter Thirty-two
Choosing You
Peter tucked me into bed, and I was reluctant to lose skin contact with him.
“Will you stay?”
“I will always stay. I could not leave, even if I wanted to.”
“I know, but you don't have to stay on the roof. You can read my books. If you wanted to.” I'm caught between wanting him to stay and wanting him to go so he won't start caring more than he already does about me. But I'm freaked out and scared and I care more about feeling safe than anything right now. I'll worry about the love thing tomorrow.
“I will stay.”
“Good.” Despite the insane night, and the almost dying part, I yawn. “You still have my book.”
“I know. I will return it to you.”
“I don't care, you can keep it.”
“I'll return it.” He turns his back on my bookshelves. My hands twist around the covers with desire to pull him toward me. To hold onto him like a life preserver.
“You should get to sleep.”
“I know.” I sit up, watching him. Wondering what he's thinking. “How do you feel?”
He thinks a moment before he answers.
“Free.”
“But you still have the promise.” I want to call it a curse, but refrain.
“It doesn't matter.” I sling my feet over the side of the bed.
“It does,” I say, starting to stand up. I can't take being on the other side of the room from him.
“You are safe. That is what matters.”
“But what if you... fall for me.”
“Then I will cease to exist.” The way he says it triggers a memory of something he said before. Oh. Oh.
“This is what you want.”
Blink.
I step away from him, stung. The pain of the night crashes on me, as if the adrenaline that had kept it at bay is shut off like a dripping tap.
I survey my body. The worst is my hands and forearms. My legs were encased in jeans that are torn here and there, but otherwise I'm fine.
“Ava.”
“I should wash up.” Tears threaten to spill over again if I look at him any more. I dash to the bathroom and turn on the water.
“Ava, things are complicated.”
“No shit,” I say looking at my face in the mirror. There are a few scrapes, but nothing major. Nothing make-up can't cover.
“It's okay Peter. I just got confused and thought something else. It's fine. You can go fly if you want.”
“I want to be with you.”
“Then why do you want to kill yourself?” I spin around, my hip smacking against the sink. What's a little more pain?
“I am already dead. My soul is gone. Yours is intact. When you die, your soul will continue to exist. Whether that be in another place or in another body, I don't know. But you will always exist because your soul belongs to you. I gave mine away. When this existence ends, I will end.”
“I don't want you to end.” My voice chokes on tears.
“I know. Strange that the only person who could end me is the only one I want to stay with.” I look up, startled. What?
“You want to stay with me?”
“Of course.” His head goes to the side and I want to kiss him so much it hurts. “How could you think otherwise?”
“I don't know.” I lean against him, pushing my head into his chest. His arms go around me, pulling me closer.
“Let's get you cleaned up.”
“Okay.”
I sit on the tub as Peter bathes my cuts and scrapes with alcohol. It stings, but I bite my lip so I don't make a sound.
“This doesn't bother you, does it?”
“No. The blood is dried. The life has left it.”
“Oh.”
I don't talk about the elephant in the room. Di. Because we both know if she wants to keep him, and get rid of me, she's going to poke a hole through that promise. There are always loopholes. I know enough by being the daughter of a loan officer. But I don't want to think about that tonight. I don't want to think about how Ivan teamed up with Peter and Viktor and protected me. I don't want to think about explaining the scrapes and how tired I'm going to be and how behind I am in school and how I'm going to have to tell my mother about Peter. I can't keep it from her any longer.
Once I'm covered in antibiotic cream and an entire box of band-aids, I get back into bed. Peter sits beside me, almost nervous-like.
“Come here,” I say. He leans over. I rake my hands in his hair, pulling it away from his face.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
“If you want.”
I blink at him. He smiles.
“I will take that as yes.”
Yes.
Here's a sneak p
Chapter One
“You look different in the sun,” I say, turning on my side so I can ogle, I mean look at, Peter. I usually walk the fine line between ogling and looking. With his long, messy hair out of his eyes and his shirt off so he can soak up the maximum amount of sun, he's pretty damn gorgeous. With my heightened eyesight he was even more amazing than before we'd swapped blood.
“So do you,” he says, opening his eyes and glancing over at me. He tries to smile, but it's still not quite right. “How was that?”
“Still needs work.” He blinks at me, which is the noctalis equivalent of a shrug, or a sigh, or an, “oh well.” Sometimes it's all three. This feels like one of those times.
Even with the unpleasantness that happened here a week ago, we're sitting outside the mausoleum where I first met him. It seems like it was years ago, but it hasn't even been two months.
“You know she's going to find a way,” I say, taking the conversation to a dark place. He'd told me so many times that we'd worry about it when it happened, but I just couldn't do that. I wasn't the immortal one. Still, he had his own weaknesses. Me, namely. The breeze teases our hair, tossing it around, as if it agrees with me. Peter closes his eyes.
He says the same thing he's said every time I've said the same thing.
“She is not here now, and it will take her time to come up with one. Enjoy the sun. Isn't it glorious?” He's so freaking cheerful, I want to ask if he got a personality transplant. Instead I puff my cheeks out and give up. For now. One day this is going to be a problem, but Peter seems content to let it go. It seems like we've swapped places.
I'd been the reckless one when we'd first met. I'd been the one who, after I knew he could kill me, still came and hung out with him. Multiple times. Even after he'd physically threatened me, that wasn't a deal breaker. The only way he could have gotten rid of me was to actually kill me. Which he hadn't done yet.
And then there was his brother, Ivan, who wanted me dead at first, but then decided he wanted me alive so I could destroy Peter. They're not really close, if that wasn't apparent when I first met them. But Ivan and Peter had united to face a common enemy. Their mother, Di.
Of course, not their biological mother, but the woman who'd made them what they are. Noctali. A word I still didn't really understand. As far as I knew, it meant that Peter had wings and he drank blood. An angel vampire. His other brother, Viktor, was a vampire werewolf. I don't even know how that works. I had no idea about Ivan and Di. I'd never asked.
“I really need to go home.” I groan, rolling up to a sitting position. I didn't want to go home, but I knew I had to. At least Dad wouldn't be home and I wouldn't be subjected to smelling him. Not that my dad smelled bad. He smelled really good. Kind of delicious, and I didn't want to think about the fact that I'd started smelling other people's blood and it made my mouth water. Nope, wasn't thinking about it.
“Then you should go.” I knew he wasn't human, and didn't see things the way I did, but it still stung that he didn't beg me to stay.
“Okay, then.” I stand up, folding up the blanket I'd been using so my butt didn't get wet. It was nearly May, but the warm air didn't reach Maine until at least June. “Are you coming over later?”
“Why wouldn't I?”
“I don't know.” I'm getting frustrated, which happens quite often with Peter. I brush a stray bit of grass off the blanket.
“I will be wherever you are.” And then he says things like that, and my heart does this squeezy thing and I get all tingly. I want to kiss him, but don't act on my urge. I'm wary of anything physical with him. Not because I don't want to, or he doesn't want to, but because I don't want him to die.
Peter can't fall in love with me. Which should give him a good reason to say goodbye and good riddance. There's just one problem. Neither of us can stand to be without the other one. The Claiming is kind of hard to ignore, what with him only being able to drink my blood and me wanting him to.
I'm still recovering from the last donation. I'd let him take much more than was good for me, because he'd needed it. If I wasn't careful, I was going to get anemic. We already had one sick person in the family. We didn't need another.
“See you later.”
“Goodbye, Ava-Claire.” I smile when he uses both of my names. He and my mother are the only people who are allowed to call me that. I give him a stupid little wave as I leave, but he just watches me as I walk away. I like the way he watches me. It also scares me...
Coming soon to an ereader near you!
Find me online:
My blog: www.leftandwrite7.blogspot.com
Follow me on Twitter: @chel.c.cam
E-mail me: [email protected]
For my parents:
Mom, for all your love and support and listening to my incessant typing and not getting mad when I ignored you for the imaginary people in my head.
Dad, who always believed in me. This is for you.
For my friends, Bix, Ray, Lizard and Eenie. You rock my socks. Thanks for never doubting me, even when I always doubted myself.
For everyone who ever wanted to write. You don't need permission to tell a story.
And finally, this is a story about love.
“The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.”
-The Village
Nocturnal is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2012 Chelsea M. Cameron
www.leftandwrite7.blogspot.com
Twitter: @chel.c.cam
e-mail: [email protected]
Nocturnal
The Noctalis Chronicles, Book 1
by
Chelsea M. Cameron
Chelsea M. Cameron, Nocturnal